A survey conducted by a student loan company SoFi reports that 39% of millennials would rather divulge information on established sexually transmitted diseases to a potential partner than the amount of debt they are in. SoFi used Survey Monkey, the online poller on exactly 2000 millennials and found that workaholism was the biggest deal breaker when it comes to relationships with serious debt coming in at number two.
Interesting to note is that both STDs and debt are an epidemic in America. STDs were reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be at an extraordinary high in 2015. On the other hand, student loan debt stands at $1.4 trillion at the moment.
Debt Shame Affecting Millennials
Financial researchers say that serious debt is accompanied by debt shame which is why people only talk about their debts with their partners if things are about to get serious between them or if they are about to start sharing household costs.
Different Americans gave their accounts of how they struggled to get out of debts. For most of them, ignorance worked for them until they became depressed about their situation. What they do agree on is that the only way to deal with debt is to hit it hard on the head. Also, they say that one can only be able to deal with debt after going through the five stages of grief before accepting and deciding to take a step and get out of debt.
Researchers suggest that there is a vicious cycle of debt that is very hard to get out of. As mentioned above, most people ignore the fact that they have an increasing debt and to make themselves feel better, they spend more money. This only makes the situation worse. For individuals to free themselves from the vicious cycle, a breaking point must be stretched.
How to Deal with Debt
Experts on how to deal with debt suggest that it is important for individuals to accept the mistakes they made for them to get into debt but what they learn from the situation determines whether they will strive or fall into debt again.
They further advice individuals to always write what they spend as mental accounting will almost always let you down. Additionally, they suggest that before individuals spend their money, they have to save first. Another thing to take note is that people should strive to only buy what they need and not what they want. Binge shopping, especially for females, is one of the causes of debts that are easily avoidable.
Relationships further make the debt situation more complicated as almost 25% of the respondents from the survey admitted to being lied to by a date or a partner regarding the amount of debt they had. A sizeable amount of the millennials surveyed said they would never leave a partner just because of debt. However, 38% of them mentioned that it depended on what kind of a debt it was and its purpose.
Finally, serious debt is a concern to many Americans. They are however not alone and should know that many have passed that route and many have come out alive.