Jamie The Good Times Gal
There are a ton of money stories out there. Stories about people who are screwed financially through no fault of their own. People who did everything right and still cannot get a leg up. This episode is not one of those. It’s an excavation of a specific kind of debt, and a specific kind of shame. The kind that Jamie Feldman found herself in when she was 33 years old: credit card debt.
Resources:
Find Jamie on TikTok and Instagram @RealGirlProject.
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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.
NORA: Money is a lot of things. Depending on how much of it you have, or have had, it can be a tool, an asset, a way to show our love (or to try to buy it). It can be a source of anxiety, of comfort, of shame. It can be an escape hatch, a pit of despair. It can ease many terrible things, and be the source of many, many more.
Especially when money means…debt.
Today’s episode is about debt, and not just any kind of debt. It’s about one of the most shame-inducing kinds of debt around: credit card debt.
The average American carries over $5,000 in credit card debt and has at least 3 credit cards. Americans are currently carrying over $900 BILLION dollars in credit card debt! Which means a lot of you listening have some credit card debt. And you might not feel great about it. And you might not feel great about it because it doesn’t feel great to have a huge interest rate that feels impossible to get out from under, or to feel like your debt is what financial people call “bad debt,” which can kind of make you feel like you’re bad with money, that you made bad choices, that you’re bad.
There are a ton of money stories out there. People who are screwed financially through no fault of their own. People who did everything right and still cannot get a leg up.
But today’s story is not one of those.
I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Terrible, Thanks for Asking: Jamie The Good Times Gal.
Today’s story is an excavation of a specific kind of debt, and a specific kind of shame. It’s not the kind of credit card debt where you have to put a car repair or a medical emergency on your card and the interest pulls you under. It’s not about getting hoodwinked or bamboozled, or having your identity stolen.
This is the kind of debt you get from just… buying things. Spending money on things. The kind of debt that financial experts will shout at you about if you call into their radio show.
The kind of debt that today’s guest found herself in when she was 33.
JAMIE (audio from this video): Welcome to day one of me trying to not spend money on clothing or restaurants in July so I can try to whittle down my $18,000 worth of credit card debt. I started the morning by doing my five-minute journal and reading a couple of pages of my book …
NORA: The voice you just heard was Jamie Feldman. I saw Jamie’s video on TikTok, and I forwarded it to Jordan with a note about how I wanted to do an episode about credit card debt. Maybe, I thought, she’d be open to an interview with us.
And -- small world here -- Jamie is actually one of Jordan’s former coworkers.
JORDAN: Yep. I met Jamie when we were both working at HuffPost in our 20s. I was pretty much a walking cliche and had moved to New York a year earlier with just three suitcases and a dream of working in journalism. Jamie had similar dreams but was already a born and bred New Yorker … and working a crappy entry level job post-college.
Jamie Feldman: I had, like, a job that I took before I even graduated because they promised me $40,000. And I was like, oh … that's, like, the most money … I worked at, like, The Cheesecake Factory and Trader Joe's in high school and college. This was like, you know, money I couldn't even dream about. And I took it because, you know, everybody says to you, “You're never going to get a job in this economy. You should just take whatever you can get.”
JORDAN: So she did. And on the side, Jamie started writing a blog … something a lot of us writers did in the 2010s.
Jamie Feldman: I started writing a fashion blog because I was following all these fashion bloggers at the time who were rich, white, thin women. And I was one of those things. I was white.
Jamie Feldman: I was like, "This is not speaking to me. And I'm already one of these things. Like, what about all the rest of the other fucking people in the world who care about fashion?" You're not speaking … this is not for them, you know? It was like, you know, “Put on a bikini and a cardigan and go out into the world and that's fashion.” I was like, this is not ... this is not fashion to me. This is not for me. And so I started my blog, my writing about fashion, wanting to democratize fashion a little bit and make it, like, budget- and body-friendly.
JORDAN: This blog – which she appropriately titled Real Girl Project – eventually helped Jamie land that HuffPost job. We weren’t on the same editorial team, but I read all of her stuff. And what I loved about Jamie’s work is that she did exactly what she set out to do with that original blog: She wrote about fashion and beauty for mid-size and plus-size women and … normal-looking people? In a way that was unlike anything I’d come across up until that point.
And I wish I could properly describe the presence Jamie had in the newsroom back in those days. She made everyone laugh. Her fashion was fantastic. She was FUN. People were drawn to her. She just had that magnetic kind of energy.
She also had the newsroom desk that all of us wanted, because it was always covered with fashion and beauty products sent to her by PR companies. Stacks upon stacks. You often couldn’t even see her face behind the mountain of free stuff.
Jamie Feldman: Thinking about what my desk looked like now is really overwhelming. [laughs] Like it makes me anxious even thinking about it because it was so chaotic. [laughs] There was no rhyme or reason. Things would just arrive pretty much daily -- packages, big bags of stuff, like makeup and clothing. I remember I got the Revlon brush blow dryer, and I let it sit at my desk for maybe six months before I even looked at it. And then I took it out and I was like, “This is the best thing ever.” I ended up wanting to write about it.
JORDAN: I admit, I have that Revlon blow dryer. Have had it for five years, maybe longer. The day it finally kicks the bucket, I will cry.
NORA: I do NOT because it burned my hair!
JORDAN: Well that’s a problem!
NORA: Back to Jamie.
Jamie Feldman: I was taking fancy workout classes before work and then, you know, stopping to get a $5 oat milk latte after class and then finally getting to my desk and sort of taking what I think is like probably not a normal amount of time to get settled into my work day. Like I had to talk to people and I had to, like, check in and I had to like, you know, make the rounds.
I had my dream job at HuffPost. I was so happy to be there. And I quickly leaned into what I think people refer to as like a “personality hire.” I was just constantly making jokes. I was like, trying to make everyone my best friend. And that was like my vibe at that time.
I would always take the subway. So I wasn't like an Uber or a cab taker, And then I would always buy lunch out. It was a rarity that I would bring lunch with me to work. When I was in my twenties, I could think of a reason to go out every day of the week, right? Like there was always something to do. There was trivia after work with our colleagues. I was going out. I was going out to dinner. I was, you know, patting myself on the back if I stayed in and cooked in my really sad, like, hotplate kitchen in the East Village. I spent a lot on going out to bars, to restaurants, to lunch – all of the things that made me feel like I was a valuable part of a New York life.
JORDAN: You might be wondering: How is Jamie paying for all of this? On her meager journalism salary? No. She gets a credit card.
NORA: It’s what we were all told to do: Build your credit! Having no credit at all is the same as having bad credit. I don’t think anybody opens up a credit card thinking, “I can’t wait to max this out and ruin my financial future.”
JORDAN: And Jamie didn’t, either. She was making about $50,000 when she got her first credit card at 28 years old … but she got approved for an $18,000 limit.
Jamie Feldman: There was no reason to believe that I could handle something like that. And I remember getting the card and saying, "I'm going to get it and pay it off in the first three months, then I can– I get all these points, and I'm going to use it to travel.
JORDAN: And she did travel. But she also bought drinks. She bought clothes. She bought all those fun times that I saw on her Instagram.
Jordan Turgeon: I was like, "Jamie's the, like, fun gal who knows herself, is so confident in her own skin. I wish I could be like that, and ..."
Jamie Feldman: Well, thank you. That's ... that's very nice. I'm glad. I'm glad the facade worked. It was all bullshit, pretty much, because I wasn't comfortable in my body. I was writing a ton about body image and self-acceptance and body neutrality and, you know, being comfortable in your own skin. And I was not remotely. And I also was slowly getting myself into credit card debt trying to keep up with people and buying shit I couldn't afford. My handle is Real Girl Project. It was all, like, fucking fake bullshit.
We’ll be right back.
JORDAN: So, there I was, admiring Jamie for being the coolest girl in the office. I had no idea that this “facade,” as Jamie called it, was hiding something big – something emotionally and financially crushing: $18,000 in credit card debt.
Jamie Feldman: My mom didn't know how much debt I was in. My friends didn't know.
Jamie Feldman: I was so embarrassed, and I was so ashamed of myself. I'm living in a constant state of, like, shame spiral, you know, about something, right? was in this constant state of like, "I am the worst. I am irresponsible. I can't be an adult. Why can't I figure this shit out?"
JORDAN: You might assume that this is a rich girl problem. Jamie grew up in New York! Jamie worked at a media institution you might have heard of! But she actually didn’t grow up with money. She grew up with spenders.
Jamie Feldman: I have a mom who could be, like, the mayor of TJMaxx, if she really wanted to, and a grandmother who, when you go into her two-bedroom apartment, her closets are bursting at the seams with clothing. Like, these are consumerism-driven women and fashion-forward women. And they're fabulous. And my grandmother is 90 years old and is incredible and gets stopped on the street and asked about her clothing and her hair. And she's a total badass. But! I was raised to believe that one of the ways that they showed me love was to buy me clothes. And we would go shopping together, you know, when I was a kid. We would go visit Nana on the weekends. In the summer, we went to the pool. In the winter, we went to the mall. This This was the thing that we were able to share, right? We're three women, three different generations. We don't necessarily agree on a shit ton of things, but we all love shopping. And it just became part of my identity.
I didn't ever have money, I didn't grow up with money. We didn't have ... we couldn't afford to really buy the clothes that we were buying. Right? Like it was. It was never like. It never felt safe. It was like, "I'm going to show you love by buying you something," but it didn't feel safe, because I knew that we couldn't really afford it. So it was like I always had this weirdness around money that on one hand I was like, "I need to shop and fill this void and get the new thing because it's going to make me feel good. And I love clothes and I love, you know, having the newest stuff." But I couldn't afford it.
It was, like, instilled in me that shopping was a sign of love.
JORDAN: Shopping was a sign of love! It’s a sign of love for a lot of people I know – gift giving is one of the five love languages for a reason.
And gift giving and spending money on people you care about isn’t a problem in and of itself … but it can be.
Some people spend (even though they know they can’t or shouldn't) because it gives them a sense of control in their very out-of-control lives. Or because that brief high they get after spending feels way better than the depression or anxiety they normally feel. In the mental health profession, this is sometimes referred to as emotional spending.
Obviously, Jamie didn’t know what “emotional spending” was when she was a kid going to the mall with her mom and grandma. But fast-forward twenty plus years, and Jamie The Fun Times Gal was now on an emotional spending roller coaster she couldn’t escape.
Jamie Feldman: I never said no to a goddamn thing in my whole life.I'm a, you know, through and through people pleaser. And what started as me feeling like, “Oh, I'm this fun person who is always down to do anything. I want to go out. I'll go to brunch. I'll get drunk with you. I'll go to dinner. I'll stay out. Let's get another $15 cocktail. I always thought of that as being like a fun part of my personality. And I think what I realized is that I have a really hard time saying no and disappointing people, because I'm afraid if I do, they will leave.
Jamie Feldman: You know, as I got into my later 20s, and people started getting married, and I'm perpetually single, and I'm handling all the bills, and everyone else is starting to either move up in their careers and/or get married and have a dual income, and I'm still working in fucking journalism, and single, and paying all my bills and, you know, taking care of everything myself and not taking that into consideration when I'm saying yes to things, right? Even things like giving a wedding gift or being a bridesmaid or going to a bachelorette party. I never wanted to say no to anything that was extended to me because I felt so lucky to even be included. And I was so afraid of losing that. I was so afraid of saying no … and by saying no, sending a message to someone that they can move on without me. I couldn't get left behind in that way.
NORA: There’s that aphorism about how people spend money they don’t have to buy things to impress people they don’t know -- basically, about how we go into debt to keep up with the Joneses (who are also in debt).
But this is deeper than that. It can feel like, “Well, if I can’t afford to be your bridesmaid, maybe I’m not that good of a friend.” If I’m the ONLY one saying, “Actually, I can’t go to this expensive meal and split it evenly, because I don’t have it in my budget,” it can feel like I just won’t be invited, and I won’t have friends.
JORDAN: Right. This isn’t just a fear of missing out. It’s a fear of becoming less important to the people you care deeply about (and maybe even the deepest about). I’d never really heard someone articulate this in exactly the same way that I also felt at this point in my own life … which you hear in my interview with Jamie.
Jordan Turgeon: Oh, my God. I feel so ... I feel so viciously attacked – in the best way, you know? Oh, my God. I'm exactly the same. Like, like, “Oh, you want me to be a bridesmaid in your wedding? Like, that is the fucking honor of my life.”
Jamie Feldman: Oh my life! No higher honor than that.
Jordan Turgeon: There is a part of you that feels like, "Well, if I'm not immediately like, 'Yes, absolutely, I want to get drinks,' or 'I want to do this,' or 'I want to go on a trip,' or 'I will be in your wedding,' you worry that, like, okay, does that mean I'm not going to matter as much to them anymore? And if I don't matter as much to them, and my friendships are my closest relationships, then fuck!”
Jamie Feldman: Exactly.
JORDAN: I relate to this, because I was in a really similar boat at this time. When I left New York in 2014, I left with about 10 grand in credit card debt myself. Debt that was made up of boring things like groceries and doctor copays … but also takeout after staying at the office too late … beauty product after beauty product trying to cure my acne-prone skin, which I was really self-conscious about … a gym membership I probably shouldn’t have taken on … dresses and shoes and hair and makeup and airfare for the many weddings I was in during my 20s. I also spent money on dating apps, because dating is always the worst, but especially when you live in New York.
I remember not really understanding how this debt could snowball so fast, and that was embarrassing, because my parents raised me with a really solid understanding of money. I didn’t even get a credit card until I was forced to, in the name of “building up credit,” like Noar mentioned earlier. I used to be afraid of SPENDING money. Even during college, my godparents would send me cash on my birthday with a note demanding that I spend it on something fun, because otherwise I’d put it toward textbooks or utilities. (I often did anyway and just lied to them about it.)
So there I was, 28 years old, with 10 grand in debt, paying little more than the minimum each month, only for it to get swallowed up by a massive interest rate.
But I got lucky. Because the company that Jamie and I worked for was sold, and all of those stocks I’d been given over the years in lieu of a raise suddenly vested. Jamie took that money and used it to pay her New York City rent over the next several months. I cashed out and paid off my debt.
The shame and the fear instantly disappeared. I still remember where I was sitting in my apartment when I transferred the money over. One click on my laptop, and the debt was gone. I was free.
Jamie didn’t get that same relief.
Jamie Feldman: I was in this constant state of like, "I am the worst. I am irresponsible. I can't be an adult. Why can't I figure this shit out?" Not, "Hey, oh, these things are stacked against you. And also, like, you're just trying to figure it out."
We’ll be right back.
NORA: For about five years, Jamie’s been hyper aware of her debt -- she’s been ashamed of it -- but it also feels like an insurmountable problem for another day.
Jamie Feldman: I felt like the debt was at once ever present and also something I was able to ignore forever because I just didn't want to face it. It was almost too scary to confront in the beginning.
NORA: But she can’t ignore it forever, because she’s laid off from her job at HuffPost in March 2021. This looming debt becomes an urgent problem that Jamie knows she needs to look right in the face …
… eventually.
Jamie Feldman: There was, I think, a mourning period that I went through, because it was this job that I had just spent years of my life at that was just suddenly gone. I realized shortly after that I was using my work email address for, like, logins to things. I just identified with that job so deeply.
I don't even know what happened in the whole year and a half. It's like a blur.
NORA: It’s a blur because Jamie’s hustling post-layoff. She becomes a freelancer, and it feels like she’s constantly working. And for the first time ever, Jamie makes a budget.
Jamie Feldman: My friend and I sat down and went through my historical spending, and I realized that I had spent $700 on restaurants the month before. Which seemed insane. Obviously, I'm brainwashed into thinking $100 for a dinner out is normal, living in New York. But so that's really only like seven dinners out. But still, it felt like an insane amount of money, especially for someone who's not only not making a ton of money, but is now also on top of that freelancing and trying to navigate how to make that– make that work, you know?
NORA: Jamie knows what she needs to do: she’s going to cut out restaurants and shopping for the next month. And -- to have some accountability around it -- she’s going to go public about her situation in a daily diary.
In July 2022, Jamie starts that diary with a TikTok -- the video I later sent Jordan -- detailing everything she did NOT spend her money on that day … and what she spent her time doing instead:
JAMIE (audio from this video): Welcome to day one of me trying to not spend money on clothing or restaurants in July so I can try to whittle down my $18,000 worth of credit card debt. I started the morning by doing my five-minute journal and reading a couple of pages of my book … [FADE OUT]
Jamie Feldman: Once I said it out loud and I confronted the fact that I had this mess, this I had amassed this, you know, large amount of debt, it became less scary to say it. So that I was like, "I'm just gonna keep saying it over and over and over and over and over again until it becomes not scary."
So she makes another video the next day, and then does this again and again for an entire month.
JAMIE (audio from this video): Welcome to day 7 of not eating in restaurants or buying clothes in July to get out of credit card debt. This morning I made coffee instead of going out to buy it. Wow, what a concept …”
Jamie Feldman: I was so terrified to put it on the Internet, because I was like, "My mom's going to see it. And then her Facebook friends are going to see it. And then, like, her old coworker from 10 years ago is going to be like, 'Your daughter's a loser.'" Right? Like, how could you … how could you let your … how could this person be like this? Like, this is so shameful. And immediately, not only were all of my mom's friends like, "Oh, yeah, I fucking know. I dealt with that." Every single person I know, regardless of whether they're in debt or not, has some kind of weird shit with money and were more than happy to talk to me about it. And this thing that made me feel so isolated and so alone for so long became this thing that I realized is The Thing I should be talking about the most.
NORA: At the end of that month, Jamie has paid off $1,112 dollars of her credit card debt.
Jamie Feldman: It was so deeply gratifying because I felt so out of control for so long. And even though the number was so high at that time, and $1,000 was just a small dent, it was the first time I'd ever made a payment that I, A., knew I had the funds to make, and B., made a conscious decision to make that payment on that card in this amount. And it just felt like there was something about that experience that I was like, even if I can't continue making these, having these hefty, you know, these lofty goals for paying this down in a certain amount, X amount of months, I knew I was going on the right track just by A., identifying how much debt I even had, and B., paying anything toward it that was on purpose and not just, Oh shit, this bill is do let me pay $50 of the minimum payment as an aside.
NORA: There are tons of personal financial experts out there who will tell you how to get out of debt. Jamie doesn’t want to be one of those people. She just wants to share what she’s doing while she’s in it – not as an expert, but as a person who has also felt ashamed of her situation.
And what she did was a lot of little things, like making her coffee instead of buying it, or packing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with her when she left the house so she wouldn’t buy takeout, and drinking cheap boxed wine instead of the fancy stuff.
And she does bigger things, too, like transferring a balance of about $12,000 to a 0% APR credit card … and opening a high-yield savings account, so the money she’s carefully setting aside grows faster.
And in what’s maybe the biggest change of all … Jamie starts to say no.
Jamie Feldman: The day I sat down and finally looked at my finances and finally made a budget, I had to call a friend and cancel a dinner plan we had for that night. And I called a friend whose wedding I was supposed to go to I called her and had to cancel my trip. And I was terrified. I was like, "These people are going to be mad at me. I can't deal with people being mad at me.I've basically set this precedent my whole life. What are these people going to say when all of a sudden I change? And I feel more connected to those people now than I did before. So that was, you know, one of the biggest takeaways for me, was: What are these relationships, really? What is the foundation of these relationships? People don't like me because I say I want to go to dinner with them. And that's hard for me to wrap my head around. But it's become easier as I've said to people, "I'm not going … I'm not going to a restaurant." They're still like, "Okay, let's go for a walk." I'm like, "Really? Oh, the goal is just hang out? It's not just to, like, do an activity that costs money?"
NORA: Jamie’s friends like her for her. Even if she’s not treating friends to drinks, or jetting off on trips with them. They’re fine sitting in the park with boxed wine. They LOVE to watch TV on her couch. They love her. Not what she can buy for them, or do with them. Just her.
Jamie Feldman: I realized I was all ready for people to be,annoyed or irritated or put off by my. This experiment or this ../ changing of my habits because it's not just a month long. Right? My whole lifestyle has had to change. It's not like a quick fix and. To just realize that the people who who would be angry or feel any type of way about you needing to change your mind about something are are not your friends. People that are pressured would pressure you to do something that is outside of your means are not your friends. And I think that can be really hard pill to swallow because everybody, I think, has people in their lives that are like that. And you might not be ready to admit that they're not your friends because they seem like your friends you hang out with. You've hung out with them for a long time and you get along with them and you love them, but. People that are not there for you and showing up for you and love you and support you or are just they're just not friends.
Those connections between her psychological, emotional and financial worlds are transformative for Jamie. Her spending wasn’t all just lattes and fancy dinners and living in an expensive city. It was a need to feel seen and loved and valuable. It was a way of making sure she had a place in this world.
Jamie Feldman: Ultimately, what I realized is I was looking at this before as an isolated thing. I was looking at this debt that I had accrued as like, just another thing that I had to deal with. That there is this money issue and one day I'm going to have to deal with it. I don't know when that day is going to be. It's definitely not going to be today, but I'm going to deal with it someday. I don't think I could really wrap my head around the fact that all of this shit is related.
Jamie Feldman: It's just indicative of a lack of self-care. It's a lack of boundary setting. It's a lack of feeling– having good self-esteem. I was using it to be this performative, fun, funny life of the party that everybody came to know me as. Because I made my … I made myself that person, right? Like, I worked my ass off to not be vulnerable. To, like, crack a joke. To make sure everybody was laughing around me. To make sure that, like, everybody was having fun and that I was the reason they were having fun — and as a result, not taking care of myself at all. And just not … you know, I'm totally neglecting the part where I have to exhibit some kind of self-worth.
At the time of this recording, Jamie has paid off $7,000 in credit card debt. And for the first time in a long time, her place in this world feels more stable and more steady…even with the debt.
Jamie Feldman: As far as like the mental health implications of this, obviously, Like the anxiety and the depression and the, you know, feelings of being less than are not gone. But I'm looking at them in the face, and they feel less scary and less overwhelming.The anxiety can't keep up with the confronting of the scary thing, because it can't feed off of it. It's losing its, you know, food source. So it's certainly not a cure for my anxiety, but it's … it's helping, and it's just making me feel better as a person in the world and about myself and what I bring to the table and what my value is as a friend and as a person and as a creator and as, you know, etc., etc., and my relationships and professional life, personal and professional life. And it's doing a lot to help me feel better about myself in all ways that I didn't expect.
Jamie Feldman: I think I'm still kind of the fun times gal. I'm just, like, the fun times guy that wants to hang out with you at home and not at a bar. Or in the park. Or, you know, somewhere free.
NORA: Jamie is still documenting her journey towards paying off her credit card debt on TikTok and other social media at Real Girl Project.
If you have a story about credit card debt – or any other financial struggle, honestly – you can always reach out to us at terrible (at) feelings and (dot) co. Or, leave us a voicemail at 612-568-4441. We might use your story in a future TTFA episode, or even in a TTFA Premium episode.
And yes, it feels very weird to ask people to sign up for TTFA Premium in an episode about credit card debt, but if you are in a financial position to support our show, you can pay as little as $4.99 a month for ad-free episodes and bonus content. The more listener support we have, the less dependent we are on advertisers, and the more capable we are to keep bringing this show to listeners for free. Thank you.
CREDITS
Nora McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Jordan Turgeon, Megan Palmer, Claire McInerny
Eugene Kidd, Larissa Witcher
Geoffrey Lamar Wilson - theme music
Production of Feelings & Co.