Welcome to How To Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt and today we're talking debt-free degrees with Jason Brown.
This is Ryan Mann. We are going to talk about getting your degree debt-free with Jason Brown and just to set it up for folks. Jason, he's a friend of ours.
He's actually local here in Atlanta, so he has joined us in the How To Money Clubhouse. I'm not necessarily going to call it a studio per se. He is here in person, which is a ton of fun.
But Jason, he's contributed to the site, to our site, how to money. He's written a ton of articles there. He's got three kids, congrats, by the way, on the new guy, and so you're born.
But you've written multiple books. Margin Matters, it is possible, another one. But you've talked about achieving, getting your degree debt-free, and specifically with student loans we're starting. We felt that. Who better to have here on the podcast to talk about not only paying off student loans, but specifically graduating debt-free and avoiding those student loans to begin with. So Jason, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Wow, that was an amazing introduction there. I really appreciate it. Probably the best I've ever had. I really appreciate it. Great to be with you guys in person. And I can only hope and pray that whatever I say just helps the next generation of students avoid the dreaded student loan debt.
So one other thing I'll mention is that I don't know if there is anybody else I know that is taller than Joel. So Joel, what are you? You're like six?
Like six five six six and Jason's probably six seven. You know, like seven six eight. Here's the story. I've been telling everybody I'm six foot eight, but then they had at the office. They had the biometric screening and the guys come in. You know, they do your height and weight. And I and I wait are measured in at six foot seven.
So I can only believe that gravity. Old age is bringing me down. So now I have to change my driver's license. I'm six foot seven now. That's what we're going with. And I'm not used to looking up at people. I don't like it Jason, but I still like hanging out with you anyway.
But are the first question we ask anybody who comes on the podcast, as you know, is what are they like to sports on Matt and I? We sport on craft beer. We're drinking a pale ale right now. What what is that for you that while you're saving investing, what do you kind of sports on from time to time? Why are you doing the right thing with your money?
Now, as you said, I have three boys seven three and five months. So at this stage of life, I'm not splurging on anything for myself. As you guys know, diapers. Right. Yeah.
Maybe a sleep mask for you and your wife, perhaps your white noise machine. But the equivalent. I will say the equivalent to what you guys do with your with your beer is I am a seven 11 slurpee snob. Okay.
So here's the thing seven 11 slurpees here in Georgia. There are no seven 11s. So I can't get a slurpee anywhere. So I have to go down to Florida. They're real big and Florida. You'll find them in certain
season Florida on every street corner. Now the thing about seven 11s, you have to go to a different seven 11. You have to go to all of them because they all have different flavors.
Flavor selections. Really? Yeah, you have to. I did not know. Yeah, it's it's pretty amazing. Wow. So, but but the seven 11 slurpee. I've always been a slurpee snob. I always thought that was the best, you know, drink, you know, refreshment you can get.
Some would say like high-end Scotch. You're like, no, no, no. No, slurpee is the way to go. Now, I just found this out. Somebody sent me like a Facebook message or something. They say, hey,
you realize you can get slurpees at Speedway. I was like, what are you talking about? Well, apparently the company that owns seven 11, they just bought Speedway, the gas station, the gas station. Yeah.
And there's actually two Speedways that are close. There's one in Alfredo, Georgia, and there's one in Cardisville, Georgia. Now, I've already been to both to confirm this. So this is true. At Speedway, they have the seven 11 slurpee machines inside the Speedway gas station. So there are some now in Georgia if you're in the area.
I'm glad you can get your fix without having to drive seven hours, you know, because then it truly is a splurge for you to have to drive to another state. It takes a while to get done a Florida. That's a good point because it's, you know, it's a dollar drink. So it's, you know, really not a splurge. But then when you 100 bucks and gas, though, yeah, that's the splurge and the time to get there. Yeah. I love that one. Let's, let's start talking about kind of the subject. Let's talk about debt-free degrees and paying for college and payments like we, like Matt said at the beginning, they're about to restart on student loans in just a few days.
We all know that student loan debt is a massive problem. This is something you've been highlighting for a bunch of years in your work.
Can you put it in the context for us? So can you kind of maybe share some numbers and talk about some people have called it a crisis? Like, is, is student loan debt a crisis?
Yeah, you know, I've got some pretty strong opinions on all this. Yes, it's a crisis. But yeah, to me, it's a student loan debt crisis, but it's also a student loan debt scam.
Because young 17 18 year old kids are being presented with only one option to go to college debt. And actually, I interviewed a girl in my book and she told me the story.
She said, when I went to the orientation session at her university, they set her down and they said, you have three options. These are your options to pay for school option A, B, and C.
All the options were debt. Those are the only options that she was presented. And she said, Jason, if my dad wasn't in the room with me, he grabbed my arm and dragged me.
Out of the room. Or else, I would have just signed one of these contracts and taken debt out. Now to your point, Joel, we're looking at 70% of students take out loans to help pay for college. That's a, that's a tremendous amount.
Sounds low to me almost honestly. Oh, you're thinking it's higher. I was thinking it would be more even like that's, but that's still a lot. It's significant. And the big problem, guys, is
that the people that I feel for the most is that we have in our country 40% of all college students never graduate. They drop out for whatever reason, they run out of money, life happens, you know, maybe they start a family or whatever.
There's lots of reasons why people don't make it through college, but those are the people that have gone through taken out debt, but never got the degree. So those are the people that are really suffering the most with the student loan debt crisis.
I agree those people are behind the a ball to the biggest extent because no degree, no increased earnings oftentimes to show for the work, but they saw the debt alongside it. Yeah, it's like a double whammy in effect. So given that given the fact that there are a lot of folks who aren't even graduating. So they're not, you know, they don't have the fruit from their labor to show for it. So that's one, that's one group of folks. But even for the folks who are graduating who do get the degree who have the potential for increased earnings. Do you feel that the value proposition?
Has changed considering the drastic inflation that we've seen with higher education, specifically with going to college. So you mean like, are we talking RLI? Yeah, is it worth the money?
Yeah, is it worth generations? I mean, decades, like I was the only thing I was ever told as a little kid growing up is like, you better go to college. And I know my parents enough and they love me no matter what. And if I had not gone to college, they certainly would have continued to love me, but they would have been disappointed.
They would have really been upset. I think if I chose not to, unless I had a really great plan, something else on the horizon. But for a lot of, like a lot of students have been told that they're like, oh, you've got to do this. No matter the cost, but with the high cost of college, I think there are some folks who started to question whether or not it's worth it.
I think you're spot on guys and I'm a little bit older than you too, but we're kind of in a similar age range.
That from our generation, this is one of the American dreams, you know, home ownership, college degree. But let me tell you what, there's only about 37% of Americans even hold a bachelor's degree. So think about that for a second. And only about a let I think it's 13% only about 13% have a master's or higher degree.
So it's a it's a minority, right? And people might not realize that. So here's the thing. The ROI is it is college worth it. That's that that's the question now. And and really what you have to do is you have to really do your due diligence and your research on specific degree courses.
What does it relate to in the job market? And one of the pieces of advice I give people is like, hey, student and parent, go go sit down, go hire a career coach.
These guys are going to be the ones that can these are the experts that can help you match up a degree program with a career industry.
Is it worth it? Is this degree going to translate to a high pain or rewarding career? Or is this degree going to lead to, you know, a $30,000 salary? And that's what you have to weigh out.
Hey, if you're if you're paying for college on your own and you go debt-free and and you want to work in nonprofit and make $30,000 you that's you're totally fine because you're not leaving school with $80,000 a student loan debt.
But you don't want to get the degree and still be a barista at the end of the day, right? And and take on the debt at the same time, right? That's going to that's going to saddle you down for years to come.
But not have the increase income ago. I love that advice of going talk to an expert about that. Let's talk about your story because you got two debt-free degrees.
And I want to talk about like how you went about that. But but what made you initially like see the importance of avoiding debt in order to take on a higher education in the first place because like you said, a lot of people, like the girl you highlighted would just sign. Oh, I'm 17, I'm 18. I'm like, yeah, why not? If this is the only way the only options that are being presented, I guess I'll do it. What made you see that there was another path that you needed to take? That's such a good question. I get that that question a lot, Joel. And so I went to undergrad in started in 1993. Okay.
So mid to late 90s. Now back then, you're not hearing about a student loan, even though there was this student loans was going on, but you don't hear it in the news back then about a student loan debt crisis or anything like that.
So for me, I was just raised, my parents raised me a certain way to, you know, avoid debt to pay for you. You can't buy it unless you can afford it, right? Now my social antiquated way of thinking and living now, you know, right with the times. Yeah. Come on. Come on now. Now my parents, they didn't really like
sit me down and teach me about money. Like, here's how you, you know, balance a budget. Here's how you do a check ledger. I just learned from watching them. I never saw my dad go out and buy, you know, a brand new car and drive it home on a whim. I never saw my parents come home on a Friday afternoon. Hey, we're all going to Hawaii next week. Nothing like that. There were no big splurges. There were no, you know, frivolous spending. And my parents were both very frugal people. They were very smart with their money. They were savers.
And so I just kind of took on that mentality. So when I entered undergrad school in the mid 90s, debt was really not an option for me because I was always taught, if you can't pay for it, you can't do it. So that was, you know, my mentality.
So I never even thought about taking out a loan or that never even crossed my mind. It was just like, okay, well, how am I going to pay for this? Let me go work. Let me get. I was working three, you know, three part time jobs. I was, you know, getting scholarships. I was doing all kind of stuff resourcefulness.
Just to make my way through. I was going to school part time because that's all I could afford. I was just kind of pay as you go kind of things. So, so those are some of the things I did, but that was my mentality was, it was just like, I can only do what I can afford.
Which forces you to become creative? Yeah, I was just talking to a buddy and we were talking about like leadership and he said something along the lines of oftentimes great leaders have like a gosh, I wish I can remember the term, but it's like a subconscious competence where you don't even realize it. And it sounds like that you had that to a certain extent.
When it came to your finances, you were subconsciously competent. You were subconsciously on the right track. But I like that you did take some specific tactics in order to ensure that you were not taking out debt. Like, can you share some of the some of the different creative ways that you were able to find it not finance, but literally pay cash for your college of education? Yeah, so when I was at school, I was work, I actually, this was to the detriment of my GPA, by the way.
I worked three part time jobs simultaneously. So, but, but they were all it was very convenient. So I had two on campus jobs, which I recommend people to do. Oh, yeah, because a lot of on campus jobs, they'll they'll pay you'll get a tuition waiver and I'll get you a stipend. Now, I didn't get those in mind, but I just got paid like an hourly rate or whatever, but I was the at the time I wanted to get into sports broadcasting. So I was actually the sports editor for the student newspaper. And then I worked in the sports information department with the athletic department.
I was doing a lot of work with them working for all the athletic teams. And then I also worked a retail job at town center mall, which is literally almost across the street from campus. I worked in like a sports apparel shop and, you know, made a whatever the minimum wage was at the time.
Everything sports related. There's there's a common theme. Yes, that was my first passion, my first love. Now, on top of just working and, you know, kind of paying my way through, I also got scholarships. Later on, I actually worked I went and worked for Chick-fil-A.
Now, Chick-fil-A has a really good scholarship program now. But back then, when I was at Chick-fil-A, I had to be there for two years and I had to work 2000 hours and then they gave me $1,000 scholarship. Now, that might not seem like much in today's age, but back then, you know, I'm so old, we were on the quarter system. I went to Kennesaw State here just north of Atlanta. And we were on the quarter system. So $1,000 check paid for two quarters. So that paid for 75% of my year pretty much. So that was a huge opportunity.
So that was a huge help. And then, so what happened was I was working on the athletic department and most of that was scholarship. You were the first non-athlete to get a scholarship from the athletic department. I got to tell that story. So I was working in the athletic department. They had no budget. You know, at the time, they were a Kennesaw State, you know, it started out as like a junior college and they were like in an AIA school, then they were in CAA Division II. So they really come a long way.
Okay, we made it to the tournament last year. That's right. We played a, we had valiant effort. Was it, was it the owls, Kennesaw State owls? Yeah, they made it, the first time ever last year, they made it to the NCAA men's basketball team. Yeah, the tournament, March Madness. Yeah, the first time ever. So they're Division I, they're at the highest level now. So back in my day, there was no budget. They couldn't pay me. So what I did was I, I kind of used it as internship credit. So I got school credit for working out with them, but they did pay me to work games. So whenever there was a game, you know, I would work a game and, you know,
to the announcing or whatever they run the scoreboard. And I think they paid me like five or ten bucks a game. So I certainly wasn't getting rich off that. But what happened was the athletic director, I think in his creative way of compensating me because I was always, you know, putting in hours of free labor. So my junior year, he put me on a book scholarship. So my junior year of college, I had all my books paid for by the athletic department. That was a huge, huge help. So then I came back for my senior year and I was completely shocked to find out that they
had put, they had given me an athletic scholar, a full athletic scholarship that paid for tuition books, everything. And yes, I was not an athlete. So I hope I didn't take a scholarship away from, from an athlete. I don't think I did. I think that was just their creative way of compensating me because instead of, you know, writing me a check that want to come out of a budget or whatever.
Yeah, just like, hey, we'll just, you know, we'll wave your tuition in your books. But that was life changing for me getting a whole year, my senior year, a whole year paid for. So that was a huge, huge help to me that is he. Well, and so you mentioned books too, because I mean books aren't cheap. And so there are different paths, different routes you can take when it comes to books, like there are more places, you can rent books as opposed to going to the own campus bookstore and buying it brand new, you know, like that's fine crap. Yeah, the spines never been cracked before. Like what, yeah, what would you take on
Yeah, some of the different ways to cut the costs there. Now, now that's a good, you made some good points there because back in my day, none of those were options. You couldn't rent, but so much has changed now that you can really cut down the cost back in my day. It was a huge racket. It was a scam. And you would have to, you would be forced to buy the new book for the class. And then you would say, Oh, well, I'll just sell it back at the end of the quarter. And then you couldn't sell it back because the next quarter they were moving to a new book. Exactly. And so your book was worthless.
So you had to pay whatever a hundred bucks for a book and then you're stuck with it, right? So those books are more than that now. And you've certainly alludes to the scam portion. Right.
Higher education. And now you can go on Amazon or eBay or all these what you can go sell them online. You couldn't really do it that, you know, in the early 90s. That wasn't really an option either.
So, so now back then, yeah, you were, you were held hostage by these book, book companies. But now, like you said, Matt, you can actually rent books.
You can buy books. I bought now when I went back to school for my grad program, which I'll tell that story in a second, too. But, you know, this was more recent.
I had the option to rent books to buy books by use books. I bought all my books used off Amazon for dirt cheap. And ironically, it was cheaper for me to buy a book that then rent it or it would either be the same price.
Like, so it would be like, I could buy the book for 50 bucks or I could rent it for 50 bucks for the semester. But hey, I'll just buy the book and then hope to sell it.
Hope to get half my money back. That was my strategy. So that's kind of how I handled it. But it really just depends on the class or the book. In some case, it is a lot cheaper to rent it.
It might be 10 bucks to rent a book versus 50 bucks than yet. And then it would make more sense to do that. But there's so much more options now.
For certain in the digital age. And now you know, a lot of a lot of classes, the teachers will just email you a PDF. And you can just download the digital version and not have to pay a thing.
Sometimes you can ask the teacher, hey, do you teach to the book? Do you use the book or is it all based on lecture? And so you might they might have one in the syllabus. You might be able to get by without having the book at all.
It just depends on the class, right? But you also, one of the factors you took was to go part time to school. So it took you longer to get your degree.
But it allowed you then to have some of those part time jobs. Did you like run a cost benefit analysis on that? Or do you feel like you missed out on potential years of increased income growth because it took you longer to get your degree?
Like what was your thought process on that? And do you think going to school part time makes sense for more people?
Well, Joel, those are excellent questions. But when I was 20 years old, I certainly wasn't thinking about that strategically.
To be honest with you, I actually had some health situations in college that kind of caused me to fall behind and cause me to go part time.
So actually, you know, I kind of fall in that statistic of like, I think it's like 64% of students take longer than four years.
So that's another thing that people have to budget for is that most students take over four years on average to graduate.
But for my story, I ran into some health issues that kind of derailed me a little bit. But also, yes, my strategy was, hey, I'm only going to, you know, go to school for what I can afford.
I can afford two classes this quarter or one class or three classes, whatever it may be. That's where I can afford just because I didn't want to go into any debt and I didn't want to fall behind.
I didn't want to drop out either. Like I didn't want to be like, oh, well, this quarter, I, you know, it would be great if I just worked and just skipped a quarter.
Because I said, what happened was I saw a lot of my peers doing that. And then now they would never seem to come back to school.
Right. It's like, you stopped the habit. You stopped going to class. And then you're like, ah, maybe I'll take another quarter off too.
And then after a little while, you just stopped going to school.
Right. So like for me, you know, and another thing was I got so far behind, I actually had to go to summer school three years in a row.
Just it took me about five and a half years to graduate. So I, my last three years, I was going to school.
I was going to summer school. Actually, I was going to school year round for my last three years of school, just so I could graduate in five and a half years.
But no, I didn't really think of lost income or anything like that because at the time that I graduated, you know, I wanted to get into the sports industry.
And evidently, it's extremely difficult to get into the sports industry because everybody wants to work in sports.
It's highly competitive. So it actually took me about a year to land a full time job in the sports world.
So, so I kind of knew that I was facing that as well.
You know, that's, this is actually one of the reasons I'm such a fan of different tech schools that have like the co-op programs where you go to, I don't know what exactly.
I didn't live it myself, but you know, you go to school for a semester.
You work for a semester, but you're actually earning an income.
And I think that the ability for you to use some of that income to pay for your, your schooling is, is pretty huge.
But we're going to continue our conversation with you, Jason.
We're going to continue to talk about how it is you can get these debt-free degrees, not just how, but also why that is so important to do.
We'll get to all that right after this.
Alright, we're back. We're still talking about debt-free degrees with the guy who is the expert at this, Jason Brown.
And he's in live in studio with us here in the Hadamuni Clubhouse.
So Jason.
I'm studio audience.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, if only. If only we had, just Matt, can you play the clap sounder right now?
So yeah, I think this is so important now as like student loans are, our repayments are beginning and a whole lot of people are like, they feel, they feel stuck because the student loans.
Why is it such a passion of yours to convince folks to get a degree without taking on any debt at all, like, like, taking it off the table?
It's so disheartening to see what's happening to, you know, 45 plus million Americans that are really struggling with these student loans because they were sick, whatever, 17, 18, 19 years old and they didn't understand, you know, what they were signing, they didn't understand how interest rates work, they didn't understand, like, you know, each year the cost of college goes up.
So they're looking at expenses for year one and they're just saying, oh, $10,000 a year.
Okay, so that times four is $40,000. That's all I'm going to owe when they realize, when they don't think, oh, it might take me five or six years to graduate.
And oh, every year the cost of college probably goes up by at least 10% so those are things that people don't really, you know, aren't really aware of, I guess.
So 40 turns into 55 and it quickly, yeah, it quickly, you know, gets out of hand.
And like me, like, hey, I graduated my undergrad and it took me almost, I was living at home and looking for a job for almost a year, working part time jobs, you know, folding clothes at retail at the mall.
And where you one of the gap guys that would stay in there, you know, and like, greet people as they're walking in.
Oh, he's advertising fish. Come on.
I actually work, that's close.
I actually worked at a store called Gallians, which was bought out by Dix.
So if you know Dix sporting goods, I basically worked at a Dix, and I worked in men's apparel.
So I was sitting there folding shirts, I was folding.
I was in greeting people probably because I'm too tall and I would scare people off, but I was kind of in the back folding all the shirts.
So like guys like you, like yourself, you guys would come in, mess up all the shirt.
Oh, they're all these shirts.
All right, let me mess up the rack and then I have to come behind you, put everything back on the hangers.
We actually did that as a way to help people get employed.
Like yourself.
Like they was like, hey, if we mess up more shirts, there's more jobs for people to fold shirts, right?
It's the broken windows theory.
Like if we smash all these windows, somebody's got a, like, yeah, you basically creating jobs for us.
Yeah, it's very kind of you guys, really stimulating the economy as much as we can.
Well, so I mean, what are the ways you can get a degree without spending, like let's just talk about,
I'm thinking about specifically, we had an ask how to money question and a listener.
She's up in South Carolina, and her employer, one of the benefits they offered was to cover her grad school.
She was going back to get an MBA, how popular are these different programs becoming the ability to,
you're basically increasing how much it is that you can earn at your employer's expense, basically.
Right, I'm so glad you brought that up, Matt, because that's, I actually wanted to touch on that a little bit,
because I went back to grad school, I graduated in 2018, so not too long ago, but this is what I did.
So I actually was an employee.
I went back to my alma mater and was an employee at Kennesaw State.
So as an employee, they have a, it's called a TAP program, which stands for tuition assistance program.
And so as an employee, they covered all my tuition.
Now I started to pay for books out of pocket.
So I started grad school, KSU paid for my tuition, I had to pay for my books.
So then I actually changed jobs, I went back to the private sector, and then when I changed jobs,
I was preparing, me and my wife were preparing to pay out of pocket for the rest of my schooling,
and I was looking at about 2,700 bucks a semester.
Luckily, I was toward the end of my, I only had like two semesters left.
So I was like, okay, you know, we can do this.
But when I was hired by my new job, I was going through all the benefits package,
and I noticed tuition reimbursement program, wait a minute, what is this?
Let me sign up, that's the first thing I did on the first day, I was like, hey,
give me the application for this tuition, how does this work?
Let me sign up for that.
But here's the thing, this is such an amazing trend that we're seeing now,
all these companies are offering tuition reimbursement, or like some sort of assistance,
even if it's not 100%, it might be 50%, or whatever it may be, and especially like for me,
you know, I'm a writer, so I went back to school and got a professional writing degree.
So if it's related to your position, your company is more than likely going to want to help you
with that, because it's going to make you a better employee for them, and it's going to make you,
you know, a more well-rounded, and it's going to increase your skill set.
So, you know, we see all the big name companies in the news, you know,
Target, Publix, Costco, Starbucks, all the big name companies, the big brands,
they're the ones that get all the headlines for doing this, and there's a lot of them now,
but this is an exciting trend to see. A lot of people are kind of jumping on this bandwagon to
offer tuition reimbursement, or tuition assistance as an employee, and that's so great to see.
So I'm going to tell your audience, hey, if you guys are, like, looking to change jobs,
or maybe, you know, or you're in the job market, or whatever, and you never finish your degree,
or you want to pick up an extra degree, maybe go back to school, get a master's, or something,
make sure that that company that you're looking at, or looking at interviewing with,
make sure that they offer a tuition reimbursement. We're going to, that's a huge benefit.
Yeah, yeah, we always talk about total compensation. It's not just the headline salary number.
There's all those other benefits that you want to take into consideration, because
you might be willing to get paid $8,000 less, because, oh, wait, there's a better match, and
oh, wait, they'll pay for me to go back to school, and oh, wait, they'll do more flexibility,
like, all of those other things add up, right? And so we should make a decision about where we work
based on the abundance of benefits, not just the salary. Talk to me about, like, where we choose
to go to school, because that makes a difference in the price, too. And I think one of the things
that we've done to a lot of young kids, it's like, oh, go, go to the school that makes your heart flutter,
or something like that, or I was like, go to your dream school. Well, how would you talk to
a teenager who's thinking about where they go to school? They kind of dream school versus
a practical, cheaper alternative. It's a financial and an emotional conundrum. How do you help people
think through that? Yeah, when you asked me that question, I think about my own kids. I have
three boys. So when they get off age, you know, what, what would I tell them? That's the exact
question you said. What would I say? So our world is changing, and there's so many alternatives to
traditional college now. But the first thing, the number one thing that I tell people is,
if you make one decision, just one, just make one decision, and if you want to go to college,
go to an in-state public school. If you go to an in-state public school, you will save tens of
thousands of dollars just by making that one decision. But regarding alternative, now, see,
we live in this digital technology age where there's so many alternatives to school, there's
online college, which is so much less expensive. There's you can go the technical or it's called
the technical or trade school, sometimes still called vocational school. There's that route that
you can go, which is much less expensive and much, and in a lot of times, a fraction of the time,
too. So you got to look at the financial commitment and the time commitment. So there's so many other
opportunities like there's a apprenticeship, you talked about co-ops, Matt, and that's kind of
similar to an apprenticeship program. There's apprenticeship programs. I have friends that have
taken gondola culinary apprenticeship schools where it's like a nine-month program and they pay
$10,000. But they're getting placed in high-end restaurants, they're getting placed in catering
companies, they're getting placed, they're learning how to launch, a lot of these guys go on and
launch a food truck business, or they launch a catering business, or they become renowned chefs.
They're going to school for nine months and paying $10,000 to do that versus a traditional
college route, which is so much more expensive. So there's so many more options out there. Now,
I mean, I hear stories about people just going on YouTube and watching videos for free. There's
a lot of free online courses, too. If you're just interested, and this is a great way to process
of elimination, like, hey, I'm kind of interested in social media, but I don't know if I want to
really pay to go get a digital marketing degree. Well, hey, there's probably a free digital
marketing course, like an intro course, or a fundamental course, that you can find online,
take it, and see if that's, you know, your cup of tea. See that's something that you want to pursue.
What's your whistle? Just a bit, kind of like dip your toe in and then decide, oh, don't want to
keep going on in this direction. Exactly, exactly. Well, I mean, and that's one of the things when
it comes to staying in state and paying the in-state tuition rate, finding a maybe a local community
college is that you are able to do some of this discovery process at a much reduced price.
And the problem is, is when a lot of times kids are going, like, they do have their
heart set on a private out of state school. And during the first two years, that's when they're
kind of figuring out what it is that they love. Oh, not to mention that they're paying, you know,
$50,000 a semester, while they're also racking up other expenses because cost of living might
be higher in some of those, in some of those cities. But, um, so you, you actually, a couple of
minutes ago, you mentioned your wife, okay? And you, so, so you got your degrees debt free,
and you're talking about when you went back to grad school, that this is something that you and
your wife are, you know, it's a decision that, that y'all are making together. She wasn't so fortunate.
It came to the degree and the price that she paid for it. How did you approach your finances?
Did y'all combine your money? Did you see, because we talked about this recently with the
rad coaches about combining your finances. How did you view the $60,000 that was essentially now
yours after you were being so diligent and careful with your finances?
Yes, that's such a good, good question, man. So yeah, I have a unique kind of perspective in that
I was fortunate to earn two debt free degrees. And then when I got married, my wife had a, had
undergraduate bachelor's degree. We actually went to the same school at different times,
but she incurred about $60,000 a student loan debt. So basically what we did was that we,
we got real aggressive in paying that off. And, and I basically told her my story of like,
hey, I had a debt free journey before, like when I was single, I paid off $13,500 in credit card debt,
making only $23,000 a year and did that in 13 months. So I told her that whole story about how I got
on a budget stuff. But she's like, oh, yes, she really, she tipped to it, man. She was really like,
okay, you know, and she started writing things down and taking notes and stuff. But I will say,
here's the thing, when we first got married, and this, you guys are both married, this is going
to be a fun question. What are the top two questions that people at, right when you get married,
the top two things that everybody starts asking you this, kids, yeah, that's one, when are you
going to have kids? Yeah. What do you know what the other one is? What is the other one that you
would ask someone who just got married? Just got married. What two major life, you know,
where are you going to live? Right. Well, more specifically, when are you going to buy a big house?
When are you going to buy house? Oh, when are you guys going to buy a house? Because we were living
in a condo. When are you guys going to buy a house? When are you guys going to have kids? Like,
dude, we just got married like five minutes ago, man, give us a chance to go on our honeymoon.
So, so those are the big questions. And we answered every single one of those people with not
until we get out of debt, not until we pay off this student loan debt. We're paying off this debt
first. So that was our goal. And we were, my wife was 28 at the time and she made a very aggressive
proclamation. She says, I'm paying off this debt by the time I turned 30, the 30th birthday.
So she gave herself two years, she said, but what a time I turned 30, I'm having this debt paid for.
I was like, I don't know if we're going to do it. You know, we weren't making that much money at
the time. We weren't each making 30K a year. We had a combined, you know, oh, your finance question,
we did combine finances for that question. So we were making a combined 60,000 a year. So that's
a basically, and we did it. We paid it off in two years. So how did you do that? Because that's
crazy. Hey, we're making 60K combined. We paid off 60K worth of debt in two years. What
tactics did you use? Well, first of all, we were in the position to delay. You know, we didn't
have any kids. So we put off having kids. We put off having a buying a house. We put off,
you know, big vacations. We didn't really eat out that much. You know, all the normal stuff,
right? Just, did you grow up in the Midwest? Like, I feel like so much of what you're saying,
like we were saying earlier, it goes contrary to the, I hate to say this, but sort of like the
entitlement attitude of like, well, we're going to do that. We're going to get the thing now.
We're going to buy it now. We're going to pay for it later. But that's not it. All the
approach I took is the BNPL mindset. The buy now pay later mindset that's so prevalent these days.
Right. So we just, you know, we got on a budget, but we did, you know, we did a lot of crazy
things. Like my wife actually was working as a nanny at the time. So when you work as a nanny,
you get a lot of opportunities to babysit or like to do overnight, you know, stuff like babysitting
stuff. So she picked up any extra worksheet that she could in that room. And then, you know,
we did, we did all kind of stuff. We did garage sales. I was selling stuff online, eBay,
and Craigslist and all that stuff. I was doing manual labor side jobs. People are hiring me to
help them move and stuff. And, you know, I was doing like a card detailing people's cars,
all kind of random stuff to make money. Of course, we, any tax return money we got, we would save
that and throw it toward the debt. Another thing we did that was really lucrative was all these like,
are you guys familiar with like these marketing studies or focus groups? Like some of these pay big
money. And my wife and I combined, I think we made like $8,000 over the course of a couple of
years, like wow, just doing like taste test or mock juries are big. I'll do it the taste test
one. Jason, the human science experiment. But I want to tell you guys the craziest thing that we
did. This was when you reflect about it, it's this is really embarrassing, okay? That we did to
try to make extra money was we started. My wife has a Diet Coke addiction, okay? So I started
noticing like all these Diet Coke cans, you know, piling up in the trash. It's like, now wait a
minute, we could probably recycle these and make some money. There's, you know, one of those
metal recycling shops, you know, not far from our house. So I said, let's just start saving up the
cans and, you know, we'll run them down there. And so we got, we kind of went overboard with it.
We were like taking, you know, we live in a complex. So they have their little recycling center. So
we would go and go and take people's cans that they left in the recycling. And we would take
their bags of cans. We went on a beach ship in Florida. And at the end of the day, we would just
walk the beach with trash bags just picking up. They probably thought that we were city workers,
just picking up trash. We're just picking up cans. Beer cans go, they forgot their vests. Yeah,
well, what are these guys? Oh, that's how they must be, you know, they must have community service
hours. They must be, these guys are prisoners. You look like a felon to be out of it. It could,
it could very well. But so we're picking up cans, you know, we're taking cans. So here's the thing,
I'm embarrassed to, I don't even want to know how many hours that we did this. And we made a
grand total of $120 recycling cans. So maybe in retrospect, you didn't value your time enough
to do in that pursuit. But overall, like you're doing everything that you possibly can. And you're
on the same page as sounds like too. Like I guess I'm curious now that you're quite a few years
removed from paying off your wife's degree in kind of like record time. How do you look back
on those years where you were like the the belt was tight. And there wasn't a lot of money to do
extra things. How do you how do you think about that time? To me, like when you look at our story,
I just feel like hey, we made a lot of sacrifices. But it was only temporary. It was a two year,
it was two years. It was a short did just look at just like when I was in grad school when I started
grad school, I felt like I was in prison. I was like, oh my gosh, what have I done to myself?
I'm never going to get through this. But it was really like I just took it one day at a time
and I just said to myself, you know, this is all temporary. You're going to get through it.
It's a short amount of time in the grand scheme of life. Same thing with the debt journey.
Hey, you can do this. You can make sacrifices. You know, I went an entire year without eating out
at a restaurant. Now it happened to be the COVID year and we also had a baby. So that helped too.
But you weren't going to anyway. Yeah, but I mean, you can do it. Like it's when you say that,
like I'm going to go an entire year without going out to a restaurant, fast food or restaurant,
you're like, that's impossible. Most people would say going an entire week. So it's just I want to give
hope and encouragement to people to your audience that's in this situation. Like look, it can be done.
It take your baby steps. Change it. It's it's all about changing your mindset. It's all about,
you know, behavior modification and and you can do it. And just just think it's it's only temporary.
You're going to get through it. And that that I love telling people that love encouraging people.
Yeah. No, I love that encouragement. And that encouragement, I think, goes a long way.
Because yeah, when you feel like it can't be done, when you're hearing the guy who did it and
he's telling you you can do it too, that I mean, there's a reason people want to pay money to
listen to the best motivational speakers. And I think that's a really motivational. But it's also
a practical and reality based message that you're that you're giving folks. All right, we've got
a couple more questions. I'm going to get to with you Jason. And we want to ask you about writing
books too. So we'll get to that right after this.
This is in retrospect a podcast about pop culture from the 80s and 90s that shaped us.
I'm very much a product of the pop culture I consumed. Yeah. And I don't think that's a bad thing.
I'm Jessica Bennett, a New York Times writer and bestselling author.
I'm Susie Beta Caram, an award winning TV producer and filmmaker.
Every week we'll revisit a moment in cultural history that we just can't stop thinking about
from tabloid headlines to elicit student teacher relationships and one very memorable red swimsuit.
I found myself in Pamela Anderson's attic as you do. I put that red swimsuit in the safe
because it seemed everybody wanted it. We're digging deep to better understand with these moments
taught us about the world and our place in it. I want you to really smell the axe body spray
that emanated during this time. It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic.
Okay, that's not a lie. It had been branded on the uteruses of every single woman
from C to shining C. Listen to in retrospect on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi, I'm Marissa Fallberg and I'm Steven Wolfed Ada. We want to invite you to join us for a new
podcast for brand new. So what's actually new about brand new? Well, Steven and I are not only
working C-suite executives, we're friends. My friend Marissa is actually one of the most
influential chief marketing officers in the world. And hey, Steven has a story career across
finance, tech, and multicultural entertainment. Because of that, we've got a lot to say about the
world of tech entertainment advertising, media, and marketing, what we actually call teen.
We always adore each other, but don't always agree with each other and that's part of the fun.
It's real talk from the inside, sometimes personal talk too. And it's meant for everyone rising
in business or just interested in it. In each episode, we give our hot takes on hot topics and
always answer what's on your mind's too. Just look for the brand new podcast on the iHeart podcast
network or wherever you listen. It's a brand new conversation that you won't want to miss.
I'm Dr. Laurie Sanders, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. And I have something great in store
for our next season. And great begins with the letter G. It does. Thanks, Grover, as I was saying.
Grover begins with the letter G too. Can we talk about G words a little later? Of course,
of course, take it because I want to introduce our new season, which is all about happiness.
Happiness, the letter H. As I was saying, we all want to feel happier. And the science shows it's
never too late or too early to learn strategies for feeling better. I'll be sharing happiness
hacks that will work whether you're age three or 103. Or six, like me. Or six. Thanks, Big Bird.
Did I mention I have some amazing co-hosts for this season? And do not forget cute and
furry and fabulous. How could I, Grover? Because this season, I'll be joined by all my friends
from Sesame Street. That's us. Hi, you friends. So, what's our party? So, listen to the Happiness Lab.
On the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast. Or wherever you get your shows.
Oh, I am so excited. This is going to be so magical.
Season two of the Unimaginable. Hones in on individuals who have led Unimaginable lives
by following their instinct, their gut, their passion. I'm truly inspired by these episodes
because they dig into the backstories of people that know success almost as a byproduct
of their unwavering dedication to their craft. From guests like TycoYTT. Stick to your vision
of what you're trying to do. It's just more pure. The family is more pure and the success is more pure.
To Odessa Rae's life-changing experiences, it's strangely conditioned and equipped her
to produce the Oscar award-winning documentary, Navalny. I was stuck in that Japanese prison for
42 days. This season delivers behind-the-scenes conversations about the many roads to success.
Listen to the Unimaginable. On the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast. Or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, we are back from the break talking with Jason Brown about how to get that higher education
without going into debt. And, uh, Jason, I love that you're sharing some of the different ways
that you were, I mean, y'all are just hustling when it came to finding ways specifically
to pay off your wife's debt. Let's talk about dual enrollment because it makes me think about,
I've got a buddy and he, he's got four kids, but two of his kids are in high school. He's got a senior,
he's got a junior. His senior literally is taking all of her classes at the local university.
His junior, she's literally only taking one class. She didn't even get a parking pass this year
at the local high school because she's like, what's the point? I don't need to go through all of that.
Don't need to pay for that. No. And so talk to us a little bit about dual enrollment. I didn't
realize that that was something that you can do at a younger age like that. It wasn't even on my
radar at all when I was in high school. Yeah, this is a, this is a funny story how I found out
about this. So I'm sitting in grad school at Kennesaw State University and I'm in a creative writing
class and I'm, I'm 40 years old, okay? And this kid comes into class and he sits next to me and,
you know, he's in the class and I look over and I'm like, he's seven. I'm like, who are you?
Like, when did they start in rolling children? He's 17. You know, to me, he's a kid, okay? He's
17. I say, I start talking to him like, hey, you know, I introduced myself and I've come to
find out he's 17 and he's in high school. And I'm like, I turned to him. I'm like, how are you
here? And he says, oh, he starts talking to me about this dual enrollment program. His name
Dougie Halzer. I honestly care. It might have been. So he starts telling me about this dual
enrollment program and how it works and stuff. And I'm sitting there at the time I got a two-year-old
son and I'm sitting there furiously writing notes, writing everything that he's saying because I'm
trying to figure out how to enroll my two-year-old into this. So basically, his story was he was going to
a local high school. He had graduated a semester early. So he, I guess, worked his schedule out,
his class schedule to where he finished high school a semester early. So I guess his last semester
in high school, he's going to take college classes at my school, a KSU. So basically, what he
was going to do was in the fall, he was going to go to the University of Alabama and I think he said
he was going to study like civil engineering or something like that. And he was going to start out
as a sophomore. So not only has he cut out the time, he's cut out a year, but he's also cut out
the time and the finances. So this is all paid for by the state. And I started asking him, how does
this work? How do you qualify for it? Do you have to have like a 4.0 and be like, you know,
star student, perfect attendist? He got to be a valiantorian, right? That's what I thought. He says,
no, no, you just, he's like, you just apply for it. And he says, a state pays for everything.
They pay for tuition. They pay for your books, everything. And, and when he goes and starts college,
he was going to start as a, as a sophomore. He was going to eliminate that first year of school.
And I was like, this is unbelievable. Very impressive. I was like, this is, this, and, and I will say
to the audience wherever state you're in, because these, these programs differ by state. Sure.
And in, even our governor governor, Kim, I think he's made some changes to it recently. So just
Google, like, whatever your state, we're in Georgia. So if you Google, like, Georgia dual enrollment
program, you'll get all the information in the state that you're in. But this is a tremendous
program to strongly consider for yourself or your kids that will save you not only time,
but money. And, and it's going to get you like you were talking about Joel earlier about, you
know, uh, did, did I feel like I was missing out on eight, you know, years of salary. Hey,
this guy, uh, he's going to get, he's ahead of his peers now. He's going to be graduating
a year early. That's one year extra of potential full-time salary that he's going to be making while
his same age peers are still toiling away in college, right? Makes me think about AP classes too.
That's another way that people can, uh, kids, you score high enough on the AP exam, which I believe
cost you $95 to take an AP exam. And you basically skip out on potentially a $2,500 class.
That's right. That's, that's a very good, uh, comparison to AP classes as well. I researched
this for my book too. Actually, I wrote a, somebody bench, I had my book done and somebody mentioned
the AP, I was like, Oh, wait a minute. I got to go right out of section to my book and I got to
include this in my book. So, uh, the AP thing, yeah, you're right. You can take AP classes. You can
test out of college courses. So then you don't have to pay. You don't have to, you're, you're,
you're skipping the finances and the time. So it expedites your college career, right? Very nice.
Okay. So you mentioned your book and it sounds like you pretty much had it ready to go before you
made those edits. Talk to us about that. Like, so you self-published, what are the pros, what are
the cons from a financial standpoint? Has it netted, you know, what you thought it would? I'm curious
to kind of get, get some of your thoughts there. So all I've, I've self-published three books
to Amazon exclusively. So I've written two money related books. Like you guys mentioned,
the margin matters and then it is possible. And then I actually wrote a non-money related book.
It's a memoir. Uh, actually, it's a co-, I co-authored it with a Hall of Fame in CAA,
softball coach who coached the kid of South State. He asked me to, to help him write it. So
that's a sports related memoir. But all three of those books, uh, I wrote all three of those books
in about two, two or three years time. I was working them all simultaneously. Uh, but yeah,
they're all self-published. Uh, the difference is if you self-publish, you're gonna get a much
higher percent royalties versus if you go with a publishing company. But there's pros and cons
of both, right? So if you, if you sign with a publishing company, you're gonna get a much smaller
percent of royalties. There's different ways of doing it. Like a lot of our friends of FinCon
that I've met at the author table, they'll say, hey, this publisher just cut us a check. They just
gave us, you know, whatever, they gave us $10,000 to write this book. And that was it. That was
their payment. There was no royalties on the back end or anything. There's different ways to do it
to set it up. But the thing is, so if you go at the publisher, they're doing all the work, too.
They're marketing it. They're promoting it. Doing the public relations. Do social media. All
that stuff. They're doing the work. Except for in the Modern Era podcast, you, if you used to
want your book to sell, you still gotta get out there and be marketing it, too, don't you? That's
right. You, you have to do a lot of work, too. You have to come on big shows like how to money
promote yourself. Uh, you have to be a self-promoter. We got our fingers crossed that you'll get,
you'll get that bump. Yeah, the ATM bump. Exactly. But the publishers aren't just putting you on
the Times Square billboard because you're great. I mean, no, no. And so when you self-publish,
like you're, you're right, Joe, you're doing all of the work yourself. You're doing the marketing,
the promotion. It's just really, it just depends on, you know, everybody's situation is different.
For me, you know, I didn't really, you know, I was, you know, these all started out actually as
grad school projects, really. So I'm getting course credit for this. And I was like, hey, you
not really like to publish this. So I really have any connections to, you know, big, there's not a
whole lot of big publishing companies anymore. Not anymore as they've consolidated. Yeah, they've
consolidated. And a lot of people just do ebooks because it's cheaper and easier to do. I mean,
a lot of people publish ebooks to Amazon. And, you know, you'll see 30 page books that are published
on Amazon. You're like, this isn't a book. They'll sell them for 99 cents or whatever. But,
but, you know, there's different ways of doing it. You can do audio books. You can do, you know,
paperbacks, cardbacks. You can do digital ebooks, you know, Kindle versions. So that's what's
cool about the digital age that we live in now, too, is you can actually edit, like, if I wanted
to go and add a new chapter to my book, I can add that chapter and reupload it to Amazon. And now I
have a new version of my book. That's cool. As opposed to the old, the olden days where, you know,
you published a book and that's it. Like a newspaper. The newspaper is published. If there's a mistake
in it. Oh, well, it's out there. It's out there. And there's nothing we can do. So those are some
of the, you know, I guess comparisons between the two. I have a lot of friends that have done
both. You know, if you, if you're with a publisher, you might only make a 3% royalty. So that means
you're going to have to sell like millions of copies of books to, you know, even make. There's
another stat. Only 6% of published authors earn a living, you know, like your J.K. Rowling,
and your, your James Patterson, you know, Tom Clancy. There's a very few Stephen King. There's
very, very few of those that are actually, I'm a full-time author and that's my salary. That's
very difficult to do it. Plus, I hear all those guys are weird as anyway in real life. That may
be true. That's how they get their stories. Well, James, and man, this has been an enlightening
conversation. Obviously, folks can go to Amazon. They can, you know, we can link to your name where
they can find your author's bio and where they can look at, check out all the different books that
you have written. But is there a specific place that folks can go? Yeah, let's share your website.
Yeah, man. The best place to go is my website is yourmarginmatters.com. And on my homepage,
there's a link to my books. There's actually a YouTube channel. So if you're frugal, like me,
and you don't want to pay for one of my books, you can watch all my YouTube videos for free,
because that's all the content straight out of my books. So I have a YouTube channel there. I have
a link to my books. I've written some blogs on there as well, and there's some other resources
on there on my website that I like to share with people too. Well, you also write at HowToMoney.com
on the reg. So people, if they're like, oh, I like that chasing guy, well, you can go to HowToMoney.com
and you can read more Jason stuff too. So Jason, we're glad to have you as a friend, glad to have
you writing and doing this work alongside us as well. And thanks so much for joining us today,
man. Thanks for having me. And I just on a personal note, I really appreciate everything that you
guys do for the money nerd community out there. I know you're helping a lot of people. And I just
want to say I really appreciate everything you guys do and keep up the good work. Don't stop.
We will do our best. Thanks Jason. Joel. All right. So yeah, we just said bye to Jason.
And of course, we've got to take a minute to give our big takeaways. By the way, are you and
are you and Jason going to go close shopping here soon? Well, we were just talking about how that's
all guys. There's all the big and tall stories. But what about just like tall, skinny, weird
of tall guys? Yeah. They don't have stores for us for some reason. But yeah, what is your big
takeaway from our conversation with Jason Brown? For some reason, when early on when he was talking
about the value proposition of a degree and kind of doing some sleuthing before you actually like
decide where you're going to go and what kind of degree you're going to get. And he said maybe
even hire a career coach. Dude, you stole my. I'm like, I love. I'll pivot.
No, that was so good. Because an expert can like that little bit of money spent on the front end
can help you avoid a massive money mistake in years and years. It's sort of like just changing
like imagine like the smallest little pivot like at the axis of something over time that has a
huge change like as you as you move something like a giant ship changing the course of the
rudder. Exactly. Imagine a rudder. It seems like such a small little tweak, a small pivot,
a small change. And then all of a sudden the ship is going in an entirely different direction.
So yeah, that was going to I was going to mention that. And just honestly, as parents, I think we
can start having some of these discussions with our kids earlier, which seems kind of ridiculous.
I literally remember my dad talking about that maybe when I was 13 or something like that.
I think you're supposed to do it in utero, Matt. You're too late. But he was saying like, hey,
not too soon to start thinking about what you want to do. And I guess I just didn't take it
seriously. And there's a certain level of maturity. I think that also is required for you to maybe
take that seriously and to start thinking about what you actually want to do. But by the time I
went to college, I luckily had scholarship and I went in state. But I spent a couple years floundering
trying to figure out what it was that I wanted to do. And had I been able to zero in and focus on
my area of study. It's okay to even say pay a little bit more for college. Certainly try to avoid
debt as much as you can. It is possible. Like Jason. Yeah. Jason proved. But it would be worth it if
you knew that that was 100% the direction that you're going to go. But man, going through the process
of discovery and trying to figure things out, that's an expensive way to go about that. Especially
if you don't have scholarships, especially if you're going out of state, constantly changing majors,
having a retake class. That was me. Yeah, you're still going out there every year. I was in a different
school. I went from the science, then I hopped over to Terry with business and then I went
Franklin for arts, like eventually ended up in journalism over at Grady, which honestly kind of
ironic considering I didn't think I'd end up being a podcaster. But yeah, no, I think that was
great. Well, that wasn't really a career path of that point. Nobody could coach you in that
direction. Certainly wasn't. I think maybe there were a few. Those pipes are amazing. You should
really go into this. Not yet invented medium. Yeah. Yeah. So that was great. I'm glad you mentioned
that. My big toe takeaway. I'll go ahead and also mentioned in the ability ability to dole and roll.
I think that's something that should be on parents radars a little bit sooner. I'm a little torn
between the concept of like rushing through high school. You know, it kind of like, I don't know,
there's a certain element of growing up too fast that kind of not rubs me the wrong way, but I'm
certainly going to be careful about that. But I think there are happy medium approach. You don't
want prolonged adolescence, but you also don't want to like rush it so quickly. We've graduated
college at the age of 19 and you're not as fully formed as a human. Yes. And you miss out on some
of the other experiences at college. And even just the learning because, yes, sure, maybe you
placed out of certain classes because you're smart or you're able to cram and pass via certain
exams and placement, placement exams, but were you able to actually absorb that knowledge?
Were you, is that going to stick with you? Are you going to be able to retain that? I think that's
something to consider. You want to pay attention to the financials and be thinking about that,
but at the same time, we don't want to all try to fast track our kids. I think it's important to
know what our kids are capable of. So I think the one other thing that Jason said that I thought
really struck me was when he said, basically said, debt does not have to be a part of life.
And we've kind of grown accustomed. Yeah, we've normalized it. Yeah, we've normalized it so much
where it's, by now, pay later, like 15 years ago, people would have been like, what? That's going
to get invented. That sounds crazy. And now it's like, it's just old hat instead of today. That's
how people buy stuff. And it doesn't have to be. You said it sounds kind of Midwestern. It sounds
kind of old school. And it does. But what sounds kind of quaint is probably the best way for you to
be less stressed about your money and to be making more progress. Totally. Yeah. All right,
let's get to our beer. We enjoyed a profit maker. This is a dry hot pale ale by burial. What
were your thoughts on this one, buddy? Pale ale's they're lighter than IPAs. They're not quite as dense
and don't have quite as much body. But this one's still had a bunch of hops, but it was definitely
like a lighter medium for conveying those hops. So it kind of tasted like, and I've never actually
like stuck my head in the clouds and stuck my tongue out. But it tasted kind of like that. If
I were to do that, what I imagine it would taste like. So it tastes like rainwater.
It tastes like snow. You see snow and it's like the most beautiful thing. Like for some reason,
you think it's going to be sweet. But it's just like, yeah, it's rainwater. That's frozen. Yeah,
no, it certainly had that happy presence. Grassy. It had like a grassyness to it. But with that lighter
body, it's the perfect kind of pale ale, perfect kind of beer to enjoy on a warmer day like today.
But yeah, glad you and I got to enjoy those today. And that is going to be it. We'll make sure to
link to where you can learn more about Jason up on the website at HowToMoney.com. We would have
let Jason give a beer review, but he doesn't like beer. He's not a drinker. So yeah, he loves coffee.
And you know what? Less on the beer friends. We're still his friend. Yeah.
That's going to be a buddy until next time. Best friends out. Best friends out.
you