How to Find Your Numbers & Create a Debt Payoff Plan | What Counts as Debt | 95

You know that your debt is probably the thing that's holding you back from the financial progress you want to make. So today we're going to identify it. How do we find those numbers? And then what do we do about it? And then we're going to create a plan on how to eliminate it. 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 practice, family budgeting tips, tough love strategies, and actionable steps to move toward debt free living without the fluff, the shame, or the confusion. 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, All right? So I've talked to a lot of families who swear I'm not really in that much debt. And then we dig into the accounts, we open things up. And the truth is, if you owe someone money and it's not paid for, that's debt. So today we're going to talk about what is debt? How do we find those numbers? And then what do we do about it? Because if you're listening to the show, you know that your debt is probably the thing that's holding you back from the financial progress you want to make.

So, so early on in our debt elimination journey, I had to get real honest and real serious about where we were. And one of the things that you have to do, and this is exactly what I did, was to just pull all the numbers together. And because there was a little bit here and a little bit there and maybe you've got some buy now pay laters and you caught these things everywhere. And so it just feels like there's so much going on and then it feels like it's just super overwhelming. Today's episode is about just getting some clarity so that you can make the best decision possible for you and your family and what it like what it looks like to move forward and move past this space, maintaining your debt.

So the one thing is debt won't disappear if we don't log in and look at the numbers. And I know like that's like it's like mount close more, right? We can't just close the laundry room door and it disappear. So that's kind of the same thing when it comes to our debt is. So let's get a game plan in place. Let's look at the numbers and then just tackle it head on. And the cool thing is you don't have to do this alone. And so I'll tell you a little bit more about that later, but OK, what constitutes debt?

And it is anything that you have borrowed, money that you have borrowed that hasn't been paid back yet. So that could be anything like credit cards. That's really the easiest one, even if those, even if you, you know, don't carry a balance and you pay those off. So credit cards, personal loans, car loans, student loans, medical bills that you have payments on, buy now, pay later. So that's a for Clarina after pay all of those types of things, maybe you have some payday loans, money that you owe to family or friends and then any of those old collections or charge offs.

Those don't vanish either. So what doesn't count as debt is things that you pay monthly on in full. So like rent or utilities, that type of stuff and then expenses that you haven't borrowed for. So, so the best way to think about it is if it's something that follows you month to month and has an interest rate or a payment plan that counts as debt. So I also includes a mortgage if you pay that. That's something we're going to talk about a little bit later, but we want to tackle that consumer debt.

So those are the things like I just explained that are weighing over you and causing you, it feels like driving with the emergency brake on when you're trying to make financial progress. So one thing that's super common that I hear is, you know, like I said at the beginning, we don't have that much debt, but it's OK because there's zero interest or I'm going to pay that off soon or it's just medical, right? Because we need to take care of ourselves. We need to take care of our families. And then this is one of my favorites that just this just, it just really gets under my skin.

Everyone has a car payment or I don't even use that card anymore. So some of the things, the car payment thing is something that I had a really hard time with when we first got a car payment because I grew up not having car payments. So I had seen that. But now knowing how much of A burden a car payment is and how that's an episode for another day. But those are some common excuses that I hear and that I've heard people say. And so this isn't to cause shame or anything like that, but we're just going to, I'm just going to call it the way I see it, right?

Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't necessarily mean it's the healthy thing to do, right? And you can decide what is best for you and your family. For our family, we have decided that having, having any type of debt, we don't even have a credit card is something that's super important for us because we don't, we're not destroyed by the things of maintaining debt. So 0 interest does not mean that has zero impact on your life. And just because we ignore debt and we don't, you know, we kind of put the blinders on.

Maybe it's like shutting laundry room door doesn't mean that it's not there and that it's still stealing mental energy from us. So all right, we've talked about what debt is and maybe some common things. Maybe you thought those thought those things about debt that it's OK because it's zero interest. The thing is, we spend our money differently when we're spending someone else's money. I'm going to talk about that on the upcoming episode with my daughter because we had that interesting conversation over winter break.

Is she wanted to spend she wanted to spend my money and not the money that she got for for Christmas. And that led to a really interesting conversation. So more on that in an upcoming episode. But where do we find our debt numbers? OK, Now this, this exercise today, I don't want you to following through on action plans. So today's focus and today's action is going to just be getting your numbers together. I'm going to give you 3 places that you can get those so that you can have a full picture on what it looks like.

Because as we venture into the $1,000,000 debt payoff here on the Debt Rebel podcast, we are, this is a very important part of the process is just see where we are so that you can keep track and know as you're making progress on eliminating these debts that we can celebrate together. So three places you can look. One super easy place is your credit report. Now those numbers might not necessarily be up to date because they, you know, based on how you paid last month, those those balances might not be exactly right, but it's going to give you a decent picture.

That's also great if there's some accounts maybe you've forgotten about, maybe they're not currently paying on maybe their charge offs or ones that are gone to collections, that type of stuff. So you'll be able to see those. There are free websites to find your credit report so that you should not have to pay for that. And so make sure you check those out. The next 1 is when you do have lenders that you have online accounts set up is check the dashboards. So log into those accounts and write that down.

So the things, the two things that are going to be most important in creating your plan are writing down the balance and then writing down the minimum payment. So you could, if you wanted to write the interest rate in there and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a future episode, but you can see about reducing that interest rate so that can change in the future. And then the next one is your bank statements. So this is a great spot to find those sneaky little forgotten things. Maybe those buy not pay laters is look for reoccurring payments.

So those buy not pay laters that you know, Amazon, you know, installment payments, that kind of stuff. It'll look at those and and make sure that you're adding those in. OK, so the tip for this is set a timer 15 minutes. So I love sharing 15 minute tips on this. My these episodes are under 15 minutes on purpose because sometimes that's all we have. So this is not today's episode isn't about going just, you know, full into this whole process. It's just collecting numbers. We're not going to be making decisions on anything.

We're not going to be calling creditors and we're not going to be doing any of that stuff. We're going to be collecting the information. And when you collect the information, fight the urge to go down the overthinking spiral rabbit hole. I find myself doing this sometimes. So just set that timer so that you've got a beginning and an end. And we're not going to create your payment. We're not going to create your payoff plan yet. We're not going to judge past decisions, we're not going to start Googling the best debt strategies, and you're definitely not going to compare yourself to anyone else about how long, you know, if they paid off $80,000 in six months or whatever.

This step is just about awareness and not about perfection. So it is just having that face to face with yourself in the mirror and going, this is where we are and then we're going to talk about what's next. So in the next episode we'll talk about that. But one action step that you can take after finding those numbers is I will help you choose the right strategy, help you stop guessing, and also help you move faster through this whole process without stress. Because as if you've listened to the show for very long or if you're brand new to the show, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to episode 1.

My story. I grew up knowing how to live within my means, have a degree in economics and still got into $107,000 a day. So if we want to talk about the feeling of shame and guilt and we should know better, I have lived it and experienced it in a very, very small way. And so that's why I'm super passionate about helping families eliminate debt because it is allowed our family to show up differently for each other and for ourselves and just for our community because we've been able to make decisions based on what's right for our family and not make decisions based on what's right for our bank account.

So hey, that sounds good to you. I want to invite you to a workshop that I'm hosting. It's 15 minutes to money clarity. Again, 15 minutes. It doesn't have to take a lot of time to manage your, your family finances, but check out that workshop at Jewels, the Budget nerd.com/workshop. That's JEWLZ, the budget nerd.com/workshop and it's a 15 minute workshop. I'm teaching it live for this first first few weeks of 2026 to help us get started in the debt. The $1,000,000 debt elimination, the $1,000,000 debt payoff for the listeners of the show and the members of and within our membership.

So I would love for you to join me there. Once you have those numbers, then we're going to get to work on that. So stay tuned for the next episode because we're going to talk. We have clarity first, confidence 2nd, and then the freedom follows. And that's what we're doing here on the Debt Rebel show this year. Before, before I leave you, I want to remind you that you are not behind in your money. You are not bad with money and you're getting honest. And that's a huge brave step in this journey. So if you owe on anything, we're going to count that as debt.

And then once we count it, once we count it, then we can get started on eliminating it. So I'm so excited to see you jump in the workshop and take a peek at the membership. We will see you inside. Thank you for tuning into the Debt Rebel show today. Ready to take your family budgeting to the next level? Stop that paycheck to paycheck grind and start living debt free. Head over to my website debtrebelpodcast.com. That's DEBTRE delpodcast.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. We'll talk soon. Debt Rebel.

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