Jamie Feldman
Appearances
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
hi deadheads this is jamie and rachel your co-hosts fellow financial failures and semi-qualified sleuths leading this ragtag investigation to figure out why our economy is keeping us down divided and delusional we've had a big week why we broke the top 100 shows on the apple charts oh my god right that thing that happened that i haven't stopped thinking about since it happened
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
We garnered a very small circle of listeners, mostly our friends and family. And to them, we said, hey, we have this idea.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
The grant money came in with just enough time for us to pick an auspicious goal for our pilot, the Tribeca Film Festival.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
I know, it sounds really nice. It's a professional microphone as opposed to this phone that I carry around in my pocket all the time. It is full of crud. We stopped ripping music off the internet and asked our favorite composer to write us an original soundtrack. We found a theme song. We even got a fact checker named Serena. Yeah, thanks Serena.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
We worked from morning to night, from the beginning of January to the day after Jamie's birthday.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
You know, it's like the saying goes, it's not the journey that counts, it's the destination. Just kidding. But that's suddenly how we acted.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
We cannot believe we're getting this project in front of an audience after struggling in relative obscurity for the last 18 months.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Dear Rachel, thank you for submitting your project for consideration for the 2024 Tribeca Festival. Unfortunately, Deadheads was not selected for this year's program.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Jamie's like in therapy right now. Like literally she was in therapy like the minute we got this fucking email and I couldn't get through to her. This news brought up some deeply existential wounds for like the next 15 to 20 minutes. And I'm really trying not to let it get me down.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
But I think the hardest thing is that I just feel like I'm never going to fucking be good enough for these fucking institutions. Like I never, I feel like I'm never going to be good enough. Eventually, I snapped out of this pity party, went for a run, and remembered, hey, we got a big grant.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Maybe it's become a bit of a cliche at this point, but like most cliches, it's true. We are the cavalry and you are the cavalry. And we're going to make this project come hell or high interest rate.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
We will also be re-releasing some of our earlier episodes on this feed because, hey, they're fun.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
It's really, really nice to hear from people. Making an independently produced podcast about debt, money, shame, and the struggle to survive in late-stage capitalism has been full of high highs and low lows. So to celebrate how far we've come, we thought we'd recap our journey in what is known as a bonus episode.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
And while we're being honest, we should tell you that we're just about out of that sweet grant money.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
So if you find yourself enjoying this podcast and it's, you know, within your means, we invite you to join us on Patreon and Substack, where we're creating some extra content, experimenting, re-releasing some old stuff and doing some weird stuff about money, mental health, and this pretend thing we call the economy. A lot of stuff. Hopefully making it worth your while.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Most importantly, stay tuned to this feed to hear more from Season 1 of Deadheads, coming very, very soon.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
But in the meantime, please enjoy listening to me cry. Bye. Okay, so in the summer of 2023, prompted by the success of Jamie's TikTok fame, we decided to launch a podcast that investigated the American economy from the perspective of people who were not quite making ends meet.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Hi, this is Jamie from Deadheads. This is episode two of this podcast. If you haven't done so already, go listen to part one because things will make more sense that way. Or don't. We're not your parents, but you might enjoy it more. Okay, don't forget a jacket and be careful crossing the street. We love you.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And if you didn't want to look for a man on the streets, hopefully you had a brother, an uncle, grandpa, even if they made less money than you did.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
That is interesting. But okay, what was the thing you wanted to tell me? Well, this is crazy. Okay. Get ready.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
But I did know that the first credit card came out in 1950 and was called the Diners Club card, as is hinted in this extremely subtle commercial.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
It paved the way for what we now consider common practice, revolving credit.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
So as you can probably tell from Donna's personality, she was finally able to get her card after demanding they put her name on it.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Oh, sorry. Were you saying something? Yes. I was looking at my phone. I just got a proof-of-memo credit card.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And it was letters and testimonies from women like Donna that ultimately led to the passing of what became known as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which made discrimination in lending illegal starting in 1974.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And that is in part due to the fact that women, minorities, and anyone else who'd been locked out of lending created an opportunity for a great new market.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
The answer to these questions starts back in the 70s, just a few years after Donna got her coveted gold Amex and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was signed into law.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
So nearly half of Americans have consumer debt in 2025, and just about 40 years ago, they had none? How is that possible?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Before the Marquette decision, 38% of American households had cards. And within a decade, that number had nearly doubled.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Welcome to Deadheads. Welcome. Deadheads is an investigation into the American economy. From the perspective of people in debt.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And once they had the incentive to make money with these interest rates, they started to figure out other ways to maximize these profits.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Thanks for listening to Deadheads. Next week, in part two of this episode, we'll find out what happened after Flashdance came out.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
We'll run late for a meeting with our all-time favorite reporter. I think it'll take us 10 minutes to get there. So we'll be late?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
This episode was brought to you by the millions of free books at the
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Hey, Siri? Uh-huh? Can you tell me how to get out of debt?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And I had been carrying this debt in some capacity for so many years that the principal I originally borrowed had gotten really hard to distinguish from the interest that had accumulated over the years.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
This podcast was non-judgmental. Five? Okay. So I had five credit cards and clearly I was using them wrong, but was anyone using them right? I had to find out. I had to go somewhere where people might be using credit cards. Someplace familiar. Somewhere where everybody knows my name. I had to go to the mall.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
On a recent Saturday afternoon, we lured one of our city's top investigative reporters slash restaurant critics, Rachel Sun River, to a busy suburban mall in the tri-state area to investigate how people were spending their money. And all it cost us was a fried chicken sandwich from the food court.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And despite the subpar quality of the food court's fried chicken sandwich, it was well worth the cost to hear Rivers' keen interviewing skills in action.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Confirm the legality of recording audio at a shopping mall.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And according to the security guard, we were decidedly not allowed.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Okay, we didn't stop exactly. We managed to find some people to talk to in the legally gray area, better known as the vestibule between the parking lot and the mall entrance.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Even when they're not fully sure if they have a credit card or not. Do you have a credit card?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
We learned two very important facts on this trip to the mall.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Yeah, having a credit card is so adult. It's basically the NC-17 rated movie showgirls.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
The credit card looks at you with your dwindling cash flow and says, here, go ahead, try me on.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
This Chase Sapphire card is really doing it for me. Like getting you perks at nearly every corporate venue? Want to get a $20 beer at Madison Square Garden for $16?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
I dreamed of using a credit card when I was a kid. A fantasy that was realized when I played the game Mall Madness.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Which came with its own line of store-branded credit cards.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
But as it turns out, my fantasy of swiping those fake cards as a child didn't exactly square with the reality of when I actually got my first credit card.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Okay, so I failed a class in college and I wanted to retake it, but I didn't want to tell anybody that I was retaking it because I was too embarrassed. So I decided I was going to try to pay for it myself. And so I went to The Gap.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Well, I was at the Gap. You were already at the Gap. I was already at the Gap. And when I was there, I noticed that they had credit cards there. Oh, no. And I was like, oh, my God, this is genius. I'll get a Gap credit card. And I'll pay for my class on this Gap credit card. And nobody will ever know.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Well, I did. And so I did. Yeah. The visual of sitting in my bed in my shitty East Village apartment in like a hungover anxiety shame spiral, paying like $35 minimum payment on my balance, was very much not sexy. It made me feel pretty much like anything besides a sexy adult.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Credit cards were not always as ubiquitous as mob madness fans like me would assume.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
I do. That's the year that the movie Flashdance came out and launched a generation of leg warmer enthusiasts.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
That sounded so crazy to us because it was so recent.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
We needed to know what it was like to live in a time when the act of women burning bras in protest was documented in the daily newspapers. But the concept of a woman using her own credit card to buy a new bra was not.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Thank you so much for taking this time. I really appreciate it.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
In addition to being one of the silliest strangers we've ever met on Zoom, Donna is a former radio DJ, professor of media studies at Emerson University, and music lover, who was credited during her stint as a DJ in Cleveland for launching the career of the 70s-era Canadian rock band... Rush.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And just like Rashida Jones in the 2009 movie I Love You Man, we also didn't know anything about Rush until Paul Rudd provided us with some iTunes action.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Oh, okay. Well, if it's not that, then it's also the year that Donna Summer was inspired by a female bathroom attendant to write the hit song, She Works Hard for the Money.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And every steelworker and dancer were picking up the tracks Donna was laying down on the radio.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
I mean, I still have my silly gold card, okay? When Donna got her first American Express gold card...
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Women did not generally get approved for credit cards. See if I can find it and grab it. And if they did, they were associated with their husband's card. Here we go. But Donna didn't want a card in her husband's name.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
This episode of Deadheads contains colorful language. If you have kids in the room, you might want to turn the volume up. Okay, let the fun begin. Okay, so... Restaurants? Alcohol? Health insurance? Holy shit! Oh my god. This number is giving me a lot of anxiety.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
If you could describe our money situation, our financial situation when I was growing up in one word, how would you describe it? Stressful.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
My mom was 23 when she moved in with my dad and 28 when she had me. She rushed into adulthood to get away from her own family. She made a lot of emotional decisions that had financial implications for both her life and mine.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Yeah, like I don't have really good memories from this apartment. What do you remember about this apartment? I have memories of a lot of fighting, a lot of conflict for a lot of different reasons. But I feel like often they had to do with money and bills. Yeah. There was a lot of fighting in my house growing up, and to my six-year-old ears, it always sounded like it was about money.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
What I did and did not want to tell Rachel that day was that I had $14,000 of credit card debt. And that I'd been maintaining that level of debt in secret for years. $14,000 worth of free-floating anxiety. $14,000 worth of sleepless nights. $14,000 worth of denial. Denial that was so entrenched, it kept me from opening my credit card statements or making anything but the minimum auto payments.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
But as I got a little older, I realized that the money part was just one piece of a much larger issue. My dad struggled with addiction. He wasn't always able to hold a job. Most of the time, it was chaos. Sometimes I didn't know what I was going to find on the other side of the door. And I often fell asleep to the sounds of my mom screaming about something that I couldn't understand.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
All I knew was that she was angry. And I hated that about her.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Okay. On restaurants, I spent $516. Clothing, I spent $649.29 because I bought those two bathing suits. I bought those two bathing suits. Two bathing suits that were each $300? Yes. Yes. Baby suits are really difficult to find, and I found one that I felt really good in, and I bought two, one black one and one navy one.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I've returned one. For over 10 years, I was engaged in a particularly modern form of cognitive dissonance. I was spending wildly without intention as to what I was buying or why. I simply could not wrap my mind around the fact that there might be another way to exist. Most experts will tell you that the first step to getting your finances under control is to make a budget. And they're not wrong.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
It works. The math is easy, and it's a really helpful tool. But I wasn't able to budget until my friend literally sat me down in a chair for several hours and held my hand while I did it, because those numbers were really fucking painful to look at.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
What Rachel made me realize is that I'd been operating out of a place of obligation. I was putting everyone else's needs before my own. Once I started aligning my money with my values more closely, budgeting felt not only possible, but maybe even kind of fun and exciting. I felt like I'd cracked the code, and now obviously I needed to tell everyone else.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I'm Jamie, I live in Brooklyn, and I'm working to tackle $18,000 of credit card debt. I drove my friends to the airport, so I've been up since six. Over the years, I had cultivated a modest following from my work as a journalist, covering things like fashion, beauty, and lifestyle, all things I coincidentally spent way too much money on.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
So that didn't really feel like the right audience to talk to about having no money. I'll talk to you guys briefly about debt management plans versus paying off a credit card. Joining TikTok felt like the Wild West. where no one knew anything about me or anything I'd ever done before. What is this place? I don't see anybody I know.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Just one tumbleweed and the sounds of crop top teens dancing in the glow of their ring lights behind the saloon door. This would be the perfect place to start a video journal chronicling my journey out of debt. Who in their right mind would watch a 30-something-year-old drone on about credit cards? So I hit publish and sent my very first message into the void. But wait, it's not a void.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
It's a 21st century social media platform with over a billion users. And even though I'd come across plenty of trolls in my time on the internet, once I started talking about money, they suddenly had a lot more to say. Should we read some of these? Ah, we'll get someone else to read them.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
It was so deep that it was actually more than $14,000. After talking with Rachel that day, I opened all my accounts and realized the debt was more like $18,000. The denial was so bad that I didn't even realize how much debt I had.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
So here I am, stepping into my truth, bearing my insecurities, facing my past. I'm just beginning my unlearning of how I was taught and not taught about the concept of money and debt and choices and responsibility. And as I take a step toward healing the problem, this is the messaging I get. Shame on you. Actually, it was even more unhinged than that.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Thanks, Dottie. I came here to connect, but these voices reminded me that our culture understands financial failure as moral failure, that so much of the language around financial advice is infused with puritanical philosophies and methods. I started to hear the language everywhere, like this sentiment from personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
After sharing a handful of tips and tricks for getting out of debt, she said something I've struggled to forget. That I should be suffering.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I remember hearing that and thinking, don't they realize that suffering is what got me here in the first place?
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I didn't tell anyone anything about my debt for over a decade because I was so deeply ashamed and convinced that I was the only one. I not only believed that I alone had failed, I believed that this failure made me a bad person. I remember the day I told you about my debt, I was terrified that when you found out you were going to think differently of me.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Like, that you were going to realize that I'd been lying to you about something terrible this whole time.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Okay, sure, I shouldn't have been dropping $100 at group dinners or trying to keep up with all the latest fashion trends. Those were choices. But I didn't choose to attend $100 group dinners because I'm obsessed with overpaying for mediocre food. I went to social events and bought clothes to fit in because it's culturally expected to stay part of the group.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I was silent for so many years in an attempt to separate myself from my problems, but that wasn't helping. What I needed was more connection, a different kind of connection, to be part of the group in a meaningful way.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I know there's a lot of shit everywhere, but... Did you ever feel like there were bad memories here?
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
When I was 11 years old, my father lost his battle with addiction in this apartment. And it was such a chaotic time that I never worked through all the ways I felt betrayed. Perhaps the hardest part to grapple with was understanding that in many ways, my mom felt relief when he died. That him dying was going to make her life easier.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
All these years later, my mom has turned this apartment into her favorite place in the world. But for me, it's the place where I had the worst day of my life. And it's always felt impossible for me to reconcile how those two things can be true at once. But that wasn't the whole story.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I want to know if anyone else is feeling extremely anxious like me.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
For so many years, I blamed my mom's anger on everything that happened. But she was angry because she couldn't pay the bills. She couldn't leave a child alone in the house. She couldn't get a job and leave me, so she couldn't pay for a family on her own. She didn't have anywhere to go. This was an economic problem as much as it was anything else.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And it's the story of so many people in America, especially women, especially mothers. our freedoms are dictated by our economic stability. And my mom, like so many other moms, had to learn these lessons the hard way, but managed to keep our world spinning by building healthy communities.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Over the years, she's cultivated a chosen family of women who have been there for each other in all kinds of ways, whether it's one of their Friday night cocktail parties or banding together in times of crisis. Like in the days following my dad's death, when a constant stream of people were coming in and out of our house to pay their respects.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
My mom sees her apartment as the place where she grew into the person and mother she wanted to be. And that person learned that financial freedom is not about doing everything on your own. It's about connecting and leaning on your community.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Right? So maybe my mom didn't pass along the most practical financial wisdom. I didn't learn about credit cards or 401ks. But why do we consider that to be the only valuable financial advice based on one set of financial values? And is that advice even working?
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
After I sifted through the gaggle of trolls under the TikTok bridge, I found that their voices, while loud and angry, were nothing compared to the many people who saw themselves in what I had to say.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Jamie Feldman was once $20,000 in debt. I have $13,000 of credit card debt currently.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
She was really drunk, but still. The message was clear. People do want to talk about debt. They just needed someone to talk about it in a different way than from what we usually hear.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
A quarter of us have student loan debt. Half of us has medical debt. And all of us are more pessimistic than ever about being able to pay it off.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
But we think we need a new narrative that asks a different question. It's not who is failing at the system, but who is the system failing?
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Thanks for listening to Deadheads. The rest of this five-part season is coming out starting on tax day, so it's probably already in your calendar. How convenient. While you wait, you can find bonus Deadheads subscriber content on our Patreon, get updates on the Deadheads sub stack, follow us on TikTok and Instagram at Deadheads Podcast, and I don't know, come over for dinner on Friday? Yeah.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
You know, you just hit a point where the dread rises up so far that it just completely overwhelms you. That and the fact that I had been laid off a few months prior and there was just no way of keeping myself afloat or pretending to be afloat anymore. Now there was suddenly just no money coming in. There was no way to avoid it any longer.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And keeping my secret did make me feel safer because it gave me a false sense of control. But I was actually spinning out of control and keeping it all to myself was beginning to make me unsafe. Why am I telling you this? In order for me to be held accountable, I'm going to need you to come with me on this journey. The goal that I've set for myself is getting out of my credit card debt.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And if and when I'm able to do that, I'm going to get a cat.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I made $7,892 and I somehow spent $10,869 in one month in June. So how many months do you think you've done that? I don't know. How many months are in 33 years? This is the conversation that changed my life. It's the first time I revealed a deep, dark secret to my best friend. It was a conversation 10 years in the making, and it started like most things start in my life, on a walk.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And it was then that she could see not only herself, but just how many people had been hiding in the shadows with her. And that's where the story really begins. Welcome to Debt Heads. Welcome. Debt Heads is an investigation into the American economy. From the perspective of people in debt. Like us. Like everybody. I'm Jamie. And I'm Rachel. And we named this podcast after ourselves.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
But most importantly, to start questioning why and how.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Unbelievable. When I started to seek out personal finance guidance, this was the first voice I heard. Dave Ramsey, one of the most recognizable and best-selling authors in the space.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
You little wussy. You go to work. It's a theory that says we are in total control of our successes and failures. And it pays little credence to the environmental, structural, or collective factors at play.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And you don't have to look too hard to find other financial influencers who have adopted his style. Stop making excuses. It's your fault that you're broke. And are successfully spouting the same philosophies.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And it's got a clear solution. Stop being a stupid idiot child person.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
That's a wrap. Forget it. What was I thinking? There's nothing else to say. That was so easy. What should we do now? Let's go get a cocktail.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
They earn less than men, they have more responsibilities in the home than men, and they experience more financial stress than men.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
But now that I'm an adult, I do wish I'd been given a chance to at least sleep through one of these classes.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Because studies show that exposure to this type of education leads to higher credit scores and lower credit card debt.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
But unless I Josie Grossie my way into one of those classrooms never been kissed style, this form routine is shit out of luck.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
As far back as 1922, Emily Post, an American author and socialite, wrote the gold standard for what's right and wrong in American manners.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And yet the well-bred, white bread and wheat bread loving among us still intensely dislike the mention of money and never speak of it.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And that number is even higher among young people. For millennials, it's 54%. And for Gen Z, it's 64%.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
My mom is a very colorful person. For starters, she's got bright red hair and has a bag of yarn attached to her hip at all times, which she uses to crochet something brightly colored for just about everyone she meets, including complete strangers. Sam's apartment is as bright and inviting as she is, packed to the ceiling with all the kind of stuff she likes.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
This is a path we've walked, I would say, maybe a hundred times before.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
You missed this one back here. And I also didn't count these hanging ones.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
The apartment also has its own soundtrack, mainly consisting of theme songs from Nick at Night. Which ones? Oh, God. It was always either Bewitched or Mary Tyler Moore or...
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Yeah, the love boat. Soon we'll be making another run. Growing up, I talked to my mom about everything. She was the kind of parent who was also a friend. So there was basically nothing off limits. But I had never brought up money with her. Really? Yeah, it was just you and the whole internet. Not her. Hi, I'm Samantha. Hi, I'm Jamie. That's Samantha. I'm Samantha. That's Jamie. Okay.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
What was your reaction when you saw the first thing that you saw I posted about my money situation? What was your reaction?
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
I was like my mom. We both had a habit of blowing through our money. Although for me, it was less about clothes and more about paying an obscene amount of money to live in a shitty slice of heaven in the East Village. This type of spending often meant that we were living beyond our means. Neither of us ever learned how to be good with money.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
When I think back to my childhood, the only thing I remember knowing about money was that there never seemed to be enough of it. And so you never talked to your mom about money?
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Did you have any thoughts about my financial education or what my relationship with money might look like?
Debt Heads
BONUS: the survival guide to adulthood
Hi, this is Jamie and Rachel from Deadheads. We hope you've enjoyed part one of our limited narrative series. We're working hard to bring you the next episode.
Debt Heads
BONUS: the survival guide to adulthood
And make sure you're signed up to this feed for the Deadheads podcast, where episode two is scheduled to come out this time next week. See you then.
Debt Heads
BONUS: the survival guide to adulthood
This week, it's an interview with Claire Parker and Ashley Hamilton, co-hosts of Celebrity Memoir Book Club, all about making it work in the creator economy. Here's a sneak peek.
Debt Heads
BONUS: the survival guide to adulthood
In the meantime, we wanted to introduce you to the Deadheads bonus content, which will live exclusively on Patreon and is for anyone who wants to hear a slightly less inquisitive, slightly more practical conversation about money, mental health, and this made up thing we call the economy. We're starting this content with a mini video series that we're calling The Survival Guide to Adulthood.
Debt Heads
BONUS: the survival guide to adulthood
So if you're down to clown and want to support our work with a subscription, check out the Deadheads Patreon, where you'll find the survival guide to adulthood, plus all the extra stuff that doesn't fit into our main podcast. It's going to be fun, loose, and silly, but also serious. Think of it like a grab bag. Think of it as playing dress up in Barbie's nightmare house. With us. Fun.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Hi, this is Jamie from Deadheads. This is Episode 2, Part 2. A lot of people loved Episode 2, Part 1, so if you haven't listened, you should do so. You might also love it, and you'll definitely be less confused. Okay, enjoy Episode 2, Part 2 of Deadheads.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And that's the way it used to be in America as well. Credit bureaus have existed since the 1800s. But back then, they were only used to determine credit for business loans, not to determine your ability to do things like buy a house.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Whoa, that's the year I was born. So the credit score is just a little baby like me and Taylor Swift?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Oh, OK. So the credit score is meant to standardize lending, like to make it less subjective. So women like Donna and minorities and basically anyone else locked out of the old boys club could get access to lending, too.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Yes. Financial Institution. Oh, okay. Financial Information.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
It was the Olive Garden of banks. When you're here, you're family.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
We met John outside on a very windy day at 3.35 p.m. We know it was 3.35 because we were running late.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
The story itself is tragic. A man died and a family was torn apart. But there's a more sinister layer to the story that Ronson shared with us too. And it involves one of those credit bureaus, Experian.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And John was able to get this information directly from the horse's mouth.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
John asked how he was categorized, and according to the program, he was what's called a global connector.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
On a less flattering end of the spectrum were the welfare borderlines, people who Weber rudely described as having questionable aesthetics.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And while we're all out here complaining about the price of eggs, the profit margin for grocery stores is only 1.6%. And here's the icing on the grocery store sheet cake.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Lenders like to claim that their business is risky. But over time, they've turned their business into more than a sure bet.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
In the late 90s, when MasterCard debuted the Priceless campaign, they had been suffering as a company. People were concerned about debt, and there was a backlash.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
There are plenty of things that money can't buy. But this ad makes us question, do we need to buy a $45 autographed baseball to have a real conversation with our 11-year-old son? Certainly suggests that it would be helpful and a lot more fun.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
The MasterCard Priceless campaign, which persists in advertising to this day, featured one instantly recognizable tagline.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
When we're choosing a card, most of us ignore the fees, the interest rates, the long-winded terms and penalties. Instead, we zero in on rewards. Like 0% APR for 18 months. Or triple points for every dollar spent at the gas station. Or best of all, a nylon drawstring backpack emblazoned with JPMorgan Chase. I signed up for a Chase Sapphire card because I heard they were giving out nylon backpacks.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Really? No. I did hear, though, that they were offering people 100,000 points. And I knew a bunch of people getting married at the time, and they were all using those points to upgrade their flights and accommodations for their honeymoons.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
No, I was a broke journalist. I barely had $4,000 to cover the amount I'd have to spend on the card in the first three months to get the points in the first place. You see where this is going? Yeah.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
So many of us are not cashing in on these points, but somebody is. How do the credit cards pay for giving away all this free stuff?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
No. Interchange fees. Sounds like pieces of shit to me.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And how few of us seemed to know anything at all about the devious ways these companies were working against us at every turn.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
But this interview is from 15 years ago, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that established the CARD Act has been under attack ever since. Just this year, Elon Musk tweeted, RIP CFPB.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
To Elena, the CART Act was like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. But we don't need Band-Aids. We need to stop the shooting in the first place.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Cigarettes damage your organs. Cigarettes cause cancer. Tobacco smoke harms children. Cigarettes cause impotence. Cigarettes cause leukemia.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
You cannot escape the foreboding message, which is, this product is designed to hurt you. How do we get those on American cigarettes?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
After learning everything we did from Elena, we thought about Donna and her beloved American Express. Was this the future that these feminists from the 70s were fighting for?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And in 2025, I don't make that much money either. What I do have is lots of access to credit.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
When we were wrapping up this episode, I got an email from Chase with the subject line, congratulations. I'm calling because I was recently sent an email that my credit limit was extended from $16,500 to $20,600 and I didn't ask for this extension and I don't want it. The customer service agent was kind and helpful and reversed it immediately.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Turns out you have to opt out of these increases, which most people probably don't realize. But the call is relatively easy. Okay. Have a lovely day. All right, you too. Thanks.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Welcome to Deadheads. Welcome. Deadheads is an investigation into the American economy. From the perspective of people in debt. Like us. Like everybody. I'm Jamie. And I'm Rachel. And we named this podcast after ourselves.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Yeah, and these aren't things you can put much of a price on, but in a system where profit is the goal, the things we love will always be a target for exploitation. So we just have one more question. Hey Siri, where's the nearest cash-only diner? I want to take my friend out to lunch.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Duh. Deadheads is written, produced, and edited by us, Jamie Feldman and Rachel Webster. Our theme song is Pay for That Money by The Defibrillators. Original music is composed by Ali Helmwein. Our research assistant is Jeanette Selig. And this episode was mixed by Jeff Seeley. Thanks to our railway systems. Thank you to Sarah Sengner for inspiring us to move to Germany.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And to Kathleen McDowell for giving us the title of this episode. You can learn more about the debt machine in Elena Botea's book, Delinquent.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And thanks again to Donna Halper for sharing her very quotable thoughts with the world.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
But most importantly, to start questioning why and how. America became a country full of deadheads. The chase card has the most because that's my highest limit. The limit is 16,000 and it's like about to be maxed out. So, and that's a 20.24%. Yeah. So let's,
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Yeah, that would be easier. That would be really amazing. Ah, to go back to a time when we didn't borrow money for literally every single thing. When was that?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Being less of a straight-A student than Rach, I was not on a Zoom lecture with a debtors' rights activist organization. I was out on a date, which is why I answered the phone. Wasn't he wearing, like, pajama pants or something? Basketball shorts. Don't remind me. I'd never used the, like, get out of a date by faking an emergency thing before, but this actually did feel quite urgent. It was urgent.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Off the top of my head, no. And I got some great advice from a financial expert. Hey, Siri. Uh-huh? Can you tell me how to get out of debt? This week, we'll speak to not one, but two muckraking journalists, one of whom started as an insider in the credit card industry.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And like judgmental New Yorkers, we were shocked to find very few other people on the streets on such a gorgeous day.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
She's the kind of practical, level-headed person who has not one, but multiple forms of allergy medicine to offer.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Elena knows a lot about credit cards and their profits because she spent her early career working for a bank that made so much money with its credit products, it could pay very famous people to deliver its very famous slogan. Like Sam Jackson.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Or Jennifer Garner. What's in your wallet? Don't forget Alec Baldwin.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
God, I wonder how much these people got paid for these commercials.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
But this was her to-go margarita. She was a true believer that lending was the salty rim on the frosty glass of a financially stable life.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
The only unmet need in Elena's apartment was a belly rub for the cats.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
With each passing year, she discovered ever more sinister corporate behavior that, while not illegal, was not exactly the lofty social value that she had assumed.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
But that notion is simplistic at best, and at worst, just plain wrong.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
It's so crazy that we both spent some of our formative years here.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
So that means the more they raise your limit, the more debt you're likely to have. Oh, right. And you've never even asked for it.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
I was in college. And I was right around the corner in high school. And we were the exact same age, and we were always friends.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
If you can believe it, we were able to track down another person who had some qualms about their time spent working in the credit card industry.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
She worked for nearly 20 years for some of the heaviest hitters in the banking world, Visa, JPMorgan Chase, and Citi in the marketing department.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Not to brag, but I was the perfect credit card customer. I carried my balance diligently for 10 years, only ever making the minimum payments.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Elena says that most people get charged late fees when they pay their bill mere hours after it's due.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Just building credit. If Americans know one thing about credit, it's that we need to have a good credit score.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
We need one to get an apartment, a phone plan, a mortgage, a business loan, utilities, a second phone plan. And we think that we have to have a credit card to build that good score. But not everyone thinks this way.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Sarah's beat is finance, but it was only when she came to America that she had to learn about consumer debt.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
There are 3,200,000 podcasts in the world. So what's one more? Hi, I'm Jamie. And I'm Rachel.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
Maces. We are endeavoring to tell the millennial story by exploring the insidious political and economic policies. Do you know what your interest rate is?
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
And we're in debt. We are in debt. I have a lot of debt.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
Spend, spend, spend is the marketing agenda. You can shop online. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Shopping is my cardio. That have defined America over the last four decades.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
And I didn't. But both of us have struggled with money over the years because we're deadbeats. Losers. We care more about dancing than making money.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
I have been struggling with debt for eight years. I have $250,000 of student loan debt. $36,000 of credit card debt. The first season of Debt Heads is a six-episode miniseries that investigates the architecture of personal finance.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
You unbelievable little children people. And uncovers the deeper structures that have created an economy that feels unsafe for most people.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
Does anybody choose to get old? Does anybody choose to be addicted to opioids? Does anybody choose to be in debt? The answer is no.