Hello.
My name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr the
Order Kerney Whoalbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through as this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
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She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money the pod Castle Millennials who want financial freedom. My name is beck Syed and today we have Victoria Divine.
Hello, thank you for having me on your show, Becksire, thank you so much for being here today.
What I really want to talk about vee with you as my guest for just one episode only, is debt.
So I hate debt, love talking about it though, So this is the perfect show for me.
I think we're gonna have a bit of fun this episode.
I'm ready. I'm ready.
So v did you know that. According to Finder dot Com, there are thirteen million, three hundred and fifty six thousand, two hundred and ninety one credit cards in Australia as of April twenty twenty three, netting a national debt accruing interest of eighteen point six billion dollars. That's hectic, vile. Oh my god, that's hectic.
I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all. Let's be brutally honest. I also think let's just preface this episode before we get any deeper. Are we here beck to crucify credit cards? No, absolutely not. I think it's so important that we preface it upfront. I'm not here to crucify you. If you use credit card, we do need to be educated about it though, and we do need to use them in an educated way that helps us
along our financial journey. But I think that right now, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, oh, they're gonna absolutely slam me, I've really been struggling at the moment. I've put a few things on my credit card because I had to. Girl.
That's all right, that's so fine.
You're doing the best thing that you can with the tools and resources you have, and I'm proud of.
You exactly right.
However, we do need to talk about it so that at some point you can become completely debt free and that you don't rely on a credit card to make finance decisions, because ultimately a credit card can be a really slippery slope. And Beck, you've spoken publicly before about how credit cards were a really slippery slope for you. Yes, I know that the situation you were in was a bit more of a you had because you needed to
have debt situation. Yes, but did you find that you were a bit I don't know, tap happy anyway, knowing that it technically wasn't your money.
I think so. And obviously, you know, I was really really young. I think I was like eighteen or even just say just a tiny baby when I got my first credit card. So for me, thinking like, I had never really been in a position where I could just go out and buy myself shoes or go out and buy nice things, and here I have a bunch of money that I have to pay off eventually, but.
Not feel that precent time.
It just took over at that point, so I think, yeah, I just was not in any position and I probably was a bit tap happy.
Yeah, And I think it's important to note that I've also been in that situation. Like I had a credit card, I got into forty four thousand dollars worth of personal debt, and none of that beck was stuff I needed, right, it was a car, it was for university. I did travel overseas for a few months and study abroad. Sure, I'm very very well trapped a culture, nothing except a whole heap about French wine and how to order a Panachekla every single morning with my latte, and I regret nothing. Honestly.
I think it's kind of aally neat created.
Me into who I am today, and we can't be mad at that. But I think it's really important to talk about I guess how it's not that surprising that credit cards and the credit card companies that own those credit cards, they spend millions every year back on researching ways to keep you in debt. I mean, they don't call it that. They call it marketing, and they call it customer retention, and they call it six million other things.
But essentially they're doing a whole heap of research back to keep you in debt, to make you feel comfortable with tapping a credit card instead of spending cash. And there's lots of different perks and ways that they do that. And you know what, there are going to be a lot of people in our community who do it really smartly, like points hacking. Mm, so many people do that and I'm just like, this is genius you're tacking. Yeah, absolutely so.
Glennie James, our mate over on my Millennial Money. Sure, he's spoken very openly and also in text messages with me, which I don't know, sorry Glennie if I'm exposing you a little bit too much, But he always uses points to travel and like upgrade himself to business class. Right. One of my team members Brook honestly at Points Queen, Like, I've never met anyone who is smarter about it. I'm
not that smart. I will just copy her, but she just cycles through different credit cards to get the sign on bonuses, to get the points organized and lined up so that she's getting free travel.
That is so clever, right.
But these people are very good with money, ye, So they're not using it to kind of tap happy on things that they don't need to spend on. They're actually doing it in a way that I don't think I could trust myself to do Sure, I do technically have a credit card for business because I'm kind of like, well, why aren't we making points on all of these business expenses? Because, Beck, you're so expensive with git, I've I've got bills.
To pay, bills pay, I've got a fancy palette. Sorry, what can I say?
Yeah, it's not your fault, Like, I respect it, but I think it's really important to talk about I guess social life pressures and things that push us towards consumer debt. And while some people might be listening to this and they're like, they're really helpful, you can use them constructively. Babe, I have ADHD. Give me a credit card, I will ruin my life again, and I'll have fun.
Doing it world record time.
I will regret it, but oh my gosh, it's like a spending s free if you gave me a personal credit card. Yeah, I'm done, it's over. I'm done. It's Do you know why I created our budget and cash Flow Muster class Because I couldn't control myself right, So it wasn't for you, Beck, I didn't create it for
the community because I'm just so kind and generous. I created it because I was useless, right, and then I realized it worked really well and I was like, I could probably share this with themmunity and help them too.
Now that's nice.
Do you know like more than five thousand people who have now done that?
Course, Wow, Big Dog Energy saved a lot of lives potentially.
But there are still more than thirteen million credit cards in Australia, so we've got a lot of work to do.
We're just really hitting the surface or whatever that's saying is yeah.
Yeah, scraping theraping the surface.
How can I get that?
I like that? But today I guess that's why we're talking about credit cards, and we want to break down the sneaky, sneaky ways that credit card companies want to keep you in debt and keep trying to keep you in debt, and then we're going to tell you what you can do to kind of break out of that cycle. Because Beck, look at us, we both have broken out of the credit cards, so we have so are we not the best people to learn from?
Absolutely? I'm really excited about this. So V let's talk about the sneaky tactics of what you might say the trap tap trap. Let's start off with excessive interest rates.
Yeah, stunning place to stuff. So we already know that there's very high interest rates on credit cards and then not very sexy these interest rates at the very start. I feel like nobody gets a credit card with the intention of ever paying the interest rate. Right, So, like, if you get a credit card, your interest rate might be anything from fourteen to like, let's say twenty three
percent on average. No one looks at that and says, oh, yeah, happy to pay twenty three percent more for my goods and services.
Right.
You don't say that, You say I'll pay it off in time, It'll be absolutely fine. But at the end of the day, your expenses they accumulate really quickly, especially if you're carrying balances from months to month, because you know, maybe a car service popped up, maybe something else popped up,
and you couldn't pay off your credit card. And I feel like the compounding interest can actually make debt repayment even harder, and a big chunk of your monthly payment actually goes towards interest charges than reducing that principal amount or the amount you actually owe. So from my perspective, the best thing that you can do is each and every single month. If you have a credit card, pay it off in full and get rid of it. And if you can't pay it off in full, do not
add to it until it's completely gone. Don't use it again. Yeah, So I feel like this is a trap that so many of us run into. And we always talk about how sexy compound interest is, right, Like Einstein called it the eighth wonder of the world, And if I could come up with a better catchphrase, I would use my own, But Einstein, thank you for the I guess borrow. But compound interest is sexy, right because I've spoken to you
about it before. We've done a whole heap of investment podcasts where I teach you exactly what compound interest does to create wealth, essentially because of the Rule of seventy two, which maybe one day I'll do an entire podcast on because it's a very interesting finance concept. The rule of seventy two tells us that on average, every seven to ten years, money doubles. Right, So if you invested one thousand dollars ten years from now, it's worth two thousand dollars.
And this is how we create wealth. It's how wealth compounding works. Thing happens in the credit card world. You just flip that chart upside down, and instead of getting out of debt, you're getting in more and more debt the longer you have that credit card, and it can compound out of control. And ultimately, let's be honest, lots of people only pay the minimum amount exactly V.
So that's actually what we're going to talk about next. So the minimum payment trap, it is a trap. It is a trap.
So you might have begg gotten a few credit card statements in the mail a few times. Yes, what do they say? X amount is due on X jate yep, stunning, but it's the minimum amount of minimum. They never say, hey, here's how much you owe us. In general, it might be two thousand dollars. They don't say, hey, you need to pay that off in order to not incur any interest. Yes, they say fifty two dollars please. Do you know I know that number was my minimum date repayment waigh that
quen or my credit card. Fifty two dollars is burnt into my brain and I just remember being like, dollars isn't that bad? Yeah, money I've spent this month, it's pretty good, pretty sexy that's all they care about, no worries. If I'd extrapolated that out, which obviously I have before, it would have taken me forty six years to pay off that.
Oh oh my god, right, hectic.
Right, yeah, way back when I was practicing as a financial advisor. This would be like maybe twenty nineteen. I reckon. I saw a client. They came in before I had a podcast, and they were in my Facebook group, and they were really really stressed. If this is you still love you, please, like, don't worry at all. They came in and they had twelve maxed out credit cards, a personal loan, and a mortgage. Put that to the side, but of their personal debt, they had one hundred and
sixty five thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. God, and I remember being like, how did you get here? The answer to the way they got their ears by lying essentially to the credit card companies. She'll say, no, I don't have any other credit cards, like it's all good,
it's all good. And because they'd had them for a number of years, they actually had those credit cards prior to the Royal commissions, so like lending wasn't as tight as it is now, so there are a lot more things in place to keep you safe and keep you out of debt. So actually, I really doubt that in twenty twenty three you could achieve the same debt levels on a personal level.
Sure, And I.
Extrapolated out how long if you only paid the minimal repayments on all of their debt, it would take like one hundred and seventy years to get out. Oh my god, isn't that insane? Yeah, because it's the interest rate on it, Like it blew my mind. And obviously we went down the path of declaring bankruptcy and you know, putting in the best possible position, and like they're doing well, they're thriving now, but it's one of those things where you
just don't realize how much it compounds. And this idea of the minimum payment trap totally exists, and they look like they're doing you a favor to be like, oh, it's only fifty two bucks, and you go, oh, when I open this bill, I thought it would be so much more. Yeah, No, that's so that you pay them interest in these companies still make a massive profit and
you actually aren't being put first. It's a super clever ployee to keep you in debt, and they're not actually helping you in any way, shape or form, And it essentially just means that these interest charges accrue over time. And in the same way compound interest works in a very sexy investment way. It's a very unsexy thing that it does when applied to a credit card.
That is so sneaky, so icky. How do we fight that.
I feel like it's a privilege to say, pay off your entire credit card. Sure, so nice if you can, but pay more than the minimum, Like, what can you afford to pay off your credit card this month? Genuinely so, Like, if the minimum is fifty two dollars, maybe you've got one hundred and fifty that you could put on credit. Sure do that, please do that. You might have a couple of thousand owing, but I promise that decision will put you miles ahead in terms of getting out of
debt and staying out of debt. And it's also just really good money habits to be paying off more than you necessarily need to, because minimum repayments on a credit card not sexy at all.
That's a really good point and I think that, yeah, if you can do if not don't stress, because we are here to give you more pointers. And next up what we have is hidden fees and fine print. Very sexy, very sexy. Do you know what the biggest lie in the entire world is? What is it?
I reckon? It's when you scroll through any terms and conditions and then you tick that box that says I acknowledge that I have read all of the terms and conditions and I consent to them. Right. Have you ever read your phone's terms and conditions? Never in my entire life, but you consent it to them? Right?
True?
And then we all act so offended when we're like, what do you mean they can spy on us? It was in the terms and conditions, like it was clearly articulated to you, but you didn't read it. I was never told, no, you didn't read it when you got the opportunity to same thing with credit cards. Right, they're not spying on us. This isn't some kind of government
propaganda stuff. But so many of us are just scrolling through the t's and ceas and not actually, I guess, understanding how they impact us, and essentially credit card companies, which I'm obviously not going to earn a sponsorship for this because I'm throwing credit card companies straight under the bus. Beck but yes, what I'm driving you, so it's all good.
Yeah, straight up and over.
I'm gonna accelerate because I don't want to work with credit card companies because they don't think that they put you in the best possible position. So credit card companies essentially bury additional fees and charges like the annual credit card fee, or late payment fees or balance transfer fees. They put it in complex language into your terms and conditions, so essentially you'll pay them more money and you just go, oh, it's fine, I won't do a balance transfer. You probably
will if you rack up some debt. What do you mean annual fee? That's fine, it's worth it for all the bells and whistles you get. No, it's not no. Why are we paying five hundred bucks sometimes to get a credit card? You're paying for the privilege to pay them interest? Absolutely not. So I think when we're looking at getting a credit card, if you need one for any reason, we need to really weigh up what are
these additional fees? How do they benefit me? Because paying a fee on a credit card can sometimes actually be beneficial. So I'm not a credit card sales rep at all. But as I said, I've got a business credit card, and I ultimately chose one that has an annual fee. And I did that because I get a number of benefits that I wouldn't have gotten on a normal credit card that I think serve my business. So you guys know, I travel all the time for work, and I often
take my team. If I book on my credit card, lounge access for me and.
My team beautiful.
Isn't that nice. I'm happy to pay for that privilege. Travel insurance can be really helpful. I don't believe the credit card companies have comprehensive enough travel insurance for you to actually lean on it one hundred percent. We've talked
about this before. I always get a standalone policy, but I kind of lack the idea that there would be some additional buffer or some backup if I do lose something, because often when I'm paying for my travel insurance, Beck you've heard me rant about this before, my priority is actually my physical health. So like, if something happens to me overseas, I want to know that I can get home. I'm not really caring too much about my luggage or
things in that luggage and what their value is. And I find that that's where my credit card policy tops it up, because they might say up to ten thousand dollars worth of XYZ, and I go, yeah, all right, that's nice to have because then I can focus on my physical health for my insurance policy that I take out for travel. It's one of those things where you just really need to look into one whether they benefit
you or not. But they are taking advantage of your lack of awareness of these things, and they're just genuinely taking advantage of the fact that they're going to increase their revenue through fees that you didn't really know about. And you know what they do. They just whack them on your credit card. They don't like message you and say this bill's you. They just add it to your credit card. So at the end of the month, she's just got an extra four fitty you know, of.
Course, so rude. I know it is very rude. I think let's go to a really quick break and when we come back, we're going to be telling you about all the other little ploison tactics.
Got wait, let me add it, okay, V we are back hot.
And I don't know if you're filled with rage, but I'm almost rage, always filled with rage, raging feminist over here. We are talking about the little tactics, tips and tricks that credit card companies use against us to keep us trapped in this endless cycle of debt.
Doesn't have to be endlessly, it doesn't have to be endless. We can get out of it.
We can get out of it, so hot. Next one I want to talk about is the reward programs. It sounds exciting, Yeah, they are.
They're very enticing little programs that credit card companies put together, Like they might have like enticing stuff. You know what, sexy cash back, They're going to use that. Do you know what else is sexy free flats?
Oh?
I love They're going to use that. They're gonna use it. They're going to tell you that you can get it. I told you before. Lounge access they got me on that one. God, so discounts on other things that you might want to purchase, Like they might give you discounts on like insurance or like tickets to shows or something. We've talked about all of these before. Yeah, I can't be trusted with them because I literally just told you that one of the reasons why I picked my business
credit card, lounge access, Yeah, insurance. I'm like, yeah, give me those reward perks. They are worth it to me, but I do know that they are worth it, so not in general worth it, but after I assessed the circumstances for my business and for myself, it made sense. We're not saying they're going to make sense for you, Beck, but these are shiny little things that they add. So do you want to stay in it with us?
You?
Yeah, I'd love to.
I'd love to say with you girls, Oh.
That's so nice.
If you don't, are only what I want.
I know I love you. So they programs are essentially often designed to encourage spending that you weren't planning for and to get you really dependent on your credit cards. She it's like a little abusive relationship. How nice. They're like, you need us, and I'm like, yeah, I do. So you might overspend to reach different reward thresholds. So like you might go, oh, well, if I do this amount of spending in the first three months, I'm gonna get those bonus points.
That's enticing.
I would never have spent three thousand dollars normally, but I really need those bonus points totally. Please come at me, really sexy. I just really want to stay in debt now because I want all of those rewards and benefits. Why do you think they've got them their peck, Let's think about the market. You're not going I really love Beck. I wish that she had some travel insurance though when she traveled. They really care, They really care about keeping
you in debt. Yes, like they're like, let's keep Beck as a customer. They don't have a team called the keep people in debt team. Sure, they do have the customer Attention team, which is essentially the same thing. So just to remember that all of these things are ultimately designed by credit card companies to keep you in debt, and usually they win. Gosh, so rude, so rude.
So this is coming at a funny time because I feel like we are getting more aggressive than we are aggressive. Let's talk about aggressive marketing tactics.
Yeah, I love an aggressive marketing tactic. I've never employed one myself because they just don't think it suits my personality. Maybe it does. You need to get financially leacher it.
Honestly, i'd listened to you.
Yeah, I think you already do though, So let's just and that doesn't count. Absolutely not even just saying that makes me feel a little bit ill. But essentially, credit card companies they invest heavily into their marketing strategies to attract new customers because the return on investment it's worth it, right. They are not going to invest in things that aren't worth it because credit cards have existed for many, many a year now exactly, so they've had heaps of time
to go. If we invest this amount of marketing money into this area, we're probably going to see an ROI or a return on investment of xys, right, so they're going to keep doing it.
Of course, are the ones that kind of meet cold calls or like stand in the maybe middle of a shopping center and us, yeah, it could.
Be an advertisement on Telly. I know, the banner ads that you see while driving your car, the billboards, see anything, and you know what all of those things play into human psychology. Like have you ever seen someone holding a credit card with like no emotion on their face and they're trying to sell it? Absolutely not, No, they look so happy. They'll be holding their credit card and they're like, look how happy I am with this credit card.
I believe them every time because you.
Go, I'm not happy, but I could be.
I could be really happy. Yep, yep, yep. Absolutely.
I get sold the dream all the time. Do you know how by going to my local cafe every morning? Right, so there's like the line out the front of all the depressed people, and then there's these people walking out smiles on their face, holding their fresh cup of Joe Joe, and I'm like, I'm going to be like them. Yeah, so I get my coffee.
That's how your property back. That's very true. I'm joking if you just stopped drinking coffee.
I'm joking. But did you see that that new app recently, Threads has come out. Yeah, I love thread I am obsessed with Threads. Do I would follow you because I automatically follow everybody that I follow. But it's where I came to thrive. Like you know, if you thought I was okay at Instagram, I'm not. I'm killing it at Threads.
The Threads is your plate.
It's my place to shine because I can rely on being a sassy little s h one t as opposed to like looking hot, which does not work for me. I was not born to be an influencer. I was born to be a pest, and a pest I will continue to be. I'm so happy they made threads just for this reason. It was just for me.
Now you can be as much of a pest as you want.
I am. Anyway, I put up a thread the other day, got a lot of attention because I was like, you can have your coffee as a little treaty treat because we're still not going to be able to afford property. Bye.
Really made me feel comforted to be honest with you, because I'm like, okay.
Well I did the maths and I was like, look, it's like fourteen hundred bucks a year if you had a coffee every morning, which is you know, fourteen hundred bucks is a lot, but like that's not going to get you closer to owning your own home. So have your coffee. Be a little bit happy, save in a different way. Yes, so true, so sad. Anyway, they really helped you. Those aggressive marketing tactics. Maybe they should employ
me because I'm like really good at them. But essentially they are trying to entice you in with ads and promo offers and they're essentially, let's be honest, disgustingly, they are targeting vulnerable people who might already be struggling with debt or struggling to pay the bills month to month, because you know, a credit card could be a very cool tool to you know, take some financial pressure off, right, And that's why we all get credit cards, right, because
we need access to funds that are not ours.
That is so true. With all of that in mind, let's tell people how they can kind of avoid these and maybe some things to keep in mind when we are faced with these little challenges. I'm going to start off with creating a budget. Should we do something like that?
So?
A budget underrated tool. It's the most underrated tool of twenty twenty three. No one wants to do a budget because budget feels like it's restrictive, but corner the days of restrictive budgets. A budget for me is a tool that tells me how many dollars I have coming in and how many dollars I have going out, and whether they're being spent in line with the goals and the values that I have. You know what if I look at your budget back and I say that one hundred
percent of it is going to uberates. Do you know what, I don't care. I literally don't care, because what I'm looking at your budget for is to educate you on Oh, Beck, did you realize so much of your money is going here? You might go, yeah, because I love it, and I go, great, Beck, that's exactly what we want to hear. Or you might go, oh, oh my gosh, no, I had no idea. Oh, maybe I should change a few things about my lifestyle because that's not something that I actually want to engage in.
I didn't realize how much that added up, sure, And I think that often we forget how things can add up. So like, you know, our coffee here and there, you might go, you know what, my five dollar latte every single week or every single day. If you're me, it's worth. Like I think I've said on the pod before, it's one of my favorite things in the entire world. I go for a walk with my husband and my dog and we get out overpriced lattes every single morning, not
from the cafe I've got beef with. Don't worry, I've got a new cafe. Good. It's all right, It's all right. I've got a new cafe, got a new hood. But I adore that. It's one of my favorite things in the entire world. So if I sat down with someone and they were trying to help me with my budget, and they said, hmmm, Victoria, because I've looked at my budget, Steve, and I spend more than three thousand dollars a year on coffee. Well that's a lot, right, because it's for
two people, it's course for one course. But to us that three thousand dollars is so much more than just two cups of coffee. It's that time that we have to get in the morning, it's that connection. It's so much more. And I think that it's so rude when people just look at your budget and go, oh, Beck, that's not worth it to me, So you should get rid of it, right, You need less streaming services? Okay, well maybe I do. But have we thought about my lifestyle,
maybe my entire life? And this is absolutely not true for you, Beck, because you are the most social butterfly I have met in the entire world. I swear every Monday and Tuesday that we sit down together, I'll be like, how is your weekend? You're like, I was at a house party. Hew, am I wrong?
You are not wrong that it's very nice. That's you too.
You are the most social person ever. But take my streaming service off me. I'd be like, wait, what do you mean? Like that's like my wind down time. I don't actually go out that often. I don't go out for dinner once a week at all. I'm lucky if I go out for dinner once a month. Yeap, Like, yes, I could afford to go out for dinner, but like, I just want to be at home. I want to
be with my pets. That's something that I value. So I think it's so important to look at a budget and go, all right, let's develop a really realistic budget that's reflective our goals and our values and what we're trying to achieve, so that we can track our income and expenses and prioritize debt repayment without being judgmental, Because what's that help? Does that help it all? To sit down and do a budget and be like, oh, I feel so bad about this. No, who are you helping nobody?
You're just making yourself feel trash about it for no good reason. Exactly, you're going to change it. How good? It's just like forget about the feeling bad part. But essentially, by following a budget and allocating funds towards paying off debt and credit card, you are preventing yourself from spiraling out of control. But you're also putting yourself in a position of power because sometimes, and Beck, I know you've
been here, paying off debt feels like trash. It feels like you're just flushing money down the drain and spend it.
Right.
Yeah, but if you create a debt repayment plan, Let's pretend you are repaying debt four hundred dollars a month. Ill that feels yuck. Right, I'm flushing four hundred bucks down the drain. No you're not. Once you've finished paying off that debt, Beck, you're going to be saving four hundred bucks a month. Yeah, look at that habit you've started. Look at that you've created. So the second that debt's gone, oh my gosh, you're going to turbo charge your savings.
You're going to be an investing queen. You were going to do so many things that you've always wanted to do. But I promise it starts with getting rid of your debt, because there is no point having a heap of savings in the bank but also holding significant debt because they counsel each other out. Yes, it's not sexy in saying that. Yes, I do genuinely believe that everybody who is in consumer debt needs to have an emergency front still to stop
them going further into consumer debt. Yes, but that's a different conversation for another day. Beck, that is a really.
Good point, Vie. This point I'm about to make, I did it really, really poorly. But basically I tried to consolidate my debts, and I think that what I was thinking at the time was I'm gonna consolidate these debts and I'm gonna ask for way more than I need so that I have a little bit of money to spend on bills and view whatever else. Yes, and then that just snowboard and snowboard and snowboard. But that aside, it is not a bad idea, would you say to try And maybe it's not.
A bad idea at all. I mean, don't go and take out more money because it's attractive. But if you have multiple credit cards with high interest rates, debt consolidation is something you could consider looking at, because what debt consolidation does is it rolls all of those debts together and usually gives you a lower interest rates so you can pay it off with less interest going to be incurred over the long term. I think when it comes
to debt consolidation, there's two streams of thought. There's that thought of let's consolidate it so we get a lower interest rate and we can pay it off reasonably over a period of time that suits us, and we're not crippled by consistent debt repayments. It's overwhelming when you have so many credit cards that you actually need to pay off.
So I do feel like consolidating it into one payment, even if it is the same amount of I guess interest can feel a little bit free because you've only got one payment right and there's really really solid terms. I do think it can be a little bit of a trap for some people too. If you see consolidate to this particular credit card and you'll get zero percent interest for the first six months. Unless you can actually pay that debt off in six months, that change is
probably going to shoot you in the foot. And I know a lot of people in our community have been bitten by that because they'll go Oh my gosh, I don't want to pay interest for six months. That's great. And so they take their eighteen percent credit card and they roll it into this other one. They get six months of interest free time. But because it was interest free, they didn't prioritize it because whatever, Like, it's just interest free, right, beck.
And then after six months it changes to twenty two percent interest and you're in a worse position than when you start it. Sure, so we need to make sure that debt consolidation is done properly. So go see a finance broker. Obviously shameless plug. Our team at Zella Money do that, but essentially simplifying your payments, it can essentially save you money in the long term.
Yeah, I love that. And then finally I think we can both agree on this one.
Seek professional help exactly a podcast, my friend. If you are in this sticky, sticky position, not enough, I mean, hopefully it's been enough to like motivate you. And you're like, I want to get my budget and cash flow in place, and I really want to be out of debt and I don't want to rely on credit cards. Like that's the sexiest thing I've ever heard in my whole affects. I'm so excited about it. But essentially, if you're finding yourself in overwhelming debt, there's no shame in reaching out
for help. Nobody, I promise nobody cares more than you do. Like nobody's looking at you going, oh, Beck, can't believe you just admitted to that ill. They're literally like, oh my god, Beck, congrats on taking the first step to being out of this circumstance. The sooner you reach for help, the sooner you're going to be out of debt, and the easier the circumstances are going to be. I promise the longer you leave your head in the sand, the
worst things are going to get. So I have a few of my I guess favorite and trusted resource is that we will obviously put in the show notes. The National Debt Helpline is one of my favorite resources. And it's not just because it's easy. It's because it's free, free financial counseling.
Beck.
The team there are gorgeous. I have worked with them before, not on a like they've paid me way, I have reached out to them and been like, how do we work together? Because you guys are legends, and I think that what you're doing is epic. They provide guidance and tailored advice to your circumstances. They have financial counseling. They can send you to a financial advisor if you're in
a super super tricky circumstance. They can help you with a partnerine debt agreement, or they can help you with filing for bankruptcy, or they could talk you through what those things mean. They can talk you through negotiating with your credit card company some time off if you need some time. They can do so many things, and I would reach out to them. Yeah, Honestly, they can help you with the specific advice you might need to pay
off your debt, and I guess regain financial freedom. And then I guess if you're not in as sticky a situation as needing the National Debt help Line, let's just do a little shameless plug my budget and cash Flow master class I created for me to get me out of debt because I'm a bit nearer, spicy, and I need a lot of structure and I need it to work for me. So I'm not the type of person that you can sit down and be like, oh, Victoria, write a budget, right, and then I go yeah, great, old,
stick to this absolutely. Not like, if I write a budget, I'll be like groceries X, you know, gym membership X, rent X. What do I do? Go away with that budget and do what? Beck? Am I meant to implement that? I'm not going to implement that? No, So I created this budget and Cashlow master class that essentially takes that budget, overlays it into a banking structure and tells you how much you need in each account to live the lifestyle
that you've said you are living from your budget. So I will say, all right, here's your food, your fuel, and your fun money each and every single week. Beck, if you run out, you're eating noodle this week, And that's okay because it means that every other bill in your life is catered for. Yeah, you're not gonna miss your redro, you're not going to miss your rent, You're
not going to miss anything. But if you just kind of like threw your money up against a wall this week in your spending amount, well that's all good because like we can just live on noodles until next Thursday. Right. So I created that to put you in their best possible position. Literally thousands of people have done it now. People have used it to get out of debt, to stay out of debt, to save for their first homes, to save for overseas trips, and save for six million things. Honestly,
I'm really proud of it. Do we think we should give them a discount? I think we should give them a discount.
I'm in a good mood. Let's do it.
So it's not active at the moment, but I will make sure that by the time this episode goes live. The code pod five zero, so Pod fifty is a code to get fifty bucks off the budget and cashular Master like, Oh, she's good, it's so generous.
That is so nicey.
I'll make sure just turns that back on. If it's not on, please message me and it will be the kick up the butt that I need.
Yes, if you're listen to this, hello end please Hi?
I love you, gotcha?
Court? All right, I think this is a really good place.
I'm so done. I'm so tired, and I heard there's a fancy lunch going on, so let's go.
I can hear them celebrating.
Let's go eat.
All right, have a good day, guys, love you, Love you guys.
Bye.
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