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Once one of the NFL’s most exciting quarterbacks, Cam Newton is now dealing with an off-the-field challenge: lost revenue.
At 36, Newton’s days as a professional athlete are behind him. In 2021, after his one-year, $6 million contract with the Carolina Panthers expired, he officially retired from the game. Now, the former football star is opening up about the financial realities of life after fame.
“In the NFL, everyone knows you’re going to make a ton of money in a short period of time, and being away from the game for three years, those checks are just not the same,” he said during an episode of the Fox reality show, special forces (1).
Newton admitted that the sudden drop in income made it difficult to feel like “Superman” in the eyes of his eight children.
“It breaks my heart knowing I can’t help like I used to,” the former quarterback wrote on Instagram(2).
In addition to declining income, Newton noted in a video posted on YouTube that lifestyle changes were the main reason he and other professional athletes found themselves in financial trouble(3).
But in a dynamic, unstable economy, it’s certainly not just entrepreneurs and professional athletes who face sudden income swings—ordinary workers are in trouble, too.
U.S. unemployment is worsening, with 2025 set to see the weakest annual job growth rate since 2003(4).
Although the Federal Reserve cut interest rates multiple times in 2025 to try to support the market, these efforts were not enough to correct the U.S. unemployment rate. Many factors are to blame.
On the labor market front, the workforce is aging and shrinking due to reduced immigration (5).
At the same time, employers face continued economic uncertainty due to rising tariffs and input costs, making it harder to hire more workers. A survey by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Richmond and Duke University showed that approximately one in five companies said they were reducing hiring due to tariffs(6).
As the U.S. federal workforce drops to its lowest level in at least a decade, there are also widespread layoffs in the civil service (7).
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Job Hunting [are] Even more desperate, workers cobbled together part-time jobs, raided 401(k)s, and were put on waitlists for DoorDash(8).
Like Newton, many people now face difficult choices and uncomfortable lifestyle adjustments.
If you’re facing or preparing for a sudden drop in income, here are three ways to improve your financial situation.
Read more: Nearing retirement but no savings? Don’t panic, you’re not alone. Here are 6 easy ways you can catch up (and fast)
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York(9), Americans had total credit card debt of $1.23 trillion as of the third quarter of 2025. This is the highest balance since the New York Fed began tracking the figure in 1999.
Professional athletes are not exempt from taking on huge debts. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Anthony Brown reportedly filed for bankruptcy in 2024 after owing eight creditors nearly $3 million (10).
When income falls, most households should review their credit card debt, as it can quickly become unsustainable. Credit card debt is notorious for having exorbitant interest rates. For example, the average credit card interest rate is 19.65% as of early 2026, according to Bankrate (11).
The two main methods of paying off debt are the avalanche method and the snowball method.
The avalanche method focuses on paying off the debt with the highest interest first. This can have a knock-on effect, where after paying off a large debt, you can quickly pay off smaller debts.
The snowball method, meanwhile, involves paying off small debts one at a time to build momentum. Then, once you only have one debt left, you devote all your resources to paying it off. From here, most financial experts recommend building an emergency fund and then starting investing as soon as possible. But getting out of debt is the first and arguably most important step.
Once you’ve addressed your debt issues, the next step is to focus on your spending.
If your income changes, activities you once took for granted—such as vacations, dining out, and shopping sprees—may no longer be affordable. Here, Dave Ramsey’s famous “beans and rice” approach can help pay off debt quickly and start building savings. Temporarily scaling back to a basic beans and rice budget can give you room to raise the emergency funds you need.
As a rule of thumb, many experts recommend that an emergency fund should cover at least three to six months of expenses. If you’re one of the 81% of American workers who fear they’ll lose their job by 2025, you’re far from alone (13).
But planning ahead can help you avoid a financial strain if the worst happens.
First, a high-yield account (such as the Wealthfront Cash Account) can be a great place to grow your emergency fund, offering both competitive interest rates and liquidity when you need it.
The Wealthfront Cash Account offers a base variable APR of 3.25%, but new customers can get a 0.65% boost for the first three months, for a total APR of 3.90% offered by the bank on your uninvested cash. That’s ten times the national deposit savings rate, according to the FDIC’s December report.
With no minimum balance or account fees, and 24/7 withdrawals and free domestic wire transfers, your funds are always available. In addition, the FDIC insures Wealthfront cash account balances up to $8 million through program banks.
You can also check out Moneywise’s list of the best high-yield savings accounts for 2026 to find options with interest rates as high as 4.05% APR.
Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or employee, it’s worth setting aside a little money each month to invest. Passive income from regular savings can help you stay afloat if your career takes an unexpected turn.
You also don’t need to invest millions of dollars to grow your wealth. Thanks to compound interest, investing a small portion of your paycheck each month can have a huge impact.
For example, assuming a compound interest rate of 8% and investing $50 weekly for 20 years totals $123,821. The next step is to choose where to invest. One popular choice is the S&P 500 Index, which has averaged annualized returns of 11.1% over the past 20 years (14).
You can start your journey by investing your spare change from your daily shopping into Acorns.
Acorns rounds your daily spending to the nearest dollar and invests the rest in low-cost diversified ETFs. So, your $4.25 morning coffee becomes a 75-cent investment in your future.
If you want to take it a step further, you could invest a larger percentage of your salary in the low-cost S&P 500 ETF with Acorns.
The best part? When you sign up with a fixed deposit, you can get a $20 bonus investment.
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People (1); @fifthquartercfb (2); @4th&1 with Cam Newton (3); Bureau of Labor Statistics (4); Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (5); Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta (6); Reuters (7); Wall Street Journal (8); Federal Reserve Bank of New York (9); New York Times (10); Bank Rate (11); Commonality (12); Staffed Industry Analysts (13); Acorns (14) Curvo (15)
This article provides information only and should not be considered advice. It is provided without any warranty of any kind.