Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： The Secret Lives of Debt Heads

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00:00:55.780 Hello, all.

00:00:57.220 Happy Sunday.

00:00:57.940 who's ordered everyone is lying to you yet my mom just ordered it actually yeah and so it just it

00:01:05.960 goes to show that people don't like to pre-order and that is fair because pre-ordering books is so

00:01:11.120 dumb in fact i think publishing is the only industry where you pre-order anything and where

00:01:17.160 it actually matters where where like the person selling the thing actually pays so much attention 0.97

00:01:23.260 to it. But yeah, I finally got my mom to do it. But I had to buy her brunch first, which just goes

00:01:27.960 to show people don't want to do it. But you should do it. Because you know what? You order, everyone

00:01:32.820 is lying to you today. And then in July, you're gonna be like, Oh my god, I totally forgot that

00:01:37.560 I ordered this. And I love myself for doing it. That's my take. That's my take. That's all I got.

00:01:43.560 Today, I am dropping a brand new, really unique podcast into your feed. And it's something that

00:01:49.280 I love to talk about. And I'm going to be talking about a lot more because I don't think we talk

00:01:53.240 about it enough? Money. But before you skip ahead anticipating some kind of aspirational advice

00:02:00.800 show, you should know better than that because I hate that shit. No, no, no. Debt Heads is a very 1.00

00:02:07.320 funny, surprisingly cathartic, extremely relatable investigation into the American economy with two

00:02:13.340 people who are in debt, like a lot of people that I know. In the pilot episode, we meet our two

00:02:18.560 co-hosts, Jamie and Rachel, who dig into the reasons why so many people find money so hard

00:02:23.960 to discuss, and why we think we're happier when we don't talk about money and just how powerful

00:02:29.580 it can be to come clean. After Jamie fesses up to Rachel about her years of hidden debt,

00:02:35.900 we go on a journey to uncover why such a widespread problem is so often made to feel

00:02:41.240 like a personal failing. I talk about this a lot, guys. I'm a freak. I'm a freak about not having

00:02:47.100 debt because I was essentially raised by financial wolves who were constantly in debt. My mother is

00:02:53.260 constantly still maxing out credit cards with low credit limits, mind you. She just buys a bunch of 0.84

00:02:59.580 little dumb shit on Amazon. But because I was raised by financial wolves, I'm a freak. I am a 1.00

00:03:06.360 freak about my finances. And in a lot of ways, that's a good thing, but it's also incredibly

00:03:10.980 stressful and the reason I am such an anxious stress ball. It really is. This is the first

00:03:18.740 episode in a limited narrative series. I think you're going to like it. I'll drop the link in

00:03:22.280 show notes so you can keep listening. Have a great day, guys. You deserve it.

00:03:28.000 This episode of Deadheads contains colorful language. If you have kids in the room,

00:03:32.520 you might want to turn the volume up. Okay, let the fun begin.

00:03:35.700 Okay, so restaurants, alcohol, health insurance. 0.99

00:03:47.700 Holy shit. 0.99

00:03:49.700 Oh my God. 0.99

00:03:52.700 This number is giving me a lot of anxiety.

00:03:55.700 What's the damage?

00:03:57.700 I made $7,892 and I somehow spent $10,869.

00:04:04.700 in one month, in June.

00:04:09.080 So how many months do you think you've done that?

00:04:13.220 I don't know.

00:04:14.260 How many months are in 33 years?

00:04:18.040 This is the conversation that changed my life.

00:04:21.160 It's the first time I revealed a deep, dark secret

00:04:23.940 to my best friend.

00:04:25.640 It was a conversation 10 years in the making,

00:04:28.420 and it started like most things start in my life,

00:04:30.720 on a walk.

00:04:31.540 Where are we heading?

00:04:32.180 Do you want to go to the library?

00:04:33.860 I would love to go to the library.

00:04:35.340 I have a few books to pick up.

00:04:36.580 Okay.

00:04:37.180 My friend Rachel and I walk all over Brooklyn.

00:04:39.440 Usually our destination's a park or a library.

00:04:41.700 Or a grocery store.

00:04:42.860 I love a grocery store.

00:04:43.900 We love a grocery store.

00:04:45.440 This is a path we've walked, I would say, maybe a hundred times before.

00:04:50.220 Oh God, is that a rat?

00:04:51.760 Generally, we like to do all the boring stuff together.

00:04:53.860 It's way more fun.

00:04:54.620 Because we talk the whole time while we're together.

00:04:56.180 Yeah, I mean, we talk about literally everything, but there was that one thing that I guess I never told you.

00:05:00.920 It was a big one.

00:05:02.280 I think it was right up here.

00:05:03.520 I remember because it was, like, right by this gate.

00:05:06.100 We were almost home.

00:05:07.280 And we'd been talking for, like, two hours.

00:05:10.200 And then suddenly you're like, um, uh.

00:05:15.560 What I did and did not want to tell Rachel that day

00:05:18.460 was that I had $14,000 of credit card debt

00:05:20.960 and that I'd been maintaining that level of debt in secret for years.

00:05:26.020 $14,000 worth of free-floating anxiety.

00:05:29.480 $14,000 worth of sleepless nights.

00:05:32.660 $14,000 worth of denial.

00:05:35.200 Denial that was so entrenched, it kept me from opening my credit card statements

00:05:38.920 or making anything but the minimum auto payments.

00:05:42.140 It was so deep that it was actually more than $14,000.

00:05:46.840 After talking with Rachel that day, I opened all my accounts

00:05:49.760 and realized the debt was more like $18,000.

00:05:53.420 The denial was so bad that I didn't even realize how much debt I had.

00:05:58.760 It wasn't surprising that Jamie was in debt.

00:06:01.360 That's something I could totally relate to

00:06:02.860 because I've been there plenty of times. 1.00

00:06:05.060 It's just that she and I both have these big fucking mouths. 0.99

00:06:09.380 So I was like, how did you get that secret for so long? 0.99

00:06:12.680 It's true.

00:06:13.220 Our instinct to confess is kind of like a compulsion.

00:06:16.060 Jamie's made a career for herself being loud on the internet.

00:06:19.440 She talks about her family.

00:06:20.700 I'll start by saying that I'm an only child and an only grandchild

00:06:23.040 in a very small family. 0.99

00:06:24.140 And all the shitty dates she's been on. 0.81

00:06:25.800 I'm probably just going to delete my Bumble and all my dating apps 0.98

00:06:28.660 and probably just go live somewhere very far away from all men.

00:06:31.960 She's definitely always talked about mental health.

00:06:34.280 I want to know if anyone else is feeling extremely anxious like me.

00:06:37.860 Jamie is so candid in her documentation of her life

00:06:40.560 that I admit to occasionally feeling jealous

00:06:42.300 because she'll have shared something deeply personal with me

00:06:44.920 and we've worked it out together.

00:06:46.320 This is the story about how I tried to heal my grandmother's chronic back pain

00:06:50.380 with medical marijuana and ended up putting her in the hospital.

00:06:53.360 And then the very next day, my mom calls and says,

00:06:55.140 hey, did you see what Jamie posted on her Instagram story?

00:06:57.640 and it's the very same personal topic we just discussed.

00:07:01.140 Okay, but I always tell you first.

00:07:03.680 It's true.

00:07:05.020 Of course, bravery does have its limits,

00:07:07.420 and even the most audacious among us keeps secrets from our friends.

00:07:11.560 Debt and basically everything about money

00:07:13.900 makes even the most confident-seeming people squirm.

00:07:19.840 Why do you think that was the day that you told me?

00:07:23.060 You know, you just hit a point where the dread rises up so far

00:07:27.060 that it just completely overwhelms you.

00:07:30.020 That and the fact that I had been laid off a few months prior

00:07:33.240 and there was just no way of keeping myself afloat

00:07:38.100 or pretending to be afloat anymore.

00:07:40.500 Now there was suddenly just no money coming in.

00:07:42.660 There was no way to avoid it any longer.

00:07:45.180 Yeah.

00:07:46.000 The truth is nobody really knows what's going on

00:07:48.780 with other people's financial lives.

00:07:50.900 That's because we don't talk about it.

00:07:57.060 We think that if we keep our fears and embarrassments secret, we'll be safer.

00:08:02.520 And keeping my secret did make me feel safer because it gave me a false sense of control.

00:08:07.420 But I was actually spinning out of control and keeping it all to myself was beginning to make me unsafe.

00:08:14.500 Why am I telling you this?

00:08:16.120 In order for me to be held accountable, I'm going to need you to come with me on this journey.

00:08:20.780 The goal that I've set for myself is getting out of my credit card debt.

00:08:24.240 And if and when I'm able to do that, I'm going to get a cat.

00:08:27.940 So when Jamie told me, and then she told the hundreds of millions of people on TikTok, something shifted.

00:08:35.460 After 10 years of cultivating a secret in the dark, suddenly she turned on the light.

00:08:40.820 I'm starting with about $18,000 in credit card debt, which is so much.

00:08:46.460 And I've never really told anyone that.

00:08:49.120 So now we have a secret.

00:08:51.060 Don't tell anyone or tell everybody.

00:08:53.180 I look forward, and also I don't look forward to doing this.

00:08:56.060 And it was then that she could see not only herself,

00:08:59.300 but just how many people had been hiding in the shadows with her.

00:09:02.960 And that's where the story really begins.

00:09:11.720 Welcome to Debt Heads.

00:09:13.080 Welcome.

00:09:13.980 Debt Heads is an investigation into the American economy

00:09:16.420 from the perspective of people in debt.

00:09:18.580 Like us.

00:09:19.120 Like everybody.

00:09:20.180 I'm Jamie.

00:09:20.980 And I'm Rachel.

00:09:21.580 And we named this podcast after ourselves.

00:09:24.200 Because we know firsthand what it's like to lose sleep over debt.

00:09:27.140 To live in denial over debt.

00:09:28.580 To get out of debt, but find ourselves falling back into it.

00:09:31.900 But most importantly, to start questioning why and how.

00:09:35.040 America became a country full of debt heads. 0.91

00:09:51.580 you wussies you unbelievable little children people unbelievable when i started to seek out 0.97

00:10:04.040 personal finance guidance this was the first voice i heard dave ramsey one of the most recognizable 0.95

00:10:09.580 and best-selling authors in the space you work all the time when you're broke it's what you do

00:10:13.880 it's how you not be broke anymore and his take on financial advice is steeped in the theory that

00:10:18.720 every individual is solely responsible for their financial well-being you little wussy you go to

00:10:24.560 work it's a theory that says we are in total control of our successes and failures and it

00:10:29.780 pays little credence to the environmental structural or collective factors at play that's

00:10:33.820 how you fix this you don't go out to eat and you don't go on vacation you're broke and while i find

00:10:41.060 dave ramsey's tone particularly off-putting his take on advice is pretty popular he sells a lot

00:10:46.580 of books and has a lot of listeners on his podcast. And you don't have to look too hard to find other

00:10:50.820 financial influencers who have adopted his style. You have to stop making excuses. It's your fault

00:10:55.440 that you're broke. And are successfully spouting the same philosophies. If you have poor money

00:10:59.420 management, you really can't blame anybody except yourself. And perhaps this advice is so satisfying

00:11:04.040 because it is so simple. It's got a clear bad guy, you. How have you had enough time to be as stupid

00:11:10.020 as this pile of debt suggests? And it's got a clear solution. Stop being a stupid idiot child 1.00

00:11:15.720 person guys let me just tell you it's a simple freaking formula it's a simple freaking formula 1.00

00:11:22.880 damn it yeah dummy don't spend more money than you make it's just math actually you know what 0.97

00:11:27.240 this podcast is over that's a wrap it's a wrap forget it what was i thinking there's nothing 0.99

00:11:31.600 else to say that was so easy what should we do now let's get a cocktail why don't we go grocery

00:11:35.700 shopping okay perfect just kidding i think there's more to the story i thought so too but i was too

00:11:43.980 embarrassed to ask. You and everyone else. Because we all seem to think that everyone else just knows

00:11:48.600 personal finance by osmosis from just like living in the world. But we don't know. And we don't know

00:11:53.940 what we don't know. And just like a part-time Orange Julius employee who protects her virginity

00:11:58.400 as carefully as her summer wages and then gets stuck in the middle of a tea party of friends

00:12:02.260 sharing salacious stories of their summer camp sexcapades, we're too embarrassed to admit what

00:12:07.640 we don't know. Now it's just about finances, not fellatio. But women need to be talking about 0.98

00:12:13.300 finances more than any of the other sometimes hard things in life because women have a particularly 1.00

00:12:17.820 fraught relationship with money. They earn less than men, they have more responsibilities in the 0.95

00:12:22.340 home than men, and they experience more financial stress than men. So over the last year, we

00:12:27.420 interviewed women from across the country to better understand their experiences with debt and money.

00:12:31.940 Hi, I'm Brittany. I'm from Temecula, California. I'm Nikki. I live in Columbus, Ohio. My name is

00:12:37.920 May. I was born in South Korea. I'm Sam. I'm from Indiana. I'm Joanna. I live in Los Angeles,

00:12:44.500 California. I'm Sarah. I'm from Florida. I have been struggling with credit card debt for eight

00:12:50.820 years. At my worst, I had about $36,000 of credit card debt for about 10 years. I have $250,000

00:12:58.680 of student loan debt. I've been in debt since I graduated high school and started college.

00:13:03.900 Being able to function in America is contingent on debt, and specifically my experience, credit card debt.

00:13:10.900 And after we began speaking with these women, we started to notice many similarities in their experiences.

00:13:15.980 One of the most astounding patterns is that they all thought that they were the only ones in debt.

00:13:19.880 I never thought anybody was in credit card debt like me.

00:13:23.060 I was like, I'm the only girl in the world that has ever struggled with debt.

00:13:26.260 And without fail, they all had the same story about money, which is that they didn't know anything about it.

00:13:30.980 There isn't like a class in high school that you can sign up for.

00:13:33.760 I paid for my own education. I took off student loans, but I didn't know how to manage money by any means.

00:13:39.740 I just was like, great, money.

00:13:41.940 I never understood finances. I've spent so much time trying to inform myself because I didn't grow up with it.

00:13:49.080 Debt and your salary are two things that people don't talk about that maybe they should.

00:13:52.920 And because I did not trust my parents financially, my brother and I were just kind of left to fend for ourselves for financial education.

00:14:00.680 For American millennials in the public school system,

00:14:03.220 personal finance classes were few and far between.

00:14:06.360 Of course, even if they had been more ubiquitous,

00:14:08.240 it probably would have sounded something like this scene from Ferris Bueller.

00:14:10.620 Anyone? Anyone? The Great Depression. Anyone?

00:14:14.660 But now that I'm an adult, I do wish I'd been given a chance

00:14:17.460 to at least sleep through one of these classes.

00:14:19.440 Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effect?

00:14:22.020 Because studies show that exposure to this type of education

00:14:24.500 leads to higher credit scores and lower credit card debt.

00:14:27.340 In the last few years, personal finance courses have become slightly more common in American public high schools.

00:14:32.320 But unless I josey-grosey my way into one of those classrooms-never-been-kissed style, 0.84

00:14:36.480 this form routine is shit out of luck.

00:14:38.540 And whether or not we're taught personal finance skills at school, 0.69

00:14:41.200 or like me by Regis Philbin on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,

00:14:44.460 that doesn't change the fact that in general we don't like to talk about money in our culture.

00:14:48.320 As far back as 1922, Emily Post, an American author and socialite,

00:14:53.360 wrote the gold standard for what's right and wrong in American manners.

00:14:57.000 Entitled simply Etiquette, this bestseller had one very simple rule when it came to talk about money.

00:15:02.520 Should I do it with a funny voice?

00:15:03.960 Of course.

00:15:05.040 A very well-bred man intensely dislikes the mention of money and never speaks of it if he can avoid it.

00:15:12.140 Perfect.

00:15:13.140 A hundred years later, etiquette books are obsolete.

00:15:15.860 Americans comport themselves with manners that would have Emily rolling in her tuxedo park grave.

00:15:20.080 And yet the well-bred, white bread and wheat bread loving among us still intensely dislike the mention of money

00:15:26.220 and never speak of it.

00:15:27.940 Unless, of course, we're on national television

00:15:29.640 fighting to the death to win some.

00:15:31.660 And we have a lot of shame about money.

00:15:34.300 Nearly half of Americans admit to lying

00:15:36.220 or misrepresenting information about their finances

00:15:38.420 to their intimate partners.

00:15:39.920 And that number is even higher among young people.

00:15:42.640 For millennials, it's 54%.

00:15:44.480 And for Gen Z, it's 64%.

00:15:47.160 We're not learning about money. 0.99

00:15:48.800 We're certainly not talking about money.

00:15:50.880 And unless we spend our after-school hours

00:15:52.580 on the floor of the self-help aisle at Borders,

00:15:54.420 we end up learning everything about money from the people around us.

00:15:58.280 So, to get a better understanding of Jamie's financial education,

00:16:02.020 we turn to the one person we thought would know best, her mom. 0.83

00:16:06.460 Hello. 0.99

00:16:07.580 Hi, lady. 1.00

00:16:08.680 Hi, lady.

00:16:09.720 Hi, welcome to my mask. 1.00

00:16:11.480 You look cute.

00:16:12.240 Oh, thanks.

00:16:12.880 My mom is a very colorful person. 0.98

00:16:15.220 For starters, she's got bright red hair and has a bag of yarn attached to her hip at all times, 0.98

00:16:19.900 which she uses to crochet something brightly colored for just about everyone she meets

00:16:24.440 including complete strangers sam's apartment is as bright and inviting as she is packed to the

00:16:29.520 ceiling with all the kind of stuff she likes like a lot of plants so many plants how many plants are

00:16:35.840 in this plant corner okay one two three four five seriously i've counted 96 97 98 99 100 this one

00:16:44.060 back here and i also didn't count these hanging ones the apartment also has its own soundtrack

00:16:48.580 mainly consisting of theme songs from nick at night which ones oh god it was always either

00:16:53.820 bewitched or mary tyler moore or what do you mean tell her you didn't tell me to tell her yeah

00:16:59.740 the love boat soon we'll be making another run growing up i talked to my mom about everything

00:17:06.380 she was the kind of parent who was also a friend so there was basically nothing off limits but i

00:17:12.060 had never brought up money with her. Really? Yeah. It was just you and the whole internet.

00:17:17.560 Not her. Hi, I'm Samantha. Hi, I'm Jamie. That's Samantha. I'm Samantha. That's Jamie.

00:17:23.160 Okay. What was your reaction when you saw the first thing that you saw I posted about

00:17:28.560 my money situation? What was your reaction? I kind of like, I kind of saw myself.

00:17:34.900 I didn't panic because I didn't think that it would be a big deal. You were independent.

00:17:41.600 You didn't have anyone to support.

00:17:44.620 You were living your life.

00:17:47.200 That's what I did in my 20s.

00:17:49.460 I mean, every penny that I made, I bought clothes.

00:17:53.380 Every penny.

00:17:54.640 Whatever I had, whatever I made, I never saved anything.

00:17:57.800 I always spent it.

00:17:59.060 Always.

00:18:00.280 I was always a spender.

00:18:01.980 I was like my mom.

00:18:03.640 We both had a habit of blowing through our money.

00:18:06.460 Although, for me, it was less about clothes

00:18:08.820 and more about paying an obscene amount of money 0.95

00:18:11.360 to live in a shitty slice of heaven in the East Village.

00:18:14.640 This type of spending often meant that we were living beyond our means.

00:18:18.760 Neither of us ever learned how to be good with money.

00:18:21.700 When I think back to my childhood,

00:18:23.580 the only thing I remember knowing about money

00:18:25.700 was that there never seemed to be enough of it.

00:18:28.180 And so you never talked to your mom about money?

00:18:31.260 No, my parents did not know how to manage money.

00:18:34.640 My father was a big show-off.

00:18:37.740 My mother was a fashionista.

00:18:39.840 Till this day, she's still a fashionista.

00:18:41.720 And I never really had any financial education.

00:18:45.920 Did you have any thoughts about my financial education

00:18:50.740 or what my relationship with money might look like?

00:18:54.400 I don't remember.

00:18:56.740 I don't know.

00:18:58.840 Our relationship with money is personal.

00:19:01.420 It's as unique as the families we come from.

00:19:04.640 But the cruel reality is, if you come from a family that experienced poverty,

00:19:09.200 you're far more likely to struggle financially as an adult.

00:19:12.000 Something that our family's still contending with is the fact that my parents have historically been

00:19:17.280 bad with money, as they say.

00:19:20.680 During my high school and college years, my family fell into homelessness two times.

00:19:27.300 Like, my parents were in survival mode.

00:19:29.020 We lived in a very financially unstable household where income was not always constant.

00:19:33.580 The reality was bills were being paid late.

00:19:36.500 We were paycheck to paycheck, and hopefully that paycheck came in.

00:19:39.800 I grew up in a family that couldn't afford anything, and then I tried to get better at that myself

00:19:46.520 and ended up being affected by the same systems that kept my family in poverty or below poverty level.

00:19:53.840 And so getting into the conversation about money, even now there's a lot of shame that comes around talking about finances with my family.

00:20:02.420 It gives you a very anxious attachment to money.

00:20:06.580 And so it was always like, well, while you have it, you know, take advantage of it.

00:20:09.500 It really wasn't a healthy mindset in that regard, which was tough.

00:20:14.940 If you could describe our money situation, our financial situation when I was growing up in one word, how would you describe it?

00:20:22.120 Stressful. Very.

00:20:24.660 There was not regular money flowing in.

00:20:27.200 So it was very stressful and very, like, chaotic at times because I didn't know how we would manage.

00:20:34.740 And so was that something you were constantly thinking about?

00:20:37.160 Constantly. Constantly because I didn't want to have to go live somewhere else or move or think about not being on my own and independent.

00:20:46.920 I certainly wasn't going to live with my mother again.

00:20:51.460 So...

00:20:51.940 My mom was 23 when she moved in with my dad and 28 when she had me.

00:20:57.200 She rushed into adulthood to get away from her own family. 0.52

00:21:01.000 She made a lot of emotional decisions that had financial implications for both her life and mine.

00:21:07.060 We lived in our one-bedroom apartment from 1983 till 1996.

00:21:12.160 When we moved to this apartment, it was double our rent.

00:21:15.400 And I freaked out.

00:21:17.420 And we did it. For a while, we did.

00:21:20.800 Then all the shit started happening, and then we weren't able to do it. 0.76

00:21:24.760 Yeah, like, I don't have really good memories from this apartment.

00:21:29.340 What do you remember about this apartment?

00:21:30.800 I have memories of a lot of fighting, a lot of conflict, for a lot of different reasons.

00:21:40.200 But I feel like often they had to do with money and bills.

00:21:45.920 There was a lot of fighting in my house growing up.

00:21:48.980 And to my six-year-old ears, it always sounded like it was about money.

00:21:53.960 But as I got a little older, I realized that the money part was just one piece of a much larger issue.

00:22:01.180 My dad struggled with addiction.

00:22:03.660 He wasn't always able to hold a job.

00:22:06.360 Most of the time, it was chaos.

00:22:10.000 Sometimes, I didn't know what I was going to find on the other side of the door.

00:22:13.920 And I often fell asleep to the sounds of my mom screaming about something that I couldn't understand.

00:22:19.820 All I knew was that she was angry. 0.67

00:22:22.660 And I hated that about her.

00:22:28.200 Okay, so tell me what the numbers are.

00:22:30.120 Okay, on restaurants I spent $516.

00:22:35.400 Clothing I spent $649.29

00:22:39.420 because I bought those two bathing suits.

00:22:42.600 Thank you.

00:22:44.260 I bought those two bathing suits.

00:22:45.620 Two bathing suits that were each $300?

00:22:48.420 Yes.

00:22:50.440 Yes.

00:22:51.900 Bathing suits are really difficult to find, and I found one that I felt really good in, and I bought two, one black one and one navy one.

00:23:01.300 Have you worn them yet?

00:23:02.860 No.

00:23:03.420 Okay, so let's start by returning them.

00:23:05.420 I returned one.

00:23:07.180 For over 10 years, I was engaged in a particularly modern form of cognitive dissonance.

00:23:13.120 I was spending wildly without intention as to what I was buying or why.

00:23:17.880 I simply could not wrap my mind around the fact that there might be another way to exist.

00:23:23.460 Most experts will tell you that the first step to getting your finances under control is to make a budget.

00:23:28.880 And they're not wrong. It works.

00:23:31.340 The math is easy, and it's a really helpful tool.

00:23:35.140 But I wasn't able to budget until my friend literally sat me down in a chair for several hours 0.56

00:23:40.600 and held my hand while I did it, because those numbers were really fucking painful to look at. 0.89

00:23:47.620 You cannot go to this wedding. 0.95

00:23:49.460 I have to go to this wedding.

00:23:50.880 No, you don't.

00:23:52.060 Did you book the tickets?

00:23:54.400 No, she's not.

00:23:56.400 You're going to call her, you're going to tell her what's going on,

00:23:58.680 and you're going to say, I can't come to your wedding,

00:24:00.020 and I really hope that I can celebrate with you in another context at some other time.

00:24:03.180 It doesn't require me to fly across the country, buy a dress,

00:24:06.380 get a hotel and a car service and everything and a gift.

00:24:11.900 What Rachel made me realize is that I'd been operating out of a place of obligation.

00:24:15.860 I was putting everyone else's needs before my own.

00:24:19.680 Once I started aligning my money with my values more closely,

00:24:23.300 budgeting felt not only possible, but maybe even kind of fun and exciting.

00:24:28.520 I felt like I'd cracked the code, and now, obviously, I needed to tell everyone else.

00:24:34.400 Good morning.

00:24:35.660 I'm Jamie, I live in Brooklyn, and I'm working to tackle $18,000 of credit card debt.

00:24:40.020 I drove my friends to the airport, so I've been up since six.

00:24:42.540 Over the years, I had cultivated a modest following from my work as a journalist, covering things like fashion, beauty, and lifestyle.

00:24:49.300 All things I coincidentally spent way too much money on.

00:24:52.520 So that didn't really feel like the right audience to talk to about having no money.

00:24:56.320 I'll talk to you guys briefly about debt management plans versus paying off a credit card.

00:25:01.780 Joining TikTok felt like the Wild West, where no one knew anything about me or anything I'd ever done before.

00:25:09.760 What is this place?

00:25:11.300 I don't see anybody I know. 0.83

00:25:14.000 Just one tumbleweed and the sounds of crop-top teens

00:25:17.440 dancing in the glow of their ring lights behind the saloon door.

00:25:21.500 This would be the perfect place to start a video journal

00:25:24.540 chronicling my journey out of debt.

00:25:26.480 Who in their right mind would watch a 30-something-year-old

00:25:29.180 drone on about credit cards?

00:25:31.120 So I hit publish and sent my very first message into the void.

00:25:36.540 But wait, it's not a void.

00:25:40.440 It's a 21st century social media platform with over a billion users.

00:25:44.600 And even though I'd come across plenty of trolls in my time on the internet,

00:25:48.300 once I started talking about money, they suddenly had a lot more to say.

00:25:52.180 Should we read some of these?

00:25:53.580 Ah, we'll get someone else to read them.

00:25:56.180 Here to read the best of the worst comments from Jamie's TikTok

00:25:59.700 is our third grade friend, Dottie Mae Mershon.

00:26:03.840 Yikes!

00:26:04.740 I'm glad you're in debt.

00:26:06.800 You deserve it. 0.99

00:26:07.960 You're delusional. You're tricking yourself from being rude to others. 0.73

00:26:13.800 Girl, those nails look so bad. How do you live this way?

00:26:18.120 Jeez, what a child.

00:26:20.200 Hmm, where have we heard that before? 1.00

00:26:23.260 You wussies! You unbelievable little children people! Unbelievable! 1.00

00:26:30.640 So here I am, stepping into my truth, bearing my insecurities, facing my past.

00:26:36.460 I'm just beginning my unlearning of how I was taught and not taught about the concept of money and debt and choices and responsibility.

00:26:44.260 And as I take a step toward healing the problem, this is the messaging I get.

00:26:49.480 Shame on you.

00:26:52.220 Actually, it was even more unhinged than that. 0.79

00:26:54.720 You're not pretty enough to be in credit card debt.

00:26:58.020 People are angry with people like me.

00:27:00.200 This makes me so angry.

00:27:02.360 And they want me to know it.

00:27:03.580 You should be in jail. 0.82

00:27:05.740 Thanks, Dottie.

00:27:07.120 I came here to connect,

00:27:08.900 but these voices reminded me

00:27:10.480 that our culture understands financial failure

00:27:12.680 as moral failure,

00:27:14.020 that so much of the language around financial advice

00:27:16.660 is infused with puritanical philosophies and methods.

00:27:20.580 I started to hear the language everywhere,

00:27:22.860 like this sentiment from personal finance columnist

00:27:25.220 Michelle Singletary.

00:27:26.380 After sharing a handful of tips and tricks

00:27:28.140 for getting out of debt,

00:27:29.380 she said something I've struggled to forget,

00:27:31.920 that I should be suffering.

00:27:33.380 I want you to suffer.

00:27:35.120 while you're getting out of debt because it is through that suffering that you learn your lesson.

00:27:41.820 I remember hearing that and thinking, don't they realize that suffering is what got me here in the

00:27:46.780 first place? A lot of people don't talk about the depression debt pipeline, but it was a really,

00:27:56.660 really deep one for me. And so I haven't told any of my high school friends that I'm in credit card

00:28:01.980 debt. I haven't said anything because I know the judgment that's going to come to it. It's not even

00:28:09.120 around my shame. It's around their judgment. And I don't want to think, part of me doesn't want to

00:28:15.620 think that my friends are actually like this. That's a huge part of it. And then another part

00:28:20.960 of it is I don't want to deal with the judgment that comes with it because I'm judging myself

00:28:24.840 harshly enough already. I didn't tell anyone anything about my debt for over a decade because

00:28:32.480 I was so deeply ashamed and convinced that I was the only one. I not only believed that I alone

00:28:39.440 had failed, I believed that this failure made me a bad person. I remember the day I told you about

00:28:49.760 my dad, I was terrified that when you found out you were going to think differently of

00:28:55.640 me, like that you were going to realize that I'd been lying to you about something terrible

00:28:59.520 this whole time.

00:29:02.120 Yeah, it's really upsetting to hear.

00:29:05.600 And because you didn't tell me any of that stuff, I wouldn't have brought up the fact

00:29:11.600 that I'd also been in debt in the past and I could have helped you.

00:29:14.860 Yeah, which is really the worst part of it all.

00:29:18.860 So just like in any other form of shame, the isolation is really deadly.

00:29:24.200 It could be really dangerous.

00:29:27.280 Why do we insist on suffering?

00:29:30.320 On judging ourselves for these perceived failures?

00:29:33.580 Does feeling ashamed even help us?

00:29:35.760 There's plenty of evidence shaming actually doesn't help.

00:29:40.340 It's like somebody's got a problem, and shaming them makes their problem worse. 0.97

00:29:45.160 That's Kathy O'Neill, a data scientist who studies the way shame is used as a tool for profit.

00:29:50.940 And she says not only does shame not help, it hurts. 0.99

00:29:54.440 It's called a toxic feedback loop.

00:29:56.340 It often leads to one of two kinds of behavior, especially with respect to debt.

00:30:01.900 And one of them is where people just, they don't want their friends and family to see their problems.

00:30:06.260 So they avoid talking about money.

00:30:09.100 They avoid thinking about money.

00:30:10.880 They make their problems worse in a very direct sense because it's just too shameful for them

00:30:15.620 to handle. You do something you're ashamed of. You feel ashamed about it. Hide from your shame.

00:30:21.160 And as a result, you're driven to do that very same thing again.

00:30:23.540 That is a direct consequence of us of making it that way, making it shameful. Another response

00:30:29.040 is when people sort of pretend it's not true. And so they overspend and they like treat people to

00:30:33.840 stuff and they do things to compensate. It's like a compensation type of behavior.

00:30:38.940 For me, it was kind of like I always knew I was going to be behind my peers. It was not like my parents ever saved anything for a wedding or for a house or anything like that. And so sometimes out of frustration, knowing I couldn't control that aspect, I would just try and replicate my peers' lives in other ways. But that wasn't productive and that was actually going to take me further back and I just didn't realize it at the time.

00:31:02.920 So shame only works with respect to norms. You should be following the rules. And if you're not following the rules, then shame on you. The research I've done is sort of to investigate when is telling someone to follow the rules punching down? Like, when is it actually an unreasonable demand? And for the most part, that's around the question of choice. Does anybody choose to get old? Does anybody choose to be in debt? Does anybody choose to be addicted to opioids?

00:31:29.280 the answer is no. Nobody chooses those things. I'm not saying there's zero control over any of

00:31:35.240 that at all. I'm saying that nobody would actually choose that stuff. And yet we have an intense

00:31:41.500 amount of shame around those topics. We have an intense amount of perceived morality around those

00:31:46.700 topics. Okay, sure. I shouldn't have been dropping $100 at group dinners or trying to keep up with

00:31:52.600 all the latest fashion trends. Those were choices. But I didn't choose to attend $100 group dinners

00:31:58.680 because I'm obsessed with overpaying for mediocre food.

00:32:02.060 I went to social events and bought clothes to fit in

00:32:04.320 because it's culturally expected to stay part of the group.

00:32:07.340 And when following the rules relies on our singular willpower

00:32:10.940 to be responsible when everything around us

00:32:13.460 tests that willpower at every turn,

00:32:16.380 following the rules doesn't feel like a reasonable choice.

00:32:19.260 We have to say, do those rules make sense?

00:32:22.440 Can people actually follow them?

00:32:24.240 Versus is this just something that's convenient

00:32:26.280 for other people to police

00:32:28.020 because it makes them feel separated from the problem.

00:32:31.500 I was silent for so many years

00:32:33.560 in an attempt to separate myself from my problems,

00:32:36.600 but that wasn't helping.

00:32:38.620 What I needed was more connection,

00:32:41.220 a different kind of connection,

00:32:42.560 to be part of the group in a meaningful way.

00:32:45.200 But that starts with honesty, not willpower.

00:32:48.680 And you did have a model for that

00:32:50.260 in an apartment building in Queens.

00:32:52.860 I love this apartment.

00:32:54.380 The only thing I don't love about this apartment is the train.

00:32:58.020 right there what do you love about this apartment it's just me it's just everything about it is me

00:33:05.480 i think it's very cozy i think it's very homey i think it's very inviting i know there's a lot

00:33:11.440 shit everywhere but did you ever feel like there were bad memories here like did you ever not feel

00:33:23.760 this way about this apartment? Initially, when the furniture that was here, when we lived here 0.98

00:33:28.080 together was here. When I was 11 years old, my father lost his battle with addiction in this

00:33:36.560 apartment. And it was such a chaotic time that I never worked through all the ways I felt betrayed.

00:33:46.400 Perhaps the hardest part to grapple with was understanding that in many ways,

00:33:51.280 my mom felt relief when he died.

00:33:54.480 That him dying was going to make her life easier.

00:33:59.260 All these years later, my mom has turned this apartment

00:34:02.140 into her favorite place in the world.

00:34:05.180 But for me, it's the place where I had the worst day of my life.

00:34:11.460 And it's always felt impossible for me to reconcile

00:34:14.400 how those two things can be true at once.

00:34:18.580 But that wasn't the whole story.

00:34:21.500 It was scary but a relief in a way.

00:34:26.340 Because I know you've heard me say this many times,

00:34:29.020 like I never knew what I would walk into

00:34:31.500 when I would come home behind that door.

00:34:33.540 It was always something, you know, just not good.

00:34:37.960 Just something always was happening.

00:34:39.820 Something was always stressful, critical, drama.

00:34:43.980 You know, I just never knew what the situation would be here behind that door.

00:34:47.000 and i felt very guilty saying that this is the best thing that could have happened to me but

00:34:53.040 truthfully it was because i just was able to take care of you and take care of myself

00:35:01.780 otherwise i couldn't do it i couldn't do it before why not because i couldn't go to work

00:35:08.720 because i didn't trust anyone to watch you i didn't know i couldn't leave you with dad because

00:35:13.000 I was afraid. And, um, and I just, I just didn't want to do it. I just felt like I

00:35:24.480 would somehow make it through and not worry about what's happening to you because that

00:35:28.880 was more important so yeah it's just it's hard to hear that because you know in some ways I feel

00:35:47.660 like there's a part of me that has felt like angry at you for feeling that way that it was a relief

00:35:54.900 to you, but I'm not thinking about the way it was a relief to you because of me.

00:36:05.420 For so many years, I blamed my mom's anger on everything that happened, but she was angry

00:36:12.560 because she couldn't pay the bills. She couldn't leave a child alone in the house. She couldn't 1.00

00:36:18.920 get a job and leave me, so she couldn't pay for a family on her own. She didn't have 1.00

00:36:24.900 anywhere to go. This was an economic problem as much as it was anything else. And it's

00:36:32.220 the story of so many people in America, especially women, especially mothers. Our freedoms are

00:36:41.200 dictated by our economic stability. And my mom, like so many other moms, had to learn 0.99

00:36:47.060 these lessons the hard way, but managed to keep our world spinning by building healthy communities.

00:36:53.860 Over the years, she's cultivated a chosen family of women who have been there for each other in 0.83

00:36:58.540 all kinds of ways, whether it's one of their Friday night cocktail parties or banding together

00:37:03.600 in times of crisis. Like in the days following my dad's death, when a constant stream of people

00:37:09.740 were coming in and out of our house to pay their respects. I'll tell you what I remember

00:37:13.640 immediately once he died my first instinct was how am I going to manage I remember people were 0.74

00:37:19.820 coming to pay shiva calls and all I was totally distracted by thinking to myself how the fuck am

00:37:26.660 I going to pay my rent I was already three months behind my rent when he died and I just didn't know

00:37:32.600 what I was going to do until all these friends came in and said we got it we got you and they

00:37:39.040 paid my back rent for three months. So I had a clean slate. And I was never in that kind of debt

00:37:45.920 again. Ever. I never got a credit card debt. I paid my credit card bills. I charged very little.

00:37:53.160 Whatever I could afford to pay is what I did. I always made sure to pay my rent. That was,

00:37:58.020 till this day, first thing I do is pay my rent. Because I never, ever want to consider the fact

00:38:03.600 that I won't have a place to live.

00:38:09.040 My mom sees her apartment as the place where she grew into the person and mother she wanted to be.

00:38:15.700 And that person learned that financial freedom is not about doing everything on your own.

00:38:21.160 It's about connecting and leaning on your community.

00:38:24.600 Are you inspired by Jamie's?

00:38:27.140 Yes. Totally. Totally, totally, totally. Yep.

00:38:32.680 Do you feel like she's educated you?

00:38:34.740 Yes, totally. Although for me, it takes me a while to get into that budgeting thing. I've been saying it since you started talking about it. I'm a big procrastinator when it comes to doing certain things. Tell me you want to go to TJ Maxx. I have my shoes on. I'm going.

00:38:53.520 right so maybe my mom didn't pass along the most practical financial wisdom

00:39:01.900 i didn't learn about credit cards or 401ks but why do we consider that to be the only

00:39:08.440 valuable financial advice based on one set of financial values and is that advice even working

00:39:14.820 after i sifted through the gaggle of trolls under the tiktok bridge

00:39:20.200 I found that their voices, while loud and angry,

00:39:23.280 were nothing compared to the many people who saw themselves in what I had to say.

00:39:27.880 Within a few months, there were tens of thousands of people following Jamie's journey.

00:39:31.760 She even started to get news coverage.

00:39:33.660 Jamie Feldman was once $20,000 in debt.

00:39:36.540 I have $13,000 of credit card debt currently.

00:39:38.760 And for Jamie Feldman, that's actually an improvement.

00:39:41.700 That's why this week we're chatting with Jamie Feldman.

00:39:43.840 Feldman says she's going to keep budgeting, bargain shopping, and putting cash into envelopes

00:39:48.760 until her debt is all paid off.

00:39:51.480 She kept getting stopped on the street

00:39:53.140 by people who recognized her, mostly young women. 1.00

00:39:55.820 Remember that one lady who made a beeline for you? 0.99

00:39:57.860 Oh God, of course.

00:39:58.640 How could I forget?

00:39:59.460 It was my Taylor Swift moment.

00:40:01.020 She dropped her bags and left her friends

00:40:02.400 and just like ran up to you and was like, I love you. 0.72

00:40:05.520 To be fair, I'm pretty sure she was drunk.

00:40:07.240 She was really drunk, but still.

00:40:09.840 The message was clear.

00:40:11.340 People do want to talk about debt.

00:40:13.880 They just needed someone to talk about it

00:40:15.560 in a different way than from what we usually hear.

00:40:17.260 as we kick off 2024 many of us are looking to get our financial houses in order every year the same

00:40:25.100 news outlets run the exact same segments telling you how to fix your financial problems i think a

00:40:29.740 lot of people wake up new year's morning like this looking at their bills from christmas and

00:40:33.300 you want to sort of dig yourself out of debt what's the best way to get started more or less

00:40:37.060 the same script now's the time when those bills from the holidays start rolling in and sometimes

00:40:40.780 they can throw you off budget and they always march out some expert yeah her tools and tips

00:40:44.700 to fortify our funds are all in her new book.

00:40:47.280 Usually somebody who's struck it rich 0.84

00:40:49.120 by being smart with money.

00:40:50.800 This budgeting method will change your life.

00:40:53.100 Of course, they've made it even more money

00:40:54.380 selling you a book or eight

00:40:55.620 about how you too can be smart with money.

00:40:58.180 But if this was such easy advice,

00:41:00.020 then it wouldn't be a problem

00:41:00.980 that only gets worse every year.

00:41:06.660 80% of American families carry consumer debt.

00:41:10.120 And 50% rely on credit cards just to get by.

00:41:13.260 A quarter of us have student loan debt.

00:41:15.440 Half of us has medical debt.

00:41:17.140 And all of us are more pessimistic than ever about being able to pay it off.

00:41:22.020 The predominant narrative about personal finance in our culture,

00:41:25.340 the one that's reinforced by those experts on daytime television,

00:41:29.020 is that we are failing.

00:41:31.020 That being in debt is an anomaly.

00:41:33.360 People in debt are the exception to the rule.

00:41:35.920 But we think we need a new narrative that asks a different question.

00:41:40.360 It's not who is failing at the system.

00:41:43.260 But who is the system failing?

00:41:46.000 Because the fact is, we are not an anomaly.

00:41:48.740 We're not the exception to the rule.

00:41:51.200 We are the rule.

00:41:53.580 What do you get when you burn through your plastic stacks?

00:42:01.260 A mouth full of honey ain't been funny, now you're stretching for cats.

00:42:08.260 Thanks for listening to Deadheads.

00:42:09.900 The rest of this five-part season is coming out starting on tax day, so it's probably already in your calendar.

00:42:15.600 How convenient.

00:42:16.760 While you wait, you can find bonus Deadhead subscriber content on our Patreon, get updates on the Deadhead sub-stack, follow us on TikTok and Instagram at Deadheadspodcast, and, I don't know, come over for dinner on Friday?

00:42:27.020 Yeah, seriously.

00:42:28.240 This project is made possible in part from a grant by the Elevate Creatives Fund.

00:42:31.960 Deadheads is written, produced, and edited by us, Jamie Feldman and Rachel Webster.

00:42:36.380 Our theme song is Pay for That Money by the Defibrillators.

00:42:38.860 Original music is composed by Ali Helmwine

00:42:41.620 Serena Chow fact-checked this episode

00:42:43.580 And it was mixed by Jeff Steely

00:42:45.280 Thanks to every woman who shared her debt story with us

00:42:48.360 You can learn more about how shame is used for profit

00:42:50.600 By picking up Cathy O'Neill's book, The Shame Machine

00:42:52.920 Special thanks to Dottie May Mershon and her momager, Jesse Errington

00:42:56.720 For making internet trolls sound adorable

00:42:58.540 And thanks to our family, especially Samantha Feldman for her endless support

00:43:01.980 And Moss Levinson for his creative guidance, moral support 0.98

00:43:04.820 And for keeping the motherfucking lights on 0.98

00:43:06.460 You gotta pay for the money, boy. You gotta pay for the money, boy. 0.99

00:43:20.000 We love you. Bye.

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Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - June 01, 2025

Sunday Nice Things： The Secret Lives of Debt Heads

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