Introducing: Deconstructing Money
a newsletter for people who think they're "bad with money" by someone who used to be "bad with money"
Hello there, fellow human living under capitalism
My name is Bethel and I used to be “bad with money.”
When I say “bad,” I really mean unconscious.
Through most of my twenties I had a rough idea of how much was in my bank account and a healthy fear of credit cards.
Then I went to grad school and accumulated about $60,000 of student loan debt.
When it was time to start paying back my loans, I picked the “income based repayment plan” and imagined that I’d probably be well into adulthood before my loans were gone.
But instead, at 27, two things happened:
My dad died.
In the two years following, on a public media salary, living in Brooklyn, I figured out how to pay off the $53,000 balance on my loans.
Journalist —> Financial Coach (in training)
For most of my professional life I was an audio documentarian, which basically means I was into podcasting before most people knew what a podcast was.
I worked for Radiolab, Resistance, Reply All, Serial and This American Life, and it was my job to ask people deep, probing questions about their lives and find stories within those conversations. Later, I helped people edit those stories for maximum impact.
It was fulfilling for a long time, until I realized that I wanted to offer people something more than the chance to be on a podcast. I wanted to use my ability to communicate and disarm people to help them figure out useful things about themselves, for no audience but themselves.
I couldn’t think of a better application of these skills than helping people like me— people “bad with money”—get “good with money.”
So I decided to take the summer to study to become an AFC (accredited financial counselor). It’s accredited by the same agency that accredits CFPs (certified financial planners) but AFCs focus on helping people who need help setting their financial house in order and manage things like crushing student loan debt.
In this next chapter of my life, I want to work to help people forgive themselves for what they were never taught and empower them to reach their financial goals.
Once I pass the AFC exam and set up my LLC, I’ll help people customize their individual money plans so that they can set themselves on a conscious course forward.
What to expect from Deconstructing Money
Ever the journalist, I’ve launched this newsletter to share what I’m learning along the way, and unpack what I learned from my debt repayment journey. It was more than vague money rules like “save 20% of your income.”
Maybe it was because I paid off my debt in the process of and in reaction to grieving my dad, but what I learned felt far more existential.
There were countless resources I used to figure out why money has the chokehold on us that it does in the States, and I want to share those with you, dear reader, in case they’re useful to you in your life. (I also think it’ll be helpful to offer this newsletter as a resource to future clients).
In future posts I’ll cover:
Exactly how I got out of $53k of student loan debt in two years
Money scripts
A book that begins with a scene of a man burning a $100 bill
How I approach budgeting and alternative methods
How one column in my budget changed the game
A hospital visit in Ecuador
A money influencer I adore and an ingenious ritual of hers
and more.
d.m. + w.i.l.t.
I’m really excited to build this resource and see what this community becomes. I’m going to aim for weekly posts, in between AFC study sessions, every Friday. I promise that I will strive to make a traditionally dry and intimidating subject interesting and helpful instead.
Also, I have another fun little free Substack, published monthly. Supporting this work with a paid subscription also means supporting that, very fun work:
Ok! Thanks for reading this far. Let’s do this.