What I Learned From Being Broke at 76

The first thing being broke taught me, is just be honest about it.

I have been broke. Not “tight this month” broke. Not “skipping lattes” broke. Really broke. The kind where you pick up the phone and a debt collector is on the other end and you have to decide in that second whether to lie or just tell the truth.

I told the truth.

That was the first thing being broke taught me. Honesty with people you owe money to is terrifying and it is also the only thing that works. I learned to say, plainly and without drama, I don’t have it right now. Here’s what I can do. Most of the time, that conversation went better than I expected. Not always. But most of the time. I held nothing back. I told it just plain and simple. But sometimes I was not believed. Then I got mad.

I worked two part-time jobs for years. Low-paying work. The kind that wears your body down and still doesn’t cover everything. I lost jobs. I sat in that awful in-between space — unemployed, sending out applications, watching the bills stack up, pretending to people around me that things were fine when they were not fine at all.

The electricity went off. More than once. You learn things about yourself when the lights go out and you’re sitting in the dark figuring out your next move. You learn you are more resourceful than you thought. You learn what actually matters and what was just noise. You learn that shame, as heavy as it feels, does not have to be the last word.

My car got repossessed. I need you to understand what that means when you’re working — when the car is how you get to the job that is supposed to dig you out of the hole. I had to figure out how to get it back. I did. I don’t know how I did it exactly, only that I had no choice and so I found a way, the way you do when the alternative is unacceptable.

I am 76 years old now. I drive a black Volvo. I sleep in my camper van in parking lots by choice. I write from my front porch in Louisiana and I go where I want when I want.

None of that would mean anything if I hadn’t been broke first.

Being broke didn’t break me. It stripped me down to what was real. It taught me that I could survive things I never thought I could survive. It taught me that dignity doesn’t live in your bank account. It lives in how you handle yourself when everything is hard and nobody is watching.

All those early struggles I learned in my twenties and thirties have served me well. When a tornado hit in Louisiana June 2023 and knocked out my electricity for a week, I didn’t panic. It was 90 degrees with 85 percent humidity and I could hardly breathe — but I remembered the ice water trick and I had my trusty Bluetti power station to keep me company. I got through it because I’d been through worse.

I’m thankful for those early years of struggle. They built something in me that money never could. And those bill collectors? I handle them with kid gloves now. I know exactly what to say, exactly how to say it, and I don’t lose a minute of sleep over it.

I learned that at 76. Better late than never.

Thanks for reading.

—Kindly Carol