In short
Financial Audit Podcast Episode Summary
Episode Title
Woman Has Everything In Collections
Host
Caleb Hammer
Guest
Stephanie, 35, Nurse from Austin, Texas
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Podcast Overview The episode dives deep into the financial situation of Stephanie, a nurse with a complex background in personal finance. With a focus on her income, expenses, debts, and strategies for improvement, the discussion aims to provide insights and advice on managing financial chaos and planning for a more secure future.
Key Themes
- Income and Employment: Stephanie works as an LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse) earning approximately $32.54/hour, with overtime that fluctuates her monthly income.
- Debt and Collections: A significant portion of the episode discusses her overwhelming debts, including multiple collections accounts, hospital bills, and student loans.
- Budgeting: A critical discussion regarding the need for structured budgeting to manage her finances more effectively and work towards debt repayment.
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Detailed Breakdown
00:00 - Job and Income
- Occupation: Nurse (LVN)
- Hourly Wage: Around $32.54
- Overtime: Occasionally works overtime, impacting monthly income.
06:00 - Already A Mess!
- Stephanie rates her financial situation at a 2 out of 10 due to her mounting debts and collections.
12:00 - I'm Scared For You...
- Discussion highlights the seriousness of her financial situation, emphasizing the urgency of addressing debts.
14:45 - What a MESS
- Stephanie has accumulated various debts before the age of 18, largely due to her upbringing and lack of financial literacy.
17:30 - Spend Spend Spend...
- The conversation uncovers her spending habits, often tied to emotional triggers and social pressures.
20:30 - She's F'd
- Acknowledgment of her dire debt situation, with multiple debts in collections.
23:50 - MAKE IT STOP
- Urges for immediate action to address her financial turmoil.
28:38 - Please Just Do This
- The importance of establishing a budget is stressed for better financial management.
30:00 - You Need a Budget!
- Caleb emphasizes the necessity of strict budgeting and financial discipline.
35:00 - Your Rent is KILLING YOU
- Housing Costs: Rent constitutes about 50% of her income, making it increasingly difficult to manage other expenses.
36:44 - Clean Up This Mess!!!
- Urgent steps needed to organize her finances and address outstanding debts.
45:20 - Hammer Financial Score
- Spending: 6/10 (some discipline but has room for improvement)
- Debt: 0/10 (severe issues with collections)
- Retirement: 2/10 (far behind on savings)
- Emergency Fund: 3/10 (needs more savings for security)
- Overall Score: 2.5/10
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Key Takeaways
- Importance of Budgeting: A well-structured budget is essential to prevent overspending and accumulating debt.
- Debt Management: Tackle high-interest debts first while negotiating lower payments for collections.
- Emergency Fund: Building a safety net of savings to handle unexpected expenses is crucial.
- Retirement Planning: Starting early and contributing consistently to retirement accounts can alleviate future financial strains.
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Conclusion The episode outlines the complexities of personal finance through the lens of a nurse struggling with debt and financial management. It serves as an educational piece, encouraging listeners to take control of their finances, prioritize budgeting, and work towards debt elimination. The discussion emphasizes that while the journey may be challenging, proactive steps can lead to financial empowerment and stability.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28Americans told Washington what they want. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our U.S.-based restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. I'm Stephanie. I'm 35. I'm based out of Austin, Texas, and this is the financial audit.
1:06All right. What do you do here in Austin for a living? I'm a nurse. Okay. Very cool. What kind of nurse? I'm LVN, or LPN, depending on what state I'm in. So the lower paid version of a nurse. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Do you enjoy being a nurse though? Yeah. I was raised in the industry, so I'm pretty used to healthcare and that type of stuff. Very cool. My mom's a nurse. Oh, yeah. Very cool. What do you make, I assume, hourly, correct? Yeah. What's your hourly? 32, 54, something like that. And how many hours a week do you get on average? Supposed to be 40. Supposed to be? Sometimes it's a little bit more, like 45-ish.
1:47Oh, okay. Well, that was the better end of that. Yeah. It used to be like 80, 60, but not at this job, at regular jobs. I work a desk job now. Desk job? Yeah. What do you do? I'm a quality nurse. I'm a transition nurse. So I oversee like all the hospitals and doctor's offices and try to help one of the health care plans take care of their patients and like get people all the resources and hopefully help people like stay healthy and out of the hospital. Oh, cool, cool, cool. So hopefully 40, sometimes a little more. Is there overtime or is that? Yeah, there's overtime. What's the overtime wage?
2:23Like time and a half. I think it's like 48 something. I think one of my pay stubs in that stack. In this. Okay. Is it in this or this? It's on the tablet. We're about to be doing a deep dive session here because it was a little chaotic getting some of the stuff in. They're like pictures within a long document and then a folder I have not had access to. Well, the other one I was going to send earlier. I don't know. I've been scammed a couple times, so I was like, I'm going to wait and see until I get a more human response before I send. I get it. But yeah, and the first ones didn't come out right, so then this was like a quickie scan.
3:06Okay, so let's try to find the income statement within here. This could be it? No, I think that's my HSA. So it's that one. Ah. Yeah, so yeah. We have like a lot of bonuses. 48 bucks. Yeah. Woo! So this is bi-weekly, it looks like. Yeah, bi-weekly. We've got 80 hours and an extra 9 hours, 38. Very good. This came out to net. And does this feel like an average for you? Yeah, that's more typical because I'm usually doing a little bit more work. We just got a boss, though, so now she's helping do the extra work I was doing, so the overtime might be gone. Oh, really? But I don't know. It depends on how much stuff she has to do.
4:00Because I've been unofficially leading my team for a little bit. So I do extra work on top of our work to keep our team going. Okay. It added an extra$500. I know it didn't. So you walked away with$2 ,000, meaning we're at$4 ,000 a month. But we would be at almost$3 ,000 a month without that overtime. Yeah. Kind of. Without the overtime, it is tight. but yeah it would be about approximately i think about 3 500 without the overtime yeah net because net you're at 4 000 right now so that's what's hitting your guy on a monthly basis yeah you have to get a lot closer than like yeah that's okay i was like trying to itch my nose that's okay um yeah so i try to work as much overtime as i can when we're allowed to like if there's a project or something i'll take it on um i also like try to do every side hustle under the sun so i was bartending for a couple years um for like events and stuff like that uh and then i do writing jobs like i'm freelancing for a company back home that i used to work for yeah so i rewrite their curriculums i wrote a couple of new classes for them too oh that's cool but right now everything's getting updated so I'm updating that and I've tried to reach out to like all the schools in Oregon to be like hey if you want someone to update everything like I'm already doing this one so I can do you next and yeah okay well very cool no I love the side hustles so let's just start well actually before I jump into your checking account I want to hear from your perspective especially since I'm dealing with all this for the first time in terms of the documents and looking at them what's your financial situation give yourself a zero out of 10 so i'm probably gonna get like uh two okay um maybe not i don't know what's your financial situation i'm comfortable like right now like i grew up like in a really tough situation like single mom all that uh like living in the projects welfare services all that type of stuff um what city so at oroville california sure so it's like a little meth town um but who doesn't love a good meth town yeah okay sorry go ahead yeah so i got out of there like pretty early but like now i live like in the best i guess way that i have my whole life like i live in a nice place and i'm pretty secure but what about your debts are your debts stacked oh the The debts are, yeah, they're stuck, but I was in debt before I turned 18.
6:41Well, we'll get into that for sure. Before we do, you should hit subscribe because we're trying to get to 500 ,000 subscribers. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed so far. Let's look at your checking. Okay, so savings that went from$175 ,000 to$225 ,000 within Chase, so really not that much. And checking, we went from the beginning balance of$4 ,631 to$5 ,639. So that's good. It went up. Very good. Yeah. And this month, you know, like you always hear, was one of those months that's a little bit different. Yeah. Yeah. Every month is different. Unless it's strictly budgeted. And even still, every month is going to be a little different.
7:23So you had a reoccurring thing, a whitewater car wash, but as you put in here, canceled. Yeah. We went to some cafe. What's up? Portfolio Recome? One of those debt companies. Oh, jeez. Because, yeah, 72 bucks went to that, and 35 went to that immediately. I paid, like,$100 a month for a couple of one of the collections accounts. Collections. Oh, jeez. What did I walk into? Okay. This is cursive, and I don't really read cursive. Oh, I think I reimbursed myself for that. It was, like, meds. Oh. It was, like, my med cost. Okay. Like if I don't have like HSA, all my HSA money in there to cover my meds, I'll wait until like my next paycheck and then pay myself back.
8:07Okay. Tarzay, Tarzay. And these are cheaper Tarzay trips. I just got out of the hospital whenever I did this. So all those are donations. 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. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain.
8:40Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. Spy the way. Huh? They're donations. They were donations. So you purchased things to donate? Yeah, for one of the elders. Shouldn't you be donating to your collections? I do I was I don't know It was an elderly guy That has like no family Here in America I get it So I felt like Really bad for him Because we were in A similar place But I got out Poshmark Yeah 50 bucks I know Amazon Making some credit payments Okay okay okay Planet K It's expensive Yeah ATT Oh internet Probably okay Yeah Ooh, lots of...
9:26This is all over the place. The TurboTax and ATM would draw$200. Who knows where that went? Yes, okay. An Amazon, an Amazon, an Amazon. Coffee, again. You're getting Zell's Inn. Yeah, I was supposed to get more Zell's Inn. Like, all those Planet K's and stuff. Yeah, do you go to Planet K like every day? No, that was like... I was hanging out with somebody from the hospital. for a while or well i was hanging out with someone anyways and they were asking me to buy them something and they were gonna are gonna pay me back and then they didn't pay me back but i did like put my foot down like and you know i was like well i have to budget and like i'm not budgeting in for your like habits so do you budget i do strictly budget you have a strict budget i have a broke girl budget okay so all these coffees were in your budget no but i i did just only amazon out of the hospital last month.
10:26We brew coffee. This month is different. I've been making all my coffees in the Keurig. I make tea, plainly. Okay. We also were paying cards and card purchase. Michael's again. We've gone to Michael's a few times. Yeah. Okay, and we're venuating out some money as well. Web payment. bell, that's probably rent. Yes, the big one. You live by yourself? Yeah. That's 50 % of your income. 50 % of your income goes to rent. Of my regular income. Of your regular income, but the side hustles are up and down, right? Yeah, but I was working on a COVID unit whenever I moved in there, so it didn't used to be 50 % of my wages.
11:13I used to make a lot more. And have you looked for other jobs to try to get that income back? In LVN mainland no but i've been starting to look at like personal assistant jobs and things like that like i could literally do anything else besides be a nurse and probably make more money um but i don't know my family did not like any other time i walked away from nursing so family what i don't care yeah but like right now my day job's like why do they matter why why are they a part of this conversation when it comes to you making money i know you come from the You said that's the industry, but I don't care.
11:52Make more money. Live the life you want to live. Yeah, I'm working on trying to build something else on my own while I'm using my 9-to-5 to fund, paying back all my debt, and then, of course, my insurance and things like that. I have really, really good benefits with my job, so I'm hoping I can build something and make money while I'm still working this 9 to 5 for at least a couple more years, maybe. Okay. Make my time more valuable, hopefully. And then you said on this Albert thing. Oh yeah, I closed that. I forgot I had that. It's$50, so that's gone. Yeah, I just put it in my savings account.
12:33Which is the Chase savings? Or is there another savings that I'm not aware of? No, that I actually don't really use my Chase savings that much. I just keep everything all in one account because I'm weird. I just started actually moving stuff to it. But the Albert had automatic withdrawals that it would do towards certain savings things, and I didn't realize that it was charging me a fee for it. So I canceled it and got... I'm getting reimbursed for the rest of the subscription fee. Okay. What is this? That's my car payment. Oh, we'll get to that. Yeah. Death. This is your HSA, a couple hundred bucks.
13:12Yeah. They at least give me free money from work in there, too. I think I get like$800 a year from work. That's nice. Yeah. Jeez. Okay. We have Fidelity,$2 ,189. What is this? Is this? That was a rollover. Rollover IRA. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I hope there's more than that because at$35, that'd be scary. Well, that's not the only one. But that was one I didn't know I had, and then I combined it into this company. Where's the money in? Government money? No, no, no. You've got to start investing. This needs to start being invested. Oh, I don't know what it is in. Right now, it's just sitting in cash. Oh, that one is in.
13:49Yeah, that one I have to pick something out to do. But I just had to move. It took a long time to move it because the other company that had it was playing games and didn't have the papers that Fidelity wanted. It took like six months just to get it there. And then$9 ,000 United Health Group. Yeah. 401k. Okay. So 9 ,000 plus that 2 ,000. Is that it? It's a little bit more now. That was April's statement. So like every... 10 ,000? Yeah, I think it's like 12 or 13 with all of them put together. Oh, all of them. So you're at$13 ,000 in retirement. I just started it last year. Okay, that scares me being mid-30s.
14:39I know. That's very scary. I always thought that I would, you know, just get married and have somebody else deal with all of my life planning issues. You didn't get married? No. I almost got married a couple of times, but I didn't. And that was probably a smarter idea. Okay. Well, it's not all about the money. But now, yeah. But, I mean, I've been trying to, like, I've been digging out of a hole since before I turned 18. What is this hole? What? Give us something. So, like, we grew up in the projects and my mom was on her own. There was some bills put in my name before I graduated. From your mom?
15:19Yeah. Oh, jeez, I'm sorry. But, no, it's fine. I mean, it's fine. No, it's not fine. They give you the option of, like, you can, like, put your mom in jail or you can. You and your mom have a good relationship? She is blocked. but I mean she she has tried to be fair this is about to be a mess I'm sorry we're not going to put this stuff on screen because we don't have the things but this is about to be a mess they are in organized stacks but some of them are also like zeros and stuff too some of them I was just going to look into oh this one is something that just popped up debt collections Better yet, do you have credit karma on your phone?
16:04Yeah, I do Go ahead and open that for me That might be a much better Starting place at least Yeah Alright, so we're in the low to mid 600s Yeah Let's go ahead and take a look What's up? Payment history 100 % Good Dragatory marks 5 Bad Lots of bad What did we do? Oh, collection Yeah, there's a lot of collections. Why? Why are you on so much collections? So I've like restarted my life a few times, and some of the stuff that's in collections, I'm like writing letters to them because I've either never been to some of the places that are charging me, or they were like my ex. BJ's Wholesale Club makes holiday hosting so easy, we called in the ultimate host to talk about it.
16:54Mrs. 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. Or other things that... Has anyone responded to these letters? No, I'm getting ready to send off the actual, like... Like saying, like... requesting like the like original contracts and everything because some of the companies are coming after me for stuff that's out of the statute of limitations so some of those ones i won't have to worry about but well maybe the ones on here the oldest one's three years old so that's not even that old yeah and there's different ones on each one depending on which one you're looking at midland credit management what was that i'm paying a lot of those ones that's the mcm that you see come out all the time yeah but what was that um it was care credit so some dental bill of some sort why didn't you pay it because i was moving either down here or working a sales job at the time that made like absolutely no money um okay why didn't you pay it though i'm confused well it was when i was barely like able to pay my rent and i was working a bunch of different going out to eat and stuff i was not i usually like i'm lucky enough to have friends that will take me out with them but i haven't been going out really for a while um just because i know what the situation's like so and i know how fast things add up so i usually getting coffee and stuff on the bills that we're looking at i just got out of the hospital whenever i did that month so a lot of that stuff that month was like i needed to get back into therapy and out of being triggered and yeah therapy is good we i encourage that but yeah okay portfolio recovery what's that for that's uh that's the pr that's the one that you're saying is like a hundred dollars yeah but what was it for oh uh it was went for my laptop when i first moved down here and then why'd you get a laptop if you couldn't afford it what'd you need it for for that sales job i was doing we had to travel around and do stuff so well if they did they didn't provide work equipment it was a really company.
19:18Yeah, I probably wouldn't have worked there. Okay, the other portfolio recovery, are they for the same thing? It's for an Ashley's account. Because I had to buy my furniture whenever I came back down here. No, why'd you get it? Okay, the laptop for work, I mean, I wouldn't have done that. I would have tried to get a better job. And this was like five years ago. And the dental thing, okay. And I'm paying them off now. But furniture, you did not need to buy furniture. Get a mattress,$300. I brought my mattress down. On the ground, and that's all you need to survive. You did not need to go and get$1 ,300, who was probably more at the time.
19:54That was the laptop, somehow. Okay, so the other one, the$6.45 was furniture? That was the couch. Yeah, it was just the couch. It wasn't like a ton of furniture. You didn't need a couch. Why are we buying things we can't afford? So I wasn't sitting on the floor. I don't care. If you can't afford it, though, it doesn't make sense to get it, because now it's in collections, right? Yeah, it is in collections, but yeah. what's ic systems or what was it for is uh anesthesiology bill so that one is one that i was gonna pay they it's with a debt buyer though now so they were gonna give me at least half off so that was the other thing is like i have a little spreadsheet of all the different debt companies and elevate recovery what's that oh so that is i think that is this but they haven't actually sent me a bill well what's it for them um that was when i broke my leg in 2020 geez yeah well it's for 2039 yeah 2039 is what it's for yeah and i was waiting for them to send me a letter so i can send them something back so they can confirm it or see if i can pay it off have you been paying these off um my hospital bills i didn't obviously i wasn't able to work because my leg was broken so i was not able to stand for a couple of months okay you have a credit card which i didn't have access to your spending on olo card cv yeah but it doesn't actually have that on there anymore what what does it say 166 still yeah yeah so i had a battery that i had to replace um last month i guess but i already paid it off i just put it on there uh temporarily we have lots to keep stuff open yeah nursing school do you spend on that credit card No, I don't use them.
21:38I usually use them for like, oh, in case because I am here by myself and I don't have a family or like. Where's everyone? California and like Korea, Philippines, everywhere. Okay. What is, where'd you go to school? I went to school in Chico and Oregon and. Why so many different places? Because I started college in high school, and at that time I was living in Chico, California. And then I went up to Oregon after that and waited until I got in-state tuition. But then nursing school took a while to get into, and I ended up having to go back to California for nursing school. And I was supposed to get granted in-state tuition because you're supposed to get in-state tuition no matter what as a California graduate.
22:31it and then the school was supposed to pay me back like$18 ,000 and then did not so well student loans are going to start up very soon you're gonna have to pay these$30 ,556 we're gonna be about a$400 minimum monthly payment I know that's what it was before it was like$500 before I did the so-called uh income based no you're on income yeah so I mean I can't even get it like That's terrible. It was like 500 something. No, you're screwed with that. Because you're, you'll be paying a little, but it's just going to be accruing interest forever. You're not going to have that forgiven. I haven't actually paid them since before 2021, but that's what the, they sent me as like an option.
23:11The stack of student loans is in here. Are you on income-based or are you on? It's on deferment right now. I know, but when it starts, are you on income-based? I don't know. I mean, I haven't paid them for four years. Income-based is a scam. um no I mean they're still with uh Nelnet or like the original loan company and it's like a federal company or something I know but I don't know um honestly like when we were in school they just told us like hey like go to school keep taking classes then you want to pay back your student loans and like I took classes like I could be a preschool educator like I took enough classes to like run my own preschool like I had almost two years before I got into a nursing program and then by that time I had used up all my Pell Grant money and I took out some of these student loans for nursing school and some of them were an ex-boyfriend that was really abusive and had me take out student loans in the beginning that he used to buy cars.
24:10Oh jeez. Cars? I'm sorry. Yeah, race cars. But I got out of there alive, so that's important. Good. That is important. But yeah I knew the student loans Were going to come back eventually Well you also have a car It's halfway done but you took it out For six freaking years so we still got three There's$10 ,000 left on our night I'll probably be done paying it off next year though Well I hope so we'll see what your plan Indicates there was a good amount of money left over In that check in that's good What's in your savings I had emptied out that Albert Account into the savings and then it It really is only sent to like a$25 a month auto.
24:51Well, it was only set to$25 a month auto transfer. What's in your savings? I don't know, like$725 or something like that. $725? You have my phone, so I can't exactly look. Your interest rate. This is the bad part, though. The interest rate on the car is high. So you know what people do when girls go to car lots and try to get cars? Sure. Yeah, I mean, yeah. They said like they didn't even show me like the original car that I went there for. but they just told me like the bank wouldn't loan me any money because the bank can recoup its, uh, losses easier on a new car than a used car. If I were to not pay my car loans, but I've never not paid my car notes.
25:31So it says you have even more in collections that we don't see on here. A couple of different ones, depending on which one you're looking at, but some of them were paid off. This episode is brought to you by NBA on Prime. This Tuesday at 8.30 Eastern, it's the Emirates NBA Cup Championship game on Prime. This year's quest for the Cup has been building to this, the championship game, live from Las Vegas. Not a Prime member? Sign up for a 30-day free trial to get started today. The Emirates NBA Cup Championship game, this Tuesday at 8.30 Eastern, only on Prime. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com slash Amazon Prime for details.
26:13i buy what um well one of them that was on there was something that state farm was supposed to pay off um like an insurance thing and then i had got sent to collections for it but it was someone else's insurance that was paying for it but they just paid for that so you need oh my goodness i know you just allowed your entire life you just like decided not to think about things so yeah i also have a CPTSD so I also decided that I wasn't gonna have emotions until this year too what's that I'm sorry I don't know it's complex PTSD so it's just a form of like having so much trauma over time build up and then um yeah but I see now like the air in my ways and uh I've been getting help like i knew like i needed help but i didn't know that i had like p i thought i had anxiety like february of last year and then found out it's ptsd and then now it is what it is um yeah but i've been dealing with like everything slowly like you know that is not a bill at least is any of this in here that i don't know about yet yeah what what do i not know about yet well i guess you have the student loans there yeah so then this one is actually credit so i don't have to pay my power bill i don't want to mess with your system um this is all the hospital bills that's coming up yeah but i was gonna call my insurance and talk to them and see why they're denying how much in hospital bills total are coming up um i think it was close to four or five grand of the The current ones.
27:58The current ones. Yeah. I brought you a stack of my paid-off bills.
28:08Caleb Chase Card. That was my check-off list to get all my s*** together for you. And then I was going to see what all the balances were. But, yeah, actually, you might not need most of that now that you opened up the credit karma. Okay, so this is mostly the hospital bills? Yeah, it's mostly the hospital bills because those are, like, just now coming. I keep trying to send them for them to hopefully charge my insurance so they can help me and hopefully at least meet my deductible. I mean, I should meet my deductible with what they sent me, but it's not counting at all so far, and I don't know why.
28:46And I work for my insurance company, so it's interesting. Right. Crap, so we need to come up with 5 ,000 hours. For the hospital bills? Mm-hmm. And you have nothing in your savings? Well, it's$700 in your savings. Yeah. How much was in your checking? I'm in like$8 ,000 now. $8 ,000? Okay, yeah. Tell me your current balance is everywhere. Yeah, okay. It's a good plan. Okay. My checking is$7 ,422. And then the savings is$795. Okay, so we have$8 ,000. Yeah. And then I think I still have like 50 bucks on my Apple card and Venmo. Just like my random account. All right. Well, from here, it just comes down to budgeting.
29:37I need you to budget. You didn't go crazy is the thing. I did go crazy. What? The hospital trip. But it just was a bad trip. What happened?
29:52somebody got me sent to the hospital for saying I was doing something that I wasn't exactly doing but it's gonna cost a lot of money any more details they said I was trying to commit suicide oh wow yeah I kind of got like attacked by the cops and drugged oh geez by the EMS who said this this girl I've been trying to avoid for like a year or so um used to be a friend yeah she used to be a friend but like you know sometimes people um have to leave your life because they remind you of other people that make things wild and then yeah 988 always an option yeah please take advantage of that you know for everyone out there um and then therapy and everything that's good but yeah i have that and like we have a lot of benefits like at work like there's a line i can call 24 7 and luckily i have like some help paying for some of my therapy um through my job so okay well if you're ever in that place please reach out for help you know you said you weren't so i'm not gonna say anything um that's too much of a commitment for me the whole death thing non-committal um that's time to budget let's see um do you want the retirement account?
31:13It's almost at$1 ,300,$13 ,000. Nah, that's fine. We already know we're drastically behind on that. At this point, we're just trying to get out of these debts. These collections are way too young to just say, okay, we'll wait a few years and then fall off. Some of them, on credit, Karma doesn't show that I'm paying them off, but I am paying them off. The two that are the hospital bills that have a deal with them to get them payment plan or like I'm just going to pay them like a big chunk so I was waiting to like to half so that's nice because yeah it was like 10 grand just to fix my foot alright so $8 ,000 okay you're going to have that conversation with the insurance you're going to have that conversation with the insurance but then after that conversation just assuming they don't do anything just pay it.
32:09Pay it. Just pay it. Yeah, I was paying some of the other ones. But we're going to go from $8 ,000 to$5 ,000. We're just paying the hospital bills. Sucks, but it is what it is. Then you have$3 ,000 left. After insurance, either helps or not. You're talking about what the money you have right now? Yeah. Then what happens if something happens? Well, you have$3 ,000. We're going to get you in a better place, but we're not allowing this to fall into collections again. Well, not this one, but... What do you mean? Last time I was working a job where I got paid a lot less, so I wasn't able to pay the hospital bills as fast.
32:46Yeah, I'm saying you're paying the hospital bill. What was your plan? You said I was just going to pay like five grand all at one time? Yeah. Were you going to payment plan it? They usually let you make payment plans because there's no interest on it at least, and then I could pay on the ones that were more interest like my car. Well, let's create your budget. We'll see how much money you should have left over. Your rent already takes 5 % of your income. So we have that. Let's see. Rent$1 ,800. Death. It's actually like$16 ,000. So that's like utilities and stuff included? Yeah. Yeah. It includes utilities.
33:20Okay. So there you go. Car insurance. Like$164 or something. And I paid$350 on my car. But I think it's like$3. Yeah. Your debts, because the student loans are going to be there. Yeah. Again. I'm doing$400 for now. to get extra jobs that I've been like saving up money to start paying those back to. Yeah. I was hoping that. Well, yeah, you're going to have to. We're about to talk about it, but your minimum monthly payments are dead, 732. It's what it's about to be. Like any time. Student loans are not going to be forgiven. Okay. Guess on a monthly basis? I spend like 40 or 50 bucks. I don't really go any.
33:58A month, a week, or what? A month. I don't go. I don't go to the office that much. Okay. Okay, and health insurance has taken out a paycheck before. Yeah. Therapy, how much on a monthly basis? It's$500 a month, but I am not paying for it for the next two and a half months. Why? There's something called EAP benefits that probably everyone should look into at their jobs. It's confidential aside from your job that you can usually get help. There's like 10 free sessions for any thing that comes up. I'm glad you take advantage of that. Okay. Oh, yeah. I have found every little thing at work. There's like an app on my phone that I mark off like self-care activities and it gives me a discount on my health insurance.
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34:42So sometimes my health insurance doesn't charge me at all and I get like extra money on my HSA. OK. Cool. OK. Bust with the boys is here to let you know that every college football Saturday, FanDuel is dropping profit boosts that can turn wins into bigger wins. Sounds like we should rename Saturday Booster Day. Nice. 21 plus and present in select states. Opt-in required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
35:23I'm trying to think of other. Okay, so phone. What are we looking for? The phone is 99, but they have been not giving me my discount for a long time for being a nurse and i've been fixing that for like the last year and this time they swear that it's gonna reflect on my balance or on my bill on the next one to two months who are you with verizon but they've been ripping me off for like a year yeah if they don't give me my money back in the next two months i'm gonna like really throw a fit um but yeah i was gonna switch but i was hoping that they would give me the credits because they've told me like a few times that they're gonna give me the credit back for being a nurse Like that's literally the only benefit for being a nurse is this one discount on my cell phone and I haven't got it.
36:06All right. So 99 for phone and then we have gas. Therapy will start eventually again. Yeah. $500 a month. But for the next two and a half months we're good? Yeah. I'll have to like, I'll probably spread it out because, well, actually instead of the therapy place, if we could budget, I was going to do a treatment for my PTSD with, that comes with some therapy and stuff too that my therapist. How much is that? I think it's just$1 ,000 or$9.58 total. A month? No, for six months. But you pay like$1.58 for six months. Is that going to start in two and a half months? No, that's going to start a lot sooner because I need to...
36:45So$1.50? Yeah,$1.58 a month. It's$9.48 total, which I might... Well, I've been funneling a lot of money into my HSA account to pay for my health care expenses. So to at least do it tax-free, I don't know. Yeah. Okay, so you live alone? Mm-hmm. Groceries,$300 a month. Yeah. That's all you get. Total paper money,$100 a month. That's all you get. I usually spend about$300 on both those things together. Good. Then I'm going to minimize. I'm going to do$50 for total paper,$250 for groceries.
37:22It's like something in my tooth. Okay. Any other ongoing expense that you can think of? No. It's a rent that's killing you. I know. But I like my house. House? It's a house? No, it's not. Well, it's my home, but it's an apartment. But I live on the lake, so whenever I do go outside, it's nice to walk on the water when it doesn't smell. I was also getting paid like double when I moved in there. But sometimes I work a lot of extra side jobs and I make quite a bit more money. But I hope so. Because right now your minimum budget in order to survive is$3 ,303. So of that, you have an extra$700. This is perfect.
38:14So, yes, you are going to cut the check for$5 ,000 total. Then you'll have$3 ,000 left. And then you put an extra$300 to it. You have a one month emergence fund that is perfect to get started while you go and attack the insanity that you have found yourself in. Yeah? What? Nothing. Okay. I'm good. I'm fine. You smiled. I don't know. I know. I don't smile that often. Yeah. No, it's fine. I've been like keeping it. I think I wrote my budget was like$3 ,400 or something. Like I knew that's about what my thoughts are. But are you following that? That's not what you were following on what I was looking at.
38:49You were going out and doing crap. It wasn't a lot like other people on the show. Because I had just went through my worst fear ever of getting locked up against my will. You went to a lot of cafes, though. Yeah, it's just that cafe that's downstairs from my apartment. Because I use that to convince myself to leave once a week. But I do have an honor budget. Go to parks and stuff. You were looking for a husband. You said go on dates and stuff. No, I'm not looking for a husband. No Oh well I thought you said that was the plan No I mean that's what I thought when I was growing up Because I grew up in a small town Where they kind of just teach you like you know The Christian idea of families And women just listening to men tell them what to do I got you That's why I'm a nurse and not a doctor Okay Either way You pay off the hospital bill There's 700 bucks left a month Well I don't know what these collections are going to look like with the negotiations and stuff, but even just assuming they're all half, I mean, you could kill that in, like, about five months, putting everything extra towards it.
39:56Then, of course, hopefully you have side hustles that you said you'd do and put all that extra towards it as well. And then from there, we're paying off the car. Now you're entering the second half where, like, half your payments are going to interest, half are going to principal versus, like, all interest and no principal towards the beginning or all principal at the end, no interest. so with the interest rate and where it's at still and with how many years are left we want to attack it and go crazy so let's see divide that by 700 so with only 700 dollars it's still going to take a year and year and one and a half months to pay off so now we're a year in about five months in after collections and everything.
40:40So a year and five months. Then the student loans, it's kind of a classic situation where if they're federal, first of all, do the traditional repayment. Make sure you are. Do not do income. Do not do income. If they're income, we're going to approach it in a different way, but make sure they're traditional. If they're not, put them on traditional, the traditional 10-year. What are you going to do? Anything that is over 4-5%, you're going to pay off quick, as quick as possible with your extra$700 a month. anything that is 4 % or less maybe 5 % or less we're doing minimum monthly payments until they're paid off because it makes more sense to invest but only if you invest that extra money that you would be putting towards the paying off versus just spending it on bull if you're going to spend it on bull no pay off the student loans early does that make sense?
41:22yeah so at this point it's probably going to be a 2-3 year process because then you want to save up a fully funded emergency fund and with where your expenses are, probably going to do about$15 ,000. Yeah. $15 ,000 saved up. So you're going to go from what the$3 ,000 emergency fund is that you'll have at the start of this process, take that up to about$15 ,000. Then you'll be okay. And then what I need you to do from there, because we're going to be like 37, 38, depending on just how crazy you go, is it's time that we put 30 % of our income. Yeah, it's at 15 right now. That's okay, but we're also maxing out on our Roth IRA.
42:08So everything combined, we want to get to 30%, 35%, because you have fallen behind drastically, drastically on retirement, and we need to start playing catch-up now. But only when you're out of the bad debts, because again, the car at 11.85%, the collection's hounding you and stuff like this, and you won't be able to get mortgages and whatever you want to do eventually, because we're not waiting for these to fall off your credit because they're all so young. The oldest one's only a couple years, three years. And then I visit the hospital. We need to take care of that. And then the student loans, mathematical difference between market performance.
42:40That's why we're looking like that 5 % or less, minimum monthly payment, higher than that. What's going on? I'm Arch Manning, Viore athlete and college quarterback. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unwinding at home, I love doing it in my core shorts from Viore. With a breathable boxer brief liner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come in three inseams and a ton of colors. Ready to try a pair? Go to viuri.com slash arch and get 20 % off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do. That's viuri.com slash A-R-C-H and get 20 % off your first order.
43:18Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20 % off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over$75 and free returns. Have a great day. We pay it off aggressively. Yeah. Does that all make sense? Yeah, I can't remember what I put the student loans on. Well, we'll just look once it starts resuming, get in contact with them, be like, is this income-based or traditional? Yeah. Get it traditional. If the interest is higher on my car, though, and there's no interest on the hospital bills, Because the hospital bills will take, I think,$80 a month or something like that until I can pay them in bigger chunks.
43:55I'm not sure how that interest thing works that you explain with the car. The one you looked at, the$5 ,000 one? Yeah. Contact them. Say, I want to pay it. I want to just pay it. I want to pay it. I want to pay it. Because you need to pay it. Don't get on this stupid interest plan. It doesn't make any sense. No, they don't have interest, though. Okay. Well, still, the minimum monthly payment doesn't make sense. We're just attacking these. We're just attacking these Stop having your money going to minimum payments At this point because we're trying to get out of debt So in this way You just pay it, you have enough for a month Emergency fund I don't get why it wouldn't be Better to pay I guess I don't understand the interest with the car Thing Because the interest on my car is like much higher So but you were like explaining At first you're paying more on the interest Than the principal The way we think about it in this situation the hospital bill that's like already due instead of trying to make it to a minimum payment or just doing what you've done in the past and just let it fall into collections.
44:56Well I mean because I can set it up on auto pay now that I have an actual job because I didn't have a job on the first one the first one that went to collections was when I broke my leg and I couldn't walk for two months so I wasn't working because I didn't I guess I didn't know about the jobs that I have now like it took somebody like encouraging me that I could leave bedside nursing to do what I do now. If you want to, I'm just trying to make it as simple as possible, but if you want to, sure, you could put it on the payment plan as long as there's no interest, and then you pay off your collections as quick as you can, then you pay off your car as quick as you can, and then you pay off the remainder of the hospital as quick as you can.
45:33Yeah. And then the student loans anything above 5 % after that. Yeah, because I was just doing the things with the higher interest first, because there's no they're not allowed to charge you interest on the hospital bills. That's the avalanche method. You're paying off high interest first. With yours, with where your debts are in terms of sitting at like a few hundred to a couple thousand to five thousand to ten thousand in the car. They're so close. Or it's just like, let's just go smallest to biggest. If you're sitting at like a ginormous huge big thing that was just killing you on interest, then it's like, okay, we just need to take care of this right now.
46:06Yeah. It just seemed like the interest was so high on my car. It is. But I did take care of a lot of the snowball ones like if i would have came in here last year you would have lost your um yeah yes sounds like that would have been painful uh but again the collections well okay good and i do work quite a bit like on my own and i put all like the extra money that i get towards like debt rather than and the michael stuff i'm painting for an art show so you're gonna get paid for it i'm hoping to sell my art for the first time i've been sharing it for the first time but all my friends are also artists.
46:41Why encourage that stuff once the 12 % HHS rate thing is done. I'm using only the supplies in my house now. So I'm not going to buy any more stuff. I needed something. Either way. There was a little bit of BS spending, not a lot of BS spending. Now there will be no more BS spending. We're cutting it back. Just go to parks. Work as much as you can on the side hustles as well. Bring this in. You can turn this from three years to two years to a year and a half, depending on what you do. probably about two years. Yeah, I had to mark down to two. When you're 37, though, we're investing like crazy. That's the big part that I'm scared of right now.
47:17I'm not, your debt doesn't necessarily terrify me. The way you've thought about it in the past and the way things have gone scares me. But what I'm most scared about right now is you not being able to retire and having to work a job, nursing, on your feet, stuff like that when you're older and you want to retire. You don't have the ability right now. That's why I'm trying to make something else on the side with everything else I'm doing. As much as you can make to pay off the debts quicker, the better. And then I think 35 % of your income has to go to retirement. We've got to play catch up. 30 % to 35%.
47:50I'm also willing to sell the kidney. But just kidding. But that's where things are looking for me. That's my diagnosis and prescription. Yeah. What do you think? There is like one of my, that Olokart has a zero balance. transfer fee thing and i was thinking about using that to like kind of front myself some of the money to pay off one of the bigger um collection debts like to pay off half of it and then i think it gives you like six months to pay interest though they're not but i mean like just to get them off of my credit because like i paid off a lot that weren't mine now the thing is the they They range from$500 to$2 ,000.
48:34With what you have left and with the extra money that you're bringing in the side hustles and being able to negotiate them to like 50 % of the price, we can get rid of these in just four or five months. I think it just was less scary borrowing the money at first. I get it, but let's just attack it head first now instead of just trying to finesse all this. It's going to overcomplicate it. Let's just do it. Yeah. Unless it's killer. Any final thoughts? No. I'm honestly just a little worried with how things have been in the past. Falling into collections, trying to get on a payment plan instead of just taking care of it.
49:13I mean, I'm good with payment plans, especially at 0 % interest. We attack things with other interests, higher interests, but just where things in the past, I'm feeling a bit nervous. But for her Hammer financial score, spending within a budget, she wasn't going crazy. Six out of ten, it wasn't perfect. And, you know, she wasn't strictly budgeting. She shouldn't have been spending money on fun while needing to pay all of this off. But it wasn't that bad. Six out of ten. Debt, zero out of ten. I mean, in collections, it's pretty much as bad as it can get. Retirement, two out of ten. I'm glad we're at least starting and we're contributing a good amount now.
49:46But we are very far behind for the age. Emergency fund is a little bit there, especially after we pay off the hospital. She does it in lump sum. Three out of ten, obviously, is still a good ways to go. Real estate, haven't even started that. Not even part of the discussion. zero out of 10. Aggregate Hammer Financial Score two and a half out of 10. If you want a free$5, sign up for Acorns using the link in the description below. You get a free$5 by using that link and I get a free$5 using that link. So everybody wins. And don't forget to follow my Instagram and Twitter. Thanks.
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Check out these fun things: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/calebhammer My socials: https://linktr.ee/calebhammer Do you want to be in a Financial Audit and you're in the Austin area? Email castingcalebhammer@gmail.com Sponsorship and business inquiries: calebhammer@creatorsagency.co _______________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Job and Income 06:00 Already a mess! 12:00 I'm scared for you... 14:45 What a MESS 17:30 Spend Spend Spend... 20:30 She's F'd 23:50 MAKE IT STOP 28:38 Please just do this 30:00 You need a budget! 35:00 Your rent is KILLING YOU 36:44 Clean up this mess!!! 45:20 Hammer Financial Score --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/calebhammer/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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