We measure debt in dollars and cents—but what about the emotional toll it creates? Behind every credit card balance or collection call, there’s often someone feeling stress, fear, and shame. In a recent episode of the Debt Matters Podcast, Licensed Insolvency Trustee Mary Ann Mariott of Allan Marshall & Associates joined host Wayne Kelly to explore how debt affects mental health, relationships, and self-worth.
Debt is More Than a Financial Problem
While most conversations about money focus on budgeting and repayment, Mary Ann emphasizes the emotional aspects. People come to her not because they’ve missed payments, but because they’re exhausted from the constant debt pressure. For example, most people feel embarrassment, a type of shame that comes from publicly announcing money owed. Frustration is also common, a normal response to overwhelm and uncertainty. And of course, there’s fear, related to missed payments, collection calls, and the idea of financial collapse.
Why Debt Feels So Overwhelming
Why do we feel these particular emotions around debt? Mary Ann points out that our culture often fuels financial stress. Society encourages us to live beyond our means, while the credit industry makes borrowing easy. There is also a stigma of weakness for those who use debt to make ends meet, even when it is due to circumstances outside of our control, like job loss, illness, or rising living costs.
Add in aggressive lending practices, such as high-interest offers and tempting credit card rewards, and it’s easy to see how people fall into the debt cycle. As Mary Ann notes, banks act like the drug dealers of the financial world, keeping people hooked on debt so they pay interest.
The Silent Burden on Families
The impact doesn’t just affect individuals; it also ripples through families. Parents may feel like failures if they can’t afford sports or activities for their kids. Adult children often move back home because of rising housing costs, creating stress for both generations. Couples argue over money, while shame prevents open conversations.
At its core, debt can lead to a loss of self-worth. People begin to feel “less than,” which changes their confidence, health, and relationships.
Breaking the Silence: Talking About Debt
One of the biggest barriers to overcoming debt is silence. Mary Ann explains that it is rare for people to talk openly about money, which keeps them stuck in shame. But once someone sits down with a Licensed Insolvency Trustee and shares their story, they often feel immediate relief.
Simply acknowledging the problem—and realizing you’re not alone—helps release guilt, a positive step forward.
Taking Back Control: First Steps Toward Relief
If you’re struggling with debt, here are Mary Ann’s top recommendations:
Reach out for help early: Don’t wait until you’re drowning in collection calls. Licensed Insolvency Trustees offer free, confidential consultations at any time.
Stop the blame game: Everyone makes financial mistakes. What matters is asking, “What do I do now?”
Create a spending plan: Replacing credit with a real emergency fund is one of the most empowering financial steps you can take.
Learn your options: From Consumer Proposals to Bankruptcy alternatives, understanding your choices removes fear and gives you control.
A Path to Success: Living Without Credit
Mary Ann’s favorite success stories are when clients say, “I didn’t realize how stressful it was having credit. Now I love living without it.” By learning to budget, saving for emergencies, and breaking free from dependency on credit cards, people not only rebuild their finances but also their confidence.
Debt isn’t just about money, it’s about mental health, relationships, and self-worth. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you are not alone. Speaking with a Licensed Insolvency Trustee can help you see the bigger picture, reduce stress, and create a clear plan for your future.
FAQ – Debt and Emotions
What is the emotional impact of debt?
Debt often causes stress, fear, embarrassment, and frustration, which can affect your health, relationships, and confidence.
How do I stop stressing about debt at night?
Talk to a Licensed Insolvency Trustee. Sharing your story and exploring options can relieve worry and help you sleep better.
Can debt affect my family?
Yes. Debt can prevent children from participating in activities, create financial tension between partners, and force adult children to rely on parents longer.
Where can I get free debt help in Canada?
You can visit WeCanHelp.ca or DebtMatters.ca to connect with a Licensed Insolvency Trustee.
Listen to The Emotional Impact of Debt
Read the Transcript
Wayne Kelly: Hi, and welcome to the Debt Matters podcast. I’m Wayne Kelly, and today we’re gonna talk about the emotional side of debt and how it affects a lot of people. Marianne Marriott’s joining me from Alan Marshall and Associates. Thank you very much for being here, Marianne.
Mary Ann Mariott: I’m very excited about this topic.
Wayne Kelly: It is a major part. We look at the numbers, we see the debt, the credit card. We hear this constantly. News of how much debt we’re carrying, but we don’t often talk about the emotional side of carrying that debt. Have we become more aware of people’s emotions in the last while?
Mary Ann Mariott: Definitely. It’s like anything, if it’s put on the radar and talked about, it’s, there’s gonna be more awareness and definitely the mental health aspect as it relates to everything in life.
But certainly from a financial viewpoint, we’re, I think, more aware of that and seeing that play out more with individuals.
Wayne Kelly: I get this notification on my phone last night, just about to go to bed. Ding it comes up. Comes up on my watch and my phone. The withdrawal coming out of my account. My wife and I are both sitting there going, I’m like, you spent, how much, how did you spend that much money laying in bed?
She’s like, how did you spend that much? And we were like, freaked out for a little bit, right? And then all of a sudden she said, oh yeah, that was the check for our taxes for the house. But I bring that up because just that of, Hey, what’s going on? We’re, what if that was a debt? What if somebody had taken some money?
Just an instant stress of, oh my goodness. So I can’t imagine if somebody was actually living with this, where you’re getting the phone calls, notifications would be dinging as you’re going to bed. How do you deal with that? I
Mary Ann Mariott: was talking to a gal last week and one of the things she said to me when we talked about what prompted you to give us a call, she said, my payments are all up to date.
I’m not behind in anything she said, but I’m spinning my wheels. I’m not getting anywhere. I’m not making any progress. I’m basically on the verge waiting for the ax to fall, and she said I spend so much time juggling the debt, looking at each piece, making sure the pain’s rich. She said It’s exhausting. I think this is what we’re seeing now is that there’s so many people that are really just on the edge.
They’re maintaining payments, but they’re not getting anywhere. And there’s that constant fear of, I’m going to miss a payment. And then as you said, once that happens and the cards start to fall, the collection calls come in and then it gets really stressful from that point. And for a lot of people, honestly, they put their head in the sand just because that’s too much to handle and they don’t, maybe don’t know where to turn or what to do.
So many people just ignore it until they can’t ignore it anymore.
Wayne Kelly: They’ve been overjoyed with somebody to be that proactive at that state as opposed to the tipping on the other side where we’re sliding downhill and that debt is now. Become a major problem.
Mary Ann Mariott: Obviously still see a lot of that, but I will tell you that right now what I’m noticing more is people who are hanging on by a thread and seeing the writing on the wall more so than I’ve ever seen in the last couple of decades.
Then the other side of that, of course, absolutely is once it gets too much to handle, um, then they’re coming in and that’s where things are bouncing. There’s NSF, there’s collection calls. Banks are taking, using the right of offset and taking money outta the bank account as soon as it’s there, and then that creates a cascade of issues with all the other payments that a person has.
Wayne Kelly: What is the emotions that you’ve. Noticed from them when they come in, what is their emotional state
Mary Ann Mariott: like? And right away I am thinking of a few different key emotions. I think embarrassment is one. And so there’s a huge level of embarrassment around owing money. And I think that links back to generationally ago, we were taught not to use credit.
My parents. I come from a large family. Um, so my parents were older than most of my friend’s parents, and they didn’t grow up in an era where you used money, you bought a house and paid it off, you bought a car and paid it off. You had one car and just enough rooms in your house for the kids. In fact, they shared rooms.
We were taught not to use credit, and that’s not the way it is nowadays. So I think people are still trapped in that society dictates that we should live beyond our needs. We should have bigger things and we should go on trips and we should spend more money. And the credit industry comes in and says, we’ll support you in doing that.
But then you have these old beliefs. That say you shouldn’t use credit, so there’s a conflict. So I think embarrassment is definitely a big one. Frustration without a doubt is another one. Just really outta wit’s end. Not sure what to do and fear without, with without question. Fear is running, if not in the background, definitely in the forefront or haphazardly all over your life at that point.
Wayne Kelly: They come in and all of a sudden they tell you exactly where they’re sitting at. Emotionally, there’s a fear that they don’t want to be judged, I would imagine as well. So it’s a big step for them to be actually come into the office and make that phone call. But what happens during that first 15 minutes and you start asking questions?
Can you tell me like there is a change that you probably see in their eyes.
Mary Ann Mariott: So Yeah. So the first thing I reflected on when you said that is people don’t really voice their emotions. Obviously you can sense it. The emotions are tied in the story. Everybody wants to tell their story. Never thought I’d be here.
Dunno how I got here. Everything was great. And then, or starts talking, but what happened in life? So you can glean the emotions from that. And, but I think just the act of talking about it will start to unwind it. And I think this is one of the inherent issues with finances is we don’t talk about it anymore.
It’s the last taboo subjects. We talk politics, we talk sex, we don’t talk about money. And if you’re not talking about it, then you’re not taking the steps you need to find solutions. So all of a sudden you’re sitting with me or someone in my industry, you gotta talk about it. That’s why you’re here, right?
And so as we start to talk about it, we start done worrying it. And we can share from our experience that you’re not alone in this. Just sometimes allowing people to see the bigger picture, which is we are in a live now, pay later society. It’s all around us. That’s what’s marketed to us social media, and that’s how we’re starting live.
’cause we’re being programmed that way and it actually takes a pretty big skillset. To stay clear of that. And I think when I, we start to explain that, um, I think people start to realize, okay, you know what, this isn’t just me messing up. It might have messed up, but there’s a whole other host of things happening here and I think it really, it takes some of that personal beating up syndrome away.
Wayne Kelly: I’m not an LIT so I can say I blame the banks and they can come after me if they want, but I really do because. They come up with numbers that are astronomical and they say, sure, you can afford this house. Sure. I just got a thing yesterday actually saying, I dunno, I could spend $2,000 on some smart pay plan and have no, I’d have no interest or six months or something.
But if I missed one payment, the entire contract was gone and everything would be charged out, whatever, 21%. Laying the banks on this and those, we all wanna get our points Darn point system as well.
Mary Ann Mariott: Yeah, I love that. I’m giggling because been there, done that hand in the air. So yeah, it’s, I, I had a card with the great point system.
I paid for every day. One of them in interest. We had this false fence that, you know, but I’m getting the points. Yeah. So only keep paying off in full. If you carry a balance, you’re paying money, you’re now paying for your points. And so I affectionately refer to the banks as the drug dealers of the financial world.
I know I just put this on camera, but I’m gonna stand by this because really their model is. And I say this a little bit tongue in cheek, but not really because obviously we take responsibility for signing on the bottom line. But their model is really to get you hooked on credit as quickly as they can and give you more than you can pay so that you pay interest, because that’s where they make their money.
So that’s their strategy. I think a lot of people just don’t see that. They think the banks are there to help them. Hence the reason why if they tell you you can afford a $350,000 home, that you just believe them when your budget, it clearly states that you can afford only a $250,000 home. So I, I think that the model is really to loan us more money than we can pay.
So we pay interest, so they make money and it’s not a good model for us. It’s a good model for them, and it works great, but we need to start taking more control over our finances and saying No more.
Wayne Kelly: I don’t need to save 20%. If I sign up with this card, that happens a lot. I go to a place, buy something, and they say, oh, you could save 20% off your first purchase.
And I’m like, no, thank you. Here’s my debit card. I, I get to talk with LITS all the time, and I definitely learned a lot being able to pick Maryanne’s brain and learn what to do, but yet. If there’s a lot of people on social media, financial wizards that say you do need to have those cards with the points that you’re leaving it on the table. If you don’t.
Mary Ann Mariott: Yes you are. But there’s a thin line between financial strategy and financial disaster, and you need to know where you lie in that void. And if you’re a person that doesn’t use credit cards, sure you can get the points, but now you have a credit card that’s gonna get you in trouble. So unless you are incredibly disciplined and you are gonna use it and pay it off in full every month and never pay interest.
Absolutely use it for the points. Otherwise, like you said, it’s really a carrot being dangled in front of you, and it’s just gonna put you in a position where you’re now gonna pay for every point you just received, so you’re not actually getting anything at the end of it.
Wayne Kelly: When we look at the emotional side, because we are talking about the emotions of debt, people fall into the traps.
It’s not really, oftentimes it’s nothing that they did specifically. Just some things shifted and changed. Maybe it’s a job loss, maybe it’s a sickness. Maybe you get hurt and you’re off awkward for a little while and you don’t have the backup and anything can happen to people. So all of a sudden the debt is on.
They’re getting the phone calls. There’s a lot of stress. When we talk about the emotions of this, talk about families and how it’s affected in a negative way, what do you see
Mary Ann Mariott: that can go so wide and so deep depending on the situation? I’ll throw a few examples out there. So all of a sudden your debt is too much, it’s taking too much of your cash flow, and you can’t afford to put your kid in soccer as an example.
So now you feel like a failure as a parent. And you can’t do these things for your kid because you’re in this other financial situation. The other one that, that I think I too earlier was, I think that was in our, another podcast, we talked about the effects on parents. Kids are in debt and they can’t afford to rent ’cause we talked cost of renting and living and how much that’s increased.
Then they’re living at home with their parents. So now they have your parents who thought they were gonna be empty nesters and start to enjoy their time together and now they’re helping support their children, adult children. It’s increased stress on them and their relationship and their marriage, and then kids living at home wanting to be out on their own again, feeling they’re not contributing members of society or they’re not self-sufficient.
So there’s so many levels to it, depending on the circumstances, but I think if I had to kinda wrap that up. Yep. In a nice package with a bow, not that it’s a present deserves a bow, but if I did, it’s really feeling less than impacting a person’s self worth feeling like a failure. Then that’s gonna impact them everywhere.
It’s gonna impact their health, it’s gonna impact their relationships, it’s gonna impact their job, it’s gonna impact everything else in their life.
Wayne Kelly: Someone’s watching and listening to this. They’re like, that’s me. I’m in that situation. What do they do first?
Mary Ann Mariott: So the first thing is edu information is power.
And again, for most, we already said you’re embarrassed, you don’t wanna reach out, you don’t wanna talk about it, but that’s not gonna help you move forward. So the first step is really to talk to someone who can give you options. Of course, that’s what we do in our industry. So reach out. She doesn’t cost anything.
There’s no judgment. That’s not what we’re here to do. We’re not here to judge you. We’re here to help you figure out what’s next. And I had this conversation with someone. The other day was just really stuck in beating themselves up for what they’ve done in their life. And I said to them, you can continue to do that.
As long as you do that, you’re stuck in the past and you’re never gonna move forward. So how about I screwed up, I made mistakes. So welcome to life. ’cause that’s what we all do here. And then ask the question, what do I do now? And I think that’s a really important question, and that’s where we come in and really help people look at where they are.
Understand that better and then understand what the options are going forward so that someone can choose the best path for them.
Wayne Kelly: Do you have a success story that you wanna share? Is there, I
Mary Ann Mariott: think there’s two things we really fail at. Generally speaking, we have not learned how to budget. We don’t create what I call a spending plan and figure out where our money’s going to go, and we stopped having emergency funds. So we use credit as our emergency fund, and so for me, helping someone break their dependency on credit is my success story.
So when I have someone come in and they say, I didn’t realize how stressful it was having credit, I love living without it. I never had a spending plan budget before. This is so empowering and I’m feeling so much better and so much more in control of my life. That’s the success story, and I do hear that from so many clients that just get it, and they really do take the steps they need to take control back and to break their dependency on credit so that they can keep it.
Wayne Kelly: There’s very few people on this planet who have not screwed up something. Absolutely. Very. Absolutely. They’ve all made financial mistakes, things we wish we would, hadn’t done. And you’re so right. It’s all about saying okay. I’m in a situation I need help and where do I go to get the best advice? That’s completely regulated by the government, which is something I have learned, and so they can contact, we can help.ca.
That’s a great place for you to get started, and that would be for your very first pre consultation. Anything else that we need to know, Marianne?
Mary Ann Mariott: I think you summed it up beautifully is that pretty much everyone, we’re here to make mistakes. That’s what we’re supposed to do, so celebrate them. You made them awesome. Let’s learn from them and then let’s take that next step and we won’t make the theme mistake the next or maybe the next time.
Wayne Kelly: Love talking to you. Thank you very much for your time today,
Mary Ann Mariott: Thank you so much Wayne. Pleasure to be here.
Wayne Kelly: And once again, we can help.ca for more information or you can also check out. Debtmatters.ca.
