Dealing with credit card or medical debt? Here's how to handle it.

Make Me Smart

Marketplace

Business, News

4.6 • 5.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today’s show, Kimberly is joined by the host of NPR’s “Life Kit” podcast, Marielle Segarra, who’s recently been working on a four-week newsletter series all about credit card debt — and how to avoid it all snowballing. Plus, we’ll play a round of Headline or Head-lyin’!

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“In credit card debt? There’s a path out” from Life Kit
“Medical bills can cause a financial crisis. Here’s how to negotiate them” from Life Kit
“A big misconception about debt — and how to tackle it” from Life Kit

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay.
0:01.0	Yeah.
0:02.0	That's a fun sound.
0:07.0	Nice.
0:08.0	Gotta love the fun sounds.
0:12.0	I was trying to pour my drink on another show and spilled it everywhere, just as a show was starting.
0:17.0	But not this week.
0:19.0	Hello everyone.
0:20.0	I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.
0:24.6	Thank you all for joining us, especially those joining on the YouTube live stream.
0:29.6	It is Friday, and so we have our weekly happy hour episode, Economics on Tap.
0:34.6	And joining me today is one of my favorite former colleagues and former market
0:40.4	placer, Mariel Segarra, and she is now host of NPR's Life Kit podcast. Welcome to the show,
0:46.9	Mariel. Yeah, thanks for having me. In the pre-show, you were catching up with all your
0:52.6	former colleagues behind the scenes.
0:54.4	This is fun to have you back.
0:56.8	It's so nice.
0:57.7	I miss y'all.
0:59.3	It's really like...
1:00.4	We still get to hear you.
1:02.4	Yeah, that's true.
1:03.3	And vice versa.
	...

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