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

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN

(CNN) — 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.

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.

Tip of the week: Pay yourself first

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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