Choosing Mountain Dew Over His Future

0:28This episode is brought to you by NBA on Prime. holiday hosting so easy we called in the ultimate host to talk about it mrs claus here you think santa has it tough delivering all over the world try cooking for hundreds of elves good thing bj's offers low prices on all the menu must-haves plus free same-day delivery on your first order of 100 or more no more squeezing in trips to the store the only squeezing here is the big guy into a suit after dinner for terms visit bjs.com slash holiday and get the same great prices online as in Club. Hi, my name is Ron. I'm 33 from Nashville, Tennessee, and this is Financial Audit.

1:04So what do you do for a living in Nashville? I currently work at a call center. I work Monday through Friday there, 40 hours a week. I'm starting a second job soon, and then I do some side business stuff, some online stuff. Some things that didn't work out, but... Okay, what's the pay at the call center? It is$18. The new job is variable. It's$18,$19.50 for working after five, and then$20.50 for working weekends. So they do pay differential, or shift differential, rather. Okay, we had payroll come in$3 ,603. Does that sound about right? Uh, yeah, that's about right. Um, cause some of that stuff is some of the side things I do online.

2:00What do you do on the side? Uh, I run D and D and D and D games online. Really? Yeah. Okay. And how much time is that on a weekly basis? Uh, I, the games are about three hours a piece. Um, depending on how much I prep, it could be like an hour or two. Um, but it's really not, not a ton. I can prep a lot in the meantime. And then if I get a couple groups that run the same module or whatever, it's really like not any prep at all. It's just kind of run it. Right. So it looks like you probably brought in an extra, say,$600,$700 from that? Probably more like, yeah, probably$600. Okay. One game just ended, so that might not come back.

2:43Oh, no. How hard is it to get a new game? What do you do? Are you like the DM? Yeah. Okay. And depending on where I advertise it is, currently the site I'm using is based on reviews in an algorithm. So unless you hit the algorithm just right, it's kind of like, eh. But if it does hit you right, like last year I made 10K from it. Speaking of that, that blessed algorithm you need, please hit the subscribe and like button. It really helps this channel out. We're so close to 500 ,000 subscribers. The blessed algorithm. Well, that's cool. So how many hours a week total do you think you're working? Um, definitely with the second job, I'll be working at least one day on the weekend.

3:24So it would probably be like 80 hour, 80 hour weeks. Like it's going to be, well, how long are the days on the weekend? So one day, well, do you, okay. After the call center job, I mean, do you sometimes work the same day? Right. Okay. Yep. So it'll be, um, five days a week for both jobs and then one job will go, um, one day on the weekend. Very cool. it's going to be how'd you get into that uh dungeon dragon uh job that's kind of interesting a lot of people that want to do it yeah basically i was just playing a game online and then i was just learning how to run games better and one of the people that i watch just randomly mentioned some website and i looked on it and i'm like okay does people actually get paid and at first i was kind of skeptical but i was like might as well just try it throw it out there if it doesn't work then, I mean, there was no money to sign up for the site.

4:18So I was like, let's just try it. And it kind of took off. Sorry, I made a mistake by taking a drink and like 10 bobas went in my mouth. All right. So what is your financial situation? What are we looking at today? What's the summary? And then give yourself a score, zero out of 10. Summary is not great. Like after taxes, it's just barely not covering bills stuff. And it's mostly because I recently got a cat. So it's been my expenses going up a little bit. Meow. Love to sleep with me. Greatest cat ever. But it is soon to be better once I start the second job in a couple weeks. I mean, it'll be much better.

5:04But I would say now two out of ten, three out of ten, something like that. You're working that second job already. Isn't some of this money that came in from it? No, that would be from the D &D game. What's the second job? I thought that's what we were talking about. What's the second job? The second job is also call center stuff. It is just a little bit different. How many hours a week do you expect to be working with that one? Probably 40. Okay, so you're just going to be working, working, working. And clearly that's to get out of the mountains of debt. And it's a pretty thick thing. Yep. It's a lot of stuff.

5:36A lot of stuff that I, you know. Why'd you get into debt? Give us some background. Give us some context. So a lot of the debt came from early 20s being stupid, you know, moved out of my parents' house, got mixed up in the wrong people before I moved in down to Nashville, lived in New Hampshire. So a lot of the stuff you read online and see on TV and all that stuff about the drug problem is like real bad. So I basically like got into it with my parents and I didn't really have a good like support group, I guess. And I just got mixed up in the wrong people, started doing drugs and stuff. With your parents?

6:16No, not with my parents. Oh, sorry. With the bad group of people. Okay. And, you know, it just turned into going to the bar five times a week, you know,$100 nights routinely going to the bar. so it's just like on credit cards yeah at first it wasn't credit cards i would just like because i was living in a van as well um more by choice because i mean i was just like why pay rent when i can just buy a van throw a bed in it and boom i'm done um that's much more fun when you're 25 than 30 so um yeah you know i just got mixed up with the wrong people you know bars five times a week hundred dollar nights paying for their drinks too because i was just like hey this is my friend why not?

6:57Was this like just partying? We had control or were there addiction issues? Yeah, I would say there was addiction issues. I, you know, the friends that I ended up partying with, they got into drugs, which drugs, a lot of weed, a lot of like, um, at the time it was like cocaine. They went harder stuff. I didn't. Um, but it was a lot, it was a lot of stuff like that, like burning my paychecks on that. And then when the paychecks ended up not running out, I you know just credit cards burn it I was I was not really feeling life you know how long was this how long was this whole stint happening two three years something like that a long time to just be yep blowing away everything and just yep yeah living at the bar and drugs and everything yeah it was uh one day I just kind of really just stopped by cold turkey too uh one day I just kind of got home from the bar, uh, missed my shift.

7:53I woke up at like noon. I was supposed to be there at like eight. Um, and then my friend calls me and she's like, let's go out to the bar. Let's go party. And I'm just like, I'm so exhausted. I'm so damn tired. And you know, she was saying like, well, if you don't take me like where, like, how am I going to get there? And then it sort of clicked with me that, Oh, I'm just like a free Uber. And I don't like these people anyway. Like, why am I here? Like, what am I doing? And then, you know, from there very shortly after COVID hit. So we're all at home anyway. I started a new job, got out of retail.

8:24A lot of stuff happened, but eventually I moved down to Nashville with more call center jobs, remote work, that sort of stuff. Were you able to successfully hold down a job during this entire period? Yeah, I worked at chain pharmacies, which is sort of ironic. If you didn't have rent, I'm curious why were we, if it was $100 a night, why were we sliding that obviously it stacks up that is immense but without rent why were you sliding into debt um it was a lot of uh the hundred dollar night started with that's just the bar stuff and then it's the other stuff um you know marijuana and whatnot kind of built into it and then a lot of you know restaurants since i was living in a van didn't have a kitchen i could get like camp stuff and like boil water have ramen but eventually that gets old so i you know went to mcdonald's went to Chinese food, got pizza and whatnot.

9:19Because even if you, I mean, was it minimum wage,$7.25? No, it was$16. So I was making like, yeah, I was making$15, something like that. Eight hours a week, eight hours a day? Yeah. So like$128 a day. Yeah. So it was like$37 and a half. So you basically spent all your money and then a little extra. Yeah. So where have we gone since then? Money-wise or just in general? In general. So you escaped that life. Yeah. COVID hit. You started another job going from there? Yeah. So I started a couple jobs through... Hablas Español. Spreys to Deutsch. Condénosque. If you used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world.

10:07With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash Spotify. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify. Rules and restrictions may apply. All centers, remote work, whatnot. Eventually, they required vaccines, which I was working from home, so it didn't make sense. So basically, I left that job, started some D &D stuff that carried me a little bit. um but i eventually like couldn't pay bills and stuff um looked for a job around here finally found one moved to nashville which was expensive also um just to get my stuff down here was five grand or down there rather really okay yeah because i had to get the truck and i moved it all myself but it was still like i needed people to move it because my parents were you know i'm at the time i wasn't made up with them so they weren't willing to help me move you had a big falling out with parents yeah why specifically my dad um it's more he's just a dickhead like he uh um not physically abusive but he was very like emotionally abusive and manipulative um so yeah it was a lot of that stuff um is the relationship better today are we still in that situation uh slightly better today it's still not awesome like i work remote so i literally asked them like hey can i just move back to fix that and uh they were like no and that's expensive yeah yeah and it's throughout the pandemic yeah and it certainly has it's not expensive like new hampshire was like new hampshire is still like stupid yeah so um but yeah it's still it's still pretty bad like my rent's almost uh 1250 um and that's that's that's like low end not a great neighborhood i wish i knew that before moving in.

12:01Oh no. Yeah. So I kind of looked at reviews of where stuff is and it's like, oh, this is a good neighborhood. This is not so good. Apparently I got on the wrong side of that neighborhood. So I'm not in a great area, but it's still like, that's the cheapest rent I could possibly get. All right. Well, that's a lot of background that gives us some understanding when we're diving into the situation. So I'm going to go through the deaths first and we'll hit your checking account and then anything else that might exist. This first one's kind of a struggle because I actually can't see what the balance on this Discover card is.

12:34It's like a one sheet wonder of nothing. And then the rest have information. Because there's not very much in this. Literally the balance is Oh, this is recent. This is a checking account? No, this is a credit card. But I had to put a car situation on it. I had to get new tires, new. I had to get some stuff fixed. A lot of stuff. $2 ,797. Yep. I mean, it depends the tires you can get. I don't think you need snow tires in Nashville or anything. No. It was four brand new tires, though. Yeah. Some other stuff, some maintenance stuff that I've been putting off for like two years because I just didn't have the money.

13:14So what's the balance on this card? It is just over this. It's just about$3 ,000. Yeah. Dang. All right. So, like, the charges you see here, this, so it's probably not even$3 ,000, but the charges you see here is everything on the card. What's the minimum monthly payment on this thing? Don't know. It hasn't hit. I would assume it's$50 based on interest stuff. I'm going to guess it's more like$30. Okay. Because sometimes they just want you to drag it out. Yeah. It's probably like 25 % interest, yeah? Something like that? Yeah, something like that. Okay, so we need to talk about another thing that is happening here throughout this entire situation.

13:52You're trying to take out a debt. You're trying to do all this stuff. You have swapped your addiction for another addiction. Go ahead and hold it up. Show the camera. He's obsessed with it. Yeah. Like every second of your life. Yeah. Every time I see like a$5 purchase from a gas station, I'm assuming it's that. Yep, pretty much. Right? Two a day. So on a card that we opened, right, for this car thing. Did you open it for this car? No, it's been open for several years. It's just I had that debt paid off with one of the personal loans that you see in here. So you consolidated it with a personal loan.

14:26Yeah. And then I had to put the stupid car stuff. And you put more money on it. And this is why we have emergency funds. Not having an emergency fund is an emergency. And that's why I go intense to get an emergency fund. But even though you put that on there, then we went to Dunkin' Donuts. and we got three Mountain Dews. Yeah. Do you get anything else while you're there? Like a snack? Sometimes I get water, but no, not really. Because, like, I mean, it adds up, dude. Do you get a single Mountain Dew? Because it's like five bucks. No. Six bucks. Two Mountain Dews. Okay, I was going to say. Two for four.

14:59That's how they get you. Two for four bucks. That's how they get you? What? That doesn't sound appealing to me. That sounds like a terrible deal. But you save 50 cents when you buy your addiction. Do you ever go to the grocery store and just get, like, a thousand pack? from Costco? That's true. I should probably do that. For like$10 more? I don't know. Whatever it is, I don't shop for it. Yeah. Probably cheaper, but I should probably just quit. That would be the best. Probably. Probably. USAA, we have a new balance, and this is where things are starting to stack up. $7 ,712.24 with a minimum monthly payment of$202.

15:36That's like death with interest charge of$124.68. cents just within a month. Luckily, you did not, you put a little more towards it and you did not spend anything on there, so this is okay. But total interest loss this year so far, we're not even fully halfway through the year,$631. Gone, stolen, burned, killed. And, let me guess, not even guess, I know for a fact, of only one statement we went through, we got six Mountain Dews. There are some statements where it's swimming in Mountain Dew, the money that you put towards that just syrup of diabetes could be paying off the debt of death. Why are we choosing not to do that?

16:23Cope. I don't know. It's just make myself feel better. Mountain Dew's your feel better? Yeah. I mean, it's basically just swapping bad drug addiction with food addiction and Mountain Dew addiction and Amazon buy crap addiction Are you in therapy? No. Therapy. You have health insurance. I do not. We'll talk about that. Yeah. With the second job, I mean, it's starting in a couple weeks so I could opt for it. But my original job, I didn't make enough money to even pay the bills. So I was figuring if I get health insurance too, it'll just be that much worse. You can't pay the bills if we're spending hundreds of dollars on stupid Mountain Dew month.

17:05That could be your health insurance. Yeah. Would be healthier in general, too. Yes. We have another USAA card. Yep. USAA number two. Smaller bands, 367, much smaller bands. But we're still purchasing on here. You purchased half of what you put towards it in terms of payment. With a minimum payment of$15. And let me guess, you went and got Mountain Dew. With that card, maybe. One of the cards, I can't remember what it was. It was like business stuff. for the like incorporation but i can't remember if it was that card or not yeah it looks like it was just these three purchases on it yeah but i don't know what the purchases were either way interest losing it still spending money then we have a costco card yeah with minimum monthly payment of 199 yeah that some of these minimum monthly payments are draining you yeah this one i think is because i over my credit limit, which is why it's so high.

18:06No, are you? Oh, credit limit of$750 and you have a freaking stupid bet. I think that. What the fuck, dude? No, seriously. What in the world? If you know you're over the credit limit, you just said that. Why did you put$185 of purchases on here? Why possibly did you do that? That I don't know. It's just. You don't know? Probably stuff like gas. Probably stuff like thought I needed stuff from the store. but it ended up being just BS, stupid, just junk. Dude. And$14, 30 cents of interest. It's ridiculous. Illegal Zoom. Yeah, that might have been the incorporation of the D &D company. I probably just put it on the card instead of just being trash.

18:52I'm curious about this D &D company. I just hope it pays off, and that's at 30 % interest. If I can find players, it will definitely pay. I mean, there's minimum payments of$20 to run the company in general. Well, you're not losing any hours from your other jobs, right? Right. So it's okay to do that. It's all after work. I'm okay with that. As long as if you're not taking away hours away that is using that money to pay off debt, if you're not taking away those hours in order to start up something, that would be a lot of inherent risk, but you're not doing that. We'll see. We need to get the whole situation together, but we'll see.

19:29Luckily, all online. What's your car? It is a Toyota Camry. 2010 or 12? Okay. Miles? 130. You just put a lot of money into it. Yeah. You put half as much money into it as your loan is worth on it. Yeah. So really, I mean, the car's loan just went up because of what you just did, essentially, in a way. $5 ,438 is left. Yep. What's the interest rate on this? I do not see it 4.99 So that's probably the only good part of my entire finances The only good part of the entire finances The interest rate Okay, with a minimum monthly payment of 170 How much longer until this has paid off? What term did you take out?

20:14And how long has it been? It's been max amount of term, like 72 months or whatever I got it, start at 2020 So Right before the pandemic hit, I started that job Sold the van, got a car moved into an apartment. Oh my goodness. This personal loan, dude. So this was to consolidate a card? It was consolidation of two or three cards, a card, and then, yeah. And then the rest of the loan balance of the van that I had went on this. Jeez, dude. Do you still have that van? Nope, it's gone. I sold it. $18 ,173 at a 15 % interest rate. Death, absolute death, with a$584.18. Minute monthly payments. These minute monthly payments are going to kill you.

21:10Are those all your debts? I have student loans. Oh, f***. Currently deferred. What did you go to school for? Business. Did you graduate? Yeah. From where? Southern New Hampshire University. Okay, cool. How much in federal student loans? $30 ,000. I'm going to look right now. So those are going to resume in like two months. Yep. That was my big reason of getting a second job is because I was just listening to your show, and they're like, oh, student loans are going to come back. And I thought, oh, I thought they were going to forgive those. We should probably do something about this. They're going to be about 4 % to 6 % interest rate depending on the subsidized and unsubsidized versions of that, probably a$375 minimum payment.

21:55Rude. It is. Rude! $38 ,890. $38 ,000? Yep. Dude, that's completely different. It's going to be about a$475 minimum multi-payment is my best guess. Dude, that's just throwing more interest. Anything else, please? Not that I remember. student loan, personal loan, auto loan, and then credit cards. And that pretty much covers what you see. That's all. Only that. Yep. So we have debt minimum monthly payments of$1 ,645, meaning basically half the money that comes in from your primary job. Yep. Half the money that comes in is going to minimum monthly payments. It's more than half. Yep. Luckily, you have those other side hustles, but end me now.

22:50Yep. getting bailed out by parents as well well mom as well oh good relationship with her still bad with dad but she married with dad still yep they're like diametrically opposed people but she wants to help me i mean she makes 200k she's like i could literally give you the money to pay all this off but my dad doesn't want to so we're kind of well i mean i don't want anyone to be enabled either i don't know the entire situation but well we will come back to that subject okay So it looks like you spent about$400 on Mountain Dew. Oh, wait. Well, we haven't even gotten to the checking account. So spoiler alert.

23:31Spoiler. Spoiler. But the minimum monthly payments are crazy, dude. Absolutely crazy. Yep. And the interest that's occurring on a minimum monthly basis also just crazy. Hundreds of dollars. I feel bad. Sucks. I'm glad you got out of addiction. Have you fallen back into any drug, alcohol habits? Well, alcohol, it's still yes, but I don't go out anymore. I buy it from the store. Do you feel you have any addictions with that? No. Okay, so it's just like... Yeah, free time, bored. Okay. So that's always been fine. It's the other stuff. Therapy. We've got to get you into therapy. You replaced the light powder with the green liquid of diabetes.

24:19So, do you have diabetes? Nope. Not that I know of. Well, be careful. Yeah. That's on the way. I haven't been to a doctor in like five years, so. Well, you can also just... Are you afraid of being pricked? No, not really. We're going to check your blood sugar. Okay. Okay. So, you started with 26 freaking dollars in your checking account. Yeah. Like, burn the world down. That's, can't survive off of that. I'm glad we were able to minimize. We went out and we ended with 1 ,245. I assume a lot of that is because of your mom, though. Yeah. We will see. Either way, what are we doing in here? Laundry, that's okay.

24:58You spend a lot on it, but if that's what you have to do for your complex, totally good. Obviously, we need that. That's something we're going to cut back on. Hopefully we can move into a place with a dedicated unit, but obviously that will probably come with more cost anyway. So either way, that's okay. Excuse that. Don't excuse two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, PayPal-ing out for something. $35.66. Two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews. Dunkin' Donuts. Wash and fold, is that more laundry? Yes. Then we're good with that. Dunkin' Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts. Lots of pet things, but it's reasonable.

25:29Obviously, if you have a pet, you should take care of it. You should never get into a pet situation if you can't financially. I don't know but we'll figure that out 2 Mountain Dews T-Mobile is quite expensive for T-Mobile so I'm assuming that phone is financed that you have yes my other phone anything else is financed to them like a watch or an iPad or any of that death I was running my D &D games literally through my phone which is the only reason I bought it but

25:58through the internet 2 Mountain Dews 2 Mountain Dews Two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, Cloak and Daggers L Funding. Yes. What is this? That was for Cloak and Daggers is the business that I opened. That's the name of it for the D &D stuff. The funding is a bank account that I opened dedicated for the business. To put$100 in there? Yep. Just clunk that. Okay. It is a business check-in, right? Yes. Okay, and you formed an LLC around this? Yep. That's what you did? Okay. Two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, Dunkin' Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts, Amazon. I bet a lot of these Walmarts were buying Mountain Dews, too.

26:37Or only gas stations. It was only the gas station. I don't buy Mountain Dew at Walmart. But that makes more sense financially. But either way. Two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews. Withdrawing$20 from an ATM. Who knows where that went? Two Mountain Dews, Amazon. Two Mountain Dews, Dunkin' Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts. Domino's, Amazon, Amazon, Amazon. And then what is this? you paid Fiverr, someone on Fiverr, for something$63.30? With what? It was my chronic side hustle things. I just, like, while I'm working, I have people on Fiverr just do stuff and then... Do what? Make logos, make stuff like that.

27:20You can't make logos? I could, I'm just not. If you can, you should. Yeah. I can't, so I would outsource. Okay. Yeah, it's just like... But you can't really afford it. You're putting money into the business, not getting money from it. More Lending Club? $584? Yeah. So into the business account? No, that was... This USA isn't the business account. This is just my regular checking. No, I know, but that went into the business account? No, that was for just the loan. That was the loan payment. Oh, that's your personal loan, isn't it? Yeah. That's right. Okay. And two Mountain Dews in Amazon. Two Mountain Dews.

27:53Two Mountain Dews. Two Mountain Dews. Oh, I missed this page while I was going through it. Two Mountain Dews, Dunkin' Donuts, two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, Dunkin' Donuts, Dunkin' Donuts, paying for mid-journey. And Amazon, Amazon. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home, and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.

28:28That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. Yeah, the animal hospital, I mean, I get it, I get it. We take care of them, this is very expensive in your situation. And two Mountain Dews, Amazon, PayPal, not 40 bucks, I don't know where that went. two Mountain Dews, two Mountain Dews, and Wendy's. That's insane, dude. That's insane. That is so bad. Yeah. Let's pause real quick. We're going to test your blood sugar. Okay. Alright.

29:06And yes, my shorts don't match. Comfy. I feel that. So it's going to be like a post five hour type thing because you haven't eaten in a bit. You have drank. So what you're going to do, I'm not going to prick your finger because I'll probably pass out.