By Wendy Wright, LMFT, Financial Therapist, Money Coach, and Money Story Specialist™ Founder of the Wendy Wright Financial Therapy Approach™ | Creator of the 10 Principles of Financial Therapy©
Debt shame keeps so many women up at night. Here’s why staying out of debt works better than getting out — plus, where the real shift begins.
Recently, PurseStrings, a platform I am a part of, a resource to help women be financially fearless, highlighted my answer to an “Ask the Expert” question: “How do I get out of debt?”
It’s one of the questions I hear so often when a new client reaches out for help. This shows up in a new discovery call booking. Believe it or not, these often get booked at 2 a.m.! (It doesn’t wake me up though, in case you were worried; my alerts are silent.) This new client is usually reaching out with a knot in her stomach, tight jaw, tense shoulders. She’s a woman who has already tried every spreadsheet, every app, every well-meaning piece of advice from a well-meaning person who has never once asked her why the debt is there in the first place. I get it — she is confused, scared, and overwhelmed.
Is this you? If it feels like everyone else has this figured out except you, the numbers say otherwise. Total U.S. household debt climbed to a record $18.79 trillion in early 2026. Whatever is happening in your bank account right now, you are not the outlier. You’re the majority.
I wanted to share my answer here too, because I don’t think it’s a question with a budgeting answer. I think it’s a question with an emotional answer.
How to Stay Out of Debt and What Debt Shame Feels Like
Here’s what I told PurseStrings:
Question: How do I get out of debt?!
Answer: This may surprise you – in fact, I hope it will because it can then give you hope that there is a new way! – I don’t want to help you “get out of debt.” I want to help you “stay out of debt” instead!
When clients come to me with this question, they share beliefs that they are bad with money, stupid, undisciplined, and more. With those beliefs come feelings of debt shame, guilt, burdens, out of control, overwhelmed, lost, stuck… any of these resonate with you? You aren’t alone!
There is a common belief that getting out of debt is the top goal, the number one strategy to solve the “problem.” I disagree. I guide clients to turn the focus to staying out of debt, to deepening the understanding of what leads to debt, and that leads to building a fresh new map to doing money differently.
I have been where you are. For years and years, I focused on getting out of debt, only to find myself back in it, befuddled as to what had happened. I made the classic promise to myself when I paid off debt, “I will never get in debt again!” only to see it happen again. This is what is often called “debt cycling.” And, to be honest, it’s miserable.
So what helps? You need to deepen your understanding of what I call “using debt as a payment method.” When I am working with clients on this pattern, we start with my key principle of compassionate curiosity and zero judgment. This sets the stage for emotional safety, neutrality, calm, and a fresh approach. Then, we begin to explore the decision tree that includes “debt as a payment method.” This creates tons of new awareness, and begins the deeper mindset and behavior shift you are longing for.
This is just the beginning of a new approach, a mindset shift. If you are ready to try it, here are a couple of reflection questions you can start with:
- What are two thoughts and two feelings I am noticing about this purchase decision?
- What are two to three other options if I don’t “use debt as a payment method”?
I would love to discuss what you noticed in these reflection questions and see where we could make momentum!
You can read the original post on PurseStrings here.
Getting Out of Debt Isn’t a Strategy — It’s a Symptom.
Let’s keep talking about debt shame, because there’s more underneath it.
“Getting out of debt” isn’t usually a strategy. It’s an emotional response to decisions that were already made — often unconsciously, often in a moment of stress, exhaustion, grief, or overwhelm. I call this decision conflict: the gap between what a woman logically knows she wants to do with her money and what she actually does, in the moment, when the emotional pressure is highest.
Debt shame convinces women this gap means something is wrong with them. It doesn’t. It means there’s a deeper story underneath the pattern that hasn’t been looked at yet. In my specialized financial therapy approach, that story is always where we start.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about staying out of debt versus getting out of it. Back in 2020, I wrote about three mindsets worth examining on the path to staying out of debt: your money mindset, your debt mindset, and your savings mindset. If Bridgette’s story below resonates, that post is a good next stop.
Bridgette’s Story of Debt Shame
Bridgette is not a real client. She’s a composite, built from themes and patterns I’ve seen repeatedly across a decade of working with women on the emotional relationship with money.
Bridgette came to me the way a lot of women do: exhausted. Not just tired-exhausted, but that specific, gritty exhaustion of someone who hasn’t slept through the night in weeks because her mind keeps circling back to the same number.
She described lying awake doing math she already knew the answer to. Intrusive thoughts about the debt showing up mid-conversation, mid-meeting, mid-bedtime-story with her kids. A low-grade panic that lived in her chest most days, and a louder panic that showed up every time a bill arrived. She wanted it gone. Fast. She used words like disgusted, reckless, out of control — about herself, not about the debt.
Bridgette isn’t alone in her debt shame. More than half of people surveyed say they lose sleep over financial stress at least some of the time — more than the number who say the same about family, mental health, or relationship issues, according to research covered by the Sleep Foundation. If debt shame is the thing keeping you up, you are in very good, very common company.
I don’t want you to lose any more sleep. I am here to help.
So Bridgette and I got started. We didn’t start with a payoff plan. We started with a pause. I named out loud what she’d already sensed but hadn’t trusted: that this wasn’t really a math problem. It was an emotional one. She’d been so certain the fix was a better spreadsheet, another budget, or more discipline, more willpower that it had never occurred to her the real work might be looking at what the debt was doing for her nervous system in the moment it was created. Not judging it, just getting curious about it.
That reframe, or moving from judgment to abundant compassionate curiosity, was the first shift. Not because it made the debt shame disappear, but because it gave her somewhere to stand outside of the shame.
From there, we didn’t talk about “getting out.” We talked about the first real step in staying out: no longer using debt as a payment method.
I want to be really clear about what that step is not. It’s not a rule. It’s not a punishment. It’s not one more thing for Bridgette to fail at in the middle of the night. My goal is to never pile more shame onto a woman who was already drowning in it. The goal is to create a pause in the system — a beat of space between the trigger and the swipe — long enough for her to start connecting the dots on the factors that had been running the decision underneath her awareness the whole time.
That pause is where the change begins. Not in the payoff. In the noticing.
Financial journalist Jean Chatzky has written on the emotional side of debt, while financial advisor Gerri Detweiler puts it like this: “There’s no easy way out, but there are steps you can take,” and each one moves you in a better emotional direction, not just a better financial one. That’s the piece most debt advice leaves out.
What “Staying Out of Debt”Actually Looks Like Day to Day
This isn’t about willpower, and it isn’t about a stricter budget. In my work with women, staying out of debt and away from debt shame tends to build from a few connected practices:
- Naming the moment before the decision. Before a purchase that would use debt as a payment method, pausing long enough to notice what’s happening emotionally — not to talk yourself out of it, just to see it.
- Getting curious instead of critical. Asking yourself, “What is this decision trying to solve for me right now?” instead of, “What’s wrong with me?”
- Building a small, but regular practice of connection with your money. Checking in with it the way you’d check in with a relationship, not just the way you’d check a scoreboard.
- Tracking the pattern, not the debt shame. Noticing when debt shows up as a payment method is data. It’s not a verdict on your character.
- Working from a decision-making framework, like the tools I use with clients in the Decision Making Matrix©, so the pause has somewhere useful to go.
None of this happens overnight, and it isn’t supposed to. Emotionally sustainable financial change is slower than a 30-day challenge, and it’s the only kind that actually holds.
If any of this is landing for you and you’d like a gentler place to start, the free Money Shadow Quiz is a good first step toward naming your own pattern. No pressure, just a starting point.
Your Debt Shame Doesn’t Mean You Are Not Broken With Money
If you recognized yourself in Bridgette — the sleepless nights, the intrusive thoughts, the private conviction that you’re somehow doing money wrong — I want you to hear this clearly: You are not broken with money. There is usually a deeper story underneath the pattern, and you don’t have to find it alone.
Financial healing does not happen through debt shame, criticism, deprivation, or perfectionism. It happens through compassionate awareness, which is the whole foundation of what I built for you, what I call the Wendy Wright Financial Therapy Approach™.
If you’re curious what your own money story might be trying to tell you, take the free Money Shadow Quiz or download the Money Calm Checklist. Both offer gentle starting points to examine your own debt shame and patterns.
And if you’re ready to talk it through with someone who understands the emotional side of money, not just the spreadsheet side, I’d love to have a conversation with you.
You don’t have to figure this out at 2 a.m., alone, one more time.
What is shame?
I describe shame in a few ways to help you recognize it when it shows up. For one, shame is the internal bully, the accusing and blaming self dialog that often sounds like “see, you are stupid,” “see, you are bad with money and need to stop trying.” Another way I explain shame is in comparison to guilt, as these are often thought of as the same. I say “guilt has a remedy and shame has a spiral.” With money, when debt shame is a major player, it’s constantly whispering in the background of your thoughts as a mean and unkind voice. When you talk about it, say it out loud — in our appointments, shame begins to lose some of its power. This is the power of my Financial Therapy Approach™ to money.
Why do I feel so much shame about my debt?
Debt shame often has nothing to do with actual financial literacy. It usually comes from a deeper story about safety, worth, or belonging that formed long before the debt did. You are not broken with money — there’s typically a pattern underneath worth understanding with compassion, not criticism.
What does it mean to “stay out of debt” instead of “get out of debt”?
Getting out of debt focuses only on the payoff. Staying out of debt means understanding what leads you back into it in the first place — often called “debt cycling” — so the change actually holds instead of repeating.
Why do I keep going back into debt even after paying it off?
This is debt cycling, and it’s incredibly common. It usually means the underlying pattern — what I call using debt as a payment method — was never addressed, only the balance was. Paying off debt without understanding the pattern behind it rarely creates lasting change.
What does “using debt as a payment method” mean?
It’s a phrase I use to describe reaching for debt as an automatic response to a decision, often without pausing to notice the emotion driving it. Naming this pattern without judgment is usually the first real step toward staying out of debt long-term.
Is emotional spending the same thing as being bad with money?
No. Emotional spending is a response to a feeling — stress, overwhelm, grief, or even exhaustion — not a character flaw. In my Financial Therapy Approach™, we get curious about what the spending is solving for in the moment, rather than shaming the behavior itself.
How do I start shifting my relationship with debt shame if I’m feeling overwhelmed right now?
Start with a pause, not a plan. Before your next purchase decision, notice two thoughts and two feelings coming up. That small moment of awareness — not a stricter budget — is where real, emotionally sustainable change begins.
