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Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am

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Speaker 1: Matt and today we're talking debt free degrees with Jason Brown.

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Speaker 2: That's right, man, we are going to talk about getting

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Speaker 2: your degree debt free with Jason Brown. And just to

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Speaker 2: set it up for folks, Jason, he's a friend of ours.

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Speaker 2: He's actually local here in Atlanta, so he has joined

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Speaker 2: us in our in the How to Money clubhouse. I'm

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Speaker 2: not necessarily gonna I'm not gonna call it a studio

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Speaker 2: per se. He is here in person, which is a

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Speaker 2: ton of fun. But Jason, he's contributed to the site,

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Speaker 2: to our site, how to Money. He's written a ton

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Speaker 2: of articles there. He's got three kids. Congrats by the way,

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Speaker 2: on the you got the new guy there and so

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Speaker 2: you born. But you've written multiple books Margin Matters, It

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Speaker 2: is possible another one. But you've talked about achieving getting

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Speaker 2: your degree debt free, and specifically with student loans were starting,

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Speaker 2: we felt that who better to have here on the

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Speaker 2: podcast to talk about not only paying off student loans,

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Speaker 2: but specifically graduating debt free and avoiding those student loans

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Speaker 2: to begin with. So Jason, thank you so much for

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Speaker 2: joining us today on the podcast.

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Speaker 3: Wow, that was an amazing introduction there. I really appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: Probably the best I've ever had. I really appreciate great

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Speaker 3: to be with you guys in person, and I can

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Speaker 3: only hope and pray that whatever I say just helps

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Speaker 3: the next generation absolute absolutely avoid the dreaded student loan debt.

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Speaker 2: So one other thing I'll mention is that I don't

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Speaker 2: know if there is anybody else I know that.

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Speaker 1: Is taller than Joel. So Joel is a pretty what

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Speaker 1: are you? You're like sixx six five sixty six and

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Speaker 1: Jason is probably six to seven, you know, six seven

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Speaker 1: six eight.

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Speaker 3: Here's the story. I've been telling everybody, I'm six foot eight.

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Speaker 3: But then they had at the office, they had the

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Speaker 3: biometric screening and the guys come in, you know, they

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Speaker 3: do your height and weight and I and I wait,

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Speaker 3: I measured in it six foot seven. So I can

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Speaker 3: only believe that gravity, old age bringing me down. So

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Speaker 3: now I have to change, you know, my driver's license.

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Speaker 3: I'm six foot seven. Now that's what we're going with.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not used to looking up with people. I

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Speaker 1: don't like it, Jason, but I still like hanging out

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Speaker 1: with you anyway. But are Okay. The first question we

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Speaker 1: ask anybody who comes on the podcast, as you know,

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Speaker 1: is what do they like to sporge on? Matt and

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Speaker 1: I we sporge on craft beer. We're drinking a pale

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Speaker 1: al right now, what is that for you? While you're

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Speaker 1: saving investing? What do you kind of spurge on from

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Speaker 1: time to time while you're doing the right thing with

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Speaker 1: your money?

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Speaker 3: Now, as you said, I have three boys, seven, three

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Speaker 3: and five months, so at this stage of life, I'm

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Speaker 3: not splurging on anything for myself.

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Speaker 2: As you guys know, diapers, right, yeah, maybe a sleep

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Speaker 2: mask for you and your wife, perhaps.

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Speaker 3: Your white noise machine. But the equivalent, I will say,

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Speaker 3: the equivalent to to what you guys do with your

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Speaker 3: with your beer is I am a seven eleven slurpy snob. Okay,

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Speaker 3: so here's the thing, seven eleven slurpies. Here in Georgia,

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Speaker 3: there are no seven elevens, So I can't get a

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Speaker 3: slurpe anywhere. So I have to go down to Florida.

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Speaker 3: They're they're real big in Florida. You'll find them in

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Speaker 3: certain cities in Florida on every street corner. Now, the

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Speaker 3: thing about seven elevens, you have to go to a

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Speaker 3: different seven eleven, you have to go to all of

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Speaker 3: them because they all have different flavors, flavor selections.

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Speaker 1: Really, yeah you did not know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: So but but the seven eleven Slurpy I've always been

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Speaker 3: a slurpe snob. I've always thought that was the best

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Speaker 3: you know drink, you know, refreshment you can get.

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Speaker 1: Some would say like high end Scotch. You're like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: slurpyn Surpy is the way to go.

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Speaker 3: Now. I just found this out. Somebody sent me like

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Speaker 3: a Facebook message or something to say, hey, you realize

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Speaker 3: you can get slurpees at Speedway. I was like, what

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Speaker 3: are you talking about? Well, apparently the company that owns

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Speaker 3: seven eleven they just bought Speedway the gas station, the

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Speaker 3: gas station chap and there's actually two speedways that are closed.

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Speaker 3: There's one in Alpharetta, Georgia, and there's one in Cardigsvill, Georgia.

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Speaker 3: And I've already been to both to confirm this. So

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Speaker 3: this is true. At Speedway they have the seven eleven

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Speaker 3: slurpey machines inside the Speedway gas stations. There are some

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Speaker 3: now in Georgia. If you're in the area.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you can get your fix without having to

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Speaker 1: drive seven hours, you know, because then it truly is

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Speaker 1: a splurge for you to have to drive to another state.

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Speaker 1: It takes a while to get down to Florida.

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Speaker 3: That's a good point because it's you know, it's a

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Speaker 3: dollar drink, so it's you know, really not a splurge,

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Speaker 3: but then hundred bucks and gas though, debt's the slurge

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Speaker 3: and the time to get there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that one. Let's start talking about kind

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Speaker 1: of the subject and hey, let's talk about debt, free

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Speaker 1: degrees and paying for college and payments like we, like

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Speaker 1: Matt said at the beginning, they're about to restart on

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Speaker 1: student loans in just a few days. We all know

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Speaker 1: that student loan debt is a massive problem. This is

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Speaker 1: something you've been highlighting for a bunch of years in

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Speaker 1: your work. Can you put it into context for us though?

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Speaker 1: Can you kind of maybe share some numbers and talk

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Speaker 1: about some people have called it a crisis, like is

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Speaker 1: is student loan debt a crisis? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: You know, I've got some pretty strong opinions on all. Yes,

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Speaker 3: it's a crisis, but yet it to me, it's a

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Speaker 3: student loan debt crisis. But it's also a student loan

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Speaker 3: debt scam because young seventeen eighteen year old kids are

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Speaker 3: being presented with only one option to go to college debt.

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Speaker 3: And actually I interviewed a girl in my book and

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Speaker 3: she told me the story. She said, when I went

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Speaker 3: to the orientation session at her university, they set her

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Speaker 3: down and they said, you have three options. These are

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Speaker 3: your options to pay for school, Option A, B, and C.

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Speaker 3: All the options were debt. Those are the only options

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Speaker 3: that she was presented. And she said, Jason, if my

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Speaker 3: dad wasn't in the room with me, he grabbed my

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Speaker 3: arm and dragged me out of the room, or else

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Speaker 3: I would have just signed one of these contracts. I'm

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Speaker 3: taken debt out now. To your point, Joel, we're looking

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Speaker 3: at seventy percent of students take out loans to help

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Speaker 3: pay for colleges. That's a tremendous amount.

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Speaker 1: Sounds low to me. Oh, you're thinking it's higher. I

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Speaker 1: was thinking it would be more even like that, But

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Speaker 1: that's still a lot.

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Speaker 3: It's significant. And the big problem, guys is the people

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Speaker 3: that I feel for the most is that we have

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Speaker 3: in our country forty percent of all college students never graduate.

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Speaker 3: They drop out for whatever reason, they run out of mind,

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Speaker 3: any life happens, you know, maybe they start a family

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Speaker 3: or whatever. There's lots of reasons why people don't make

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Speaker 3: it through college. But those are the people that have

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Speaker 3: gone through taken out debt, but never.

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Speaker 1: Got the degree.

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Speaker 3: So those are the people that are really suffering the

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Speaker 3: most with the student loan debt.

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Speaker 1: Crist I agree, those people are behind the a ball

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Speaker 1: to the biggest extent because no degree, no increased earnings

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Speaker 1: oftentimes to show for the work, but they saw the

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Speaker 1: debt alongside it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a double whammy in effect. So given that,

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Speaker 2: given the fact that there are a lot of folks

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Speaker 2: who aren't even graduating, so they're not you know, they

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Speaker 2: don't have the fruit from their labor to show for it.

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Speaker 2: So that's one. That's one group of folks. But even

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Speaker 2: for the folks who are graduating, who do get the degree,

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Speaker 2: who have the potential for increased earnings, do you feel

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Speaker 2: that the value proposition has changed considering the drastic inflation

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Speaker 2: that we've seen with higher education, specifically with going to college.

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Speaker 3: So you mean, like, are we talking to Roli?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, is it worth the money because they're worth for generations,

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Speaker 2: I mean decades.

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Speaker 1: Like I was.

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Speaker 2: The thing I was ever told as a little kid

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Speaker 2: growing up, is like you better go to college. And

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Speaker 2: I know my parents enough and they loved me no

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Speaker 2: matter what. And if I had not gone to college,

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Speaker 2: they certainly would have continued to love me, but they

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Speaker 2: would have been disappointed. They would have really been upset.

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Speaker 2: I think if I chose not to unless I had

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Speaker 2: a really great plan something else on the horizon. But

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Speaker 2: for a lot of like a lot of students have

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Speaker 2: been told that they're like, you've got to do this,

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Speaker 2: no matter the cost. But with the high costs of college,

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Speaker 2: I think there are some folks who are starting to

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Speaker 2: question whether or not it's worth it.

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Speaker 3: I think you're spot on, guys, And I'm a little

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Speaker 3: bit older than you two, but we're kind of in

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Speaker 3: a similar age range that from our generation. This is

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Speaker 3: one of the American dreams, you know, home ownership, college degree.

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Speaker 3: But let me tell you what. There's only about thirty

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Speaker 3: seven percent of Americans even hold a bachelor's degree. So

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Speaker 3: think about that for a second, and only about a

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Speaker 3: let I think it's thirteen percent, Only about thirteen percent

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Speaker 3: have a master's or higher degree, so it's a it's

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Speaker 3: a minor, right, and people might not realize that. So

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Speaker 3: here's the thing the ROI is it is college worth it?

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Speaker 3: That's that's the question now. And really what you have

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Speaker 3: to do is you have to really do your due

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Speaker 3: diligence and your research on specific degree courses. What does

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Speaker 3: it relate to in the job market. And one of

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Speaker 3: the pieces of advice that I give people is like, hey,

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Speaker 3: student and parent, go go sit down, Go hire a

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Speaker 3: career coach. These guys are going to be the ones

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Speaker 3: that can These are the experts that can help you

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Speaker 3: match up a degree program with a career industry. Is

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Speaker 3: it worth it? Is this degree going to translate to

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Speaker 3: a high pain or rewarding career or is this degree

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Speaker 3: going to lead to, you know, a thirty thousand dollars

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Speaker 3: you know salary, And that's what you have to weigh out. Hey,

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Speaker 3: if you're paying for college on your own and you

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Speaker 3: go debt free and you want to work in nonprofit

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Speaker 3: and make thirty thousand dollars a year, that's you're totally

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Speaker 3: fine because you're not leaving school with eighty thousand dollars.

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Speaker 3: A student loan debt.

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Speaker 1: But you don't want to get the degree and still

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Speaker 1: be a barista at the end of the day, right,

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Speaker 1: and take on the debt at the same time. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's gonna saddle you down for years to come, but

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Speaker 1: not have the increased income to go. I love that

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Speaker 1: advice of going talk to an expert about that. Let's

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Speaker 1: talk about your story, because you got two debt free degrees,

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Speaker 1: and I want to talk about like how you went

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Speaker 1: about that. But but what made you initially like see

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Speaker 1: the importance of avoiding debt in order to take on

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Speaker 1: a higher education in the first place, Because, like you said,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people, like the girl you highlighted, would

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Speaker 1: just sign, oh, I'm seventeen, I'm eighteen. I'm like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: well why not if this is the only way, the

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Speaker 1: only options that are being presented, I guess I'll do it.

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Speaker 1: What made you see that there was another path that

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Speaker 1: you needed to take.

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Speaker 3: That's such a good question. I get that debt question

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Speaker 3: a lot, Joel. And so I went to undergrad and

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Speaker 3: started in nineteen ninety three. Okay, so mid to late nineties. Now,

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Speaker 3: back then, you're not hearing about a student loan, even

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Speaker 3: though there was this student loans was going on, but

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Speaker 3: you don't hear it in the news back then about

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Speaker 3: a student loan debt crisis or anything like that. So

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Speaker 3: for me, I was just raised. My parents raised me

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Speaker 3: a certain way to you know, avoid debt, to for

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Speaker 3: you can't buy it unless you can afford it right now.

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Speaker 1: Such an antiquated way of right with the times, Jess,

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Speaker 1: come on, come on now now.

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Speaker 3: My parents they didn't really like sit me down and

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Speaker 3: teach me about money, like here's how you, you know,

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Speaker 3: balance a budget, here's how you do a check ledger.

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Speaker 3: I just learned from watching them. I never saw my

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Speaker 3: dad go out and buy, you know, a brand new

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Speaker 3: car and drive it home on a whim. I never

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Speaker 3: saw my parents come home on a Friday afternoon, Hey,

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Speaker 3: we're all going to Hawaii next week for nothing like that.

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Speaker 3: There were no big splurges, there were no you know,

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Speaker 3: frivolous spending. And my parents were both very frugal people.

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Speaker 3: They were very smart with their money, they were savers,

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Speaker 3: and so I just kind of took on that mentality.

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Speaker 3: So when I entered undergrad school in the mid nineties,

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Speaker 3: debt was really not an option for me because I

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Speaker 3: was always taught if you can't pay for it, you

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Speaker 3: can't do it. So that was, you know, my mentality.

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Speaker 3: So I never even thought about taking out a loan.

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Speaker 3: That never even crossed my mind. It was just like, Okay,

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Speaker 3: well how am I going to pay for this? Let

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Speaker 3: me go work, let me get I was working three,

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Speaker 3: you know, three part time jobs. I was, you know,

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Speaker 3: getting scholarships. I was doing all kinds of stuff resourcefulness,

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Speaker 3: just to make my way through. I was going to

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Speaker 3: school part time because that's all I could afford. I

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Speaker 3: was just kind of pay as you go kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: So so those are some of the things I did.

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Speaker 3: But that was my mentality was It was just like

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Speaker 3: I can only do what I can.

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Speaker 1: Afford, which forces you to become creative. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I was just talking to a buddy and we were

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Speaker 2: talking about like leadership, and he said something along the

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Speaker 2: lines of oftentimes great leaders have like gosh, I wish

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Speaker 2: I could remember the term, but it's like a subconscious

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Speaker 2: competence where you don't even realize it. And it sounds

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Speaker 2: like that you had that to a certain extent when

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Speaker 2: it came to your finances. You were subconsciously competent. You

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Speaker 2: were subconsciously on the right track. But I like that

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Speaker 2: you did take some some specific tactics in order to

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Speaker 2: ensure that you were not taking on debt. Like can

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Speaker 2: you share some of the some of the different creative

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Speaker 2: ways that you were able to find it not finance

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Speaker 2: but literally paid cash for your college education.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So when I was in school, I was working. I

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Speaker 3: actually this was to the detriment of my GPA by

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Speaker 3: the way, I worked three part time jobs simultaneously, but

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Speaker 3: they were all it was very convenient. So I had

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Speaker 3: two on campus jobs, which I recommend people to do

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Speaker 3: because a lot of on campus jobs they'll they'll pay,

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Speaker 3: you'll get a tuition waiver, and I'll get you a stipend.

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Speaker 3: Now I didn't get those in mind, but I just

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Speaker 3: got paid like an hourly rate or whatever. But I

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Speaker 3: was the at the time, I wanted to get into

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Speaker 3: sports broadcasting, so I was actually the sports editor for

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Speaker 3: the student newspaper, and then I worked in the sports

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Speaker 3: information department with the athletic department. I was doing a

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Speaker 3: lot of work with them, working for all the athletic teams.

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Speaker 3: And then I also worked a retail job at town

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Speaker 3: Center Mall, which was literally almost across the street from campus.

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Speaker 3: I worked in like a sports apparel shop and you know,

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Speaker 3: made a whatever the minimum wage was at the time.

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Speaker 1: Everything sports related there. Yes, there's a common theme. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that was.

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Speaker 3: My first passion, my first love. Now, on top of

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Speaker 3: just working and you know, kind of paying my way through,

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Speaker 3: I also got scholarships. Later on, I actually worked. I

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Speaker 3: went and worked for Chick fil A. Now, Chick fil

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Speaker 3: A has a really good scholarship program now, but back then,

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Speaker 3: when I was at Chick fil A, I had to

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Speaker 3: be there for two years and I had to work

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Speaker 3: two thousand hours, and then they gave me a thousand

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Speaker 3: dollars scholarship. Now that might not seem like much in

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Speaker 3: today's age, but back then, you know, I'm so old.

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Speaker 3: We were on the quarter system. I went to Kennesau

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Speaker 3: State here just north of Atlanta, and we were on

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Speaker 3: the quarter system. So a thousand dollars check paid.

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Speaker 1: For two quarters.

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Speaker 3: So that paid for seventy five percent of my year

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Speaker 3: pretty much. So that was a huge help. And then

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Speaker 3: so what happened was I was working in the athletic department,

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Speaker 3: and most of that was you got a scholarship.

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Speaker 1: You were the first non athlete to get a scholarship

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Speaker 1: from the athletic ppartment.

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Speaker 3: I got to tell that story. So I was working

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Speaker 3: in the athletic department. They had no budget. You know,

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Speaker 3: at the time, they were at Kinnesaull State. You know,

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Speaker 3: it started out as like a junior college and they

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Speaker 3: were like a in AIA school. Then they were INCAA

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Speaker 3: Division two. So they've they've really come a long way.

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Speaker 1: Hey, we made it to the tournament last year, that's right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we played, we had value and effort.

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Speaker 3: Was it was it the Owls State Owls. Yeah, they

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Speaker 3: made it the first time ever. Last year they made

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Speaker 3: it to the NCAA Men's Ball Yeah, the tournament March Madness. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: the first time ever. So their division one there at

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Speaker 3: the highest level. Now, so back in my day, there

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Speaker 3: was no budget. They couldn't pay me. So what I

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Speaker 3: did was I I kind of used it as internship credit,

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Speaker 3: so I got school credit for working out with them.

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Speaker 3: But they did pay me to work games. So whenever

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Speaker 3: there was a game, you know, I would work a

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Speaker 3: game and you know, do the announcing or whatever, they

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Speaker 3: run the scoreboard, and I think they paid me like

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Speaker 3: five or ten bucks a game. So I certainly wasn't

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Speaker 3: getting rich off that. But what happened was the athletic director,

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Speaker 3: I think, in his creative way of compensating me because

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Speaker 3: I was always, you know, putting in hours of free labor.

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Speaker 3: So my junior year he put me on a book scholarship.

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Speaker 3: So my junior year of college, I had all my

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Speaker 3: books paid for by the athletics department and that was

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Speaker 3: a huge, huge help. So then I came back for

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Speaker 3: my senior year and I would is completely shocked to

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Speaker 3: find out that they had put they had given me

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Speaker 3: an athletic scholar, a full athletic scholarship that paid for tuition, books, everything,

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Speaker 3: And uh yes, I was not an athlete. So I

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Speaker 3: hope I didn't take a scholarship away from it from

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Speaker 3: an athlete. I don't think I did. I think that

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Speaker 3: was just their creative way of compensating me because instead

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Speaker 3: of you know, writing me a check that might to

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Speaker 3: come out of a budget or whatever, they're just like, hey,

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Speaker 3: we'll just you know, we'll waive your tuition in your books.

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Speaker 3: But that was life changing for me, getting a whole

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Speaker 3: year my senior year, a whole year paid for, So

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Speaker 3: that was that was a huge huge help to me.

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Speaker 1: That is huge.

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Speaker 2: Well, and so you mentioned books too, because I mean

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Speaker 2: books aren't cheap, and so there are different paths, different

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Speaker 2: routes you can take when it comes to books, Like

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Speaker 2: there are more places you can rent books as opposed

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Speaker 2: to going to the own campus bookstore and buying it

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Speaker 2: brand new, you know, like that spying. Yeah, the spine's

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Speaker 2: never been cracked before. Like what yeah, what what's your

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Speaker 2: take on some of the different ways to cut the

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Speaker 2: cost there?

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Speaker 3: Now, Now that's a good You've made some good points there,

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Speaker 3: because back in my day, none of those were options

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Speaker 3: you couldn't rent. But so much has changed now that

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Speaker 3: you can really cut down the costs. Back in my day,

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Speaker 3: it was a huge racket. It was a scam, and

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Speaker 3: you would have to you would be forced to buy

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Speaker 3: the new book for the class, and then you would say, oh, well,

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Speaker 3: I'll just sell it back at the end of the quarter.

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Speaker 3: And then you couldn't sell it back because the next

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Speaker 3: quarter they were moving to a new book exactly, and

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Speaker 3: so your book was worthless. So you had to pay

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Speaker 3: whatever one hundred bucks for a book and then you're

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Speaker 3: stuck with it.

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Speaker 1: Right, So those books are more than that now and

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Speaker 1: you certainly alludes to the scam portion of the and

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Speaker 1: you got it higher education.

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Speaker 3: And now you can go on Amazon or eBay or

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Speaker 3: all these you can go sell them online. You couldn't

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Speaker 3: really do it that, you know, in the early nineties,

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Speaker 3: that wasn't really an option either. So so now, back then, yeah,

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Speaker 3: you were, you were held hostage by these book book companies.

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Speaker 3: But now, like you said, Matt, you can actually rent books.

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Speaker 3: You can buy books. I bought now when I went

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Speaker 3: back to school for my grad program, which I'll tell

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Speaker 3: that story in a second too, but you know, this

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Speaker 3: was more recent. I had the option to rent books

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Speaker 3: to buy books by use books. I bought all my

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Speaker 3: books used off Amazon for dirt cheap, and ironically, it

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Speaker 3: was cheaper for me to buy a book than rent it,

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Speaker 3: or it would either be the same price, like so

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Speaker 3: it would be like I could buy the book for

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Speaker 3: a fifty bucks or I could rent it for fifty

391
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Speaker 3: bucks for the semester. But hey, I'll just buy the

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Speaker 3: book and then hope to sell it, hope to get

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Speaker 3: half my money back. That was my strategy. So that's

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Speaker 3: kind of how I handled it. But it really just

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Speaker 3: depends on the class or the book. In some cases

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Speaker 3: it is a lot cheaper to rent it. It might

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Speaker 3: be ten bucks to rent a book versus fifty bucks.

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Speaker 3: Then yeah, then it would make more sense to do that.

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Speaker 3: But there's so much more options now for sure, in

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Speaker 3: the digital age that we and now you know a

401
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,159
Speaker 3: lot of classes the teachers will just email you a

402
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Speaker 3: PDF and you can just download the digital version and

403
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Speaker 3: not have to pay a thing.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you can ask the teacher, hey, do you teach

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Speaker 1: to the book? Do you use the book or or

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Speaker 1: is it all based on lecture? And so they might

407
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Speaker 1: have one in the syllabusity you might be able to

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Speaker 1: get by without having the book at all. Just depends

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Speaker 1: on the class, right. But you also, one of the

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Speaker 1: tactices you took with to go part time to school,

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Speaker 1: so it took you longer to get your degree, but

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Speaker 1: it allowed you then to have some of those part

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Speaker 1: time jobs. Did you like run a cost benefit analysis

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Speaker 1: on that or do you feel like you missed out

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Speaker 1: on potential years of increased income growth because it took

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Speaker 1: you longer to get your degree, Like what was your

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Speaker 1: thought process on that? And do you think going to

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Speaker 1: school part time makes sense for more people?

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Speaker 3: Well, Joel, those are excellent questions, but when I was

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Speaker 3: twenty years old, I certainly wasn't there that strategically, to

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Speaker 3: be honest with you, I actually had some health situations

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Speaker 3: in college that kind of caused me to fall behind

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Speaker 3: and caused me to go part time. So actually, you know,

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Speaker 3: I kind of follow that statistic of like I think

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Speaker 3: it's like sixty four percent of students take longer than

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Speaker 3: four years. So that's another thing that people have to

427
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Speaker 3: budget for, is that most students take over four years

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Speaker 3: on average to graduate. But for my story, I ran

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Speaker 3: into some health issues that kind of derailed me a

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Speaker 3: little bit. But also, yes, my strategy was, hey, I'm

431
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Speaker 3: only going to, you know, go to school for I

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Speaker 3: can afford. I can afford two classes this quarter, or

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Speaker 3: one class or three classes, whatever it may be. That's

434
00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:07,359
Speaker 3: where I can afford, just because I didn't want to

435
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,720
Speaker 3: go into any debt and I didn't want to fall behind.

436
00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 3: I didn't want to drop out either, Like I didn't

437
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:13,359
Speaker 3: want to be like, oh, well this quarter, I you know,

438
00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:16,240
Speaker 3: it would be great if I just worked and just

439
00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:18,159
Speaker 3: skipped a quarter. Because I saw what happened was I

440
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:21,440
Speaker 3: saw a lot of my peers doing that, and then

441
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:23,600
Speaker 3: now they would I'll never see him come back to school.

442
00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:25,840
Speaker 1: Right, It's like you stop the habit, you stop going

443
00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:27,840
Speaker 1: to class, and then you're like, ah, maybe i'll take

444
00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:30,720
Speaker 1: another quarter off too, and then after a little while,

445
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:31,760
Speaker 1: you just stop.

446
00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:33,959
Speaker 3: Going to school, right, So like for me, you know,

447
00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:36,480
Speaker 3: And another thing was I got so far behind. I

448
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:38,280
Speaker 3: actually had to go to summer school three years in

449
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:40,480
Speaker 3: a row, just it took me about five and a

450
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:43,240
Speaker 3: half years to graduate. So my last three years I

451
00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:45,000
Speaker 3: was going to school, I was going to summer school.

452
00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:47,399
Speaker 3: Actually I was going to school year round for my

453
00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:50,240
Speaker 3: last three years of school, just so I could graduate

454
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:51,920
Speaker 3: in five and a half years. But no, I didn't

455
00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:55,080
Speaker 3: really think of lost income or anything like that, because

456
00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:57,560
Speaker 3: at the time that I graduated, you know, I wanted

457
00:19:57,560 --> 00:20:00,800
Speaker 3: to get into the sports industry, and evidently it's extremely

458
00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:03,560
Speaker 3: difficult to get into the sports industry because everybody wants

459
00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:05,520
Speaker 3: to work in sports. It's highly competitive. So it actually

460
00:20:05,560 --> 00:20:08,080
Speaker 3: took me about a year to land a full time

461
00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:10,879
Speaker 3: job in the sports world. So so I kind of

462
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 3: knew that I was facing that as well.

463
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:14,520
Speaker 2: You know, that's this is actually one of the reasons

464
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:16,760
Speaker 2: I'm such a fan of different tech schools that have

465
00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:19,879
Speaker 2: like the co op programs where to I don't know

466
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:21,840
Speaker 2: it exactly, I didn't live it myself, but you know,

467
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:23,600
Speaker 2: you go to school for a semester, you work for

468
00:20:23,760 --> 00:20:26,800
Speaker 2: a semester, but you're actually earning an income, and I

469
00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:29,080
Speaker 2: think that the ability for you to use some of

470
00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:32,520
Speaker 2: that income to pay for your schooling is pretty huge.

471
00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 2: But we're gonna continue our conversation with you, Jason. We're

472
00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:37,479
Speaker 2: gonna continue to talk about how it is you can

473
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:39,840
Speaker 2: get these debt free degrees, not just how, but also

474
00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:42,040
Speaker 2: why that is so important to do.

475
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:53,800
Speaker 1: We'll get all that right after this. All right, we're back.

476
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,160
Speaker 1: We're still talking about debt free degrees with the guy

477
00:20:57,160 --> 00:21:00,320
Speaker 1: who is the expert of this, Jason Brown, and he's

478
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:04,119
Speaker 1: live in studio with us here in the How To

479
00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 1: Money Clubhouse. So Jason studio audience, Oh if only, if

480
00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:09,760
Speaker 1: only we have just Matt, can you play the clap

481
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:13,240
Speaker 1: sounder right now? So? Yeah, I think this is so

482
00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:17,159
Speaker 1: important now as like student loans are our repayments are beginning,

483
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:19,400
Speaker 1: and a whole lot of people are like they feel

484
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 1: stuck because the student loans. Why is it such a

485
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:24,080
Speaker 1: passion of yours to convince folks to get a degree

486
00:21:24,119 --> 00:21:27,800
Speaker 1: with without taking on any debt at all, like taking

487
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:28,440
Speaker 1: it off the table.

488
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:33,040
Speaker 3: It's it's so disheartening to see what's happening to you know,

489
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 3: forty five plus million Americans that are are really struggling

490
00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:41,160
Speaker 3: with these student loans because they were sick whatever seventeen eighteen,

491
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,119
Speaker 3: nineteen years old, and they didn't understand, you know, what

492
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:46,920
Speaker 3: they were signing. They didn't understand how interest rates work.

493
00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:50,960
Speaker 3: They didn't understand, like, you know, each year the cost

494
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:54,639
Speaker 3: of college goes up. So they're looking at expenses for

495
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 3: year one and they're just say, oh, ten thousand dollars

496
00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:00,000
Speaker 3: a year, okay, so that time's four is forty thousand dollar.

497
00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:03,439
Speaker 3: That's all I'm gonna Oh when they realize, when they

498
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 3: don't think, oh, it might take me five or six

499
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:08,119
Speaker 3: years to graduate, and oh every year the cost of

500
00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 3: college probably goes up by at least ten percent. So

501
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:14,639
Speaker 3: those are things that people don't really you know, aren't

502
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 3: really aware of.

503
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:17,159
Speaker 1: I guess. So forty turns into fifty five, and.

504
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,960
Speaker 3: It quickly, yeah, it quickly you know, gets out of

505
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,880
Speaker 3: hand and like me, like, hey, I graduated my undergrad

506
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:25,440
Speaker 3: and it took me almost I was living at home

507
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:27,400
Speaker 3: and looking for a job for almost a year, working

508
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 3: part time jobs, you know, folding clothes at retail at

509
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:30,440
Speaker 3: the mall.

510
00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:32,680
Speaker 2: And were you one of the gap guys that would

511
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 2: stand there, you know and like greet people as they're

512
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:35,119
Speaker 2: walking in.

513
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 1: Oh, he's abercarme and Fitch.

514
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:40,200
Speaker 3: Come on, I actually work, that's close. I actually worked

515
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,760
Speaker 3: at a store called Galleons, which was bought out by Dicks.

516
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 3: So if you know Dick's Sporting Goods, I basically worked

517
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 3: at a Dicks and I worked in men's apparel. So

518
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 3: I was sitting there forty shirts I was folding. I

519
00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 3: wasn't greeting people, probably because I'm too tall and I

520
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 3: would scare people off. But I was kind of in

521
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 3: the back folding all the shirts. So like guys like you,

522
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 3: like yourself. You guys would come in up all the shirt,

523
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:02,880
Speaker 3: all these shirts, right, let me mess up the rack

524
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 3: and then I have to come behind you and put

525
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 3: everything back on the hangars.

526
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:08,000
Speaker 1: We actually did that as a way to help people

527
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: get employed, like yourself. Like it was like, hey, if

528
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:11,920
Speaker 1: we mess up more shirts, there's more jobs for people

529
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:12,880
Speaker 1: to fold shirts, right, it's.

530
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 2: The broken windows theory. If we smash all these window

531
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 2: somebody's got a.

532
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,880
Speaker 3: Like your favorite place, you're basically creating jobs for us. Yes,

533
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:21,400
Speaker 3: it's very kind of you guys.

534
00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:23,959
Speaker 2: Really stimulating the economy as much as we can. Well, so,

535
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 2: I mean, what of the ways you can get a

536
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 2: degree without spending? Uh Like, let's just talk about I'm

537
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:32,880
Speaker 2: thinking about specifically. We had an ask how to money

538
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 2: question and a listener she's up in South Carolina and

539
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 2: her employer one of the benefits they offered was to

540
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:42,040
Speaker 2: cover her grad school. She was going back to get

541
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 2: an MBA. How popular are these different programs becoming the

542
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 2: ability to You're basically increasing how much it is that

543
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 2: you can earn at your employer's expense, basically.

544
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 3: Right, I'm so glad you brought that up, Matt, because

545
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,000
Speaker 3: that's actually wanted to touch on that a little bit

546
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,439
Speaker 3: because I went back to grad school a kind of

547
00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 3: uh A. Graduated in twenty eighteen, so not too too

548
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 3: long ago. But this is what I did. So I

549
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 3: actually was an employee. I went back to my alma

550
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 3: mater and was an employee at Kannessau State. So as

551
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 3: an employee, they have a it's called a TAP program

552
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 3: with STANS with tuition assistance program, and so as an employee,

553
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 3: they covered all my tuition. Now I still had to

554
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 3: pay for books out of pocket. So I started grad

555
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 3: school KSU paid for my tuition. I had to pay

556
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 3: for my books. So then I actually changed jobs. I

557
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 3: went back to the private sector. And then when I

558
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 3: changed jobs, I was preparing me and my wife were

559
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,439
Speaker 3: preparing to pay out of pocket for the rest of

560
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 3: my schooling and I was looking at about twenty seven

561
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 3: hundred bucks a semester. Luckily, I was toward the end

562
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 3: of my I only had like two semesters left, so

563
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, you know, we can do this.

564
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,360
Speaker 3: But when I was hired by my new job, I

565
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 3: was going through all the benefits package and I noticed

566
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:53,440
Speaker 3: tuition reimbursement program. Wait a minute, what is this sign

567
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 3: Let me sign up. That's the first thing I did

568
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:57,159
Speaker 3: on the first day. I was saying, Hey, give me

569
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 3: the application for this tuition reaber.

570
00:24:58,760 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 1: How does this work?

571
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:01,479
Speaker 3: Let me sign up for But here's the thing. This

572
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 3: is such an amazing trend that we're seeing now with

573
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,479
Speaker 3: all these companies are offering tuition reimbursement or or like

574
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 3: some sort of assistance, even if it's not one hundred percent,

575
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 3: it might be fifty percent or whatever it may be.

576
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 3: And especially like for me, you know, I'm a writer,

577
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 3: so I went back to school and got a professional

578
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 3: writing degree. So if it's related to your position, your

579
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 3: company is more than likely going to want to help

580
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 3: you with that because it's going to make you a

581
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 3: better employee for them, and it's going to make you,

582
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 3: you know, a more well rounded and it's going to

583
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 3: increase your skill set. So you know, we see you know,

584
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 3: all the big name companies in the news, you know,

585
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 3: Target Publics, Costco, Starbucks, Starbucks, all the big name companies,

586
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 3: the big brands they get they're the ones that get

587
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 3: all the headlines for doing this, and there's a lot

588
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 3: of them now. But this is an exciting trend to

589
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 3: see a lot of people are kind of jumping on

590
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 3: this bandwagon to offer tuition you know, reimbursement or tuition

591
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 3: assistant as an employee. And that's so that's so great

592
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 3: to see. So I'm going to tell your audience, Hey,

593
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 3: if you guys are like looking to change jobs or

594
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 3: maybe you know or you're in the job market or whatever,

595
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 3: and you never finish your degree, or you want to

596
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 3: pick up an extra degree, maybe go back to school,

597
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 3: get a master's or something. Make sure that that company

598
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 3: that you're looking at hiring or looking at interviewing with,

599
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 3: make sure that they offer a tuition reimbursion worker. That's

600
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 3: a huge benefit.

601
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we always talk about total compensation. It's not

602
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: just the headline salary number. There's all those other benefits

603
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,239
Speaker 1: that you want to take into consideration, because you might

604
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 1: be willing to get paid eight thousand dollars less because

605
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: oh wait, there's a better match and oh wait, they'll

606
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: pay for me to go back to school, and oh wait,

607
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: they'll do more flexibility, like all of his other things

608
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: add up, right, And so we should make a decision

609
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: about where we work based on the abundance of benefits,

610
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 1: not just the salary. Talk to me about like where

611
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: we choose to go to school, because that makes a

612
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,199
Speaker 1: difference in the price too. And I think one of

613
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: the things that we've done to a lot of young kids,

614
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, go go to the school that makes

615
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 1: your heart flutter or something like that, Right, it's like

616
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: go to your dream school. Well, how would you talk

617
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:58,199
Speaker 1: to a teenager who's thinking about where they go to

618
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: where they go to school. They kind of dream school

619
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: versus a practical, cheaper alternative. It's a financial and an

620
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: emotional conundrum. How do you help people think through that?

621
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:08,640
Speaker 3: Yeah that when you ask me that question, I think

622
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 3: about my own kids. I have three boys, So when

623
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 3: they get of age, you know, what would I tell them?

624
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 3: That's exact question you said, what would I say? So

625
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 3: our world is changing and there's so many alternatives to

626
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 3: traditional college now. But the first thing, the number one

627
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 3: thing that I tell people is if you make one decision,

628
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 3: just one, just make one decision, and if you want

629
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 3: to go to college, go to an in state public school.

630
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 3: If you go to an in state public school, you

631
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 3: will save tens of thousands of dollars just by making

632
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 3: that one decision. But regarding alternative now, see, we live

633
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 3: in this digital technology age where there's so many alternatives

634
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 3: to school. There's online college, which is so much less expensive.

635
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 3: There's you can go to technical or it's called you know,

636
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 3: technical or trade school, sometimes still called vocational school. There's

637
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,440
Speaker 3: that route that you can go which is much less

638
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 3: expensive and much and a lot of times a fraction

639
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 3: of the time too, So you got to look at

640
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 3: the financial commitment and the time commitment. So and there's

641
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 3: so many other opportunities, Like there's apprenticeship pro you talked

642
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 3: about co ops, Matt, and that's kind of similar to

643
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 3: like an apprenticeship program. There's apprenticeship programs. I have friends

644
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 3: that have taken gone to like culinary apprenticeship schools where

645
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 3: it's like a nine month program and they pay ten

646
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, and but they're getting placed in like you know,

647
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 3: high end restaurants, they're getting placed in catering companies. They're

648
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 3: getting placed you know, they're learning how to launch a

649
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 3: lot of these guys go on and launch a food

650
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 3: truck business, or they launch a catering business, or they

651
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 3: become you know, renowned chefs. So and they're going to

652
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 3: school for nine months and paying ten thousand dollars to

653
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 3: do that versus you know, a traditional college route, which

654
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 3: is so much more expensive.

655
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: So there's so.

656
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 3: Many more options out there now. I mean, I hear

657
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 3: stories about people just going on YouTube and watching videos

658
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 3: for free. There's a lot of free online courses too,

659
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 3: if you're just interested, and this is a great way

660
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 3: to like kind of process of elimination, Like, hey, I'm

661
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 3: kind of interested in social media, but you know, I

662
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 3: don't know if I want to really pay to go

663
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 3: get a digital marketing degree. Well, hey, there's probably a

664
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 3: free digital marketing course, like an intro course or a

665
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,479
Speaker 3: fundamental course that you can find online. Take it and

666
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 3: see if that's you know, your cup of tea, see

667
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 3: something that you want to pursue.

668
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: What your whistle just a bit kind of like dip

669
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: your toe in and then decide, oh, don't want to

670
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: keep going on in.

671
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 2: This direction exactly exactly well, I mean, and that's one

672
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 2: of the things when it comes to staying in state

673
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 2: and paying the in state tuition rate finding maybe a

674
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 2: local community college, is that you are able to do

675
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 2: some of this discovery process at a much reduced price.

676
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 2: And the problem is is when a lot of times

677
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: kids are going, like they do, have their heart set

678
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 2: on a private, out of state school, and during the

679
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 2: first two years, that's when they're kind of figuring out

680
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 2: what it is that they love. Boh, not to mention

681
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 2: that they're paying, you know, fifty thousand dollars a semester

682
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 2: while they're all so racking up other expenses because cost

683
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,479
Speaker 2: of living might be higher in some of those in

684
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 2: some of those cities. But so you actually, a couple

685
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 2: of minutes ago you mentioned your wife, Okay, and you

686
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 2: so you got your degrees debt free, and you're talking

687
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 2: about when you went back to grad school that this

688
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 2: is something that you and your wife are you know,

689
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 2: it's a decision that y'all were making together. She wasn't

690
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 2: so fortunate when it came to the degree and the

691
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 2: price that she paid for. How did you approach your finances, Like,

692
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 2: did y'all combine your money? Did you see, because we

693
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 2: talked about this recently with the rad coaches about combining

694
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 2: your finances? How did you view the sixty thousand dollars

695
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 2: that was essentially now yours after you were being so

696
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 2: diligent and careful with your finances.

697
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 3: Yes, that's such a good, good question man. So yeah,

698
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 3: I have a unique kind of perspective in that I

699
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 3: was fortunate to earn two debt free degrees, and then

700
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 3: when I got married, my wife had had an undergraduate

701
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 3: bachelor's degree. We actually went to the same school at

702
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 3: different times, but she cared about sixty thousand dollars a

703
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 3: student loan debt, So Basically what we did was that

704
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 3: we got real aggressive and paying that off. And I

705
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 3: basically told her my story of like, hey, I had

706
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 3: a debt free journey before, like when I was single,

707
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 3: I paid off thirteen thousand, five hundred dollars in credit

708
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 3: card debt, making only twenty three thousand dollars a year

709
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 3: and did that in thirteen months. So I told her

710
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 3: that whole story about how I got on a budget stuff.

711
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: But she's like, oh, yeah, she does. She really she

712
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: took to it.

713
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 3: Man, she was really like okay, you know, and she

714
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 3: started writing things down and taking notes and stuff. But

715
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 3: I will say, here's the thing. When we first got

716
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 3: married and this you guys are both married. This is

717
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 3: gonna be a fun question. What are the top two

718
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 3: questions that people at right when you get married? The

719
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 3: top two things that everybody starts asking you this kids?

720
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why. Big one.

721
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 3: When are you going to have kids?

722
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you know what? The other one? Well, what

723
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:53,719
Speaker 1: is the other one that you would ask someone who

724
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 1: just got married?

725
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 3: Just got married? What are two major life you know?

726
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: Just where are you going to live? Right?

727
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 3: More specifically, when are you going to buy a big house?

728
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 3: When are you going to buy a house. Oh, when

729
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 3: are you guys going to buy a house, because we

730
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 3: were living in a condo. When are you guys going

731
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 3: to buy a house. When are you guys going to

732
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 3: have kid? Like we just got married, like five minutes, saigo, man,

733
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 3: give us a chance to go on our honeymoon. So

734
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 3: those are the big questions, and we answered every single

735
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 3: one of those people with not until we get out

736
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 3: of debt, not until we pay off this student loan debt.

737
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 3: We're paying off this debt first. So that was our

738
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 3: goal and we were. My wife was twenty eight at

739
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 3: the time, and she made a very aggressive proclamation. She says,

740
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 3: I'm paying off this debt by the time I turned

741
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 3: thirty the thirtieth birthday, so she gave herself two years.

742
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 3: She said, but what a time I turned thirty, I'm

743
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 3: having this debt paid for. I was like, I don't

744
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 3: know if we're going to do it. You know, we

745
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 3: weren't making that much money at the time. We were

746
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 3: each making thirty k a year. We had a combine

747
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 3: you know, oh, your finance question, We did combine finances

748
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 3: for that question. So we were making a combined sixty

749
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 3: thousand a year so that's basically and we did it.

750
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 3: We paid it off in two years.

751
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: So how did you do that? Because that sounds crazy. Hey,

752
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: we're making sixty k of mind we paid off sixty

753
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: k worth it day in two years. What tactics did

754
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 1: you use?

755
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 3: We we well, first of all, we were in the

756
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 3: position to delay. You know, we didn't have any kids,

757
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 3: so we put off having kids, we put off having

758
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 3: buying a house, we put off you know, big vacations.

759
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 3: We didn't really eat out that much, you know, all

760
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 3: the all the normal stuff.

761
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: Right, Just did you grow up in the Midwest?

762
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 2: Like I feel like so much of what you're saying,

763
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 2: Like like we were saying earlier, it goes contrary to

764
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 2: the I hate to say this, but sort of like

765
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 2: the entitlement attitude of like, well we're gonna do that,

766
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 2: we're gonna get the thing now, we're gonna buy it now,

767
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 2: we're gonna pay for it later.

768
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 1: But that's not at all the approach all took. It's

769
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: the B and pl mindset, the buy now, pay later

770
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: mindset that's so prevalent these days.

771
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 3: Right, So we just you know, we got on a budget,

772
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 3: but we did you know, we did a lot of

773
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 3: crazy things. Like my wife actually was working as a

774
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 3: nanny at the time, So when you work as a nanny,

775
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 3: you get a lot of opportunities to babysit or like

776
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 3: to do overnight you know, stuff like babysitting stuff. So

777
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 3: she picked up any extra workshit that she could in

778
00:33:57,720 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 3: that realm, and then you know we did We did

779
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 3: all kind of stuff. We did garage sales. I was

780
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 3: selling stuff online eBay and Craigslist and all that stuff.

781
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 3: I was doing manual labor side jobs. People are hiring

782
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 3: me to help them move and stuff. And you know,

783
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 3: I was doing like car detailing people's cars, all kind

784
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 3: of random stuff to make money. Of course, we any

785
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 3: tax return money we got, we would save that and

786
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:21,400
Speaker 3: throw it towards the debt. Another thing we did that

787
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 3: that was really lucrative was all these like a you

788
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 3: guess with like these marketing studies or focus groups, like

789
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 3: some of these pay big money. And uh, my wife

790
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 3: and I combined, I think we made like eight thousand

791
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 3: dollars over the course of a couple of years. Like

792
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 3: just doing like taste tests or mock juries are big.

793
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 1: I'll do it. I'll do the taste test one. Yeah,

794
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: Jason the Human Science Experiment.

795
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:45,399
Speaker 3: But I want to tell you guys, the craziest thing

796
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 3: that we did this was when you reflect that it's

797
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 3: this is really embarrassing, Okay. That that we did to

798
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 3: try to make extra money was we started my wife

799
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:56,800
Speaker 3: has a diet coke addiction. Okay, So I started noticing

800
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 3: like all these diet coke cans, you know, piling up

801
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 3: in the track. It's like, now, wait a minute, we

802
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 3: could probably recycle these and you know, make some money.

803
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:05,800
Speaker 3: There's a you know, one of those metal recycling shops,

804
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 3: you know, not far from our house. So I said,

805
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 3: let's just start saving up the cans and you know,

806
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 3: we'll run them down there. And and so we got

807
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:13,879
Speaker 3: we we kind of went overboard with it. We were

808
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 3: like taking you know, we live in a complex, so

809
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 3: they have their little recycling center.

810
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: So we would go.

811
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 3: And go take people's cans that they left in the

812
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 3: recycling We would take their bags of cans. We went

813
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 3: on a beach trip in Florida and at the end

814
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 3: of the day we would just walk the beach with

815
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 3: trash bags, just picking up. They probably thought that we

816
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 3: were city workers just picking up trash. We're just picking

817
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,240
Speaker 3: up cans, beer cans, go get they forgot their vests.

818
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 3: But yeah, what are these guys. Oh that's how they

819
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 3: must be. Uh, you know they must have community service hours.

820
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 3: Us these guys are prisoners.

821
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: It could, it could very well.

822
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 3: But so we're picking up cans, you know, we're taking cans.

823
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 3: So here's the thing. I'm embarrassed. I don't even want

824
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 3: to know how many hours that we we did this,

825
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 3: and we made a grand total of one hundred and

826
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 3: twenty dollars recycling cans.

827
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: So maybe in retrospect, you didn't all your time enough

828
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 1: to do in that pursuit. But overall, like you're doing

829
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:05,839
Speaker 1: everything that you possibly can and you're on the same page.

830
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: It sounds like too, Like I guess I'm curious now, Yeah,

831
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: that you're quite a few years removed from paying off

832
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: your wife's degree in kind of like record time. How

833
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: do you look back on those years where you were

834
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: like the belt was tight and there wasn't a lot

835
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 1: of money to do extra things. How do you think

836
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: about that time?

837
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 3: To me, like, when you look at our story, I

838
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 3: just feel like, hey, we made a lot of sacrifices,

839
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:32,919
Speaker 3: but it was only temporary. It was a two year.

840
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 3: It was two years. It was a short just look

841
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 3: at just like when I was in grad school. When

842
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 3: I started grad school, I felt like I was in prison.

843
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, what have I done

844
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 3: to myself? I'm never going to get through this. But

845
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:43,319
Speaker 3: it was really like I just took it one day

846
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 3: at a time and I just said to myself, you know,

847
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 3: this is all temporary. You're going to get through it.

848
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 3: It's a short amount of time in the grand scheme

849
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 3: of life. Same thing with the debt journey. Hey, you

850
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,640
Speaker 3: can do this. You can make sacrifices. You know, I

851
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,800
Speaker 3: went an entire year without eating out at a restaurant.

852
00:36:57,880 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 3: Now it happened to be the COVID year, and we

853
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 3: also had a big so that helped too.

854
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: But you weren't going to anyway.

855
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I mean you can do it. Like

856
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 3: it's when you say that, like I'm going to go

857
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 3: an entire year without going out to a restaurant, fast

858
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:11,879
Speaker 3: food or restaurant, You're like, that's impossible.

859
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: Most people would say going an entire week seriously.

860
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 3: So so it's just I want to give hope and

861
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,799
Speaker 3: encouragement to people, to your audience, that's in this situation, like, look,

862
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 3: it can be done. It takes your baby steps change it.

863
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 3: It's it's all about changing your mindset. It's all about

864
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 3: you know, behavior modification, and you can do it and

865
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 3: just just think it's it's only temporary. You're going to

866
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 3: get through it. And that that's I love telling people.

867
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:38,280
Speaker 3: That love encouraging people.

868
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I love that encouragement, and that encouragement I

869
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 1: think goes a long way, because Yeah, when you feel

870
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: like it can't be done, when you're hearing the guy

871
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 1: who did it and he's telling you you can do

872
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: it too. That I mean, there's a reason people want

873
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,280
Speaker 1: to pay money to listen to the best motivational speakers,

874
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: and I think that's a really motivational but it's also

875
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:59,879
Speaker 1: a practical and reality based message that you're that you're giving.

876
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: All Right, We've got a couple more questions we want

877
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 1: to get to with you, Jason, and we want to

878
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 1: ask you about writing books too, so we'll get to

879
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: that right after this. All right, we are back from

880
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 1: the break talking with Jason Brown about how to get

881
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: that higher education without going into debt. And Jason, I

882
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: love that you're sharing some of the different ways that

883
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: you were. I mean, y'all are just hustling when it

884
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: came to finding ways specifically to pay off your wife's debt.

885
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 1: Let's talk about duel enrollment because it makes me think

886
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: about I've got a buddy and he he's got four kids,

887
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: but two of his kids are in high school. He's

888
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: got a senior, he's got a junior. His senior literally

889
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: is taking all of her classes at the local university.

890
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 1: His junior she's literally only taking one class. She didn't

891
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 1: even get a parking.

892
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 2: Pass this year at the local high school because she's like,

893
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 2: what's the point I don't need to go through all of.

894
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 3: That, don't need to pay for that.

895
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 2: No, And so talk to us a little bit about

896
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,279
Speaker 2: dual enrollment. I didn't realize that that was something that

897
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 2: you can do at at a younger age like that.

898
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 2: It wasn't even on my radar at all when I

899
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 2: was in high school.

900
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a this is a funny story how

901
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 3: I found out about this. So I'm sitting in grad

902
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,800
Speaker 3: school at Kansas State University, and I'm in a creative

903
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 3: writing class and I'm forty years old, Okay, and this

904
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 3: kid comes into class and he sits next to me,

905
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:22,879
Speaker 3: and you know, he's in the class and I look over.

906
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 3: I'm like, he's seven. I'm like, who are you? He

907
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,360
Speaker 3: showed me he's seventeen. You know. To me, he's a kid. Okay,

908
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 3: he's seventeen. I start talking to him like, hey, you know,

909
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 3: I introduced myself and I've come to find out he's

910
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 3: seventeen and he's in high school. And I'm like, I

911
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 3: turned to him, I'm like, how are you here? And

912
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 3: he says, oh. He starts talking to me about this

913
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 3: dual enrollment process.

914
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: His name Doogie Howser.

915
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 3: I honestly can't say it might have been. So he

916
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 3: starts telling me about this duel enrollment program and how

917
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 3: it works and stuff. And I'm sitting there at the time,

918
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 3: I got a two year old son, and I'm sitting

919
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 3: there furiously writing notes, writing everything that he's saying because

920
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out how to enroll my two

921
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 3: year old into this. So basically his story was he

922
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 3: was going to a local high school. He had graduated

923
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 3: a semester early, so he I guess works his schedule

924
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:11,439
Speaker 3: out as class schedule to where he finished high school

925
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 3: a semester early. So I guess his last semester in

926
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 3: high school, he's going to take college classes like at

927
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 3: my school at KSU. So basically what he was going

928
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:21,759
Speaker 3: to do was in the fall, he was going to

929
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 3: go to the University of Alabama, and I think he

930
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 3: said he was going to study like civil engineering or

931
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:27,919
Speaker 3: something like that, and he was going to start out

932
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 3: as a sophomore. So not only has he cut out

933
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 3: the time, he's cut out a year, but he's also

934
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 3: cut out the time and the finances. So and this

935
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 3: is all paid for by the state. And I started asking, like,

936
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 3: how does this work? How do you qualify for it?

937
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 3: Do you have to have like a four point zero

938
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 3: and be like, you know, star student, perfect attendance to

939
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 3: be a Valatorian?

940
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: That's what I thought.

941
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 3: He says, no, no, you just He's like, you just

942
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 3: apply for it. And he says, a state pace for everything.

943
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:54,280
Speaker 3: They pay for tuition, they pay for your books, everything.

944
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 3: And then when he goes and starts college, he was

945
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 3: going to start as a as a sophomore. He was

946
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 3: going to eliminate that first year of school. And I

947
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 3: was like, this is unbelievably impressive. I was like, this

948
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 3: is this and I will say to the audience wherever

949
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:09,439
Speaker 3: state you're in, because these these programs differ by stage. Sure,

950
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 3: and even our governor, Governor Kemp, I think he's made

951
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 3: some changes to it recently. So just google like whatever

952
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 3: you state. We're in Georgia. So if you google like

953
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 3: Georgia dual Enrollment program, you'll get all the information UH

954
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 3: in the state that you're in. But this is a

955
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 3: tremendous UH program to strongly consider for yourself or your kids.

956
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 3: That will save you not only time but money. And

957
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:34,879
Speaker 3: it's going to get you. Like you were talking about

958
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 3: Joel earlier about you know, did I feel like I

959
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 3: was missing out on you know, years of salary. Hey,

960
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 3: this guy, uh, he's gonna get He's ahead of his

961
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 3: peers now he's going to be graduating a year early.

962
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 3: That's one year extra of potential full time salary that

963
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,320
Speaker 3: he's going to be making while his same age peers

964
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 3: are still toiling away in college.

965
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: Right, makes you thinking about AP classes too. That's another

966
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 1: way that people can kids. You score high enough on

967
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,359
Speaker 1: the AP exam, which I believe cost you ninety five

968
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 1: dollars to take an AP exam, and you basically skip

969
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: out on potentially a twenty five hundred dollars class. That's right,

970
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:07,320
Speaker 1: that's it.

971
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 3: That's a very good comparison the AP classes as well.

972
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 3: I researched this for my book too. Actually, I wrote

973
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 3: somebody mentioned I had my book done, and somebody mentioned

974
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 3: the AP. I said, oh wait a minute, I gotta go, right,

975
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 3: I had a section to my book and I got

976
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 3: to include this in my book. So the AP thing. Yeah,

977
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,280
Speaker 3: you're right, you can take AP classes. You can test

978
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 3: out of college courses, so then you don't have to pay,

979
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 3: you don't have to you're skipping the finances and the time,

980
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,719
Speaker 3: so it expedites your college career. Right, very nice. Okay,

981
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 3: so you mentioned your book and sounds like you pretty

982
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 3: much had it ready to go before you made those edits.

983
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: Talk to us about that.

984
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 2: Like, so you've self published, what are the pros? What

985
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 2: are the cons from a financial standpoint? Has it netted

986
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 2: you know what you thought it would. I'm curious to

987
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:50,799
Speaker 2: kind of get some of your thoughts there.

988
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 3: So all I've I've self published three books to Amazon exclusively,

989
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 3: so I've written two money related books. Like you guys

990
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:01,359
Speaker 3: mentioned the margin matters, and then its possible, and then

991
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 3: I actually wrote a non money related book. It's a memoir. Actually,

992
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 3: it's a co I co authored it with a Hall

993
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 3: of Fame ncaa softball coach who coached at Kittasauw State.

994
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 3: He asked me to help him write it. So that's

995
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:17,319
Speaker 3: a sports related memoir. But all through those books, I

996
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 3: wrote all through those books, and in about two or

997
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 3: three years time, I was working them all simultaneously. But yeah,

998
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,800
Speaker 3: they're all self published. The difference is if you self published,

999
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 3: you're going to get a much higher percent royalties versus

1000
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 3: if you go with a publishing company. But there's pros

1001
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,080
Speaker 3: and cons of both, right, so if you sign with

1002
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 3: a publishing company, you're going to get a much smaller

1003
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 3: percent of royalties. There's different ways of doing it. Like

1004
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 3: a lot of our friends of FINCN that I've met

1005
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 3: at the author table, they'll say, hey, this publisher just

1006
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 3: cut us a check. They just gave us whatever. They

1007
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 3: gave us ten thousand dollars to write this book and

1008
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 3: that was it. That was their payment. That there was

1009
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 3: no royalties on the back end or anything. There's different

1010
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 3: ways to do it to set it up. But the

1011
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 3: thing is, so if you go with the publisher. They're

1012
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 3: doing all the work too. They're marketing it, the promoe,

1013
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 3: voting it, doing the public relations, social media, all that stuff.

1014
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 3: They're doing the work, except for.

1015
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: In the modern era podcast you if you want your

1016
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: book to sell, you still got to get out there

1017
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: and be marketing it too. That's right.

1018
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 3: You have to do a lot of work too. You

1019
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 3: have to come on big shows like How to Money,

1020
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 3: quote yourself. You have to be a self promoter.

1021
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: We got our fingers crossed that you get you'll get

1022
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,919
Speaker 1: that bump, yeah, exactly. But the publishers aren't just putting

1023
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:22,799
Speaker 1: you on the Time Square billboard because you're great.

1024
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 3: I mean no, no, And so when you self published,

1025
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 3: like you're right, Joe, you're doing all of the work yourself.

1026
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 3: You're doing the marketing, the promotion. It's just really it

1027
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,799
Speaker 3: just depends on you know, everybody's situation is different. For me,

1028
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't really you know, I was you know,

1029
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 3: these all started out actually as grad school projects. Really

1030
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:42,279
Speaker 3: so I'm getting course credit for this, and I was like, hey,

1031
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 3: you know, I'd really like to publish this.

1032
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 1: So I really didn't have any.

1033
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 3: Connections to you know, big there's not a whole lot

1034
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 3: of big publishing companies anymore.

1035
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: And not anymore consolidated.

1036
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, they've consolidated, and a lot of people just do

1037
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 3: ebooks because it's cheaper and easier to do. I mean,

1038
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 3: a lot of people publish ebooks to Amazon, and you know,

1039
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 3: you'll see thirty page books that are published on Amazon

1040
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 3: and like this this is a book. They'll sell them

1041
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:06,839
Speaker 3: for ninety nine cents or whatever. But but you know,

1042
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 3: there's different ways of doing it that you can do

1043
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 3: audio books, you can do uh, you know, paperbacks, card backs,

1044
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:15,800
Speaker 3: you can do digital e books, you know, Kindle versions.

1045
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 3: So that's what's cool about the digital age that we

1046
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 3: live in now, too, is you can actually edit, Like

1047
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 3: like if I wanted to go and add a new

1048
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 3: chapter to my book, I can add that chapter and

1049
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 3: re upload it to Amazon, and now I have a

1050
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 3: new version of my book. That's cool as opposed to

1051
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 3: the old the olden days, where you know, you published

1052
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 3: a book and that's it. Like a newspaper. The newspaper

1053
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 3: is published. If there's a mistake in it, oh well

1054
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 3: it's out there. It's out there, and there's nothing that

1055
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 3: we can done. So those are some of the you know,

1056
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,680
Speaker 3: I guess comparisons between the two. I have a lot

1057
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 3: of friends that have done both. You know, if you

1058
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 3: if you're with a publisher, you might only be making

1059
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 3: three percent royalty, so that means you're gonna have to

1060
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 3: sell like millions of copies of books to you know,

1061
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 3: even make There's another stat only six percent of published

1062
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 3: authors earn a living. You know, like you're JK. Rowling

1063
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 3: and you're you're James Patterson, you know, Tom Clancy. There's

1064
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,439
Speaker 3: very few Stephen King, There's very very few of those

1065
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 3: that are Actually I'm a full time author and that's

1066
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 3: my salary. That's very difficult to to do it.

1067
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:19,760
Speaker 1: Plus I hear all those guys are weird as anyway

1068
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:21,360
Speaker 1: in real life.

1069
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 3: That may be true. That's how they get their stories.

1070
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 2: Uh well, Jason, Man, this has been an enlightening conversation. Obviously,

1071
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 2: folks can go to Amazon. They can you know, we

1072
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 2: can link to your name where they can find your

1073
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 2: author's bio and where they can look at check out

1074
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:38,440
Speaker 2: all the different books that you have written. But is

1075
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:40,919
Speaker 2: there a specific place that folks can go like, yeah,

1076
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 2: let's share your website.

1077
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, the best place to go is my website

1078
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:49,439
Speaker 3: is your Marginmatters dot com and on my homepage there's

1079
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 3: a link to my books. There's actually have a YouTube channel,

1080
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 3: so if you're frugal like me and you don't want

1081
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:55,879
Speaker 3: to pay for one of my books, you can watch

1082
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 3: all my my YouTube videos for free, because that's all

1083
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 3: the cond it straight out of my books. So I

1084
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 3: have a YouTube channel there, I have a link to

1085
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,359
Speaker 3: my books. I've written some blogs on there as well,

1086
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 3: and there's some other resources on there on my website

1087
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 3: that I like to share with people too.

1088
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 1: Well. You also write at how toomoney dot com on

1089
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:14,799
Speaker 1: the rig so people if they're like, oh, I like

1090
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: that Jason guy, well you can go to how to

1091
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: money dot com and you can read more Jason stuff too.

1092
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: So Jason, we're glad to have you as a friend,

1093
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: glad to have you write and doing this work alongside

1094
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: us as well. And thanks so much for joining us today.

1095
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:27,799
Speaker 3: Man, thanks for having me and I just on a

1096
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 3: personal note, I really appreciate everything that you guys do

1097
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 3: for the money nerd community out there. I know you're

1098
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,279
Speaker 3: helping a lot of people and I just want to

1099
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 3: say I really appreciate everything you guys do and keep

1100
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 3: up the good work, don't stop.

1101
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: We will do our best. Thanks Jason. Joel.

1102
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 2: All right, so yeah, Jay, we just said by to Jason,

1103
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 2: and of course you've got to take a minute to

1104
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 2: give our big takeaways. By the way, are you and

1105
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 2: are you and Jason going to go close shopping here soon?

1106
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: Well, we were just talking about having guys. There's all

1107
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 1: the big intall stores, but what about just like tall,

1108
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 1: skinny weirdos, tall guys. They don't have stores for us

1109
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 1: for something. But yeah, what is your big takeaway from

1110
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: our conversation with Jason Brown? For some reason, when early

1111
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: on when he was talking about the value proposition of

1112
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 1: a degree and kind of doing some sleuthing before you

1113
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 1: actually like, uh, you decide where you're gonna go and

1114
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: what kind of degree you're gonna get, And he said,

1115
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 1: maybe even hire a career coach. Dude, you stole. I'm like,

1116
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:25,439
Speaker 1: I love I'll pivot. No, that was so good because

1117
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: an expert can, like that little bit of money spent

1118
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: on the front end can help you avoid a massive money.

1119
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 2: Mistake and years it's sort of like just changing like

1120
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 2: imagine like the smallest little pivot like at the axis

1121
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 2: of something over time that has a huge change, like

1122
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 2: as you as you move something right.

1123
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:46,720
Speaker 1: Like a giant ship, changing the coursia of the rudder,

1124
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: just to exactly imagine a rudder.

1125
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 2: It seems like such a small little tweak, a small pivot,

1126
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 2: a small change, and then all of a sudden, the

1127
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 2: ship is going in an entirely different direction.

1128
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:56,319
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1129
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that was gonna I was gonna mention that,

1130
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:00,919
Speaker 2: and just honestly, as parent, I think we can start

1131
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 2: having some of these discussions with our kids earlier, which

1132
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:06,160
Speaker 2: seems kind of ridiculous. I literally remember my dad talking

1133
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 2: about that maybe when I was thirteen or something like that.

1134
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: But I think you're supposed to do it in utero. Matt,

1135
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: you're too late.

1136
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 2: But you were saying that, like, hey, it's not too

1137
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 2: soon to start thinking about what you want to do.

1138
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 2: And I guess I just didn't take it seriously. And

1139
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 2: there's a certain level of maturity I think that also

1140
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 2: is required for you to maybe take that seriously and

1141
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 2: to start thinking about what you actually want to do.

1142
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 2: But by the time I went to college, luckily I

1143
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 2: had scholarship and I went in state, but I spent

1144
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 2: a couple of years foundering, trying to figure out what

1145
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 2: it was that I wanted to do, and had I

1146
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 2: been able to zero in and focus on my area

1147
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 2: of study, it's okay to even say pay a little

1148
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 2: bit more for college. Certainly try to avoid debt as

1149
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,439
Speaker 2: much as you can. It is possible, like Jason proved,

1150
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 2: but it would be worth it if you knew that

1151
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 2: that was one hundred percent the direction that you were

1152
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 2: going to go. But man, going through the process of

1153
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 2: discovery and trying to figure things out, that's an expensive

1154
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 2: way to go about that, especially if you don't have scholarships,

1155
00:49:57,160 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 2: especially if you're going out of state, constantly changing majors,

1156
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 2: having a retake class. It was literally every year I

1157
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 2: was in a different school. I went from the science

1158
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 2: and then I hopped over to Terry for with business,

1159
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:12,160
Speaker 2: and then Franklin for ours. Like eventually I ended up

1160
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:15,720
Speaker 2: in journalism over at Grady, which honestly kind of ironic

1161
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 2: considering I didn't think I'd end up being a podcaster.

1162
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:20,879
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, I think that was that was great,

1163
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 2: But I wasn't really a career path at that point, right,

1164
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 2: Nobody could have coached in that direction, certainly was I

1165
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 2: think maybe there were a few those.

1166
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: Pipes are amazing. You really going to this not yet

1167
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: invented medium. Yeah, yeah, so that was great.

1168
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned that. My big takeaway, I'll go

1169
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 2: ahead and also mentioned and the ability ability to duel

1170
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 2: and en roll. I think that's something that should be

1171
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 2: on parents' radars a little bit sooner. I'm a little

1172
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 2: torn between the concept of like rushing through high school,

1173
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 2: you know, and kind of like, I don't know, there's

1174
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:54,120
Speaker 2: a certain element of growing up too fast that kind

1175
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 2: of not rubs me the wrong way. But I'm I'm

1176
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 2: certainly going to be careful about that. But I think

1177
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 2: there are happy medium approach. I want prolonged adolescents, but

1178
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:02,839
Speaker 2: you also don't want to like rush it so much. Yeah,

1179
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 2: you've graduated at college at the age of nineteen, and

1180
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:07,759
Speaker 2: sure you're not as fully formed as a human and

1181
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 2: you miss out on some of the other experiences at

1182
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 2: college and even just the learning because yes, sure, maybe

1183
00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 2: you placed out of certain classes because you're smart, or

1184
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 2: you're able to cram and pass via certain exams and

1185
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 2: placement placement exams, but were you able to actually absorb

1186
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 2: that knowledge where you Is that going to stick with you?

1187
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 2: Are you going to be able to retain that. I

1188
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 2: think that's something to consider. You want to pay attention

1189
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 2: to the financials and be thinking about that, But at

1190
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 2: the same time, we don't want to all try to

1191
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:35,879
Speaker 2: fast track our kids.

1192
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 1: I think it's important to know what our kids are

1193
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 1: capable of. So I think the one other thing that

1194
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: Jason said that I thought really struck me was when

1195
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 1: he said, basically said, debt does not have to be

1196
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 1: a part of life, and we've kind of grown accustomed,

1197
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 1: We've noualized it. Yeah, we normalized it so much where

1198
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:52,399
Speaker 1: it's by now pay later. Like fifteen years ago, people

1199
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 1: have been like, what that's going to get in bended,

1200
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,439
Speaker 1: That sounds crazy, and now I was like, Ah, it's

1201
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:58,399
Speaker 1: just old hat, and so every day that's how people

1202
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: buy stuff and it doesn't have to be You said,

1203
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of midwestern, it sounds kind of old school,

1204
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 1: and it does. But what sounds kind of quaint is

1205
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,800
Speaker 1: probably the best way for you to be less stressed

1206
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: about your money and to be making more progress.

1207
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 3: Totally.

1208
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's get to our beer. We enjoyed

1209
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 2: a profit maker. This is a dry hop pale.

1210
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: Ale by burial. What we were thoughts on this one, Buddy,

1211
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: pale ales, they're lighter than IPA's. They're not quite as

1212
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:24,719
Speaker 1: dense and don't have quite as much body, But this

1213
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: one still had a bunch of hops, but it was

1214
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: definitely like a lighter medium for conveying those hops. So

1215
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: it kind of tasted like I've never actually like stuck

1216
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: my head in the clouds and stuck my tongue out,

1217
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 1: but it tasted kind of like that.

1218
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 2: If if I were to do that, what I imagine

1219
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 2: it would taste like. It tastes like rain water. It

1220
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 2: tastes like snow. You see snow, and it's like the

1221
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:46,359
Speaker 2: most beautiful thing, Like for some reason you think it's

1222
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: going to be sweet, but it's just like, yeah, it's

1223
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:50,120
Speaker 2: rainwater that's frozen.

1224
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1225
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:53,759
Speaker 2: No. It certainly had that hoppy presence, grassy, It had

1226
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 2: like a grassiness to it, but with that lighter body.

1227
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 2: It's the perfect kind of pale ale, perfect kind of

1228
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:02,319
Speaker 2: beer to enjoy on a warmer day like today. But yeah,

1229
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 2: glad you and I got to enjoy those today, and

1230
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 2: that is gonna be it. We'll make sure to link

1231
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 2: to where you can learn more about Jason up on

1232
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 2: the website. At howdomoney dot com.

1233
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 1: We would have let Jason give a beer review, but

1234
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:14,919
Speaker 1: he doesn't like beer. He's not a drinker, so yeah,

1235
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 1: he loves coffee and you know what, less on the

1236
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: beer friend, we're still his friend. Yeah, that's gonna be

1237
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 1: a buddy until next time. Best friend's out, best friends out,