Debt Help: What Financial Counsellors Want You to Know

Your emails, well, let's not talk about your emails, but you are certainly avoiding anything with the word debt in it.

Your heart is doing that weird caffeinated tap dance against your ribs, not because you drank a double espresso, but because you made the tactical error of checking your bank balance before breakfast.

You are, to put it simply, overwhelmed and holding your breath.

That's what debt can feel like because it really doesn't just live in our bank accounts.

It lives more in the pit of your stomach.

It introduces that low-level hum of anxiety to your day.

It can make even normal purchases feel like a high-stakes gamble.

It's exhausting.

It's isolating too because it feels like a survival mode that makes you incredibly lonely.

And I say that, but if we think about it, millions of people are sitting on their own floors feeling the exact same way right now.

And debt doesn't just happen overnight.

It can accumulate slowly over time that's really built on normal human needs.

It can start with the slow creep of inflation that we've all been facing while our paychecks have largely been staying flat.

And that's been compounded in recent years by the rising cost of expenses like student loans, which you are told to take out as an investment in yourself, but really are adding to the gender wealth divides.

Let's take Australia, for example, where in 2023, we saw that while men have a slightly higher debt on average, they actually earn a higher income when they graduate.

And it means they pay down that debt much quicker than women.

So even debt that you might class as good debt really factors into this equation because it's money that you need to pay back.

I mentioned compounding and cost of living expenses are a squeeze that we've really seen because even your basic groceries, your milk, your bread, it's becoming more expensive, but incomes largely are not budging.

And then we see debt come in from other sources when life throws you a curve ball.

It can be a car repair you didn't expect, A sudden dental emergency, I have had that this week.

Or a medical bill that your insurance doesn't fully cover.

You don't have the cash, so you use a credit card perhaps, or you look at buy now pay later services, and you might be fully intending to pay off those balances.

But the next month might bring you its own surprise, and suddenly those streams of debt that you once saw as manageable have turned into this overflowing river.

It's a trap of the financial system that we live with.

Yet we carry this around as if it's a personal moral failure.

Your emails, well, let's not talk about your emails, but you are certainly avoiding anything with the word debt in it.

Your heart is doing that weird caffeinated tap dance against your ribs, not because you drank a double espresso, but because you made the tactical error of checking your bank balance before breakfast.

You are, to put it simply, overwhelmed and holding your breath.

That's what debt can feel like because it really doesn't just live in our bank accounts.

It lives more in the pit of your stomach.

It introduces that low-level hum of anxiety to your day.

It can make even normal purchases feel like a high-stakes gamble.

It's exhausting.

It's isolating too because it feels like a survival mode that makes you incredibly lonely.

And I say that, but if we think about it, millions of people are sitting on their own floors feeling the exact same way right now.

And debt doesn't just happen overnight.

It can accumulate slowly over time that's really built on normal human needs.

It can start with the slow creep of inflation that we've all been facing while our paychecks have largely been staying flat.

And that's been compounded in recent years by the rising cost of expenses like student loans, which you are told to take out as an investment in yourself, but really are adding to the gender wealth divides.

Let's take Australia, for example, where in 2023, we saw that while men have a slightly higher debt on average, they actually earn a higher income when they graduate.

And it means they pay down that debt much quicker than women.

So even debt that you might class as good debt really factors into this equation because it's money that you need to pay back.

I mentioned compounding and cost of living expenses are a squeeze that we've really seen because even your basic groceries, your milk, your bread, it's becoming more expensive, but incomes largely are not budging.

And then we see debt come in from other sources when life throws you a curve ball.

It can be a car repair you didn't expect, A sudden dental emergency, I have had that this week.

Or a medical bill that your insurance doesn't fully cover.

You don't have the cash, so you use a credit card perhaps, or you look at buy now pay later services, and you might be fully intending to pay off those balances.

But the next month might bring you its own surprise, and suddenly those streams of debt that you once saw as manageable have turned into this overflowing river.

It's a trap of the financial system that we live with.

Yet we carry this around as if it's a personal moral failure.