Financial Audit - 31-Year-Old With More Debt Than Anyone Should Ever Have

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

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My name is Florian Love. I'm 31. I'm based out of San Antonio, Texas. And this is financial audit. So what do you do for a living in San Antonio, Texas? I'm a middle school orchestra director. Oh, very nice. A music nerd. I'm a music nerd. I started to go to school as a music major in college. Is that what you studied, I assume? Okay, very cool. Started as architecture and then went back for music, yeah. Oh, okay. Didn't finish architecture. I'm a big fan of sports and arts.

and stuff all throughout public school because it gives kids like me a reason to go to school when I absolutely despise school. And a good reason to keep, you know, relatively good grades so you can participate in those fun things. What do you make currently? I'm currently at, I think it's 58. Okay. Yeah, I think I get a stipend so it might be up to 60, but I think I'm at 58.

How does it feel living off of $58,000 or now? It's okay. It's okay. I'm single. My rent's not super high. but I do have, you know, debts that I'm trying to pay off. And so it does become a little bit tight some months. So, yeah, San Antonio hasn't had, like, the big crazy, crazy price increases like Austin is heavy,

even though we're, like, super close our cities. But I assume rents are still going up a decent amount. Absolutely. I had to move out of my previous apartment that I had for two years, about six or seven months ago. I fortunately found something that was cheaper. It had gone up to like $1,300. And then I moved into like somebody's house, like in the back. They have like a little mini house.

And it's like $8.50. So, all bills paid. That's your current rent? Yeah. Okay. That's an incredible rent. Yeah. It's insane.

It's insane. Yeah. All right. Good for you. So I want to hear from your perspective before we jump into things. What is your financial situation? And it's always worse than people think. But I'm pretty sure it's.

Not great. Yeah. I've always been able to like kind of float along. Previously I was a lot better at like before school. I was a lot better with my money. Before college? Before college, yeah. My parents are very.

Well, when did you go to college? Like I'm so I'm 31. You can do the math. Like I went late. I went back to school late. So I started like 25, 26. Oh, 25, 25. And so before that I was like doing odd jobs and working.

So I was a lot tighter. on my budget, so I was pretty good about it. But when I was in college, I did accrue a lot of debt, credit card debt particularly. So, yeah, it sucks. But I always pay my bills. I've never late on anything. So I have 100% like pay history. But yeah, I'm trying to get out of that hole right now.

If you want to never miss a payment in your life, push the subscribe button. It's a good luck button. Actually, you can't promise it will help with anything. it's a good luck charm. Are you subscribed? I am. Bless, bless, bless, bless. Okay, well, I guess we should dive into this.

It doesn't sound like it's going to be particularly fun, but... That's why I'm here. Let's see. That's why you're here. I do appreciate you being here and willing to get bullied for the good of everyone else who might be able to relate to you and then hopefully also improve your life as well. So, yes, I see some credit cards. Let's see what this is.

We want to go to a checking account first. Not good. So power protected checking in the same years. Not good, you say, but I mean, it's not like insanely terrible or anything. Started with 912, and then 5,210 in, 4,552 out, $254.54 in there. No, not as comfortable as amounts as I would like, but it's not like dire. It's not like you have like $5 in there. So what do you mean?

It did go down lower than that. To what? It went down to almost zero at the end of the month, like after I sent that, because I paid off a card. Okay. Well, that's for good reason, though, then. Yeah. That was the main reason why. And then I had to, I bought, see, I bought a suit jacket for contest.

I was taking my kids to contest, so I bought a suit jacket for that and some shirts. And so that plus the credit card brought it. it down pretty low. Yeah, it was quite low. Well, going through here, see, what immediately gets me is if, I mean, you've self-diagnosed the debt and you're here to get help, but why are we $35 Uber Eats, $35 Uber Eats, $12 to Water Burger, we're going to Starbucks, we have a Spotify subscription, Takira, and Uber eats, an Uber eats, and Pinchipoil, an Apple subscription, and Starbucks, And, you know, another PayPal thing and an Apple subscription and the jerk and Sprouts. Nope, Sprouts is okay.

We're okay with that. And Uber Eats and an Amazon and Starbucks and Uber Eats. What are you doing? Apple, Apple, Uber Eats. Yeah. The statement continues. Yeah, it's a lot. Okay.

I did stop cold turkey. I haven't used. I deleted Uber Eats and DoorDash and all that stuff. But I wanted you to see like what I had been doing. When did you delete it? Because yeah, even on through the next point, it says Uber eats, Uber eats, Coca-Cola and just crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Yeah. I think I deleted it.

It was before I sent that to you. So it was a couple weeks, I think, before. Have you had it once since then? No. Good. That's actually a very hard habit to break. Have you gone out to eat at all? Yes.

Not as much. I've been cooking at home. We're just not ordering an in for delivery. Exactly. Now, interesting thing about that, that's kind of hard, is actually, I used to have a roommate who, like, he would Uber eat more than he'd once. He was like, I deleted my Uber Eats. Not going to happen. Then the moment he wanted to Uber Eats something again, he just downloaded it.

So it's not like, it doesn't really change anything. But I like the effort going into that. And I really like the part that you just haven't done it since it's happened. So that's really good. I think for me it was more a lack of planning. So a lack of buying things in advance. And so when I had a craving, go to the store, buy the stuff, cook it, it's cheaper. So I've been doing that a lot more.

Planning out my meals for the week, doing my meal prep like I used to do, getting back into those old habits that I had built up. Now, over the pandemic, depression, kind of got a hold of me. And so that was the main issue. I started doing that a lot. That's where the Uber Eats and DoorDash came in. And it got really bad. But I've been doing a lot better lately. So that's helped. Like having more focus has helped a lot. Okay. Okay. Now what card did you pay off? I want to touch that card first before we hit all these. That was the Bank of America. And then right before I sent this, I had paid off the security service one. It's at the bottom of the checking account, I think.

Oh. It says zero. I think that's the one that says zero. So I think all that statement has it. Oh, let's take a look at that. Secured. Security service? Yeah.

And then it's like the secured credit. Yeah, I don't see it. But what was the debt on there? 350. And that's what you paid off? Yeah, I paid that one off. And then the Bank of America was 304. I had been paying off that one for a while.

So what was the total balance of it at that time? The total balance was 300 some No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry At its peak, what was it? Sorry, I said it. From the beginning, it was part of a balance transfer. I think it was like $1,500. So I've been paying it off over time.

Okay. So I'll get some happiness out of the way before we get into death. Yeah, not bad. The happiness part is I am glad that you've paid off those balances. The part that I hate as I've been going through these, I wish it was one of the larger balance cards.

Yeah, I'm working on those. touch have been the smallest. Now it makes sense if you're following like the snowball method where you do lowest the highest. That's what I'm trying to do. That's the method you're going for. Okay. And it's an effective method I think especially for people like you. But let's see what else we have. We have an apple card. So on here, a thousand three hundred fifty three dollars forty six cents. Yeah. With a minimum monthly payment of eighty seven dollars ninety eight cents. It's, you know, it's a chunky minimum monthly payment just for one thing. I've been paying

100 to 120 every month. Yeah, I see 100 bucks was put there. See, this is what I don't get. Why do people do this? You're in the situation. You're ready to go. You're starting to make changes. Even with all the Uber Eats and which you stop,

but even with all the Starbucks and stuff that you're doing on and checking account, this car that we're putting $100 to on a monthly basis. Why are we going to and spending $15 a star? is Starbucks on here. What's the purpose? No explanation. Oh, actually, that $15, that was I bought some of my students' parents stuff. Like, fuck the parents.

I don't care about them. I care about you not having to secure more debt on a 26.24% interest rate. Spoil the parents of the little shit when you are out of the debt, yes? Yeah. I do overspend for my kids a lot. $30 of interest you lost. $30 of interest you lost in this statement. And I know you've got to make the parents happy

because parents are pretty much the teacher's worst nightmare. As far as I understand it, because every parent thinks that their opinion is the most important and unique thing when you're dealing with, like, hundreds of kids. Because you're an orchestra teacher, so you have a lot of kids. I'm fortunate with my parents, they're pretty good. Good. My first year, I had some terrible.

parents, yeah. Yeah. I guess it ebbs and flows, right? Oh, now we have Capital One. That one is what, what was 13, I think? Sorry, 17. There you go. Yeah.

$1,749, $47. With a minimum monthly payment. See, it's getting stacked. This is where the minimum monthly payments really start to hurt. Yeah. Of $57. Oh, okay, that was interest charge. I was about to just freak out.

I haven't charged on that one. But still, 40 bucks of interest lost. It's a lot. Yeah. That just sucks because these interest charges that are accumulating just between these two cards so far. I mean, you're getting bullied on a monthly basis. Oh, rounded up. I mean, it's basically 30% interest.

You're losing on this. It wasn't that one. I got it, but it's the variable. No, sure not. Yeah. It's going to just continue to go up and up and up. And you're only, I mean, you did a few dollars higher than the minimum monthly payment. It's not, yeah.

It's not a sum. Bank of America, that's the one you paint off. Good. And no purchases, no interest. Fantastic. Doesn't that feel good? Doesn't that feel good? Very.

Have you chopped it up yet? Because you are clearly not a credit card person. Okay, why? I don't use it, but I have them on my desk. I don't really use them, though. The one that I have used, unfortunately, is the one you're, getting to the discover. Oh, that's the one I just

swiped to. Because I bought a violin and I bought a bow. I bought Bose at TMEA. So, I needed them. I just audition for my master's. I needed it.

No. No. Why? No. Why are we considering going back to school? You're not even out of your original student

in London when I hadn't even talked about that. And then we have this freaking discover with basically $10,000 on it. Why are you even possibly considering? Going back to school yet.

I want to level up my career and it's little, like, I just want to get that over with. What do you mean? But it makes no sense when we're over $10,000 in terrible credit card debt. You only made $406 of payment, which I mean, it sounds like a good payment, but on $10,000, because guess what? You charged $1,592 to what was the previous balance of $2,000 or $8,26. With a minimum monthly payment of $194, dude, $194. Now you're like $300 on minimum monthly payments with the interest charge of $172.58. So now we're hundreds of dollars being lost in interest on a monthly basis, dude.

Yeah. You purchased what again, a violin in Bose? Yeah, I got Violin Bows at TMEA. I traded in my Pernambuco bow Because right now Pernambuco is a controlled commodity So since I travel a lot You traded it in a what? Pernambuco bow

Oh okay Brass Yeah yeah I don't know strings The sticks are expensive But I traded that in And then I got a carbon fiber as well So I got those

Yeah And then in December You have a prime thing on here And you're going to Walmart as well It doesn't make sense. This is your highest balance card. Yeah. Dude, I will let you talk about that college in a bit, but I, this doesn't make sense right now.

Yeah. Can you return it? No. And total fees. Total fees of $41. What? What happened for $41? I don't know.

I've never missed a payment. Return check charge. Oh, yeah, because I hadn't transferred. This is stupid. I, yeah. Okay. That's all stupid. So it's worse.

So for some reason, when I first got the card, my auto payments, I put them in my savings account, which I don't know why I did that. I was stupid. I did that when I was like 23. And at the time, I paid everything fine. But I didn't do that. Like, I hadn't transferred the right amount at that time. So I switched it. I did switch it.

So now it's pulling out of my. checking your account so I don't have to worry about that but yeah 23.24% interest and it's probably going up there's another one city oh my god yeah that was a balance transfer I've paid off my cards a couple times oh that for you please don't even be considering masters right now oh my gosh you're like every music major I know endlessly going to school endlessly going into debt please be the exception who actually just lives a financially success life, my dude. As someone who was in that

world and still would love to be, I would love a commission to write some music for an ensemble. Please. I promise, you do not all have to constantly be in school for your entire life. My gosh, I swear that's the only thing they know how to do music majors is be in school.

We have $5,192.79. No new charges. Fantastic. And it's on interest. No interest. right now. Yeah, that's a balance transfer. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about, which one I should pay off the quickest. Obviously, that one probably. We'll get there. You did $79.99. Minimuthal payment is $70. Those are minimum. And with the snowball method, so I just did my taxes. And so I'm getting back like 1900. So I was trying to decide, which, I was thinking either the Apple card or the Capital One and then continue to pay off larger bits on the others.

But I wasn't sure. We'll get to that. Yeah, I hear you. I got it. But, okay. We need, we'll get into the whole thing. That's the last card, right? I think. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a care credit, but that's zero percent interest. I forgot to put that one on there for my, for my teeth. And so that's $100 a month. So what's the balance, though? I want to say 12. That? $1,200. Not $12,000.

Oh, dang, no. I don't know, man. I wouldn't have been. surprise at this point. 100 bucks minimum amount of payment? Yeah. Zero interest. Yeah, but there's zero interest for so long.

Like, when is the zero interest for city done? End of the year. Oh, okay. And the CARES is zero interest as long as you make your minimum monthly payment until the end? Yeah. Okay, don't f that up. Nope.

Oh. Okay. You drive debt. Yes. 54 month loan term. Pretty long, but not. of the longest we see. We see lots of 72s on here.

Not as good as just three years, but whatever. Whatever. You have a 20 Kia Niro, Nero. Nero? Okay.

A balance of death of 15,624 and $8 with a minimum monthly payment of, Dude, your minimum monthly, 500 essentially. Your minimum monthly payments, man. How are you even living with your minimum?

Good thing your rent is lower, else you wouldn't be able to survive. Yeah. What is the interest rate on this? 6.5. Not great, but we've just had so many absolutely discussing ones on here that that almost feels good. Gosh, and you got this like a couple years ago? Now, what I don't have on here is your student loans, so we should probably do that. What are your student loans?

13,000. Oh, not bad. federal? Yeah. Okay, so they're paused. I'm sorry? Yeah, no private. Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah, it got mostly Pell Grant. So I was, I was fortunate. It was the last, like, year I had to take out loans. Bad news for you. They are not going to get forgiven. There's, like, no chance with the Supreme Court. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure.

So your minimum monthly payments for those will probably be. Like 200 bucks? $150,000? Yeah, something like that. Last I checked. Congratulations. You have $47,786. 72 cents of debt across one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different debts.

So, yay, I get to use the title and thumbnail that I love to use. 31-year-old has more debt than anyone should ever have with the fire and all the good stuff. Yeah. It is not good that I get to use that because that means your situation sucks. What matters is how to get out of it But before we do go to that Well actually Your minimum monthly payments on your debt

Not including student loans because you don't have to pay them right now Is $1,000 More than your freaking rent, dude $1,000 And with your student loans, it'll be like $1,200 Oh, you're probably Are you bi-weekly? What are you?

Monthly? What's your monthly check? Like $4,500? About that, yeah. Yeah. So, boom. Immediately a fourth of it. Go straight to minimum monthly payments on debts. It's crazy.

It doesn't feel good. And that's why we need to have a very, very serious conversation about this grad school thing. What is in your mind? Tell me. So my plan for grad school is to go back for performance pedagogy. One. Okay. Sorry.

That's how most people respond. The reason is I want to do research into performance anxiety, since it's something I kind of struggled with. And the music ed degree doesn't really cover the stuff I want to do. I want to do more research-based things and do more like traveling, lecturing, and stuff like that. And the college level. So that's the degree that kind of fit. If not, it would be moving to England. going to the Royal College, which I'm not doing.

You know what makes the best, you know what will pay the top dollar for someone to travel to their institution to talk about a subject they studied on? It wouldn't be a degree. It would be the research they've actually done. Yeah. Why don't you pursue that in any way, your own studies of any kind, using the methods, you probably already know the methods, you probably don't need the degree to do it. people are just going to bring you around to different institutions just because you hold a piece of paper. Oh, no, I know that. So why don't you just do this?

If this is what you want to do, why don't you just do it on the side of right now spend every moment that isn't put towards teaching right now towards that? I'm trying to pivot out of teaching at school. I know, but instead of just going into debt for something you don't necessarily need, why not do this? start doing all the research necessary, write papers. I have been doing the research. In fact, in my car, I have a stack of books. Then why do you need to go do this? No offense.

Almost, almost worthless degree. Yeah. And by worth, I don't mean, there's a lot of definitions for worth. When on the show, we talk about just straight up return on investment money. And there's not going to be much worth with that. Mental worth, sure, you'll walk away with some things that are great. And it can be worth it in a variety of things. But when it comes to return on your investment,

not great, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm... How set are you on this? Kind of set. Like, I mean, the fact that I made the audition and, you know, my statement of purpose... To where? It's just UTSA.

I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay where I am. Yeah, but you can be. going to take up more debt for it, aren't you? I'm trying to figure that out right now. I did get a scholarship. It's very small, but they also want to offer me, like,

to work at the college. Yeah. It's like assistantship, so I want to see how much that'll pay for as well. What would the two years cost? I'm assuming two years four semester. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's two years. It's, I think it's 20. I think the total is maybe 40, 45.

Yeah, it's a lot. So that's, I'm trying to figure that out at the moment. But if you think about it, that $45,000 is probably, you're probably not going to receive $45,000 because you have the degree specifically. So why do it? Why? You're doing it as a want more than it actually being good for your life. Pursue this.

I do not have the expertise in that field specifically, but I know for a fact the people that, become the qualified individuals that travel to different institutions are the ones who have published successful studies and papers, stuff like that. And do you... That's the goal. That is the goal. But do you need the degree to do that specifically?

Not necessarily. I do also want to continue my craft and my instrument. Yes, but do you need a degree to do that specifically? No, I could take lessons, but... Why even... Are you good at your instrument? Yeah. then you play for different ensembles around San Antonio

I do I do good Again this obsession with people in the arts of which I love the arts Big supporter of the arts with the obsession that it's constantly needing to be in school Constantly needing to be going in debt It's not a necessity It's not necessarily beneficial for your life For your total life You'll be putting yourself

You've already missed the best decade of your life for retirement. Now you're going to be essentially missing the second second best decade of your life because you're going to be going to debt for a couple years. Then you're going to spend all the time trying to get out of the debt and all that stuff because I doubt the whatever that I'm going to pay is going to fully cover it and all that stuff. What was your scholarship amount? It was only a thousand for semester. Okay. So nothing. I don't think there's any convincing you out of this though. That's the issue. No, like I'm I'm open to suggestions. The suggestion is you don't go.

Yeah. Yeah. But I also do know that I can I teach private lessons as well. That can be really lucrative. It can be. That doesn't mean let's go into debt. True. Or let's go just even if you fully cash flow

it again, the return on investment doesn't make sense. Mathematically speaking. Yeah. You can do this stuff, man. Some of the best composers I personally know have like a bachelor's degree. Composition, that's what I was really into. Some, yes, they do get the master.

Some, yes, they go get the master. Some, yes, they go get the whole enceolato with, you know, doctored and everything. Fantastic. You don't need it, though. You don't need it to be successful at your craft. One of the best Tupil players I know in the world,

who is now the Tuba player Kansas City Symphony, Joe, shout out to Joe. He just has his master's degree. That's all he has, as far as I know. And I highly doubt he even needed his master's degree to go do that. This is because he's a bad thing playing tuba.

Be a bad for playing violin. Be a bad for conducting research successfully and accurately in writing papers, correct. Writing papers in a way that, oh, I'm just, I'm losing the terms I want to have. In a way that they are dignified and qualified in any way whatsoever. You know, you're following the proper methods, essentially. Peer review. Just peer review everything, whatever you have to do. Not necessarily needing a $45,000 piece of paper behind you what you're doing it.

Just, dude, I promise for your life, financially speaking, which is what this channel is about, you do not need this. Please, please. Plus, you're giving up a $60,000 a year job. Well, you are trying to pay off $47,786 of debt, none of which is going to be forgiven. None. Thoughts. No, well, that's why I came here for, like, reality check. So I agree that it's not going to be a...

It's not a good financially... It's not a financially sound path. No, it is not. Yeah. That's... Because you're going to be forced to be working in your, like, 70s and 80s if you keep going down this road. Yeah.

All right, you bring in $4,500 a month. Well, that's make you a little budget. and get out of this mess. Tell me that you will do anything and everything in your power to get out of debt, but in Russian. I'm not that good. Oh, see, this dude comes walking into the office. I'm not fluent.

This dude, Brandon, step in a frame for a second. Peek, say hi. He's behind the camera, and he's the editor. And this dude comes walking in, and all of a sudden I come in after scrunching my hair, and they're both just speaking in Russian and German. I have no idea what's going on. $45, $800 a month.

Okay, so with that, we have $850 a rent, and we are putting this on a pie chart for all y'all to follow all along. We're watching the video and not just listening. For $850 a month for a rent, what are your different insurance, you know, renter's insurance and car insurance, what are those monthly costs? Car insurance is $1,000, see, $150 a month? And then... Rent is probably like, what, $10, $15, $20?

Yeah, about that. I'm going to call it like $175 for insurance. Then health insurance, how much do I pay? It comes out of my check. Yeah, it comes out of your check. We're working with posts. Okay, yeah, okay. Why hits your checking account?

So, utilities? Paid for. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I lucked out. And let's think of like your phone bill and other subscriptions that you have. What do you think? $45 a month, yeah, 45 a month.

subscriptions. And internet. Internet is 65. And then let's see. Netflix. I just like set it down to it's like thing nine, $9 or $9.99, whatever the second lowest one is. Okay. So we're going to do like, yeah.

Subscriptions and utilities essentially because phone and internet stuff like that. We'll call like 120. That sounds about it. Just to be extra safe. Okay. Any other monthly. fences you are forced to pay in order to survive. Netflix isn't one, by the way.

Yeah, I know that's not a mean. Yeah. I was thinking about just canceling it. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't pay anything else monthly. Gas, how much in gas? I do maybe $60 a month on gas. Cool.

$850 for rent, $175 for different insurance, $120 for utilities, phone, all that stuff, $60 for gas. That's a budget. Then we have minimum monthly pay. minutes right now. Oh, what was that number we had? Oh, it's $1,000. Yeah, $1.16.

So $1,016 for debt minimum monthly payments. And then we're going to give you, because guess what? Eating is a necessity. $300 for groceries. Okay. So now with all those categories put together, I want to order for you to survive $2,521 a month. Yeah?

Sound good. And that's without student loans. Student loans could, you know, start back up in the summer and stuff like that. We'll just see what happens. We don't know for now. So. And then I have 125 that I take out per month for savings. Nope.

I just started that right now. Incorrect. Okay. Cool. How much you have in savings right now on the side? None. That's why I wanted to start. You literally just started it?

Okay. So this is where I think the snowball method does work best for you. We want to cover your minimum monthly payments for at least a month. So with this, the $4,500, $2,500 is gone. We have $2,000 less. So with the $2,000 in this is if you go strict, which you should, because if you know how bad that is and how much better it is on the other side,

when you can start saving for retirement and all this stuff, once you know how important this all is, you are willing to go to the extremes and not spend money on fun. You can have fun. It doesn't cost money. Or you can have other people pay for fun, you know, depending if they really want to do it, and they're your friends or family and stuff like that.

in this situation $2,000 month number one guess what $2,000 goes into a savings account woo good

okay the next month $500 goes into a savings account woo but we have $1,500 left why do we do this

because your minimum monthly expenses what are needed for you to survive that will cover it that $2,500 you know I would preferably go to

two months but $5,000 you know we need to start tackling these debts so $2,500 It'll put a fighter under your butt because it's not much to live off of if something were to happen.

So $2,500, we have month number two, $1,500 left. What we do with that snowball method, perfect, absolutely. Core. I know it's not accumulating interest, but we kill it. $1,200 gone. Because this frees

up some minimum monthly payments. If we were worried about interest, we'd be worried about interest if you had insanely high balances on things. We can talk about refinancing, different methods. Right now you have reasonable balances on things. And minimum monthly payments are what, sucking you dry because you have a lot of different accounts. So $1,200, gone of the $1,500. So now you have $300 left in month number two. $300 goes to your Apple Card. That brings it on to $1,000. Now you have $2,000 again, starting month number three of the $2,000, $1,000 goes to Apple Card.

it's gone in month number three. Then a thousand dollars goes to capital one, leaving it with $749. Okay. So month, that was month number three, right? So month number four of your $2,000, and you're going to have a little more now because your minimum monthly payments are less. So, but essentially $2,000, you know, $800 goes to capital one, boom, paid off. Now you have $1,200.

Where do we put that? We put it towards City. And then with City, you're going to go from City to Discover, essentially paying those from

City to Discover with $2,000. That'll take us from now beginning of the month of month five, going to take an additional seven and a half months. Okay.

So now, Now we're on year number two. We're starting year number two of this. So that takes us a full year. But congratulations. After that full year, you only have the car debt and you only have the student loan debt. That's awesome. Your credit cards are gone in a year.

But that's if you go insane and you should go insane because this is insane. Agreed? Agreed. Very much so. Bless. Good, good, good, good. So from here, student loans, it determines what the interest. Do you know what the interest rates are on those when they start back up?

I know they're low, but I don't know how. What's considered low to you? Like two. Oh, if they're two, then we're paying off the car as quick as possible because it is above 4% interest. So with this, you're going to have $3,000 left now because the minimum month of payments of those things are mostly got. No, you're going to have $1,000, no, $2,500 extra now. So of the $15,000 of your car loan, hopefully it'll be a little less by then, but we'll see.

Yay, six months. So we're a year and six months in. And all your credit cards are gone and your car is gone. Student loans, if they are below 4%, this is what I would do personally. I would do the minimum monthly payments until they're paid off. Okay. If they're about 4%, I would try to tackle them sooner.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're not, though. Okay. I'm pretty sure. With your living situation, I'm going to say emergency fund around $15,000 is good. You already have $2,500 saved up. So we need to get an extra $1,200, or $12,500 saved up. And with your minimum monthly payment's gone, except for student loans potentially around then, we should have an extra about $3,000 to do.

So your emergency fund will be fully funded in about four months. So now we are talking a year in 10 months from... the start of when you start this. You know, there's things that determine quite a few things that happens throughout here. That sentence was a while. I'm very hungry. Okay. Either way, what matters, do you actually go crazy?

You should, because this is insane. That's the intention. Good. And do you go to grad school? That is a big determining factor here. Because the income. The answer is no. If you want to, you can do it at this point.

Not this point. I would say maybe an extra six months at this point because you should continue going crazy to save up the money to cash flow. What is needed for grad school. You can delay it two years. For what's important for the rest of your life and being set up for the rest of your life,

two years is worth it. Yes? Yeah. If you do this now, you're delaying this all. Interesting is still going to accrue and this is going to be like a 10, 20-year operation, you know, depending on how things look. because you'll be taking on more debt

and allowing this to all accrue. That sucks. That's how it's laid out. If you want to go to school, it's probably a two-year operation of not having fun once. That costs money. If you don't end up going to school at this point,

then I'd look at your pension plan that is available and what you want to have by retirement and what you need to save on the side. Probably an extra 10, 15% as well. Yeah, I'm going aggressive. of right now with my 403B and then the TRS as well. Beautiful. So whatever you have to do at that point, we'll just have the book.

I mean, we're so far away from there. There's really no point of we even have any conversation. But it's dire. Medical diagnosis is stage four debt. Please. You have the opportunity to do well in your life. It just requires a little bit of sacrifice now. Please.

Grad school, what are your thoughts on that right now? after this whole thing, please. I'm less convinced of going. I'm a lot less convinced of going. I still really, I still really want to do that because it's, you know. And I want you to do what you want to do. Do it in a smart way, though. Yeah.

And that's why I came. I wanted to see like, okay, on paper, what is it? Because, you know, I can think really positive about it and reason myself out of it because I'm that kind of person, but seeing it on paper is kind of scary. And you know what? People can make a killing doing lessons. do a lot of lessons on top of this, you could decrease this from a two-year thing to a year and a half thing to a year and a quarter thing, depending on how hard you get.

Because you can make it killing off a lesson. That's my summer plan is lessons. Yeah. Well, no, no, I would be doing that after school. The more you work, the more you make, the quicker you pay this all off. Yeah. It's really up to you how long you want this pain to be. It's your choice. It's all in your hands.

So hypothetically, you cut it in half, yeah. You could if you just go crazy. If you go crazy, because people, what do you charge you for lessons right now for an hour? 35, which I really low, yeah. Nope, not even close. Come on. When I was in college, I had some composition students who, you know, 50 bucks an hour. And that was years ago now.

Come on. Yeah. I charge less than like, you know, more kids to learn. So I'm overly nice with my lessons. And that's fine. Do that when you're out of debt. Right now you're able to give so much more to people and society. when you yourself are taking care of in the first place,

when you do not have to stress about all these minimum monthly payments and getting out of this, that you can give back more. So right now, it's the temporary, let's take care of ourselves, and then for the rest of your life. You can do free lessons if you want to for disadvantaged kids, and I will be high-fiving all the way. I will donate to that. I don't even care.

That's incredible. I love it. Make sure you're in the situation where you can do that first, though. Agreed? Yeah. All right. So that's the plan of how. I would personally do it because I know how dire it actually is.

It's terminal. It's bad. But I want to hear from your perspective actually knowing yourself. Be realistic with me. What will you do? I will most like I will like I almost certainly be doing that like going very aggressive. Because I've already kind of shown the tendency to do that. So I'm going to go hard on it.

Because I really want to do all of those things. I want to go to grad school. I want to be free of debt. I want to, like, not have that weight on my back. So I'll do it. I started in such a happy mood, and the debt has worn me down. But I still love you. You're still a great person.

So everyone's a great person. Just do this. Better your life. Is there anything else? No. I think that's it. For Florian, that is one of the hardest situations we've seen on here so far. This is so much debt.

It is not going to be a good hammer financial score. but I really hope he buckles down for two years because two years is nothing in the grand scheme of your life. And if he wants to go, he can cash for it after two years. But right now it's a big struggle. And there's really not anything looking up. So, Hammer Financial Score for Florian, one and a half out of ten. Just because he does have a little bit in retirement that he has been contributing to aggressively. One half out of ten.

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