May | 2013 | Double Debt Single Woman

How to Survive Debtor’s Prison

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Double Debt Single Woman

Welcome to OZ, Debtor’s Prison my friend.

What are you in for?

Me? Student loans and credit card debt. Well, let me give you the lowdown of how things run here.

Those of us who have committed crimes worthy of a debtor’s prison sentence will be here for a while. Since you have student loan debt like me, don’t expect to get outta here any time soon with any parole. You gotta serve your full time. There is no redemption for us. No forgiveness.

There are some lessons you need to learn up front if you are going to survive in here.

Don’t Gamble – If you gamble, eventually you’ll owe the wrong people. In Debtor’s Prison gambling make take the form of side hustles that require up front payment. Get your debt down to a manageable level first before risking money on anything, even if it may make you some money.

Work Out – Deal with stress. Make your body as strong as you can while you develop your financial mind strength.

Learn and Reflect – Identify what got you here. Reflect. This is a time for rehabilitation. Make the most of it. Prevent this from happening again. Spend time reading books, blogs and listening to podcasts about personal finance. Learn about not only your personal bad decisions, but also the larger socio-economic forces and inequities that got you where you are. Spend time reading up on personal relationship and self-help books. Being in debtor’s prison isn’t all about numbers. Learn about the emotional, psychological side to why you are where you are.

Plot your Escape. Look up ways to make more money faster and save more money faster.

Work – Work two jobs minimum. In addition to your full-time job you’ll need at least one or two part-time jobs and/or side hustles. Remember, your debt payoff system won’t work unless you do.

Avoid (Debt) Depression – It makes you weak and vulnerable. Learn the symptoms. Combat depression by eliminating that feeling of hopelessness. You do that by making detailed plans to plot your escape. Find someone to talk to when you feel down, and especially if you feel suicidal. If you don’t have anyone you can talk to – go online and join and online forum, comment on a blog, or start your own. There will be times when, with no distractions and just your thoughts, you can be dragged into depression by dwelling on opportunity cost and where you could have been, what you could have had, and what you could have done.

Stick up for Yourself – Don’t let others put you down because you are having financial problems. Stay away from people who are mean to you and don’t socialize with them. Don’t be afraid to fight back when you need to.

Be a Model Prisoner – The end-game here is about getting out. Do everything you are supposed to. PAY OFF THAT DEBT. Good behavior = early release.

Get Out and Stay Out – 0% recidivism is your goal. You have learned your lesson. You don’t have to go home, but you gotta get outta here. Don’t ever come back.

That’s it. Remember those rules and you should be alright. Watch your back and don’t accept any gifts in here. Credit cards with 0% interest and cashback rewards are not gifts. Every ‘gift’ in here has strings attached. Remember that. Good luck. See you around the yard.

(Note: Many of these points were adapted from articles on how to survive actual prison.)

“Debtor’s prison is real, and opportunity cost is a bitch.” (DDSW)

How to Cope with Debt

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Double Debt Single Woman

Coping with debt is a skill.

For those of us with crushing long-term debt that it will take us years to pay off, coping with debt is a skill that could save our lives. While we are working our multiple jobs and side hustles, making more money and cutting expenses, we need to realize that dealing with debt is more than a numbers game.

1. Breathe, Stretch, & Take a Walk

I know it sounds trite, but do it. Really. The stress of debt can be deadly. It has been linked to depression, chronic hypertension, migraines, digestive problems, heart and autoimmune diseases. Get outside and get some sun. Deep breathing clears the lungs and lowers blood pressure. Stretching and moving increases healthy blood circulation. Taking a brisk walk strengthens the heart and exercises tense muscles. We all know how exposure to sunlight is very good for mood and natural vitamin D production.

2. Start and Maintain a Debt Diary

When behind the bars of debtor’s prison, write. Write to save your sanity and your health.

Get a good old fashioned paper diary, regular notebook, Word/Google doc, or even a blog – whatever works for you. This diary / journal / logbook is where you can vent about all the slights, put-downs, and insultiments you endure on a regular basis. Everytime you have your intelligence insulted on your job, write about it. Everytime you endure a desperation filled and humiliating job interview, write about it. Everytime you get snubbed by family, friends, or strangers, write about it.

Just told someone off because you couldn’t take it anymore – record it here for history. Found out that your cousin who barely graduated high school/college married a doctor and is now on holiday with him in Europe? Grind your teeth while you look for your bus pass. The only place you can afford to go is to work! What about your classmate whose parents helped him start a business and who now works for himself. Grind your teeth, and buy a dental guard from the store to avoid a nasty dentist bill, while on your way to your second job.

Write about these encounters, feel them, and get them out of your mind and down on paper – every detail. Don’t keep things bottled up. It leads to illness. Write about what happened, who said what, who did what, how the incident ended, and how it made you feel. Vow that once out of debt that this will not happen again. Then think about concrete actions that you can take to prevent it from happening again.

3. Sit Back for Cinema Therapy

Cinema therapy gives us a chance to make sense of our own financial situation by seeing it reflected in the lives of others. For some, distance provides perspective. There a few different forms of cinema therapy.

Documentaries to educate you about personal finance and the debt industry
- In Debt We Trust, College Inc., Credit Card Trap, Maxed Out, Affluenza
Documentaries that help you put your plight in perspective
- American Winter
Your favorite comedy to lift your spirits. Laughter is medicine.
- Entry Level (I haven’t seen this yet, but the trailer looks interesting.)

4. Catch the Reading Rainbow

Whether nonfiction books, fiction novels, or blogs, read things that educate, entertain, or edutain you about personal finance, minimalism, frugality, and lifestyle design. Don’t overlook the fiction genre. One entertaining fiction book about sudden unemployment that I enjoyed recently was Bitter is the New Black. Check it out from your local library. You do patronize your FREE local library, right?

5. Join a Personal Finance/ Debt Therapy Group

Don’t want to bother your friends and family with another diatribe or cry session? Has your debt diary started yelling back at you to stop harassing it? You may be the perfect candidate for group therapy. There are online and face-to-face groups available for the joining. Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover Forums, Early Retirement Extreme Forums, local meetup groups, and countless others can give you the support you need to vent and strategize ways out of debt. Drag those scary financial skeletons out of the closet. No local face-to-face groups in your area? Start one on Meetup.com.

6. Reduce or eliminate the junk

Didn’t think I’d let you off the hook that easily, did you? We all know the drill. Cut out, or at least cut down, the sugar, alcohol, and fried foods. Don’t self-medicate with drugs, or alcohol. We all know that it will cause more and worse problems down the line.

There you have it. These are a handful of ways to begin coping with long-term large debt, while we actively work to claw ourselves out of it as fast as we can. I’m working on these myself. It’s not easy.

What are some ways that you cope with your large debt?

“Debtor’s prison is real, and opportunity cost is a bitch.” (DDSW)

5 Reasons Why People Practice Extreme Frugality and / or Minimalism

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Double Debt Single Woman

I’ve been considering why some of us are drawn to (extreme) frugality and/or minimalism. I have identified five reasons or triggers for these practices. You may identify with all of these possible causes or none. If we maintain this way of life for many years, we may move between these reasons as our circumstances change. I am not a psychologist or behavioral economist, so these are just my personal observations and opinions. Note that frugality and minimalism are NOT the same thing. I pair them here for the sake of simplicity.

#1. Reflexive Resentment

You couldn’t turn things around now you’ve lost it all. Your debts and financial situation have caught up with you, and you can’t run and hide anymore. The facade has crumbled. You’ve hit a low point and need a way to cope with your situation. You turn all that sadness, disappointment, and embarrassment into anger and resentment. You had to sell a lot of your possessions. The things you have left mock you. As a reflex and as a way to protect your ego, your sense of self, you begin to see the things that you no longer have, the things you could no longer have, as a useless waste. In your mind, if you can’t have it, then you don’t want it. You dislike owning things now. You see stuff as weight that keeps you tied down. You dislike spending money. You may not even have much desire to travel anymore when it used to be all you thought about. You reduce your living expenses and lifestyle in a way that rejects what you used to value and spend money on.

For instance, some people practice minimalism as a way to reduce anxiety and stress by reducing the number of things in their life. That means, fewer things to search for, buy, store, clean, insure, and maintain, etc. It can be a way to assert control over one’s environment, particularly if it is felt that other parts of life are out of control.

In addition to resenting things, you also resent yourself for thinking that you had a shot at a better life. You resent yourself for being so financially ignorant and gullible with regard to money. While you may love your family, you may resent them for not teaching you to protect yourself from financial predators. You resent that you, without knowing any better, allowed yourself to be financially taken advantage of.

You don’t want status symbols and stuff anymore. Some may call it sour grapes. Others may call it a symptom of depression. I’m not a psychologist, but it seems that while this may help one cope in the short term, if it goes on long term, it may not be the healthiest perspective and could slip into mental illness if not regularly measured against healthy boundaries.

#2. Psychological Trauma

Similar to #1 (reflexive resentment) but more sudden and severe. Whereas #1 may take place over a period of months or years where one’s financial situation deteriorates, #2 psychological trauma, happens suddenly. Usually a job loss, a large negative legal judgement or expense, divorce, or a grave and costly medical diagnosis turns your life upside down in one moment.

Your safety net and security are snatched from underneath you before you can steady yourself or put plans in place. You may find yourself days or hours away from being homeless, or you may find yourself actually being homeless. These experiences can cause psychological trauma that can last a lifetime. In its extreme form, the result can be an unhealthy relationship with money and ownership of things.

We all know the story of Kate Hashimoto from “Extreme Cheapskates”. Her obsession with not spending (“wasting”) money was triggered when she lost her job during the dot.com bust. This must have been a traumatic event for her because now, even though she makes a six-figure salary with a big accounting firm, she refuses to spend money on anything. [To anyone who has traveled outside of the U.S. and Europe, the things she does to save money are actually commonly done in many parts of the developing world, and are not “weird”.] What is concerning however, is that she and others in this category do some things that put their health at risk when they have more than enough money to not have to do that.

#3. ROI – It’s Business

You find frugality and/or minimalism to be a strategic financial pathway to achieve some life goal, such as extreme early retirement. You have calculated that if you reduce your expenses and possessions for a period of time now, you can divert that money to savings and investments that will allow you to retire early, start a business, or travel the world for years.

#4. It’s Trendy

You are not experiencing financial hardship. However, with the economy not being what it used to be, and with so many people cutting back, you want to fit in. Perhaps, thanks to a documentary or famous blog, you undertake a 1 month or even a 1 year challenge to buy nothing new, or only spend X dollars, or only own X number of things, or live on minimum wage. For you, it’s about adventure, and accomplishment.

#5. Enlightened Self-Awareness

You embrace frugality and/or minimalism by choice and practice it as an outward manifestation of your own inner peace and self-acceptance. For you, practicing frugality and/or minimalism is not a means to an end. It is not something to be endured. It is a way of life. You have no desire for designer labels, and the accumulation of stuff. You only keep those things that bring you the most value and benefit, and reflect what is most important to you.

There you have it. Those are my five reasons why people are drawn to practicing (extreme) frugality and/or minimalism. Did I forget any? Why do you think people are drawn to this way of life?

“Debtor’s prison is real, and opportunity cost is a bitch.” (DDSW)

Photocredits:
Bitterness and Resentment – examiner.com
Meditation – astralsociety.net