There are emotions behind money decisions. Understanding them could help us heal from money shame. Money is not just math. It’s feelings, habits, and stories.
In this episode, Dr. Khalya Hopkins shares how she paid off debt twice—first as a young single mom and later while helping her daughter through college and earning her doctorate. We discuss money shame, money dysmorphia, and how our values manifest in our spending.
You’ll hear simple, real steps to start today, like using tax refunds wisely, fighting lifestyle creep, and choosing small wins to build momentum.
You’ll learn:
What money shame looks like in daily life
How “money dysmorphia” can lead to overspending or strict scarcity
Ways to align your budget with your values
Small first steps to tackle debt (snowball or highest-interest—pick what you’ll stick with)
How honest talks with friends can lower shame and boost support
If this resonated with you, share it with a friend who needs some encouragement today.
Connect with Dr. Khalya here:
Black Women Be Knowing Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Cej3Gqj88zGWH9uAKqs4Q?si=e0cd630844674f07
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackwomenbeknowing/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-khalya-hopkins-58b937149/
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The Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast’s mission is to empower women to approach money confidently, reframe their financial habits, and build a future where their money is a tool for opportunity and security. Through Dr. Sev Talks Money YouTube channel and Podcast, I provide actionable advice and inspiration to help you achieve financial freedom. Join me for one-on-one coaching, group sessions, workshops, or speaking engagements as we journey to financial empowerment together. It’s never too late to begin again—let’s make it happen!
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Transcript
Hey, hey, hey, savvy squad. Welcome to another episode of the Dr. Sev Talks Money YouTube and podcast, where we empower women to manage money confidently. Behind every budget is a story and often a little bit of shame. So we’re going to be talking about it today. We are discussing something that doesn’t get discussed nearly enough. The emotions behind the budget. My guest is Khalya Hopkins, an educator, leader, and financial powerhouse who knows firsthand what it takes to climb out of debt and rebuild with confidence.
Khalya, welcome to the Dr. SevTalks Money podcast.
Thank you so much, Dr. Sev, for creating the space. I appreciate you.
Okay. You are very welcome. And thank you for accepting the invite to join us. So we know that money can cause a little bit of tension. And so I like to kick off the podcast with a little bit of fun, because I want you to be comfortable, and I want the listeners to get comfortable after listening to this fun question.
Got it.
And I’ll share my take, too. If you were handed $50 to spend only on fun, what would you buy right now?
Only on fun? I mean, my fun usually costs a little more than $50, but. But I will say for $50, I’m an experience person, so I think I would probably, take the $50 and connect it to going like, roller skating. One, it’s economical, and two, it’s something that I do want to get back into is roller skating. So.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, I don’t know if this is fun, but I. I love to garden, so I’ll probably stock up on. On seeds or. And I love to read. That’s my two guilty pleasures is reading and gardening. And so I probably stock up on books in and seeds for for my next garden.
So as you can see in the background, I love some books as well. But I just. You said fun, so I was like, let me jump out of my comfort zone and go into something that I wouldn’t normally say. I’m sure people would be like, she’s lying. She’d have bought some books. But I do think. I do think I would go roller skating and just have a fun day out.
Yeah. Yeah. As you can tell, my life is boring, so I couldn’t think of anything fun outside of reading and gardening.
That’s not boring. That’s actually really helpful. It’s relaxing and one will yield something in the end. So I think that’s powerful to do so.
Yeah, that’s the reason I love my garden, because when I go out There I can think. It relaxes me. I unwind from all the stuff that’s going on in the world. So that’s what gardening means for me. Okay. So I want you to tell the listeners about you and the work you do.
So my regular degala shmegala. My 9 to 5 is A. I work for a superintendent in the education system in New York city. I support 23 schools in my portfolio around special education instruction. And when I’m not doing that, I’m doing my second job, where I am a graduate professor at two universities, and I train teachers who are either going into special education or getting an extension to their license in special education. So that’s my job. Those are my two jobs, actually. But when it comes down to finances, that’s something that now I’m starting to to explore as a possible. Another stream of income.
So can you share a little bit about your journey with money and maybe how emotions first showed up in your financial decisions?
So money was something that was constantly spoken about, like, around me, but wasn’t necessarily spoken to in a productive way or in a positive way. It was always like, we don’t have money for that, or, you know, if you ask for this, don’t ask me for this later, you know, so it wasn’t really like. I wouldn’t say they were healthy conversations necessarily, but it did let me know that there was a lack of it growing up. And so my relationship to money was just like, why don’t we have any? Like, where is the money? Like, where is it going? Why is it that when I want a pair of sneakers or if I want particular things for school, because, you know, for little kids, back to school is like the it time where you get to show off and, you know, hopefully show off. But that wasn’t my reality. And one of the things that I always remembered was my mom writing down bills on the back of, like, a random envelope. And I used to always be like, oh, man, that just seems so random, right? Like, to just be having these, like, little bills or numbers just all over the place. And I was just like, I know when I put my hands on money, I want it to not feel like something that is burdensome.
I always felt like money was something that I could never really attain. And that made me feel a little bit disheartened. Right. I just Felt like I was constantly going to be struggling, if you will. And so my whole thing with money, in terms of an emotion was I did not want to continuously associate it with struggle. And that’s how I understood it for a lot of my childhood.
Yeah, I think for a lot of us, especially people of color, we come from backgrounds where money was. It was done. The thing was done. The home was paid for or whatever, but we were never told or. Or never. We never. They never discussed money with us, as you know, this is why we have what we have, because we’re saving or any of those kinds of discussions. But thankfully, we can pass that information on to our children because we’ve been socialized to, you know, what money is and really how it works for us.
Because you mentioned money is more than the numbers. Yeah, it’s really much more than the numbers. In fact, the numbers are the last.
Right.
About money.
Right.
You know, it’s really the emotion. So you’ve been in debt twice, once in your 20s and again in your 30s? Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about what was different the second time?
So the. Okay, so I’m go backwards to go forward. So the first time that I was in debt was really, I mean, and again, black women can kind of, I think, connect with this, right? You. You get in a relationship, you have these dreams, you know, that both of you want to accomplish. And you talk to each other and you tell each other, like, we’re going to do this together. We’re going to get an apartment. We’re going to, you know, split the bills. Or, you know, you.
You have a plan in your head, and then the other person doesn’t go along with the plan, so you end up having to cover, right? Because now your livelihood is on the line, right? Paying rent, paying bills, paying. You know, at the time, I was also in grad school, so I was paying for grad school on a payment plan. And by the time you know it, you’re using your credit card to pay for necessities, right? You’re. Now, you need groceries, you got to pay your con Ed bill, you got to pay, you know, for clothes, you know, just basic things. And so next thing you know, you’re in debt. You know, I. One good thing about me is that I always. I always made a payment, right? I’ve never been delinquent on payments, but I’ve.
I had debt at like, 22, 23 years old, around, like, maybe around like ten, eleven thousand. And I was only making at the time, $50,000, right. So like more than 20% of my income was like debt related. So that was the first time. The second time I was in debt, it wasn’t personal, it was for school. My daughter at the time was going to college and we had to have a conversation about, you know, I know I’m going to be in debt. Right. Because I didn’t have.
I was so busy recouping in my 20s that I didn’t have time to save money for college for my daughter. So this was like us moving from scratch. And just for context, I did have my daughter at 15. Right. So there was a time where we were kind of just getting by a lot. So when we have the conversation, and I do think this is important to note, I had to explain to her while you did get accepted to 11 out of the 13 colleges you applied to. This is what I can realistically do.
Yeah.
And this is how much I’m willing to go into debt because I was going into debt regardless. But here’s the amount of debt that I was willing to take on and this is the plan so that I’m taking, that I’m making to make sure that by the time you’re 28. That was my goal at the time. Because she was going in at 18, I didn’t want to have to be paying off her college more than 10 years. So it was a little bit different because the plan was only me. That second time, the first time I got into debt, it was because I made a plan with another person and that person disappointed me. So, you know, there is some, some disappointment and resentment, to go back to the emotional part.
There was some disappointment and resentment that gets affiliated for me with money. But this time around, I really did stick to the plan. And in. And while my daughter was in undergrad, halfway through I had gone to get my doctorate. So I had to take on additional debt to pay for my doctoral program. So it was this money coming out all over the place. Like I was just borrowing and borrowing. So the second time was more for goals, like, and both times it was goal oriented.
But the second time I went into debt, it was more for school. And the first time was much for just survival. I would say.
Yeah, yeah, I certainly understand the money flowing out of the holes everywhere. Okay. Understand that.
Correct.
But you know, the good thing for those who are listening to, to us, the good thing is there’s always hope and there’s always a way to rebuild if we are intentional. And my journey may take five years to rebuild. Yours may take two, other person may take 10. But just know that there is always a way to rebuild. And I think we alluded to this a little bit about money shame. What would you say money shame looks like for some people in everyday life?
That’s interesting. I was actually having a conversation with one of my friends about some. Some something like this. I didn’t use necessarily the word shame, or maybe it did come up, but I think, like, as you get older, right, the assumption is we should have our stuff together by now, right? We’re 40. We’re, you know, in our late 30s, 40s, most. I’m like one of the youngest out of my friend group and I’m 40. So I’m saying that to say, like life is happening. You think you need to be at all of the events that your friends throw.
You feel sad when you can’t go to the wedding, when you can’t go to the event because your money won’t allow it. And so I think there’s a lot of shame around just missing things at this point in our lives because of money. And I had to say to a friend recently, it’s okay if you can’t give a gift to this person right now, right? Wish them well, know that you’re there for them, you know. At a later time, maybe have a conversation with them about what your goals are. You don’t have to go into detail about the debt that you’re in or anything like that. You just need to say, like, right now, I just couldn’t prioritize this thing. I think to your point, even around the conversations our parents didn’t have with us, it’s also conversations we haven’t had with our friends even the people that we’ve chosen to be our confidants, we don’t even tell them sometimes that, hey, I’m swimming in debt right now, I can’t actually go to your birthday party.
Or, you know what I mean? Or I can come, but I’m not. I can’t give you a gift, you know what I mean? And sometimes the gift, my presence is the present, and sometimes that is the reality. And I think the more honest we are with one another is, the more I think people respect it, quite honestly. But also too understanding, like, what your capacity is, sometimes you just like, you’ll find out people want to maybe like, hey, I’ll spot you this time, or just, we just want to with you. We want you to just come out for drinks and, you know, we’ll take care of it. And sometimes they can’t do it either. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t schedule something else later on where you can still be with people and be in community with people without necessarily spending money. And I think, like, the less we talk about the fact that we are struggling and is the.
You know what I mean, is the less that we can actually enjoy our relationships.
You said so much, so much there. So many powerful shares. Because money shame can keep us silent. And, and when, when we’re silent, we stay bound because we don’t share what’s going on.
And you’d be surprised how many others are around you who are experiencing the same thing. So. And if they’re really your friends, there is no reason to not share. And if you lose them, they were never your friends because a lot of them may be fronting as, as the kids.
I would, I would say that most people are.
Yeah. You know, and so. So they think you have it. You think they have it. And so you’re spending, they’re spending, and you’re all getting into debt for no reason when maybe just opening up our mouths and saying, listen, I don’t have it. When I was at work and I would tell people I’m not going out to eat, eventually they stopped asking me, you know, and I had a plan. I had a plan. And you’re not going to come rescue me and pay my bills if I keep spending my money.
So that’s how I look at it. And of course, there are other people. They probably be not as bold and outspoken as me. So. So, you know, but, you know, find a way, as Dr. Khalya said, to share with your friends. It’s about sharing with them, being vulnerable.
To say, listen, I would love to go, but I can only do XYZ, or I can go, but I can’t do this, or I can hang out with you, but I’m only going to have a drink. I’m not going to buy the meal or, you know, whatever it is, or, or let’s have a potluck. I mean, there are just so many other ways that we can still socialize without having to spend a lot of money. So as you’re listening to us, you know, there’s really no need to be ashamed. And if you’re ashamed, if you’re feeling shame, Own it, deal with it. But really, if you think about it, there is no reason to feel ashamed because all of us came into this world without knowing how to manage money.
Correct.
And. And so the thing is to learn from it, share, find somebody who can support you, and then move forward. So, in our discussion, I think, before we talked about money dysmorphia. Can you unpack a little bit what that means and, and how it may show up in people’s approach or their budgeting?
So I, I had this conversation several times, and I didn’t use the, the, the words money dysmorphia, even though I do love the, the terminology. But I think that there’s a way that you have to unpack your own money stories and what people have told you about money particularly, we learned that first and foremost from our parents, you know, whoever was, you know, our caregivers and how they spoke about money. Like, no one around me had any real money that, you know, they weren’t running around here, just spending. That wasn’t happening. But I had different versions of the same story. Like, I knew, like, I’m one of six, right, One of six children. So, you know, you’re not getting a lot of things on Christmas.
You know, you’re not getting a lot of things just in general because it was just more communal. Like, we need to eat, we need to live somewhere. You know, you have clothes, you’ll be all right. But at the same time, I think that you might start to deprive yourself of things or over indulge. So you have these, like, two extremes that could happen as a result of what you’ve also been told. Like, I know people say I couldn’t have this growing up, so now I’m just buying everything, right? And that’s its own because it’s, it’s dysmorphia because it’s like, not connected to your reality. Right. And so if you don’t have the money to buy all the things you want, and yet you’re like, well, I have a credit card.
I don’t know how I’m gonna pay this credit card, but I’m gonna get it. Because no one got me those sneakers growing up, and no one got me those expensive fill in the blanks when I was growing up, you’ll tell yourself that it’s okay to spend the money when you really don’t have it.
Yeah.
Conversely, though, when you’re, when you haven’t gotten much, you may stay in that mindset. Of scarcity, right? And then you’ll deprive yourself of a lot because you’re scared you won’t have the money, right? So it’s like. And I’m, I think I fall more in the second category, right? I’m more like, we can’t spend that because you don’t know. We’ll need that money for a rainy day. No, no, we don’t need to get that because you don’t know. You know what I mean? So you have the. It, it does stay with you, like money anxiety, I guess I’ll call it, because that’s more close, I guess, to where I’m at in my mind. Is that you, you, you know, you can look at your bank account, wake up and say, man, I do have the money to buy that bag, but I’m not buying that bag.
And I always say the way you can always afford it is not to get it in the first place, right? I can always afford it because I’m not buying. So I think that’s a, an interesting way to kind of be. I have, I do, I don’t skip out on the things that I do value, right. I, I like to travel, I like to, I like to save up to travel, right. I don’t like to finance things if I can avoid them now that I’m completely debt free. So those types of things, you know, it really is based on your value system more than anything else. But yeah, the stories you’ve been told, they follow you and they follow you in sometimes a supportive way and sometimes in an antagonistic way. So I think it could go in either extreme.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny you say values, because that was my next question. Many times values are reflected in our spending choices, whether we believe it or not. So how can someone begin to identify whether they’re spending aligns with their true values?
We always say, like, follow the money, right? The money will tell you. And, and now there’s so many tools within, like your bank. They’ll tell you, they’ll actually give you like a pie chart. It’ll break down what you spend most of your money on. I don’t think Like, to your point about our values, our personal way of being is that much misaligned with our financial way of being, right? So I like to say that I’m a very disciplined person and most people who know me would say the same, I think. And I was just on my phone and Google reminded me of a post that I saved from, like five, six years ago, from 2019.
And it says discipline is choosing what you want most over choosing what you want now. And I had to think about, like, those things consistently. Like, what do I want the most? Not what do I want that is going to give me gratification in the moment, but what am I actually working towards? To your point when you said, like, I can’t go out with you because when things happen, you all aren’t going to be putting around the collection plate. You might, but I can’t guarantee that. Right. I can’t make decisions based on how it’s going to make me feel for the next hour or day.
Like, I’m trying to think about myself 20 years down the line. I’m trying to think about my children down the line. So I do feel like my values really are around being stable, making sure that my family is taken care of, making sure that I am taken care of, and just making sure that, like, I, I, like I said, I consider myself a very disciplined person and I consider myself someone of integrity. And one of the things, and this is not a popular opinion because. And I’m not trying to come for anybody’s integrity, but integrity also includes that if you borrowed money from the bank, you are agreeing to pay the bank back. That’s an agreement. Right. I don’t, I’m not trying to be all, like, high and mighty about it, but my, my word is my bond.
If I say I’m going to borrow this money, my intent is to pay back the money I borrowed. Whether that’s a friend, whether that’s Chase, whether that’s another financial institution, whether that’s the student loans. I have every intent of paying people back that I owe, even if it’s an entity. Right. Like an institution. So those types of things are where my values kind of come into play.
Yeah, man, you just talking my language.
Well, I’m glad. I’m glad.
Yeah. I think you kind of let me touch on this a little bit because I, I personally believe that sacrificing should not be long term, it should be short term. And, and we touched on it a little bit. So how did you balance sacrifice with still living life as you were, you know, digging yourself out of debt?
So. So there’s two, two parts to that. Right. Some is forced sacrifice, and some of it is just personal sacrifice. So I remember the first time I was in debt back in my 20s. You know, when you don’t make a lot of money, you get a very good income tax return. So, you know, that’s a really happy time of year for some people, right? Getting your income tax and being like, oh, I have, I just got back $6,000 or seven, whatever it is, right, because I also had a daughter, so I had a dependent. And that helped me in terms of my return.
And I remember having a conversation with my dad, who has transitioned almost 10 years ago, but I remember him having a conversation with me and saying so what you gonna do with your income tax money? He wasn’t asking me that because he wanted anything. He was just, you know, we just talked about money and he was. I said, well, you know, I’m. I’m probably getting back about 7,000. I’m gonna put 4,000 on my debt. And it was like appalling to him. Like, why are you gonna give them people all that money? You know? And I’m like, I took that money from them people, you know what I mean?
I owe it, I owe them the money, you know, so it was, but it was like absurd, right, that you would get this lump sum of money and that you wouldn’t splurge or get something you wanted. And I was like, well, dad, you know, 3,000 is enough to get something that I also want, right? You know, and so when I got my income tax, that was how I originally had climbed out of debt. It took me three years to get $10,000 out of debt. Remember, I was only making about 50 grand a year. And I had expenses. I had an apartment, I had my daughter. I mean, luckily being in New York City, you know, taking mass transit, I didn’t have a vehicle, so that wasn’t something I had to, to finance. But at the same time, you still got to pay for transportation. You still have to pay to eat, you know, regular things.
But we had. I had to sacrifice my income tax three years in a row almost like, I mean, I was giving them high lump sums of money. And we still went, you know, on vacation. And sometimes vacation wasn’t luxurious. It was going to visit my grandmother and my aunt in North Carolina for two weeks, you know, and getting. Just to relax and have somebody take care of me and pamper me, because that’s what they do down in the South. They feed you and they, and they love on you.
And for me, that was enough at that time. And, you know, we would resume and go on trips once I was out of debt. We, you know, we went on a cruise, we went to Jamaica, we went to Mexico. We, you know, we had a good time. But I knew that it was temporary. So those three years was just a three year plan to get myself back. Right. So the first time was a, was a, was not a big deal.
The second sacrifice was a sacrifice for everybody. That worked in my favor. It was the pandemic. The pandemic forced everybody to sit down. You couldn’t go nowhere, couldn’t really. I mean, you could, I mean people were definitely getting them Amazon packages. But I will say that because I wasn’t forced to, to constantly be out and dressed and go somewhere and spend money outside. I saved a ton of money.
And as a result of saving money, I was paying my loans back as I was taking my classes as well as for my daughter. So while she was in school, I was paying those people back as she was in school. I did not defer, I did not wait until she graduated to start making payments. The minute they issued me a check the following month, they were getting payments. So that was, that was the sacrifice, you know, essentially, yeah.
It’s all about mindset, isn’t it? Because so many people have debt, have obligations and they get that money and they splurge and then they’re right back where they were before. And it’s just a repeating cycle and, and it’s really about mindset. I don’t want to be stressed every time about money. So what can I do with this lump sum that can get me to a place of peace? Correct. And I hope that somebody listening to us right now realize that they’re just little ways, these are just little ways that you can use to get yourself out of debt. And it doesn’t have to be something, you know, some big grand plan. It can be as small as getting a refund and saying, I’m taking a portion of that and applying it to my debt.
Yes.
Yeah. So looking back, if you could sit down with that 22 year old self, you know, in that first apartment, what money lesson would you pass along?
It’s so funny. I feel like I’ve learned more from her, from the 22 year old self. Like I always say, if something comes up, I’m like, I’ve been here before. 22 year old Khalya got her out of debt. So I know that 40 year old or 30 something year old Khalya can get herself out. So I’ve learned actually more from 22 year old Khalya than I think 40 year old Khalya would tell her because I think like I had so much less then at that time. Right. I was making less money.
I was a single parent. Life circumstances also changed. And I think when you see an added person, like I’m with my husband now and when you see an added income, right. It’s very easy to say, well, we have more money in the household now, spend more money. And I was like, absolutely not. Right? Like we, we are going to stick to what got us here, right? Like what got us here was still the discipline, right? What got us here was still looking at lump sums. Because like again, at the time I didn’t have two jobs, right. I didn’t have the position I had back then.
I only had a master’s degree at that time. I was working towards my second masters at that time. And at this point I have a doctorate, I have a second job, I have a better position. And even with that, I think what people tend to do is as they make more money, they spend more money.
Yes.
And my thing is to always try to keep the income way higher than the out, right. Like than the outgoing, the incoming and the outgoing, right. The incoming has to be way higher than what’s going out. And that’s something that I like to, you know, I always try to make sure I have a surplus every time I get paid, right. I don’t want to be like, oh, I just paid all the bills and I’m still in the red. I just paid all the bills and now I don’t know how I’m going to, I can’t even afford drinks now, right. Like, I wanted to ensure, and I continued, I have continued to ensure that I don’t continue to spend. So I guess I would tell my 22 year old self like, hey girl, when you get that money, right, Stick to the, stick to the same bills more or less that you had.
Like, we had to expand as I, as my family grew. I only have two children, but I went from a one bedroom to a two bedroom to a three bedroom, you know what I mean? Like you go up. But overall that was also commensurate with my pay, you know, I mean I wasn’t, I wasn’t just like every time I got a new job, I was just out like trying to buy a bigger house, you know what I mean? Necessarily more like the, the family grew and therefore that was a need. But yeah, stuck to the script for the most part. So yeah, hey girl, you’re gonna be proud of us in the future.
Yes. Lifestyle creep is one of the things that get us, it gets us especially from those of us who come from a background of we had enough. I mean, we were good, but you know, we could. We could live a little bit better. So now that we have that money, we’re going to buy the new house. And in fact, I heard one time I was at church and somebody just got a new house and the pastor said, now you need a new car to go in the garage. And I’m like, no, you don’t. No, you don’t.
But that’s our thought, you know, that’s how some of us think.
Right.
And so that lifestyle creep gets that little money that we get instead of really thinking about how can I make sure I’m funding my dream and my vision by setting aside some money. You’re not guaranteed a job.
No.
You’re not guaranteed good health. So having that cushion will give you some peace of mind. Doesn’t mean it’s going to take away everything, but it will give you some peace of mind having that cushion.
May I add something really too, really quickly, because one of the things, when you just said the thing about the church in the comment, one of the things that I think is really difficult in terms of not wanting to make that sacrifice is because when you do upgrade your life slightly, right. You have different neighbors and your neighbors now are talking to you in a way that can cause if you don’t have a very strong sense of self, you’ll start to compare. And what happens is they’ll start to say things like, oh, well, you know, we just redid our deck. We just redid this and we just bought it. I just did. Got a 2025 car, right. I just went and bought.
So. And now you’re surrounded by that. Right? You’re surrounded. You know, you move in a certain space and now you’re looking at your neighbors and their. They’re upgrading their home, they’re buying newer vehicles, they’re putting their children in extracurriculars that call. So. And then you start to think like, am I doing enough? And that’s where you have to kind of quiet that noise because it’s not, to your point, in alignment with your goals, with your. Right.
Because my goals are still mine. Right. I can’t. But the problem, I think, is that people adopt other people’s goals.
Yes.
And that becomes the metric by which they are measuring their own success. And I’m like, that can’t. And that has everything to do with how your money ends up getting funny, you know?
Yes. Yeah. I’m trying to teach my daughter the same thing is just because they’re doing it and you have the money doesn’t mean you need to spend your money. And. And so we’re getting there. We’re getting there. We’re getting there.
Yes.
Well, before I ask about final thoughts, I. I’d like to know, someone listening to us right now that’s dealing with debt. What’s maybe one of the first small step that you can encourage them to take to regain control?
So, I know we were talking about this offline, right? So one of my friends, a couple of my friends now have asked me to kind of look at their budgets and help them because they’ve seen me get out of debt more than once and be really disciplined. As I’ve said several times before, that word keeps coming up. But one of the things I’ve told, you know, so I’m treating the listener as if it’s one of my friends, right? So one of the things that comes up when I look at the spreadsheet is that you can create really beautiful spreadsheets, you know? And I’m realizing that the way people think about money is very different. And you’re really not following. You’re not really trying to crunch the numbers because math is math, right? We can all sit here and just add it up and see how divide that by certain monthly payments, and this is how long it’ll take you. It’s not about just the monthly payments. It is about why did.
Why did you feel the need to spend this? What conversation did you fail to have when you spent that amount of money? Right. One of the bigger issues that I’ve had with talking to friends was, like, the conversations they weren’t willing to have with their children about what they could realistically afford when it came to college and that. And we. I didn’t have the opportunity. My parents wasn’t even having that conversation with me. They were like, wherever you go, girl, Godspeed. Right? Like, you know, whatever. The.
Whatever financial aid package will send you is where you will. Will go. And I think we’re so busy trying to, quote, unquote, break these generational curses that we’re creating some. We’re perpetuating some curses, right? As a. As a result of not being honest about what we’re doing. So when it comes down to just, like, a practical thing, I think the first thing you got to do is have a conversation with yourself about, like, why was I spending this money? Do I feel good about the purchase that I made , three months ago, three days ago, today? Like, because some people. The shame also comes with Regret, right. Dang, I shouldn’t have spent that money.
I really didn’t even need the X. Ah, man, I spend that much money at Starbucks, you know, like, you know, people are kicking themselves as a result just not having an honest conversation. Like, I should have just walked by the coffee shop and brought my thermos as opposed to stopping in and buying a seven dollar or six dollar large coffee, you know, every day for like three months, you know. So, like, when you realize these things add up, it’s the conversation you need to have with yourself. And I always say, celebrate the small wins. When I got into debt, I was one. So one of the things they do when you’re like 20 years old and 19 years old, they give you. Everybody wants to give you a credit card, right? Everybody’s just knocking down the door.
They don’t even care you don’t have income, really. They just giving you credit. And I had so many store cards when I was like 22. So I had like an Old Navy Gap card, a Victoria’s Secret card, a Best Buy card, a Macy’s card. Like, I had all these cards. Now, the limits weren’t very high because they don’t give you a high limit at 20 years old. But I was, I was definitely using them. And one of the things that I did immediately, because I knew my Visa card was the one that had the most because it was, it could be used anywhere, right? So that was the one that held the most debt.
I started knocking those store cards out immediately. I was like, how much is the balance? $210. Okay, I can get $210 down within three months. How much is this? Victoria’s Secret? $140. I can knock down $140. You understand, like, you got to start going with the small ones first. Because once you start feeling like that sense of congratulations, you’ve paid off, even if it’s small, that’s one less person you got to think about now. That’s one less person sending you a bill.
And so for me, I always say, like, start with your smallest win because it’s building. The dis is building back up that discipline and it’s building up a success story, right? Oh, I paid off three store cards. Now I gotta go for the big person, right? The big one. So, yeah, that was long, I think.
No, no, no, that was perfect because it’s, it is all the things that you mentioned, and for somebody else, it may be that they want to start off with the bigger one. You know, whatever you’re comfortable doing for me, it’s the smaller ones, because I’m like, yeah, I did it. And it gave me a sense of purpose, a sense of celebration to move on to the next one for somebody else, it may be, well, let me start with the higher interest rate, because that interest rate is driving me crazy. Because the thing is peace of mind. What. What works for you. Your personality, the way you look at money. What works for you.
That’s what you want to use, because that’s the thing you’ll stick with.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
So any final thoughts that you’d like to share with our listeners before we tell them how they can connect with you and what you have going on?
I think one of my biggest thoughts is just, like, we need to have conversations with our girlfriends in particular, because our girlfriends are our lifelines for many of us. I know they are for me. And I. I like to talk about money with my with my friends. I think we need to start having those conversations. And, like, it’s not just about. Also, like, you know, there’s some fleeting things that people do.
Like, oh, let’s do a challenge where we save a. You know, January 1st, everybody want to put a dollar in the jar and then put $5 in the jar. And that by. By March, everybody stopped putting money in a jar. And so we don’t want to just, like, start doing. And if that works for you, if that has worked, continue to do that. But I’ve noticed that once that New Year’s, you know, resolution time period, what wanes, everybody starts to just go back to their old habits. And I think it really is down to, like, what’s one thing that I can redirect or I can stop doing as much.
I don’t try. . I tell people all the time, don’t try to go cold turkey. Right. That’s not. That’s not sustainable. Nine times out of 10, it doesn’t mean that some people haven’t. It just means that on average, I have not seen people, they can sustain it for maybe three, six months, and then.
And then it goes all downhill from there. I would say more. So what is one thing you can cut down on? Not necessarily eliminate, but just to cut down on? Like, I love to eat out. That’s my thing. I’m. And I allocate money towards for it to eat out. But at the same time, if it really comes down to, oh, I’m not seeing the kind of money in my savings that I had anticipated, then I’m not. I know I’m not just gonna stop eating out.
It’s just not gonna stop. But I do need to think about if I ate out eight times this, this month, that got to be cut in half, you know, so just being mindful of yourself. I think that’s the thing too. We’re so busy. We’re in a very high paced, urgent kind of atmosphere. Right. That it doesn’t allow you to slow down and really take notice of what you. What got you here.
Because people say it all the time. I don’t even know how it got to this point. Yeah, like, but if you sit down, you do know how you got to this point, really. So I think that’s more of the conversations with yourself, with your, with your friends. And also, can I say one really quick story though, because I think this is super. So I was just telling Dr. Sev that I came back from Mexico yesterday. And of course you go to these, these sometimes they want to do a presentation for a timeshare.
I have never been to one of these presentations in my whole 40 years of life. But I went to one and I was like, this is the grand hustle, right? Grand hustle. Because I mean, and I went and I left with all my money in my wallet. I just want to start with the end in mind, right? Like, I did not spend a dollar. I went for my free massages that I was promised. After the presentation, however, I was like, they are using all the tactics. They are saying like, oh, 250, 000 people have signed are members, you know, we help families just like yours and oh, act now. Or.
Because some, you know, some of these are going to go fast. They like to back you into a corner, right? Make you make a decision on the spot, create some, a false sense of urgency. Like if yes, now, you’ll never be able to do it. It’s like, calm down. Like you’re about to go down on this price, you know, about by 60% just to get me to walk out of here with something. So don’t pretend like it’s that urgent and it’s that exclusive. It’s not. So I just want like people to be mindful too, that money is about being thought out, being planned.
And of course you can be spontaneous every now and then. Nobody’s saying to just, you know, be so rigid. But everybody’s trying to sell you something. Everybody’s trying to sell you something. And your values are going to determine what you decide, how you can be bought, quote unquote, and what you’re willing to pay for. So that’s. I guess my final thought. You know, I just want to get that.
Yes, yes. Because to your point, nobody wants to live. We don’t want you to live a life of austerity. We don’t. That’s not what we want for you. We want to make sure that you enjoy your life, but at the same time, you have to think of what happens five years from now, what happens ten years from now. So bring that balance in and talk to your girlfriends, talk to your. Your boyfriends, talk to your.
Your parents, talk to other people about money. Money’s conversation should be like leaving the movies. And, you know, man, did you see that scene?
Yeah.
That’s how money conversations should be. I don’t know why we’re so afraid of it. Well, I do know why, but, you know, we shouldn’t be afraid of having the money conversations and just making them commonplace and being a part of our lives so that when you look back, you’re like, well, I was afraid of that. Because if you look back, you’ve had some wins.
Right.
I’m talking to the listener right now.
Right.
You’ve had some wins. So what. What happened when you had that win?
Right.
How can you duplicate that right now? So I want everyone to be encouraged that.
Absolutely.
If Dr. Khalya did it, if I did it, if other people did it, you can too. And again, don’t measure yourself by how long it took us and the methodologies that we used to get it. What works for you, what would work for you based on your situation, and go at it. Okay? All right. So tell us where we can connect with you and what you have going on. I think you have a podcast.
Yes, I do have a podcast. It’s called Black Women Be Knowing. And it’s just all about me having conversations with other black women who I respect about various topics. You know, sometimes about money, not often about money, but, like, just in terms of, like, being educators, being moms, being women, celebrating ourselves is a lot of what I try to encourage us to do. And I’m on LinkedIn, which is how I found Dr. Sev on LinkedIn, in a group. So I’m on LinkedIn as Dr. Khalya Hopkins.
And yeah, you can follow me on IG and and like, and subscribe to my podcast and all of that on Spotify. So thank you so much.
Yeah. And I will have all of her information in the show notes on the podcast platforms and on YouTube. So, Dr. Khalya, thank you so much for joining the the Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast and sharing your story and your insights on digging out of debt and money shame. And friends, if today’s conversation resonates with you, don’t keep it to yourself.
Share this episode with someone who could use a little encouragement on their own money journey. And as we wrap up, please remember to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. If you listen on Apple podcasts, leave a review and a rating. If you listen on Spotify, leave a rating. And as you are completing your ratings, remember that we love the number five. So until next time, this is Dr. Sev saying stay savvy and we’ll see you next time.
See ya.
