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People from the LGBTQ community face multiple challenges including lack of support from family members to discrimination in the workplace. These factors affect both mental health as well as financial health. Find out how you can manage these issues as David Auten and John Schneider aka The Debt Free Guys share their story.
David and John, are personal finance bloggers at DebtFreeGuys.com, authors and speakers with over thirty-five years of combined experience in finance. Their work has appeared in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, ABC News, CNBC, and Good Morning America to name a few.
In this episode, David and John share their personal experiences on how ‘gay culture’ affected their finances and how they were able to get their life on track financially.
They discuss the financial and mental health challenges that are unique to the LGBTQ community, what contributes to these challenges and how to deal with them.
For people who are facing the challenges of coming out, they gave tips/advice on what to do to minimize financial struggles. And with the pandemic going on, find out how they are managing their financial and mental health today.
What You Will Learn From This Episode
- How ‘gay culture’ affects one’s finances and how to deal with it
- What is the true meaning of self-care without sabotaging future financial state
- The financial challenges that are unique to the LGBTQ community
- Mental health challenges the LGBTQ community face and how to manage them
“We realized at that point, at that low point that we were both physically and financially living in a hole, we were living below ground, our finances were upside down and we were just shocked that this is where we had arrived” – David Auten
“I knew that I had a bunch of debt. I knew that I was a financial mess and I just kinda assumed that there’s no possible way that he’s also as much of a mess as I am. And he had the same opinion of me.” – John Schneider
“We started to unearth some of the feelings around why we were spending that way. Why did we feel this compelled to seek the validation of everyone else rather than the validation of ourselves?” – David Auten
“You do need the self-care, but make sure the self-care isn’t also really harming another part of your life.” – David Auten
“What you need to do is focus on what is the goal and think of the end product and it’ll help you get through that period of time when you have to do the work.” – John Schneider
“I think sharing stories is the way that we learn about how the world is not as we see it.” – David Auten
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Timestamps
3:01 – David and John’s debt payoff story and how they came clean with each other about their finances
8:14 – How David and John figured out that their spending is more of a money mindset issue, a problem with self worth and how they climbed out of that
10:41 – How ‘gay culture’ affected their finances and LGBTQ people in general
17:43 – What really is self care without sabotaging future finances
21:00 – Four financial challenges that are unique to LGBTQ community
26:12 – The distribution of wealth within LGBTQ community
29:13 – What are the mental health challenges LGBTQ people face and what contributes to these challenges plus David’s coming out story
38:17 – Tips and advice on how to face the financial consequences of choosing to come out
41:55 – How the pandemic affected them and how they manage their financial and mental health today
Resources and People Mentioned
- DebtFreeGuys
- Debt Lasso
- Queer Money Podcast
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.
- Maya Angelou
- Natalie Bacon
- The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
- Queer Money FB Group
- Credit card payoff plan course
- Fabulous life combo
Connect with David
Connect with John
Connect with Melanie
- mentalhealthandwealth.com
- melanielockert.com
- Contact: mentalhealthandwealthshow@gmail.com
