EP33 Clare Seal on Shame, Courage and the Taboo of Big Debt

My guest this week is Clare Seal aka @myfrugalyear. Clare started the instagram account @myfrugalyear in response to confronting credit card debt totalling £25K and a £2K overdraft - she wanted to be held accountable and to share her journey anonymously to help others. Fast forward twelve months and Clare has paid off £8K of debt, grown her instagram account to 46.4K followers and has secured a book deal. In this episode, Clare tells us what it was like to confront the debt and describes the journey she has been on to disconnect from feelings of shame to find empowerment and happiness along the way. Clare tells us about her decision to reveal her identity and how it became the final frontier of not being ashamed. We discuss the impact of money on our mental health, becoming financially educated and how everyone deserves happiness regardless of how many mistakes you’ve made. This conversation was recorded on 9th April 2020. I hope you enjoy this episode. Join in the conversation online using #TheWOTPod and tagging us @thewotpod: https://twitter.com/TheWotPod https://www.instagram.com/thewotpod/ https://www.facebook.com/thewotpod Chapters: 00:00 Episode Taster 02:11 Chapter 1: Confronting £27k of debt 10:56 Chapter 2: Disconnecting from shame 14:30 Chapter 3: Creating @myfrugalyear 19:23 Chapter 4: Advice on where to start 24:00 Chapter 5: A plan with flex: adapting to life’s challenges 29:50 Chapter 6: The university overdraft has a lot to answer for 32:45 Chapter 7: Revealing my identity was the final frontier Epsiode resources: https://www.stepchange.org https://capuk.org https://www.instagram.com/vicky.spratt/ Find out more about Clare Seal and @myfrugalyear https://www.instagram.com/myfrugalyear/ Real Life Money by Clare Seal - https://amzn.to/2VwDp26 Connect with your host, Frankie Cotton: https://frankiecotton.com https://twitter.com/FrankieCotton_ https://www.instagram.com/frankiecotton_/ Women On Top is a Let’s Be Frank production. https://letsbefrank.co