Here is the top of the article - I might move it to Work
I was a high-flyer. Now, I’m broke and unemployed
After months of trying to hide her true circumstances, Stacey Duguid decided to go public about her situation. The response from fellow midlife women was huge
Stacey Duguid recalls the moment she “snapped”. Days before the 52-year-old was due to fly out to Majorca to stay with friends — having bought a £25 budget flight months ago — she realised that she couldn’t pay for any of it.
“I couldn’t afford the taxi to the station, the taxi from the airport or the lunches on the beach that the WhatsApp group were organising,” she says. “I had to ring my friend and say, ‘This is so embarrassing but I can’t come.’ She was so kind about it but I was like, ‘How can this be?’ So I put it on Instagram.”
That social media story — shared three weeks ago and which she says led to an outpouring of direct messages from thousands of women — was bracingly honest. Duguid also shared that she had been applying for jobs over the past 16 months with almost no replies or interviews. Since spring 2025 she estimates that she’s sent out 150 CVs and rewritten it about 15 times, even on Christmas Day. She’s applied for “everything from a brand director on six figures to a part-time job taking photos in a warehouse. I still heard nothing back”.
“People say that trite thing of, ‘Well, just get a job in Tesco stacking shelves.’ You try getting a job in Tesco stacking shelves. Good luck to you,” she says.
It’s even more surprising when you know Duguid’s CV: from a working-class background in Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, she went from Harvey Nichols shop assistant to working for some of the world’s biggest fashion brands, from Prada to Harrods, Net-a-Porter and Paul Smith. She’s written a book and was a longtime magazine columnist. Her Instagram has always looked glossy and aspirational. Yet here she was, telling her followers that she’s on universal credit, has dramatically downsized her north London home and sold her jewellery on Vinted. There are, she tells me, summons over unpaid bills dropping through the letterbox, and the property in Menorca that was her de facto pension is on the market.