• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Image Map
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Contact
      • Blogger DIY Project Submission
      • Contact Us
      • Guest Post Submission
      • PR, Advertising and Partnerships
      • Brands and Media That We Have Worked With
      • Speaking Events
  • Frugal Living
    • All Things Frugal
    • Homemade Products Gallery
    • Garden
    • Family Life
    • Travel
      • Travel Tips & Resources
      • Travel Deals & Coupons
    • Savings
      • Find Your Store Deals
      • Freebies
      • Deals
  • DIY
  • Finance
    • All Things Finance
    • Finance Tips & Resources
      • Meeting Your Financial Goals
      • Managing Household Finances
    • Dropping Debt
    • Making Money From Home
    • Over 100 Ways to Earn Extra Income
    • Our Financial Journey
  • Recipes
    • All Recipes
    • Produce Tips
    • Breakfast Ideas
  • Printables
  • How To Blog
    • Start Here
    • Resources
    • Detailed Blog Income Reports

Episode 002: Top 33 Reasons Why People Get in Debt – Part 1

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy here.

November 20 by Alex 9 Comments

Reasons Why People Get in Debt

Listen on Google Play Music Listen to Stitcher

What’s this Episode About?

We share a huge thank you to everyone that has supported us in the release of our first episode and all the awesome feedback we have received thus far as well!  If you have been blessed thus far please go over to iTunes and leave your favorable review so we can continue spreading our message of hope and encouragement!

Because paying down debt is already an uphill battle, its important to understand the reasons why people get in debt in the first place.  This will help families understand what caused them to build that much debt in the first place, know what temptations they need to overcome, and then know how to prevent themselves from going back into debt again after paying off their debt!

We collected this list from a number of sources to get the most thorough list.  We found that many of the reasons resonated across the board:

  • Polling our readers on TTC
  • Polling readers on social media
  • Personal talking and meeting with people and emails
  • Our own personal reasons for getting into debt

33 Reasons Why People Get in Debt (not listed in any particular order)

  1. It all started with The American Dream
  2. Medical Debt
  3. I fell victim to the credit card marketing
  4. Not paying attention to what I was doing
  5. A lot of high cost bills happened all at once. I panicked
  6. Emergencies (car, etc)
  7. Student Loans
  8. Car loan
  9. Taxes
  10. Emotionally trying to fill a void
  11. Making excuse to experience life before children
  12. If the creditors approved us then there shouldn’t be a reason why we couldn’t handle it
  13. Keeping up appearance of two college-graduate professionals
  14. Thinking it was owed to us because we had gone to school and had full-time professional jobs
  15. Not wanting to tell one another, “No!”
  16. Sheer lack of communication in general
  17. It just happened
  18. The problem with multiple credit cards – if you’re a good payer they will raise your limit
  19. Not understanding how interest works
  20. You keep spending as long as the credit card goes through
  21. Also not continuously not balancing the checkbook or monitoring the spending
  22. We really never checked our credit card statements
  23. Temporary loss of one income – long enough to get behind a bit more
  24. Loss of job
  25. Divorce
  26. Poor money management
  27. Gambling
  28. Lack of savings
  29. Reduced income – either in current employment or going from two incomes to one income
  30. Home improvement projects (second mortgage)
  31. Travel
  32. Christmas
  33. Businesses

We address a few of the reasons more in depth

It all started with The American Dream

We attempt to answer the question, “What is the American Dream, anyways?”  After addressing that, we then work through the steps on how to overcome and break from the mindset that we need to meet that predefined dream.  Finally, our discussion drifts into how to define a new American dream for our own families and how that can result in a much healthier financial and emotional place.

Credit card debt

We share that the average American is in $15,000 of credit card debt.

There’s multiple reasons people get into credit card debt:

  • Fell victim to credit card marketing – Flyer in the mail, commercials, ads online, even phone calls.  Their marketing is really good!
  • Your credit card limits were raised, maybe all of them at the same time – When this happens, it tempts you to spend more and the balances get out of control
  • 0% interest on balance transfers – We fell into this ourselves.  Our goal is not to say this step should never be considered, but rather show you the dangers present.  We explore this more in depth and share some warning signs on when this approach moves into the danger zone.

Throughout this episode we discuss actionable steps on how to help families work through these popular reasons for their own debt and how to create a sustainable answer and approach to overcome each one.

Tips shared throughout the episode:

  • Our goal is to get a sustainable lifestyle – Understanding the why and how of how we got into debt in the first place will help us know what to change and what to guard against so we don’t go back into debt
  • Be wary of social media – What is shared often is everyone’s “best self”.  We need to be careful to not be desiring what everyone has – or rather what they post that they have.
  • Need to be careful about living life where “we just let things happen to us” – Instead, we need to be more intentional and keep ourselves from going down that path in the first place.
  • Evaluate your relationships – Look at your relationships and ask whether they are healthy in encouraging you to chase after debt.  Understanding that we are the “average of our five closest friends” might help us know some of the boundaries we need to setup with our current relationships and help us look for healthier relationships in the future.

Our 2% Tip of the Week:

In this week’s episode we discuss a head smack way to get started bringing in extra income.  

  • Sell items you have around your home on eBay or back to Amazon.  Start with electronics, books, games, text books.
  • Use the Amazon app on your phone to find out how much you’ll receive for selling the item to them.  Even go to garage and estate sales and use the app to find items you can sell to Amazon

Tune in for the next episode (to be released later this week) for part 2 on this topic as we dig deeper into a few other reasons: think medical debt.

Resources mentioned in this podcast:

  • Check out our book, The 2% Rule to Get Debt Free Fast: An Innovative Method To Pay Your Loans Off For Good 
  • We created a 64-page workbook to give you the tools and the resources to help you pay off your debt.  You can see the digital version or the printed version.
  • Use the family questionnaire (in our workbook) to discuss your long-term and short-term goals to establish your priorities for your family.  Once you can set those as your focus you can ignore the distractions around us. 
  • Check out this article on how to sell your items back to Amazon or go directly to the Amazon Trade In page to get started.

Don’t Miss an Episode

If you want to make sure that you never miss an episode we encourage you to sign up for our Take Back Your Finances Podcast list. As part of this list we will also send you additional resources from the latest podcast episode like checklists or related worksheets to help you implement that weeks topic – only for members of this list!  Plus, just for signing up we’ll send you our copy of How to Build Your $1,000 Emergency Fund in 30 Days (a $5 value) just for signing up!

Play this episode:

Listen on Google Play Music Listen to Stitcher

Or listen to it right here:

You can download this episode from Podbean or listen to it here as well!

Finally, as we continue to share,
if we help anyone, then it makes everything we do worth it!

If we and this podcast have been a blessing to you in any way, we would greatly appreciate a favorable review in iTunes or Google Play.  Our goal is to reach more people with this message of hope and your review will help in doing that.  Thank you!!

Filed Under: Take Back Your Finances Podcast Tagged With: podcast

Previous Post: « How I Surprised My Husband With a $500 Free Amazon Gift Card for Christmas
Next Post: The Ultimate Black Friday Guide for All Personality Types »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sarah Carter

    I’m so excited about your podcast! I am a podcast junkie! 🙂

    Reply
  2. Sarah Carter

    I downloaded two episodes.

    Reply
  3. Sarah Carter

    And I reviewed your podcast in Itunes!

    Reply
  4. Paula

    Love this, thank you.

    Reply
  5. Ashley Packer

    Congrats you two on the new podcasts! I’m excited to listen and learn! Also, I saw the huge photo of your book in the newspaper on Sunday. Lots of exciting things going on for you.

    Reply
  6. Ashley Packer

    I just downloaded the episode!

    Reply
  7. Mary

    Great tips!

    Reply
  8. Sean Merron

    Great episode guys! I’ve heard of the app called DeCluttr for scanning and selling items but didn’t know the Amazon app had that feature. Can you expand on where that feature is? I downloaded the Amazon shopping app, and the “Sell on Amazon” page charges $40/month. Is there a different way?

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. 2FD 074: Compound Debt Payoff, Side Hustles, Practical Budgeting and Frugal Lawn Care – 2 Frugal Dudes Podcast: Personal Finance in Layman's Terms to Simplify Investing, Paying Off Debt, Student Loans, Taxes, Frugal Living, Saving Money, Budget says:
    April 18 at 6:00 pm

    […] Top 33 Reasons Why People Get in Debt […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Read About Our New Book

Read About Our New Book

Check Our Our Podcast!

Check Our Our Podcast!

Get a Deal on Our Book Now!

Looking for Inspiration?







Our Most Popular Articles

Our Most Popular Articles

Copyright © 2023 · The Thrifty Couple · Please check out our Privacy Policy and our Disclosure Policy.