Missing Payments And Borrowing Every Cent From Her Friend To Survive

0:00My name is Amity. I'm 26. I'm from Austin, Texas and this is Financial Audit. What do you do here in Austin for a living? I am an insurance agent. Very nice. What do you bring in with that? I make 18 an hour, but I think monthly it's like between 28 and 3 ,200. Okay. How many hours a week are you working? Between like 35 and 40. Okay. Now with this, are you getting insurance agent? Are you getting commission, people signing up? Yeah. So I get 5 % commission on everything that we charge, but it's not really as much as it seems. What do you mean? Because like usually we'll do maybe like 900 to a thousand a week, but really I'm only getting like 30, 40 bucks, maybe 50.

0:46What, what, what are your coworkers? About the same. About the same. So you'd say you're pretty well average in that then? Yeah. You're not like underperforming? No, it's just the commission. It's really low and in the office that I'm in, it's pretty low. Oh, so that office specifically, how long have you been? Three years. Have you considered going to other offices to make more money? I've thought about it I've tried and there is more money But when I did it It wasn't Very Like it wasn't close enough For where I lived And what was convenient Do you like sales? For the most part If you like sales, why don't we get a better sales job How much hits your account on a monthly basis on average?

1:29I think about 28 Maybe 32 at the most 20 is what came in $2 ,801 so I'm going to just say that with that I mean that can be pretty difficult to live in the Austin area that's$33 ,600 a year post taxes post contributions post health insurance so that's yeah how do you feel living off of that in Austin I mean obviously we racked up a good amount of debt it's not as bad as it doesn't feel as bad as it looks I guess How so? Because I'm in debt, but it's not like I'm not struggling other than the debt. If that makes sense. Isn't debt a big struggle, though? Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, one of the reasons I go so hard on people is because people are like, yeah, it's not good.

2:19But it's not that bad either. No, this is bad. This first thing we're going to look at is a late fee. Yeah. So late fee. so i mean i don't want to be rude off the bat but off yeah no like that's not just not struggling you're missing payments yeah we're in collections yeah the collection stuff is like three four or five years old though okay okay so in three to five years you haven't touched it no okay so yeah I'm getting my views together Well I'm just saying like if you're good at sales Like I'd want you in a better sales position I worked in tech sales And I mean I worked to get other people in tech sales With like course careers and stuff like that Because that was one of my first post job colleges Or post college jobs And like when you're good at sales And you find an avenue that you can excel in Like the cap is almost limitless Depending on the job Some actually do have literal caps and in that you can just work your ass off be at the top of the team because it just depends how hard you work how smart you work and then you can pay off your debt quickly so if you're into sales i'd want you to be making more than this that's all i'm trying to say more than anything i mean i like insurance i've been doing it for a really long time um and preferably i'd rather stay in insurance it's just hard to find a decent insurance job that's gonna pay you enough because like right now of where I'm getting paid at is a little bit above average.

3:53What do you like so much about insurance? It's just easy. I like numbers. Well, we're not taking the easy way when we're in collections and we're making payments. Yeah. You're taking the hard way of life by racking this up and missing payments. So I don't care if the work's necessarily easily temporarily. Your debt... Okay. So we've gone into debt. Why have we gone into debt in the first place? So a majority of it, except for like my Capital One card, a majority of it is from when I was like 19 and 20. I was in an abusive relationship that just kind of was not very stable as far as like money and spending.

4:36And so I just kind of let everything go. And at that time I had in my head that I was basically going to be in poverty and like not really have like a stable job. Based on where I was going. And then when I got pregnant, I tried to make those changes. Yeah, I have a five-year-old. And when I did that, I started to make the changes to stop spending so much. So I fixed a lot of the collections to where now I'm just kind of stuck with the big stuff. And now I haven't been like. How'd you fix them? You mean. Paying them off. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I paid stuff down And so now It's just those big ones that are stuck there And then like Sometimes some months are a little bit lower than others And other times it's like I don't really want to pay anything And that's bad But yeah Okay What would you give yourself?

5:39Zero to ten financial score today Maybe like a one, two At the most So we have a credit card This is a capital one this honestly this one pisses me off for you more specifically right now 610 dollars owed on it which is not that much especially i mean your income is lower for the area but with your income we shouldn't have this balance we had a previous balance 332 you made 150 minimum payment which is great more than the minimum monthly payment more than double then you purchased 390 dollars on it. But what upsets me even more is you didn't fully pay it off and then you doubled the balance on it.

6:18You then missed a payment, had a$25 fee on it, and then you lost$12.96 in interest, bringing it to$610.29. If we're losing money with interest, if we can't even make the minimum monthly payments, why are we possibly, possibly putting money on it? Why are we spending money? And by the way, not even money that's helpful to you. Casa something, Juiceland, McDonald's. Hopefully that's gas. It could be Chiquitos or gas depending on that price range. Who the f*** knows? And Apple subscription and best of books. There's your past due limit. Yeah, that was one of those. That was right before I got paid.

7:02And I needed a few things. Why is it? Okay. Okay. Again, this is like you're choosing the easy job thing. I'm going to keep coming back to that because right before you got paid. So what? You had$0 in your account. You're going to make them in a monthly payment. So if we have$0 in our account, I don't give a shit. The job's easy. We want a better job, right? Yeah. I've applied. I've done like three or four interviews for different things. For what? What industry? For what? For another insurance company. And then for a position doing like accounting and bookkeeping. And then, yeah, to insurance and then bookkeeping.

7:37And they were all paying a lot more, but it was one thing or another. I just didn't have enough experience or they went another route. Only four? BJ's Wholesale Club makes 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 BJ's.com slash holiday and get the same great prices online as in club.

8:16Over how long? What do you mean? Over what period have you been searching for this better being job? It's been maybe like three or four months. A lot of them have been. How many have you been applying to on a weekly basis? On a weekly basis, I'd say about four or five jobs. Are you actually? Yeah, through Indeed or whatever. That's obviously not enough when we're making low income and we're missing credit card payments. Yeah. Eight to five, no. It's like, okay, if when you get off work, you're not working a second job, your second job is applying for jobs on a full-time basis. Working 80 hours a week, 40 at this, 40 applying.

8:53Yeah, and then the money was just building for money anyway. So this wasn't even required. Like, okay, yeah, you missed the payment. But then we're just building a balance that we can't even pay off anyway for Juiceland, for Casa Moreno, McDonald's, a subscription, potentially taquitos, Apple thing. I have my Apple subscription come out on there, like my storage. But like the best of books, like, OK, great. But we have a good library system in Austin. Let's not pay for books. I have a problem with books, actually. This year I got back into books and I've spent a lot of money. Two books are great.

9:32But again, we have an incredible library assistant in Austin. I like to own them. Fantastic. I like you to be out of debt. And then you own all the books you want. Yeah. That's actually the first book I've bought in like three months though. I will gift you whatever book you like when you get out of this debt as a little reward. But come on. A book is not worth missing payments on a credit card. And this is a 32 % interest I think that's the highest I've seen for a credit card On this show It's disgusting I hate it Now I don't have other debt statements but we have other things So that's your credit card Now we have student loans, are these all federal?

10:11Yes So they're in forbearance right now, they're about to restart I'm guessing the payments are going to be about $150 a month Starting in two months What? Two of them are like both of them together is like$80 a month. I know that for sure. Wait, are you on like an income-based repayment? Yes. So what's interesting about that is the income-based repayment has been successful as of late. But it almost seems like an administrative thing. Because when you're, first of all, you have to be very, very disciplined with it. You fuck up once and your whole process starts over again. Yeah. And that's if they even get forgiven.

10:52The income-based repayment forgiveness historically has just not been really a thing. This has been a failure of a system until these last couple years. But who's to say it's continued being a success? What's the Department of Education at the time going to look like when you're ready to do yours? So is it something I want someone to put all their eggs in that basket? I don't know. That makes me nervous. So$80 a month? Yeah, for two of them. The other two, I honestly don't know. I haven't talked to them about those. Oh, I forgot. $30 a month for that, and the credit card is$69 a month. Plus, if it's not forgiven, dude, the interest that's accruing on this, even though federal student loans are a lower interest rate, especially for the ones unsubsidized.

11:42I mean, when we're paying lower than what you should for a minimum monthly payment, I didn't just cruise and get aggressive. We also have a personal loan? Yes. I don't have a statement for this. So one second. Personal. And this is$1 ,171. What's your minimum monthly payment? $155. What is this for? When my grandma passed, I had to get out a loan to help pay for her cremation. Why you? Nobody else has it. You didn't have it. My uncle didn't help, and my mom is. You said no one else had it, but you didn't have it. Yeah. So why again you? If it wasn't me, nobody would. And I kind of take on the responsibility for my family most of the time, like financially at least.

12:32For how many people? What does this family situation look like? My parents and three brothers. A lot of the big food purchases are usually me feeding. all five. Why aren't your parents taking care of their children? My dad's blind, so he doesn't work. But he should have assistance. He gets a very small amount of assistance. Yeah, it's nothing like substantial, but there should be some mentor. And it's a problem that everybody that I know hounds me about, but they... Well, what about the mom? She is his caretaker, and she has... Why isn't there a government-provided caretaker? They don't know. Have you looked into that?

13:15Have they looked into it? I don't know. As far as my dad's health stuff, I'm not really sure how any of it's set up or what they actually get for everything. Might be something worth looking into. See what services exist because, obviously, I mean, we're not just going to let someone in our society who's blind just get, like, fucked, you know? That's not a thing. I don't think anyone encourages that. so there are things in place i would start looking at it because you have a child you are trying to build a life you want to build uh a great life for your child you taking care of your parents right now and for the rest of their lives and then taking care of your siblings because they can't that's a very difficult position to be in and it's yeah what's the interest rate on this person alone um i'm actually not sure i think it was like 19 maybe but i'm not completely sure 19 yeah oh you think i wouldn't be surprised but that's disgusting when did you take it out and your credit score is bad november yeah and then we have 2000 in collections yeah that's like the little really old stuff that i just can't seem to get paid off what do you mean you can't seem to get paid off i i start to save money and then it just doesn't happen and then i call to negotiate with them to try to lower it down or to settle and they just give me a run around about it they won't sure agree to do anything like by paper no they won't well you have to essentially call them like once every couple weeks just do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until eventually it does work i spent a good year doing that last year every single week yeah call them yeah okay i they they were on first name with them like with each other and it just never doesn't always work this is two thousand dollars so we should be able to knock this out yeah financially speaking working with a credit guy um but i don't really feel like it's a it was a good plan probably not um but he did help my credit go on from like a low 500 so wait what does that mean i don't know i don't really know what all he did from the back end.

15:32He was kind of like sending those letters out for me and fighting with them to take them off or to lower them. So you paid someone to... Everyone always asks me what checking account I use and what high yield savings account I use. Recently, I switched over to SoFi. The reason I did it is because their app is very intuitive and it's super easy to use on your computer as well. But even better than that, their high yield savings account is all the way up to 4.4 % at the time of recording this clip. That is so hard to beat and I am taking advantage of that all day. And not only that, but there's additional bonuses that I took advantage of that you can as well.

16:08Set up direct deposit, get a$50 bonus or all the way up to$250. That's free money. That's free money. I took it. You can take it too. So check out my affiliate link in the description below. It's seriously awesome. I use it each and every day for my banking needs. I'm okay in specific situations of people Like taking advantage of a program That you know costs like a few bucks a month or something like that To improve their credit I thought that's what you were talking about And I'm good with that This how much did this cost $109 a month But only for 6 months This month is my last month paying for it How much did you take off I don't know yet Because actually all of those are the same ones That have been there but a couple of the ones that were paid off that they just hadn't removed he had those taken off and like the inquiries and stuff like that and late payments he had all of that removed and it got my score up if you want to help get my score up hit that subscribe button and that shopping is hard right but i found a better way stitch fix online personal styling makes it easy i just give my stylist my size style and budget preferences i order boxes when i want and how i want.

17:18No subscription required. And he sends just for me pieces plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest. It's so easy. Make style easy. Get started today at stitchfix.com slash Spotify. That's stitchfix.com slash Spotify. Score will just keep tick, tick, tick, tick, ticking. And we're trying to tick that all the way up to 750 ,000 subscribers. And thank you to everyone who has subscribed so far. I love you so much. Thank you. I really do appreciate it. Other accounts, 264. That is a charge off from like 2019. I called the bank and I kept telling them to stop the payment and they said that they stopped it.

17:56But then it tried to draft it again. And that's late fees. And. Oh. Yeah. The student loans. No other debt. No. Well, I just laid out as a debt. Well, just my friend. I have. What? So a friend of mine has loaned me money throughout the years And I've just kind of paid him back when I can It's interest free and he doesn't really care about getting it back How much? He estimates about seven grand Estimates in seven? First of all, why is it an estimate? Because the way he sees it is A lot of him taking care of me I should be paying back Are you getting child support? No Are you with the person? Why are you not getting child support?

18:44He's a POS, and he was in jail for the first three years. Okay. Have you gone to court? No. He doesn't work, and I wouldn't get anything anyways. He just kind of— I know, but they can still legally squeeze him and get him to a position where he has to. No, they would just send him to jail. Okay. Then he goes to jail. It doesn't help me anything. He still owes this, though. So whenever I want to, whenever I get an address for him, I can, they'll start billing him. But being that we don't know where he is, that I can't really, they won't be able to send him any bills or subpoena him or anything like that until they know where he is at.

19:22Baby daddy on the loose. Yeah. Okay. He's playing stepdad to somebody else's kid though. That's cool. Lovely. Do you have a minimum monthly payment to this dude? To this friend? No. No. If I can pay it back now, that'd be great. If not, it can wait like 20, 30 years. 20, 30 years? What is this relationship? This is weird. He's a really good friend. No, that's great. I guess that does answer my question. Okay, well, how do you feel about it? It's not where I want to be. I don't want to have that hold with my friend over me. I don't want to have all the debt because eventually I do want to buy a house.

20:05And leave a house for my daughter, but. Oh, geez. Okay. Well, that's. Yeah. I'd love for you to get a house too, but that's. It's going to be. It's going to be a while. This parent situation, before we get into your checking account, I need you. I need you to look at the different services that are out there. Because the further we can get you away from having to take care of them, the better. Because you do need to be able to take care of yourself and you need to be able to take care of your child. It's not a selfish thing. This is you building a good life for your family. and if you have to take care of your parents because there's no resources out there then that's a different conversation but right now i feel it's it's like okay child support we didn't pursue that we didn't pursue uh and then we're not pursuing and we haven't let's help with the parents and different resources like these are steps we have to take to at least see what's out there how old are your siblings um 22 okay don't take care of him no i don't um 16 and 9 okay 16's close the 16 year old he goes he's in school like work from home so everything that he does my mom's kind of like teaching him i guess but every majority of it is online and then the nine-year-old he's in school yeah because what we need is a hopeful caretaker through you know different resources that we have and then mama needs to get a job and i like it i don't give a Yeah.

21:30It's time for her to work. She said she wants to, but when I give her the opportunities to do things, she knows insurance because of me. And I tell her, get a simple job, something to get some kind of money in. Then that's a different conversation. I'm going to cut you off. That's a different conversation. If you have set up these helpful avenues and suggestions and she's choosing not to, then you need to cut off support right now because you're enabling bad behavior. Yeah. Because if she has been given opportunities that she can do and she is actively choosing not to, then no longer support. no longer support because they she is just being able to choose to not do those things because you're providing so cough that's done that is done because it's not that i don't want them to get support it's not that at all they will be better off if she actually starts taking care of things like she can because you've shown her how to you're hurting her yeah in a way and not letting her do it herself right yeah yeah what's she gonna do for the rest of her life What are you going to do for the rest of the kid's life?

22:31I don't know. No. It's kind of gross. I'm obviously very outside on this situation, and I have a very narrow window looking in, but from what I picked up and from what you just said right there, we're cutting off support today. Or if you want to be sympathetic, have a conversation. I'm cutting off support in a month. Get a job, even if it's an extra job. Then work this many hours, bring in this much money, and then I can provide this. because, of course, we know that you're taking care of dad until we figure out a situation where there's a caretaker. Yeah. Now, in your checking account, started with$1 ,400, so ended with$900.

23:12I don't know why we're missing minimum monthly payments on credit cards. We drew$100. No one knows when that went. Oh, here it is. Okay, so you give your mom$115. You give your mom$21. You give your mom$210. You give your mom$50. you give your mom 103 we can't be doing this we can't be doing this if it's the only option that's a different conversation but from everything we've talked about this so far it's not we cannot be doing this amazon amazon so i bought myself a kindle so that way i wouldn't buy any more physical books no we go to the freaking library i pay a amount in property taxes take advantage of the property taxes i am paying please you don't need to you don't need you don't need to we're trying to get out of debt so majority of my chase account is for like my rent and my daycare money so that's where that goes yeah daycare how much is daycare costing you it was 210 which is surprisingly cheap because i had like the assistance um but now it should be Nothing, because she's in school now.

24:19Oh, right. So I'll be saving$200 a month. I got my rent cheaper, too, because I moved. Very good. Spotify. I'd listen to the ads right now if I was in a situation. Sonic, I definitely would not be doing. We're not doing the Kindle thing anymore. Cancel. Amazon Prime. Gaddy's. McDonald's. McDonald's. Trish's Chicken. Raising Cane's. CubeSmart. Casamoran. Sonic. We're not doing this. McDonald's. Popeyes. Tacos. Cash. Halfing out. $22. Whataburger cash app it out,$47. Spotify and cash app it out,$50. We're not doing this. We're not doing this right now. This is inexcusable, unacceptable when we are in bad, bad, bad debt.

25:02You've also had insufficient fund fees of$48 a year so far in here. If we're doing that, we are not getting Popeyes and McDonald's, to be very clear. I'm raising my voice out of love, to be very clear. It's because I want you to be in a better position. But don't make me want you be in a better position than you want you to be. Okay? And these actions are demonstrating you not giving a **** in my mind. So you have a lot of your budget. So rent,$14.50, that's the cheaper rent? Yes. I used to pay$15.60 for a one bed. Now I'm in a three bed. Oh, wow. Yeah. $133 for insurance. Oh, okay. car one wait what's happening with the car so the car is in my friend's name the$7 ,000 ish friend yeah it is on it is financed and right now I don't pay it but it's one of those I kind of want to pay it but if I can't really afford it it's fine but it's in your friend's name yes completely in his name did he buy it for you technically Okay.

26:16Okay. Do you know what's owed on it? Um, I think it's like 3 ,000 left. Hablas español? Sprechst du Deutsch? Condé nosk. 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. with 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.

26:55Rules and restrictions may apply. I'm not completely sure. I don't have access to that. What's the car? It's a 2005 Honda Civic. How's it holding up? I mean, every like three or four months, something pops up, but they're like really minor fixes and he's one who pays for the maintenance. I just kind of pay for gas and insurance right now. If you did not have this friend, how would you be surviving? I wouldn't. And that's why I want to pay him back because he does help a lot. For an example, just knowing this area, we had someone come on. We worked at a Whataburger in a small town. Like you saw the episode?

27:34Dude is making like$75 ,000 a year. Yeah. Is it insurance? No. Is it hard work? Yes. Is it late night? Yes. You have the choice to not be borrowing the$7 ,000 from a friend and having someone pay for your car. You are actively choosing it because you're not willing to go do something like that. Why won't you go do something like that? I can really only work a certain amount of hours because of where my daughter goes to school. With her being in school, I'm the only one who really is a parent for her. Yeah. So that's why I had to like lower down my hours. I used to work, you know, 10 hours every day.

28:10Yeah. Okay. So there's after school programs. I would try to take advantage of them when we can. I have to wait till November. Now, November's when they start? Well, I have to wait till after her birthday because she's still five and they don't accept anybody under six. That is counterproductive. It's really stupid and I hate it. But she's a late bloomer. So the your two brothers that are 16 and eight or whatever are at home with mom and dad. Yes. Can can five year old not hang out there? Right now she does. But the relationship that I really have with my mostly my dad is kind of strained. And he just doesn't like having her there a lot because of her attitude and the way that my brothers interact with her.

29:01How do they interact? They fight and they yell and it's just a lot of... Well, where's the parenting? Yeah. Yeah. My mom tries, but a lot of it's kind of hard. I mean, I've never raised one of those stinky, nasty, little sticky things. So I can't comment on the parenting, but... It's difficult. That's why where I moved, it's the same complex as my parents. So the idea now is that my mom would take my daughter to my place and just watch her there. so that way it keeps the separation. And will she? Oh, that's the goal. What do you mean that's the goal? Is it going to happen or not? I had to give her a key.

29:37You're paying your mom. Is she going to or not? Well, I am paying my mom technically. I just had her a key yesterday. So today she's over there. She is? Yeah. Good. Then loop back around. You can work. If my dad allows her to, basically. What do you mean? So a lot of what my mom. I don't like this relationship you guys got going on. My mom is very hands on. My mom, Ken, is willing to help me. If I told her I'm going to work till 11 o 'clock, she's going to watch her till 11 o 'clock. She'll put her to bed, take her shower, feed her and everything. But it's my dad that comes in and he's very toxic in a way where he's like, no, you need to be home with us.

30:23You need to be with your kids. Okay. Okay. Dad, I'm not giving you guys any more money if she's not willing to help. Boom. There it is. If he chooses, okay, then good. Good luck on their own. And the money that you're doing this will pay for after-school programs, private ones, if necessary, until there's the more public option. So there we go. There's an alternative. But you need to work. And there's many other single parents out there who do work, relying on family or not. because there are this is a privilege that we have in a larger city you know top 10 population city in the country there are options some of them cost money some of them are public some are resources that are you know provided based on income situations there are things it just depends how hard do you look into them yeah well so the daycare that i had her at i can pay 200 a month again and i would have to take essentially like an hour and a half from work to go pick her up and then I'd be able to work an additional...

31:17It's an hour and a half away? Well, traffic to get there and back, it's about like 30 minutes. Find a place closer. What do you mean? Find a place closer. Like daycare? Yeah. There's not many that I've seen. Have you looked? How hard have you looked? A couple, a few times. Yeah, see, this doesn't sound like... It's a new area. I do have to look. It's called Google Maps. Yeah. I mean... Yeah. I'm also very protective of my daughter. I don't... Good. You should be. Because like right now her daycare is like right behind my daughter. Look at reviews. Interview them. Yeah. I'm not against that. I'm not saying put her in a dumpster and let the raccoons watch her while you're working.

31:50No one's suggesting as much. There's personal responsibility that has to be taken in account of them making sure that they're good to go. But also you looking and finding people so that we don't just keep making excuses. I mean, I like the daycare that she's at because it's right by my job. So it's like I go home and I come back and then stop and finish. So it's a lot closer. Yeah, it sounds like we have to get another job anyway. So that might not be a factor. Yeah. My goal is to work with them? Yeah, but, okay, that's a fantastic goal. Right now I don't give a shit. You're working anywhere you can make money.

32:26Go be a Panda Express manager, general manager. Go through the training. They pay a ton of money here. Pay a ton of money for second and third managers that are here. Even, you're making$18 an hour. I think their entry level position is something like$20 an hour. So come on. Now you're getting a little commission. But we can get you more money in Austin. We can. Gas,$120. Fair. Credit, minimum multipayment. That's the credit guy that I pay. But this is the last month that I'm going to pay him. Loan$160? I think it's like$155 or$160. What is? The loan. What loan? That same loan that is on my credit.