When David died, the ATO didn’t send a condolence card.
They sent a demand notice. To his wife. For $94,000 of debt she didn’t know she was on. She was 61, she had just buried her husband, and she was being told she had thirty days.
That’s not a story we invented for a fundraising letter. It’s the pattern behind the pattern — the reason Life Without Debt Ltd exists. Terminal illness compresses a family’s ability to deal with money. Consumer debt piles up in the last few months. And then, on death, it doesn’t die with the person who owed it. It transfers — to spouses, to adult children, to guarantors — a pattern we call Sexually Transmitted Debt. It’s the second grief.
Margaret · 62 · Regional NSW
Margaret has Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Her specialist has certified 6–9 months. She rents her home, her daughter is her carer, and she hasn’t worked in five months. She has $14,200 on a credit card, $6,800 on a personal loan, $1,300 in buy-now-pay-later balances, $2,800 in unpaid electricity, and $1,900 in unpaid rent.
Her hospital social worker referred her to a regional financial counsellor, who referred her to Life Without Debt. Three months later, her advocate had activated her superannuation’s terminal-illness benefit (a $47,000 insurance payment nobody had told her about), negotiated her credit-card and personal-loan balances to nil under statutory hardship provisions, and cleared her utility and rent arrears from the insurance payout. Margaret’s daughter is still her carer. But she is no longer also her creditor.
Composite case drawn from published Australian hardship-industry research (ASIC RG 96, National Debt Helpline reports, Consumer Action Law Centre casebooks, palliative-care service reports). No individual beneficiary is depicted. Once the charity is operating, real cases with signed beneficiary consent will replace composites. See the full case-studies bank →
Margaret’s advocate spent 18 hours on her case, spread across three months. At $19.25 a week for a year, one regular giver funds one full hour of that work — every week. Fifty-two hours. Roughly three cases like Margaret’s a year, per giver.
What $19.25 a week actually buys
Amounts are indicative pending DGR endorsement. Regular giving opens the day endorsement lands — we’ll email you first if you’ve registered interest.
How you can trust the number
“87 cents in every dollar” is easy to say and hard to prove. Here’s how it actually works — and how we’ll keep proving it, every year.
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Overhead is absorbed by a related for-profit entity. Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd holds the Australian Credit Licence (387398) and carries the office, systems, insurance, and back-office cost of the advocacy. Your donation isn’t paying for a landlord.
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A published salary cap. No executive earns more than a stated multiple of the median case-worker salary. The cap is written into the constitution, not into a policy that can be changed by the board of the day.
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Annual audited financials, alongside the impact report. The 87-cent number is not a marketing claim — it’s a line item in an independently audited statement of financial position. If we ever miss the number, we say so plainly and explain why.
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No donor funds spent on marketing. Acquisition costs come out of the related for-profit entity, not out of what regular givers contribute. Your $19.25 doesn’t buy Facebook ads.
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An annual letter, not a newsletter. Once a year, we write to you personally with the story of one anonymised case your giving helped fund. Not a mass-mailed “dear donor.” A letter.
Questions people ask
Where does my $19.25 a week actually go?
Straight to case-work. $19.25 a week funds one hour, every week, of expert consumer-credit negotiation for a household where someone is dying. 87 cents of every dollar reaches that work directly — the other 13 cents covers payment-processing fees, compliance reporting, and impact evaluation. Overhead (office, systems, insurance) is absorbed by a related for-profit entity, not by your donation.
Can I cancel any time?
Yes. No lock-in. No minimum term. No cancellation call. No guilt. One email, one click. We build regular giving on trust, not obligation — if we can’t earn your continued support with the annual impact report, we don’t want to hold it by making cancellation difficult.
Is it tax-deductible?
Not yet. Life Without Debt Ltd is a company in formation. Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) endorsement is pending. We’re not accepting payments until DGR endorsement is granted — that way your very first week’s giving is tax-deductible. If you register interest now, we’ll email you the day endorsement lands.
How will I know my money did what you said?
Three ways. An annual audited impact report (cases resolved, debt extinguished, methodology published). An annual personal letter with one anonymised case your giving helped fund — a real story, told simply. And a live impact counter on this site so you can watch the numbers move between reports.
Who exactly does Life Without Debt help?
Australian households where one family member has a specialist-certified terminal illness, and where consumer debt (credit cards, personal loans, buy-now-pay-later, utility arrears) is adding to what the family is already carrying. Referrals come through palliative-care teams, financial counsellors, and hospital social workers. There is no cost to the family. Ever.
Why aren’t you already taking donations?
Because we’d rather wait a few months and give you tax-deductibility from day one, than take money now and issue you a receipt that isn’t deductible. The charity is being built the right way round — governance and licensing first, then intake, then giving. If you’d like to help before DGR lands, the most valuable thing you can do is register your interest so we know the founding-giver community is there.
Be one of the founding regular givers
Register your interest today. We’ll email you the day DGR endorsement lands, so your very first $19.25 is tax-deductible. Between now and then, we’ll send a short quarterly update — no marketing, no ask.
Compliance note. Life Without Debt Ltd is a company in formation. ACNC registration and DGR endorsement are pending. This page does not currently solicit donations and does not make a tax-deductibility claim; it collects expressions of interest only. Case narratives on this page are composites drawn from published Australian hardship-industry research and palliative-care service reports — no individual beneficiary is depicted, and no confidential detail is used. Consumer-credit advocacy is delivered under Australian Credit Licence 387398 held by Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd.