I don’t have a “debt-free” story to tell you today. I wish I did. What I have instead is a real one — and I think that’s more useful anyway.
In 2022, I took out a $30,000 bank loan to start a mobile food business. The loan was structured to be repaid over seven years. I used it to buy a used car, commercial cooking equipment, and the local health permits I needed to legally operate. I was working full-time at my regular job, so from the start I knew I wouldn’t be the one running the day-to-day. I hired someone to manage it.
For about a year and a half, it worked. The business ran, the manager did a genuinely good job at the beginning, and I let myself believe this was going to be the thing that changed our financial picture.
Then it started slipping. Slowly at first — the kind of decline you tell yourself is temporary. By the time I understood how bad it had gotten, the damage was done. I shut the business down.
The car and the cooking equipment are still sitting in my garage right now, wrecked. The business that was supposed to pay off that $30,000 loan doesn’t exist anymore. But the loan does. It’s deducted directly from my paycheck — the same minimum wage paycheck that’s supposed to cover rent, groceries, and everything else for me and my three kids.
I have three years left.
What I’ve Learned Living Inside This
I’m not writing this post because I’ve beaten this. I’m writing it because I’m still in it, and I think there’s value in showing what that actually looks like month to month — not just the highlight reel of “I fixed it.”
1. The debt outlives the thing it paid for. This is the part nobody tells you when you take out a loan for a business. The car can get wrecked. The equipment can rust in a garage. The business can close its doors for good. But the loan doesn’t care about any of that. It’s still due, on schedule, whether the thing it funded still exists or not. Every month I’m reminded that debt is not tied to an asset — it’s tied to a signature.
2. Distance from the day-to-day is expensive. I wasn’t lazy or careless in handing off management. I had a full-time job and no realistic way to run a mobile food operation myself. But there’s a real cost to not being the one with your hands on the wheel every day, and I paid that cost in full. If I ever try something like this again, “who is actually watching this daily” will be the first question I answer honestly — not the one I hope works out.
3. The budget has to survive the debt, not fight it. With a fixed deduction coming out before I even see my paycheck, my monthly budget isn’t built around “paying down debt” the way a lot of debt payoff advice assumes. There’s no extra payment to make, no snowball to accelerate — it’s already gone before I plan anything else. So my entire budgeting approach has had to shift toward protecting what’s left, not optimizing what I owe. That’s a different game than most debt content is written for.
4. Minimum wage and debt repayment don’t leave room for error. Three years of a fixed deduction on a minimum wage income means every unexpected expense — a school fee, a car repair, a sick kid — has to come from somewhere that isn’t “extra.” I don’t have a cushion built into the math. I’ve had to get specific and unemotional about where every dollar goes, because there’s no slack to absorb a bad week.
5. I’m still going to be okay — and I want you to believe that too, if you’re here. I’m not writing this for sympathy. I’m writing it because if you’re a single dad reading this with your own version of a $30,000 mistake, a business that didn’t work out, or a loan payment eating your paycheck before you even see it, I want you to know you’re not the only one, and you’re not disqualified from getting through it. Three years is a long time. It’s also not forever.
Where I Go From Here
I’m not going to pretend I have a magic system that’s going to make this debt disappear faster than the seven-year term allows. What I do have is a paycheck-to-paycheck budget that accounts for this deduction as a fixed, non-negotiable line item — and a commitment to not let one failed business define whether I can still build something stable for my kids.
I’ll be honest with you as this continues. If something changes — a way to refinance, a way to sell off the equipment, anything that moves the needle — you’ll hear about it here first, because that’s what this blog is for: the real version, not the polished one.
If you’re carrying something similar, I see you. Keep going.
If you’re living paycheck to paycheck with a fixed deduction eating into your income before you even see it, you know how little room that leaves for everything else.
That’s exactly why I put together The Single Dad’s Budget Playbook — a practical, no-fluff guide for building a budget that actually survives real life on a single income, whether you’re dealing with debt, unpredictable expenses, or just trying to stretch a minimum wage paycheck further.
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