Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Brooklyn-based writer Jamie Alyson Feldman told the world she was in debt, big debt, almost $18,000 in credit card debt, and she did it on TikTok. Let's take a listen. We will hear it, maybe, soon. That's you.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: I have a lot of debt. It's partially because I was irresponsible with my money and partially because I was never taught how to manage my money. Partially because I like stuff and stuff costs money.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: "I like stuff." Now she and her best friend launched a podcast, and it's all about debt and our cultural beliefs about people who have it. It's called Debt Heads. Together, the two of them tackle topics like credit card industries, predatory tactics, finance influencers, consumerism, attorney leave, severance, the multitude of ways Americans are getting by in today's economy. The producer and host of Debt Heads podcast, Jamie Alyson Feldman and Rachel Webster, are here with me now. As you can see, it's just like you guys.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Yes, exactly the same.

Alison Stewart: Exactly the same.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Same studio setup, same windowless closet that we're in with towels over our heads. Same exact thing.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have personal debt? What kind? Is it mortgage, student loans, credit cards, medical debt? How are you dealing with your finances? What kind of decisions have you made because of debt? How has it affected your mental health and your relationships, maybe your social life? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. It is a judgment-free zone, I'm going to say, to everybody who calls in, first of all.

Jamie, you log onto TikTok and you tell the world you were in deep debt. What led up to that moment?

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Oh, gosh, so many things. I think I am a theater kid, ultimately, at heart. Anytime I've ever done anything, it really requires some sort of audience to keep me accountable. Once I was able to acknowledge that I was in debt, I decided that the only way I was going to actually stick to a plan is if I was held accountable in some way. TikTok seemed anonymous, which seems naive in hindsight, but I was on Instagram, mostly. I wasn't on TikTok, so I felt like here's a place where I could make a personal diary of sorts.

Alison Stewart: She's your bestie. Rachel, what did you think when you heard this? Because you didn't really know.

Rachel Webster: Well, I think it's just like any friend that, unless they're in crisis, you just assume that they're okay. She admitted to me at this point that she had been severely in doubt for years at that point, and she just had this look of a deer in headlights. I was like, "This is very serious. We need to take this really seriously. This is like an emotional mental health situation in addition to a practical thing."

We actually dropped everything we were doing that day and went straight to my office, and we sat. I said, "Get out all your bank accounts. We're going to put numbers into this budgeting app, and we're going to look at the numbers." That, I think, was just really critical, the holding her hand so that we could look at it together because it's so overwhelming when you--

Alison Stewart: To face it alone.

Rachel Webster: Yes, you don't want to even look. You don't even want to open your bank statement when you're in debt.

Alison Stewart: Did you consider that being a good friend by getting an app out and putting all your stuff in it?

[laughter]

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Yes. First, I was mad at her. She was like, "You need to look at everything you've spent money on in the past six months." I was like, "Get out of here." Then quickly, as soon as I started to confront it and look at it, I was like, "She's right." I had to cancel plans. She made me get on the phone and cancel a dinner I had that night. She watched me do it. [laughs] Ultimately, I felt so lucky because I had been living in shame and isolation. I was afraid that she was going to judge me or feel like I tricked her into being my friend all these years when, really, I'm this bad person with this big secret. The reality was just so different from that. I was so grateful.

Alison Stewart: Did you have to change the way you dealt with Jamie? Did you say, "Oh, let's go out for coffee; oh, let's not go out for coffee"?

Rachel Webster: I think I was already that type of person, relatively frugal. I find fun in things that don't cost a lot of money. That's just the way I live my life. That does not mean I'm not in debt for other reasons. I just said, "This is how we already live our lives. We have so much fun making fun, everywhere we go. Everywhere we walk, we have fun." We go to the library, we go to the park, we make dinner at home, we make cocktails at home.

Alison Stewart: We see fountains. We go to the park and see fountains.

[laughter]

Rachel Webster: Like most of New York, apparently. It was easy to pivot her into my scene, which she was already mostly part of.

Alison Stewart: One of the things that was interesting in the podcast is the shame that came along with it, and some nasty comments. That's why I said this is shame-free zone in this conversation. Let's take a listen to a little bit of Episode 1.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Joining TikTok felt like the Wild West, where no one knew anything about me or anything I'd ever done before. What is this place? I don't see anybody I know. Just one tumbleweed and the sounds of crop-top teens dancing in the glow of their ring lights behind the saloon door. This would be the perfect place to start a video journal chronicling my journey out of debt. Who in their right mind would watch a 30-something-year-old drone on about credit cards? I hit publish and sent my very first message into the void.

Wait, it's not a void. It's a 21st-century social media platform with over a billion users. Even though I'd come across plenty of trolls in my time on the Internet, once they started talking about money, they suddenly had a lot more to say.

Rachel Webster: Should we read some of these?

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Ah, let me get someone else to read them.

Rachel Webster: Here to read the best of the worst comments from Jamie's TikTok is our third-grade friend, Dottie Mae Mershawn.

Dottie Mae Mershawn: Yikes. I'm glad you're in debt. You deserve it. You're delusional. You're tricking yourself and being rude to others. Girl, those nails look so bad. How do you live this way? Geez, what a child.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: First of all, having a little kid tell you that is hilarious.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Really turned the script around. Also, shout out to Rachel's sound design because that's all on display in that clip.

Alison Stewart: What had surprised you about the negative comments?

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Nothing, honestly.

Alison Stewart: Yes?

Jamie Alyson Feldman: [laughs] I think it's really easy for us to focus on the negative comments, which I have been doing. I've worked in journalism for a long time, being public-facing, and it's easy to forget about all the nice things and the people feeling seen and just focus on the negative. It wasn't surprising to me. I think we already know that we live in this sort of shame-based system, and people have really strong reactions. They're triggered by hearing that someone is living their life while in debt. It wasn't easy, but I don't necessarily think it was that surprising.

Alison Stewart: We got a text here that says, "I have $7,000 in credit card debt and $4,000 in tax debt. It's terrifying and anxiety-inducing as a 29-year-old who just got her life together to think about this, as I am barely getting by as is. My therapist is helpful for managing that anxiety. My God, how do I fix this? I choose to pay down my debt and eat from food pantries currently." That's a really hard place to be. I don't want to say what advice would you give her, but where could she start? What do you think, Rachel?

Rachel Webster: I think it's really important to recognize that this is the majority of people right now. You are not failing. This is systemic, so please drop the shame. That's the most important thing, and really start to talk to people in your life because that's the first step. You need to admit what's going on so that you can let go of the secrecy and live your life, and start to address it. We do not have concrete advice beyond that because it's the reality.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: That's exactly what we're exploring in our podcast.

Rachel Webster: Most people don't make enough to get by. There are services, there are things that I looked into. I transferred my debt to a 0% card for a number of months. I know that there are services offered by the public library where you can speak to a financial counselor. Again, we're more just like, we need to be talking about these systems and how we got here in order to even imagine what a different future could look like for all of us.

Alison Stewart: It's really great the way you talk about it on the podcast because it's a little bit funny. Like you said, the sound design is awesome. [laughs]

Rachel Webster: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: How did you decide how you were going to tell these stories?

Rachel Webster: Well, everything that we've ever consumed when it came to finance or the economy was either boring, depressing, or boring and depressing. We were like, "That is not a good place to engage." The only way to make any change in the systems that aren't working is to actually be able to face them. We thought, like Mary Poppins says, a spoonful of sugar might help. Also, I think it's really important that we are just lighter in general when we're addressing the difficulties that surround us. If we can have a little bit of levity, a little bit of self-deprecation, then it doesn't feel like the big monster that most people feel like it is.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Also, I think we're not trying to reach the people who are already consuming finance content. We're trying to reach people who, like us, are not necessarily always thinking about these systems critically. The way that we do everything in our lives, I think, is with a hint of sarcasm. We were like, "That feels like the best way to reach a wide number of people."

Alison Stewart: A narrative podcast investigates the reasons why so many people are dealing with debt and how to talk about it. It's called Debt Heads. The creators and hosts of the show, Jamie Alyson Feldman and Rachel Webster, are here with me to discuss the show and to take your calls. Let's talk to John from Monmouth County. Hey, John, thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

John: Hey, I have a question about the big debt, which is a mortgage, for a variety of reasons. I'm paying a mortgage till I'm 79 years old, a 30-year fixed mortgage. I'm putting extra money towards it, thinking I want to pay it off early, but I've recently been second-guessing that and thinking, "Might do better things with that money, that extra money I'm throwing towards the mortgage, and maybe invest it and do better." I don't know if your guests have any thoughts on that.

[laughter]

Jamie Alyson Feldman: We're really happy for you that you have extra money to invest in your mortgage. Anyway, that's the advice that I've been given too.

Rachel Webster: My husband's understanding is that if you have a really low rate at this point, you should just keep that low rate forever and pay the least amount and invest it other ways. Please do not come to us for professional advice because we are not experts.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: It was interesting when you talked about the experts that you would find in a field. They were the ones inducing the shame on people. You were talking about "Dave Ramsey, it's your fault. You should save more." I'm going to be generational about this. What do you think people don't understand about your generation in debt? Because I think it is very, very different.

Rachel Webster: Yes, it absolutely is. Our latest episode is all about the generational shift, and there is a series of cultural and political things that changed right at the beginning of the millennial generation, late '70s and early '80s, that changed the landscape for young people trying to grow up. We're still following the dream of the boomers, which is, buy a house, have some kids, go to college.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Two and a half kids. Exactly.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Exactly.

Rachel Webster: Right. Yet, there has been so many things that have changed how that can be possible for so many people, especially people who come from lower-income families.

Alison Stewart: How do you think women were taught about finance? How were you taught about finance, Jamie?

Jamie Alyson Feldman: I was taught to buy things on sale. That was my financial education, mostly.

Alison Stewart: Same.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: I think what we've learned is that nobody is taught about finance, but women earn less than men. Women are the caregivers. They're advertised to be the spenders in the family. When you take that and you add on top of it that none of us have a financial education, it becomes really precarious. That's, I think, part of why being women and also speaking to women, that was part of our goal in making this project.

Alison Stewart: Do you want to say something?

Rachel Webster: Yes. I think that also if people are talking about finance, they're not usually talking about it from this perspective, which is like, "Let's look at the systemics." There's a lot women in this space who are empowered, girl bust energy, and that's just not us. We kind of wanted to reach out to the women who were like, "We don't feel empowered," and go, "Okay, let's talk about that."

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Because there is more than enough of that advice already out there.

Alison Stewart: What was a personal story of debt that you heard that kind of stays with you?

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Maybe Nikki?

Rachel Webster: Yes. Honestly, I think it's just the trends that we've seen in our conversations with people. So many people come up to us and just admit it. "Oh, wow. I can't believe you're talking about that. I'm in debt, and I don't talk about that." That is just super prevalent. Then, when you dig deeper, so many women did not really think about college as something that they would have to be paying up for the rest of their lives.

One of the women that we did speak to was talking about the balances that I think she'd taken out to try to get a degree in different-- She was looking at all of the various accounts, and she told us the numbers that she started with and where she was now. It was like double what she even had borrowed, and that's just wrong.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: At 17, when you're making this decision and you're told that this is what you need to do to have a good life, and meanwhile, then it's not really true once you get out of it at this point, and then you have all this debt to pay off. It's weighing on you forever.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "I was guilty of lifestyle creep, making more money to finally live on my own, but was still spending like I lived with roommates. I depleted my savings, and it took a couple of years to finally admit my problem was because I live in New York City and love dinners. I did the research for the balance transfer card. FYI, you can't do it with the same financial institution. Learned that the hard way. It took me a very long time to pay down, and I was very transparent with my friends and found out that so many of my friends were living with the same situation." Did you find that out?

Jamie Alyson Feldman: I feel like I wrote that text message.

[laughter]

Jamie Alyson Feldman: It became really clear right away. I say that I was afraid my mom was going to find out, her friends were going to find out, my friends were going to find out. I had my mom's friends reaching out to me. I had my friends reaching out to me. They were so understanding. They wanted to go for walks. They wanted to have picnics. I do have an already frugal best friend, but even anyone who I'd had more of a standard, typical New York City relationship with, let's catch up and get drinks and dinner. They were like, "Let's get a box of wine and go to the park or sit on your couch." Ends up being actually more a better way to connect than in a noisy, expensive restaurant.

Alison Stewart: Good.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: That just points to the culture. I mean, we're all living in these places, and in order to be part of the group, you're told you have to do these things.

Rachel Webster: You do them. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: How has working on Debt Heads changed the way you think about your own finances?

Rachel Webster: Well, we are going into debt, making a podcast about debt, because you kind of have to do that to make anything these days. No, I think that we're in the same boat we were.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Yes. The biggest takeaway, I think, is that we're told that personal finance is personal, and we're realizing that it isn't. Finance is not as personal as I thought it was in the beginning.

Rachel Webster: Yes, you really can't compartmentalize your financial reality with the rest of the culture and the government policies that you're living within. We really want to explore that, and that's what we're doing for the rest of the podcast.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Lorenzo from Manhattan. Hi, Lorenzo. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Lorenzo: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a former theater kid myself, actually. Ironically, I became a financial advisor a number of years ago, which makes me a bit of a therapist, which I didn't realize I would become a bit of a therapist, being a financial advisor, but it turns out that I am. I really want to thank your guests for bringing this to life, because often people take years to tell me that they have credit card debt, and my reaction is always, "Oh, well, that's no big deal. That's the thing we can solve. I wish I had known."

It has become clear to me that there is a lot of societal shame in having this kind of credit card debt. As a financial advisor, I just want to say there's no reason to. There's all kinds of reasons why you acquire that kind of high-interest debt, and there's all kinds of ways to solve it. I know it's easy for me to say, "Hey, just don't be ashamed. Just go tell a financial advisor if you work with one, or go to your local bank and say, 'Hey, I have high credit card debt. What can I do?'" There's no reason to be ashamed of it. I just want to thank your guests so much for bringing this to light because I'm just aware of how often people are scared to come forward with this.

Alison Stewart: Thanks, Lorenzo. We appreciate that. Let's try to get another call in here. Christina from Jersey City. Christina, you're on the air.

Christina: Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call. I was just calling in to say that one of the things I was taught about money when I was younger was that it's impolite to speak about it. I just think that that comes from people that have a lot of money, because I also have six figures of debt, mostly student loans. It's because I was underpaid most of my life because I had no idea how much people were making. I was living by myself in New York City as a teacher, making between $30,000 and $50,000. It was scraping by and made me feel like I was irresponsible, or somehow it was my fault. I felt extremely judged, and there was so much shame attached to it.

Again, like most of the callers calling in, I just really appreciate your guests bringing this to light. Yes, we need to talk more about money. We need to encourage our kids to talk about money. We need to talk to our kids about money and what's a living wage and make them advocate for themselves.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling in. This is really interesting. It's really touching a nerve.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: I think so. I love it.

Rachel Webster: Yes.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: [laughs]

Alison Stewart: First of all, before we wrap up, are you Dead Heads, or are you just Debt Heads?

[laughter]

Jamie Alyson Feldman: A little bit of both.

Rachel Webster: Yes. Jamie's a big Grateful Dead fan. We also love a pun. I think that there's a lot of crossover with the Grateful Dead fans who are twirling their way through a cloud of smoke, and how we as people who are just trying to live in our economy are just assuming that it's the way it is and following it like it's a natural law.

Alison Stewart: My guests have been Jamie Alyson Feldman and Rachel Webster. They are the hosts of Debt Heads podcast. It's really, really good. Thanks for coming in.

Jamie Alyson Feldman: Thank you so much.

Rachel Webster: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: There's more All Of It on the way.