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Cam Newton, once one of the NFL’s most electrifying quarterbacks, now faces a challenge off the field: loss of income.
At 36, Newton’s days as a professional athlete are over. He officially retired from the game in 2021 after his one-year, $6 million contract with the Carolina Panthers expired. Now the former soccer star is being honest about the financial reality of life after fame.
“Being in the NFL, everybody knows there’s a lot of money that comes at you in a short amount of time, and being out of the game for three years, those checks don’t come the same,” he said on an episode of the FOX television show. Special Forces (1).
Newton admitted that the sudden drop in earnings made it difficult for him to feel like “Superman” to his eight children.
“It hurts to know that I can’t give like I once did,” the former defender wrote on Instagram (2).
Aside from this drop in income, Newton revealed that lifestyle is a major culprit in both his financial struggles and those of other professional athletes in a video posted on YouTube (3).
But in a dynamic and volatile economy, it’s certainly not just entrepreneurs and professional athletes who face sudden fluctuations in income, ordinary workers struggle as well.
The US unemployment rate is worsening, with 2025 showing the weakest annual rate of job growth since 2003 (4).
While the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates repeatedly in 2025 to try to support the market, these efforts have not been enough to correct the US unemployment rate. Many factors are to blame here.
In the labor market, the workforce is aging and shrinking due to reduced immigration (5).
Meanwhile, employers face continued economic uncertainty due to rising tariffs and input costs, making it more difficult to hire more workers. About a fifth of companies said they are cutting back on jobs because of the tariffs, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Richmond, along with Duke University (6).
There have also been widespread layoffs of civil servants as the US federal workforce has fallen to its lowest levels in at least a decade (7).
According to the Wall Street Journal, “job hunting [are] more desperate, as workers juggle part-time gigs, raid their 401(k)s, and get put on DoorDash waitlists (8).
Like Newton, many now face tough choices and uncomfortable lifestyle adjustments.
If you’re facing or preparing for a sudden drop in income, here are three ways you can strengthen your finances.
Read more: Approaching retirement with no savings? Don’t panic, you are not alone. Here are 6 easy ways to catch up (and fast)
Americans’ total credit card debt was $1.23 trillion in the third quarter of 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (9). That’s the largest balance ever since the New York Fed began tracking the figure in 1999.
Professional athletes are not immune to taking on significant debt either. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Anthony Brown filed for bankruptcy after owing nearly $3 million to eight creditors in 2024 (10).
Most households should examine their credit card debt when incomes decrease, as these obligations can quickly become unsustainable. Credit card debt is notorious for exorbitant interest rates. For example, the average credit card rate was 19.65% at the beginning of 2026, according to Bankrate (11).
The two great debt settlement methods are the avalanche and snowball techniques.
The avalanche method focuses on paying off the debts with the highest interest first. This can create a cascading effect where, after the big debt is paid off, you quickly pay off the smaller ones.
Meanwhile, the snowball method starts with paying off your smaller debts one by one to build steam. Then, once you’ve landed on one debt, you put all your resources into paying it off. From here, most financial experts recommend building an emergency fund, then moving into investing as soon as possible. But becoming debt free is the first and probably the most important step.
Once you’ve dealt with your debt, the next step is to focus on spending.
If your income changes, activities that were once normal for you – such as holidays, dining out and shopping – 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 cutting back on a beans and rice budget can give you room to build up the emergency funds you need.
As a general rule, many experts recommend spending at least three to six months in an emergency fund. If you were among the 81% of US workers who worried they would lose their jobs in 2025, you were far from alone (13).
But planning ahead can help prevent financial stress should the worst come to pass.
To get started, a high-yield account like a Wealthfront Cash Account can be a great place to grow your emergency funds, offering both competitive interest rates and liquid access to cash when you need it.
A Wealthfront cash account can offer a base variable APY of 3.25%, but new customers can get a boost of 0.65% in the first three months for a total APY of 3.90% offered by program banks on your uninvested cash. That’s ten times higher than the national deposit savings rate, according to the FDIC’s December report.
With no minimum balances or account fees, as well as 24/7 withdrawals and free domestic bank transfers, your funds can remain accessible at all times. Additionally, Wealthfront Cash account balances up to $8 million are FDIC insured through program banks.
You can also check out Moneywise’s Best High Yield Savings Accounts List of 2026 for options that offer up to 4.05% APY.
Whether you’re an athlete, an entrepreneur or an employee, it pays to set aside some money each month for investments. Passive income from regular saving can help you stay afloat if your career takes an unexpected turn.
You don’t even have to invest millions of dollars to grow your wealth. Investing a small portion of your salary each month can make a huge difference, thanks to compound interest.
For example, investing $50 each week for 20 years adds up to $123,821, assuming it compounds at 8%. The next step is to choose where to invest. A popular option is the S&P 500, which over the past 20 years has delivered an average annual return of 11.1% (14).
You can start your journey by investing your spare change from your daily purchases with Acorns.
Acorns rounds your daily expenses 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 can invest a larger proportion of your paycheck in an S&P 500 ETF with low-cost Acorns.
The best part? You can get a $20 bonus investment when you sign up with a recurring deposit.
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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 Bank 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); Cotality (12); Employment of industry analysts (13); Acorns (14) Curvo (15)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. Offered without warranty of any kind.
