More Money Podcast - 028 Kicking Your Student Debt to the Curb - Riley Maruyama, Cinematic Artist

Episode Date: November 25, 2015

In this episode, I talk with longtime friend and fellow film school grad Riley Maruyama about his experience trying to make it in the film industry while trying to crush $35,000 in student debt. Long episode description: I am so excited to share my interview with my very good friend Riley Maruyama for this episode, all about kicking his student debt to the curb. Riley and I go way back. We were in the same 30-person film program at Simon Fraser University back in 2005, we helped each other as crew members on multiple film shoots, and I even passed down my first basement suite to him after we all graduated (it was a really good deal, so we kept that suite in our “friend family” for quite a few years). Since I’ve known Riley, he’s always been a true artist. In film school, he was known as the experimental filmmaker out of all of us. But why we got along so well was he was never that stereotypical art school kid. He had (and still has) the best sense of humour, but at the same time is incredibly philosophical. And it very well could be because he’s equal parts creative and thoughtful that he realized how important it was to pay down his $35,000 student loan while still pursuing a career in the arts. Not an easy feat, but Riley is seriously talented and does not give up. It’s certainly no surprise to me that he was able to crush his debt while eventually landing a job as a cinematic artist in the gaming industry. Since I mentioned a few of the projects Riley’s worked on over the years in this episode, I’ve linked to them below (including his grad film!). I really hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. What I really wanted to share was that it’s not just a success story if you pay off your debt in record time. If it takes you a bit longer but you still end up paying it off — that’s still a huge accomplishment! Riley’s Grad Film https://vimeo.com/16880038 Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/28 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to episode 28 of the Mo Money Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. Very excited to share today's episode with you where I interview my longtime friend, Riley Maruyama. I found out recently that he crushed his debt. He paid all of his student debt off. And I knew I needed to chat with him about what he's been up to, what his personal finance journey has been since we graduated film school together. And so very excited to talk to him for this episode today. Thanks, Riley, for joining me on the show today. Thanks for having me, Jess.

You're welcome, Riley. Back several years ago when, I want to say when I'd left that basement suite and then you moved in and you roomed with one of our mutual friends. You mentioned podcasting to me. And before that, I had no idea what podcasting was. And I think you had the idea to start one with a friend. I'm not sure if you ever did. Did you ever start a podcast? One episode and kind of petered out. It was a flash in the pan.

Well, that's too bad. But yeah, you're actually the one that mentioned podcasting to me and all these years later now I started one. But it's funny because when I was about to start, when I actually thought of you, because I remember that conversation we had. That's awesome. Thank you. So maybe you had a hand in inspiring me to start this podcast.

You can take some credit if you like. Wow. I'm pretty sure that's all you because it's definitely you and all your talents on that side. Thanks, Riley. Okay, so the reason I wanted to have you on the show is we went to film school together. I've known you for about a decade now, which makes me feel really old. But we know each other really well. And you recently paid off all of your

student loan debt, which is amazing. And I think your story is very relatable. A lot of people out there, you know, there's a lot of stories out there from bloggers and podcasters about these people that, you know, have these huge success stories of paying $100,000 in debt in just a year, whereas you're kind of like, well, you had $35,000 in student loan debt and you took a little bit more time to do it, but you were able to do it. It wasn't like a crazy scheme you did. You were just smart with your money and kind of focused, put your focus on paying down your debt, and then eventually crushed it, which I think is a little bit more realistic than some of those kind of crazy stories of paying off debt in like a year when I'm like,

I had him, how much money do you actually make? So let's, um, I want to kind of start from the beginning. So we're kind of, uh, talking earlier before I hit the record button that you went to school and I

believe Alberta for a year, but you didn't take any student loans debt on. And then when you decided to move to BC and go to Simon Fraser University for the film program, that's when you had to take on some debt, right? Totally. So basically after that one year in Alberta, I moved out to Vancouver and then suddenly just had that much more expenses for having to get rent, going to school, transportation, et cetera, et cetera. And it's, I mean, it's not cheap to live in that city either. So, and especially during the program that we did, it wasn't like a normal, you know, oh, you have to pay tuition and books. It's like, you also have to pay for your film projects, which very expensive it can be yeah can be yeah i'm sure there's ways

to work around it but i mean my grad film cost me five thousand dollars see and i was on the other end where i i think mine cost me 500 oh you're so smart yeah that's true i mean yeah there are definitely ways to work around actually it's funny that you mentioned i just remembered your grad film and i really liked it because you were the one who um just sort of discovered qr codes you're like guys this is going to be a big thing and you were like the one who mentioned it and it was a big thing like a year later yeah yeah it was um it's uh i'm always just ahead of it not enough to capitalize on anything damn it that's all right though it's uh this is fine with me yeah so uh do you take four years or five years to do your bachelor's degree at SFU took about five years

and I did like three classes per session so I was classified as a full-time student so I could get the loans and all that. But then I also... But you still worked, right? You still worked while you were going to school. Exactly. Yeah. Just needed a little bit of extra income to cover the basis. And yeah, so that was my game plan. And so after you graduated with a film degree, what actually did you're like, all right, now I'm going to, you know, pay off the student loan debt? Or what was kind of your mind frame where you're kind of like, I'll get to it. Let me just focus on finding my career path. Or what was kind of your mentality at that point? Yeah, it was.

Well, first off, it was probably just to land a job because like surprisingly right out of school you kind of have this thought that, oh, it'll just happen naturally and you'll just get a job and it'll just all come up to you, almost on a silver platter. But it was kind of tough to go by. And so it was really about selling yourself and learning how to do the business side of your career without ever having really any kind of class in that. So that was a big thing. That was a big learning curve. Yeah, knowing how much to sell yourself for, basically like what's the going rates for freelancing. And there were a lot of opportunities

that I kind of almost put myself at a disadvantage for like funds just to like be able to land the job. So you're kind of underselling yourself just because you weren't sure how much to, you know, charge and you just wanted the job. For sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. What were your kind of first gigs out of school? I was curious. For sure. Yeah, definitely. installations at the kefir restaurant so we both uh kind of uh rnd'd and uh made these late boxes with another company called uh urban visuals so we were all kind of uh in cooperation when we uh when we set out for that project and then um yeah just different projects uh alongside with him worked with uh douglas copeland Copeland for a couple of his projects. And Judy Radul,

one of the professors from SFU, she helped me out a lot with just being a studio assistant for her and just helping her on her art installations. I remember at one point, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like I remember you thinking that you're going to pursue a master's degree at one point. And if that's true, why did you decide not to pursue that?

Right. Okay. So that's it. And actually, you know what? I find that interesting because I was already worked about a year and a half in the video game industry because uh over time from doing all the freelance art i uh ended up getting an opportunity to start doing uh camera work for video games and so uh i was there was a bit of a slump in the jobs that were coming in and uh i, I kind of thought, Oh, maybe I can like, uh, study some

virtual reality or I can like go in for this, uh, for this interactive arts degree for getting my master's. And so I went through the job application or the, I guess not job, but through the application for the master's and like, uh, was ready to roll for it. But I, you know, I, I just started talking to everybody, uh, that was already, uh, like, uh, residing at that, at that, uh, at the university and they're all pretty much gunning for the jobs that I was always already working at. So. Oh, really? So when you're like, this won't actually help my career. Yeah, it was, it was, it was a 50, 50. I'm, I'm, I'm very sure it did. It would help tons of people. But I already had the foot in the door for a lot of companies. So a friend of mine had a job offer for me in Toronto, and I decided to do that over, go to my master's. And I haven't regretted it. Great. No. I know. And it's funny actually that you mentioned that because I remember you moving to Toronto. And that was actually, you're part of the reason that me and Josh ended up moving to Toronto because you said so many amazing things about it and how there's so much opportunity and you love the city.

It's fun. I love that place. I know. We should move back. It's a lot of fun here. A lot of things happening on this side of the country. I know. You got stuff

going on in vancouver that's fair um that's interesting that's really interesting because i actually remember um right after uh finishing film school and i was trying to figure out what i wanted to do i knew i did not want to do freelancing or really i think i'm just like i don't think i'm cut out for most of these film jobs i just don't think that fits with my personality um yeah it just took me five years and a degree and thousands of dollars to figure I'm just like, I don't think I'm cut out for most of these film jobs. I just don't think that fits with my personality. Yeah, it just took me five years and a degree and thousands of dollars to figure that out. But that's okay. And I remember talking to a bunch of people and I think talking to some of our professors and lots of them were like, oh, you don't know what you want to do?

Maybe you should do a film master's. And I was really considering it and honestly i guarantee the reason i didn't pursue a master's in film studies or filmmaking was because i just didn't want to take on all that debt like that and also i'm just like i don't know if this actually will help my career i think this is just kind of if i were to do it it wouldn't be to get my foot in the door it'd be to delay, you know, my reality and adult life. So I didn't pursue it. That was a bit of a fear on my half too. It was, um, there was definitely like, uh, like a, a big lure and interest in like, uh, doing research and working

with new interactive technologies. But then, you know, it's, uh, it was one of those things where I wasn't going to be getting scholarships. It would be coming out of my pocket at the end. So it's just another accumulation of debt where, I mean, like I do feel like you'd still learn a lot while you're working on the workforce. So it was kind of one of those situations where the other side just looked a little bit brighter with a bit of financial support. So I was like, okay, perhaps this is the better route for today. Exactly. So you kind of did the freelancing and then you got into the video game industry. At what point in your early career did you seriously start thinking about tackling your debt?

Was it kind of when things were just a bit more stable in your career? Yeah. You know, it wasn't actually too long ago. It was about, I guess, two years ago now where I just was, I was just paying the minimum amounts and just, it was just slowly chipping at it. And it was, I just saw it as like a looming, like five thing. And it just kept on, it was kept on being there. And like, yeah, it was i just saw it as like a looming like five thing and it just kept on it was kept on being there and like uh yeah it was i just thought it was like kind of important for me to take care of just like just for myself and uh you know like you always hear like how how much like the average student has this much debt in and I was even reading a CVC thing today, or not even today, just last week about how some students didn't even realize that they

had to pay back their loans. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, apparently some students have their parents do all the co-signing and signing up and setting up of the loans that there's no real thought of, hey, we have to pay this back. That's scary. And that really worries me. I know there's a definite need for financial literacy in young people today, but that scares me that some students will take on this debt and, you know,

graduate and be like, what? I have to pay back $50,000. Wait, what? How do I even get that amount of money? Right. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So I kind of like, you know, going back to like, to, to my debt, I would just, I kind of looked at it at one point and I was like, you know, I just want to, I just want to tackle it. Just want to, want to clear it as quick as I possibly can. Do you know how long it would have taken you to pay it off if you had just done the minimum payment? Oh, yeah. Probably six or seven years, maybe. Really?

Probably long. And you were able to tackle it in how long? About a year and a half. Wow. Yeah. Just think of all the interest you saved on that, too. I do. That's crazy. I mean, so much money you saved by paying it off early. And then I think that's another thing that people don't realize. They're like, okay, I have to pay it back, but they don't realize that, okay, the longer you take to pay it off, the more money you're actually going to be paying. Just like a mortgage, there's interest involved. You're going to want to tackle it as soon and as aggressive as you can, especially when you're young, I find, because you can keep your living costs quite low. So it doesn't seem

as, you know, like you're sacrificing that much. But I feel like as you get older, that's, you know, and you maybe have a family or you have a mortgage or a car or whatever, it just gets a bit more expensive and it gets a little bit trickier, I think, to just pay it off as quickly as you want to. Yeah, no, I agree. And that was it was at that moment, too, where, you know, my overhead costs were weren't as much as they had been in previous years. I went to I moved into a smaller house and it only cost me about like five hundred dollars a month for that. And that's like heat. That's electricity so i i took a lot of

those decisions to try to like really cut down what my overhead was like i i took my car off insurance started biking everywhere it like all those all those small decisions really did uh pull up to getting through the through that debt uh a lot quicker and do you find that um by making those like little changes of like biking everywhere and just kind of uh cutting some of your costs did you find in general that it affected your come you know how comfortable you were in life or how how happy you are uh no i i said there was there's always there's always like that that one rough night where you you you curse at translink because the bus just left as you're running up towards it but like in general it's uh it's it's been great because i think well i know that toronto and vancouver have pretty good

cyclist communities and uh the roads here for for cycling are. You get that extra fresh air. And I mean, time-wise, yes, you are investing. You're going to be spending a lot more time on the cycle. But the rewards out of it are pretty good. I mean, you get that. I don't know. It depends because I actually, I subway. So I have to pay, I can't remember how much it is, 140 bucks or something for a TTC monthly pass. And Josh bikes to work and he works relatively close to where I work.

And my commute is about 45 minutes door to door on the subway. And he says it takes him like 15 to 20 minutes on his bike. So he actually saves time by biking. He probably gets to his work quicker than most people using a car. So true. For me, every once in a while while it's that uphill when you just like look oh yeah that's true you have hills in vancouver we don't have those you got that slow dip towards the tower or the beaches yeah oh that's so true um so after so you aggressively took like a year or a year and a half to pay it off. And once you paid it off, what did you do to, I feel like the, the one significant thing when it comes

to debt payoff is it's important to obviously pay it off. But I think lots of people don't realize, um, what life is after debt. And lots of people can kind of get into those bad habits, especially the, uh, the people that got into consumer debt, not so much student loan debt. They don't really know how to handle life after debt, and they may get into those bad habits again to get back into debt. So what are kind of things that you've done to kind of safeguard yourself getting back into debt and to start now, you know, from zero building up your savings so you can think about your future. Wow. Yeah. That term life after debt, that is interesting. Yeah, no, I hear you. Cause like, uh, the first while it was, it felt so good and it kind of felt, and it does steal,

it always feels like you have like a bit of like a, a fire in your pocket. So it's like, yeah, like I literally just take I try to take as much as I can still and put that into TFSA. And like right now, I haven't found the best route for investments. I kind of wanted to like sit down for us like a weekend and really kind of go through what is what's the best kind of road to do that. But, uh, so far just, just to get the ball rolling, I just, I just toss everything into a TFSA and that way it's outside of the checkings. It's something that I'd have to go into the bank and be like, I demand this money. So it's, it's, uh, it's, it's helpful for me in that sense, like just off the card into some other accounts

so I can just like still manage and still budget as if I am paying off the loan. Just try to match. And I think that's a great way to do it, I think, is to, you know, especially when you're like, I'm not ready for investing, but I am done with the debt repayment. I guess a good first step would just be to building up a really good cushion or emergency fund. So you do have a good chunk of change in case something does happen. You can pay in cash. You don't have to use your credit card and get into debt again.

And then once you've kind of reached a certain dollar amount, like for me, I always, when I was just starting out, I wanted to make sure I had $10,000 in savings in cash. And then I wanted to pursue investing because I'm like, well, if something happens, like I have to go back to school or something, or I get laid off and I need money, I want to have a good chunk of change so I can live and not rely on credit. So I think that's a really smart thing that you're doing. And it's exciting that, you know, the next step is then once you reach that um goal is to pursue investing whatever makes the the most sense for you and your future plan so that actually kind of brings me to my next question what kind of you know now that you've uh you're like financially free as we say in the personal finance community what are kind of some of the dreams or goals you have for your future

like do you have an idea of i don't know some things that maybe you didn't think you'd be able to do? Maybe you can buy some property. Maybe you can go on a nice vacation or think more specifically about retirement. Wow, yeah. That's a lot there, Jess. That's a big question. Yeah.

I know, I know, I know. Let's see. Just on a side note too, on top of tossing things to savings i always i always had the thought especially with doing contracts and doing freelance work i always tried to keep a minimum safety net within my checkings and that was always about like three months or four months of like uh of just like rents or just like the minimums where if work never came up you could you could get by for a couple of months.

And I guess, yeah, that is kind of the tricky thing. Sorry. That is kind of the tricky thing about working as a freelancer and working on contracts. You have to always have some kind of safety net. Yeah. So that was just like, it was just a small thing where it's just like, I always thought that was really important. Because I have like, I have dipped into that before where you're like, you're months in and you haven't gotten any work and you're like, okay, it's like, this is, this is my red line. I really have to get a job

at this kind of point. So that's always, that's always been a thing as well. And I remember you mentioning, I think this was, um, maybe you were still living in Toronto, but you thought there was like one opportunity that was, you were talking to some people and you're like living in Toronto, but you thought there was one opportunity that was you were talking to some people and you're like, I think I might have another contract in a couple months, so I'm just going to wait it out in Toronto

and then I don't think it ever happened. And then you chose to move back to Vancouver. So I bet that safety net really helped you. And those instances where you think you have a pretty good idea of like, no, no, no, I think this is going to happen and then it just doesn't because that is life. Life just, you know, throws you curveballs like that.

Exactly. Yeah. So it's, it's, uh, yeah, definitely. So you just, cause you can't really expect the unexpected. So it's like, it's always good just to have a little bit in case. So that was like, yeah, cause it did end up coming to bite me where I thought I had a contract, uh, set in stone and turned out that they just didn't need, just didn't need me. So it was, it kind of left me hanging.

And like at that point I was transitioning to move. So it was hitting that red button and being like, okay, maybe moving is not the best decision. Maybe I should try to find work here on the West Coast still before plunging myself somewhere or somewhere that's like a little bit like even though I lived there for a bit, still kind of foreign to me. And just like the risks were a bit high at that point. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So back to your future plans, if you have any. I know.

It's so crazy. But like, I do love i do love traveling i want to i want to see a lot of places so my thought was uh is to at least make one trip per year and try to do that on a budget you know because you can still airbnb and you can still find the like the good places to go without having to be like full on tourists and, uh, get all those, had all those, uh,

benchmarks. But, um, so traveling is very important, but also the idea of retirement is pretty important to me as well. Cause, you know, honestly,

like, I don't think I'm going to have a pension. I, I know. I, yeah, I know. I hear you.

I think we pay into some kind of retirement plan, but I, it's like, it's, yeah, I know. I hear you. I think we pay into some kind of retirement plan, but I, it's like, Yeah, I wouldn't rely on the CPP or anything like that. I, I, I, I feel like I, I knew that once I started looking into personal finance when I was like 25 and knew I was probably going to work and I thought I was going to work in the arts industry. I'm like, so I'm never going to get like a pension from a company or anything.

So I have to just fund my whole retirement. So that kind of honestly put the fire in my belly because that scared the crap out of me. Yeah, no, it does for me too. Cause like, uh, I think, I think I'll always have a good job in, in, in this, uh, in this industry, in the arts industry, but there's always, there's always like a hundred new people every single year graduating that were in my shoes years ago where that have far better ideas than I do at this moment right now. But it's like, at least I have like a good, a good solid foundation of my work and I know how to do what I do well. And I'm, you know, so it's, it's one of those things, like how, how long can I ride this? And? And is this something that could be a lifelong career? I really think.

Yeah, and I'm sure it can. Absolutely. You're very talented. Oh, for sure. Believe me, I'm digging for compliments. That's horrible. I know. No, you're not.

Jesus. No, no, I agree. I think you need to really, you know, not prepare for things to go well. I know that sounds really pessimistic, but you really do have to, you know, prepare for the worst if it were, because you just never know what's going to happen. You also know, you don't know how long you're going to live. You don't know how your health is going to be. So another thing you should probably look into, and I'm going to bug you about this after is disability insurance, just in case you don't get it through your work. Cause that's another thing that Josh is actually, I'm going to have to bug him about. He, yeah, he needs to get that, but yeah, lots of things that you need to just kind of, you know, they're annoying things and they're things like, oh, that's not a problem in my world right now. Cause I'm, you know, in my late twenties, early thirties, but some, you know, things right now because I'm, you know, in my late 20s, early 30s. But some, you know, things that we do need to, you know, think about.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well, I'm going to have to hit you up for all that information because honestly, like. I got some good book suggestions for you. Yeah, because, you know, it's like it's it's ridiculous to still like be 30 years old and still feel like a fledgling when it comes to like, what are you supposed to do with your money? How are you supposed to save this thing? So it's any information is good information for me.

Which is why I'm doing this podcast and sharing these stories is because I feel like the one thing that a lot of us, especially millennials, didn't get growing up was this financial education. We had to educate ourselves. And sometimes it's later than we want to. And I think it's something that we really need to talk openly about so we know what to do, what not to do. And so money and the future isn't so scary. Yeah. Yeah.

Definitely. Well, yeah. Awesome. money and the future isn't so scary yeah yeah yeah definitely well yeah awesome well is there before we go is there any kind of advice you would give um for let's say um current students or young people that are thinking about pursuing a job in either the film industry or the arts is there any kind of advice that you would give them like things that maybe you did you wish you didn't or you know things that you did and they were very helpful yeah i think the number one thing like i said prior was like the having like that that safety net of just like a few months rents always always saved my back that was something that constantly saved me and And I was like, and I had to learn how to do that because like the first couple of months outside of, uh, outside of school, it was like, I was, I was so close to, you know, calling back home and be like, please mom,

I need some more money. But it's, you know, it's, it was, it was something that took some time to like really kind of get into that mindset where it's just like, I suddenly I have this money, like now I'm going to go spend some, spend it on something crazy. It's like, no, use that towards a possibility that you might not get this kind of job again. So that's always been, that was always the biggest thing for me. And I think it helped me out with a lot of circumstances. I mean, it doesn't mean that you can't treat yourself. It just means that you just got to kind of just tighten things up a bit. Yeah. And just be more conscious of what you're actually spending your money on. Like I still, whenever I buy something, even if it's little, it's like, Jessica, do you actually need this? Are you going to remember buying this in a day?

Right. If not, maybe you shouldn't buy it. Yeah, no. Yeah, for me too. It has to have some kind of utility. I mean, or else it's delicious, delicious food, which can be- I know. I love my food.

I spend a lot of money on food. Financial suck at this moment. I know. I love my food. I spend a lot of money on food. Financial suck at this moment. I know. It's not good. I know, man. Well, thank you, Riley, for joining me on the show. It was a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you for having me, Jess. You are welcome anytime. Right on. Right on. I can't wait to hear more podcasts from you. Once again, thank you so much for listening to episode 28 of the Mo Money Podcast. Remember, if you want to check out the show notes for this episode, all you have to do is go momoneymohouses.com slash 28. And if you like what you hear, I hope you do. Make sure to send

me a nice email, a tweet, I don't know, an iTunes review or a Stitcher review. That would be awesome. So thanks again for listening and I will see you back here next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.