Daniel Montville knew a debt consolidation loan wouldn’t solve his financial problems, but the hospice nurse hoped it would give him some breathing room. He had already filed for bankruptcy once, in 2005, and was determined not to do it again.

Montville took out the loan in 2015, but within a year he had fallen behind on its payments and on the payday loans he got to help his daughter, a single mother with four children. The payday lenders all but cleaned out his checking account each time a paycheck landed, leaving little money for necessities. Then his daughter lost her job, and the $5,000 tax refund she had promised to him as repayment went instead to supporting her kids.

“That’s when I wised up and realized this was a no-win situation,” says Montville, 49, of Parma, Ohio. Montville is now repaying his creditors under a five-year Chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan.

In my latest for the Associated Press, learn why debt consolidation isn’t always the best idea.