I lost my six-figure salary and was left £52,000 in debt at 52. This is what it’s like being a middle-class dad who lost it all, how I turned it around… and the ‘modest’ new job that’s changed my life: NICK CARPENTER

I was lounging on a sun-drenched terrace in Majorca two summers ago when the reality of my finances really hit me for the first time.

As my two daughters played joyfully in the swimming pool below, my mind wandered to my lovely dog called Honey, a toy Cavapoo, back at home in Oxford and I suddenly realised I wouldn’t have enough money to pay the sitter when we got back.

Until this point, I’d been in semi-denial over the state of my finances but I was running on fumes – and my mistakes were about to catch up to me. Paying the £450 bill for the dog sitter would push me over the edge, tipping me beyond my overdraft limit. I was officially out of money.

Fast approaching my 52nd birthday, I was £52,000 in credit card debt and personal loans – and jobless.

Just two years earlier, things couldn’t have been more different. I was debt-free and earning a cushy six figures in a senior corporate role. As a family, we were comfortable and had very stable finances. My wife, who is a teacher, and I have always worked hard to give our daughters, 10 and 13 years old, a good life. We loved to treat ourselves with lovely food, several holidays each year and relaxing on the river on our small day boat on the River Thames.

I’d put in years of hard graft, learning on the job and working all hours. I’ve always done my own thing and that paid off – I’ve run several technology businesses over the years.

What no one tells you is just how quickly it all can go off the rails. I was wholly unprepared for the string of mistakes I was about to make with my finances.

The start of my money troubles came at the end of 2021, when a company offered me a low six-figure sum to buy my pet-finding website. I had spent over ten years working on the website, which helped people find their lost pets, and it had become the bread and butter of my income.

I’d poured countless hours into the website to get it to a position where it paid me £3,000 in income on a good month, requiring just an hour a day of work. So I still had time to earn more elsewhere as a freelance web developer.

But the offer seemed too good to refuse at the time. In hindsight, I should have never sold my website because it was giving an easy income stream that helped our family live a good life.

With fresh cash in our pockets, me and my wife jumped at the chance of buying the house next door to our three-bedroom home in Oxford. We managed to snap it up for £795,000.

That would be our second mistake.

We had this plan to turn it into a really big family home, knocking down walls to make the two properties one. We thought we’d have room for friends and family to stay and a lot more space.

It needed renovation so we left it empty while we had work done on it and then we planned to rent out part of the home on Airbnb to make extra income.

Everything seemed to be falling into place. In February 2022, a few months after I sold the website, I landed a plum six-figure senior position in an online pet business.

With this new salary, I could comfortably cover the cost of keeping up the two homes.

But this is where our luck ran out. In the next year, I went from high roller to completely broke.

The new job was incredibly stressful and in September 2022 I was rushing to hospital clutching my heart.

The GP looked at the results of the electrocardiogram (ECG) they’d hooked me up to and said I might be having a heart attack.

This was just the start of my heart problems. The stress from work was relentless. I was expected to be available 24/7, every day of the week, and I started to struggle with my mental health.

By June 2023, I worried I was on the brink of burnout and decided to quit my job even though I had nothing lined up.

My income dried up immediately and with nothing coming in, I acted fast to get our house next door in shape so we could rent it out on Airbnb. I wasn’t working so I spent all my time next door.

But we’d underestimated how much work needed to be done – it wasn’t straightforward. The property was old and it took ten months to renovate, which was much longer and more expensive than we expected.

With two mortgages to pay and council tax, I started to burn through any cash reserves I had left. We still owed £142,000 on our main home and £431,000 on the house next door.

By the time the house was finally ready in summer 2024, I was already deep in debt. The pressure of supporting my family was immense.

Managing the home on Airbnb almost became a full-time job and I realised it wouldn’t work out.

But it was only in Majorca that summer that I realised quite how much of a mess I was in financially. I just couldn’t carry on.

We’d forked out for this holiday because I was exhausted and we all needed a summer break.

Sat on that terrace, I started to panic. It’s scary to realise you have no more money, or access to borrow more.

I grabbed my phone and sold the modest £500 bitcoin stash I’d kept for a rainy day – the Spanish sun may have been shining but I was in the middle of a financial rainstorm.

That’s the closest I’ve been to running out of money completely. I realised, at that point, how much debt I had accumulated and something had to change.

When we got home I found long-term tenants for the house and hit the streets with flyers to promote a new handyman business I wanted to set up. I couldn’t face the inside of an office and didn’t want to go back to corporate life so I decided to make use of my experience working outdoors.

I love practical work so it has been a great fit. I’m now earning a steady, if modest, income. In a good month I bring in £4,000 before tax and make about £1,000 a month in rental profit from the house next door.

But it’s not enough to make a serious dent in my debts and I know that the physical work isn’t a long term solution as I’m already in my fifties. I’ve got golfer’s elbow, I’ve got a shoulder that doesn’t work properly, and my back is in a bad way. But if I’m not working, I’m not earning, and it’s all quite precarious.

Eventually, we would like to sell the second home but that’s not an option for now. We’re still getting an income, and want to try and make the rental business work.

I have tried to find better paid work but I’m always told I’m overqualified for any role I’m interested in. They say I’m ‘too managerial’.

But I’m still determined to stay positive about the future. Since early 2025 I’ve been working on my own technology project to create a system that helps Airbnb hosts greet their guests through Amazon’s Alexa device.

My technology, called Zenios, has been approved by Amazon, and there’s a big potential market of five million Airbnb hosts as customers. Just a small percentage of hosts signing up could give me a steady income stream. I’m currently testing with potential customers, and I’m planning to launch the technology in the next few weeks.

I’ve managed to whittle my debts down to £44,000, not including mortgages, by saving where I can.

It has been an almighty financial challenge but I’m not shying away or hiding from it. I’ve started a TikTok channel called @therealnickcarpenter to share my ups and downs and I’ve been blown away by the response I’ve had. It’s important to talk about these things openly.

Today, I’ve reached a point where I’m excited about the future. Through my new businesses, I’m building a way to pay off what I owe and fight my way out of this one.

As told to ALICE GUY