A Friend in Debt | Patrick Gill | TEDxUW

you back in university I love my university years youth felt so powerful I had my motorcycle I had my girlfriend and I didn't even know what I wanted to do yet in life but it seemed like the future would just take care of itself and I spoiled my girlfriend rotten in university so much so that I actually had to take a part-time job just so that I could afford her when she broke up with me she left me something very special debt Oh wasn't that funny is actually kind of painful actually but Dad what does it mean to you so the four-letter word meaning something owed it's at a two thousand dollar credit card bill or your ten thousand dollar car loan for some it's their mortgage others they don't even count their mortgage as debt is it so distant from you right now that you never have to think about it or does it actually keep you up at night for some it's a means to a want others a need whichever way you do see it you should think differently about it after today I once sat across the kitchen table from many Canadian families like the Sharma's a married couple in their mid 50s inundated with tens of thousands of dollars in credit card and line of credit debt the Sharma's had six kids six kids their financial acumen was not strong in fact their cultural upbringing and their philosophy in life was to work as hard as as possible and as long as possible and this took its toll on mr. Sharma mr. Sharma in 2010 had a massive heart attack requiring open-heart surgery and five bypasses without savings the Sharma family quickly racked up a formidable amount of debt today mr. Sharma is actually on permanent disability and he's only making a fraction of the income that he once made when he was a teacher with two jobs woven in between all of this is the underlying constant pressure of having to make minimum payments to those lines of credit and credit cards for the Sharma's wealth had very very little to do with money but had everything to do with perspective I've seen so many different wants goals and needs from the 5000 plus families that I've seen over the last 15 years like Laura a single mother who is having cashflow problems on a monthly basis but whose sole ambition in life was to take her kids to Disneyland Donald and Susan a retired couple they wanted to give inheritance money to their grandchildren now they didn't want to have to wait for that life insurance policy to kick in why though there's a reason Susan was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease she wanted to give this money now so she could see the joy in her grant and her grandchildren's faces before she could no longer remember that as a memory for her in all three of these cases debt became a best friend to help them get what they wanted and what they needed and debt has an amazing interconnectedness with our health our relationships our aspirations and our overall happiness in terms of the Sharma family they're a great example of what is actually happening in the Canadian landscape today as it pertains to debt and the global economy for that matter we owe too much in the case of the Sharma's it was a combination of a couple things lack of education cultural behaviors and quite simply they had to spend more than they made and this is not a phenomenon that you just noticed in in families that have illness and when I went to see these clients at their homes I used to actually see Porsches in the driveways and 10,000 square foot mansions it didn't necessarily mean that they had money in fact the opposite was true these clients had debt my parents my parents would preach to me Patrick don't buy it unless you have the money can we really realistically live that way today we live in this society where our spending habits are based not on how much we have in our checking and savings accounts but instead how much available credit we have parents will do anything today in terms of buying their kids things as long as they know they can pass it off into the future just last month in the Financial Post Canada was cited as the number one country highest in percentage of household debt as it pertains to gross domestic product our debt levels exceeded that of the total goods and services that were produced in Canada last year think of these couple statements - more than half of Canadians today are less than two hundred dollars away from being unable to take care of their monthly obligations sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said fighting over money would be their top reason for divorce I think we can all see right now that the true cost of debt far exceeds just the interest that we're paying for it and I think the next statements are going to get a hit home a little bit for the students here so by a show of hands how many people here have a student loan I can hardly see but there seems to be a lot here how about a student credit card yes a lot - and did you guys get the free t-shirt when you signed up for that credit card yeah I'm here to tell you now that's going to be the most expensive t-shirt you ever owned average student debt in Canada exceeded $25,000 after graduation this one should hit home also students with more student loans were more likely to report mental health concerns in early adulthood we need to learn how to combat this and education and knowledge is key for example did you know that in Canada they changed the rules and regulations as they pertain to paying back your student loans if you're not making twenty five thousand dollars on an annual basis you don't have to start making payments yet and in fact if you are having problems with those monthly payments there's a there's something called a student repayment assistance program that's also available to you but I have to ask you is this really the most efficient and effective way to pay back debt this is Selena Selena is my my niece this is her graduation date she graduated after her three year law program with over a hundred thousand dollars of student loans her grades were good enough to get her an articling position at one of the top law firms on Bay Street in Toronto but the problem was she had so much debt that she could even get approved on a rental agreement for a condo in the downtown core the story gets better she got a guaranteed guarantor to get that condo but Selena is so disciplined she spent the next three years working her butt off to pay back and attack that debt and by the time this this year comes around at the same time next year she will have paid off over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars of debt she's getting married debt-free and I'm gonna explain a little bit later on how she did that today however I have the distinct honor of engaging our future you are socially conscious Millennials to let you know it's our responsibility the payback is dead to let you know also that true freedom comes from being debt-free and to actually warn you that your generation may be the first generation whose wealth does not exceed the wealth of your previous generation your parents because of the debt loads my goal today is to try to help you to find a more manageable way to you can take care of this debt but before I do that I think I need to explain to you the intricate system that allows us to borrow money today's banking is very inefficient most people have checking account savings accounts car loans mortgages lines of credit credit cards sometimes at two or three different banks it doesn't really make sense does it here's the question that I really want you to ponder today why do you have a checking account the bank takes your money that you deposit into your checking account and actually lends it right back to you in the form of a 7% unsecured line of credit or an 18% credit card that doesn't make sense does it as long as you have debt the money sitting in your own checking account right now is not even yours quite an amazing statement when you think about it that you can't think of your money as your money do you ever wonder why a bank can actually offer you an iPad or a big-screen television just for opening up a checking account I think it makes a lot more sense now doesn't it I just also want to let you know that if you don't take anything away from today's talk one thing please go to your bank tomorrow go online take out any money that you have in your checking or savings and pay back any outstanding balances that you have on credit cards or lines of credit your revolving debt that money can always be taken right back out when you need it but while you're not using your checking account money don't be paying any interest on your debt these kind of tips I'm gonna give you a couple other ones as well as what I told you Selena did in terms of helping her to pay her debt off quicker number one don't diversify your debt the banks have done a great job in giving you multiple accounts different interest rates and different payment each month the more you diversify the harder it is to pay back the same note consolidate your debt the most effective way to pay back debt consolidate it bring it to one low interest rate and then aggressively pay it off three create a budget for yourself super super important especially after you graduate make sure that the debt limits that you have suit your budgets needs for marry someone that makes more than you and spends less than you that's for my way for you are you happy that I put that in apparently I'm I'm the spender in the family and number five Selena used this really well after your graduation trying to consolidate your debt in the form of a line of credit and then try to use that line of credit as your checking account some banks will let you do it others will not but remember why I'm asking you to do this why have money sitting out here owing debt at high interest rates and money sitting over in your checking accounts and savings accounts practically idle making Nothing combine the two to get maximum efficiency by doing this what you're actually doing is getting all of your money to work for you on a daily basis all of your money every day and if you can find a more aggressive way to pay back debt please let me know debt has a best friend it's time time allows for more compounding of interest interest paid on interest you know where I come from we've always known this in the financial industry the eighth wonder of the world compound interest it's awesome it's awesome for your investments terrible for your debt that also has an enemy it's discipline principle pay down and I'm going to show you with a couple of numbers what I mean by this this look familiar a twenty five thousand dollar loan at eight percent compounded annually after graduation it might be a little bit more clear to you but imagine right now if you were making a three hundred dollar payment to this amount every single month it would cost you an interest about eleven thousand six hundred dollars and you'd pay that debt off in about ten years now change just one thing instead of a monthly payment making a biweekly payment make it $200 every two weeks and your cost of interest goes down to about sixty five hundred dollars a month for the term so and you pay that debt off in six years four years sooner there are only two ways to pay back debt quicker increase the frequency of your payments increase the amount of your payments and and doing these amazing things proven methods to pay back debt will save you thousands of dollars in interest and also time remember the two ways to pay them back and they'll have amazing consequences when you practice them like one financial flexibility not just now but in the future and in your retirement number two the ability to reinstate it for investments known as good debt or for emergencies three protection protection and uncertain times from fluctuating interest rates from financial woes and as we've already seen from health concerns less stress happier relationships hopefully you can afford these relationships number five freedom freedom for you freedom for your family and freedom for future generations and remember the one thing that can help forge all this discipline the onus is on us to pay back debt the time to pay back debt is now this is Angie and her kids Halden and Maddy angie was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer incurable and off inoperable almost two years ago this week on Monday early in the morning Angie's succumb to her disease I actually contemplated whether I should use her story but she would have it no other way this was my way of paying tribute to the strongest most courageous the bravest woman that I have ever known in my life she not only practiced this strength and discipline in the way that she dealt with her disease she would ride her bike to her chemotherapy sessions she practiced it also in her personal life and her financial life angie paid her credit cards off every single month she didn't all one penny to one individual or one bank and this allowed her to save by saving it was such an important piece of her recovery because at the height of her cancer treatment angie was paying $14,000 a month in experimental drugs not subsidized by her provincial government the true message I have for you today is one that Angie would tell me over and over and over again Patrick I am so lucky I am so lucky that I don't have debt I am so lucky that I took care of my personal finances and I don't have to worry about money because if I did the last year and a half would have been a completely different ordeal we will miss you dearly Angie dead I hope you have a better understanding of it I hope you truly see how it has such an impact on our health on our happiness and having true freedom don't ignore it embrace it pay it pay it now with discipline take control of bettering your future and the future generations that are born into it but more important put yourself in a position where you can one day turn to debt and make it your friend again thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 59,654

Rating: 4.7053823 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Canada, Life, Behavior, Behavorial economics, Benefit, Control, Decision making, Family, Finance, Goal-setting, Happiness, Health, Mental health, Money, Self improvement, Self-help, Struggle, Students, Success, Youth

Id: 7BNBU484XOE

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 20 2017