Jamie The Good Times Gal
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This episode is brought to you by The Hartford, a leading provider of employee benefits and income protection products that is dedicated to standing behind U.S. workers to help them pursue their goals and get through tough times. For more information about The Hartford, visit thehartford.com slash employee benefits. We've also got a link in our show notes. This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher.

a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu. 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. It can be 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 three credit cards. The statistic was 3.84, which is a strange number of credit cards to have. Americans are currently carrying over $900 billion 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 make you feel like you are bad with money, that you made bad choices, that you are bad. There are so many 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 McInerney, 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.

This isn't the 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, doing 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 neck deep in when she was 33 years old. Welcome to day one of me trying not to 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 pages in my book. 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 wrote, she'd be open to an interview with us. And small world here, Jamie is actually one of Jordan's former co-workers.

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. I had like

a job that I took before I even graduated because they promised me $40,000. And I was like, 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 everybody says to you, like, you're never going to get a job in this economy. You should just take whatever you can get.

So she did. And on the side, Jamie started writing a blog, something a lot of us writers did in the 2010s. 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, but 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 to me.

This is not for them. 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 fashion to me. You know, this is not for me.

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 midsize and plus-size women and, how do I say this, 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 that 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. I mean, stacks upon stacks. You sometimes couldn't even see her face behind the mountain of free stuff. Thinking about what my desk looked like now is really overwhelming. Like, it makes me anxious even thinking about it because it was so chaotic. There was no rhyme or reason. Things would just arrive pretty much daily, packages every

big bags of stuff like makeup and clothing. I remember I got the Revlon like 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.

I admit I have that Revlon blow dryer. I've had it for about five years, maybe longer. And the day it finally kicks the bucket, I will cry. I do not have that dryer anymore because it literally burned my hair off. Well, that's a problem. Back to Jamie. 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 workday. Like I had to talk to people and I had to like check in and I had to like

you know, make the rounds a little bit. And I think it's important to also note that 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. Like 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, but I would always buy lunch out. It was a rarity that I would bring lunch with me to work. And when I was in my 20s,

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 or 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 hot plate kitchen in the East village. Like I, I spent a lot on going out to bars, to restaurants, to lunch, to,

all of the things that made me feel like I was a valuable part of like a New York life. You might be wondering, how is Jamie paying for all of this? On her meager journalism salary? No, she gets a credit card. Yes, of course she would. That's what I did too, because it's what we were all told to do. Build your credit because having no credit at all is the same as having bad credit.

I don't think anyone opens up a credit card thinking, I can't wait to max this out and ruin my financial future. No, of course not. And Jamie didn't either. She was making about $50,000 a year when she got her first credit card at 28 years old. But she got approved for an $18,000 credit card limit. Woo! Woo! Okay.

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 that I could get all these points, then I'm going to use it to travel. And she did travel, but she also bought drinks. She bought clothes. She bought all of those fun times that I saw on her Instagram. I was like, Jamie's the, like, fun gal who knows herself, is so confident in her own skin. Like, I wish I could be like that. And...

Well, thank you. That's very nice. I'm glad the facade worked. When I think back on that, 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 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.

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So there I was, admiring Jamie for being the cool girl in the office. I had no idea that this facade, as Jamie called it, was hiding something huge, something emotionally and financially crushing, $18,000 in credit card debt.

My mom didn't know how much debt I was in. My friends didn't know. Like, 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? Like I was in this constant state of like, I'm the worst. I am irresponsible. I can't be an adult. Why can't I figure this shit out?

You might assume that this is a rich girl problem. Jamie grew up in New York. Jamie worked at a media institution you maybe have heard of. But she actually didn't grow up with money. She grew up with spenders. I have a mom who could be like the mayor of TJ Maxx if she really wanted to, and a grandmother who...

If you go into her two-bedroom apartment, her closets are bursting at the seams with clothing. 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 was the thing that we were able to share, right? We're three women, three different generations. We don't really like, we don't necessarily agree on a shit ton of things, but we all love shopping and it just became part of my identity. And what I realized is that there's, there's so much wrapped up in that too, because there was never like, we, I didn't ever have money. I didn't grow up with money. We didn't have, we couldn't afford to really buy things.

the clothes that we were buying. Right. Like I 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, 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 it was like,

Shopping was a sign of love. It's a sign of love for a lot of people I know. Gift-giving is one of those five love languages for a reason. And gift-giving and spending money on the 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. And obviously, Jamie did not know what emotional spending was when she was a kid going to the mall with mom and grandma.

But fast forward 20 plus years later and Jamie, the fun times gal was on an emotional spending rollercoaster. She could not escape. I never said no to a goddamn thing in my whole life. I am a 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. Yeah. Like let's get another $15 cocktail together.

I always thought of that as being a fun part of my personality. And I think what I've realized is that I have a really hard time saying no and disappointing people because I'm afraid if I do, they will leave. And 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.

There's that aphorism about how people will spend money they don't have to buy things they don't need 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 feels like, well, if I can't afford to be your bridesmaid, maybe I'm not that good of a friend. Or if I am the only person saying I actually can't go out to this very expensive meal and split it evenly because it's not in my budget, I won't be invited and then I won't have friends. Right. This is not 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. And you can hear that in my interview with Jamie. Oh, my God. I feel so viciously attacked. In the best way. No, because 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. Of my life. Of my, no higher honor than that. And like, there is a part of you that feels like, well, if I say no to something or if I'm not immediately like...

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. Right. Exactly. 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 co-pays, 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, still am. A gym membership I probably should not have taken on. Dresses, shoes, hair, makeup, and airfare for the many weddings I was in during my 20s.

I also spent so much money on dating apps because dating is always the worst, but especially when you live in New York City. I remember not really understanding how this debt could snowball so, so fast. And that was really 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 Nora 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. Honestly, I often did that anyway and just lied to them about it. So there I was, 28 years old, with $10,000 in credit card debt, paying little more than the minimum every 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 that 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 rent over the next several months. I cashed out and paid off my credit card debt. And that shame and that fear I'd had instantly disappeared. I can still remember exactly where I was sitting in my apartment when I transferred that money over. One click on my laptop and the debt was gone.

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For about five years, Jamie has been hyper aware of her debt. She's been ashamed of it, but it also feels like an insurmountable problem for another day. 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. And I, it was almost like too scary to confront. But she can't ignore it forever because she's laid off from her job at HuffPost in March, 2021.

That looming debt becomes an urgent problem that Jamie knows she needs to look right in the face. Eventually. There was, I think, a mourning period that I went through because it was this job that I had just spent seven and a half years of my life at that was just suddenly gone. It was like, I realized shortly after that I was using my work email address for like logins to things. Like I just identified with that person.

job so deeply. I don't even know what happened. The whole year and a half is like a blur. It's a blur because Jamie's hustling after this layoff. She becomes a freelancer and it feels like she is constantly working. But for the first time ever, Jamie makes a budget. 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 just 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 work. You know, 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. Welcome to day one of me trying not to 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 pages in my book. I usually put banana and Greek yogurt... Once I said it out loud and I confronted the fact that I had amassed this, you know, large amount of debt, it became less scary to say it. So then I was like, I'm just going to 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.

Welcome to day 7 of not eating in restaurants or buying clothes in July. Welcome to day 8 of not eating in restaurants or shopping in July. Welcome to day 10 of me not eating in restaurants or shopping in July. Welcome to day 14 of not eating in restaurants or spending money on clothing. Day 17, not eating in restaurants or shopping in July to help me get out of credit card debt. Welcome to day 29 of not eating in restaurants or shopping in July to help with my $18,000 new credit card debt. This morning I went for a walk with Rachel and then I went with her to Mr. Coco where she proceeds to buy the largest pizza.

I was so terrified to put it on the internet because I was like, oh, 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 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 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. At the end of that month, Jamie has paid off $1,112 of her credit card debt. The first time I did 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, you know, these lofty goals for paying this down in a certain amount, an 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 due. Let me pay $50 of the minimum payment as like an aside. Yeah.

There are tons of personal finance 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 doing 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. Things like making her coffee instead of buying it, packing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with her when she left the house so she wouldn't buy takeout, drinking cheap boxed wine instead of the fancy stuff. And she did 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 is carefully setting aside grows faster.

And in what's maybe the biggest change of all, Jamie starts to say no. 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've basically set this precedent my whole life.

what are these people going to say when all of a sudden I changed? I feel more connected to those people now than I did before. So that was 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 and they're still like, okay, let's go for a walk. I'm like, really? You just like, oh, the goal is to just hang out. It's not just to like do an activity that costs money. 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. And I realized, like, I was all ready for people to be, like, annoyed or irritated or, like, put off by this experiment or this changing of my habits. Because it's not just a month long, right? Like, my whole lifestyle has had to change. It's not, like, a quick fix. And...

To just realize that the people who would be angry or feel any type of way about you needing to change your mind about something are not your friends. People that 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.

You might not be ready to admit that they're not your friends because they seem like your friends. 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 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 avocado toasts 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. I think 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 was this money issue and one day it's, 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.

But 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 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, 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. I would say as far as like the mental health implications of this, like the anxiety and the depression and the 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. Like the anxiety can't keep up with anxiety.

the confronting of the scary thing to have the control over me. 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, et cetera, et cetera, in my relationships and professional life, personal and professional life. And it's doing a lot to help me feel better about myself and in all ways that I didn't expect.

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, money struggles of any kind, truly, you can always reach out to us at terribleatfeelingsand.co or leave us a voicemail at 612-568-4441. We might use your story in a future TTFA episode.

Terrible Thanks for Asking is a production of Feelings & Co. We are an independent podcast production company. We do not have the backing of a big company behind us anymore, and we like it that way. And we want to keep it that way. Consider supporting this show if you love it. You can get ad-free episodes, you can get bonus episodes, and you can have our undying gratitude. Terrible Thanks for Asking is a production of Feelings & Co.

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I'm Nora McInerney. The team at Feelings & Co. is Marcel Malikibu, Jordan Turgeon, Megan Palmer, Claire McInerney, Eugene Kidd, and Larissa Witcher. Our theme music is by Joffrey Lamar Wilson. And that is all. Today, that's all. Now the dogs are going to bark.

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