If you’ve been struggling to break free from credit card debt––you’re in the right place.
In this episode, I’m diving deep into one of the most commonly requested topics: the ins and outs of credit card debt. We’ll uncover how sneaky interest rates can chip away at your hard-earned money every single day and explore powerful strategies to help you tackle that high-interest debt so you can finally breathe easy.
As someone who’s dedicated to helping women save money, invest, and feel financially confident, I firmly believe that understanding your debt is the first crucial step in breaking free from it. When we take back control of our finances, we collectively fight the patriarchy—by making ourselves richer, savvier, and fully in control of our money. Ready?
How to pay off credit card debt:
- Start with an Emergency Fund
Build or maintain a safety net before aggressively tackling credit card balances. This ensures you don’t slide back into debt if life throws you a curveball—like an unexpected bill or job loss.
- Choose a Payoff Method: Snowball or Avalanche
Snowball Method: Attack the smallest balance first for quick wins and motivation.
Avalanche Method: Prioritize the debt with the highest interest rate first, which saves you more money in the long run.
- Consider a Personal Loan for High-Interest Balances
Consolidate multiple credit cards into one loan with a lower, fixed interest rate and a set payment schedule. This can dramatically simplify your debt repayment and reduce compounding daily interest charges. Check to see if you qualify for my partner personal loan recommendation (doesn’t hurt your credit score! Terms apply.
- Negotiate Lower Interest Rates
Call your credit card provider and request an interest rate reduction. Even a small decrease (e.g., from 25% to 22%) can save you a significant amount over time.
- Adopt Better Spending Habits
Track what’s coming in and going out, avoid overspending, and commit to on-time, in-full payments whenever possible to prevent future debt accumulation.
Notable quotes
“We don’t just need to pay off our debt; we need to change the habits that got us there, or nothing will ever really change.”
“If you are living above your means and raw-dogging life without an emergency fund, a personal loan won’t magically fix everything—you still have to pay that debt.”
“Tough love isn’t a real solution. Shame is the worst teacher and tool. You deserve education, encouragement, and a plan.”
Episode at-a-glance
≫ 00:48 Understanding credit card debt
≫ 02:26 How debt and interest work
≫ 07:20 Strategies for paying off debt
≫ 08:32 Using credit cards responsibly
≫ 14:53 Emergency funds vs. debt payoff
≫ 19:16 Debt payoff methods: snowball vs. avalanche
≫ 22:36 The role of personal loans
≫ 32:30 Setting financial goals and staying motivated
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Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
Hi, I’m Tori Dunlap. Welcome to Financial Feminist, and on today’s show we are talking about credit card debt, how it works, the strategies to pay off debt faster, and how to stay out of it for good. Let’s get started.
Hi team. Welcome back to the show. If you are new here, welcome. My name is Tori. I’m a New York Times bestselling author. I fight the patriarchy by making you rich and we teach women all over the world how to save money, pay off debt, start investing, start businesses, and feel financially confident because we know that a financial education is our best form of protest. And if you’re an oldie but a goodie, you knew that already. Welcome to the show. I’m excited to have you here as always. This is a commonly requested topic. We have done a lot of episodes on the show about debt and how it works and how to pay it off, but specifically, credit card debt is one of those things that feels completely overwhelming, very, very difficult to navigate, and also like a slippery slope that you constantly are falling into.
It’s like you’re digging yourself out of the hole and the sand keeps falling in the hole at the same time. So we’re going to dive deep on credit card debt today, exactly what it is and how it works because you may think you know how it works, but they’re kind of sneaky. The credit card companies are a little sneaky. So we’re going to talk about the structure of credit card debt. We’re going to talk about how to pay off debt in a way that’s sustainable, that doesn’t make you hate your life, that doesn’t make you sacrifice everything that you’ve ever loved. And we’re also going to talk about when you are finally out of credit card debt, how do we stay out of it for good? But first a word from our sponsors.
We have so much info including our exclusive debt master classes over in our membership program, the $100K Club. We have already so many wins from people who are starting to pay off their debt, who are saving their first couple thousand dollars or who are even halfway already to their first 100K goals. So if that’s of interest, we have an annual subscription as well as a monthly subscription that is cheaper than a gym membership. You can go to herfirst100k.com/100k-pod and we’ll also post the link down below in the show notes if you want to take this education further.
Let’s first talk about generally how debt works. I actually know from research for my book, Financial Feminist, that the number one reason women go into debt is that they don’t understand how a loan works. It’s not that they’re dumb, it’s not that they’re uneducated, it’s that literally no one’s ever sat down and taught them. And so I need to explain to you first how any kind of debt works in order for you to get a plan. We can’t create a plan until we understand what’s actually happening. So debt is made up of two basic components. The first is the principal. That is the original amount of money that you took out. So if you get a student loan, for example, and that student loan is $30,000, that is the principal. If you put a thousand dollars on a credit card and you do not pay it off, that is the principal. The principal is the original amount of money that you took out as a loan or took out in debt.
The second component of debt is what’s called interest. Because they’re not just going to give you this amount of money for free, so they’re asking for an exchange for this lending of money. They’re going to charge you interest on top. Now, this is the part that most people don’t fully understand is that, if you put $1,000 on a credit card, for instance, that interest is going to accumulate in a different way than your interest on a student loan or your interest on a car loan or a mortgage or something else. There’s three basic components of interest. First is the rate of the interest. So your average student loan is anywhere from 4-7%. We’re seeing more on the 7% as of this recording, but the average credit card interest rate is 22% and it caps at about 30%, so that’s a lot more expensive. There’s some debt like mortgages, student loans that have lower interest rates. It still seems overwhelming of course, so it makes the debt seem less overwhelming or at least it’s more manageable because that interest rate isn’t as high.
But when it comes to credit cards, that interest rate being 18, 20, 25, 30% is really, really high, and that interest rate is getting charged for any type of loan against that principal because that is the cost of getting that loan. That’s the cost of getting that money. The second thing you need to think about when it comes to interest is how this interest is accruing. So what is the rate that this interest accrues at? For some loans, this interest is every year. For some loans like credit cards, this interest applies every single day. So your interest is not just applied once a month, once a year. Every single day that you owe a credit card company money, you are going to pay interest.
And finally, you need to understand how the interest accrues. So not just what the interest rate is, when it happens, but also how often it happens. There’s some debt, usually a mortgage for example, that has what’s called simple interest. Simple interest means, for easy math, $1,000, 10% interest, you’re only paying $100. But compound interest is where debt starts to get really, really sticky. Compound interest, just like compound interest with investing, which is positive, it accrues every single time. So it could be great if you’re investing, which means your interest is earning interest, is earning interest, but if you have debt that is compounding interest, that is a fucking slippery slope because your interest is earning interest, is earning interest.
The best part, and I mean best as sarcastically as possible here, about credit cards is that the interest is high. It’s a high interest rate. It is a daily interest rate and it’s compounding. So every single day your interest earns interest on yesterday’s interest. Take a shot every time I say interest, but you get it. Now I’m saying this to you, not to freak you out, not to scare you, not to shame you, but because you might not understand that this is what’s going on. In fact, again, back to the research I did for my book, most people don’t, most women don’t. So we have to start understanding why credit card debt can be so dangerous and also why it feels so insurmountable, because it’s not just interest getting charged once a year. It is interest getting charged every single day that earns interest off of yesterday’s interest, and it’s a really, really high rate.
So one of the things I talk about with paying off any kind of debt, and we have a whole chapter in my book about paying off debt, is that, if we can pay down the principal, you’re going to spend less money in interest. If we can pay down, let’s say that original $1,000 that we put on a credit card, well then we’re not getting charged as much interest. The interest doesn’t have the ability to accrue at the same way or in the same way so that your overall balance gets to go down. So one of the tips I have in my book, and we have a whole script on how you can do this, is calling whoever your debt is through, whoever your debt provider is through and seeing if you can apply additional payments just to the principal. So if you can lower the principal, that means you’re paying less debt overall.
However, a lot of credit cards don’t let you do this. They don’t let you just pay to the principal, and especially not your monthly or your minimum payment. That’s going to the general pot, that’s going to your principal and your interest. So this is another reason why credit card debt can be so, so dangerous and also feel really, really overwhelming. You might be asking yourself, “Why do I have a credit card at all then?” Or maybe, “I’m listening to this and I’m so scared of going into debt that I’ve never signed up for a credit card.” Well, there’s many reasons to have a credit card. And again, a metaphor I use in my book is a credit card is a really great tool. It’s like a knife, like knives we use every day to cut vegetables for ourselves, but can also slice your finger if you’re not using them properly, if you don’t have the proper knife skills. So credit cards, when used responsibly, are a fantastic tool to build credit. They are the best tool available for you to build your credit score when you are using your credit responsibly.
They’re also more secure than a debit card. The credit card provider is actually paying for that security as well as the merchant is paying to have a more secure transaction for you. And also, let’s say somebody gets access to your checking account or knows your PIN, they can hypothetically completely wipe out your account. Credit cards have so much fraud protection and security built into them, so if I get a charge that wasn’t mine, all I have to do is dispute it and I don’t have to pay for it. And finally, and I’ve talked about this a lot on my social media and on Instagram and TikTok, is that I get so much free shit with credit cards. I have traveled in lie down flat business class seats to Europe. I have stayed in incredible five-star hotels for free. I can get upgrades at hotels or on airlines using these points. I get TSA pre-check, I get lounge access, I get additional car insurance when I rent a car, so there’s so many incredible uses for credit cards.
However, when not used responsibly, when mishandling the knife, it can cut you. And so when we’re thinking about properly using a credit card, before we even get into credit card debt, we need to be spending within our means and paying it off every single month, making on time, in-full payments. This is going to be very obvious to some of you, but I literally saw a TikTok the other day where this girl, she was probably in her early twenties and clearly never had somebody sit down with her and teach her how a credit card works, and that’s okay, most people don’t. She was like, “How am I in credit card debt? I’ve been paying my minimum payments every single month, but it’s saying now that I’m in credit card debt and have been for a year.” If you put $1,000 on a credit card, your credit card company, and this is where the sneaky thing comes in, is going to say, “Oh, you just have to pay 100 bucks of that. Don’t worry, just minimum payment, 100 bucks. You put $1,000 on it, but no, we’re only going to ask you for 100 bucks.”
Let’s say you pay 100 bucks, well, you’re in $900 of debt now. That’s the thing that they don’t necessarily completely tell you, at least not explicitly like that because they make money when you’re in debt. They make money by being a little bit veiled and a little bit sneaky. So for those of you listening, you’re like, “Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. I can’t just put $1,000 in and only have to pay for 10% of it.” But a shocking amount of people believe, “Cool, this is a great tool. I’ll just use this.” And then you go into debt. So pay off your credit cards in full, so that full $1,000, and pay them on time to avoid late fees.
We also want to look for credit cards that we’re actually going to use. Even if it’s the best deal you’ve ever seen with a credit card like Southwest has a great deal on their credit card, but you never fucking fly Southwest, that is a waste of a credit card. We have the favorite credit cards I use and recommend at herfirst100k.com/tools, the travel credit cards I use the cash back credit cards I use. So you can head on over to that link and see and maybe sign up for yourself. Finally, the other responsible thing we can do with credit cards, and as a way to increase our credit score, is by keeping debt under 30% of our credit utilization across all your cards. Credit utilization is exactly what it sounds like. How much credit are you using? And if you can keep that under 30%, but really if you can swing it under 10%, you’re going to have a very, very good chance at getting a higher credit score.
And fun fact that even Kristen doesn’t know. Kristen, my credit score dropped 60 points in the past month. You know why? Because my credit utilization went up and it dropped maybe 80 points. It was something crazy. My credit score is now at 706 when it was 780, 790, and it was because I did a bunch of donations at the end of December and was just like, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, bunch of money, yay, end of year.” And then my credit score was like… “What are you doing? You’re using way more of your credit than you used to.” So a whole other episode about it. We’ve done episodes about credit score. We have a section in my book about it, but this is the importance of monitoring your credit. Because if I were to, let’s say, decide I’m going to buy a house right now, I would be paying more in interest because my credit score isn’t as high.
So we’ve talked about how debt works, how credit card debt works, how to use a credit card responsibly. Let’s talk about how we actually get out of credit card debt if we do find ourselves here. If we are the person who is overwhelmed with credit card debt, it was the slippery slope and we were riding that sled, and suddenly we’re at the ground and going, “Oh my God, how do I get out of this?” Let’s talk about what you can do. When it comes to actually paying off your credit card debt, one of the most common mistakes I see is this, because you’re overwhelmed and because you’re freaking out about your debt, you make one of two mistakes or maybe both of them. One, you focus on debt payoff before saving your emergency fund, or two, try to half-ass a bunch of things as opposed to whole-assing one.
So let’s talk about the emergency fund versus debt thing first. Why Tori do you believe that you need an emergency fund first? Well, couple things. One, I need you to have a safety net should an emergency happen because I don’t want you going into debt or into more debt trying to pay for an emergency. This is where the debt cycle becomes really, really gnarly is if you’re in debt already and you’re trying to pay it down and you don’t have anything in savings or even a small amount in savings that you know is not going to cover you and then you lose your job or you get laid off, your dog gets sick, you have an unexpected medical bill, your car gets impounded, something crazy happens that you did not expect. And always something crazy happens that you do not expect. Then what’s happening is that you are continuing the debt cycle. You are going more into credit card debt or going into even more expensive credit card debt on a different credit card with a higher interest rate because you don’t have enough money to cover that expense, that emergency.
So that’s the first thing. We are prioritizing an emergency fund too, duh, but protect ourselves in case of emergencies. The second reason we’re prioritizing that emergency fund is because we believe in prioritizing your mental health here at Financial Feminist. And there is something so peaceful about going to bed at night knowing that, no matter what happens tomorrow, you are financially covered at least for a period of time. And it is so important to think about your mental health and think about you making sure that you know you’re good because you’re more likely to overspend if you don’t feel secure. You’re more likely to make poor decisions if you don’t feel secure. So we need to make sure that our head can hit the pillow at night and we’re sleeping good knowing that we’re covered.
And finally, women especially, I need you to have fuck off money. If you are in a relationship that no longer respects you, if you are in a job that no longer respects you, if you’re in an apartment that no longer feels safe, if you need to get out of a situation, I need you to have the money to do that. The reason that I was able to quit my second toxic job was because I had an emergency fund. I was so anxious, I was crying every single day. This is the boss who told me 10 days in that she was worried she regretted hiring me. I talk about this in the intro of my book. It was awful. It was terrible. And the day I walked out there, walked out of the job and had quit, oh my God, it was the best day ever.
I spent all of Christmas, I remember staying, we were away for Christmas, me and my family, and I was in their computer room at the hotel trying to do this task, this huge project that she had assigned me on Christmas Day. I just felt awful. I felt awful about myself. I felt awful about my situation and I realized, “Oh, shit, I have enough money to leave. I have an emergency fund.” I didn’t have millions of dollars at that point, not even close. I didn’t even have my first 100K yet, but I had enough money to leave that situation and it felt incredible. And I never want you to be in a situation that you don’t want to be in because you can’t afford to leave. So that’s one mistake I see is people get stressed out with debt and they just dive right in, but then, when an emergency happens, they don’t have anything to cover themselves with.
And the other mistake that half-assing a bunch of things as opposed to whole-assing one is, if you have multiple kinds of debt, even multiple credit cards with debt on them, it is very easy to say, “Okay, I’m going to take my limited resources and I’m going to do a little bit here and a little bit here and a little bit over here.” The problem with doing that though is, to quote Ron Swanson, “You’re half-assing a bunch of things as opposed to whole-assing one.” We want you whole-assing one. We want all of your focus on one thing so that you can check that box and you can move on to the next. So how do we actually pay off debt and specifically, how do we actually pay off credit card debt?
Well, there’s two strategies and yes, they were coined by Dave Ramsey. I hate it. I hate that I get to credit him and get to use his little nomenclature, but this is where we’re at. The two methods are snowball and avalanche. Snowball means that you are focusing all of your effort on paying down the debt with the lowest balance. Let’s say we have one credit card with $10,000 of a balance on it, $10,000 in debt at 25% interest. And then let’s say we have an additional credit card at 18% interest, but $5,000. So the snowball method would say pay down the 18% interest credit card first because it only has a $5,000 balance. Now, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Personal finance is personal. If you feel like, “You know what, that’s better for me because it’s going to get me that W under my belt. It’s going to feel good.” And that’s going to be the dopamine and the motivation to keep going is getting that done faster, great. That’s okay.
However, I personally like the avalanche method better. The avalanche method is paying off the one with the highest interest rate first. Why? Well, because that’s the one that’s costing you the most money. That 25% interest is costing you more money, especially because it has a higher balance in this case than the one with 18% interest. And if we can save money and interest, great, that’s fantastic. You get to save money. So no matter which one you choose, just focus on one. Don’t try to dilute your efforts. Don’t try to, again, half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing. The how to pay enough debt is shockingly simple. It is. It’s the consistency that’s difficult. The how is not just putting money towards your monthly or your minimum payments, but putting any additional money that you can towards your debt, and especially if you can just do it toward the principal, amazing.
That’s it. But the hard part is the consistency. The hard part is doing it every single month potentially for years. When people talk about drowning in debt, it’s not because they don’t have the manual to pay it off. Although I think, of course, education helps. It’s probably why you’re listening to this. That’s why you engage with my work. But it’s really about the consistency. It’s about staying consistent. It’s about progress over perfection, and it’s about just slowly, slowly chipping away at your debt balance and preferably without going into more debt while you’re trying to do it. Because, like I said before, really hard to dig yourself out of a hole that sand is also still falling into. So if you’re right in the midst of that feeling, the, “You know what? I am so overwhelmed by this and I feel like I’ve tried everything and I’m slowly chipping away, but it keeps accumulating, it keeps compounding, and it doesn’t feel like enough,” I do have a solution for you. Let’s talk about personal loans.
Personal loans allow you to borrow a lump sum of money to pay off multiple debts. You then pay off the loan in fixed monthly installments over a set period of time. This is usually two to five years. So it is another kind of debt, but let me tell you why and how it’s different. The incredible thing about personal loans is, one, that fixed monthly payment. It is fixed, it is digestible, and folks from our community who have already done this, who have taken out personal loans to pay off their credit cards have cited that they finally feel like they can breathe again because it’s digestible, it’s specific, and they have a plan. The second incredible thing about personal loans is that you can take a bunch of different debt, if you have multiple credit cards with debt on them, and you can combine it into one monthly rate. So we can whole-ass many things as opposed to just whole-assing one or half-assing many. It’s Ron Swanson’s dream.
But the best thing for me about personal loans is that the interest rate is different and better than credit cards. Remember, at the top, we explain credit cards, the interest rates is not only compounding, but it compounds every single day. That means if you are in credit card debt, every day that goes by, you are earning interest on that debt. You are spending more money being in debt. Personal loans, however, charge you simple interest. That’s the, take out $1,000, only pay 10%. That’s what we’re talking about here. It does not compound, and it’s one simple interest rate. It’s one fee. Personal loans make your debt a hell of a lot more manageable, a hell of a lot more focused for your debt payoff journey and a hell of a lot less expensive.
The final thing that we love about personal loans for people with credit card debt is that the interest rate is usually way lower. So as opposed to 25% interest on your credit cards, you can pay 10% interest or 12% interest. It’s typically three, five, sometimes 10 or more percentage points less in interest than you were paying on your credit cards. The powerful thing about personal loans, lower interest rates, personal loans are coming with much lower interest rates than credit cards. Two, the type of interest, it’s not compounding every day. It is fixed. It is simple interest. There’s also fixed payments, so there’s no variable interest. You’re knowing exactly what you’re going to pay each month, and there’s one payment. So there’s one single loan repayment that simplifies your finances.
Things to consider before a personal loan. We have our recommendation for a personal loan provider down below, but before you check that out, some things to consider before getting a personal loan. One is your eligibility. Providers are not going to typically provide you with a loan if you have a low credit score. Why? Because you are more risky to them. When a loan provider gives you money, they want to know that you are going to pay it back, and the way the system works right now is the credit score is the big determining factor. They don’t want you taking on more debt if they feel like you’re not going to be able to handle it or if they feel like this isn’t the best solution for you. Eligibility includes your credit score, your income, and what’s called your debt to income ratio. This is going to affect, not only do you get approved for a personal loan, but also what the interest rate is. And the debt to income ratio is exactly what it sounds like. How much debt do you have versus what do you bring in every year?
The second thing with a personal loan is the fees. You want to watch out for any sort of hidden fees, including origination fees, which are just the start of the loan. My least favorite fee is that some personal loan providers will charge you an additional fee for paying off your personal loan before the terms are up. So if your personal loan is three years and you pay it off at two and a half, you might have to pay a fee. That’s bullshit. The one that I recommend does not have that fee because that’s a bullshit fee in my opinion, and I don’t want you paying that fee. And finally, something to consider is what are the loan terms? If you’re about to take on a personal loan that is not that much better than a credit card, it’s only an interest point away, it’s 1% difference, it might not be the most advantageous thing. Or if you find yourself going to have to pay this loan off forever and ever and ever and ever, and you do think you can maybe pay your credit cards off, probably not a good idea to take out that personal loan.
Finally, before you do any sort of finagling your debt, if you do not have a plan and you’re just getting a personal loan or any of the rest of these to kick the can further down the road so that you don’t have to fucking deal with it, you’ve ostriched yourself so far in the sand that you’re like, “Oh, this’ll be a Staples That Was Easy Button and it’ll buy me more time and you’re not even going to think about it, that’s not the solution here. We have to do things that make our debt cheaper and make our debt more manageable while also understanding that we still have to pay it. Those things are not mutually exclusive. You have to make debt more manageable and also you’re not off scot-free. It’s not a get out of jail free card. I wish it was, but that’s not how this works.
Before we understand if a personal loan’s right for us, if any of the rest of this is relevant, using a personal loan to pay off your credit card debt is so effective, and we’ve already seen it in our community. It’s saving people thousands of dollars in interest, and it’s making their debt more manageable and they feel finally some hope again. But it’s crucial to avoid accumulating more debt after or during the debt payoff process. If you are currently living above your means and you didn’t save that emergency fund first and you haven’t actually taken your personal finance education seriously, and you’re just fucking like raw dog in life right now, and then you’re like, “I’m going to get a personal loan, it’s going to fix everything,” you haven’t changed any of your financial habits. Nothing is going to change in your life unless you change it.
And again, you’re using it as a temporary Band-Aid solution, and that’s not going to be effective long-term. We want to focus on building those good financial habits, paying your credit cards off in full every single month on time, not overspending our money, making sure we have an emergency fund and doing our best to build our savings so that we’re not dependent on expensive debt like credit cards to bail ourselves out later. And finally, just tracking our money, knowing what’s coming in, knowing what’s coming out, and actually investing in your financial education, showing up, listening to the show, reading my book, engaging with your money. Again, personal loans are an incredibly powerful tool, and we haven’t really talked about them on the show yet. I wanted to highlight them in this episode specifically about credit cards because they’re so effective when used correctly.
We have the one we recommend. We already vetted it for you. Link down below. This is our partner recommendation. Again, some terms apply. It’s going to depend on your credit score. It’s going to depend on your eligibility, but please go down below and checking to see if you qualify does not affect your credit score at all. So anybody who has credit card debt, you can go down below, you can click the link, and you can see if you qualify. What personal loans should not be used for. Obviously, this episode is mostly about credit cards, but if you’re thinking, “Oh, should I take out a personal loan to pay off my student loan?” No, probably not. Should I take out a personal loan and consolidate my credit cards with my student loan with my mortgage with something else?” No. No. Because like we were talking about at the beginning, every kind of debt is different. The interest is different. It accrues differently. The cost is different. And as soon as you lump all of your debt together, all of your debt is the same.
So only use a personal loan for something like credit cards that are really expensive and that compound your interest every single day. One of the best things you can do, however, to pay off that debt quicker is to call your credit card provider and ask them to lower your interest rate. Because if we lower the interest rate, even if it’s from 25% to 22%, well we’re saving 3% interest, but 3% interest every single day on the 3% interest we were charged yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. So if we can lower our interest rate that we’re paying, we can potentially save money and also feel a little bit more comfortable of this is a nice win, this is a nice W, and I can keep going.
We have a script, if you’re nervous about how to phrase this or how to ask this, in my book, but you’re calling your credit card provider and you’re citing some sort of reason why they should lower your interest rate. I’m going through some sort of financial hardship, or the flip side, which is, I’ve been really financially responsible up to this point. We had an emergency happen, and I would really love a lower interest rate because I’m seeing your other competitors reflect that lower interest rate. The final thing I want to touch on before I round out this episode, debt feels like a personal failing. If you are in debt, especially credit card debt, it feels like shit. You feel like it’s your own fault. You feel like it’s, again, some sort of personal defect or failing, and it is so easy to believe that if you are in debt, that you are a bad person who has made countless unforgivable mistakes about your money.
And you know me, I am not the personal finance expert that’s going to make you feel shamed or judged about your debt. There is light at the end of the tunnel. There is an incredible amount of freedom that comes with you slowly but surely and consistently chipping away at your debt. And the more shame and the more anxiety and the more fear you force yourself to think about and believe, the harder this journey gets. Tough love is not a real thing. You do not need to be condescended to in order to get out of debt. You don’t need to be shamed in order to get out of debt. Psychologically, shame is the worst teacher and tool for accomplishing our goals. So I’m going to give you a hack I use instead.
This is straight from chapter three of my book. This is straight from a previous episode, but let’s set some goals. When you’re thinking about goal setting, your goals need to be three things: specific, timely and mission-driven. So it can’t just be, “I want to become debt-free, or I want to get better with money,” because that has no measurable, quantifiable result. So getting out of debt and focusing on that as a goal might look like, “I will pay off all of my credit card debt by the end of 2025.” That is specific and timely. It is a specific thing you’re doing, paying off all your credit card debt by the end of this year. That is timely. You either know by the end of 2025 that you did it or you made some good progress.
But the thing a lot of people miss is that mission driven aspect, because, as I’ve proven to you, debt and getting out of it is actually not difficult on paper. The how is not difficult. The why is the hard part. The consistency, the showing up, the doing it over and over and over and over again, that is the hard part. So you need to give yourself a reason to care, a reason to keep paying off your debt even when it feels hard. So this goal that is specific and timely, “I want to pay off all my credit card debt by the end of this year so that I can finally feel financially free and that I don’t owe anyone anything,” that’s the why. The why can be, “So I can finally start saving for this other goal because I’m not putting my money towards debt anymore.” The goal can be, “I am paying off this amount of debt so that I can better provide for my family, so that I can show up for myself and my friends, and I can take that beautiful trip that I’ve always wanted to take.”
This is unique to you, but you need to give yourself a why and a reason to care. Because if you don’t, when things get hard, when shit hits the fan in a couple of weeks or two months, or even two years, when you have a financial setback, when you start asking yourself, “Why the fuck am I doing this?” You know why. You know why. And my favorite, favorite hack to help your goal setting actually happen, to make your planning actually successful, is to write down your goals as if they’ve already happened. So as opposed to, “I’m going to pay off my credit card debt by the end of this year so that I no longer have debt hanging over me and I can afford my life,” instead, think about it in the past tense. Something like, “It feels so good to be in 2026 and to not have credit card debt anymore.”
Why do we do this? Well, it convinces our brains that we can do it. We’ve already done it. If we’ve already done it, then we know we can do it. Anderson Paak has this great quote in one of his songs, “If I know I can get it, I’ve already had it.” And that’s what we’re doing here. This is the hack I have used with every single goal that’s happened in my life. We literally recorded it yesterday. It will not be out by this time, but keep a lookout for it. I was lucky enough to be on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast with Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach, and I have wanted that, guys. Oh my God, I have wanted this goal for years, for literal years, and I’ve been emailing and calling and texting people and pitching myself and hearing, “No, no, no.” And finally I got the email to be on.
And do you know what I was doing in my journal that entire time? “It felt so good to be on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast.” I was writing that a year ago before my book even came out. I was writing, “I’m so thankful to be a New York Times bestselling author.” Before this podcast was even released, I was writing, “It feels so good to have a top 40 money podcast.” Now, little did I know that it would debut as the number one money podcast and the number one business podcast in the world. But this is what I’m talking about. If you can convince your brain, “You know what? We can do this because we’ve already done it,” then it puts you in that visualization state where you’re like, “Yeah, this is what my life can look like when I finally achieve this goal.”
So if you are on a credit card debt payoff journey, know that I am here with you every single step of the way. And what I want you to do is I want you to share this episode right now with a friend or a coworker or someone else who you also know is on this journey too, because we know it makes the journey a lot easier when you got a friend with you. And of course, we have all of the resources I mentioned: the link to the personal loan recommendation, the link to the other episodes about debt, the links to the master classes and the $100K Club, the link to my book with an entire chapter about debt payoff. They’re all linked down below. I appreciate you being here, as always, financial feminists. I am so proud and honored to be here for you, to be able to champion you. Go pay off your fucking credit cards, and we’ll see you back here very soon.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First $100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Researched by Sarah Sciortino. Audio and video Engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Taylor Chou, Sasha Bonar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Claire Kurronen, Daryl Ann Ingram and Meghan Walker. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolfe. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.
A huge thanks to the entire Her First $100K community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirsthundredk.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
