16 Money Skills They Didn’t Teach You in High School

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast show number 126, where Scott and I share all the things that you should know about money by the time you graduate high school.
Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my nice and happy cohost, Scott Trench. My 10-year-old gave me those descriptions of Scott because she thinks the world of you, Scott.

Scott:
That description absolutely made my day. Thank you.

Mindy:
Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, and show you that by following the proven steps, you can put yourself on the road to early financial freedom, and get money out of the way so you can live your best life.

Scott:
That’s right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments and assets like real estate, start your own business or simply learn the fundamentals of finance, you’re just starting out, we’ll help you build a position capable of watching yourself towards these dreams.

Mindy:
What interferes with your happiness? Is something preventing you from achieving your goals?

Scott:
BetterHelp will actually help you assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. Connecting a safe and private online environment is so convenient.

Mindy:
You can start communicating in under 24 hours, and it’s not self-help. It’s professional counseling, and you can send a message to your counselor anytime.

Scott:
Yeah, and you’ll get a timely and thoughtful response. Plus, you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions, all without ever having to sit in a waiting room or anything like that.

Mindy:
BetterHelp is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches. So, they make it easy and free to change counselors if necessary. It’s more affordable than traditional offline counseling, and financial aid is available.

Scott:
Service is available for folks worldwide with a broad range of expertise that you might not be able to find locally if you’re in a remote area or they’re booked.

Mindy:
They have licensed professional counselors who specialize in depression, stress, anxiety, relationships, sleeping, trauma, anger, family conflicts, LGBT matters, self-esteem, grief. Everything you share is confidential.

Scott:
BetterHelp is convenient, professional, and affordable, but don’t take our word for it. You could check out the testimonials posted daily on their website. We want you to start living happier life today, and as one of our listeners, you’ll get a 10% off discount for your first month by visiting betterhelp.com/pockets.

Mindy:
Join over 800,000 people taking charge of their mental health. Again, that’s betterhelp.com/pockets.

Scott:
Mindy, just for everyone’s sake here, BetterHelp is for mental health. Betterment is for investing, and Better.com is for mortgages, and all three of these companies have actually been sponsors for BiggerPockets in the past. Isn’t that right?

Mindy:
Well, that’s because we’re better.

Scott:
Ah! Nice. I love it.

Mindy:
Okay. Let’s get back to the show.

Scott:
Yeah.

Mindy:
Scott, I recently podcast in our Facebook group asking people, “What you would like to see explain to people who are of the age where they are just leaving high school and potentially entering college?” The topics that they really wanted to have explained are financial topics, and how changes now, the steps that you take now can have a lifelong effect on your financial health.

Scott:
Yeah. This is overwhelmingly I think the most popular response is that folks wanted to hear a complete overview of what people should be doing to set themselves up financially. I had a little smile for that because I feel like I have studied this topic maybe more than most, and really have a framework in my mind there.

Mindy:
Let me confirm for you that you have studied this topic more than most. Hey, Scott. Why did you study this topic?

Scott:
Well, because I wrote my book Set For Life on this. So, I usually don’t plug that on the show here too much, but it seems highly relevant today. For this concept of the kid who’s graduating high school and going into college, the biggest point, and we’ll really direct the show to that individual. So, pardon our shift in tone here, but if you’re graduating high school and going into college, what you have to keep in mind is it’s about life outcome, right?
There’s a lot of things to keep in mind that are not financial. The show will focus squarely on the financial here. There’s a very real possibility and a lot of Americans find themselves in this position, where they’re saddled with debt at age 25-30, where they are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They’ve got a car lease or a car loan, car payment. They’ve got the rent. They’ve got student loan payments, all these different types of things, and they’re effectively living paycheck-to-paycheck.
When you live paycheck-to-paycheck, in a lot of ways, if you lose your job, you’re screwed. That’s the definition of living paycheck-to-paycheck, right? That gives your boss undue power over your life, and this is why I think a lot of young people are very afraid of the real world and graduating high school, college, and going to get a job is because that is scary. It’s a boss now has power over me in a way that really no one has had over them in their entire lives, maybe parents, but parents are naturally much more nurturing in support of them.
So, it’s this concept that I want to drill into everyone’s heads today of financial runway that really matters. If you spend $30,000 a year and you have $30,000 in the bank account. All of a sudden, that power dynamic where your boss has the ability to totally upend your life, that power distribution is much more in your favor, right?
If you could survive for two or three years, it’s even more so. The point of this show is we’re helping our listeners move all the way to 100% financial freedom, where they could sustain themselves indefinitely without a job for the rest of their lives.
The closer and farther you can get along that spectrum so that you can start your career with that runway in place without having high fixed expenses like debt payments going out, with having a cash cushion, that is going to give you a lot of power, a lot of optionality in your life, and I think that’s the framework to begin thinking about all of your decisions financially in terms of ending your high school years and going into college, right? How do you achieve all the things you want to do outside of the world of finance, but build yourself the strongest practical financial position you can get to?

Mindy:
Scott, you just used a really amazing word, and I want to make sure everybody heard that. You said options. When you have a job that pays you exactly how much you are spending, you have one option, continue working or find another job that pays at least that much. That is your, I guess, that’s two options.
When you have a giant pile of cash in the bank enough to pay one year’s worth of expenses, two years’ worth of expenses, three years’ worth of expenses, your options are so open. You can take a job that maybe doesn’t pay as much as the one that you have but yo hate. You can take a job that may be a little more risky like, “Hey, Scott. Do you know anybody who ever left a job at the world’s biggest company that everybody hates to work at an internet startup?”
For those of you who have not listened to the show in the past, Scott used to work at a company, this great, large conglomerate, and did not care for that job at all, and came to the realization that, “Oh, I can move and work at this internet startup, which is a little riskier than working for this solid company that’s been around forever, but I’m going to like it so much more.” Are you happy here, Scott?

Scott:
Yeah. Well, of course, my example is extreme, where I left the Fortune 500 company in a finance role to come to BiggerPockets here. BiggerPockets I joined as a third employee as a startup, and now I find myself the CEO here at age 29. So, I don’t know if that’s a repeatable journey, but along that spectrum are a lot of repeatable options, but one thing is for sure. If I live paycheck-to-paycheck and I was totally dependent on my first job, I would not have had the option to ditch that ship and move and join BiggerPockets.

Mindy:
Correct. So, I want you to realize as you’re going into this podcast episode, this is about options. This is about all the options that you could have if you make small changes now.
One of the biggest changes that I want to talk about to kids who are graduating from high school in the next year or so, it’s okay to not go to college if that isn’t your path. College is not for everybody. A man named Freskim suggested that it’s okay to go to trade school or join the military because the benefits are awesome.
I think this is really important to share because when I was graduating high school, you went to college. That was your one option. College just is not for everybody. Do you remember we interviewed Tinian Crawford on episode number 44, Captain DIY? It took him six years to get a two-year degree because college is not his path. It was his path. He just didn’t really want that to be his path. Now, he’s an electrician and he’s living his best life.

Scott:
Yeah. When I think of college as a model and going back to that financial runway concept, if you go to college and you graduate in four years with $100,000 in debt and a liberal arts degree in history, you’re not in a very strong position. The fellow who goes to trade school is likely much farther along and likely to reach financial independence much sooner than you.
If you go to college and you graduate with very little debt with a degree in computer science or engineering or mathematics, you are likely to be much farther along than the person who goes to trade school and the military within a couple of years. You’re going to likely have much greater income opportunity in the years following college, right?
Where the right answer lies is somewhere along a spectrum in that decision making process. So, no, college isn’t for everyone, but everyone listening should know that I went to college. I went to a private university, and parents paid for college, and I got a degree in economics and history, two majors, and then I minored in corporate strategy and finance.
So, understand my position with a grain of salt there, but I believe that mental model will be helpful in helping you make those decisions that you can reduce debt if you can choose a major that’s likely to help you lead to great income opportunities downstream. I think that’s the way to think about this major, major decision with maybe a little bit more utility.

Mindy:
You know, Scott, I posted this question in our Facebook group, and that is where all of these answers are coming from. I wanted to know what is it that you know now that you wish you knew when you were in high school or what is it that you want people coming out of high school to know.
Melissa said some advice that was just mind-blowing to me. She said, “My high school economic teacher had seniors review data on the Bureau of Labor statistics to see how much they would likely make post-college in the career path they were considering then compare it to their expected student loans to evaluate if their career path would be able to help them pay for those loans.” She said, “This was a huge factor in why I am not a preschool teacher.”

Scott:
I love that example because it’s not about whether you should do that job or do another job or follow this career or follow that other career in a vacuum, right? You have to understand the cost benefit analysis. It is totally fine to do that cost benefit analysis. Understand that that role is not going to pay very well relative to the amount of student loans you’re going to assume, and then still choose knowing the economic trade off.
What’s unacceptable I think and what can really hurt you for a long period of time and really put you in a bad position in your late 20s, early 30s in particular, is making that choice without the understanding, which is I love that example from Melissa.

Mindy:
Yes. You know, Scott, we interviewed Travis Hornsby from Student Loan Planner back on episode 22, and he shared with us a specific major veterinary school. That is a major that has an extremely cost of student tuition, but not such a high cost or not such a high salary when you come out. So, you’re putting in medical school debt, but you’re not making doctor salary when you’re done.
He said, “Unless this is the only thing that’s going to make you happy, maybe you want to reconsider that particular major.”
I think that a lot of people just … “Your 17 to 18 years old when you’re graduating high school. What do you want to be when you grow up?
“I want to be some pie in the sky thing.”
“Great. You should follow your dreams.”
Following your dreams isn’t always the best choice for your finances.

Scott:
I just think it all comes back to understanding the choice you’re making at the highest level. If you’re making six-figure decisions right now, and you haven’t put in basic 15-30 minutes to doing that exercise looking at the Bureau of Labor statistics, understanding the income, understanding your debt and your payments, you’re conducting four years of education to study your major, but not the 30 minutes to understand the economics of your choice. That’s a lopsided distribution of time. Put in the time to understand that the cost benefit and know where that’s going to get you.

Mindy:
100%. Tika added some very sage advice. “If you’re going to college and you’re going to spend a lot of money on college, pick a major that will lead to a career that pays. I don’t believe college is for delving into an interest. It’s an investment in your future earning potential.”
That just reiterates this point. You can go to college and study basket weaving. You can take one class in basket weaving and, “Hey, this is great. Let’s do it more,” or you can decide that that’s not the thing that you want to be, but an art school, a private art school studying art, unless that’s the only thing you’re ever going to do, that might not be the best choice. I come from that going to a private art school and studying art because I thought it was fun.

Scott:
Yeah. I think there’s this concept around pursue your passion, right? My favorite subject was history. I like history, right? When we say passion, the people who become noted historians are passionate to the point where they’ll read the same person’s biography from 10 different vantage points before constructing their own or they’ll become an expert in a very narrow window of history like European economic history or the civil war, those types of periods, right?
I like history. I read a book.

Mindy:
You got to talk into the mic, Scott.

Scott:
One of the recent ones is Grants, this great one, but I’m not passionate enough to the point where I can spend all day doing that everyday. If that’s you and you know that that’s your passion, then you’re probably going to have more success following that, the thing that you do all day long everyday and you’re going to become one of the absolute best in the world at and can do that uninterrupted for years and years and years.
If that’s not you, be honest, and until you discover that passion, make a smart economical choice with something that you’ll be satisfied with. There’s this feedback loop around “What am I good at and what am I passionate about?” The things that you start getting better at, you end up liking more. So, it’s something to consider as you’re making these choices. It’s not your favorite subject. It’s what the economic cost benefit or “Am I truly so passionate about this that I’m going to become one of the best people in the world at it over the course of the next 10-20 years?”

Mindy:
There’s a huge difference between “Hey, that sounds cool,” and “I can’t live without it,” and I studied a major that I could definitely live without. So, that was not money well-spent here. Another thing to consider is Tony shared this, “Know what the difference is between subsidized loans and unsubsidized student loans, and the importance of calculating total student loans and total payback.”
So many kids graduate college without any idea how much they owe, how much it’s going to cost them to pay back. I found a cool online calculator for calculating your student loans. If you borrow $25,000, which is not an unreasonable sum for a year of college, add 5% for five years, that has you repaying the original $25,000 plus $2,624 in interest. So, a grand totally of paying back $27,624. That doesn’t seem so bad, but the monthly payment was shocking to me. It was $461 a month, every month for five years.
I know I’m going to be dating myself, but that’s $50 more than the rent on my first apartment every month.

Scott:
That’s a devastating and demoralizing monthly payment for millions and millions of adults.

Mindy:
… that you are paying.

Scott:
That’s what you’re setting yourself up for, and that’s multiple dates out. That’s the flights to and from a vacation. I mean, it’s just absolutely … There’s so many better things you can be doing with that money in a lot of cases. So, really understanding, again, maybe that is the best use of that money. Maybe studying that major at that school is the appropriate thing, but do that math and understand that concept, and know the pain that $460 a month represents against the lifestyle that you want to be living a few years down the road, and the power dynamic that you want to have with your future employer.

Mindy:
Yup. Back to Tony’s first part, the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized college loans, this is huge. Not all loans are the same, and I didn’t realize this because my parents also paid for my college, but a subsidized loan, the interest doesn’t start accruing until after you graduate college. The unsubsidized loan, interest starts accruing as soon as you get the money. So, that’s a huge difference. You get the money your freshman year of college, you go through four years of college, you have four years worth of interest payments that you haven’t even started paying yet.
Whereas with the subsidized loan, you’re not accruing interest in those four years. So, that’s a very important distinction to make. If you have the opportunity to get subsidized loans, take those first.

Scott:
Yeah. Again, if you don’t understand these concepts and you’re thinking about borrowing large amounts of money, you’ve got to think twice. If you don’t understand what’s going on, you are about to get screwed. That’s just the rule of life in general, right? So, you have to make that assumption, especially when amounts of money this large are at stake, right? This is the equipment of a house for a lot of people.
Another type of subsidy that I like to talk about is if parents are contributing in part or in whole to the decision, which obviously impacts the math of this to a certain degree, and gives you a luxury of choice. That’s a good privilege there. If your parents are contributing to that decision, then that might make the push for college versus not going to college a little bit more clear. It might push the balance in favor of going to college, right? The math around the income potential of the major you choose does not change, right? So, just because your parents are paying … Mindy, your parents paid for college.

Mindy:
They did.

Scott:
Walk us through. What was your major?

Mindy:
My major was fashion design, and anybody who knows me knows that I don’t give a frog’s fat butt about fashion. I wear clothes that are clean and fit and that’s the end of what I think about when I put on clothes. I thought fashion design would be an interesting thing to study. It was. I learned a lot. I can make anything, but I don’t. That’s the reality of it. It isn’t my passion. It was just something interesting.
I would have been much better served to study business or economics or a more, I don’t want to say generic subject, but definitely a more generic major that has the opportunity across a large number of jobs as opposed … I mean, when you graduate with a degree in fashion design, what jobs can you get? Well, secretary. I did a lot of those jobs. Yeah. I worked as a graphic design for a while. Now, I work as the community manager of BiggerPockets.

Scott:
There you go.

Mindy:
I was the buyer for quilting supplies. I mean, these were all interesting jobs, but they weren’t passionate, and they certainly didn’t pay well.

Scott:
Yeah. I certainly didn’t get the maximum economic path with my undergraduate degree. I studied economics and history, my two majors, and then I minored in corporate strategy and finance, right? That got me a job in a finance role at a Fortune 500 company upon graduation, which was not totally inefficient, but could have been optimized more. Again, I think it’s a good contrast between the two of us with those examples and the majors and the starting jobs we’re able to get upon graduation.

Mindy:
A couple more things I want to say really quickly is pay off your student loans. This came from somebody who I didn’t actually copy her name down. “I have worked in a nonprofit for 30 plus years, and I have never met anyone who qualified for the public service forgiveness program. Just make a plan and pay them off yourself.”
The public service forgiveness program is supposed to be for people who work in low-income schools, teachers or different areas where you are in public service, but you’re not making a lot of money, and the program is going to pay off your loans for you, except she’s worked in a nonprofit for 30 plus years, and has never met anyone who qualified. I know a lot of people who have applied and not gotten any payment off of this, any forgiveness off of their loans because of this. I think that’s scary because it seems like a bait-and-switch, but also, just know that that’s how it works and don’t make that as your plan to pay off.

Scott:
Yeah. I think that there’s a sentiment. A lot of college campuses and I’m not going to get too far into this, I don’t want to go anywhere around this, but a lot of college campuses tend to skew a little more to the left politically. So, there’s a lot of sentiment around some of these socialists or more liberal policies, “Okay. The government will pay off these loans or begin subsidizing them,” or, “Of course, this is the natural trend of the electorate towards this thing that will benefit me.”
Not a thing to plan for. If you’re planning your financial position around a future change in government policy or legislation and that is your plan to pay off your student loan debt, there’s a really high probability that you’re going to have a very sad financial outcome or in the event that does come, that there are unexpected caveats that come with that assistance, right?
When someone is giving you handouts, they get to dictate the rules, right? You may have noticed this with your relationship with your parents. That’s just a fact of life and why we believe in BiggerPockets Money Podcast that it’s better to be financially independent than financially dependent on anybody, workplace, government, parents, whatever it is.

Mindy:
Absolutely. Could not say that better. Have nothing to add to that. I do have one last thing to add about college and that is choosing a college to go to. One woman said, “I’ve never had a single job care that I got a business degree from a private university versus a much cheaper public one.”
Your public universities are going to be some of your lowest cost universities, and like she said, it doesn’t matter. There is a little bit of … You can attest to this, Scott, the whole Vandy brotherhood, sisterhood.

Scott:
Yeah. Look. There’s great people, I’m sure, at a lot of universities. I, obviously, went to a very expensive private university that my parents paid for, right? Who am I to sit here and say that that degree didn’t help me get my first job or wasn’t influential in moving me into my career track to BiggerPockets. I think there’s a lot of good reasons why I could or couldn’t be, but I’m grateful for that degree. I’m grateful for my parents’ assistance, and I enjoyed my college experience, and learned a lot. So, it worked out for me. So, there’s a lot of nuance to all this kind of stuff.

Mindy:
One last thing I want to share is we interviewed Zach Gautier, who is a counselor for high school students on episode 64 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, and he gave us a whole plethora of ways to pay for college that you may not have heard of yet, including a few websites to go to to find student loans and find grants and see different ways to pay for college. So, that’s definitely worth a listen if you have not listened to that episode yet.

Scott:
Absolutely.

Mindy:
You know, Scott, one of the first things that happens when you do get to college, when you’re on the college campus at your orientation is, “Hey, welcome to college. Here’s a credit card.” Your walking through the orientation, you’re stopping at the different tables, and there’s the one, “Hey, would you like a free T-shirt? All you have to do is sign up for a credit card.” How many free T-shirts is worth all that credit card debt? Zero.

Scott:
Yeah. This is a good investment by that credit card company, I’m sure.

Mindy:
Oh, yeah. Great investment. They’re not even good T-shirts. Okay.

Scott:
Well, why should or shouldn’t you sign up for a credit card? What should you know before you get that first credit card?

Mindy:
You should know that that first credit card is not free, and the credit companies, it is not in their best interest to tell you all the ways that this can completely ruin your financial life. However, I am not paid by credit card companies, so I can tell you all the ways that this will completely ruin your financial life. You have-

Scott:
This show is brought to you-

Mindy:
You have something called a credit score. Everybody has one, even if you don’t have one, your credit score would be zero. The most common credit score is the FICO credit score. That is calculated by many different ways. It starts at 350 and runs to 850.

Scott:
Now, let’s be clear here. You absolutely are going to want to sign up for a credit card at some point.

Mindy:
At some point in your life.

Scott:
At some point in your life. Your credit score is going to have an impact on your future flexibility and your financial options. So, when you graduate from college or enter the workforce, you’re going to want to do things like rent an apartment or buy a car, and these are items that while we would encourage you to try to avoid as much card debt as you possibly can, you’re probably going to need to get some of that in most cases, right?
A credit score in the upper 700s or even approaching 700 can give you a lot more optionality and not have you rely on things like having your parents cosign a lease with you or cosign a car loan with you, those types of things, and be able to help you be, again, more financially independent, and direct your own life.
That credit score is built up by a number of different factors. One of the worst things to have, however, is to get a credit card in your early years of college, run off a balance, and then fall behind, and miss some payments on that. That’s a quick way to put yourself into a really big financial hole that’s going to be difficult for you to climb out of and limit your options in terms of where you live, what you drive, and even some jobs look at credit scores.

Mindy:
Yeah, and it follows you around. Your bad credit score will follow you around for the rest of your life. So, the most common credit score is called the FICO score. FICO stands for the Fair Isaac Corporation. I don’t know. They just invented this or whatever. That’s not that important, but the FICO score runs from 350 to 850. That’s 500 points.
It seems like, “Oh, right in the middle would be fine,” but no. Like Scott said, starting around 700 is where you finally start getting decent credit. A 650, 700 credit score is so much better than a 600 credit score. Like Scott said, employers look at this. Your landlord is going to look at this. Your other credit opportunities are going to look at this because your credit score is a snapshot of your ability to pay the bills that you say you’re going to pay.

Scott:
It is an amazingly effective indicator. I know this is not popular around a lot of places in the internet, but frankly, the credit score is the number one thing that I look at as a landlord when I am considering prospective tenant applicants. There are people that with bad credit scores who will make great tenants, who are very responsible, and those types of things, but there are very, very few bad tenant stories that I’ve ever heard that come from tenants with great credit scores, right? So, it’s an amazing indicator for a lot of different types of things in terms of talking about a wide range of responsible behaviors. I personally use it in my business, in life, when I’m interviewing people for jobs or to rent my rental properties.

Mindy:
Yeah. It’s me saying I said I was going to pay this bill, and I did or I said I was going to pay this bill and I didn’t. I as a landlord don’t want your excuses. I want your rent check.

Scott:
Now, as an adult, I have multiple things that are influencing my credit, right? I’ve got mortgages. I’ve got a few credit cards. I had a car loan that I paid off a year or two ago. So, I have a long credit history and multiple types of credit that I’m building or have built over time. That is not something that is a reasonable expectation for most people to graduate from college with.
One of the easy steps that I think is an easy one is go ahead and look at a credit card. Sign up for one that has a low fee. Ask them if they charge an annual fee. You’re looking for a low or no annual fee, and put a little bit of money on it every month, and you go out to dinner, what’s your choice a month and you put that on the credit card, right? Pay it off in full every month. That will be the beginning, a very effective way to begin establishing credit over the period of four years, three to four years or however long you want to be in college, six in the case of that one fellow.
So, it will help you come out of college with a little bit more credit history, and a history of payments, on-time payments.

Mindy:
Oh, I’m glad you said a history of payments because that is the number one most important factor in your credit score. 35% of your entire score is made up of your payment history. So, when your payment is on time, you pay your bills on time, every single month, your credit score goes up. When you miss a payment, that could tank your score. You missed a payment, one payment by 30 days, and you can have a 50-point drop on your credit score, which can be devastating when you’re just barely in the good credit range or in the decent credit range.

Scott:
That’s 100% factor that can make you be ineligible for that apartment you want to rent or double the interest rate on your car payment, right?

Mindy:
It’s 100% under your control.

Scott:
Absolutely. Right. So, point is get a credit card, but do not put an amount on that credit card ever that you cannot reasonably pay off when the next payment is due. Do not rack up. Do not make minimum payments and rack up charges in college. That’s just completely unnecessary, right? You’re going to assume a very high interest rate if you don’t make the payments, if you don’t pay off your credit card in full each month. It’s just a lifelong habit.
Mindy, I have never carried a credit card balance in my life. I don’t think I ever will. Something will have to go very, very horribly wrong at this point for that to happen.

Mindy:
Yup. Another 30% of your credit score is the amount that you owe. It’s also called credit utilization. Let’s say you have a $10,000 credit limit. If you have charged $9,000 and you’re not paying that off all the time, you’re using 90% of your available credit. To creditors, that looks like you don’t have a handle on your finances. That looks like you are grasping at all the money you can get and not handling your finances in the proper way.
So, they’re not anxious to give you more credit when they see that. Your score will go down when they see that you are using almost all of the credit available to you. A good rule of thumb is 20% or less. So, on that $10,000 limit, you only have up to $2,000. Again, if you can’t pay that off, unless that’s a super emergency, you should not have that on your card to begin with.

Scott:
Yeah. I mean, the biggest factors here in a credit score, “Do you make your payments on time, and do you have a responsible amount of debt?” If you have too much debt, your likelihood of being able to make on-time payments are going to decrease, so lenders don’t want to lend you, right? If you have missed payments in the past, that is a very good indicator that you’re likely to miss payments again in the future. So, lenders don’t want to lend to you, lenders like the car loan people, like the landlord, right? So, those are the two biggest things, and they make perfect sense.

Mindy:
Yeah. This is a super boring topic, but it’s so important to your financial future. When you have a bad credit score, maybe you can’t get another job. When you have a bad credit score, maybe you can’t go out and get a different apartment. You are beholden to these people that hold your future in their hand because of bad decisions that you’ve made. It’s really easy to not rack up huge credit card bills.

Scott:
It’s important for certain types of jobs, right? I mean, this is something that if you’re going to work in finance, absolutely, your employer is probably going to pull your credit in the job application process, right? How can you handle money for a corporation responsibly if you can’t handle it for yourself responsibly? Right? It’s a perfectly reasonable question for employers and landlords and car dealerships to ask.

Mindy:
Absolutely. Now, this also brings up a different point, though, Scott. Not all debt is bad. There is a difference between debt as a burden, such as credit card debt or card debt, and debt as a tool, like a mortgage. The debt as a tool allows you to buy a property so you’re no longer renting without having to save up that entire amount. What’s a house in Denver? 350,000? 450,000? I don’t have that just sitting in cash that I can throw down on a house. So, I need to use a mortgage. I could put down 5% of the purchase price on a mortgage, and now, I’m building equity in a home that I own rather than renting out. We can get into house hacking, where I have a property that has more space than I need, and I rent out bedrooms to my friends or to other tenants, and they help me pay my mortgage. So, now, my cost of living is lower, but I can’t get that if I have crappy credit.

Scott:
That’s right. When you say good and bad debt, there’s a lot of definitions of this out there, right? I’ve made up my own, which I think is right because I’ve made it up. Here’s the deal. When you’re looking at good or bad debt, a very simple question to ask or a very practical tool is, “Am I investing or am I going into debt to support my lifestyle?” So, a car loan is often classified as a good debt. I think that’s false. I think a car loan is a bad debt because it’s costing you money every month. Your car is losing value. You’re paying this out, and to get more income, you have to find or create to cover that payment.
If you’re using a debt to purchase a rental property or a business, now, all of a sudden, that debt, maybe it costs you $2,000 a month, but you’re able to bring in $4,000 a month in rent. Now, you’re covering that expense. You’re using that debt in a good way to create an asset. That is a very, very powerful thing. That can give you the ability to achieve financial freedom or generate passive income alternative to your job much sooner in life.
So, it’s, “How do I purchase assets and can my credit score become an effective tool in helping me do that?” It has for me at this point. I’ve been able to get loans on multiple rental properties and built my wealth that way, but I have basically no personal debt that is not backed by assets. I have a credit card balance I pay off in full every single month. I paid off my car loan and I probably will never get another car loan, right? So, it’s those types of things. I use it as minimally as I can to get started, and then based it out completely except for that, which is backed by assets.

Mindy:
You know, an excellent episode that covers this very topic is our episode 35 where we interviewed Craig Curelop. Craig had, what? $80,000 in student loan debts, and instead of attacking the student loan debts, he started investing in real estate using his good credit to house hack. He now is cashflowing so much. He was able to pay off his student loans in three years, in four years, something like that. It’s an excellent episode, and actually changed my mind from, “No, you should always pay off your debt first and then invest,” to “Hey, maybe investing is a good way to help you pay off your debt.”

Scott:
Yeah, but if you’re listening to this, you’re probably not going to graduate with $80,000 in student loan debt anyways. So, there you go.

Mindy:
Yeah. Too bad Craig didn’t listen to this before he graduated college.

Scott:
Yeah.

Mindy:
Okay. Let’s talk about something that’s related to money but isn’t money at all. Your relationships. I am in a women’s personal finance group and a woman asked the question. I thought this was just brilliant that she shared this and being so young. She said, “To the women in your 30s and older, what are some advice you wish you knew in your 20s? I just turned 21 and I want to do it right.”
People were giving some really excellent advice, but there was a lot of the same thread. Learn to recognize red flags in relationships. Don’t stay with him or her if it’s not right, and they don’t bring you joy. Don’t loan money to your boyfriend or your girlfriend. If you have to wonder if they want you, they don’t. Move on. Don’t settle for somebody who … What did you say, Scott? Don’t settle for a cashflow negative spouse. Don’t settle for somebody who isn’t on the same page as you are. Don’t chase somebody who doesn’t want to be with you, and know when it’s time to leave.

Scott:
Yeah. I think that’s just a good idea, particularly maybe in college or even really at any relationship prior to marriage to keep your assets separate, keep your finances separate. Don’t make big loans, those types of things.

Mindy:
Yeah. In episode 81, we talked to Erin Lowry, and she said, “Get a prenup.” I was so anti-prenup. My husband brought it up before we got married. I’m like, “You think we’re going to get a divorce.” He’s like, “Oh, nevermind.” I was really, really angry that he brought it up, but Erin had some pretty practical advice. She said, “You know what? You already have a prenup. It’s the laws in your state, the divorce laws in your state.” So, if you don’t want to go by whatever they say, you need to make a prenup that directs your assets the way that you want them to be directed and protected.
I’m going to bring up the kid question or the kid comment. Bob commented in our Facebook group. He said, “My nugget of advice to the youngs is unless you’re paying tens of thousands of dollars to a doctor, never believe someone when they say they can’t pregnant or can’t get you pregnant.”
Kids are expensive. I have two kids, and I love them dearly, and my life would not be complete without them, but I also waited until I was a lot older to have kids. I know a lot of girls who got pregnant in high school, in college, and they didn’t finish college. I don’t want to say that kids that young will ruin your life, but they will definitely alter your financial state considerably.
So, if you don’t want to be pregnant, don’t get pregnant. If you don’t want to be getting her pregnant, don’t get her pregnant. If you’re in a sexual relationship, be in charge of the birth control. That comes from a position-

Scott:
[crosstalk 00:40:54]

Mindy:
That comes from a position of experience, I guess. I mean, I planned to have my kids when I had them. I don’t want to say I don’t think a child is a mistake. There are accidents, not accidents. What is it? Surprises. There are surprises sometimes, but you can have one surprise. You don’t need to keep having more surprises. After a while, it’s not a surprise anymore.

Scott:
Love it.

Mindy:
Let’s talk about life choices. What is a want and what is a need, Scott?

Scott:
A want is something that you don’t need and a need is something that you must have. On the needs piece, here’s … I actually like a different way of phrasing this, right?

Mindy:
Okay.

Scott:
There’s fixed and variable expenses in your life, right? What I mean by that? A fixed expense is the rent. You got to pay that every month. It does not change. It’s a large amount, right? A variable expense might be the food budget or the beer budget for those who are over 21 in college, right? So, those are changing every month, right? You might buy more or less one month or whenever, right?
It’s understanding how do you make your fixed expenses as low as possible because people say housing, rent, the rent is a need, right? A $500 a month one bedroom or a bedroom in a house, in a five-bedroom house with four other roommates satisfies that need just the same as a $2,000 monthly house all to yourself or a rental bill, right?
So, making those fixed overhead expenses, I think, and keeping them very low in particular during and after the college years can really give you a massive jumpstart, and then just budgeting in basic self-discipline to control the variable costs in a reasonable way after that I think is the other major piece in this.

Mindy:
That is a very good way to describe it. I was going to go with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You need food, you need shelter, you need clothing, but you don’t need expensive shelter, you don’t need brand name clothing. You can buy secondhand, buy thirdhand, get it for free. Yeah. That’s really good. I like the way you said it better.

Scott:
Obviously, I just think that that’s the way to think about wants and needs. It’s too easy I think for a lot of people to justify a big rent bill or a car payment as a need, but if you go into thinking, “How do I keep my fixed expenses, particularly transportation, housing, and my food budget?” Well, I guess food budget I described is variable, but those are the three big ones for most people.
How do you keep those as small as you possible can while being very happy? Then the way you can justify that immensely is say, “Hey, I’m going to spend very little on my housing, transportation and food budget, but I’m going to up my budget relative to my friends or relative to the folks in my peer group for the fun stuff, the entertainment, the trips,” whatever it is, because you’ll end up saving so much more that way, and I think getting a lot more fun in.

Mindy:
I love it. Here’s a little bit of advice that I’m going to share with you that may not be so popular, but do not get an Amazon Prime account. If you have access to one, stop using it. If you don’t have one, don’t get one, even if Scott said, “Oh, they’re free for college students.” Don’t get it even if it’s free. It makes it so much easier to just click one thing and buy something online.
I hate paying for shipping. I can go shopping right now and it’s free to ship. I just walk to the store and get it. When I have to pay for shipping, that is a mental block for me to make sure that I really want that item. So, Amazon has creeped up into my life, and I’m trying really hard to stay away from Amazon just because it’s so easy to click once and it’s at my door the next day.
Mark Twain said, “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” That’s mean. Why would you pick up a cat by the tail? Boy, that cat is going to let you know they don’t like that.
If you give a loan to somebody that you know, you will never see that money again. That should be your mindset whenever you loan money, even family. If you choose to loan, view it as a gift, and then if you get any money back, it’s just a nice surprise. Lending money to people has ruined more relationships, I think, than anything else.

Scott:
Absolutely. Yeah. This is particularly true with high school and college friends who are wonderful, but you’re unlikely to get that 50 bucks back, I think, anytime soon.

Mindy:
… or ever.

Scott:
… or that $5.

Mindy:
Oh, I once lent a lot of money to a boyfriend, but everything was going so well. I never saw it again. I mean, it was a lot of money back then. It’s actually still a lot of money. Okay. Scott, you want to talk about investing?

Scott:
Yeah. Let’s do it.

Mindy:
Okay.

Scott:
So, in terms of an investing framework, I imagine if you’re listening to this show, you’ve heard the concept of compound interest before. If you haven’t, it’s the concept that your money will grow and then the newly grown money will continue to compound and grow again at that same rate. So, 100 bucks might turn into 110 bucks after a year. The next year, it will grow by another 10% to 121 bucks, and so on and so forth. I’ll become very, very wealthy over time. It’s why people are able to become millionaires or multi, multi millionaires over the decades, even though that seems like an unfathomable amount of money to you right now relative to that.
So, the way you get started doing that is by investing. We occasionally get some high schoolers or college students who are interested in real estate. In a practical sense, it’s pretty difficult, unless you’re very gung-ho about it to get going on that. There are way you could talk to your parents and ask them to help you cosign a house hack, for example, in college where you buy a house with a couple of extra bedrooms, rent a few to your friends, and are able to cashflow college for your housing cost, at least in college. We know a couple of people who have done that, but that’s pretty rare.
A more approachable way potentially for a lot of folks would be to contribute to a Roth IRA or just open up a brokerage account after tax like in an app like Robin Hood or something like that, and begin putting a little bit away into some longterm investment.

Mindy:
So, let’s unpack some of those terms, Scott. You said open up a Roth IRA, and then you said after tax. Can you explain what those mean?

Scott:
I guess they’re both, in some ways, after tax. Basically, a Roth IRA is a retirement account that allows you to put money into it, which will then grow tax free. So, for example, if I put $1,000 into a Roth IRA and that generates a dividend income, I’m not going to have to pay tax on that dividend income because it’s in my retirement account.
When I’m older, I believe when I’m 59.5, I can withdraw that $1,000 plus any gains, including that dividend income, and I do not have to pay tax on that. Now, that’s a very long time away. That’s 40 years away, if you’re listening to this. So, I get it. I know that that can be daunting, but there’s a couple of good things about the Roth IRA.
First, I believe you can withdraw your contributions, not the gains, not the dividend income, prior to age 59.5 tax and penalty free. So, if you need it, you can always just pull it back out at some future date, right?
Now, the second thing is right now, you’re probably not earning much income. So, what that means is that you’re not paying any income taxes, and if you can contribute to a Roth IRA while you’re in a 0% tax bracket and you’re listening to this podcast, you’re going to become a multi, multi, multimillionaire by the time you’re 59.5, right? I mean, just keep listening to BiggerPockets Money and you’ll get there.
At that point, you’ll be in a high tax bracket, and you’ll have all of this money leftover in an account that you can withdraw from at a very low rate. That’s my sales pitch for the Roth IRA.

Mindy:
I like that. I want to clarify a couple of things. So, a Roth IRA means that all the money that you are putting into that plan, you have already paid income tax on. With a traditional IRA or a traditional 401K, the money that contribute goes in there before you pay taxes, income taxes, on that money. So, you’ve already paid your tax in the Roth IRA. It then grows, especially if you’re 18, it grows for 40 years. When you have it in 40 years, you’re going to have, you put $1,000 in, you’re going to have let’s say $500,000 in 40 years. That’s not an unreasonable amount. I would rather pay taxes on the $1,000 that I put in than on the $500,000 that I’m taking out.
Many times when you’re 18, you’re not working at a job that has a 401K or a traditional IRA as a retirement option anyway. So, the Roth IRA is a really great option that you set up yourself, you go to fidelity.com or vanguard.com or any other number of places will help you set up a Roth IRA, and then you contribute. You contribute regularly and consistently.
The contribution limit in the year 2020 is $6,000. So, if you divide that by the 52 weeks that are in the year, that’s $115 a week. That’s not a huge amount when you’re making money as an adult, but as a kid, if you’re 18, your working part-time, maybe $115 is your entire paycheck.
So, maybe that’s not really what you want to be doing with that money. Maybe that’s not what you can afford to put in. Put in what you can. Make a goal, “I’m going to put in $20 a week. I’m going to put in $50 a week. I’m going to put in $20 a month.” Invest. Invest consistently. Contribute consistently and you will be astonished at how fast that grows.

Scott:
If you can contribute $6,000 a year throughout college by working part-time, whatever it is, and you’re graduating college with $24,000 in your Roth IRA, you’re in a pretty good position. I will caution that going back to the very original point I made around financial runway, this is a controversial statement and a lot of people beat me up for it, but I would rather be the college graduate with $25,000 in my checking or savings account and complete independence, and that more balanced power dynamic between me and my first employer than a college grad with all that money in an IRA that I don’t feel comfortable withdrawing because I immensely put it away for retirement.
I just feel like for me, I would have been more able to take that next job, that job at that startup, buy that first house hack, start that first business, whatever it is. That opportunity to me I was going to use it, but that might just be the way I’m wired, and if you’re someone who is a little bit more conservative and is going to go after it, like many people, it may be a really good idea to max out these retirement accounts going into it.
The best answer, of course, is to do both if you can max out that retirement account and have money left over to begin building your financial runway after tax and outside of those retirement accounts in addition to that.

Mindy:
Okay. Scott, moving on. Let’s talk about automatically investing. Set up automatic investments as soon as you have your first job. In high school, summers, college, always put money into your investment account first, like what we were just talking about with the Roth IRA. Figure out what you can afford to put in there, and then put that in first. Every paycheck, automatically, you get $50 into your Roth IRA or 20 or 10 or whatever it is that you can do.

Scott:
Yeah. Absolutely. It’s just the easiest way to go about it. It’s pay yourself first, put that money into an investment account. Look, people are not going to understand this. A lot of people like your friends, they may not understand the concepts of investing. They won’t understand why you live in an apartment that is lower cost than they do. They also won’t understand it after a few years when you plop $50,000 or $100,000 down on a rental property or in seven or eight years after college graduation when you are financially independent, able to start your own business or travel the world and not have to worry about money really ever again, right? So, it’s understanding those two dynamics, and then automating and massively increasing your investments on an ongoing basis as early in life as you possibly can.

Mindy:
You know, Scott, that’s a really great point that I didn’t even think about when I said that before, but your friends are most likely not going to be supportive. “Why are you so cheap?” You’re not cheap. You are investing in your future. You are setting your future self up for a very comfortable life. It doesn’t matter what your friends think about what you’re doing. They will not understand what you’re doing when you’re doing it, and then once you do plop down that $50,000 and buy your first house, “Oh, wow! How’d you do that?” “Really?”

Scott:
“After all those years, I lived in that apartment, and drove that car.”

Mindy:
Yes. So, if you’re having trouble finding fellow frugal weirdos, please come join our Facebook group. We will welcome you with open arms, and we will help you on your road to financial freedom, and your friends will still be your friends and you can start renting to them when you buy your first house.

Scott:
There you go.

Mindy:
Okay. Along those same lines, when you get a raise, when you get a bonus, add that to your investments. You won’t miss it now, especially if you’re automating your investments. When you get a bonus you weren’t expecting or bonus that you were expecting, throw that into your retirement account. Throw that into your Roth IRA. You will be so far ahead of things when you do that, and it’s not something that you’re going to miss right now.

Scott:
Love it.

Mindy:
Scott, I think that wraps up all the major points I wanted to talk about, the student loans. Starting off your adult life with massive student loans is such a downer. It’s such a hindrance. It will hold you back for so long in your financial life.

Scott:
Yeah. No. I mean, look, imagine two scenarios. One person graduates college and they’ve got $50,000 in debt and a $50,000 a year job, right? They rent a nice apartment, buy a nice car, and they’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, right? That person over the years and decades is not going to build wealth, is going to become dependent on that income source, and is going to have a lot of limited options, even though their lifestyle right out of college will be relatively good. They’ll have a nice car. They’ll have a relatively nice apartment, those types of things.
If you can graduate with no debt, with $25,000 or $30,000 in the bank, which is very possible if you play your cards right over the next four years, choose a school wisely, work, try to receive some scholarships or whatever, you’re in a massive position of power in that thing. If you can then rent that cheap apartment, take the roommate for an extra couple of years, you could buy a duplex or a rental property and live for free a few years down the road.
You could build $100,000 or several hundred thousand dollars in net worth over the first two or three years after graduation, giving you the option to start a business, again, travel the world, take off a year, join a startup or other enterprise, get a sales job, work for yourself, whatever.
All these different options arrive after you have built a very strong financial foundation. That will go on to, I think, make a major impact on how much fun your 20s, 30s, 40s, your whole life will be in terms of this stuff. Just understand it. Make choices that are conscious about it, and look where you don’t have to make every decision optimized for your longterm financial position, but you got to understand the costs and you got to understand when and the cost of deviation from those different types of choices just like you would with any other part of your life.

Mindy:
Be money conscious. Consciously make decisions that are going to affect your longterm future. I think that’s fabulous, Scott.

Scott:
Yeah. How many people have we had on this podcast, Mindy, who got started later? How wealthy would they be or how much easier would their journey have been if they had just been able to get this part right and make very conscious decisions about their college education, their first job, their lifestyle expenses, and their budgeting early on? How many decades would that have accelerated their wealth-building journey by?

Mindy:
You know, Scott, whenever I talk about this and people this age, I’m reminded of the story that I was told when I was 22 and could have done something about it. If you invest $1,000 a year from the time you are 22, I’m sorry, yeah, from the time you’re 22 to the time you’re 30, and then you never invest again, you will have more money when you are 60 than if you started at age 30 and invested $2,000 a year from age 30 to age 60. So, eight years versus 30 years, you still have more money when you start earlier. It is just a really powerful example of compound interest and how it just works in your favor.
When you’re 22, typically, you just got out of college or your friends got out of college. People aren’t living high on the hog, they are living frugally. They are still eating ramen, and they have roommates. Start investing then when it doesn’t change your lifestyle to invest small amounts of money.

Scott:
Yeah, and then work to invest large amounts of money.

Mindy:
… and then work to invest large amounts of money, but have a nice cushion so that you can weather these storms, so that you can leave the job that you thought you were going to love and then decided that you were working for the most hated company in America.

Scott:
Yeah. Some of my favorite podcast episodes have been folks like Avery from a few episodes ago. These are folks who graduate college with a reasonable degree, a manageable student loan debt, and then go to town with stock and real estate investing over the years. They make it sound so easy, don’t they? A lot of these folks who are on track to retire by 30, they’re not-

Mindy:
It is easy.

Scott:
Yeah, and they’re not like sacrificing. They’re not changing. They’re not not having fun while they’re doing it. They’re just controlling their budget, living reasonably.

Mindy:
They’re making smaller choices or they’re making small adjustments to their spending that have huge changes in their future.

Scott:
They’re millionaires by 30. The whole world, every conceivable set of opportunity is available to these people. It’s amazing.

Mindy:
It is amazing. It’s not that hard. Okay. Scott, should we get out of here?

Scott:
Let’s do it.

Mindy:
From episode 126 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, I am Mindy Jensen and he is Scott Trench, and we are wishing you a very fulfilling financial future.

Scott:
Love it. Alliteration is fantastic.

Mindy:
Alliteration is amazing. I can’t believe you missed that, Scott. Alliteration is awesome.

Scott:
Yeah. There you go.

Mindy:
You’re the one who has a lot on the ball.

Scott:
I know. I’m a little slow today. Sorry, guys. Tons next time.

Mindy:
Yes. Of course, next time. There’s always a next time.