Anger: Your Ally For Debt Payoff

In my early 20's, my husband and I had debt. A lot of debt in a variety of flavors: Home, auto, student loans, credit cards, medical debt. Anytime we had work done on our house we'd take out a personal loan or sign up for the card our local hardware store offered. We owed money to everyone and never seemed to have enough left over for ourselves.

One day I realized that the payments we were making towards all of these debts was not actually reducing the balances. Our money was going almost exclusively towards interest instead of the principal balance, which meant each time I looked at a bill, even though we were making minimum payments, we somehow owed MORE than before. This made me mad. Like livid. 

Anger is an emotion I'm intimately familiar with. If you and I were in drama class and you said: "Katie, I need you to channel Hulk energy" I could probably accomplish that in 2.5 seconds and might even turn a slight shade of green. I can talk about my anger in jest because I've been to a hella lot of therapy which taught me how to use it to my advantage. In the same way my anger has gotten me into some predicaments it has also helped me escape some. 

Our debt had become too much to handle; the weight of it all was so heavy and uncomfortable. You know how people talk about "treading water" as a means to express a state of existence? Well we were full body underwater, lips barely touching the surface for air, just trying to make it. Our debt prevented us from doing so much that we wanted to do: take the trip, try the restaurant, quit the toxic job with a F*** You Fund… I could go on. It felt like a never-ending downward spiral of embarrassment and frustration because we had to keep saying "no" to things we so desperately wanted to say "yes" to. And so my anger grew until I couldn't contain it without directing it somewhere.

When I learned to channel my anger productively toward changing my financial situation, it became my super power: I faced the numbers, manually accounting for everything we owed - total balance, minimum payments, interest rates, and even how much of our payments were going towards interest vs. principal. I used online calculators to understand what our payoff date was. I immersed myself in debt payoff content - podcasts and books and online articles - anything I could get my hands on that made me feel less alone and educated me about how to pull myself out of the mess I'd created.

The anticipation of financial freedom after being overburdened by debt for so long was our motivation; my channeled anger was the fuel that kept the payoff fire burning. 

By the age of 38, all account balances were zero. We'd paid off our mortgage and built up a bulky savings account, too. This is powerful stuff!

A word to the wise… Be aware of people who attempt to sell you a vision of quick debt payoff techniques. They're often just shifting things around to make your payments more manageable but not actually making a dent in the debt. Just as it took time to get into debt, it will take time to get out. There is no quick fix. 

I'm sharing this to encourage those of you who may be in a similar situation. As a Financial Counselor, I meet people daily who tell me the weight of their debt is stifling. You can hear it in their voices and see it on their faces. The overwhelm and lack of clarity. I recognize it because I've been there. I see you.

While some debt comes from choices we might make differently in hindsight, other debt is the result of circumstances beyond our control. Regardless of how it was accumulated, debt is heavy and to get out from under it requires a clear vision and diligence. And sometimes a bit of anger creates the needed spark to ignite the process.

Consider how your emotions can be used as a force for good in support of your own debt payoff journey. If you get caught up in the mess of it all, don't hesitate to ask for help.