36. Debt Series Part 1: Mindset + Your Debt Inventory

 Taylor Gilbert (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Social Work to Wealth podcast, Taylor here, and it's just me today, my first solo episode. I have really been wanting to share more about personal finance. I think our podcast has really done a good job. We've been really leaning into the social work career, non-traditional paths, really, Faith and I really just want to give you some...
exposure to all the things that we can do with our degree because it's so dynamic. And so I think, it's important for us to continue the money conversation in those, you know, to have the money conversation in those episodes, talk about salary, talk about debt. But I really want to like, I think that conversation is important for us as you all know, but I also
don't want to get too far away from me actually sharing personal finance tips and realistic resources for you.
because that's kind of how this all started. I had my husband and I, I counted up our debt in May 2022 and we had $277,000 of debt and most of that was student loans, but we did have credit card, some furniture stuff. so social work to wealth was born out of me and just
my journey in learning about personal finance and just really seeing the power of this just information and how gate-kept it is. And so I think I want to just come on and I don't want to try I don't want to overwhelm you with information but I think alongside the career conversation, salary career advancement conversation, I want you to have
personal finance, resources and helping you think about your money and, and, if you get that well-paying job, okay, now what do you do with that salary? we talk about how amazing it would be to have a six figure salary or, whatever salary, lets you live the life that you want. That could be, it could, it could be anything. But once you get that, once you secure that, then what do we do? How do we pay off our debt?
How do we invest? How do we save for our future? ⁓ How do we build wealth in a way that feels aligned with us
So yeah, this personal finance piece is really important to me. ⁓ I'm still kind of on the path to becoming a financial planner. I think, I have been doing money coaching with people and I have supported them through, paying off debt, setting up a budget and all of that. And that gives me a lot of joy and fills my cup. But I also want to, further my education in terms of like the financial planning piece.
I'm learning stuff about like really in-depth investing stuff, taxes, estate planning, insurance, ⁓ like once you're able to find a budget that works for you or find a cashflow system that works for you, pay off your debt. Like how do you, how do you optimize your money and, and create a plan that keeps you and your family safe too? You know, if something happens. So I want to be able to support people. I've,
I've been in the trenches of helping people with paying off the debt and the budgeting and the cashflow stuff, very foundational personal finance, things, but I want to be able to support those individuals throughout their whole life, essentially. And so that's why I'm on the path that I am. And I'd love to share all that I'm learning with you because...
I think it's, I think it's, well, obviously I think it's interesting, but I think it's so impactful to our ability to live the way that we want to and show up in the way that we want to and be the social workers that we want to. And yeah, this, access to this information is just, it's, it's challenging, to know who do you trust? And, ⁓ also, does this person, do you feel comfortable
Talking to this person about money, it's a very white male dominated space ⁓ So Anyways That is my little my little spiel about this. So I'm gonna pop in here and maybe do some personal finance episodes here and there and Yeah, so
This conversation is gonna be about debt, as I'm sure you've already seen by the title. I'll probably split this up into a couple different episodes, but yeah, I'm hoping to kind of give you some practical tips on how to think about your debt, how to approach your debt, strategies for paying it off.
But before I get into the debt conversation, I just want to say really quick, not sure if you've seen, I've shared on social media this past week that Faith and I have gotten the podcast approved to provide continuing education credits. So we are so, so, so, so excited about this. ⁓ More details to come. But if you want updates about that, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to join our newsletter.
So the general newsletter, I share everything. I share salaries, I share personal finance information, know, ⁓ events, just all sorts of resources. But then there's also a separate little newsletter that is just for the continuing education information. And so if you just want that, you can sign up for that. But ⁓ yeah, you're going to be able to listen to the podcast and get continuing education credits. How amazing is that? It's not going to be every episode, but.
Yeah, well, we're going to share more details about that soon. So anyways, just wanted to share that really quick. Get on ⁓ the email list to be updated.
Okay, let's talk about debt. So I think for me and the people that I support, I think that one huge thing is this mindset piece. And I know that sounds super cliche, but I think it's true. I feel like there are some, there's sometimes people think they're, they just assume they can't do it. I'm never going to be able to pay off my debt. I'm going to die with it.
Um, Brett and I also thought that too. was just like, well, this is just the reality of our lives and we'll just try to manage it the best we can. But then I saw a different reality. People online sharing like, oh, it paid off while we're dead and we're retiring early and all these things.
that sparked curiosity in me of like, whoa, okay, so you can pay off your debt. You can pay off significant amount of your debt and not have it feel like such a burden. That sounds nice. I'm also, I wanna acknowledge that it's a really hard financial time for a lot of people.
And I'm not here to tell you to spend less. I think it's more nuanced than that. And I know that, we're in a profession where there's a range of salaries and some people are living, some of you just may not have a really high salary and that makes it hard to reach your financial goals. And so, maybe that's a separate conversation of like, how can we find a way for you to just make more money? Sometimes that's
Sometimes just that's just the answer. But what I am here to do is just give you tips and guidance, take what you can and leave the rest. So I think for me, what was really helpful in the beginning of our journey was just understanding the debt situation. I kind of compare this as a psychosocial assessment.
but psychosocial assessment of your debt, what are we working with? We can't make a plan without understanding what the current situation is. And so the first step for me, typically when I'm working with people, and the first step for me in our journey was listing out all of the debts and really understanding
okay, how much do we owe? What's our minimum payment? What are the interest rates? Like, when is this due?
doing that exercise is really going to help you have a full understanding of your debt. And so I call it a debt inventory to help you organize all of this information. I will link a little downloadable PDF in the show notes.
So this is to help you organize all of this information. There's a column for the creditor, total amount owed, interest rate, AKA APR, and monthly payment and due date. And so honestly, this might take you a while to complete. So give yourself some grace. you'll have to dig in, especially if you have credit cards. They really like to hide the interest rate, which...
is on purpose. yeah, but sometimes with the interest rate with your credit cards, you might have to, go back into one of your bank statements, like credit card statements, and actually look, okay, and try to find the interest rate. It will say APR.
And I know this can be a really intimidating process and just...
we depending on where you're at, you might be like, no, I'm not ready. I'm not mentally. I am not ready to think about that. I'm not ready to confront that right now because I know it's stressful. if you have $20,000 credit card balance or your student loans are over six figures, logging into that, those accounts and just seeing that number, I completely understand how challenging that is. And so
maybe you're not ready that's okay too but this might be this might be a little hard this might be you you might have to push yourself out of your comfort zone I think that's how you can move forward in this journey is one just taking it one step at a time we're all on our own timeline but I'm sorry to say this and I say this with love you're going to have to get uncomfortable
Right? and we tell that to people in our lives, you know, that we work with, our clients. Change is not always comfortable.
especially with money, we don't talk about it, you Most of us are like, I don't know what's happening. I just don't even think about it. we just kind of like put our money over there in a box and we don't think about it. But.
You have to grow your relationship with your money and I want you to think about it in that way
because money is integral in everything that we do. Everything, money, know, that stupid saying money makes the world go around, it is so influential in so many things that we do that I want you to have a good relationship with it. We, I want us to get there, but to get there, one, you got to spend time with it.
right? We gotta nurture the relationship and sometimes it's gonna be uncomfortable but I do believe that you can get there
Don't be so hard on yourself. but
you will need to spend time doing this.
Just like any other relationship with our lives, we have to spend time, quality time, nurture it, all of that good stuff.
So the headline of today, the moral of the story, TLDR is you got this, you can get there. It's gonna be uncomfortable. I'm not gonna say it's gonna be easy, but I believe that you can make some progress in whichever way that you want, but you're gonna need to spend some time.
Okay. And then understanding your debt. need a, we need a psychosocial assessment. need a, we need an assessment of the situation. So this is listing out your debts using this printable that I will link in the show notes, putting who you owe, how much you owe them, interest rate, minimum monthly payment, due date. This is just organizing the information. I love organization.
But I think also this exercise will help you figure out, OK, what are even my passwords for all of these things? And I highly recommend keeping those in a little note.
or finding a password app. love Keeper. I'll put the link to that one in the show notes, but just something where it's like, okay, you know when I need to get in my student loan account, because I think that's the other thing that makes a lot of the stressful is like, I don't even know my password, and you try to log in and it's, you're locked out because you too many attempts. Like we need to make this process as easy for you as possible going forward to try to manage all of this. And so
Get your passwords organized, write out all your debts, and just start there. And it might take you a while to do this.
you might need to take breaks because you're just too stressed. Whatever you need to do. But I think this is a if you want to move forward in your debt payoff journey and start paying off your debt, this is a good first step. So hopefully that was helpful. I'm excited to just drop these short little episodes for you about personal finance tips and things.
So thanks so much for listening. And our regularly scheduled episode will drop next Monday, so stay tuned for that.