Emmy is a 31-year-old Emmy who lives in Los Angeles Credit card debt Loop – Increase balance, pay off the card, and then maximize it again – because she is 18 years old.
Emmy Awards begin when using pseudonyms to protect her privacy online Share her debt journey on Tiktok In March, her total balance exceeded $28,000.
“I know it’s my fault,” she told CNBC. “I’ve always been my friend, ‘shooting me’, or ‘oh, don’t worry, I get it’ or ‘pay it next time’.”
She is not alone. Millennials and Gen Zers say their financial goals are affected by social spending Investigation by the Allied Bank.
Paying with friends is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, “you will get the highest reward in your well-being,” said Jack Howard, Ally’s head of Money Wellness.
“But then we got into trouble because we found that 42% of people were overspending,” she added. The survey found that millennials and Zers’ millennials and Gen Zers reported that social budgets exceeded their social budgets for several months of the year.
These fees add up’
American adults seem to prioritize social time, with 69% of respondents saying they connect with friends at least once a week. Ally found that on average, they spent $250 a month on social activities.
But few adults can budget social expenditures appropriately. Ally found that only 18% of Zers and millennials said they have a strict budget with friends’ activities.
“You’re going to put it on your budget,” Howard said. “I think a lot of people just don’t realize this day with my girlfriend, this day, and then another day with my partner and I do it with my partner, all of that cost add up.”
Howard said viewing money as a “tool to enhance your values and experience.”
She said, think deeply about your values and see if they are reflected in your spending. If expensive activities, e.g. Go out for supper or Travel with friends It’s important to you, and you may have to lay off employees in other areas of your life to prioritize.
“What you really want is experience”
In addition to making budget adjustments to make more social spending, Howard also recommends looking for cheap or free activities related to your friends – only 23% of millennials and Zers say they prioritize.
“What you really want is experience. What you really want is time with friends,” Howard said. “(We need) really go back to the basics of understanding that we need these friendships to increase our well-being…but we don’t want to go beyond where we are in financial trouble.”
Emmy is working on “tuning language with my friends” to suggest free or cheaper video groups as she focuses on paying off credit card debt.
However, it is difficult to make a change because she is comfortable spending money with her friends and they don’t understand the level of debt she is going to deal with.
“I can confidently say that if they know what I’m doing, they won’t judge me, but I’m still afraid to be seen by someone you love,” she said.
Howard said this stigma is common and can promote persistent overspending. She recommends trying to identify where this feeling comes from so you can better understand why you tend to say “yes” to things you may not be able to afford. It’s a money mindset that often stems from the way you grow up or what happened in the early years, Howard said.
“Until you really connect the past to the present, you tend to do these things over and over again, not only in the way you are in yourself, but in the relationships with friends and family,” she said.
If you’re trying to figure out how to better manage your money, consider working with a professional like Certified Financial Planner or a Financial Therapist Who can provide guidance on your specific situation.
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