An announcer, in the fourth year after leaving the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), confesses: “I sold the children’s gold rings and worked at a logistics center”

[Financial News] Broadcaster Kim Seon-geun, a former KBS announcer, said he had faced a sudden income cliff and a debt crisis involving multiple loans after voluntarily leaving his job.

On the 19th, former KBS announcer and broadcaster Kim Seon-geun, 42, and his wife appeared on KBS 1TV’s “Morning Forum,” where they discussed the financial hardship and mounting debt they faced after he quit.
Kim explained why he left his job in 2022, after working there for more than nine years: “While I was employed, I took out a workplace credit loan and invested, but suffered major losses. At the same time, I had other financial needs, including after being selected in an apartment subscription lottery.” He had made plans in advance and tried his hand at the freelance market, but just three months after quitting, broadcasting jobs dried up completely and his cash flow came to a halt.
When their income stopped, the household quickly fell into the trap of high-interest loans from second-tier financial institutions. His wife, Lee Yun-mi, a full-time homemaker with no income, used credit card loans and cash advances to cover living expenses and existing financial costs, and their debt quickly ballooned to 89 million won.
The couple sold their children’s first-birthday gold rings, while Kim had to take on short-term manual jobs at night and in the early morning—including sorting parcels at logistics centers, making dawn deliveries, putting up banners and delivering laundry—in order to be available for daytime work.

Financial industry officials say Kim’s case is a typical example of the “financial cliff” that middle-aged employees often overlook before retirement.
Regular employees at major broadcasters, public institutions and large corporations can easily secure credit loans worth at least 100 million won at relatively low interest rates. But when they leave their jobs and become freelancers or sole proprietors, their credit limits may be sharply reduced or an additional interest rate applied when existing loans come up for renewal. If their income becomes difficult to document, access to new loans from first-tier financial institutions effectively shuts down.
To cover existing principal and interest payments as well as immediate living expenses, borrowers are eventually pushed toward a “debt spiral” of high-interest revolving debt, such as credit card loans and cash advances, which are easier to obtain and carry rates in the 15%–19% range. The surge in credit card debt under the homemaker’s name to 89 million won is also a typical example of how households facing an interruption in income end up with multiple debts.

What kept the household from going bankrupt was the couple’s efforts to help themselves. Kim took on whatever late-night platform and logistics work he could find, while his wife, Lee, a former bank employee, used a social worker qualification she had previously earned to get a new job at a social welfare foundation, restoring a steady cash flow.
Experts agree that it is difficult for every household facing retirement to have this kind of human capital or the ability to bounce back through reemployment. They warn that unprepared retirement, excessive investment and failed attempts to enter self-employment can combine to lead directly to household debt distress and a slide into poverty.

[email protected] Moon Young-jin Reporter