How To Deal With The Emotional Stress of Debt

Being in debt can be extremely stressful and emotional and it can be pretty tough to deal with. In today’s episode we are going to talk about how to emotionally deal with debt and what are some tips I can give you.

0:00 – Introduction
0:50 – For me I started just living in denial
1:35 – #1: Admit that you stuffed up
3:18 – #2: Don’t feel shame about those mistakes
4:13 – #3: Write down ALL of your debts and minimum repayments
5:05 – #4: Let yourself be overwhelmed
6:05 – #5: Think about what you’re afraid of losing
8:09 – #6: Organise a short term budget
9:16 – #7: Take the long view
10:19 – #8: Have the hard conversations
10:44 – #9: Talk to people you trust and who won’t judge you
12:57 – #10: Look to expand your income and your life
15:03 – #11: Recognise you will have bad moments and bad days
15:52 – #12: Accept that you’re going to have to sacrifice things
16:55 – #13: Find ways to make your life amazing without a lot of money
18:38 – #14: Spend A LOT of time educating yourself
19:42 – You’ve got this! You can do this!

Recommended Videos:

How To Get Out of A Debt Hole

The 15-Minute Budget

How To Deal With Debt Collectors

Transcription:

Ryan 0:00
being in debt can be extremely stressful and extremely emotional and it can be pretty tough to deal with it i’ve personally been in a lot of debt i’m still in debt but i kind of feel like i’m on top of it now but in today’s episode i’m gonna walk down to my van because it’s just it’s a comforting space and i love being down there and we’re going to talk about okay how did i actually emotionally deal with being in debt and what sort of tips can i give you i do want to say that this is not a video about dealing with debt collectors i don’t have any experience with that so i’ll link out to a video down below if that’s you and also i’m not a qualified psychologist or anything like that i’ve had depression and anxiety in my own life but if you need professional help please go ahead and seek it so here we are at the van let’s go ahead and open it up but how do you deal with the emotional stress of debt for me to start with i just lived in denial i did a couple months where i was just in complete denial about my debt in case you’re wondering what’s in this box it’s like all my notes for this episode as well as some filming gear so when we’re in here we can set ourselves up pretty well but i absolutely love this fan hi it’s not in the best condition at the moment but i’d love to fix it up hopefully in future videos we can go on some adventures and actually film you know add some cool places in this van so i think the first thing and i’ll go ahead and sit down or set up this tripod in a minute but the first thing is actually admitting that you stuffed up admitting that you’ve done wrong admitting that your past self you weren’t as ideal of a human as you probably should have been you made some dumb choices you spent money in ways that you shouldn’t have you got yourself into debt you over committed and now you’re in a difficult situation and i think admitting that okay i’ve actually made mistakes to get myself to this point but the person that made those mistakes that that was passed me that was passed ryan that did that and that ryan didn’t know what he knows today i didn’t know that it would lead me to this situation or if i did i didn’t have the ability and the willpower to make a better decision but i’m learning and i’m getting better and i can’t completely judge myself what i did yes

i did wrong yes i should have done better but that’s done that’s in the past now all i can focus on now is okay what can i actually do to move myself forward and to get better and so admitting that you’ve made mistakes in the past i think is a really great way to emotionally deal with it but then also putting that on your past self and saying that was who i used to be that was previous decisions that i’ve made i now have a decision of how i’m going to move forward with my life and with paying off the debt that becomes really empowering so let’s go ahead and get comfortable and set this up my short term goal is actually to convert this into a working desk so we’re going to take out this shelf and this is actually the perfect height to sit on and i’m going to use my sq here as the seat so let’s go ahead and sit down okay so we’ve admitted that we’ve made some past mistakes in our life i think it’s really important to not feel shame about those mistakes and that’s what we talked about with okay our past self did this that was their decision their mistakes i should have known that i didn’t oh well let’s not feel shame about that it’s completely normal to fuck up it’s completely normal to make mistakes in your life i know people who are way older than me who are making heaps of mistakes in their life and i thought as i got older i would stop making mistakes but i still do dumb shit all the time so don’t feel shame about that it’s normal to stuff up and try to get better actually puts you above the pack so listen to something like this how to deal with this and the fact they actually thinking about okay how can i move past this debt how can i become debt free that puts you massively above the pack i think it’s also really important to write down all of your debts so go ahead and grab a sheet of paper and actually go ahead and write down okay here’s all of the debts that i have here’s the full owing amount on them here’s the interest that i pay on them as well and here’s the minimum repayment so i think looking at the total number of debt that you have the one figure when you combine everything together and then also looking at okay what is my monthly minimum repayment for my credit card or weekly or fortnightly payments for my car loan or whatever debt it is look at okay total amount that’s the big figure that’s what we’re going to be tackling but then minimum monthly repayment means creditors aren’t going to come after us so what is that amount combined because you need to be able to earn enough money to pay that amount at least so you can reach an equilibrium in your life and when you write it all down like let yourself be overwhelmed seriously when i wrote mine down i don’t think i cried but i think i had like a holy moly moment and i was just like oh my god what the what has happened how did i end up in this situation how is it this bad and i think i just like let it wash over me for an hour or two or a day definitely had times where i’ve just been like wow this is intense but writing it down admitting it not being in denial and letting the overwhelm wash over you you can’t stay in a state of overwhelm forever and so eventually you kind of just like okay this is my number this is my mountain to climb this this

this is my debt hole to get out of like this is why not and you kind of get a sense of realism from it and i think at this point in time as well a lot of the fear that comes with debt is actually fear of loss we fear of losing things in our life so you might fear of losing your house or losing your possessions or losing getting a bad credit rating and losing your ability to borrow in the future and so something that i kind of wish i did more in hindsight is look at okay what am i actually afraid of losing what damage am i afraid of causing for me i was so focused on my children that were in private school at the time and that was really good for their emotional like support during the separation that we had so for me i just remember my focus being on that and it’s like i don’t want to lose the ability to be able to pay this for my kids when it’s really helping them emotionally and so for me that was like my biggest fear was that but there’s other fears as well like i had to live with my parents i had a fear of not having my own place that i had to deal with and i had to let go off maybe it’s a car maybe it’s a house maybe it’s a business need to look at okay what am i afraid of and look at what’s my worst case scenario let’s say i do have to go bankrupt let’s say i do have to lose everything in my life what does worst case scenario look like and sometimes looking at that and saying okay i would lose everything starting from scratch but i can actually go out and get another job and be in an okay position after i go bankrupt sure and i’ll be able to buy a house in the near future but that’s okay i can still build up a business or invest in shares or do something else so analyze your fear and what you’re afraid of look at that worst case scenario and think okay is it actually that bad because chances are your worst case scenario isn’t that bad for me my worst case scenario was actually you need to go and get a full time job and the worst case scenario with that was just a lot of time management not being able to pick my kids up from school and stuff like that but it was doable so what was i afraid of losing have a look at that then it comes down to like okay we’ve written down our number we know our minimum repayments and then comes down to short term budgeting for those and to make sure we can meet our minimum repayments this was the hardest thing for me in the short term because i didn’t have enough money coming in to actually make my payments and that is where like things get really stressful and if i’m honest with you i kind of like robbed from peter to give to paul is that the way like i kind of went into more debt in order to meet my minimum repayments in the short term is not something that i advise people to do definitely not but short term you need to budget for those repayments and work out okay how am i actually going to make them so i don’t get into more debt i’ve got a video on the 15 minute budget which is how i do my budget and get an idea of all this sort of stuff i’ll link up to that down below or here at onproperty com dudu forward slash budget and you can download a cheat sheet and the template over there but short term budgeted to make sure i would meet my minimum repayments on not getting into more debt and then something that my partner advise me to do is to take a long view take a view of the future 10 years five years are you going to always be in this amount of debt are you going to always be in debt and i was like no i’m not i’m gonna work my ass off so i can pay this off okay well in five and 10 years five to 10 years you’re going to have no debt you’re not going to be stressing about this so stop stressing so much about it now and i was like well that’s easy to say because in five or 10 years i won’t have it but right now i’m struggling to pay the minimum repayments but even still that activity of taking a longer view and to saying okay eventually i’m going to be out of this the amount of pressure i’m putting on myself the amount of stress i’m putting on myself the amount of anxiety that i have over this this is going to be a problem of the past someday someday in the future this won’t be a problem anymore but something i look back on i don’t need to stress as much as i’m stressing now and having that long view kind of helped me with that also have those hard conversations with your spouse or your partner if you’ve gotten into debt together if you’re in a bad situation together i know they’re not fun to have those financial conversations but to be like okay let’s get real this is where we’re at and having those and getting on board together and moving forward together is going to be extremely helpful and for me you know

having those hard conversations were difficult but that also helped to remove a lot of the shame as well i shared my debt figure with people in my life who i trusted the first person being ben everingham buyer’s agent from pumped on property i work really closely with i shared he was the first person that i shared my total debt finger with and like here’s how much debt i actually have and he was the best person to tell because he was like dude you’ve got this he’s like is that is that all you’ve got that you can easily tackle that he’s like trying to trade with me my situations are way worse he has properties and things like that so his debt was good debt but he had a lot more than idea and so he’s like you want to trade and we made a joke out of it but having people in your life that you can get real with that won’t judge you is super valuable now i have people in my life that i’ve told my debt figure to and they’ve kind of freaked out and they’ve not been encouraging to me and more been angry at me for getting in that position they’re not necessarily the people that you want to tell if it’s your spouse or something like that or your partner that you need to tell then sure you got to you got to go down that path but if it’s your friends or things like that and they’re not going to be like ben and be like you’ve got this you can do this i believe in you when i didn’t believe in myself ben believed in me but there were people in my life that i if i told the figure to they would get angry at me for being in that situation but i’ve already admitted that i fucked up i’ve already like seen that pass ryan made those mistakes i’m gonna learn from them and move forward there’s no point getting angry at myself and who i am right now for what i did in the past and so i don’t need to tell people and how people get angry at me for the situation that i’m in or call me stupid or i can’t believe you did that i shared it with people that would encourage me to actually move beyond this and get forward so having that support system in your life can be really helpful with the emotions of it and that really made me believe in myself when pretty much very few people in my life actually believed in me that i could do this in the way that i wanted to pay it off he was one of those people next thing i think is to look to expand your income and expand your life now this is i guess less of an emotional thing but it kind of is because if we can get to the point where we can meet our minimum repayments and continue to live our life without getting into more debt if we expand our income then that expansion of income if we grow income through starting a side hustle doing a side business doing jobs for people selling stuff that we own starting an online business growing in our career changing jobs if we can grow our income then we can use that extra growth in income to pay off our debt but it also means that when the day comes and we are debt free because of our debt because our debt forced us to make more money because our debt forced us to think creatively and to expand our life when the day comes out we’re debt free writing in a better position than we would have been if we never had debt in the first place so for me that’s my focus has always been grow my income grow my income i got to the point where i reach that equilibrium and i had to work in a cafe for you know six to 12 months there in order to have that equilibrium and not go into significantly more debt but i reached that and i focused on okay make more money make more money and eventually got my business to the point where i was making enough that i didn’t need the cafe job anymore and they are full time my job is okay grow this business make more money and growing that in order to pay off my debt faster when my debts go on my income is going to be way higher than it would have been if i didn’t have the debt this debt has forced me to grow as a person and to grow my income and so expanding your income and your life has been absolutely huge for me and it’s been huge emotionally as well because now that my incomes grown that i’m above my equilibrium so i can meet my minimum repayments and i’m starting to actually reduce my debt while still growing my income i can see that the future is just going to get easier towards this debt reduction as long as things don’t go bad and pear shaped and let’s let’s face to pay always do

and also

i guess recognize that you’re going to have your moments and you’re going to have your days it’s going to be crappy sometimes you’re going to get overwhelmed i’ve had days that have been complete right off for me where i’d plan to work on the business and grow my income and spend the day in bed because depression hit me or it was just a really hard day i just couldn’t deal those days will come and it’s okay it’s not going to be every day but they will come and sometimes you just need to let yourself rest you need to let yourself deal with those emotions and understand that it’s not a straight path to victory that you’re going to have ups and you’re going to have downs and i’ve dealt with depression my whole life i don’t really have depression anymore but i definitely still have my down days and it can be really hard so just just be okay that that you’re going to have them they’re going to come except that you’re going to have to sacrifice some things as well for me the biggest sacrifice that i made was actually moving back home with family in order to save on rent so that i could well in the first year be able to send my kids to private school my kids have now moved out of private school into public schools i’m saving money there as well and so now my focus is okay enough money that i can live make sure i can pay child support and then pay off this debt so i’ve had to sacrifice massive things in my life my car just broke down not worth fixing i’ve been loaned a car by a family friend and so i’m puttering around in that because i don’t actually have the money right now to buy a new car and so i’m sacrificing things in my life that cars two door i’ve got four children now i’ve got three children my partner has one so sometimes it’s for not ideal for children not the ideal car but i’m sacrificing that and sacrificing a lot of things in my life at the moment in order to have that and i think on that being frugal sacrificing things is finding ways to make your life amazing without a lot of money so for me i love running and so i do barefoot running on the beach or around the streets here or i’ll go and do some trails in the national park near me run down to this like local waterhole pull it’s winter so tracing by rundown and i swim and then run back and it feels amazing so that surfing going to the beach taking the kids to the park to the kids for scooter ride skateboarding that sort of stuff is free for me and also like finding cheap things so for me if you’ve seen in my earlier videos if you’ve been following me for a while you know my obsession with coffee the cafe i worked in was an espresso bar so it was so awesome to work there for 12 months and to learn so much but i love coffee and that was kind of my one thing that i would spend a lot of money on but i’ve now learned enough and got my coffee machine at home and got to the point where i actually enjoy the coffee and make it home better than coffee i get in cafes and so for me making the coffee’s therapeutic i love drinking it i can have multiple a day and i’m saving heaps of money so i’ve turned something there used to be like my one kind of like lavish expense that i probably shouldn’t be spending money on and i found a way to do it for cheap but a way that i absolutely love and so finding like little ways like that in your life to live frugally can be really helpful as well because i just i get so much enjoyment out of that my life is so much fuller because of that it’s something i’m passionate about something i love but i found a way to do it that brings me a lot of joy and doesn’t cost a lot of money so yeah and then i guess the last thing would be to spend a lot of time educating yourself educate yourself on personal finance on budgeting on debt reduction start there then educate yourself on ways to make more money bring extra money into your life manifest money in your life look at ways to and learn about investing and growing your investing educate yourself and invest in yourself a lot of it’s free these days youtube videos like there’s podcasts like this you can listen to absolutely free when you’re on your commute when you’re on your run when you’re brushing your teeth you can be educating yourself and learning every single day and so educate yourself and learn because that’s going to lead you to make better decisions in the future to help you get out of this debt hole faster it’s amazing some of the things that you learn will just speed up your journey so much so commit to educating yourself every single week every single day on personal finance budgeting debt reduction investing making more money all of those sorts of things and look dealing with debt is emotionally difficult it’s not easy it’s stressful i’ve had many sleepless nights thinking about it i’ve been through what feels like hell and back and i’m now in a situation where okay this date is a part of my life i’m paying it off and i feel like i’m on top of it now

as i said many times 2019 was a year of survival for me i nearly went bankrupt in 2019 if i’m honest i got to the point where i’m like i don’t know how i’m gonna pay my bills i don’t know how i’m gonna have pay my minimum repayments i still had good money but i just had too many expenses and really stripped that away and really cut things down and and now in a position where okay i can actually manage my cash flow i can manage these repayments i’ve still got the debt but i paid off a good chunk of it and i’m going to pay off a bunch more this year 2019 was a year of survival 2020 is the year of growth for me and then 2021 who knows hopefully the year of completely paying off my debt and being debt free but time will tell and we will see but i’m working hard to continue to increase my income so that i can do that so you’re dealing with debt i’m sending out big hugs to you and lots of love to you i wish you the absolute best in your debt reduction journey like ben said to me you can do this you’ve got this horizon you can think creatively you can work your way out of this you can do it if no one else in your life believes in you i believe in you you can get out of debt you can get out of this debt hole and you can deal with it you can handle it emotionally seek professional advice if you need help with depression or anxiety i’ve had to do that in the past it’s no shame in that do that seek professional advice if you need financial advice if you need help with debt collectors i’ll link up to that video down below as much experience in that but you’ve got this i believe in you and i wish you the absolute best in your journey away from debt and your journey ultimately towards financial freedom and the life that you want thanks so much for tuning in i hope this helped and until next time stay positive