When I left The Citadel (go Bulldogs!) to attend Michigan State (go Spartans!), I said goodbye to a lucrative track and cross country scholarship. I felt bad, but the writing was on the proverbial wall. My coach had given me “one more year” to run better at the end of year one, and I promptly pulled a quadricep muscle early into the fall campaign. I’d been a guy they thought was a (quoting the coach), “Diamond in the rough” anyway. Turns out I was pretty much just rough.
Immediately, I had money problems. My parents couldn’t afford to pay for MSU. I had this general notion that financial aid would cover everything. Imagine my bitterness when I found out that my dad made too much money to qualify for any need-based aid. My loan package quickly swelled as my first course of action was to get through school quickly. When I realized what a mess these loans would be, I made the tough decision to become a part time student working three jobs.
Here’s how I made that decision:
During one of my money woes, I tuned in to my favorite late night money talk show hosts on the radio: a guy named Bruce Williams. He sounded like that knowledgeable grandfather who’d give you either an arm around your shoulder or a swift kick in the butt. Maybe listening to him was the idea behind our podcast….I don’t know.
One night, drowning in my own debt and hopeless money situation, I heard a woman call in to the show. She and her husband both worked hard, but they weren’t making ends meet. Bills continually piled up and their reserves dwindled.
“What are you doing at 2 a.m.?” Bruce asked.
The woman stuttered. “What do you mean? We’re sleeping!”
“Why are you sleeping at 2 a.m. when your bills are getting further and further behind?”
The woman quickly answered, “We need all the sleep we can get so we work well at our job in the morning.”
Bruce sighed. “So you’re saying you need your job worse than your house and car? Then why don’t you sell your house or car?”
“I can’t sell my house or my car. Then I wouldn’t have any place to live!”
“My point exactly,” he said. “So, if you like your house and your car, what are you doing at 2 a.m.?”
“What are you getting at? I can’t do more than I’m doing.”
The radio host laughed. He had this chuckle that always sounded a little sad. “What I’m getting at is that you have serious money problems, but you don’t want to change anything. If you’re serious about solving your money problems, you’ll get a night job too, or you’ll find ways to make more money at your day job.”
The woman quickly interjected, “We’re both at the top of our pay scale. That’s why we need to hold on to these jobs.”
“You aren’t listening,” Bruce said. It was one of the few times I’ve ever heard him turning angry on the show. “You can’t work like you do, eat like you do and sleep like you do AND expect something to change.”
Unbelievably, she ranted at him. “I can’t believe this. I call you for serious advice and all you do is blame my job, blame my house, and blame me. We’re doing everything we can do and it isn’t getting any better.”
…and she hung up on him!
Maybe she wasn’t listening, but I sure was. I became a substitute paper boy and redoubled my efforts to advertise my disc jockey service better. I went around to fraternity houses and spoke directly with the social chairmen. I made mixed tapes with some cassettes I had laying around and brought them with me (that dates me, huh? I’m glad I didn’t say reel-to-reel tapes….). Later, I found out that my tapes were a hit around the school. More than that, extra money started to trickle into my hands, and my view of my financial situation changed.
Here’s what I learned:
- I’m in charge of my financial destiny.
- Sleep is overrated when you’re in over your head.
- Financial planning is easy. It’s either an income problem or an expense problem. If you can’t fix one, you have to fix the other by default or the plan won’t work.
If you’re reading this because you’re in broke week (a term coined by my friend Michelle over at See Debt Run), you can either fix it once today and have to fix it again next month, or you can change your money earning skills or spending habits. For short term needs, you could borrow cash, but remember that this isn’t the final solution: it’s duct tape until you’re able to get on your feet.
While we’re talking about duct tape on your financial situation, how about a cool $100 cash or Amazon money? Would that help you avoid your long term plan for a few more days? Ha! Maybe you can use it to buy a radio that’ll change your life, too….
Enter our gigantic giveaway below:
I think most people think about debt too late. They suddenly worry about it after they incur it. It would be far better to never incur it. I am not debt adverse, but there is no way I would ever pay 20-25% (usually associated with credit cards). Those rates in themselves keep me from overspending. When I owned income property, I had as many as 3 mortgages (3 separate properties) for more much than I could handle except the tenants were paying for it. They were all reasonable rates (around 7%) in the 1980s. Debt in itself is not scary if it is controllable.
Excellent points, KC. What’s sad is that I was in no way equipped to make interest rate decisions. If you would have asked me about leverage, I would have told you that I know the word, but I have no clue what rates are “beatable” and which are “predatory.” That education is SO important when deciding what debt to accept.
2:00 AM in college? Probably drinking, or returning home from drinking. My priorities have changed!
Funny. Glad you got the point of the story, PK! 😉
I saw your mixed tapes for sale at the local gas stations. 😉 Thank god you didn’t choose reel-to-reel tapes. Those suckers were heavy!
Imagine carrying those around in your car!
“Financial planning is easy. It’s either an income problem or an expense problem. If you can’t fix one, you have to fix the other by default or the plan won’t work.”
I am going to write this down and post it where I can see it every day.
Sleep is overrated when you have children too. Now that I have 2 kids it is amazing how much more I can get done during my waking hours. Before I would wake up at 11 am and then start the day and go to bed aroudn the same time. Although it seems there is never enough time in the day, if you are in over your head you need to find time, whether it is getting up early and skipping the gym or staying up late and grabbing a bite to eat after your second job.
I need some of your energey then. When my daughter wakes up I don’t take a breath until she goes to sleep. What is your secret?!?!
Exactly, Christopher. I’ve decided that the gym comes first, though. That’s the fountain of my energy, and if I skip that, I’m mortgaging my future.
I like your ultimatum, you either need to earn more money or spend less. In my opinion you can ALWAYS spend less, even when you think you can’t!!
Love that story. You can’t expect change if you don’t provoke change. Repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting change as a result is crazy.
Great post! The saying “If you keep doing the same thing, don’t expect different results” is something I live by, and I think the thing that woman on the phone didn’t get was just that. And also it’s important to take accountability especially with your finances.
I absolutely love that saying – you can’t expect change if you don’t make change in your own life. I saw another excellent quote on Twitter yesterday from Andrea: “Life has no remote control. You’ll have to get up and change it yourself.” Heh.
At 2am in college, I was working a couple of nights a week! Being an RA paid for room and board – even if I hated staying up until 2am to make sure everybody got home safely from last call at the bars up the street.
I find the first key to solving a good majority of your problems is owning up to every single one of them. You are in charge. I can’t believe you made money from your mixed tapes in college! Why didn’t I think of that?! I just dated myself too. 🙂
I read this post this morning, and ALL day, I just keep thinking: “You can’t work like you do, eat like you do and sleep like you do AND expect something to change.”
I’m at a crossroads in my life (mostly career). I KNOW something has to change, but what? But do I change my mindset? Change my job? Change my lifestyle? Ack…!!!
You’ve got the first step: your brain is racing for the solution! That’s awesome.
glad you came over to the dark side 🙂
That reminds me of something I read in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book (yes, I read it. Kill me now). When he was governor, a college student was giving him a hard time because his financial aid didn’t cover all his costs. Arnold asked him “How many hours a day do you go to class? 6. How many hours do you sleep? 6. How many hours do you study? 3. You have 9 more hours in your day, what are you complaining about?” Complaining gets you nowhere. Change and planning do.
I love the story! I can’t believe how people think they can get out of debt without changing everything. I worked and side hustled in college too so that I could AFFORD to live the lifestyle I wanted to live! Some people will never learn!
Good post! I totally agree, we are all in charge of our own financial destiny. No one is going to solve all of our problems for us or make us suddenly rich. We all have to make meaningful changes to get there and some of those changes will not be easy.
I have been working my day job plus a couple of side gigs like my blog at night. Honestly it’s taken a toll on my sleep and I need to catch up on the weekend sometimes…and I’m not even drowning in debt! I think if I needed to I would definitely be willing to work two jobs to pay down debt. I love the blog “Deliver Away Debt” because it shows IT CAN BE DONE!
“Financial planning is easy. It’s either an income problem or an expense problem. If you can’t fix one, you have to fix the other by default or the plan won’t work.” I could not agree more. Too many times I see many making it more difficult than it really is. It’s a two step problem and if you fix one you’ll be ok, but if you fix both then you’ll be well on your road to recovery.
Oh boy where have I heard that before. I’ve talked to many people who come to me about being in debt etc and I’ve suggested a second job or asked what they were doing. Every time I suggest it there is a reason WHY they CAN’T make more money. I asked myself the same question, well how do you want to fix the problem when you don’t want to sell,you don’t want to give up cell phones, internet etc? There is no magic, crystal ball and people that are in debt can talk the talk but if they aren’t ready for change there is no one, and I mean no one that can help them. Great post!!! Mr.CBB
I totally agree with the notion of individual responsibility, and with doing what we can to get out of debt if in that position (and STAY out to begin with!). That being said, I don’t think sleep is overrated. I would say that shortchanging sleep will only hurt health, which we shouldn’t compromise anyway. Better to hustle and do what we can, but then still sleep a normal 7-8 hours.
I love sleep, but I think you got Bruce’s point. Stop making excuses.
I love your point about sleep being ‘over-rated’ followed by your 3rd point on Financial Planning. I realized this same thing a couple years ago and now sleep very little at night (compared to what I use to – about 5 hrs a night now). But I find it is more than worth it and I’m not all that tired after 5 hours of sleep, I actually feel better with 5 hours than 10 hours. 🙂
I love sleep….as long as my house is in order. If not, I totally agree with Bruce: why am I asleep when there’s work to be done?
Joe, I like your candor and how neatly you laid out the issues. Hopefully this advice will help the many folks going through the same experiences.
I don’t think I could ever say that sleep is over rated. I love it and never get enough of it.
But I do like this – Financial planning is easy. It’s either an income problem or an expense problem. If you can’t fix one, you have to fix the other by default or the plan won’t work. It’s something that I have always known, but you summed it up so nicely. I think I will print that out and put it on my wall.
Just go ahead and get the tattoo, Glen. You know you want to….
Maybe I will Joe…
Probably not though :p I wouldn’t want to be judged.
Wouldn’t that be funny, though? People judging you because you tattooed helpful mantras across your hide? Irony!
I see this is an older post, but I just had to comment. Sleep IS overrated until you no longer get ANY. lol Insomnia sucks, but when I had insomnia I figured if I wasn’t going to sleep I was going to work at multiple jobs until someone fired me. I don’t know if that was the best, but I made a nice amount during that year of no sleep. I also did some strange things at work I would rather not remember.
Other than that, when I was poor and close to losing my house, I picked up two jobs and worked and worked and worked. I would get 2-5 hours of sleep (same as my insomnia year), but I kept my house and food on the table. I don’t EVER want to go back there again, but the insomnia year proves I am still willing to fight. 😀