Suze Orman: The Subtle Signs You’re Headed Back to Debt After Bankruptcy

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Most people who claim bankruptcy once claim it twice.

[00:00:04]once you have a bill at the end of the month that you cannot pay in full, you're already on the path again to credit card debt and then eventual bankruptcy again.

[00:00:19]Hi Suze my name is Nikki Croxton, a few years ago we had to file for bankruptcy, but now we're finally financially stable, even able to purchase this home.

[00:00:28]But we're still living paycheck to paycheck.

[00:00:32]Dane and I were together for about nine months before we actually got married.

[00:00:35]I was 22 and Dane was 24.

[00:00:37]That's five reasons I love you.

[00:00:39]I left school when we first started planning our wedding because it was stressful.

[00:00:43]I just never went back.

[00:00:44]Well, it's a good picture the debt really started when we first got married.

[00:00:48]Dane and I, I think really were just really immature.

[00:00:51]Before we claimed bankruptcy, we were probably in about 60, $65,000 worth of debt.

[00:00:58]I think I was aware that, wow, we really can't afford this debt.

[00:01:03]It just racked up super fast.

[00:01:05]It was scary to claim bankruptcy.

[00:01:08]You know, I didn't know what that meant for our future.

[00:01:11]It terrified me that we would never be able to purchase our own home, that we'd never be able to be financially independent and stable.

[00:01:19]Now we're finally starting to balance out a little bit.

[00:01:22]We don't really have any debt.

[00:01:24]We have enough money to pay our bills each month, maybe save a tiny bit, but there's not a lot of extra money.

[00:01:32]Anything that might happen with our kids or our health or the house would financially cripple us.

[00:01:38]And I never want to have to go back there.

[00:01:41]Dane and I have reached a point in our career where we're starting to meet that threshold of of income that we can right now based off of our education and experience.

[00:01:52]I don't know what we would do from here as far as how we would increase our income.

[00:01:58]Other than me going back to school.

[00:01:59]No My husband's income is based off commissions.

[00:02:03]Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more.

[00:02:06]And that that does make me worry about taking on more debt, specifically student loan debt.

[00:02:12]Run with the ball, good girl.

[00:02:14]I don't want to make mistakes and not be able to give my kids You know I love my girls and I want them to I want them to be proud of us and make better decisions than we did.

[00:02:31]Nikki, we're crying in that piece because And you're crying now even.

[00:02:36]Tell me about those tears.

[00:02:38]Why are you crying?

[00:02:40]Why do you have tears?

[00:02:42]Well, I just I love my kids, like like, everyone loves their kids.

[00:02:46]And I just want the best for them. And, you know, I don't want my kids to worry about us when they're older.

[00:02:52]And I don't want my kids to have to worry about things as they go through life.

[00:02:55]You know?

[00:02:55]I want them to have what they need to be successful, the skills they need.

[00:03:00]And I know that the best way for them to learn those is to learn them from my husband and myself.

[00:03:05]I want I want the best for them.

[00:03:07]For your kids to really be okay, they’re need to see that mama is okay, that daddy is okay, that their parents are okay, and it's not okay that you have these illustrious jobs and you have all this stuff.

[00:03:22]It's just that you're happy.

[00:03:24]So be careful of your sadness because they can feel that and they don't necessarily know that it's about money.

[00:03:32]They will transfer it, in my opinion, to themselves that they're doing something wrong.

[00:03:37]So we tend to pass a silent message of less than down to our kids without even knowing that we're doing it.

[00:03:44]Now, before we get to your question about college, I just want to talk to you about your debt.

[00:03:50]Here's what concerns me from the piece that we just saw.

[00:03:54]Is that a fact is, most people who claim bankruptcy once claim it twice.

[00:04:01]Did you know that?

[00:04:02]I did Yeah, you did. And once you have a bill at the end of the month that you cannot pay in full, you're already on the path again to credit card debt and then eventual bankruptcy again.

[00:04:20]So what concerns me is that even though you have a little bit of credit card debt, $275 to be exact, it's at a very high interest rate.

[00:04:32]Yeah.

[00:04:32]And so at about 25%.

[00:04:36]So for you to have $275 at 25%, but yet you have about $950 in a money market account, making nothing that's already showing me that you're afraid to use the money you have to pay off the debt.

[00:04:58]And so you're still coming from a place of fear and fear, shame and anger, the three main internal obstacles to wealth, are at play here which will eventually lead you down the path of financial destruction again.

[00:05:13]Did that all make sense to you?

[00:05:16]Yes, absolutely.

[00:05:17]So I need you to be able to take $275 from your money market account, pay off your credit card debt in full so that you're not having ridiculous interest rate payments.

[00:05:34]That's number one.

[00:05:34]I need you to exhibit that type of energy.

[00:05:38]So now with the credit card debt taken care of because you're just going to pay it off, we have one other debt that we really have to deal with.

[00:05:46]And that's the debt to your dad.

[00:05:49]So according to the paperwork here, you owe about $1,900 to your father.

[00:05:55]And I am sure if you're like any respectable daughter, you want to get that paid off so fast, it's not even funny.

[00:06:01]Is that correct?

[00:06:03]That is correct. Right.

[00:06:04]Nobody wants to be in debt to their parents, even though I'm sure it's at 0% interest rate.

[00:06:08]He doesn't care.

[00:06:09]He's all right.

[00:06:10]He wants his help, his daughter.

[00:06:11]It's how you feel about yourself.

[00:06:14]So if you look at your monthly income versus your expenses, you have an excess of $648 per month.

[00:06:24]I want you to simply take $600 or whatever you need to do, so that he is paid off in full in the next three months.

[00:06:36]Okay, then that's gone and you will feel better.

[00:06:39]When you feel better, you feel more powerful.

[00:06:41]When you feel more powerful, you have more energy.

[00:06:43]And when you have more energy, you make more money.

[00:06:46]It is as simple as that.

[00:06:47]All right.

[00:06:47]So now I want to talk to you about your main question, which is should you go back to college Should you get a degree Is it worth it?

[00:06:56]This is what I want you to know.

[00:06:57]As we saw in the piece, you really feel that if you had a college degree, you would make more money in the long run and then your family would be protected because you see yourself as the main wage earner.

[00:07:12]I feel like I have the most potential for, for increasing my, my income.

[00:07:17]Okay, nothing wrong with that.

[00:07:18]Here's what I'd like you to do, however, have you ever taken the time to figure out if you got an associate's degree at a community college how much money that would cost you to get one?

[00:07:31]Have you figured that out yet?

[00:07:32]I have, I estimate, with books and tuition fees that it would cost around $12,000.

[00:07:38]All right.

[00:07:39]And if you got an associate's degree, how much more per year do you think you would make?

[00:07:47]I think around $10,000.

[00:07:49]All right. Now listen to me.

[00:07:51]It makes total financial sense to me to spend $12,000 to make $10,000 more per year, because it will take one year for you to recapture all of that money.

[00:08:05]And we're not so far into debt that it then starts to freak you out, because I don't want to accumulate a whole lot of student loan debt for you to maybe just make 10,000 more per year, period.

[00:08:19]So if you could just walk yourself into this first with an associate's degree, let's see what happens.

[00:08:26]And then go from there, then your debt isn't going to be that much, and you can see if it makes sense.

[00:08:32]And you can wait a few years to accumulate enough money so that you can just pay for the bachelor's so you don't have to go into more student loan debt to do it.

[00:08:43]That's what I would like to see you do.

[00:08:45]I think this is the plan for you to get you to where you need to go.

[00:08:51]No more tears, do you hear me?

[00:08:53]Yeah, I do You have nothing to be sad about girlfriend.

[00:08:56]Nothing.