189: Revenge Spending: How It’s Sabotaging Your Financial Relationship

Getting a finance degree doesn’t make you a great investor or saver, that’s what Teri Slater, personal finance coach found to be true after completing her degree. From a relatively early stage, Teri had already racked up student loan debt, a car loan, and credit card debt. She pulled herself out of debt and felt accomplished, but after she got married and bought her first house, she found herself back in debt. About $200k in debt!

Teri and her (then) husband had high incomes, a nice home, children, and a couple of dogs. From the outside, it looked like they were doing phenomenally, but inside the home, Teri and her husband were barely scraping by with enough money to pay the mortgage every month. They had credit card debt, a car loan, a truck loan, business loans, and a HELOC (home equity line of credit) against the house. They were completely surrounded by debt.

They decided to attend Financial Peace University sessions and take the baby steps to get out of debt. Teri still felt embarrassed at the end of the meetings and was hesitant to disclose how they were doing financially. It took her and her husband years to get out of hundreds of thousands in debt, but as of 2018, Teri is debt free! Now she puts a generous amount towards her after-tax and pre-tax retirement accounts, and helps teach others how they too can be on a path to financial freedom.

Teri knows first hand how hard it can be to talk through financial situations with your partner. She goes through some tactics to get your partner on the same page as you and create clear goals, all without revenge spending!

In This Episode We Cover

• Staying out of debt when you go to college
• Diagnosing the behavioral issues around debt
• Getting out of debt and staying out of debt
• Keeping up the momentum when you’re paying off large amounts of debt
• How to stop “revenge spending” when you feel it coming on
• And So Much More!

Check the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/moneyshow189

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