How do you help a spouse who’s buried in debt? An expert weighs in

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally featured in the Savings Challenge newsletter, which you can sign up for here . The weekly newsletter offers readers savings tips, expert answers to your questions and weekly challenges to help boost savings. If you’d like to have a savings question answered by our experts, please send it to savingschallenge@cnn.com .

If your partner is in a tough spot financially and you want to help cure the problem, you might take a beat to consider the circumstance holistically before doing anything.

In this week’s Ask the Expert for CNN’s Savings Challenge , Douglas Boneparth, certified financial planner and founder of Bone Fide Wealth, offers one reader advice on the best way to approach the issue of his wife’s large debts.

The reader wrote: “ Hi Doug, my wife has $20k in credit card debt and $100k+ in student loans. She’s not the best at managing her money and I want to help her with a plan to manage her debt. How can I help?”

DOUG: First, let me just say that the fact that you want to help her says a lot about you. But let me reframe this just a bit because I think it is going to matter.

You said she’s “not the best at managing her money.” Before doing anything, I’d encourage you to get curious about why she ran up so much debt. Does she have anxiety around money? Was she never taught how to manage it? Or did she run up credit card debt because her income wasn’t enough to cover her basic living costs?

The answer changes everything about how you help her. For instance, if she racked up debt to pay for essential expenses over time, no debt payoff strategy will work until the income side gets addressed too.

CNN Photo Illustration/Photograph by Sylvie Rosokoff

But if that’s not the issue, here’s how I’d suggest you and she approach the debt itself. The credit card debt is the most urgent. Those rates are likely somewhere between 20% and 29%, which is brutal. That gets attacked first, aggressively. For the student loans, you need to know the interest rates before deciding how hard to push. Federal loans may have income-driven repayment options or even forgiveness pathways depending on her profession, so don’t just throw money at them before understanding what you’re working with.

For a practical starting point, try the avalanche method. That’s when you pay minimums on everything, then throw every extra dollar at the highest-rate debt, so it gets paid off first. It’s mathematically optimal. Some people, however, prefer the snowball method (smallest balance first) because the psychological wins keep them motivated. Both work. I like avalanche but she should pick the one she’ll stick with.

Make savings happen automatically so you don’t have to think about it. Even small amounts add up over time.

Decide how much of your paycheck you want to go into a high-yield savings account (you’ll find the best yields offered by online banks). Then tell your employer to direct deposit that amount from every paycheck into your savings account.

It’s the same pay-yourself-first principle as when your employer automatically transfers a percentage of your pay into your workplace retirement plan.

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编者按：本文最初刊登于“储蓄挑战”电子报，您可以在这里订阅。这份每周电子报为读者提供储蓄技巧、专家解答疑问以及每周挑战，帮助您提高储蓄效率。如果您想让我们的专家解答您的储蓄问题，请发送邮件至 savingschallenge@cnn.com。

如果你的伴侣在经济上遇到了困难，而你想帮助他/她解决这个问题，那么在采取任何行动之前，你或许应该停下来，从整体上考虑一下这种情况。

在本周 CNN 储蓄挑战赛的“专家问答”环节中，注册理财规划师、Bone Fide Wealth 创始人道格拉斯·博内帕斯 (Douglas Boneparth) 为一位读者提供了解决其妻子巨额债务问题的最佳建议。

读者来信说：“你好，道格，我妻子有2万美元的信用卡债务和超过10万美元的学生贷款。她不太擅长理财，我想帮她制定一个债务管理计划。我该怎么做才能帮到她呢？”

道格：首先，我想说的是，你想帮助她这件事本身就说明了很多问题。但我想稍微换个说法，因为我觉得这一点很重要。

你说她“不太会理财”。在采取任何行动之前，我建议你先弄清楚她为什么会欠下这么多债。她是不是对金钱感到焦虑？她是不是从来没学过如何理财？还是因为她的收入不足以支付基本生活开支，所以才欠下这么多信用卡债？

答案将彻底改变你帮助她的方式。例如，如果她为了支付日常必需开支而逐渐负债累累，那么在收入问题解决之前，任何还债策略都将徒劳无功。

CNN图片插图/摄影：Sylvie Rosokoff

但如果这不是问题所在，以下是我建议你和她处理债务本身的方法。信用卡债务是最紧迫的。这些债务的利率可能在20%到29%之间，非常高。必须首先积极地偿还信用卡债务。至于学生贷款，你需要先了解利率，然后再决定还款力度。联邦贷款可能提供收入驱动型还款方案，甚至可能根据她的职业而有贷款减免途径，所以不要在了解具体情况之前盲目投入资金。

一个切实可行的方法是雪崩法。这种方法是先支付所有债务的最低还款额，然后把多余的钱全部用来偿还利率最高的债务，确保它最先还清。从数学角度来看，这是最优解。不过，有些人更喜欢滚雪球法（先还余额最小的债务），因为这种心理上的成就感能让他们更有动力。两种方法都有效。我个人比较喜欢雪崩法，但她应该选择一种自己能坚持下去的方法。

让储蓄自动进行，这样您就无需操心。即使是小额储蓄，日积月累也能积少成多。

决定你想把每月工资的多少存入高收益储蓄账户（网上银行通常提供最佳收益率）。然后告诉你的雇主，每次发工资时都把这笔钱直接存入你的储蓄账户。

这与雇主自动将你工资的一部分转入你的工作场所退休计划的原则相同，都是先支付自己一部分工资。