Let’s Talk About Overcoming Financial Anxiety

Transcript

[0:00] Hey, you’re back with the Get Out Debt Guy. I’m Steve Rhode, the old Get Out Debt Guy. And with me as always is Damon Day, the new Get Out Debt Guy. Damon, do what you do best and say hello. Hello. Hey, let’s be real. Financial anxiety is like that annoying background noise that you just can’t escape. Whether you’re on the bus, in the car, on a commute, you know you’re talking to yourself. Whether it’s the low hum of worry when you check your bank balance or the full-blown panic, attack when yet another bill arrives money stress is relentless it sneaks into your thoughts at 2 a.m wakes you up gets you watching infomercials doom scrolling on your phone and then you turn grocery shopping into a guilt trip and it makes you feel like you’re drowning while everyone else seems to be effortlessly floating. Yeah, but here’s the truth. You’re not alone. 60% of people are feeling financial stress. And Damon, I don’t think that financial anxiety is, you know, just about the numbers. Numbers are what they are. The key here is, as I always say, Debt is nothing but math wrapped in emotion, and financial anxiety is just how those numbers make you feel.

[1:25] So, today, with Damon’s idea and focus on this, he really wanted to talk about tackling the real side of financial stress. You know, not just the usual budget-better bullshit, but what you can do when debt is weighing you down, crushing your mental health. So let’s dig into the signs of financial anxiety, the shocking ways debt fuels stress, and more importantly, how to regain control even when you feel like you can’t do it for another day. All right, Damien, you think that sums up the topic you want to hit today?

[2:06] Couldn’t have said it better myself, Steve, which is why I always have you say it. And I even used my official professional debt voice too. So for all the years that I’ve been helping people, you know, what’s always amazing is the debt is just the math. That’s the easy part. But people internalize this stuff so much. I get it. I understand it. They feel guilt, embarrassment, fear, shame, loss of self-esteem, suicidal, and a lot of other negative emotions. And it’s all just over their debt. So what do we do to help people recognize the sign of financial anxiety? Yesterday I had a reporter ask me, so what’s the first sign that people have a debt problem? What do you say? Well, um… As far as the emotional signs, if you’re constantly worried about money, constantly worried about bills, you’re avoiding bills, right? That happens like, oh, I’m not even going to check the money. I’m just going to put it over here in this pile. I’ll maybe get to it in a month. And you just want to avoid it, right? Because you go, I know there’s no checks in there.

[3:28] Or if you created an email filter, right? Yeah. Yeah. Nothing good is coming out of that mail pile. But, you know, when you, I mean, it’s, it can manifest itself in different ways, but, um, you know, stress of, you know, insomnia, headaches, fatigue, just waking up in the middle of the night, thinking about this bill or that bill, or when that’s due, you know, just, you know, guilt, shame, right? Just the classic symptoms. And it’s, it all can be wrapped into feeling that you’re not going to be able to get ahead or you’re falling further and further behind. And it seems like everything you do to try to fix it tends to make it worse. Yeah, I think that the answer to that question, how do you identify if you have a debt problem, a financial problem, is if you think you do, you do.

[4:16] Yeah, well, I think I said that constant word. That’s right. But yeah, okay. All right, hey, I’m going to interrupt this podcast because whatever you keep clicking is really loud. Damn it. That’s that’s my fidget thing i i put it out of reach i apologize i told you my job is not to edit, your job is to police on that’s right so all right phone’s on silent mode fidget magnet thing is put down and my correct mic is all right And you don’t have any gas? What was that? What was what? I just heard another click. I just clapped my hand and was going to say, Cosmo, go. Oh, okay.

[5:11] Man we’re never going to make the new york times number one no we never will but you know what we will do is we’ll help you recognize the signs of financial anxiety that we can do we can absolutely so i’m going to add to what you said you know the constant worry the avoidance behaviors the physical symptoms you know the insomnia the headaches the fatigue the fighting with your spouse.

[5:39] I just spent a lot of time revamping the whole money personality calculator on my website, getoutofdebt.org. So if you go there and just do a search for money personality calculator, that is really insightful because it will help you to realize how you and your partner, your spouse, whoever, how you look at money differently. And different personalities grinding together and just butting heads over money easily creates financial anxiety, which creates, you know, avoiding your finances, avoiding your debt, making it worse. So, hey, it’s an eye-opener. At least you will know, hey, my personality is this and their personality is that and you know even on that the calculator page i give you examples of okay here’s how the best way for two different personalities to work together so it’s after a lot of time and a lot of work on that calculator i’m going to say it’s pretty damn insightful.

[6:52] Yeah, and it never fails. A spender always marries a saver. Yes. Yes, people don’t believe that that’s true. You know, spenders or savers attract spenders, spenders attract savers. It’s because opposites attract. Somebody once said to me, Steve, why is it that savers attract spenders? It’s because they’re saving all the time and spenders have more fun.

[7:20] Yeah. That’s it. It’s not deep. Yeah. And, and, and everything really does boil down to personality and emotion. You use that example all the time about back in your financial counseling days, you had a guy weeping in your arms over like $3,500 worth of debt and didn’t know how he was going to deal with it. And then you had this other client that was, I think you said over a million dollars in debt. Yeah, he had 43 credit cards. It was like, yeah, figure it out. Don’t worry. Well, nearly half of people, with debt also have a mental health diagnosis. You know, it’s a chicken and egg thing. The debt pressure comes along and it leaves you feeling depressed and anxious, I mean, all these things.

[8:04] And 86% of those with mental health issues report that their debt makes their condition worse. Now, here’s an even more alarming number, that 63% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck It doesn’t matter how much you make because this statistic even includes people making over a hundred grand a year.

[8:30] It’s all about what you have left over. Oh, it’s a hundred percent what you have left over. I mean, I have, I have clients that range the spectrum from, you know, $20,000 a year in income up to over half a million dollars a year in income. And some, I’ve had a few even higher than that. And it’s, it’s not about how much you make. it’s about how much you’re able to keep and what your expenses are and how you’re managing everything. And in fact, sometimes the highest earners get into the biggest snafus because they’re maybe a little bit over leveraged. And if something comes crashing down, it’s a much bigger issue. You know, there’s like, Oh, I’ve got this $10,000 debt I need to solve versus, okay, I’ve got this, you know, half a million dollars in these couple of projects fell through. And I still got this half a million dollars in debt. Well, and also the better your credit score, the easier it is to fall into a debt trap because people are begging to lend you money. Yeah. And it’s a hundred percent. And it’s like, you know, if you find yourself just constantly, you want to get to a point and I’ve been both points in my life, right?

[9:36] And I can tell you 100% life is better if you’re not thinking about your next paycheck. You’re not thinking about, am I going to have enough for this? You’re not thinking about, I got to pay this debt. I got to pay this. Okay. I’m going to, I’m going to hold on this for a couple of days. It’s technically late, but I don’t get penalized for, you know, nine days so I can wait and pay it then. And if you find yourself just, you know, on a daily basis, trying to strategize and juggle all those bills and I can pay this and just start thinking about all that time, that mental energy that you’re spending, trying to figure out how to keep this guy happy and this guy, then like Steve said, you’re past the point of having a debt problem. I can, I can promise you that life is better when you’re in a situation where all the bills are covered. You never have to think about it. They’re all on auto pay and you can just focus on enjoying your life. Cause we all only have a certain amount of time in this life and we don’t want to spend 80, 90 years worried about payment, right? We want to get to a point where that is just all taken care of automatically

[10:47] and you can live your life. Yeah. I remember back in the day when I was going through my financial mess and I couldn’t sleep and wake up every morning at three or four in the morning and lay on the couch, panicking, watching infomercials. I would love to have all those hours back and a good night’s sleep.

[11:06] Yeah. Now you and I have very different personalities because I’ve been through very similar stuff, um, as you were at a different, at a different point. Um, cause obviously as, as you know, I’m, I’m much younger, much younger.

[11:21] But even when I was at my peak, I would, I would have stress about it, but it wouldn’t manifest in the way yours did. Like I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night or I would, I’d kind of think about it like, yeah, I’m going to have to figure that out tomorrow, you know, but it just, I didn’t have as much of a panic attack. I just felt more like, well, I’ll get it solved. You know, even if I didn’t know exactly how I was going to get it solved at that point, my mindset about it was, well, Why worry about crap I can’t control? Now, I’m sure there was still some underline there. Maybe I was just better at compartmentalizing it. But still, I can absolutely say my life would have been nicer had those thoughts never even had to enter my mind. I’d rather have spent my time thinking about, you know, nicer things rather than how am I going to deal with this 250K? Well, I don’t think it’s any surprise that people with problem debt are three times more likely to contemplate suicide.

[12:19] There are actually, I’ve told one of these stories before, but there’s two of them. I had a client once who had just come to me and he was really, it wasn’t that much. I mean, the number wasn’t that big. There was nothing that wasn’t able to be overcome. But he was so embarrassed about telling his wife and daughters about their situation that he went to Vegas and gambled it all on red, you know, and lost and came home and murdered his wife and daughters and then shot himself. Yeah.

[12:56] And then I had another client, again, similar situation, was very overwhelmed and, you know, came to me at 11.59 p.m., you know, just like people do at the very last minute. And he was so embarrassed about telling his wife about his situation. They lived in an apartment building that he threw her off the balcony and then jumped.

[13:28] It’s just debt now i know that’s really easy to say but damon and i look at the numbers of you know numbers in situations all day long and as a third party as somebody who has dealt with this stuff both you and me over the years it’s just debt you know there’s solutions we just have to get you out of your own way sometimes for you to see the logical solution and not making it an emotional panic yeah i i always like to look at it where i i you know you want to you want to view the debt as a challenge to be solved not as a personal failure, and and i know there’s a lot of emotion that goes with it but if we can take you know set the emotion aside i’m not saying don’t be emotional about it but the problem with with the emotion is that the emotion tends to cloud judgments and you tend to make poor decisions based on uh emotion because you don’t have perhaps all the facts and an understanding about how different solutions will will or won’t yeah you don’t know, And the reality is this, I’ve been doing this for a long time, not as long as my ancient friend here, but I have been doing this a long time.

[14:52] And I am remiss, word of the day, to think of a time when I couldn’t figure out a solution for somebody’s issue. Oh, yeah. Helping other people is a breeze. Yeah, because the emotion doesn’t get in the way. Now, my own issues, I go like, whoa, wait, how am I going to fix this? But my point is, there’s always a solution. Even if you don’t feel like there is, there’s always a solution. And most of the time when the solution is presented to you, and we just set the emotion aside for a second, it’s almost never as scary as you have it built up to be in your mind. Well, I have, I have a classic example. I’m not going to be, I don’t think I’m going to be talking out of school too much and you’ll forgive me for this. But I remember decades ago when you were living through your stuff, you know, and I had already met you. And I remember saying to you one day, Damon, what advice would you give yourself? I think I said something like, shut up. Do as I say, not as I do, damn it. Well, it’s because even you, you know, all of us, we get clouded. We all have emotions. I’m not a psychopath. Exactly.

[16:11] So let me give our listeners. Yeah.

[16:15] And we were talking about my bankruptcy back then. I think that was what that was. And I was dragging my feet on filing. And there was some logic behind it. But at the end of the day, it was, you know, oh, I don’t want to file bankruptcy. I’m a financial consultant. What would that look like? How could I possibly file for bankruptcy and be a financial consultant? And then as we walked through that and then, you know, fast forward, it was a great experience actually based on my situation and it worked out great. And it changed the way I look at things and it made me a much better consultant

[16:51] for my client. Right. Exactly. Right. So it actually what I thought was going to be this huge negative and possibly need me to do something different turned into being one of the greatest assets I had at the time. By going through that myself and realizing, hey, this is not what a lot of people think it is. My mindset at the time was like what a lot of the people, like the Dave Ramseys of the industry. Yeah, who’s going to judge me? So bad. You can never go through that and just, and all that. And then when I went through myself, I went, wait, wait, wait a minute. Maybe I don’t know everything. Maybe, you know, this actually is a viable solution. And it, I think me going through that experience has helped hundreds of my clients since then. Oh, yeah. Because of that. But it was my own ego and my own emotion. And that’s when Steve was like, what would you advise yourself to do if you were your own client? And I was like, shut up, Steve.

[17:44] Don’t use my logic against me. damn logic yeah i mean when i went through my crap uh in 1989 1990 uh i later learned not instantly but a few years later learned that what i had perceived as my biggest failure was actually my greatest strength because you know having gone through that and walked in those shoes I knew better than a lot of these personal finance gurus that just want to tell you to budget better. Buy my book and budget better. If I write another book, I got five under my belt. I’m going to name it Budget Better Bullshit. But I like that one. Budget Better Bullshit. It’s the BBC.

[18:36] Well, let me give people what I think are some easy steps that they can take right now. Of course, you know, the first one is if you need to talk to somebody that’s not going to judge you, contact Damon, D-A-M-O-N-D-A-Y.com. He’s not only a deck coach, but he’s a nonjudgmental friend. He won’t tell you You need to do this He will help you to create a custom plan That fits your life based on what your goals are You know, it’s not like calling some debt relief company And it says, buy my widget No, he’s going to listen to you And together you will come up with a plan That’s, you know, that’s the top That’s the best thing that you can do But if you’re feeling overwhelmed, And you don’t want to do the smart thing.

[19:32] Um, that’s kind of a backhanded slap. Well, you know, I hate to see people struggle because I, I really want them to contact you and get kind, compassionate advice. But, you know, that’s me. All, all in due time. All in due time. In due time. Um, the first thing is don’t try to tackle everything at once. Trying to fix your entire financial situation overnight can just make it really messy. So, you know, maybe just think about logging into your bank and look at the balance and then log out. You don’t have to, you know, small wins can build momentum. And also, I think it’s very helpful for you to acknowledge what is making you stressed and anxious. You know, this simple step of just saying, you know, I’m really feeling anxious right now because of this bill or because I can’t pay that. If you give a name to something, if you recognize the situation and name what the stress is, it helps reduce its power over you. It makes it easier to take action. Here’s a favorite of mine.

[20:46] Give yourself a worry window. this just like okay at 2 30 every afternoon i give myself 30 minutes to freak out and worry about my dad outside of that i’m gonna love my family and and everything else or if you can’t do that that sounds unreasonable um if you have a shoebox laying around your house get the empty shoebox, put it near where you always put your mail when you come in, and then everything that looks like a bill or a collection notice or something like that, don’t even open it. Just throw it in the shoebox for a few days. Take a little mental health vacation, because if you don’t focus on self-care first, you’re just going to go downhill fast. Yeah. I’ve got, I’ve got one to add and I’m going to be a bit of a, a horn tutor.

[21:53] Okay. And what I mean is I’m going to toot my own horn on, on this one, but if I had made you spit your drink, I. Yeah, you almost did. I know, I heard it. You little horn tutor. It’s going to be a horn tutor on this one. I have never heard that. I think I may have coined that. I’ve heard horny tutor. I don’t know where I say that. But I. No. I’m a horn tutor. So, and this is honestly, it’s been this way for, for years. Um, just when I have an initial conversation with, uh, uh, you know, consumer potential client, and they’re not, they’re not even my clients yet. We’ve just had a talk when I do initial talks with them, we kind of do a little higher level overview. They tell me what their situation is. And I, I just start kind of spitting out, you know, potential options and strategies and things to start looking at, things to consider, things to definitely avoid. And we just have a normal conversation. And I get constant, constant feedback from clients when I’m still on the phone. And again, not even clients at this point, just people that have asked for help.

[22:59] I, you know, like you said, I don’t, I don’t judge people. I’m actually quite damn funny too. And usually I get people laughing. That’s because you’re a horn tutor. I’m a horn tutor. And, and I keep the, you know, I, it’s a serious topic, but I tend to keep it light and, and I give them, you know, different ideas and things that they can think of and things they haven’t thought of. And the biggest feedback I always get by the time we’re hanging up is, you know what I I I thank you I feel better already I know I haven’t even you know I haven’t even hired you but just knowing that there’s options that I hadn’t even thought of or options that I had thought of but didn’t realize what they were how they would play out just just having that conversation relieves so much stress off of people knowing that there’s somebody out there that can listen to them that has some experience with this stuff. Say, Hey, you know what? I got tons of clients that would love to have your problems as bad as you think your problem is right now. It’s not really that bad. And here’s a couple of things that we can look at

[23:59] and consider to solve that problem. And here’s how long that’s going to take. And it’s not going to be as scary as you think, but the biggest feedback I always get is just that conversation relieves so much stress off of me. I feel so much better and I haven’t even done anything, but I just, now I know there’s some options and I’m not out here all by myself trying to figure this out and getting all these phone calls from debt collectors and getting even more phone calls from debt relief scam companies trying to get me to do this or that.

[24:27] And so again, being a horn tutor, but just having a conversation with a trusted source that can give you some options can be a huge stress relief if you’re kind of feeling alone, afraid, not sure what to do, not wanting to tell your spouse, not wanting your family to find out, whatever it is, there’s always solutions available. You just have to be presented with them and then given the opportunity to explore. You know, I’ve never run into a consumer debt situation where there was not an option. And there’s always a solution. And my advice on that is that the sooner that people start, the sooner they’ll feel lighter and freer and in control.

[25:16] Yeah yeah you know i was talking to um uh a person actually yesterday the day before i think they were a podcast listener i think they and we were just having a conversation about her overall situation and she um for the first time ever was uh in the red from a monthly cash flow standpoint never had that situation before and got you know kind of panicked about it like oh my gosh i have more going out than I have coming in. And we were just talking about a couple of different strategies and things. And she was talking about this potential job opportunity she would have and maybe in the next year or so. So we’re talking about her credit score and there might be a background check and coming up with some strategies for how to kind of massage that and deal with her current debt while still trying to maintain her credit score for a year to not cut off her nose to spite her face and not have an opportunity at this job.

[26:06] But one of the things she mentioned at the job was that well it’s going to pay about the same but you know they do give you a car and you get you know gas you know included with that and that’s a big perk but she said but you know i already have this car with this car payment so it’s not really going to help me that much because i still have my car and i just said well if you end up getting that job and the company car and the gas card uh how much is your car payment it’s just like 450 a month something like that i’m like any price been like 200 a month on gas okay that’s like 650 a month i’m like why don’t you just sell your car if you get that job and you get that car and she just went oh oh my gosh i never even thought of that even though in like now that she had the idea it was like yeah why wouldn’t i do that but you know she is just probably so stressed about all this other stuff sometimes you just need somebody an outside person looking at your situation to just state some things that would normally be obvious to you, but you’re just so stressed out. And she just was like, how did I not think about why don’t I just sell my car if I don’t need my car anymore?

[27:15] And that would free up $600 a month, which would be some extra money that could allow me to throw that extra five, $600, you know, on my debt and get that debt paid down. It was like found money, you know, in the budget. Cause she’s like, yeah, I’m going to get the company car, But I already have a car, so it’s not really going to help me that much. But it’s just that just having somebody look at your situation and just spitball some ideas oftentimes can be all you need to go, oh, solvable.

[27:43] All right. Hey, let’s end this podcast here. Because I don’t want to have to do more editing than I already have to. Hey, you know what I’m doing right now? I don’t want, you’re tooting your horn. I’m rubbing my fingers together. And as my dad told me years ago, this is the world’s smallest violin playing. My heart bleeds for you, Mr. Editor. Well, hey, at least it’s your fingers you’re rubbing. Hey, it’s not that kind of a show, Steve. Until next time, Damon, I will see ya. Peace. Got a money question keeping you up at night well don’t just google it get real answers from real people who actually know what they’re talking about head to get out of debt.org slash podcast to ask your question you might hear it on an upcoming episode but hey if you’d rather keep it private. Damon Day has your back. Visit d-a-m-o-n-d-a-y.com because getting out of debt is easier with the right help. That’s getoutofdebt.org slash podcast, where smart money questions lead to smarter money moves.