The Hidden Costs of Debt: Emotional, Financial & Family Toll No One Talks About | Judgment Free Finances | 90

0:00 Debt doesn't just cost money, it costs sleep, confidence, opportunities, and peace. So today we're going to be breaking down the real cost, the invisible cost that people don't talk about. Hey there, I'm Jules, the budget nerd, and welcome to the Debt Rebel show. This is the place where working families like yours learn how to stop living paycheck to paycheck, crush debt for good, and build a life where money actually works for your family. In about 15 minutes, I'll share practical family budgeting tips, tough love strategies, and the actionable steps to move toward debt free living without the fluff, the shame or the confusion.

0:37 And I know a thing or two about this. My family and I have eliminated over $107,000 in consumer debt. And that was after I got my degree in economics. So stay tuned. This is going to be a great episode. So grab that coffee, your planner, whatever you need to make this a great experience. Maybe a snack if you're like me. And let's make your money work for your family. That is costing us so much more than money. It cost us sleep, confidence, opportunities, peace, all right? And it's costing us time with our families.

1:12 So today we are going to be breaking down the real cost, the invisible cost, the things that we don't like to talk about. But today we're here for it and we are talking about it. So stick around, right? Debt cost us so much. Oh, if you are brand new to the show, First off, welcome. I am very glad that you're here. And second of all, I want to share a little bit of a back story because so about myself because this is going to be helpful to understand how much debt is actually costing us, right? I was raised how to live within my means.

1:50 I got a degree in economics and then my husband and I got together and we bought a house and a thing is kind of went sideways from there. So we couldn't make our first mortgage payment because we put all of our money into buying our home. And then it just got like our finances got to be such a disaster. So we ended up over $107,000 in consumer debt, all types, you know, credit cards, car payments, that kind of stuff. And it was, it was out of control. And so we realized we needed to do something differently.

2:25 And so now we are debt free. We have a little bit of a mortgage left to go and then we'll be completely debt free. But we don't have any more consumer debt, so we don't use credit cards to fund our daily life anymore. I don't even have a credit card in my name that I know of. That is one of the things. A little side note there, I do check my credit once a year to make sure that there aren't any new accounts open in my name. My family and I, we've decided not to use debt to fund our day-to-day life.

2:53 That's why I called the show the Debt Rebel podcast because we found that being debt free to us was of such high value because of the lifestyle that we were able to live now versus when we quote, UN quote, had all the things and we were buying things and doing things and spending money without a plan. Our life is so much better now. And I think that's one of the things I, I could kind of like see it in like a OK, like, yeah, alright. And then now that we're there, I look at my husband and he even says that he's like, we are so much better now than when we were using, you know, credit cards for groceries and all that kind of stuff.

3:35 Like we, our life is so much better. So we can talk about the dollars and cents. We can talk about the interest on credit cards and the loans and payments and we can talk about the fees that come in and when we're late, we missed the card. We had a credit card for the airline miles that we were just putting all of our auto pays on and paying it every single pay period. So that never had a balance, but there were fees to have that card and then there were fees. There was a fee because I forgot to pay it in one month because I lost track of time, which is something that happens to me very often.

4:09 So we don't have that credit card anymore because of a bunch of reasons. And I still need to record that episode. Oh my gosh, that's a good one. Why we don't have a airline mile credit card because that's something that others will say, Hey, you should do this. And this is really good for us. We found it wasn't. And so I'll tell you about that in a future episode. But we, when you have those kinds of things that the dollars and cents cost of it is you're, you're paying, you're spending tomorrow's money, which means you are losing that future cash flow that you could be spending on something else.

4:41 And you get into this snowball, not the good kind of snowball effect where it's like, OK, just it's just one more payment. But when we think it's just one more payment and then we have more maxed out on all of our other things, it can lead to some really, it can really lead to some stressful times. And so this is where we get into the hidden psychological costs that a lot of people don't talk about because we might have been taught not to talk about our money. And so this is where the shame of our money decisions come in.

5:12 So we carry around this debt shame with us. And so when I say we, I mean I have added hello, I had a degree in economics and I knew, I knew, right? I should have known better, but there we were. So we, I was carrying around that debt. Shame. I wanted to avoid the things, the habits that were going to help us put a spending plan in place, a budget in place that was going to be helpful. It put a strain on my relationship, let me tell you. So my husband and I, we used to, we used to argue about the littlest things.

5:44 And now we, because of the way that we have our budget set up and then we have our, our money management, our money spending plan set up, we don't argue about money anymore. We have discussions about what we think is best for the next best step. Like right now we're talking about replacing a vehicle. And so we're having a little bit more conversation about that. But we because we have set up the system the way that we have, we don't have that kind of tension anymore because we're not spending a future stuff without talking to each other.

6:16 And the other thing is, is when we use, when we use credit and debt to fund our life, it helps. It is it's increasing the decision fatigue. So what I mean by that is you're going to go back and you're going to, you'll see, OK, I got my credit card statement this month. And then not only do you have an extra payment to make because, but you're also going to be looking back at like those past decisions and you have more stuff to ruminate and think about. And so when I spend money, I spend it one time and I spend it with intention because it's in our budget.

6:50 And yes, there are some things that are a little bit more loose so that I'm not like, OK, I know I'm going to, I know I'm going to buy a pair of shoes on Wednesday afternoon at 1:00 PM. It's not like that. So it's going to help you when you live with it, when you live within your means and you have this budget set up, it's going to cut down on that decision fatigue. All right, And this one, the one day I'll get a head feeling or that constant thought of like one day I'm going to figure this out.

7:20 That right there is so taxing on our emotions and our mental health because it is just one of those things where you just don't feel like you can get ahead. So those are some of the psychological costs, rate of debt. So let's talk about the ways that debt is costing us in our day-to-day life. So this is a big one for my family. Some of the things that it can be costing you are delayed goals. Maybe you have less flexibility and you're missing out on some experiences or you're setting, you're settling for that survival mode instead of building wealth and then creating a life for your family that you want.

8:04 So what I mean by all these things are this is the perfect example when and my husband and I set a goal to become debt free, We didn't know what was coming next, right? So we just knew that this way of life was not serving us anymore and we needed to make some decisions and we needed to make a plan that was going to work for us because one, we didn't want it to end our marriage, but also we were just tired and we didn't want to we didn't want to do that anymore. So Fast forward, we renewed our wedding vows at 10 years, which just happened to be our debt free celebration.

8:43 We had a little party with our friends, renewed our wedding vows, it was really fun. And then the next month I got pregnant with my daughter. We thought we couldn't have kids of our own. My husband's oldest is well, 21 years older than her younger sister. One of the things that is so that I am so grateful for in the fact that we had set that goal and we worked really hard to get there was now that my, at that point, my daughter was coming along as a couple, we were able to make that decision whether or not one of us is going to stay home to be with her.

9:17 In those earlier years, we could make those decisions based on what we wanted our life to look like versus a financial decision. So it gave us that flexibility, but it also meant that we weren't going to have to miss out on certain things because we needed to go to work to pay for our debts, pay for things that we'd already purchased. We could pay for today, today. And so, yeah, we had to shift our life around a little bit because we weren't going to have a second income anymore. But we were fine.

9:47 We were had, we had all of our needs met. We our expenses were a lot lower because we weren't paying 5800, you know, 508 hundred thousand dollars, $2000 a month in debt. Fast forward after my daughter was born, my younger sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was staying home with my daughter at the time and my sister has three young girls. As my sister was going through her surgeries and her chemotherapy and her radiation, all of her doctor's appointments, I was able to go with her. I was able to be there for my nieces and to be there for my sister, which God forbid, I hope no one has to go through that experience ever.

10:30 It's terrible. But I am so grateful because we had our finances organized the way that we did that I was able to be there with her. And so when we talk about missing out on experiences, I'm not necessarily talking about like missing out on a Disneyland trip or all of those things are fantastic. But I'm talking about we don't know what tomorrow holds. And when we have those opportunities to be there for people that we care about and that we love, there's no price tag for that. And so when I talk about the debt is costing us in big ways, this could be 1.

11:06 And so we didn't know what the what was coming. But those are two big things that have changed. I have changed my life in a really huge way because we set that goal. My husband and I, we don't, we don't operate in survival mode anymore because we don't have to worry about, you know, a $2000, you know, payments for all of our debts. We just spend with what we what we have and we have created a lifestyle for ourselves that works in that way. The other thing is when we got out of debt, it felt like this, like the interesting feeling was, you know, I kind of talked about it before, like my husband's like, yeah, we're we feel like they're doing a lot better than we were when we had all of this debt, right.

11:54 And so, you know, I talked a little bit about this already. We already have we have more control. And so while we don't know what tomorrow holds, it could be really amazing things and it could be something that we don't want. It could be some really amazing things and then it could be some things that are not so amazing. But when we have maxed out ourselves financially, then it doesn't allow us to show up in other ways that we want for our family and for our loved ones. So one of the things too that we found was getting out of debt felt like we were giving ourselves a raise.

12:27 And so it was really interesting because when we we shifted from that mentality of just, you know, just put it on a credit card and we'll deal with it later. And then just spending the money that we had, life became a lot easier to manage. So one, we had more energy. And I'm not talking necessarily about like, you know, physical energy or anything like that, but like we had more energy to like think like positively. And not until I dream about things again, because we didn't feel like we were, we were stuck anymore.

12:59 We had more control over our life because we didn't have to make payments to someone that had control over us when we owed money. And then we just generally had a we just felt more confident in our spending. When we spend money now, it's not this, this anxiety or it's not a negative feeling. It's this is going to accomplish our goal. And sometimes the goal is to like have a really fun Saturday afternoon with our daughter at the arcade or sometimes it's doing something else. It doesn't. When I am, when I talk about that kind of stuff, it doesn't necessarily have to be these, you know, these big things.

13:38 It could be what do you want your life to look like? What are some things you want experiences you want to give your family and be able to organize your money so that you're able to do those things. And so one of the things, the thing that we have found is not having debt because one, it's expensive, not just the financial cost, but like we just talked about all of the, and the emotional costs and things like that. So that's why I'm super excited about what's coming in 2026 because we, when I mean, we, I mean, you and I, listeners of this show are going to, and I'm going to lead you through this because I'm so excited and I see so much value in this is eliminating $1,000,000 of debt in 2026.

14:27 So in 2026, this show is going to help make a massive dent in America's debt problem. And so I'm not talking about our national debt. I am talking about your debt. So let's eliminate $1,000,000 of debt as a community, right? OK, would that be amazing? So maybe you're thinking, oh, you know what? I don't know how much I have maybe about 20, maybe about 30, I don't know. This is this is the time we're going to, I'm going to walk you through how to do it, what we did. And if you want to get started right now and jump into jump into the the early stages of it and get started before 2026, get to my website at the Debt Rebel art.

15:12 Go to my website, debtrebelpodcast.com and grab your debt Rebel starter kit. That is going to be that first step to joining the rebellion. And I'll tell you a little bit more about that when you grab that, I want to remind you that you deserve a life that you you deserve. You don't have to finance, OK? You can pay cash for it and it's going to be amazing. And I would love to be a part of your journey. All right, we'll see in the next episode. Thank you for tuning into the Debt Rebel show today. Ready to take your family budgeting to the next level?

15:42 Stop that paycheck to paycheck grind and start living debt free. Head over to my website, debtrebelpodcast.com. That's DEBT REBEL podcast.com to grab resources, tools and tips to make it happen. And don't forget, subscribe, leave a review. And if you know another family that will love hearing today's episode, it would be such a gift for both of us, your friend and me. If you share this episode and remember your debt free life starts with one brave step and I'm cheering you on every step of the way.

16:18 We'll talk soon. Debt Rebel.