November 3, 2024 • 13 mins
It is becoming a fairly common story that debt is getting so big, people are burying their head in the sand rather than dealing with it.
Money mentalist Lynda Moore tells Kerre Woodham debt is easier to ignore in the modern day, without red-letter hard reminders arriving in the mail. Without help and support, people can very easily get lost or trust the wrong people.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carrywood of morning's podcast from news Talk,
said b as.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I said before the news there's a piece in the
spin off about a forty eight year old woman who
was still paying off a huge student loan she first
took out when she was seventeen. It ended up because
she went to live overseas, blowing out to almost one
hundred thousand dollars. It seemed to beg at the time,
she said she didn't even think about money. She wasn't
(00:33):
earning enough. She thought while she was away she wouldn't
have to worry about it. It was only when she
came home she was confronted with the reality of what
she had done. How can people get themselves into situations
like that where you just don't think about it? Or
(00:56):
how do people think it is impossible to save for
a deposit on a house given what I earned when
there are stories every day of people who can and
who do, who are in similar situations who don't have
parental help. How is it that some people's approach to
money is so much more sensible than others. Linda Moore
(01:17):
is the moneymenttalist moneymentalist dot com, and she joins me
now very good morning to you.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Is this a fairly common story that a debt gets
so big that people think I'm not going to deal
with it. It's beyond my understanding, so I'm just going
to bury my head in the sand.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yes, it does. It happens quite a bit. And to
be perfectly honest, it happened to me. I did exactly
the same thing many years ago, before I became the
money mentalist. I ended up six hundred thousand dollars in
yet and I'm an and bear in mind, I'm an accountant,
so I'm supposed to be the expert. How did that?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Heaven?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Well, it happens because life happens. So in my kind
of scenario, I had my wonderful husband lost his job.
I was looking after finance as he was stressed. I
was stressed. Just life got on top of us all.
And you're so busy figuring out which fire am I
going to fight today? And money typically tends to be
(02:21):
one of the hardest because, believe it or not, although
it's the most common thing we have, it's probably the
least understood thing we have in our life. And how
we relate to it.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, I can well imagine that like when I was,
you know, in my twenties in a single mother, I
never imagined I would own a home. I never imagined
I'd be able to save enough because it just seemed
like a monumental amount. And if I had six hundred
thousand in debt, I would just I can't. I would
just be you know, paralyzed by the thought of trying
(02:54):
to pay that back.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yes, because and even like, for example, your lady with
one hundred thousands, you've got to look at it and say, well,
how am I going to pay it back? Because it
takes some tough decisions. You know, I couldn't work myself
out of six hundred thousand dollars in debt, So there
were some major decisions that you need to make. And
then that becomes really hard because how do you find
(03:17):
people to help you make those decisions? And that's also
part of it. But it is quite easy to forget
about debt now because we don't get stuff in the
mail with bits of paper on it telling us we're
in debt. So it's very easy, very easy to ignore it.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I suppose if you've got you know, like if you
haven't paid your power bill, you'd get something wouldn't you
in the mail?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yes, you would, you would, and you might get text
messages and things like that, but you know, there's not
that the pain associated so much with it, because particularly
for example, with the ideas one of them, where you're
kind of expected to go on to your my ir
and look at the stuff yourself. If you're a bit
(04:06):
of a money avoider, that's the last thing you're going
to do. So I can understand how she got into
that situation by not wanting to look or not thinking
about looking.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
And possibly if she's got the sort of personality that's
drawn to art into doing an elum finance degree in
taking six years to do it, yes, she's going to
think more about abstract concepts than paying bills.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Potentially, because we all the first thing we all have
is we all have a money personality, which is how
we behave with money and so on that you've got.
You know, people who are really really good with money,
they're naturally good. They're naturally going to look and they're
going to check, and they're going to find things out.
And there is one of the personalities which is the
money avoider, which I always call my problem child, because
(04:54):
they're the ones that almost have a fear and they
don't want to look they're happy to let everyone else
help and support them. But if you haven't got that
help and support, you can get very, very lost, and
you can get yourself into debt, or you can trust
the wrong people and you can get burnt that way.
So it just sounds from what you've said that and
(05:15):
that's creative personality as well. I mean, they do have
a bit of a stereotype of not being good with money.
Some of them really are, but as a generalization, you're right,
they're into that creative mode. I have an amazing musician
who's a really good friend of mine, and I have
to be her accountability buddy because otherwise she doesn't charge
enough for gigs because she's doing what she loves and
(05:36):
what she's passionate about.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, like Gutia, who we were talking about before, he's
made no money out of somebody I used to know,
because he doesn't care. He's that's right, doesn't care.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's right, that's exactly right. And so that's kind of
part of that avoid of personality as well. You know,
you've got to put your own oxygen mask on first
and look after yourself, so you know, it's your personality.
Some people will monitor their debt, they will have spreadsheets
for Africa, and others will go, actually, it's fine because
we also have a risk profile as well, and some
(06:06):
people are comfortable with debt, which comes back to your
other points as to around people saving and things like that,
because sometimes the fear of having a mortgage and what's
an acceptable mortgage is just so far out of their
risk profile as well that they really, you know, they
can't ever see themselves doing it. So there's lots of
things going on around this whole concept of what's your
(06:29):
relationship with money like? And so a fun question I
always like to ask people is if you were dating money,
what would it say about you? Because that gives you
a really good starting point for what your relationship with
money is. And do you need to do a bit
of work because if money wouldn't give you a second date,
you probably need to do a bit of work.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
How do you mean about dating money? What would my
money look?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Well? Yeah, so if you were dating money, So if
you are you a good date? So do you nurture it?
Do you take care of it? Are you aware of it?
Or do you have a bit of a throwaway aspect
of it, where oh there's plenty more out there, So
if the state doesn't work, I'll just go and find
someone else. Yes, that's a fun question.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I see what you mean, But I mean there's a
I was. I read us story the other day about
a very successful businessman who actually advertises on our show.
He's only young, but during the financial crisis, he went
from buying his wife a baby grand piano the previous
year to selling everything, including the two year old's unused
(07:40):
ballet shoes, everything. And he said, we can sit on
the floor, I don't care. I can buy another couch,
but I've got to save the business. The business is
everything we can. I can't build that up again, and
I can't build the good will. So he wanted to
pay all the bills even though he wasn't getting paid.
He was just the last in the long line of
dominoes to fall, and they were ruthless. They sold off everything,
(08:00):
and I clearly, you know, from the financial crisis, have
come back and because they kept the company and are
bigger and better than ever. Does it sometimes take the
courage to do that, Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
It does, because once you face the situation that you're in,
whether it's fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, or my case,
six hundred thousand. Once you know, then you have to
take some action and you have to make some decisions,
and those decisions are not going to be easy decisions.
But the whole thing is the varying. Is the other thing,
of course we do, is we catestriphy things. So if
(08:34):
we actually don't look at the numbers in front of it,
we can make up a whole heap of stories in
our head about how terrible it is and how we
can't do this and we can't do that. But once
you actually quantify it and you go this is the
position that I'm in, the next question is well what
can I do? And instinctively we tend to go to, well,
there's nothing I can do, because that's just the panic.
(08:56):
But once you step back from the panic and you get.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Oh, oh, we'll take a break and come back, because
this is the important bit too. Ah, Linda's back. Something
weird is happening in most waker. Yes, somebody has said,
what about bankruptcy to clear all debt?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yes, I mean that's that's certainly an option. But again,
there are some people who go there's no way that
I can do that, and that comes down to values.
I mean I have had to advise people and go,
you know, that's really the only option, but quite often,
particularly for business people, having to go down that route.
(09:34):
Your business is your identity, and so you're not only
having to go bankrupt, but it's also well, that's my life,
that's my business. You know the example you had before
where he sold everything obviously that business with his identity.
So again it comes down to there's no one solution
for everybody. It's you know, it's what is that money relationship?
(09:57):
What is your values? And what are your options? But
the first thing is quantified it because you don't know
what you can do until you have that number of
in front of you.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
How on earth did you pay back six hundred thousand
when you're you know, you could not work to pay
it back?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, basically, I pretty much sold. So I sold the house,
sold a big chunk of the business, and whatever was
left over. I worked my butt off because I got
it down to a manageable level that I could work
my way out of it. But yeah, but I mean
those decisions were an instant and I went through an
awful lot of heartache and stress and everything, you know,
(10:37):
to kind of to get to that point because you know,
again being an accountant, finding yourself in that such situation,
it was my identity. It was the most embarrassing and
shameful thing to actually have happened.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Sometimes that that stress and that shame can be fatal, it.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Can be I know, and again I've worked with business
owners where that's actually happened, and that's that is so
so tragic. And that's why it comes back to as
soon as you start waking up in the night feeling sick,
worrying about money, that's the time to take action. At
that first nudge that your subconscious is giving you something's
(11:18):
not right here, I'm feeling unsettled. That's the time to
reach out and get some help and some support. And
there are amazing resources out there. You know, there's incredible
budget advisors and community support groups that can start you
on that process that can really help you know. I mean,
obviously I do mental coaching as well, but there's certainly
(11:39):
a lot of resources there that aren't TikTok and Google,
that are real people that have empathy and are not
going to be shocked or embarrassed or find anything because
they're dealing with us all the time. So that's what
I say. The best advice just please go and get
some help, don't bury your hiddensand don't be the ostrich,
because that's when it does start to get out of
(12:01):
control and affect every other area of your life. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, So if you've got that big student loan, if
your business is struggling, and god knows how business many
businesses have survived after these last five years, the first
thing to do is look at how much you owe, yes,
and then get expert advice.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Basically, I mean, if you're a business owner, you should
have an accountant, so you know that's obviously going to
be your first port of call. But remember there's not
only business debt, there's also personal debt as well, so
it may be that you you know, you do need
to go further than that. But the first thing is
to actually, oh, hang on, we've just had a GST.
I wasn't able to pay my GST. Why what do
(12:48):
I need to do? So it's just being being brave
to actually go. I don't know, I don't understand this
money stuff very well. Who around me can actually help
me with this. Who can answer? Who can I ask? Because,
as I say to clients, I don't need to know
exactly about your business. You all have the answers, you
(13:08):
just don't know what the questions are. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Excellent advice, Linda, Thank you so much, Lindamore Moneymentalist dot
com very interesting and people's attitude towards debt.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
For more from Carrywood and Mornings, listen live to news
talks that'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the carrywood of morning's podcast from news Talk,
said b as.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I said before the news there's a piece in the
spin off about a forty eight year old woman who
was still paying off a huge student loan she first
took out when she was seventeen. It ended up because
she went to live overseas, blowing out to almost one
hundred thousand dollars. It seemed to beg at the time,
she said she didn't even think about money. She wasn't
(00:33):
earning enough. She thought while she was away she wouldn't
have to worry about it. It was only when she
came home she was confronted with the reality of what
she had done. How can people get themselves into situations
like that where you just don't think about it? Or
(00:56):
how do people think it is impossible to save for
a deposit on a house given what I earned when
there are stories every day of people who can and
who do, who are in similar situations who don't have
parental help. How is it that some people's approach to
money is so much more sensible than others. Linda Moore
(01:17):
is the moneymenttalist moneymentalist dot com, and she joins me
now very good morning to you.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Is this a fairly common story that a debt gets
so big that people think I'm not going to deal
with it. It's beyond my understanding, so I'm just going
to bury my head in the sand.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yes, it does. It happens quite a bit. And to
be perfectly honest, it happened to me. I did exactly
the same thing many years ago, before I became the
money mentalist. I ended up six hundred thousand dollars in
yet and I'm an and bear in mind, I'm an accountant,
so I'm supposed to be the expert. How did that?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Heaven?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Well, it happens because life happens. So in my kind
of scenario, I had my wonderful husband lost his job.
I was looking after finance as he was stressed. I
was stressed. Just life got on top of us all.
And you're so busy figuring out which fire am I
going to fight today? And money typically tends to be
(02:21):
one of the hardest because, believe it or not, although
it's the most common thing we have, it's probably the
least understood thing we have in our life. And how
we relate to it.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, I can well imagine that like when I was,
you know, in my twenties in a single mother, I
never imagined I would own a home. I never imagined
I'd be able to save enough because it just seemed
like a monumental amount. And if I had six hundred
thousand in debt, I would just I can't. I would
just be you know, paralyzed by the thought of trying
(02:54):
to pay that back.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yes, because and even like, for example, your lady with
one hundred thousands, you've got to look at it and say, well,
how am I going to pay it back? Because it
takes some tough decisions. You know, I couldn't work myself
out of six hundred thousand dollars in debt, So there
were some major decisions that you need to make. And
then that becomes really hard because how do you find
(03:17):
people to help you make those decisions? And that's also
part of it. But it is quite easy to forget
about debt now because we don't get stuff in the
mail with bits of paper on it telling us we're
in debt. So it's very easy, very easy to ignore it.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I suppose if you've got you know, like if you
haven't paid your power bill, you'd get something wouldn't you
in the mail?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yes, you would, you would, and you might get text
messages and things like that, but you know, there's not
that the pain associated so much with it, because particularly
for example, with the ideas one of them, where you're
kind of expected to go on to your my ir
and look at the stuff yourself. If you're a bit
(04:06):
of a money avoider, that's the last thing you're going
to do. So I can understand how she got into
that situation by not wanting to look or not thinking
about looking.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
And possibly if she's got the sort of personality that's
drawn to art into doing an elum finance degree in
taking six years to do it, yes, she's going to
think more about abstract concepts than paying bills.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Potentially, because we all the first thing we all have
is we all have a money personality, which is how
we behave with money and so on that you've got.
You know, people who are really really good with money,
they're naturally good. They're naturally going to look and they're
going to check, and they're going to find things out.
And there is one of the personalities which is the
money avoider, which I always call my problem child, because
(04:54):
they're the ones that almost have a fear and they
don't want to look they're happy to let everyone else
help and support them. But if you haven't got that
help and support, you can get very, very lost, and
you can get yourself into debt, or you can trust
the wrong people and you can get burnt that way.
So it just sounds from what you've said that and
(05:15):
that's creative personality as well. I mean, they do have
a bit of a stereotype of not being good with money.
Some of them really are, but as a generalization, you're right,
they're into that creative mode. I have an amazing musician
who's a really good friend of mine, and I have
to be her accountability buddy because otherwise she doesn't charge
enough for gigs because she's doing what she loves and
(05:36):
what she's passionate about.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, like Gutia, who we were talking about before, he's
made no money out of somebody I used to know,
because he doesn't care. He's that's right, doesn't care.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's right, that's exactly right. And so that's kind of
part of that avoid of personality as well. You know,
you've got to put your own oxygen mask on first
and look after yourself, so you know, it's your personality.
Some people will monitor their debt, they will have spreadsheets
for Africa, and others will go, actually, it's fine because
we also have a risk profile as well, and some
(06:06):
people are comfortable with debt, which comes back to your
other points as to around people saving and things like that,
because sometimes the fear of having a mortgage and what's
an acceptable mortgage is just so far out of their
risk profile as well that they really, you know, they
can't ever see themselves doing it. So there's lots of
things going on around this whole concept of what's your
(06:29):
relationship with money like? And so a fun question I
always like to ask people is if you were dating money,
what would it say about you? Because that gives you
a really good starting point for what your relationship with
money is. And do you need to do a bit
of work because if money wouldn't give you a second date,
you probably need to do a bit of work.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
How do you mean about dating money? What would my
money look?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Well? Yeah, so if you were dating money, So if
you are you a good date? So do you nurture it?
Do you take care of it? Are you aware of it?
Or do you have a bit of a throwaway aspect
of it, where oh there's plenty more out there, So
if the state doesn't work, I'll just go and find
someone else. Yes, that's a fun question.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I see what you mean, But I mean there's a
I was. I read us story the other day about
a very successful businessman who actually advertises on our show.
He's only young, but during the financial crisis, he went
from buying his wife a baby grand piano the previous
year to selling everything, including the two year old's unused
(07:40):
ballet shoes, everything. And he said, we can sit on
the floor, I don't care. I can buy another couch,
but I've got to save the business. The business is
everything we can. I can't build that up again, and
I can't build the good will. So he wanted to
pay all the bills even though he wasn't getting paid.
He was just the last in the long line of
dominoes to fall, and they were ruthless. They sold off everything,
(08:00):
and I clearly, you know, from the financial crisis, have
come back and because they kept the company and are
bigger and better than ever. Does it sometimes take the
courage to do that, Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
It does, because once you face the situation that you're in,
whether it's fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, or my case,
six hundred thousand. Once you know, then you have to
take some action and you have to make some decisions,
and those decisions are not going to be easy decisions.
But the whole thing is the varying. Is the other thing,
of course we do, is we catestriphy things. So if
(08:34):
we actually don't look at the numbers in front of it,
we can make up a whole heap of stories in
our head about how terrible it is and how we
can't do this and we can't do that. But once
you actually quantify it and you go this is the
position that I'm in, the next question is well what
can I do? And instinctively we tend to go to, well,
there's nothing I can do, because that's just the panic.
(08:56):
But once you step back from the panic and you get.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Oh, oh, we'll take a break and come back, because
this is the important bit too. Ah, Linda's back. Something
weird is happening in most waker. Yes, somebody has said,
what about bankruptcy to clear all debt?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yes, I mean that's that's certainly an option. But again,
there are some people who go there's no way that
I can do that, and that comes down to values.
I mean I have had to advise people and go,
you know, that's really the only option, but quite often,
particularly for business people, having to go down that route.
(09:34):
Your business is your identity, and so you're not only
having to go bankrupt, but it's also well, that's my life,
that's my business. You know the example you had before
where he sold everything obviously that business with his identity.
So again it comes down to there's no one solution
for everybody. It's you know, it's what is that money relationship?
(09:57):
What is your values? And what are your options? But
the first thing is quantified it because you don't know
what you can do until you have that number of
in front of you.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
How on earth did you pay back six hundred thousand
when you're you know, you could not work to pay
it back?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, basically, I pretty much sold. So I sold the house,
sold a big chunk of the business, and whatever was
left over. I worked my butt off because I got
it down to a manageable level that I could work
my way out of it. But yeah, but I mean
those decisions were an instant and I went through an
awful lot of heartache and stress and everything, you know,
(10:37):
to kind of to get to that point because you know,
again being an accountant, finding yourself in that such situation,
it was my identity. It was the most embarrassing and
shameful thing to actually have happened.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Sometimes that that stress and that shame can be fatal, it.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Can be I know, and again I've worked with business
owners where that's actually happened, and that's that is so
so tragic. And that's why it comes back to as
soon as you start waking up in the night feeling sick,
worrying about money, that's the time to take action. At
that first nudge that your subconscious is giving you something's
(11:18):
not right here, I'm feeling unsettled. That's the time to
reach out and get some help and some support. And
there are amazing resources out there. You know, there's incredible
budget advisors and community support groups that can start you
on that process that can really help you know. I mean,
obviously I do mental coaching as well, but there's certainly
(11:39):
a lot of resources there that aren't TikTok and Google,
that are real people that have empathy and are not
going to be shocked or embarrassed or find anything because
they're dealing with us all the time. So that's what
I say. The best advice just please go and get
some help, don't bury your hiddensand don't be the ostrich,
because that's when it does start to get out of
(12:01):
control and affect every other area of your life. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, So if you've got that big student loan, if
your business is struggling, and god knows how business many
businesses have survived after these last five years, the first
thing to do is look at how much you owe, yes,
and then get expert advice.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Basically, I mean, if you're a business owner, you should
have an accountant, so you know that's obviously going to
be your first port of call. But remember there's not
only business debt, there's also personal debt as well, so
it may be that you you know, you do need
to go further than that. But the first thing is
to actually, oh, hang on, we've just had a GST.
I wasn't able to pay my GST. Why what do
(12:48):
I need to do? So it's just being being brave
to actually go. I don't know, I don't understand this
money stuff very well. Who around me can actually help
me with this. Who can answer? Who can I ask? Because,
as I say to clients, I don't need to know
exactly about your business. You all have the answers, you
(13:08):
just don't know what the questions are. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Excellent advice, Linda, Thank you so much, Lindamore Moneymentalist dot
com very interesting and people's attitude towards debt.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
For more from Carrywood and Mornings, listen live to news
talks that'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.