I racked up $40,000 in credit card debt and kept it a secret from everyone. At 40, I had to move in with my parents to pay it down.

Johanna Dickson.

Courtesy of Johanna Dickson

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Johanna Dickson, a 42-year-old who moved back to her parents' house in New Jersey to help her pay off years of debt. The following has been edited for length and clarity.Living in New York City was always a dream of mine. I grew up 90 minutes away in New Jersey, but after graduating from college in 2006, I landed a job in marketing that paid enough to afford my first Manhattan apartment with roommates. I finally felt like I made it when I moved into my own studio apartment in Harlem in 2021.Over the 15 years I lived in NYC, I secretly incurred around $40,000 in credit card debt. In 2023, at age 40, I decided I needed to fix my finances. I moved back in with my parents and took a few other drastic measures to get back on my feet.Here's how I got into debt and what I've been doing to get out of it.My relationship with money was stable before I moved to NYCI grew up privileged in a two-parent home where both brought in income. My parents paid for college so that I didn't have to take out any loans.I got my first credit card from Victoria's Secret in 2009 so I could establish a line of credit. I tried to keep the balance low and pay it off quickly, and then it became impossible. I was also an authorized user on my mom's Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's cards, and I was offered the chance to open my own, which I naively did.What made it worse was that as I spent more, the credit card kept raising my spending limit. It made it easy to spend more and maintain a high balance. The balances became completely unmanageable.