Financial Audit - His Ex Destroyed His Life

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

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Hi, my name is Lester. I'm 26 years old based out of Austin, Texas, and this is Financial Audit. What do you do here for a living? I do a couple different things, but my main gig is a guitar teacher. How much are we bringing in with that? It depends, because I do a couple different things as a musician, so I do lessons, I gig, and I work part-time in a music shop. So all in all, it's currently averaging between like 32 and 35, 100 a month. 32-35, okay. I mean, being able to make a living in music, I mean, that's a lot of people's dreams.

So that, I mean, in Austin, I could definitely see people. I mean, yeah, you can definitely get by on that. It's a little harder because rents are kind of expensive. Even your living expense, I'm seeing $1,754. Yeah. So that's immediately basically half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you have a daughter to take care of.

Age? Four years old. Had her quite young, at least for this day and age. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, spoiler alert for the conversation we're about. to have in this exact second.

You're now a single dad. Correct. So you're taking care of the kid. Full custody? 100%. And no child support. And no child support. Okay.

So that's a lot to take on. Now, with that, all of a sudden, it's the single household income, no child support, taking care of a kid while also having a lot of debt, while also having a very expensive living expense. Just how are you surviving, man? Are you surviving? Well, basically, it looks crazy from here, but I was completely debt-free, completely, completely debt-free in May. May of this year?

Yeah, May of this year. Yeah. And end of April or early May. Yeah, I was completely different. What are you talking about? You have so much debt now, though. Well, I basically had to her, all of her legal situation, I had, I basically had to finance all of my. It was messy?

Yeah, it was messy and it was really dragged out. And it basically ended up cost it, it costed like double what I anticipated it costing. What did it cost? All in all, it costed like just over $32,000. All said. How long was the whole process? Well, it's been going on since my daughter was one, right when she turned one.

Yeah. That's when we separated. I'm sorry, dude. That sucks. Yeah, it's... Is it done? It's done. It's done.

That's kind of what it's... So no more money needs to go into this. Well, as of right now, it's paused. As of right now, it's paused. There will probably be a time. So it's not done. It's paused. Pause for, you know,

probably for longer than sooner. What does that, what does that possibly even mean? Well, I'll need another attorney, but probably not, you know, not for another year.

For one, a year. So this is a ceasefire situation. This isn't even like an armatist. Yeah. Okay. And then how much more are we expecting on top of that for legal? 36,000, you said?

Yeah, well, it was just over 32,000. Just over 32,000. Okay. Are we looking at doubling that? No, it's because my daughter was born in Denton, Texas. So it's an inevitable thing I'll have to do. Oh, man. Okay, yeah.

And I get it. I mean, I don't have a kid that's stinky and smelling and stuff like that, but I respect. Well, you know, so, but if I did have a stinky smelly thing, I'd pay every cent necessary. Well, we were like I said, I was, I was debt free and she was just, she's just, she's in school now. Now she's enrolled in school and she needed, she had to get to the age where she had to be in one place all the time.

So it was just kind of had to happen. No, I get it. And I would have spent every cent necessary to get full custody as well. So I get it. That was a lot of money. Clearly we didn't cash flow basically almost any of it, right? I mean, no. And it was the weird the way they do their billing.

So to retain the attorney. I had to put up $7,500 up front. Yeah. Just boom, right out the bat. And then you get paid basically every, or you pay them every two weeks on top of that as how it works. So, I mean, those bills could range from, I mean, some of them would be small if they didn't do a lot of work. They'd be. Well, what are you making as much as you are now? Well, when I moved, I moved into my apartment, which is where I'm at now in, in April.

And then I start taking out all this money, like, right after that. So you said this has been, okay. Yes, you said the debt since April. but she said this has been going on for three years. Why I did it? Well, we've been, we've been separated and I, I, yeah, we've been, the fight, the litigation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So a year. So, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So what, five thousand? Probably going to be $5,000. Well, then we should save. Which is, there's no like deadline that I have to. That's just the recommendation from my attorneys to get a transfer as soon as I can. The recommendation for me, not an attorney is for you to hit subscribe because we're trying to get,

to a million subscribers. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed so far. Love you all, truly. Thank you for being here. I really do appreciate it. I'm sure people will relate to the situation out there who are getting an end. It's a topic I haven't seen as much. Yeah.

I figured it would help. It sucks. Yeah. Because clearly, I mean, we immediately borrowed. We're at sitting out of balance of 14,562 on a personal loan. Yeah. 9.49%. So we got some death over here.

Well, that was the first. So when I, when I, you know, kind of first hired. this attorney. I knew it was going to be $7,500 to put down. And I, my logic was, you know, thinking that it would hopefully cost no more than $15,000. Just total. Yeah, that's what I was, I was hoping the whole process would cost about $15,000. And I could. Well, what gave you that idea? You said hope. I mean, we don't go off a hope. Did you ask for some guidance? Well, I, I, I, I mean, I told my attorney, you know, I said, I've prepared this much, you know, funds for this process. Do you imagine it going over? And they're, you know, like an attorney.

and he does. It could or it couldn't, you know, it just depends. Yeah. Do you have a, what's your car situation? My car's paid off. Thank goodness, because adding another minimum payment to your thing. Buddy, if we're looking at our, if we're looking, if we're looking at our housing total, and then this, this minimum monthly payment of $1,281 and then $1,754 for rent, our money's gone.

Well, that's, the minimum payment on this loan is actually $400 a month, but I got, I got behind. but I just got caught up. Yeah, I just got caught up, though. What did you get behind? What's going to prevent us from going behind in the future? Well, I got behind in October because I got the last, my last. Yeah, you're past you $802. Sorry, sorry, go ahead.

No, it's, well, you know, basically the last, like I said, you get, do you get billed biweekly from the attorney? And, I mean, you can. No, no, it's, it can be, I mean, so basically. Oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah. The bills are biweekly with the attorney, which are paused right now. But in that particular month, I got hit with like one $6,000 bill and then two weeks later, like a $3,000.

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SoFi is here to simplify your financial life, and reward you along the way. And because SOFI wants to help you take charge of your financial future, they are giving one of you a grand prize of $5,000. All you have to do to enter is to sign up for free credit score monitoring with SOFI by scanning this QR code or visiting SOFI.com forward slash Caleb Insights by clicking the link in the description below. Which I, no, which I did for the most part, but I ran short on, you know,

I ran short on everything that whole month. So it wasn't all put on debt? Well, no, yeah. Some of it. but hardly any of it was like cash flow. Well, what I'm trying to think is if at all of it went to debt, that didn't then affect the actual cash in hand until minimum monthly payment started.

So it shouldn't have put you behind on this. Well, no, I'm saying like, like in addition to all my normal bills for the month, like, you know, including the debt minimum monthly payments is like over like $3,000. No, I get that. But I had, but I was saying I get. Yeah, but I had to like, you know, I just basically went out of funds between, you know. The music company you work for that does a lesson. Is that W-2 or contract?

It's contract with them. And I don't actually do my lessons through them. My lessons is my own business. Okay. Okay. So everything you do is self-employed? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Have you paid a single cent of taxes?

Well, I'm good on my taxes for last year because I had a lot of W-2 income for last year. This next year? This next year. I've got W-2 income for four months out of 2020. Okay. But I'll probably end up paying in a little bit of taxes. A little, it's not going to be crazy. It's not going to be crazy.

But listen, if we're getting behind just because just a little hiccup, a little hiccup for a month gets us multiple payments behind. Right, right. Then I'll also imagine if any kind of tax bill comes to. Now, we have full custody. We have dependents. We have some tax benefits that come with that. And it's going to help.

It's going to help. But if anything comes, what just scares me is like almost at this point, if like $50 comes owed. It's like that is enough of a pebble. It's like you just sprinting along a little pebbles there, but somehow you just completely trip over there and it becomes a loony tune. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

It's crazy. So that's what scares me. Well, I mean, with the music stuff, I mean, it, how many hours a week are you working right now on music stuff?

I probably average, I probably average 25 hours a week. Yeah. Yeah. Total across everything? Across everything. No, that's not an option.

That's not an option. You said your kids in school, right? Yeah. It's not an option. Yeah. You're doing 50 hours a week. I'm sorry. I hate saying that.

And I know it's easier to send than done. But like that's literally an option. If we can barely put food on the table. Right. Right. It's well, it's just tricky because the jobs that I, you know,

that I would like to get, I'd like to obviously supplement with like some hourly income in the morning when she goes to school. Sure. Go to a coffee shop. But yeah, but I've got my like my lessons that I teach. They can start as early as noon.

So I could only. But if a job is not, if a job is not making what we need to survive, that job is more becoming a want than an actual career. Sure. Sure. If you're with working, it sounds like you might be front with work. If what is necessary for you to do your job the way you want to do it is becoming more of a want than you're front of work. And that's not acceptable. Right, right. We got bills to pay.

We were falling behind. We now have full custody. It is no longer a choice, unfortunately. And it sucks. It sucks. But it's no longer a choice. well I I'm just struggling trying to like you know I've had you know basically been averaging between like 3,500 a month on you know my low average months as high as 5,000 a month on like my really good months and I don't know what I can like if I dropped everything I was doing right now musically to get an hourly job I don't know what hourly job that would work within the schooling hours that will net me that much money okay you see what I'm saying well kind of so because I like I chart it because I I charge, you know, either 65 or 75 for a 40-minute lesson. So it's a good chunk of money for a

small amount of time. What's your support system here in Austin? I've got a really good support system here. Tell me about it. Well, I've got, I've got my sister and my dad that live here, a couple of friends that have kids that I can, you know, lean on and then family that lives in San Antonio that's just an hour away. Can Papa Lester babysit? Yes, he can babysit. I mean, we've answered some of the questions there. Again, don't like it. Everything's every part of this. And in a 30. to 60 minute conversation is always going to be easier said than done. There's going to be more complexities that go into every single word that is said. Right, right, right.

But if, you know, watching post after school, for example, I'll just talk about my life. My parents in order to survive, especially when younger, when there was no money because they had me in a very young age. I didn't see them right after school. I was picked up from grandpa. Grandpa then watched me until, you know, six or something like that. And then I was picked up. Yeah. That might be what the options are.

It might be a nine to five type. job you know we might be working customer service you i see sales on you we might be working in sales we might be working 25 dollars an hour being you know an assistant manager at jimmy johns or something you know right right right we might be working the kid might sleep at at grandpa's place overnight where we're doing like a third shift i think and that sucks again yeah sucks i'm not saying any of this is thrilling but when we literally can't pay the bills it just becomes not an option yeah well i mean and i'm i'm looking I've been trying to find like that overnight gig if possible because it's kind of like the only ship that's available to me at the moment because I want to keep my mornings available to go work out at the music store.

Okay. Well, I've said this a million times on the show and we don't even need to talk manager position. I know the 24 hour fast food places are desperate to hire overnight specifically positions. In Austin, you can't, I can't go get my mcnugs without them basically saying like, please, please apply for a job. I need you, please. Right, right, right. No, I was in that scene for a long time.

I was in there for a long long time. And I'm not saying I want you to be there for a long time either, but just to pay the bills. Yeah, and I, no, I don't, I don't mind any. I mean, I'm open to all the suggestions. Well, you said you've been looking for it. Why have we not taken it? Well, I was, originally I was trying to, my dad said, you know,

he was like, I'll watch her overnight on this day and this day. And I said, okay, well, I'll go get like an HEB overnight for those two days. And they didn't want to take me for those two days. but it wasn't the, I, you know, I'm trying to, like, I can really only do like three extra nights, you know, in my schedule. Oh, well, crap. I don't think actually. Someone, I need someone that would basically take me for like, like three days max overnight only because I need my mornings to be able to go help out at the music store. And I have at this point, I've got, yeah, I've got 20 plus students that, like, I see regularly.

That's great. But again, that becomes a want if we're not able to pay the bills. Well, I mean, I just feel like it's making more. I just feel like if I'm already made. Making close to like, you know, between $3 and a half and five. $25 an hour, 40 hours a week gets you $4,000 a month. So that's more than you're making. Okay. Substantially, no.

But in your life right now, it guaranteed extra $500 a month is life saving. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Let's get through your debts and we'll continue this conversation. Okay. But, yeah, 14, 560. Yeah, that's a lot. The interest rate was death. Now, we have some credit cards.

So I'm going to go through the credit cards. Yeah. Not very fun. what I will say, I'm at least happy on the credit card. Well, mm-hmm, never mind. I'm not going to hold that. I'm going to wait until I get to them.

Yep, yep. You're not spending on this credit card. Yep, yep. As far as I can tell. Discover, we have a Discover it at $4,200 and $49. Absolutely thrilling, fun, exciting woo. That's awesome. With a $99 minimum monthly payment.

Minimmonly payments are going to be what murders you, essentially. It looks like you put a little extra towards it, but then we had $79, $78, $68, $6. 68 cents of interest accrued with 152. Yeah, because this is new because 152 this year so far. So that's going to be starting to get wrecked up very soon. So 22.24% interest. Okay. Cap one quick silver.

We are at new balance of $4,483. What's a wild is how recently these have just been put upon you. And I'm sorry. That sucks. Again, for the sake of the kid, I think anyone and everyone would do anything for their kid. So this is at least understandable. So sucks and sorry. Like I was,

I was sitting pretty decent, you know, right when I moved into my apartment, things were, things were very, I mean, I knew it was going to happen, but I was making like, well, you signed up for an apartment that's like over 50% of your take home.

Well, I wouldn't have done that anyway. Well, no, no, but I mean, it was, I was approved,

you know, because the last three months, like they had to take a snapshot of my last three months on my bank statements because I didn't, you know, because I'm self-employed. And I took it to a CPA to have them do that. And it was saying, and it said that I made over, I had three consecutive months of like just over $5,000.

So I think I was, I was over, like the, like the 2.5 they required to be over the income limit. So I mean, it was when I moved in, it was like, okay, but the, the attorney bills just kind of just started racking up. $154 minimum payment there. That also hurts with making the minimum of payment than $109 of interest accruing. Yeah. Which just gets us really no progress. and $512 of interest has been accrued for us this year so far. $10 of fees.

Was this like a startup balance type transfer fee? Did we miss a payment? Oh, wait. I don't personally have the quicks over that. It just might be a vacant fee for them. I don't believe it does, but I'm not sure. Honestly, I don't really care. 29.24%.

I care about that. That is that. That's insanity. Okay. This one's a 0% interest, but we're putting money on it. Yeah. The Wells Fargo,

we're around. We're riding the Wells Fargo wagon right into a ditch of death. Yeah, yeah. This is for some of the last, or for some of the bigger attorney bills that I got. Yeah, because what did we put on here? It was a balanced transfer. Yep.

Yep. And $51 payment, even though the new minimum of the payment is now. It should be like 68 or something. Yeah, 68. I was looking at the wrong thing, and this is now it. Yeah, $6,784. And $38.

Yeah. Rough. Yeah. Any other debt that I don't see? No, that's everything. 23,246,0.25 cents of death debt. Yeah. Yeah.

It's rough living and I'm sorry. Yeah. It was, um, it was crazy. I see you open to self, I think, which is great. I mean, it's what I use. You know, I talk about it in every videos. Well, I got to try and get the, um. But with the high interest debt, I mean, what, what is it now?

4.6%? you're not going to beat it. No, no, no. I mean, I got it just because I wanted to move away from Wells Fargo, but I don't think if you're self-employed, you get the high, the high yield rate. What do you mean?

No, if you just set up direct deposit. Well, I don't have like a qualifying direct deposit. So what you probably need as a business checking account and set up direct deposit. Yeah, that's, you know, do you have an LLC? I don't have an LLC or anything like that, yeah. $41 sitting here.

It's terrifying. Now, I don't know if you get gas or teakotos every second of your life, but it's a lot. It's probably a good half and half split of good because I do get into Tikitos. And, okay, Jim, fully supportive. YMCA is this for the kid? Well, it's because they do the after-cool, after-care program at her school that she goes to while I finish. That's the thing is she, you know, the after-care program only covers her.

The after-care program. Well, it was, it's much less expensive than it was now. I was paying almost 1,300 a month in daycare before. Oh, yeah, daycare is ridiculous. But this is still very expensive for you. Yeah, yeah. And Grandpa can't watch right after school? No, because he's got two jobs as well.

Which is fine. I have, I mean, my supplemental care is, I mean, this is the cheapest daycare than probably most of their parents are getting right now. No, it is. It just still sucks for your position. It is what it is. Yeah, it's bad. You're making more than you're losing on this by working those hours.

Yeah, she's there. So Uber, I don't think we're fucking Ubering. I don't think we're Sonic dry-through when we can't pay the bills. when we're falling behind on minimum monthly payments, we're not going to sign a drive-through. We're not McDonald's? What is...

That was the old daycare. The old day care. Oh, that was just dragging you. And the YMCA comes through here a lot. Second of our life. I get wanting to go get her probably a couple scoops of ice cream from Amy's. I'm sorry.

No, we probably put it in our grocery bill to get like a dollar thing. Yeah, we do that. Sonic. Ben, we're not money. Spotify. We listen to ads right now. And also, why was it 18 bucks?

Isn't Spotify like 10? Well, I do. I have the family plan. But I use it for teaching a lot when I'm teaching songs to kids right then and there. And it's, I do use it a lot for. Well, you don't use $25 of Domino's for teaching. So, Takedos and Amy's ice cream, smoke shop, which is a bad addiction in general. I want you to be around for a longer time.

Yeah, yeah. For your kid, you just got full custody. Let's not, let's not be doing that. Yeah, trying to be disjointed. Rest rest. I get that. Let's de-stress with a walk around the block. Yeah, I agree.

You've got something through a square, so you purchase. Oh, well, so they're, they, uh, I use my, I use like a digital booking with them. So like, that's your expense to use them. Yeah, they keep like cards on files that I can like charge. Get that LLC. Calculate your business expenses. Right. Right.

Off against. Okay. And probably a vending machine of some kind. Even though your bull's not insane. It's not insane. When we have $0,000, we don't both. Well, it's Fargo, $15. So we have, like, no money to our names.

Name, ma. Netflix? I mean, they don't have anything on there anyway. Tequitos. Torches were certainly not doing torches. Fenway not. 664 on savings. Is that correct?

Is that still there? No. No, it's not. What's there? I got, well, and my whole sophy right now is $1,700. $1,700. So it went up? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh. That's everything, everything I got. We're leading me in a different direction. No, I appreciate that. $1,700.

That's good. Now, Fidelity, this is good. So is this like a solo 401K? What are we looking at here? Yeah, this is just my retirement. It might include there's a, there was a brokerage account in there as well.

Yeah. They only only had like $20 something bucks. And they're like in the Fidelity 500. Yeah. So we're sitting at a total in there of $4,955. Mm-hmm. So when it comes to your overall spending, yeah, 41% of your spending.

What went out was $4,231. But again, average of $3,500, math isn't mathing. But of your total 4,231 that went out, 41% of that went to savings, meaning obviously over 50% of the actual income goes to housing, not savings, housing. Money going to debt was 7.7%. While we're doing that,

we still had 1.3% go to subscriptions, about 5% to quitos, food and additional 3.2%. Transportation. Well, transportation, a lot of that was Takedos that we counted as transportation, because, again, you said it was more 50-50. So about 6%.

Well, I drive, well, I have to meet my daughter's mom in West Tech. I drive a ton. Sure. Yeah, it's a ton. It's a ton. What is that equal to Kitos? Oh, well, I'm saying it actually might be more gas than to Kitos probably. Okay.

And other large purchases is about 50s. 18.8%. Atm. 246, who knows what the fuck that went. We know AMC we get, and then another 172 withdraw. What's crazy is, other than the percentages of the housing, your percentages on everything else that are not absolutely wild. They just don't make sense when we can't afford to survive. No, I know. I mean, that's, that's what like, before all this started, I was like, I mean, I've always been fairly, you know, where I've always lacked, I guess is having a decent an emergency fund, obviously. But like, I've always bought cars and cash, never carried balances on credit cards and

usually live within my means. Well, just like every guest, you're going to go through the budgeting program. We're going to obviously give that to you for free. And I need to do that because these percentages are out of whack and we're going to get you on the right. Yeah, well, because I was, you know, like you said, the 50, 30, 20. I'm like in my position, that means I'd have to be making like $7,500. Well, 50, 30, 20 doesn't make sense in your situation anyway because you have a lot of

bad shot. 53, 20 applies for after debt. And then a situation to situation. So you're going to go through the program that talks about, you know, where are you? What bucket do you fall in? And then you're going to go build the budget that makes sense for your situation. Okay. So you're going to go through that.

But let's build a temporary one just so we can have at least an idea of what your budget might look like, what your life might look like. Yeah. Yeah. How long it might take for things? So rent. What's that total number? $1,700. That's insanity.

Yep. Utilities. Utilities are about 75. $500 each month. No. Or, no, no, $75. You mind if I pulled the list of money, itemized bills? Yeah, because I know it's a lot.

Okay, yeah. Go ahead. Yep. So YMCA, that's 38 a month or? Yeah, because it was a lot more in your-year. Well, like the 38 a month covers like the membership that, like just the basic membership, but then those charges for like $92 or for the after school care. Okay.

How often do you have to do that with the budget that in? It's a, it's not. Well, it averages to about $360 a month. because some makes it won't be there because of school holiday. Plus this, plus this 38 or is that included? That's included, yeah. All right. It's a 36 a month.

Okay. Okay. Crosha's, you put yourself a 400. Do you feel comfortable with that with the kid? Yeah. I got two cats also. So that's kind of what I've been averaging. I've been keeping my receipts.

I'll put 50 for cat. Yeah. Gas you do 160. Is that true? I want to bump it to 200. Okay, 200. Spotify. Ah!

Oh, well, if you're using it for business, I will allow. I do use it. Well, who's the family plan? Who's using it? It's my dad and my sister. Okay. Can you have them send you $8? Probably.

Unlocked up? I'm going to allow 10 for you. Okay. And they need to pay up. That's right. So everything we can do, every little thing we can chip. Yeah, I agree. Car and rentals insurance is only $65?

Well, because I own my car. and I just pay for the, I just do the liability. With both of those together. Yeah. Phone 98. Is it just you? Yep.

I'd recommend switching to Mint. Well, I'm trying, I need to pay this phone off and switch to a cheap plan. That's what it is. So the phones are put in there. Yeah. I mean, we put Mint in our resources

because it's just terrible phone. It's a really good way to, yeah. Well, this phone is weird. It's the weird fold. Terrible. Internet 65. Then I'm going to do total paper. or everything else for surviving around the household things for school,

all that stuff, those extra little things, necessities that pop up. Yeah, putting in a hundred. And that looks like it. So we have rent, utilities,

after school, YMCA, food, cat, gas, Spotify, insurance, phone,

internet, toll paper. Now we need your minimum payment for debts. Yeah. Yeah. Now you said the personal one's 400 normally. It's $400 a month, yeah.

That does help. 721 for debt. That's it. Nothing else. There's nothing else that can fit in your life right now. It just doesn't exist, man. We've got to get you out of this debt so we can start making sure we're on track for retirement so we can make sure that the future of your life is not reliant on your

child. Right. And I mean, and I will say like I have been, you know, thinking of ways I could squeeze other hourly jobs in there, but I have been getting more business especially over the past like but if you make more money that's great yeah yeah i'm just i'm just saying i'm on i'm on a i'm on an up trend from what i can see well 3,844 is what you need to survive and we bring in 3,500 and then we need to set money aside for taxes probably so yeah yeah no i know

i know it's i mean for me it's like i've i've been at those months where i've you know kind of hit five and just over five so i i know it's possible so i think it's part of me You know, just... Are you interested in sales? So when I'm setting aside money to save for a new purchase, like a car or a home or taxes or whatever I'm saving money for, like an emergency fund, I'm using SOFi. It's a 4.6% yield on my money. And it's this absolutely incredible.

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is tech sales thing. And we could go get you through that in a few months and then try to get yourself as a tech sales job and make the money based on your own drive. Right, right. I mean, I'd be interested in it. I'd be interested in it. I don't know. We obviously just need to bring in more income.

Even if on an uptrend, we need to be on a major upturn. Well, I mean, because for November right now, I'm going to probably finish out, like, I got a big day on Saturday. I'm probably going to finish out with over four for November. Okay, but that's not acceptable. I need you to be at five minimum. I know. Five minimum,

at least allows us to, four basically breaks you even. Right. With any amount of wiggle room that always exists in life. Four breaks even. I need you to go to five so that one, we need to set money aside for taxes. Two,

I need you to make progress sources debt. Yeah. Even if you bring it an extra thousand bucks a month, post setting aside money for taxes, that still takes over two. That takes two years. Yeah. Two years to pay off the debt.

Yeah. I don't know. Because that is extra. Because really, bring in 4,000, right? I mean, I was to say with where you are in your tax life and income, I still set aside 600 a month. So that's 4,000 coming in, which is more than you normally make. And then that still brings us down 600 hours, which puts you in the whole minimum, minimum like $44.

Right, right. So we're making the difference. I think, and again, this sucks. I think the conversation is $25 an hour, $9 to $5. is grandpa willing to watch the kid on the weekends? How much of a life does grandpa have? He can help on the weekends. Okay.

Then I think we're also working a weekend job somewhere or we're driving Uber E, or whatever. And then I think in the middle of the night, you know, a few nights a week, if we can, unless it starts to bring in yourself the dangerous levels, the sleep deprivation, which is not acceptable. But trying to pick up a couple third shifts if we can somewhere. Maybe it's a couple days a week and we just interview everywhere,

everywhere that are desperate to hire for third shift. And we just say, I can only work this these couple days a week. Okay, some might turn you down. Some might you accept it if they're desperate enough. Right, right. I need you to get to $5,000 a month bringing in post setting money aside for taxes. Yeah. Post taxes.

That's kind of the, I was kind of looking for the number that I should be hitting. That is the number because I need you to get to paying off this debt in two years. If we don't pay off the debt in two years, if we, okay. Right now, I mean, technically you can't even make minimum of the payments right now and still pay your taxes. So the taxes come up, then all of a sudden we fall behind in payments as you were falling behind in payments on that one thing already. So we just get to this reoccurring cycle falling behind payments and we just never make any progress. Then you're just dying in poverty and you're working through your 80s and 90s. And that's not what I want to see.

And I don't want the responsibility of your future life to be put on your kid. I want your kid to have their college paid for if you want to do that. I want your kid to be able to work their life and not have to worry about if dad is able to make the bills due. that's what I want. The way to do that now is to say, okay, what I want to do for a living isn't necessarily what's going to take priority in this exact moment for the next couple years. We're going to go make money immediately. Tech has been struggle in terms of like, you know, product managers and engineers, everything like that.

Other than that, we're still in a, you can at least go get a what some people would consider them a beneath them job right now. Anyone can go get that to bring in more money. at least in Austin. Can't speak for everywhere, but in Austin, for sure. And a lot of those start at $20, $25 an hour because it's still a competitive scene here in Austin. Yeah. And I mean, I'm very familiar with the service industry.

I mean, it's just tricky just because the kids schedule and when, you know, trying to figure out who's going to watch them when you're working type of deal. I mean, because I know, I mean, I know I can average, I can probably like average 45. I was, you know, kind of probably sitting more close to 45 for a good while leading up to me running this apartment. What changed? Well, I mean, probably the fire to kind of keep looking for leads was kind of dwindling as the legal situation really kicked up. I think that's just been the real kicker is just trying to manage the weight of all that. Did you kind of just shut down? I mean, not even shut down.

It's just more like doing, you know, rather than kind of trying to generate more leads from new students, just kind of barely doing the ones that I had scheduled in a week. How do you generate new leads? Well, I'm affiliated with the music store, and so they pass on my cards there. And I also play out at a couple of restaurants in town that let me put my cards out, and I kind of have worked with some of the local elementary schools. And a lot of that is like kind of turning over really good, like I've started a lot of new students this particular week.

So it's, you know, from what I can see and the students that I've got on the books for the next two months, it looks like I'll be sitting at that four range for at least the next two to three months. And then when the spring kicks in, all the wedding stuff, the wedding band gigs kind of really pick up and I make really good money in spring. Like obviously, one, I'm in the slow, it's like the slow season and the litigation happened at the same time, which we're just like. So season, we pick up somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. No. So that's, that's where, you know, I mean, it all comes back to just needing a proper emergency fund. One thing I did when I was doing composition lessons throughout college to middle school and high school students.

It helps having, you know, a relationship with them. But being able to just get in the context of the different like band, choir orchestra directors here. And like what they did is they allowed me, even ones that I've never met before. Like I just went around in my overall metro area up there of Kalamazoo. And I came in. I was like, I'm teaching lessons. What's up? you know if you want to learn this put your name on your way out on this piece of paper

i'll contact you we can do some lessons and then obviously you know they have to go to their parents and like can i do lessons and all this stuff but i at least got their contact information or their parents i think i got their parents numbers or something like that and then i reached out to them depending on if they're middle school or high school but just like that that's an extra way just to get some because you have to do after school right because yeah that's that's where all, like, all my main hours happen between, like, my earliest lesson will be, like, 12 o'clock is my earliest lesson, depending on the day. Who?

Well, I teach adult learners, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, my earliest lesson can be as early as 12. My last lesson ends around 7 o'clock. Yeah. What's your kid doing at YMCA? She, well, the YMC goes to her school and it'll, like, they'll watch her after school. Through 7, though?

Through 630. So I have to have someone that will, you know, it's, I, I usually does. Either my dad or my sister. Like that's good. I mean, for me, like, I feel like none of the hourly jobs are beneath me.

I'm just kind of still looking for the, looking for the right one that will fit in my schedule. But I also know, like, you have what? Usually, do those programs have both before a school, like breakfast programs as well?

Sometimes they do. They, uh, no, not at her particular. She already starts at seven. Sure. No,

because she are, she already starts at seven. Starts at seven. Okay. So we're looking seven 30 to noon. Seven 30. That, that would be,

Yeah, that'd be kind of where I'm looking to get. Yeah. Which I'm not opposed to in the slightest. Dude, even watch dishes at like a break of a place that's doing like breakfast. It's just like I don't want to, I don't want to say like I try. I mean, I don't want to be like I want to keep my schedule open, but it's like, you know, I might get hit up for like a random day gig that could be $300 for a couple hours. Well, if that happens, definitely don't do.

I'm sick. Oh, sure. Definitely never do that. I mean, I don't know. No, yeah, yeah. But it's like you just because when you're grinding and you're in the hustle, man, you just got to figure that out. And usually a lot of those jobs, the hourly jobs are like, okay, you can take a shift off

if you find someone to cover it. Yeah. So like just, I mean, grind like everyone else has in the industry. I mean, we all did it. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, I've definitely been put through the ringer for sure. When I had a concert or something pop up when I was doing, you know, composition, I was desperately calling all down the list of Jim and John.

I'm still a delivery job. I got this thing going on. I can't get out of it, but I need someone to cover my shift. Can I do it? Yeah. Maybe I'll throw in an extra, you know, 25 bucks or something just as a jester. You know, just like, please come in. I'd really appreciate it.

I'll cover a shift of years in the future. There's things you can do. Right, right, right, right. I just don't want a bunch of excuses as to potentially why we can't do this. I need us to, reminder, 3,84040 to survive. Yeah. Averaging 32 to 35 right now. 32 to 35.

I've been generous and did the 35. Sure. We can't afford to survive and we have a kid. No. No, that's not. That's facts. That's facts. So, I mean, at some point, we just got to put reality over the desire of wanting

to keep it open just because sometimes the $300 thing might pop up. I think we're going to make well more than that, have any consistent, stable thing. For sure. Now, buddy, get out of debt that eliminates $721 a month. Move into a place we can afford that if we can, I mean, I can lower your remit. by $300, get rid of the debt, that gives you an extra $1,000 a month. That means you need $2,800 to survive and bringing in $3,500 doing what you're doing. That allows us to essentially, we'll make sure we're taking care of taxes and at least

allows us to put what, 5 to 10% aside for retirement? Like, that's the step in the right direction. Well, I mean, I, and I would love to definitely reduce my rent, but now, like, I'm zoned for where my daughter goes to school and, you know, that's the area I'm going to end up staying for a while. so I mean it's not the most expensive area in the world but I kind of I think I probably have the cheapest deal for for me and another person what do you mean you in another or a kid yeah yeah it's like the cheap the cheapest for the

amount of square footage that I got make sure it's not yeah do it like here show me what part of town no one gets to see except for me okay I have two friends that live up there yeah I mean my my daughter I mean she's got to have her own room. And, well, it's a one-bedroom apartment, so she gets the room. And that's kind of the place where, I mean, I would rather, like, increase. That's a one-bedroom apartment in that area. That's expensive for that area. Well, I mean, for that, for that area, but I like to, I, I want to stay close to the, the music store that throws my business cards out. That's fine, but I personally know people that live in that area and you can have, we can cut the rent by at least $200.

Yeah, for sure. And I, I, I probably could have, but, I mean, like I said, I was making, I was, I was making, you know, really good money for the time that I was applying and seemed like it was all right. If you make the good money again, and if it's 30% of the income, that's fine. Again, all I'm saying is if we cut rent by $200 to $300, we get rid of the debt minimum monthly payments, you can do what you're doing now and scrape by. You're not meeting the retirement goals I'd want, but at least puts us in a step in the direction. That's just showing how important the next two years are. Yeah.

If we just, if we stop around with work, as I call it, and we get the actual income up to $5,000 post taxes that gets rid of debt in two years, fully funded emergency fund probably two and a half years, you know, total, two and a half, two and three, fours. Of course, get a one month emergency fund before you start paying off the debt. I could probably, I could probably, I have probably enough instruments and equipment that I could sell for a one month emergency fund. Yes. Probably. Absolutely. No, Finnic with everything, man. Yeah.

Absolutely. Because if I get you to a point where you're fully debt-free and we're hitting retirement contributions, you can get nicer instruments than the one you're going to sell anyway. This is a temporary thing of two and a half, two and three quarters years. And then your life has changed before you're even 30. Before you're even 30. What is that? So many people consider 30 being like a child these days.

So like before you're even 30, your life is turned around. If you sacrifice now, work pretty much. every second of every day that you're not, you know, you need to be there for your kid. That was kind of my, my soft goal was like, you know, I looked at this situation. I was like, okay, I know it's, but I just got to get it done by 30. It's kind of like my soft goal. And just kind of also the order of how I should attack these things, because it's obviously all over the place. We got the 9% on that loan, the 0% random card, the 30% couple 30%.

I just. So you're right. Yeah. What I would do in your situation, is I would actually, it depends. So if you know yourself, if you know yourself well and you have struggle sticking to things and you need reward systems along the way,

that's where I would do the classic standard, what most people do, snowball. Or it's small as large as because you see yourself making progress, you get more money added to your minimum monthly, less money you're going to minimum monthly payments and you can throw that towards the debt. What I would do if you know you can be disciplined and sick to things, in this situation for mathematical purposes,

I would actually do avalanche of starting with the Capital One Quicksilver, then the Discover card, then the Personal Loan, then the Wells Fargo. Unless the Wells Fargo kicks in before the personal loan is gone. Then I would switch to the Wells Fargo. That still has 20 months to kick in. So it'll be close. So I would do Capital One, Discover, Personal, and Wells Fargo to attack the interest rates. Right, right, right.

That will technically save your more money. That's what I would do if you know yourself to be disciplined and being able to stick to it. But if you need those reward systems and, the feeling of more progress than just do smalls to largest, which in this case will honestly be relatively similar. It would be Discover Capital One Wells Fargo, then personal loan. Okay. And if I make over $5,000 doing self-employment, you're not opposed to that? If I'm making over $5.5. No, dude. Make the money any way, any way possible. I'm just saying what you can do like starting right now. Now, if you know, for sure. It's $5,000 after you sent.

After a tax money is miscise. Yeah. Which, I mean, with the tax credits, get I mean, I know I could probably really benefit from all kinds of different deductions with the kid and if I get an LLC. Like, I mean, that's why like I wanted like after December, I'm going to get my LLC. Well, this is going to help. This is going to be used as a pastor and it's going to help you keep organized. But so probably like 5,500 at a minimum needs to be what's bringing in total.

I mean, I can, I mean, I've, I've brought in that kind of money before and I know I could bring in that kind of money again. Now that. But if self-employment's not. Sure. No, sure. For sure. Of course, of course.

After that point, then we're probably doing 50, 25, 25. I need to catch up on retirement. Like, I'm glad you at least gotten it started, but obviously we have ground to make up. And we've been putting it on pause. 25% going to retirement minimum. I would try to cap needs at 50% might not be able to. So if it's at 55%, then all of a sudden you only have 20% for once. When we're not sacrificing at all is retirement, it's minimum 25% on a monthly basis.

going to go to her. And wherever you are after your wants or after your needs, that's what you have left over for your wants. So if it's 60% go into needs, then you only have like 15% going to wants. If you can cap it at 50% lovely, then you get 25% of wants. If you want more wants, you're not taking it away from investing. No, sure, sure. You find a way to either increase income or decrease needs.

Those are the options. Yeah. But it's two years. It's, yeah. How, how, like, people will walk away and they'll make progress for a few months because they get a fire lit under their. This conversation. Two years is a long time to maintain. No.

I mean, I've been, I've had a fire under my past, you know, two years in itself just getting to the point where I'm making this kind of money just doing lessons. I mean, that's been, and I'm still very motivated to eventually build it up into a full on, like, lesson studio, you know. That'd be great. Obviously, buildings are way out of the question. But, you know, it's the kind of thing I know it can happen. I know that I have been there before with those kinds of numbers. Like I said, it was like the slow season happening at the exact same time as the litigation was the real kicker. I mean, as far as this, so you're saying I should do the avalanche to the highest interest.

If you know you can be disciplined to it. Okay. If you think you're going to struggle with that, do the snowball. Okay. I just got to try and find a morning job is. Yeah. Is my thing. It's just tricky, man.

The kids, the kids stuff. DoorDash and breakfast and lunch, even. I did want to get into Dorchesterish, and I will probably eventually when I get a different car, but my car is. What is your car? It's 2003, Toyota. Toyota.

Avalon. Okay. Miles? 277,000 miles. Condition. Oh, she's running like a champ. Okay, so obviously that's a part in the next two years. It might be an expensive repair might be coming. Yeah.

Now, I know Toyota in general that does have a better reputation for less and longer. Yeah. But when you're approaching 300,000 hours and then 300,000 miles in the next two years, this might be something we're considering in this situation, the necessity of having to get another car. I do kind of have the second car somewhat lined up. I may receive one from a family member. For free? Yeah, a newer one in good condition.

Another Toyota. year? I believe it's a 16. That'll help and then just sell your car and throw that towards the debt. Yeah. Yeah. That would certainly help. I mean, it's looking like, it's looking like, you know, from now till kind of through the end of the summertime, I'll be with what's on the calendar with gigs and lessons, I'll be more between four and five thousand a month until the, at least until the end of the summertime.

So any final thoughts? Any final questions? I guess get married before you hit. have kids. Or don't. Or don't. I don't know. For his hammer financial score, when it comes to spending in a budget, it wasn't good for his financial situation. In fact, his real budget, it was just under whack. It doesn't exist because there's no money to make the payments do. So it has to be zero out ten. I just can't give it anything higher than that. That's certainly not the worst, but definitely not even close to good. Two out of ten.

Emergency fund had about a tenth of the way there. So one out of ten. Retirement, he started. Very behind for his age. Two out of ten. You know what? Let's say a solid four out of ten. Give him a little, little more for really starting and getting to a few thousand bucks in there. Real estate, zero out of ten. That's going to be a 1.5 out of 10 for his hammer financial score. Make sure to check out every resources linked in the description below. They're what I use or would use in personal situations, including the best budgeting course in the history of the internet. Thanks to all of our Patreon producers for making this episode

possible. If you want to participate in an episode of Financial Audit and you're able to make it to Austin, Texas, please fill out an application on the survey linked in the description below. You can also send a link to your friends or family who you think might be good to be on the show. If you have any questions, you can email casting at Calebhammer.com.