Secret Lives Of America's Debtors

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$250,000 lost - and most was Mom's money
Of course, it's not only spouses who lie to each other about money matters. Children often try to hide their spendthrift ways from their parents, too.
Blake K., who declined to use his full name, lost $250,000 day trading. He got interested in the stock market when he was 8, and by age 18 he was day-trading stocks.
Blake's parents divorced in 2002, and his mother gave him $150,000 to manage for her. At the same time, Blake took out $100,000 in personal credit card and business loans to start a software company while at college in Seattle.


"Like any gambler would say, at first it went very well," said Blake, now 27.
Then the market turned, and Blake routinely lost $10,000 and even $30,000 a day. He'd stay up all night to trade on the 24-hour currency market, feverishly trying to make back the money.


"I was in denial," Blake said, "telling myself I could make it all back on the next trade."
Meanwhile, Blake was generating fake statements for his mother's account to cover up his mounting debt. After four years, the entire $250,000 was gone, and he had to tell his mother what he'd done.
He filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in January 2007 and did a short sale on a home he had just purchased. He lived in his office for two months.
These days Blake pays cash for everything and never trades stocks or currencies. He runs his own software business, and he has so far repaid his mother $50,000. He blogs anonymously about his experience at debtkid.com, and only his family and fiancée know about his secret past.


"I'm very careful with anything related to money now," Blake said. "It became like alcoholism: Once you recover, you don't risk taking another drink."

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