The "Debt Youth" rescues themselves on the Internet
Chen Liang, born in the 90s working in Beijing, always felt that the money in his pocket was spent without knowing it.
As long as there is a limit for spending, borrowing, and credit cards, he feels that he still has money. As a result, the more he borrows, the more he gets into the army of "the early death of the British".
With the emergence of endless borrowing traps and unrestrained pre-consumption guidance, there are more and more post-90s and post-00s born in the 90s and 00s who bear the label of "indebted youth" like Chen Liang.
In order to get rid of the debt quagmire that is getting deeper and deeper, the debt-ridden youths launched a group rescue on the Internet.
On Douban.com, a group called the "Indebted Persons Alliance" has attracted more than 40,000 people in more than a year.
On Zhihu, 2,365 people have joined the circle called "Debt Youth".
In addition, there are also discussion groups such as the "Debt Repayment Alliance" and "Post-90s Debt Exchange".
In the constantly updated posts in these online communities, the young people talked about their own experience of falling into a pit, vented each other’s debt pressure, exchanged and discussed how to deal with debt collection calls and how to negotiate with the platform, or list repayment plans, The supervision is expected to be able to "go ashore" as soon as possible (meaning to correct evil and return to righteousness and pay off loans-reporter's note).
The ever-increasing debt pressure requires a release outlet
When Liu Yue, a junior who went to school in Nanning, Guangxi, was home during the epidemic last year, his parents did not provide him with living expenses, but he kept buying clothes, shoes and giving gifts to his girlfriend as usual.
After school started, in order to buy a new mobile phone worth nearly 6,000 yuan, he asked at least 4 online loan platforms and friends for help. As a result, repaying the loan caused the debt to roll up. In just over a year, his total debt reached 30,000 yuan.
After being in debt, Liu Yue became irritable and often complained about others, always trying to escape.
Every time the lending platform sent a repayment reminder message, he was always emotionally unstable, and he even doubted his self-worth for a while, anxiety and insomnia followed one after another.
After Liu Yue confessed his debt crisis to his girlfriend, his girlfriend did not dare to ask him to go out for dinner or play because he did not want him to be burdened. His girlfriend offered to help him repay the money, but Liu Yue couldn't help him. The two often quarreled for this.
Feeling that there is nowhere to talk, Liu Yue accidentally found the group of the "Debt Alliance" while searching the Internet. There are also many young people in the group who have also encountered online lending routines.
Seeing that many of his peers are also experiencing anxiety after debt, and wondering whether to confess to their family members, Liu Yue suddenly felt that the pressure in his heart was relieved a lot, and it gave him more courage to face reality.
In May of this year, Liu Yue finally decided to confess his debts to his parents. After his parents verified his loan flow, they helped him pay off all the debts and shut down all borrowing platforms.
Wang Min, 27, works in Shenzhen, Guangdong. Because she consumes ahead of time and her salary is not enough to support repayment, she owes a debt of 90,000 yuan on various platforms. Later, with the help of her family, she saves money by herself. Finally paid off the debt.
In the past year of suffering, sharing her repayment progress records online has become a channel for her to relieve her stress.
Prior to this, Wang Min always believed that "the money spent is my own money", and that advanced consumption is just enjoyment in advance, but after experiencing the pressure of debt, she felt deeply "regret", although the advance money was exchanged for temporary shopping. Pleasure, but she paid a greater price for it-such as opportunity.
In April last year, a start-up company issued an invitation to Wang Min. Although the job position was her favorite, she had to withdraw from the other party's invitation in order to repay the debt every month, considering the unstable income at the beginning of the company's business.
She sighed: "Even if I had savings of 20,000 yuan at the time, I would get a very rare opportunity to change careers, because of debt, I missed the opportunity."
Wang Min wrote in the network sharing: A person with a plan should believe that his life has a higher place to go, and there are more wonderful people and things to meet.
The happiness at that time would definitely be much happier than borrowing money for vanity to buy a pair of limited edition sneakers and buying the latest mobile phone.
The group is mixed, there are essential exchanges, and there are scams
The Douban group "Indebted Persons Alliance" and similar online communities have gathered many young people who share their debts and experience of going ashore.
The debts faced by these young people range from several thousand yuan to several million yuan. The reasons for the debts include investment errors, online gambling addiction, excessive consumption, and life turnover.
Platforms such as Huabei, Bibei, JD.com, Ctrip, Meituan, Instalment, Weiweidai, etc., and major banks have become the source of their arrears. Overdue, collection, negotiation, and credit investigation have become hot words that frequently appear in the discussion.
The arrears platform, date, amount repaid, amount to be repaid, monthly salary, daily expenses and other categories are recorded in a notebook or accounting software for reference and mutual check-in supervision; credit overdue, credit investigation records or debt collection The text messages, phone screenshots, etc. were shared by the group members, and the reply area was the suggestions and encouragement of other group members.
After landing, I looked back and reflected on the post more about summing up experience, avoiding repeating the same mistakes, and saying goodbye to my past self.
In March last year, Wang Bing, a Shaanxi native who was in the entrepreneurial stage, suddenly discovered that the online lending platform that had been rolling borrowing no longer paid him, and the temporary credit card limit had expired.
The sudden capital turnover problem forced him to calm down and count how much money he owed.
After a rough calculation, he found that the funds he owed on various platforms for investing in multiple entrepreneurial projects and renovating houses have accumulated more than 500,000 yuan in the past few years.
"I was completely panicked." Wang Bing, who had no stable income, went to work in a factory in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province under a friend's recommendation. A few months later, he found that his salary was not enough to repay the loan, so he switched to an e-commerce operation.
In order to achieve more performance, he worked overtime every day until wee hours.
While working hard, Wang Bing sold the quasi-new car he had bought for two years at a low price, and strictly controlled his living expenses, even forcibly quitting the cigarettes he had to smoke every day.
Every time an App lending platform is cancelled after a successful repayment, Wang Bing will send it to the "Debt Alliance" community to share with netizens.
"As of May 29, 2021, the remaining credit cards and online business loans totaling 300,000 yuan. Come on!" This post that records Wang Bing's downfall in debt and encourages netizens who have the same experience not to give up, quickly attracted many Respond to comments and likes from netizens.
He summarized the experience of not being able to use loans to get deeper and deeper, and learn more to improve abilities when temporarily unable to find a good job, which made netizens feel inspired and inspired.
In the group, there is a mixture of fish and dragons, there are essential exchanges, and there are scams.
After some team members posted help posts, the "phishers" took the initiative to invite them.
The introduction of "I can help you" was thrown, followed by "give you money, you accompany me", "I follow hackers to make Python data to make money", "you can use smart repayments" and other replies.
Some fishing posts use the template of "high debt + suffering + short-term debt repayment + soul chicken soup" to attract people to the hook.
As a result, the administrators of the group kept sending out reminders, "All private messages help you pay off debts are scammers."
Young people must work hard to develop a rational consumption outlook
Weining Wei, a professor at the School of Public Management of Guangxi University, believes that, as far as the society is concerned, moderate pre-consumption has a certain positive significance for expanding domestic demand, but it must be based on "rationality".
Generally speaking, debt is a kind of pressure for everyone, but due to the differences of each person's innate conditions, educational background, skill level, occupational characteristics, etc., the ability to withstand stress and the way of solving them are different, the results are naturally different.
In Weining Wei’s view, beneficial debt can help debtors overcome the current difficulties and provide more and better opportunities for development; while some are on the contrary, the debts are getting bigger, the credit is getting worse and worse, and the space for development is greater. The younger you come, the harder life becomes.
Weining Wei said that those young people whose background conditions are generally or even poor, and whose current job and career are still very uncertain, are mostly motivated by comparisons, speculation, or non-competitive consumption through online loans. Understand online loans and at the same time be too optimistic about the future.
Under this circumstance, the debt pressure caused by their loan behaviors is not handled well, which is likely to bring about psychological disorder, behavioral misconduct and other consequences.
He suggested that young people should work hard to develop a rational consumption outlook and learn to do what they can, especially not to compare with each other in order to satisfy some kind of vanity. At the same time, they should always be cautious about online lending platforms and beware of being deceived.
After experiencing the debt crisis, college student Liu Yue is determined to adjust himself ideologically.
He realized that both his parents' money and the money he made in the future were hard-won.
Now, he will formulate a detailed consumption plan based on his weekly dining, shopping, and entertainment expenses.
After parents call in for living expenses each month, he will first deposit 20% of the money in Yu'e Bao or Changqiantong, and use the rest for daily expenses, so as to develop the habit of diligence and frugality and moderate consumption over time.
As a member of the "Debt Alliance" team, Wang Bing saw that many people in the team were "in a hurry to go to the doctor" and "removing the east wall to make up the west wall". Even the remaining money was cheated away. He thought it was nothing. Adjusted mentality and lack of professional knowledge.
The biggest lesson learned from the debt experience is that he understands that he has to save money at ordinary times and don’t let himself be passive due to excessive consumption; whether in good times or bad times, people must always maintain a striving mentality and work actively. Bring more harm to yourself.
(At the request of the interviewee, all names in the text except Wei Weining are pseudonyms)
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang, intern Luo Jie Source: China Youth Daily