How to Get Out of Debt With the Get Out of Debt Guy » radio

I Interview Allie, the Navy Wife in Charlottesville, VA

Steve Rhode — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:31:06 +0000

Allie and I sat down in Charlottesville, Virginia and since she had been unemployed we talked about looking for a job, how to find a job, the economic opportunities in her area and her opinion about people that have faced or may be facing money troubles and tough times.

I was really surprised when she talked about landing jobs and feeling that she had been passed over because she was the wife of a military service member.

Click here to listen to my interview with Allie.

You can subscribe to my series of debt interviews through iTunes by clicking here.

Transcript

Steve: So I’m here with Allie in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hello, Allie.

Allie: Hi, Steve.

Steve: And I’m traveling around the country and I’m talking to people about the economy, how things are in their area, some questions about credit and debt and, you know, how people look at others that have been through tough times. So let’s start first with you live kind of near Charlottesville, Virginia and how are things in this area?

Allie: Things are improving. They’ve really been rough around the first of the year. We had a lot of companies with layoffs and a lotta people were looking for jobs at the same time which was not a good thing.

Steve: Now did you know lots of people who – did you know people who fell into trouble and were having a difficult time making ends meet?

Allie: Yes, quite a few.

Steve: And, you know, when people live through times like that they often feel like they suffer in silence, you know. They’re – they sometimes feel like they’re losers or rejects or being punished in some way. What advice do you have for people that are living through those troubles?

Allie: Just to keep a positive outlook. Amongst my friends, the people that had gotten laid off that got jobs fairly quickly were people who didn’t let it bring them down. The people who approached it with that they were too good to work a menial job in the meantime to pay the bills are the ones that are still looking for jobs out here.

Steve: So the people that contact me most often are feeling very desperate, sometimes even suicidal, and they don’t know what to do at all. I know that keeping a positive outlook is a good thing to do, but when you’re feeling so – I don’t know. When you’re feeling like you have personally failed, I know – what advice do you have for somebody to get to the point of being able to have a positive outlook? How do you put those feelings aside?

Allie: I think you have to rely on your friends and family. You have to have a good support system. I think you have to approach it as looking for a job is your job. It’s not just something you have to do. It’s – you know, you make a fulltime job out of searching for employment, and I know there are some people that get very down in the dumps there. I think you just have to have a support system to do that or rely on your support system or reach out to your friends and your contacts and, you know, don’t be ashamed of where you’re at. Just, you know, tell everybody that you know what you’re doing and what you’re going through so that they can help you out.

Steve: So you’re feeling more positive about the future.

Allie: Yes.

Steve: And do you see that there’ll be a time when you might make a big purchase? You might feel confident enough to go back to using credit again?

Allie: I’m getting there. We are carrying a lotta debt from the last year and a half, two years, so I’d like to get that paid off before, you know, we start doing that again, but it’s feeling more comfortable than it was.

Steve: Now your husband’s in the Navy and has been for two years?

Allie: Two years.

Steve: Two years now. Is being a military wife – is that a difficult financial path?

Allie: The thing I ran into – I had it happen on two separate occasions – as a military spouse going in it’s pretty common knowledge that we have very good benefits and, you know, his job is steady. He’s not gonna get laid off. So I found jobs where I was one of many possible candidates. A lot of the time the feeling that I got was because I wasn’t the most desperate of those seeking jobs that I probably got passed over because – for somebody else who did need a job because they knew that I wasn’t – you know, yes, we need that extra income, but in terms of jobs with benefits and things like that, I wasn’t top of the list as far as that goes and I think a lot – especially in a small town, a lot of employers were looking at that as well as qualifications.

Steve: You live in an area that’s probably 30 or 40 minutes from a mid-sized city, Charlottesville. Would you consider relocating to a different area to find employment or is living in your small town that you’re very comfortable with your top priority? You know, what I’m trying to get at is that there are jobs that are available out there for people and I hear people telling me that they’re not willing to relocate. What’s your opinion about that?

Allie: I would be willing to relocate. The military makes that kinda difficult. Granted, my husband’s stationed somewhere and he’s committed to being there for the time being. Within a local area, that is certainly a possibility and there’s a lot of things, you know, people have to do. We’re at a disadvantage because we own a home, so the housing market also impacted us and, you know, kind of limiting us where we could – where I personally could look for someplace else to be while he was gone because, you know, of the housing situation. So having a mortgage and also having to rent somewhere else was not a feasible thing.

Steve: I was just thinking today on the long drive down here about, you know, living through financial troubles, being nervous and scared and concerned about that, looking at moving to a new area where you don’t potentially know anybody and looking for a job at the same time all seems like it creates so much fear that you’d almost get paralyzed into not doing anything.

Allie: Well, I think us being a military family it’s – you have to be open to moving anyway because it eventually happens and that’s the lifestyle, so having to look outside for a job, I think we’re in an advantage of that because we’re used to being able to be prepared to go if you need to go. So it’s not as scary for us as it is for, you know, most people, who especially have lived in a place for a long time and have established, you know, family or friends or, you know, spent their professional career in one place. You know, it’s a little bit different. We’re always on the ready to go, so.

Steve: All right. Well, thank you very much, Allie.

Allie: Thank you.

@GetOutOfDebtGuy

An Interview With Two Guys Standing Atop a Burning Coal Mine

Steve Rhode — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:53:51 +0000

From How to Get Out of Debt

Centralia, PA is an interesting place. It is said that map makers and GPS providers want to take it off the maps. Ever since a seam of coal caught fire below ground decades ago, a smoldering coal fire has burned below this town.

From a town of 2,000 residents, it is down to about 10, but some houses still remain. Main Street is still paved but without a single building on it. Railroad Avenue pushes out steps that once belonged to what look like thriving businesses. All gone now.

Evidence of the mine fire is hard to spot. You need to look near the old cemetery to see smoke and heat that emerge out from cracks in the ground to support the continued claims of the fire that continues to rage below my feet as I stand here.

Walking down a back road and searching for more smoking holes in Centralia I ran into Al and Rob and got a chance to talk to them about the economy, credit and debt.

Al & Rob

These guys are the only two that specifically said they make it a point to pay their credit cards in full each month to avoid paying interest charges.

While they have some distinct opinions about those that have fallen to the doorstep of bankruptcy, they are also forgiving when options are limited. Their comments about the need for savings are important. Rob was rescued by his emergency fund when he was laid off.

Al recommends that people using credit cards need to be responsible for reading the fine print of contracts but he observes that his pest control customers don’t read the contract for his services.

Click here to listen to Al and Rob.

You can subscribe to my series of debt interviews through iTunes by clicking here.

Transcript

Interviewer: I’m standing here in Centralia Pennsylvania with two very fine gentlemen and you are?

Rob Rossie: My name’s Rob Rossie, Rob.

Allen Haber: Allen Haber.

Interviewer: Come here a little closer. All right, now I know why I’m in Centralia Pennsylvania, why are you here?

Allen Haber: Probably the same reason, curiosity.

Interviewer: See the mine fire, yeah.

Allen Haber: Curiosity basically.

Interviewer: Yeah, where you guys from?

Allen Haber: I’m Philadelphia.

Rob Rossie: I live in Hatfield.

Interviewer: Okay, that must be somewhere not too far away?

Rob Rossie: Right outside Philly.

Allen Haber: Yeah.

Interviewer: I been traveling all around the country asking people about the economy, how things are going. What’s your impression? Do you think that things are dire and desperate as we hear on the news all the time?

Allen Haber: In my opinion things are definitely getting better. It was much worse last summer as far as I see things. I own a business and I do see a difference. Things are definitely picking up. It’s not where I want it to be yet, but it’s definitely getting better. To me, over the past couple months it’s been definitely getting better.

Interviewer: Do you think that –

Allen Haber: I’m busy.

Interviewer: Well that’s – what kinda business do you have?

Allen Haber: Pest control.

Interviewer: Okay well there’s –

Allen Haber: I won’t plug it.

Interviewer: Oh that’s okay. Pests never go away do they? It’s –

Allen Haber: They pretty much are here to stay.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Allen Haber: They’ll be here after us.

Interviewer: Now that’s interesting, in the pest control business, people have pest issues all the time but do they make conscious decisions in down times that well, we can’t afford to take care of em?

Allen Haber: Well, that is the problem. People will go out and get the can of Raid. They’ll try anything on their own and then they’ll call me afterward.

Interviewer: Yeah, it’s just more expensive that way isn’t it?

Allen Haber: Pretty much, I mean sometimes you could do things on your own but I wouldn’t know cause those people I guess don’t call me because they’re doing their own thing but what could I say?

Interviewer: How about you in your world? What’s the economy like in Hatfield?

Rob Rossie: Well, I work for a big company. I work for Johnson and Johnson and I haven’t really seen, I mean at work it’s been pretty steady for the past couple years cause we haven’t been affected too much. But outside of work I think it is getting better like Al said, over the last year or two with gas prices coming down and people are spending a little more money now I think than they were. People are taking vacations. We’re out all the time on motorcycles. We see people out.

Interviewer: What do you ride?

Rob Rossie: We have a – we both have Kawasaki’s.

Interviewer: Okay.

Rob Rossie: And we’re all over the place.

Interviewer: I ride too.

Rob Rossie: Oh you do?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Rob Rossie: Yeah, we have the Kawasaki Tours and we go out for a given day, we left this morning at like nine, we’ll go out all day and ride and we don’t even – it doesn’t affect nowadays even with gas prices. We’ll go out. It doesn’t, you know stuff like leisure time like today.

Allen Haber: Cheap day riding.

Rob Rossie: Yeah.

Interviewer: That’s true, it is cheap day. What about people who, you know all over the country there are people that are struggling with credit and debt issues. They got money troubles, they might be worried about their houses, they might file bankruptcy, they feel like losers and rejects. What advice do you have for people who are in that situation?

Rob Rossie: Just ride it out. I was unemployed for 4 or 5 months a couple years ago and it takes a while to recover, even from just a 3 or 4 month layoff. So I can’t even imagine – my heart goes out to people who are still you know for a year or two you get to the point where you just don’t know what to do with yourself.

Interviewer: So now they’re looking down on themselves that somehow they had failed.

Rob Rossie: Same thing happened to me when I was unemployed and you just have to keep going, you have to keep looking and eventually you will find a job and feel better and recover. But yeah, it’s a tough time for a lot of people right now and I’m just lucky right now that it hasn’t really affected me too bad.

Interviewer: All right and how about you? What do you have to say to people who are struggling?

Allen Haber: Save your money, don’t spend it and things will get better. There’s not much more to say. Once you spend the money and make the mistake, there’s no real turning back. Just gotta, like Rob says, stick it out, hang on, things are getting better.

Interviewer: Well you know one of the things I run into are people that are faced with maybe only bankruptcy as a real option but feel that there’s a big stigma or a moral shame about going bankrupt. Do you have any problem if somebody goes bankrupt if they don’t have any other choice?

Allen Haber: Really I don’t have a problem with it. Credit card debt to me though is not a reason. It’s irresponsibility for the most part. Not with everybody, some people are in a jam, they need to charge things but when you owe 10,000 or 20,000 or more on a credit card, then you wanna blame somebody else for it, doesn’t cut it.

Interviewer: How about with you? What do you say?

Rob Rossie: Yeah, like Al said, I think it’s the same kinda thing where – I don’t look down on people that file bankruptcy. But if it’s their own fault and they’re going out and they’re buying stupid stuff and living way out of their means, then I hate to say they deserve it but you have to be a little more careful. And I’m sure people learned. You know that’s probably the only good thing about it is the economy kinda, when it’s this bad I think people kinda learn, well, in the future I’m gonna really make sure I have a couple months saved up.

Interviewer: Yeah, well some people have described it as the teachable moment. It kinda woke a lot of people up that –

Rob Rossie: Oh yeah, yeah I believe that cause we was – I mean it was too good for a long time.

Interviewer: A long time, yeah.

Rob Rossie: People got this false sense of security, they started spending too much money and –

Interviewer: What about credit cards? Have either of you noticed that credit card companies have started reducing limits and raising interest rates?

Allen Haber: I didn’t see that as much. I’m hearing of it. My rate is still the same fixed for I don’t know how many years, probably about eight years now and I never let anything go beyond 30 days so the credit card companies don’t like me. I pay everything off as soon as I get the bill.

Interviewer: Yeah, so you never pay any interest.

Allen Haber: And when it is the rate is like 7.9 I’m paying if I were to pay it and that’s still not – it’s the same as it was for like years. So yeah, some people are paying more but you gotta read the fine print. Don’t sign on something you’re not sure of, especially now.

Interviewer: You know a lot of people don’t read the fine print at all.

Allen Haber: I know, I know.

Interviewer: Now when you sign a – you go to a customer’s house, you have a contract right for pest services?

Allen Haber: Sure.

Interviewer: How many people read that?

Allen Haber: My contract is not even a contract cause we don’t really do contracts. And what is to read there is like three paragraphs, which could be read in like less than a minute. There’s no fine print and like I said, there’s no contract, it’s strictly a 30-day thing. They could add on if they want to. It’s their option, so there’s really no contract with us.

Interviewer: Do you notice people read all three paragraphs or they just sign and forget it?

Allen Haber: Most people don’t even read it; they just sign it, exactly. And I’ll usually read it to them. I’ll let them know what it says at last, just you know, common courtesy.

Interviewer: All right and how about you? Last question, have you noticed any change in credit cards, limits, interest rates, access to credit?

Rob Rossie: No, I’m actually in the same boat as Al cause I have the same cards for years and I don’t carry a balance. So I haven’t really tried to get a new card in so many years. It didn’t really impact me at all so I really don’t know.

Interviewer: All right, well thank you very much gentlemen.

Allen Haber: You are welcome.

Rob Rossie: Yeah, you’re welcome.

Interviewer: All right thanks Rob, thanks guys. Have a safe ride.

Allen Haber: All right, thank you.

Rob Rossie: Hey, thanks a lot man.

Allen Haber: Enjoy.

Interviewer: Bye.

@GetOutOfDebtGuy

Thomas Fox Chats With Me About You. Listen.

Steve Rhode — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:36:58 +0000

From How to Get Out of Debt

Thomas Fox, whom you will find on Twitter at @ThomasJFox, is a personal finance expert, counselor, teacher and a fellow person who is passionate about helping people with money troubles.

Thom and I met in Springfield, Massachusetts as I was passing through the area on the downhill loop of my tour talking to people about money, the economy, credit and debt.

Sitting in my van outside of a Starbucks we chatted about access to credit, treating yourself to pleasure in downtimes, financial education, student loans, and how to build a good budget.

I invite you to listen to Thom, below.

Listen to My Interview With Thom

You can subscribe to my series of debt interviews through iTunes by clicking here.

Transcript

Interviewer: All right. Well, I’m here with Thom Fox. I guess we could almost say, “The renowned personal finance expert,” but Thom is certainly a personal finance expert. He’s on Twitter, and he’s been working in this field for a while. He’s a spokesman for a company and if anybody has an outlook on what consumer life is like, credit and debt, in the economy, you’re one of those people who has your finger on the pulse, so how do you think things are going just generally for people right now?

Thom Fox: From what I’ve seen so far, people are just really – they’re overwhelmingly concerned about the American economy, about their own stability, and I think their future’s in question to the point where they’re uncomfortable with many of the purchases that in the past would seem very much routine. They’re really doing the mental gymnastics about where do I wanna go? We’re coming from a savings rate that was in 2007, if I’m not mistaken, -2.7 percent and now we’re climbing up towards 7, but we’re still behind where other countries are, so we can see that shift where people are saying, “I’ve gotta hold onto my money a little bit better,” but there’s also that talk that I hear with the people I educate is, “When are things gonna get better?” They’re looking for that hope, and they’re concerned about the light at the end of the tunnel, and many of them just don’t see it.

Interviewer: Do you think that people miss those days of being able to go out and purchase things that they like to provide themselves with entertainment?

Thom Fox: They do. They miss it. We’re an instant gratification kind of society with the expansion of the malls in the 1970’s. That just helped us out all that much more. We had the ability to go out and do what we wanted to do, but people looked at different things, more so in a very generic sense.

For instance, their 401k’s and even Social Security, they’re saying, “Well, that’s my retirement fund,” and to step them away from that and say, “No, really, this is only part of the puzzle. What are you doing with the rest of your financial life?” They’re starting to take that to heart now.

They’re starting to realize. We have, since the beginning 2008, 6.7 billion jobs that have been lost, and those jobs aren’t readily being put back into the economy. Someone doesn’t know what’s gonna happen to them and how long it’s gonna be. I think the average time being unemployed is over six months, well over six months, so if someone’s worried about if I’m unemployed Thomorrow, I don’t think I have the money to really keep myself going.

Interviewer: Well, I was surprised in my travels. I spoke to one marketing manager at a resort who said this has been the slowest year for them with reservations, which I understand, but he said, “Things are really picking up. It’s like people are reaching the end of summer and realizing, ‘I haven’t had a vacation yet. I’d better do something,’” so they’re now starting to part with some money.

Thom Fox: They are, but now we have to look at where the money’s been going. A lot of people have used their credit cards to fuel a lot of things. I think people – where credit card debt has been down in the country is $928 billion dollars down from $977 billion, but it could be that we’re talking about a lot. The economists were like, “We have this pent up wanna go out and buy.”
We could be getting to that cap because a lot of people could be getting stressed, and let’s be honest, a vacation is not just about the financial part. It’s about the psychological part. “I need a break. I need to do something. I’ve gotta get out of here,” and really, you really can’t put any price on that, so yeah, we could see some people coming around and saying, “I’ve gotta do a little bit more for myself.”

Interviewer: Is it wrong for people to want to treat themselves to a weekend getaway or some small vacation even in desperate times?

Thom Fox: Absolutely not. As far as we know, we go around this place once, might as well enjoy it while we’re here. Obviously we wanna have money saved for certain emergencies and that’s – more so where what I try and do with people is a lot of people say, “Oh, I wanna invest. I wanna do all these things.” Well, you’ve gotta learn how to walk before you can run, and I work on very – just giving people the basics.

I would say 80 percent of the people I talk to don’t understand credit scores. They don’t understand. Even 90 percent of the people don’t have budgets, so when you try to get them on that path and they start to realize, “I can save money doing this. I can save money doing that. I can do this and this,” and then when they start to see that I can build savings, I can do these things, there’s that confidence. I know I can prepare, but I also know that I can take care of myself in the process.

Interviewer: Budget in a little fun.

Thom Fox: You need a little fun, and I think that gets them over to the fun aspect when people start to become – I mean education is the largest tool that we have in this country. Understanding something completely gives you the confidence. I know I can build savings, so wow, I’m gonna do that, but now it’s time to take care of me a little bit.

Interviewer: What about credit cards? Have you had a period of time in your life where you might’ve experienced some stress, some financial stress, and lived through some issues yourself?

Thom Fox: When I was younger, I inherited a fair amount of money. I got married and divorced quickly thereafter, and lost all of the inheritance that I had, which is really what got me on the path of personal finance. I didn’t understand any of the mistakes I made. I didn’t understand why I should’ve been protected with my investments or anything, and then I looked into it, and as I started to look into it, I started to realize more and more just how many people did not know this. When I went to work for the organization I’m with right now, it was a small place. It’s a not-for-profit, and I had to move into different areas, and one of the areas they said is, “Based on what you know, why not work in the education area,” and it’s been 14 years now, and I’ve just been teaching personal finance and developing programs, and it’s been great, but it all started from a bad experience.

It’s only bad if you let it be bad. It’s a learning experience otherwise, and I just look at it as probably the most expensive learning experience I ever had, but a close second is my college education, but I’ve had some tough times with money, and I’ve had tough times with credit too. Because of all that, I fell into collections and had collections agents calling me and pulled in every different direction and it takes time. Just as it took time for me to get into trouble with my finances, it took me a long time to get out of trouble. Despite what anybody says, there’s no overnight magic bullet.

You can’t call a credit report company, and boom, you’re done. It takes time. You just have to – it’s patience. It took a lot of patience of mine, but it also helped me do different things in my life, like really understand what people need to know about finances and how it can help themselves.
Interviewer: Now you and I both know that when people are struggling through these difficulties that they feel like they’re the only ones that are going through this. They’re suffering in silence. They feel like losers and rejects and feel just very despondent about their situation. Somehow they failed. What do you have to say to people when they’re feeling like that?

Thom Fox: Well, there’s been circumstances in my own life where I felt that way, not because of finance but for other things, and one of the lessons I learned is that there’s billions of people on this planet. There’s been billions and billions of people before us and so on. Someone somewhere has gone through a similar situation that you have – talk about it. One of the largest obstacles I see for relationships is no one talks about money, especially if you have to go now do a budget for a family. No one really wants to talk about it, but you need to get people on board.

You need to have a conversation about it, and you’d be surprised. You don’t have to get intimate about it. You don’t have to say, “Well, I make $80,000.00 a year but I can’t afford this,” and there’s your cousin making $35,000.00, and he feels all intimidated. You don’t have to do all that but you can say, “Listen, I’m having some troubles.”

You’d be surprised at how many people are having trouble in one way or another. College students, for instance – everybody’s graduating this year. I’m mystified as to how they’re gonna take care of this situation. The job market’s just not there, and these student loans are gonna start coming due, and if their payments are gonna be – I graduate next year.

If their payments are gonna be anything like mine, I don’t know where they’re getting the $500.00 a month or whatever to pay it, unless obviously they’re gonna consolidate their loans and so forth, but they’re gonna be very stressed. They need to talk about it, and I think I see a lot of young kids talking about it and already preparing for it, which is encouraging on my end – they’re knowing. “Okay, this is coming down the road. I’ve gotta prepare for it,” so we’re making that shift I think a little bit in society to be a little bit more open about it, but we probably have a little bit more to go.
Interviewer: Now college loans are actually scary. Student loans are one of those things that everyone thinks is good debt, debt that we should take on, but student loans are very unforgiving if you run into financial problems. How do you – what do you say to people to prepare themselves for college and not just, “Oh, don’t worry. They’ll give you financing.” Should you plan in advance? Should you base your education on what you can afford?

Thom Fox: Well, I took a breath there because it’s a dual kind of aspect. I’ll share a little bit. I dropped out of high school in ninth grade. I ran into a lot of problems. I actually started a couple of agencies that help kids who are considering dropping out of high school to keep them in high school and then get them onto college, and I’m working with a new program now as a mentor to do the same.

In my opinion, the best education that you can ever – the best investment you can ever make is in your education because even beyond the fact of what you can do for earnings for yourself, there’s still the ability of what you can understand in the world, and again, if you have the knowledge of something, you can better be prepared for it, plus there’s so many ways with the internet and everything else that you can create income, and it’s not just about making one stream of income. It could be multiple, but that comes from education, knowing the world and how it works. You should have a plan going into it. I don’t know if we should put a price tag per se on well, I know I can only afford $30,000.00, so I’m stopping when I get to $30,000.00. I think you should make the plan beyond.

This is what I wanna do with my college education after I graduate, and then work a plan from there to say, “I have to create the streams of income that will help me sustain my college loan which is gonna be X amount of dollars per month.” I’ve spoken to people that have done this. One of my friends actually, she graduated three years ago for nursing, and within the first two years of her employment, she’s paid off all of her student loans because she had a plan going into it. She didn’t say, “I can only afford this much,” but she said, “I know when I’m done this is gonna be waiting for me, so what do I have to do now to prepare for that?”

Interviewer: Have you had those clients come to you like I have that are in their third year of law school and they’re a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt and then they decide, “I don’t wanna be a doctor. I don’t wanna be a lawyer.”

Thom Fox: I haven’t had those and I think I may have read about one of those on your site. It’s a difficult choice, but there’s other things you can do with that education too. You don’t necessarily have to be a lawyer. You could go into consulting or something along those lines. There’s gotta be a way to parlay that, and off of the top of my head I don’t know what it is, but again, having the education is one thing and then applying it is another, so there’s multiple things you could probably do, but again, having a plan going into it, and it’s tough today.

If you’re a young kid and you’re going all the way through medical school, by the time you get to the end of it, you’re talking about a substantial amount of your life that things change. Especially being a younger person, that could be a quarter of their life or two-thirds, and next thing you know they’re like, “Well, wait a minute. I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.” It’s challenging, but again, you do have the education.

You can do something with it. You’ve just gotta have that spark inside of you to say, “Well, all right. I’ve got this. What do I do with it?”

Interviewer: Well, people are oftentimes very irritated at credit card companies and one of the things that they don’t seem to understand is that having a credit card is a privilege, not a right.

Thom Fox: True and I’ve seen a lot of it too, especially with the new Card Act that’s been passed. People are saying, “Well, it should’ve happened years ago,” and I think we’ve gotta get back to the mindset that a credit card organization is a business. The credit card companies, they’re in business to make money. They have to look at the situation. They have to protect their shareholders, and a lot of it now I see, that’s my view of it.

They’re cutting back on credit limits and realigning things because they wanna buffer their shareholders. It’s a privilege in a sense that you don’t have to fuel your lifestyle on credit cards but unfortunately because of the ease of access to credit – several years ago I had someone I was educating in a class and they pulled out 30 credit cards that they had from Sears and this one and that one and the other one and then the regular brands, and you’re going, “Why do you need all those?” “Well, if I wanna shop here, I use this.” We have this – the name escapes me, but we feel as though we have a right to this, and it’s not a right. It is a privilege, and people abuse privileges sometimes.

Sometimes it’s not even their fault because it just gets so easy. Everywhere you go now, you don’t even need to carry cash. We’re going to a cashless society, and the next thing you know, you turn around, you’re $40,000.00, $50,000.00 in credit card debt and you’re scratching your head how you got there because it can happen so quickly.

Interviewer: So let’s talk about savings now. Just recently people have started to save more, but they haven’t for a long time, and what do you tell people about the importance of an emergency fund or putting cash away? It’s almost like it needs to be spent, especially in times when income might not be as great as it once was. How do you promote that?

Thom Fox: You couldn’t even bring up the words, emergency fund, three years ago because no one wanted to hear it because everybody was doing fantastic. The unemployment – I mean we were losing maybe 6,000 jobs a month so no one was worried about unemployment whatsoever. Now you talk about an emergency fund and everybody’s, “What do I do? How much do I need?”
It’s very much dependent upon their situation. You can use the economy right now to teach them. For lack of a better word, it is a teachable moment that’s happening in our economy. I have a colleague, master’s degree, two and a half years unemployed, can’t find a job. He had to go through the administration’s mortgage program because they were about ready to lose their house, and that’s a situation that I try and bring into the classes.

This is an MBA educated – get their MBA. He has to hide it on resumes when he wants to go out there because he can’t get a job because he has an MBA, so it’s a very odd moment, but this is where you really talk about the psychology of what’s going on in the country versus your own personal economy. You need to be prepared. You need to have cash on hand.

You need to build up as much as you have. If the average rate of unemployment is six months, the average duration, try to save a year’s worth of income. It’s a lot of money. It’s gonna take you a while to get there, but when you have it, and if something happens, you don’t have to fret.
Obviously, there will be a level of concern if someone were to lose their unemployment, but you can breathe a little by saying, “I have enough money to take care of my family. My insurances are covered. God forbid anything happens. I’m prepared,” and that’s really where you wanna get. You wanna be prepared.

Interviewer: All right, Thom, anything that we should talk about that we haven’t?

Thom Fox: The one thing, because it’s my profession, is financial literacy in the country. Right now we’re at nine states that actually mandate that financial literacy be taught in high school as a matter of graduation, and I think that if a lot more people were to be educated – an education in school is about an education in life, and how could we not talk about finances as a part of that? I understand algebra and everything like that. Don’t like it, but I know that I’m gonna need to understand how to use a credit card much more than I’m gonna need to know how to use algebra, so I’d like to see more states adopt financial literacy just to give people that upper hand when they have to get involved in situations, and they have to do it young too.

As soon as you graduate high school, they were lining up to give you credit cards. That’s gonna change now, but you still have to manage a checking account. You still have to build savings. You still have to understand a budget, so you still need to know the basics of finance, and I’d like to see more places do that.

Interviewer: I constantly scratch my head about it because financial education, financial literacy is something that seems so common sensical, that people should engage in it, but yet you look at organizations like the Jump$tart coalition and you look at their annual reports that constantly show that students that go through financial literacy classes actually score worse on the financial exams than the students who don’t. There’s almost no measurable impact right now. Is the problem that we’re not teaching it the right way or –

Thom Fox: I can’t speak for their organization. I know the organization I’m with – we do pre and post testing. We do show that there is an impact from the education that we deliver. It could be the way it’s in delivery too. I was talking to another blogger on one of their posts, and just like you said, building off that a little bit, people think it’s rudimentary.

They should already know it, and what I’ve seen sometimes is sometimes people teach it that way, like credit scores are this, and they don’t go into the very basics of it. Randy Pausch, when he did The Last Lecture, he talked about something which I always loved. He talked about meeting his childhood goals and one of the things was to play football.

He never got to do it but he said, “You know what? I’m better off that I didn’t because what I did learn from football was what my coach told me when I was a kid. We went in there one day. We wanted to play football and all the kids were like, ‘Well, let’s go play,’ and he’s like, ‘Well, wait a minute. How many guys hold a football at any given time?’

They go, ‘One person.’ He goes, ‘All right, we’re gonna learn what the rest of the people on the field are doing when that one person has the football.’” Basically, what he did is he taught the basics, drilled it into them and if you do that, in my opinion, if you approach personal finance from giving the basics, understanding what’s in a credit score, understanding what aspects should go to certain parts of your budget, once you build that foundation, then it’s that opportunity for someone to build off of. You don’t need to be a millionaire to be rich. You just need to know how to manage your finances correctly and the rest falls into place.

Interviewer: Do you think there’s some benefit to teaching how to use a credit card in practical terms? For example, encouraging high school seniors to have a stored value card that the parents can monitor, have a deposit and use it and know how to look at a statement and read it?

Thom Fox: There’s definitely a benefit to that. Many of the people even that my organization works with – they don’t know how to read a credit card statement. It’s not saying anything against them. It’s just that they’ve never been taught how it is. I still deal with people who don’t know how to reconcile their checking account, and again, I’ve been in the industry for 14 years, and you go, “You think someone would know it but you can’t teach it that way.”

I think there is a benefit to knowing the basics. Anybody can build from there. Again, if I know how I can budget, then I know how I can allocate a certain portion of my funds to invest, so I know that putting that money here, I can now build on that, but again, it all comes from the basics, so I think it’s a benefit for high school students to learn – change up home economics for a sense. We’re not making Bundt cakes anymore. Home economics is how do I keep the lights on in my house? How do I pay my mortgage?

Interviewer: Let’s talk about budgeting for a second. When I see people, when they get into trouble, the first thing they do is they sit down and they wanna make out a budget to accomplish a goal, which is to stop the collectors from calling and meet their expenses, but they trim everything out of the budget that may be perceived as fun, like no going out, no cable TV, no nothing, and they set themselves up for failure. How do you build in a little fun into difficult times like that?

Thom Fox: Well, the first thing I tell anybody to do is first of all call everybody. For instance, the other evening, I call my cable provider ‘cause I’m always looking for ways to save. I was able to find out about promotions that are going on with both the internet service that I have as well as the cable service that I have. I actually wound up getting more cable TV than I had in the past, but I shaved $60.00 a month off just by asking, so before you say, “Well, I’m gonna cut out my cable TV and I’m gonna cut this out,” call everybody, all your service providers, explain your situation.
They know that it’s tough out there, but they also know that they don’t wanna lose any clients, so it’s still a business. Even though I’m not making $150.00 a month off this cable account, I’m also not making zero, so if I can get somebody down to $90.00 and keep them as a cusThomer, I’m still making money. A little bit less, but I still have that client built in. Call everyone.

Don’t cut all the fun stuff out. You still need to – we’re still human beings. A large part of our makeup is our philosophy, our psychology, and we need to decompress. Don’t cut all that out, but again, seek advice too. There’s plenty of agencies. There’s plenty of blogs out there, like your blog and other places that give good advice, and it’s free. You’ve just gotta look for it.

Interviewer: All right, Thom, well, thank you very much.

Thom Fox: Thank you.

@GetOutOfDebtGuy

Jug Rents Me a Harley, Talks About Life, the Economy, and People That File Bankruptcy

Steve Rhode — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:30:42 +0000

From How to Get Out of Debt

Jug owns an Eagle Rider store in New Hampshire. He spent a few minutes chatting with me today as I picked up a Harley Electra Glide to take a look around New Hampshire to see how the economy was impacting the area.

This was the third or fourth area that I’ve seen a lot of roadwork being completed as part of the economic stimulus work to help invigorate these economic times. And thankfully there are plenty of roads in New Hampshire that can greatly benefit from repaving.

Jug just recently retired from the local newspaper and admitted that for journalism to move forward, newspapers will need to reinvent themselves and it will probably become harder to find qualified journalists.

Listen to my interview with Jug

If you are facing money troubles or you’ve had to go bankrupt, I think you will find Jug’s views of people that have to go bankrupt, refreshing. But Jug isn’t the only person that has had this point of view. If you listen to some of my other interviews, you will notice a common thread of opinion that people have about bankrupts, and it will surprise you.

You can subscribe to my series of debt interviews through iTunes by clicking here.

@GetOutOfDebtGuy

Transcript

Interviewer: Jug, I’m traveling around talking to people about the economy, credit and debt and how things have affected people. What have you observed? Has the economy hurt your business at all?

Jug: I think the economy has affected us somewhat. Unfortunately this year, this summer in New Hampshire the rain has affected us more but overall people are still looking to go out and have a good time so we are renting.

Interviewer: And what about the local economy, has it suffered?

Jug: I think the local economy here in New Hampshire probably in the last six months has definitely suffered. We have quite a bit of unemployment. Unfortunately the state has had to raise a lot of fees. I think there’s been 38 new fees or taxes added this year in the state of New Hampshire.

Interviewer: Are some of those specifically targeted towards the small business?

Jug: They raised the tax on the rentals from 8 to 8%. Not a big increase but it’s more money. Some of the other fees, license plate fees are going up so it’s all – it’s not really taxes but it’s just little fees that are gonna affect all of us.

Interviewer: Now I’m standing in a Harley rental store, Eagle Rider Store and so what you’re telling me is that even in the worst of times that Harley riders are very dedicated.

Jug: Harley riders wanna come out. I think no matter what people still wanna enjoy their weekend or have a good tome so they’re gonna come out and take a bike and at least get away from their problems for a day.

Interviewer: Have people who have rented, have some of em been people who have sold their bike cause they couldn’t afford it and just now wanna get –

Jug: A lot of people have had bikes in their younger years and now they wanna get back into it so they’ll rent a Harley to try – to get their feet wet again, to see what they like. A lot of people would love to own a Harley but here in New England with the long winters it’s more reasonable to come and rent one than to pay the storage, maintenance, insurance and registration.

Interviewer: Do you know anybody up here who’s been affected by the foreclosures?

Jug: Not personally I don’t. none of my friends have been affected by foreclosures but I recently retired from the local newspaper and every day there’s lots of ads in there for the legal foreclosure notices. It’s probably what’s keeping the business going for the newspaper.

Interviewer: So that’s interesting that you just retired from newspapers. Newspapers have really been hit in this economy. It seems like the newspapers that we knew of yesteryear are not going to survive tomorrow. What do you think?

Jug: I think, well in my case I have two kids, they’re 25 and 20. They grew up in a house with newspapers and neither one of them are big newspaper readers where in my generation, that’s how you got your news and I still read the paper every day.

Interviewer: What do you think journalists are going to have to do, reinvent themselves or leave the field or what?

Jug: I think they’re gonna have to figure out a compensation program to pay journalists to put stuff on the Internet. I don’t know how that’ll work. I know you can go – almost every paper today is online. It has to be to stay in business. I think that’s probably a problem they’re gonna have in the future is getting qualified journalists.

Interviewer: So which do you like better at this time in your life? Would you rather be back in journalism or whatever you did there, or would you rather be here renting Harleys?

Jug: Actually I’d much rather be renting Harleys. This is much more fun.

Interviewer: Do you know anybody who’s struggled during these times, maybe had some money troubles or worries or –

Jug: I think most of the people in my circle of friends are conscientious of their money now. I don’t think anybody’s spending any excess money. They’re not doing major home improvements, maybe not going on the big vacation. I think a lot of people are staying local this year. I think that’s probably true all over America.

Interviewer: And a lot of people that I help all over the country are struggling financially. They’re facing bankruptcy, they can’t pay the bills and they’re very embarrassed and stressed and worried and feel like losers and rejects. What do you have to say for people who are feeling like that?

Jug: Well I think you always have to keep your head up and I think there’s always a sunny day coming. Although I think for all of us there are days you can’t see that but I think if you keep a positive attitude I think you’ll be okay.

Interviewer: How do you think about people who file bankruptcy?

Jug: If that’s the point you’ve gotten to, if you have to file to maybe start over again, I don’t have a problem with it. I hope I don’t have to.

Interviewer: But do you think negatively about those people?

Jug: No, no, no, I mean I think even the best planning gin the – anybody can fall into that trap of I mean all it takes is a couple people in the same family getting laid off and all of a sudden the cash flow is zero. And I don’t think many Americans today have a big enough bank account to go six or eight months without something coming in.

Interviewer: Have you noticed credit card companies have been changing the way they play the game?

Jug: Absolutely, yes. Several of my credit cards, my limit has been reduced and one credit card in particular they’ve just raised my interest rate. It just went outta sight so they’ll be going down the road.

Interviewer: All right well Jug, I thank you very much.

Jug: You’re welcome. Have a great day.

My Interview With the Leaders at the Vermont Country Store

Steve Rhode — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:23:39 +0000

From How to Get Out of Debt

The Vermont Country Store evokes thoughts of what life was like many years ago even if you are not chronologically entitled to remember back that far. We think back to simpler times when people knew your name, when candy was a penny and when the local general store was the place to go and meet friends and share stories.

Those days may be long gone in most parts of the country but the guys and gals at the Vermont Country Store have managed to keep alive two outposts of those general store days gone by in Vermont. But thanks to technology the reach of the Vermont Country Store is now global through their website VermontCountryStore.com

Today must have been my lucky day. On sort notice I was able to sit down with the president and CEO Bill Shouldice and two brother’s from the family that owns the company, Eliot and Cabot Orton. We talk about the impact of the economy on a business, when is the best time to start a business, advice for people crossing turbulent waters and how to hold your head up in difficult times.

Listen to the Vermont Country Store interview

The Vermont Country Store is very active in attempts to bring back the right for people to dry their clothes outside on an old fashioned clothesline. Pam and I started doing that again to help cut energy consumption since we put our solar panels in. The Vermont Country Store is a great place to shop for those needed supplies, clothesline, clothespins, and I even walked away with a nostalgic clothespin bag for our outdoor dryer.

Inside the Weston, VT original Vermont Country Store. Doesn’t it just feel like you’ve stepped back in time?

The proprietor brothers and the president of the Vermont Country Store. From left to right, Gardner Orton, Eliot Orton, Cabot Orton, Bill Shouldice

You can subscribe to my series of debt interviews through iTunes by clicking here.

@GetOutOfDebtGuy

Transcript

Interviewer: So the Vermont Country Store has been around since before 1946 right? The first store opened in ’46?

Eliot Orton: Our grandfather Rest Orton and our grandmother Ellen Orton opened the Vermont Country Store in western Vermont in 1946 but before that opened – started a mail order catalog in the fall of 1945 and our grandfather grew up in a small country store up in Callis Vermont, north Callis Vermont. So the country store was in his blood and has been in our family for quite a long time.

Interviewer: So if you just joined us, if you could just give us your name with a voice and spell your name for me.

Cabot Orton: Hi, I’m Cabot Orton, that’s c-a-b-o-t o-r-t-o-n.

Interviewer: Would your great grandfather, your grandfather recognize the business today if he came back?

Cabot Orton: I think they’d be a little astonished at the scale of the business. I think they’d also be surprised by the fact that it’s not just a catalog anymore. We have, of course, a web site and I think they’d be delighted to see how far people will travel from all over the world to visit the two stores that we have here in Vermont.

Interviewer: So do you have – it’s like asking which is your favorite child, but do you have a favorite store? Is it the original or is it the new one or what is it?

Eliot Orton: Well I think we – I don’t wanna say to the folks that work there because they’re both unique and special in their own right. The store in Rockingham at times can be a little less busy on some days than Weston so can go down there and you can kind of be a little more alone to your thoughts. And Weston can be pretty busy on most days but are both truly authentic country stores and unique in their own way and just I love em both.

Bill Shouldice: Yeah, what I like about Weston is it’s in a traditional kind of Vermont downtown setting off the green. And so it’s just, it’s picturesque. But the same token, you know what’s really exciting about Rockingham is it has the same merchandise assortment but it’s got a nice covered bridge around it. All the land around it is very bucolic and hearkens back to the agrarian roots of Vermont along with a beautiful trout pond and a gristmill and it’s just – it’s a special place as well.

Interviewer: Well, I’m traveling around asking people about the economy we’ve heard so much about, it’s a difficult economy, people losing their jobs, foreclosures. What’s your impression from where you sit here at the Vermont Country Store? Do you notice a difference in the Vermont Country Store?

Bill Shouldice: Yeah I think, here’s what I think, I think that the Vermont Country Store is lucky. We have a longstanding tradition of selling products and we’ve got just a phenomenal loyal customer base. And we’re paying very close attention to both. The products that we’re offering them, making sure we’re focusing on quality as we always have. We’re not allowing ourselves to get distracted by that. Making sure that we’re offering good pricing and good price points and we’re focusing on service.

You know it’s really tough right now when you go out, when you shop in retailers and you can’t return anything or they say it’s out of warrantee. When you shop at the Vermont Country Store, 100% customer satisfaction from the day you buy it until the day you decide it’s met its ultimate end. So I think we’re just harkening back to our roots and I think it’s serving us well right now. I think our customers are loyal and I think they’re telling other friends about it and we’re able to have a little bit broader reach than maybe we have in the past by our web site. But I think the combination of those things and sticking to our knitting and who we are and not being distracted by some shiny new object or direction I think is serving us well right now.

Interviewer: Is that difficult to say, look, there’s a great new idea, like we’d like to head this way but it’s so much different than what you’re doing right now? Is that a temptation at all?

Cabot Orton: In terms of growing the business or changing the business?

Interviewer: You ever want the Vermont Country Store ski slope or you know –

Eliot Orton: No, I mean there are certainly opportunities as well in our industry. There’s certainly a lot of mail order catalogs that are having hard times. And I know there are a lot of opportunities for a company like ours to possibly go out and merger or acquire other businesses but that would also take away from our focus and the types of products that we sell and the core fundamental values of who we are as a business. And so I think there are always those temptations but I think at this point we’ve seen that it’s served us well to – as Bill said, stick to our knitting and keep our focus to the core attributes of our business that have made us successful over the last 65 years.

Interviewer: Do you think at all about your customers who might be struggling out there and trying to offer them any special deals during these times or to keep them motivated as customers?

Bill Shouldice: One of the things that we have is we’re an accessible brand. The Vermont Country Store is – we’re not aspirational in terms of high ticket. We sell everything from a piece of penny candy, literally, a piece of penny candy to a really industrial strength vacuum or a doormat. And so you know people have a way of thinking of the Vermont Country Store as a way to help them through this economic downturn and to be well positioned to not only help them with their – the things they need to run their household but ultimately to – we do a great holiday business as well, so they’ll come back to us and do their gift shopping.

So we all said as part of our duties as owners and as executives at the Vermont Country Store, that we refer to ourselves as shopkeepers. We sit on the phone and we talk, we hear from our customers. And they’ll say, “Jeez, I only have so much to spend on a particular garment. Can you help me?” And we take great pride in the fact that we help them through that purchase. We do the same in the store. A little bit harder on the web but there’s some ways of price points and suggestions that can be automated at doing that but we don’t default to artificial intelligence at the Vermont Country Store. We still keep a shopkeeper’s eye and we try and touch every item and every customer one-on-one.

Interviewer: Do people spend more when they call on the phone and order or when they order on the web?

Bill Shouldice: It’s about the same. They’re – we still get a lot of people who are sending us an order by mail. We still get cash in the mail. People will send us cash and just have not forgotten that that is a currency of choice not that long ago. But no, it’s a – the orders that we get are pretty standard from web to catalog to what the store – interesting thing about the store, and you’ve been there is when you can touch it. The store is the – the purchases they have there and it’s a little bit more broader because we also in our Weston store have a great restaurant called the Bryant House and we offer everything from Johnny cake there to ice cream to shepherd’s pie and a special sandwich of the day. So you tend to get – they stay a little bit longer at the store. You get a little bit more – it’s a place they go to say I’m going to the stores for the day. So they spend a little bit more there but by in large I think we’re pretty consistent across the channels.

Interviewer: What advice do you have for people who are living through difficult times right now who are struggling? I mean just advice from the heart. How do people make it through difficult times like that?

Cabot Orton: I think the keyword is community that nobody has to go through difficult times alone. You know our grandparents spent their formative years in the great depression. When they were our age, times were harder than anybody could have remembered or could have foreseen. And they made it by being involved in the communities that they lived in. They lived in a small town in western Vermont. And people relied on one another for a sense of connectedness, for reliability, for support, and at the end of the day there’s an awful lot we miss in a life of individualism and consumerism.

The gratification of connecting with other people around us and being part of something larger than ourselves. We believe in that and as Vermonters, it’s a fundament of our business and of who we are and we may be facing challenging times now. But as Vermonters, we think we’re probably better poised to go through those times and flourish than we may otherwise be living in other parts of the country that are less rooted and less grounded in tradition and history and community.

Interviewer: Is this a bad time for someone who is unemployed, has an idea, wants to be an entrepreneur? Is this a bad time to start a business or is there a good time or bad time? What do you think?

Bill Shouldice: I think the access to capital is really a stranglehold. It’s tough right now. You know folks have got their – if they’re out of a job they don’t have the income. If they’ve been out of a job for a while they’re probably incurred some credit card debt or have some back bills. So their credit as you’ve heard throughout the country is in a tough spot. And then banks aren’t lending. So I think it’s gonna be a tough struggle. I also think though that – you know I’ve heard some people who’ve been displaced and said, “I got nothing to lose,” throw caution to the wind, so there’s a little bit of that I think going on as well. But I think it’s a – I think this economy is going to – at least in Vermont – our down I don’t think is gonna be as down but I also think our recovery may not be as quick as others. So there’s something to be said for that.

Interviewer: So speaking of your grandparents and depression, what would your grandparents say about all of this credit card debt, all this easy mortgage, what would they say to that?

Cabot Orton: It’s absolutely antithetical to everything they grew up believing. The idea that you could pay no money down and buy a house. The idea that you could buy everything on credit far beyond your means. The idea that you could make a living producing nothing, creating nothing to show for it and that’s where really our economy has been over the last 30 years increasingly. So I think they’d be absolutely baffled and rather horrified by it.

At the same time I think that they furnished us with a sensibility that will carry us very well in terms of sacrifice, in terms of austerity, in terms of practicality, in terms of frugality. These are values we didn’t just abandon when we embraced credit and we embraced the opportunity of high finance. So it’s still central to the way we live our lives.

Interviewer: Right now there is no Vermont Country Store credit card.

Bill Shouldice: No.

Eliot Orton: No.

Interviewer: If some big bank came and offered you some great deal, does that kind of go against the beliefs of the Vermont Country Store to extend easy credit to customers or –

Bill Shouldice: There’s a lot of – you look at what’s happening to retailing over the years. You know Sears was a great retailer for years by all accounts, created the catalog business itself. And what are they now? They’re a finance company. They’re selling to you when you buy something that you think is quality, they’re selling you a credit card and they’re selling you warranty services. They’ve gotten away from what they were.

We are true to our core. And the Orton’s – you can’t work at the Vermont Country Store if you don’t understand one simple thing. We sell products that don’t come back to people that do. We focus on products and we focus on customers and all the rest of it around it is noise. And so we get em all the time, people who call us and say, “We’d like you to offer this financial service,” or “do it on credit,” do it on some new scheme and we don’t allow ourselves to be distracted by that.

Interviewer: Is that the launch code comin in?

Cabot Orton: Making you an aural canvas.

Interviewer: Last question guys. I’d like to hear from each of you on this one. People right now, as I said before, difficult times, losing homes, losing jobs, filing bankruptcy and they’re suffering in silence. They feel like losers and rejects. They’re just real down. What advice do you, each of you individually have for somebody in that situation?

Bill Shouldice: I think Cabot’s already started to talk about it. I believe that your community that you live in and you know, one thing about Vermont is we were raised in a – with a heritage of a barn raising party where people came together to help one another, shared labor to get the crops in out of the field. We still believe in the value and the virtues of town meeting and the fact that if your house catches on fire, the volunteer firemen are gonna be there to help you out. And I think it’s times like this, be it a natural disaster, be it an economic disaster, I think in places in Vermont people come together and they network and they share and so you know –

Interviewer: So they shouldn’t be afraid to suffer in silence? You’re saying they should reach out for help?

Bill Shouldice: No, I think what, I think people know and there’s a pride that comes with it in Vermont. We’re a small state of 600,000 people. They know who your neighbor who’s displaced. They know who the kid who was trying to get to college and hasn’t gotten a summer job because they are a hugely impacted population this year. Summer jobs which were once held by teenagers to make their spending money to buy their books and pay their share of the college loan, those jobs are gone.

I have somebody working for me this summer whose son couldn’t find a job and so he’s cutting my grass and doing things because his father wants him to have that work ethic and because he knows he needs to make a little extra money. So I think the double-edged sword that you speak of is absolutely true cause the pride to suffer in silence I think is very much a part of it but I think in caring, thoughtful ways, in a place like Vermont which is a special place, I firmly believe that. I think we have a little bit of a leg up in helping people get through that.

Interviewer: Cabot?

Cabot Orton: I’d say find a way to be of service to others and you’ll never find yourself wanting and you’ll never find yourself alone. That it’s truly powerful and when people can connect with those around them in a community and a neighborhood; it transcends the feeling of alienation and being alone in a hard place. And it sounds like a cliché but it’s the one thing you can always count on is the people around you.

Eliot Orton: Yeah, I think I’d echo my brother’s statements on that that. I feel certainly when folks are probably at their last end and feel they have no more, that to look for any way that they can give and help others even in the most minute way is very empowering and can connect you to opportunity that you didn’t know was around you. And I think certainly in the times of hardship we’ve seen that during national disasters and tragedies that occur. When folks bind together and bring out that spirit, I mean certainly New York City is forever changed because of the events that occurred there on 9/11 that there’s a spirit that still is there of friendliness in the streets. A willingness to – you know if you ask folks for direction, that a willingness to help one another that came out of that. And I think that will come out of the hardships that we’re in now and that’s the enduring spirit of our nation, what makes America great. The melting pot attitude and the energy that we have as neighbors and as a nation that’ll carry us through this.

Interviewer: All right, thank you very much gentlemen. I appreciate it.

Eliot Orton: You’re welcome.

Cabot Orton: Thank you.

My Interview With Derek, a 23 Year Old Soon to be Father

Steve Rhode — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:36:36 +0000

From How to Get Out of Debt

Derek and I met in Buffalo, New York where we hd a chance to sit down and discuss a wide range of topics. Since Derek is a young man and just out of college his opinions about student loans, campus credit cards, reading contracts, and trying to get by are very enlightening.

He remembers his mother having to use food stamps and he might have to resort to using WIC and food stamps again as he and his young wife try to make ends meet and prepare for the birth of their first child.

Listen to My Interview With Derek.

You can subscribe to my series of debt interviews through iTunes by clicking here.

@GetOutOfDebtGuy

Transcript

Interviewer: I wanted to talk about the economy right now. So we’re in Buffalo, New York.

Derek: Right.

Interviewer: And have you worried about the economy? Are you concerned about it?

Derek: A little bit. Yeah, just coming out of a – got my master’s degree and it’s – you hear a lot about, you know, not being able to find a job and, you know, it’s kind of worrisome. (Laughter) But not too much in that, you know, try not to let it get to you too much.

Interviewer: Have you ever or have you known somebody that’s worried about money?

Derek: Everybody. (Laughter) Who doesn’t? But –

Interviewer: How does that feel when you worry about money?

Derek: It’s – you go into panic mode sometimes if, you know, you get, you know, in over your head or – you know.

Interviewer: Does it – I remember when I went though it. I felt like I really couldn’t talk to anybody. I was embarrassed about it.

Derek: Right, yeah. It’s –

Interviewer: You end up kind of suffering in silence.

Derek: Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer: So what do people do when they get in that situation?

Derek: It’s – I don’t know, try to find a way out anyway, you know, any way you can get out. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Well, who should people talk to?

Derek: I would talk to my parents. (Laughter) But I don’t know, somebody that you know is successful so you can see what they can do or if they can help you or whatever or look for a job.

Interviewer: Have you ever had to call a creditor and ask for help or some kind of –?

Derek: I have not, no.

Interviewer: No.

Derek: No, not yet, but maybe one day. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Do you have any loans or credit cards in your name?

Derek: Oh, yeah. I got a ton of student loans. I’m managing to pay out the credit cards, but student loans are a big deal.

Interviewer: How much do you owe in student loans?

Derek: I think around 20. You know, I had my graduate school paid for in the system chip but that helped out a lot, but yeah, a lot. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Did – were student loans easy to get into? I mean –

Derek: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we always learn, you know, if you’re gonna have loans, student loans are pretty good because they’re really low interest and, you know, so that’s kinda the word around everywhere that I’ve been, you know.

Interviewer: Did the college promote student loans as, you know, here’s the easy way to get financing or –?

Derek: I’m not sure that they promoted it, but they offered it, you know. There’s always that option.

Interviewer: Did anybody – did you have to go through any financial counseling with the school before you got the student loans?

Derek: They make you do like an introduction counseling and actually counseling says, you know, I’m gonna pay these back and I understand how it works, you know, over time, the interest and everything.

Interviewer: What did you get your degree in?

Derek: I got my bachelor degree in anthropology and archeology, which, you know, is what I’m working on now and I got my master’s degree in historic preservation.

Interviewer: So you’ve been watching Time Team America?

Derek: I – when – we live out in the country now and it doesn’t come in very well when it’s on. (Laughter) But when it’s on, yeah, I watch it.

Interviewer: It’s funny because when I – I lived over in England for two years and Time Team actually started over there.

Derek: Oh, really.

Interviewer: And the crew that does it is really dynamic, so the difference is here on Time Team America they’re like, you know, scraping stuff away and after three days they’ve gone down this far.

Derek: Yeah. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Time Team Europe, they come in with a backhoe. (Laughter)

Derek: Yeah. (Laughter)

Interviewer: There’s just so much stuff they don’t care. (Laughter)

Derek: Yeah. (Laughter)

Interviewer: So what about that field? I mean is that a good income-earning field?

Derek: No, but I like it, you know. It’s – you know, obviously if you’re a teacher you can make more money and, you know, but it’s – I got into historic preservation thinking I would find a job easier ’cause, you know, more encompassing, but as I’m looking there’s more – they want the master’s degree in archeology or something, so I kinda, you know, got lost in that. But – and I like archeology a lot better than the architectural, but it’s all interesting and here in Buffalo we have a lot of it and it’s – with the stimulus stuff going on, there’s a lot of like Section 106 where, you know, if there’s federal money being put into a project, you have to make sure that there’s no historical value to it or archeological, you know, data that could be lost and all that has to be, you know, funds so it should be a good field with the stimulus going on, but I haven’t really noticed anything yet, so.

Interviewer: What’s your backup plan?

Derek: Just keep looking for a job, you know, hopefully something with my education, but if I have to, you know, I’ll work at McDonald’s or something, and I’ve been thinking about joining the Coast Guard or something, you know, as a last resort obviously. My wife doesn’t like it or – you know, and my mom. She’s been opposed to it since high school, but I – you know, I have to talk to a recruiter and make sure, you know, it’s all – like works out, but that’s a last resort, for me at least.

Interviewer: Are you working now?

Derek: Yeah, I’m working at like a seasonal-type job doing archeology with the Section 106-type stuff.

Interviewer: How does it feel being an expectant father?

Derek: Oh, geez.

Interviewer: Does that become – do you get a little stressed about thinking about money and ______?

[Crosstalk]

Derek: Yeah. (Laughter) Yeah, it’s tough, you know, but New York State seems to be pretty – there seems to be like funding out there, like, you know, you can get WIC or, you know, food stamps if you had to. We haven’t done that yet, but if we had to we will and, you know, it’s time – you know, time-consuming. There’s a lot of paperwork and stuff and – but it’s – you know, it’s out there and it’s good, so.

Interviewer: So what do you think about people who can’t pay their bills and file bankruptcy? Do you think that they’re just in a bad situation? Are they losers? Are they cheats? Are they – what are they?

Derek: You know, it – I tend to think that they’ve been, you know, in a – you get caught up in a bad situation. You know, sometimes, you know, you can’t help but think that somebody – you know, maybe they’re a loser or something, but, you know, everybody, you know, goes through the hard times. And it’s – you know, you gotta look past, you know, what you might think of people and, you know, just realize that you could be in their situation at any time and you never know, you know. It’s scary and, you know, it’s not something you want to deal with ever. (Laughter) You know, you don’t want to run outta money. It’s important to us, you know, here, but –

Interviewer: What school did you go to?

Derek: I went to – I started out at community college which turned out to be a really good idea ’cause it’s cheaper and you get your early stuff, you know, your pre-reqs out of the way and I went to the University of Buffalo, and I actually went to graduate school outta state at Ball State University in Muncie, so.

Interviewer: Was – when you were on campus, was it easy to get credit card applications and –?

Derek: Oh, yeah, especially at UB. It seemed like there was a credit card guy out in the, you know, main commons all the time, you know. Yeah, there’s a Facebook group saying, you know, how to avoid them and everything. We’d come up with clever ways to get outta there. But, you know, they’d offer you, you know, free burgers at Burger King or a sub at Subway or something and, you know, most people know that – you know, not – don’t do that and – you know. But they’re – yeah, they’re all over. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Did you know anybody in school who got in over their head?

Derek: Oh, yeah. Yeah, there’s, a lot of our friends, you know, that did it and, you know, they’re thinking about going bankrupt and stuff already and they’re young. You know, I’m only 23 and, you know, it’s scary to think about that, you know.

Interviewer: So when you were watching your friends who were struggling, what do you think was going through their mind? What – were they stressed? How were they acting?

Derek: You know, surprisingly not as stressed as I think I would be. (Laughter) But it’s – you know, they seem – you know, if you want to go out or something, you know, I have no money, but they’d probably still go out anyway and, you know, then you start to think, you know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing this to them. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Right. So what are your plans after you find this job? Do you want to eventually buy a house, buy a car?

Derek: I’d like to buy a house. I’d like to find a job here in Buffalo ’cause I like the city a lot and, you know, it’s – I hear their houses are pretty cheap here relatively, you know, and I’m hopeful. I think Buffalo’s gonna come back. There’s a lotta people moving out, but I think there’s a lotta people coming back in, too, so – but if I had to – I’d like to stay in the Northeast for whatever reason. I’m not really sure why. (Laughter) But I like all the seasons and I like the snow a little bit.

Interviewer: They do have snow up here.

Derek: Yeah, we do. (Laughter) Yeah.

Interviewer: Does – what – it’s that snowy in the wintertime. Does it – it obviously kills the seasonal jobs.

Derek: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, what I do now like is all – it’s all fieldwork and that basically comes to a standstill, you know, unless there’s some emergency stuff that needs to happen and I get called by boss and all that, but yeah, there’s a lot of seasonal jobs and all the kids are back in school and stuff, you know, for the fall and winter, so it seems like a lot of the lower-end jobs like the McDonald’s or working at J. C. Penney or something are taken up by them, you know, so that – I’m sure snow removal does pretty good. There’s a lotta people that have snow plows on their trucks and come clear driveways and stuff, but –

Interviewer: Well, who taught you about money growing up? Anybody?

Derek: (Laughter) High school teachers. I watched my mom and dad, too. You know, we had to take economics here. It’s part of, I think, the regents’ programming for the high schools here and, you know, you learn a little bit about that and just watching people, I guess. Watch CNN once in a while or, you know, hear about it on the radio or read in the newspaper.

Interviewer: Do you think that credit is too easy to get?

Derek: Yeah, I do. Yeah. (Laughter) It’s pretty easy.

Interviewer: You said that you do have credit cards.

Derek: Yeah.

Interviewer: And when you – did you get those in school?

Derek: Yeah, I think so. (Laughter)

Interviewer: What was the free gift that you got? The sub or something?

Derek: I don’t even remember. (Laughter) I might have not even gotten a free gift. I – just, you know, but –

Interviewer: So now a new law has passed saying that people under 21 can’t apply for credit cards.

Derek: Really? Well, that’s good. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Yeah. So can you imagine what college would be like if nobody had credit cards on campus?

Derek: Probably better. (Laughter) As long as they didn’t get rid of student loans, I think it’d be good, but yeah, credit cards, I tend to think that they’re not a really good idea, you know. You know, we’ll see how it goes when my kid’s old, you know, grows up. You know, I’ll try to talk him out of it, you know, unless something happened – good happens with them. I have no idea. But yeah, I can’t see any good coming from credit cards. If you don’t have the money, you probably shouldn’t be going after it.

Interviewer: Your student loans.

Derek: Yeah.

Interviewer: When – some people now are taking 25 to 30 years to repay their student loans.

Derek: Yeah. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Do you have some sort of graduated payment plan or –?

Derek: I honestly don’t remember what I selected. (Laughter) But yeah, that’s all, you know, offered on there, like you start out paying, you know, a little bit and then, you know, when you get older you end up paying more, which is kinda scary, ’cause I don’t know if I’ll have a job when I’m older. I don’t have a job now, you know, a permanent, you know, good, awesome-paying job now. But yeah, so it’s cool that they – you don’t have to pay it right away when you get outta school. They give you a little bit of time, so.

Interviewer: So when you get this job in archeology, do you have any sort of idea about if you want to save money or if you’re going to try to save money as you get your paychecks?

Derek: Yeah. I try to put it in the bank. (Laughter)

Interviewer: I mean is saving a priority for you to set aside any money?

Derek: Yeah. Yeah, you know, I – it’s hard ’cause I like to – I don’t like sitting around and so I like to go, you know, do whatever, even, you know, go walk around the mall or something. I don’t spend money all the time but, you know, the gas to get there costs money and stuff, but I like to save, you know, mostly.

Interviewer: Have you heard about people who have committed suicide because of their worry about debt?

Derek: Yeah. Yeah, you know, it’s – there’s always a better way out than that. It’s – you know, it’s – you don’t need to go to that extreme ever, I don’t think. So, yeah, it’s not – you hear about it all actually.

Interviewer: So what about people who can’t find a job that are running out of unemployment benefits? What are they gonna do?

Derek: I don’t know. Hopefully, something. I think, you know, if we had to resort to something like the CCC or something like in the – what was it? – the ’30s, something like that would be excellent and – I don’t know. I don’t know that anybody’s actually looked into that or, you know, the president has actually thought about that ____ _____ ______ _____.

[Crosstalk]

Interviewer: So what role does government have in trying to support people who –?

Derek: I’d like to think not too much, but I think that they should. You know, if they’re gonna – if they say that they’re gonna, I think they should help. But, you know, I like to think, you know, the less government involvement, you know, the better but if, you know, they’re saying – they’re giving hope to all these people that they’re gonna help them then they should help. But, you know –

Interviewer: If you had a bunch of money on credit cards and somebody came to you and said, “You can pay off that debt for half of what you owe but it’s gonna leave you with bad credit,” would you do that?

Derek: Probably not ’cause I feel like having good credit is something that’s been, you know, taught to me. You know, you have to have good credit, so I would – I don’t know. I wouldn’t go with having bad credit. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Have you ever been tempted to apply for credit for something that you wanted right now?

Derek: (Laughter) Yeah. Yeah, about one of the new Camaros. (Laughter) But, you know, it’s – you know, and we’re looking for a house and stuff, too, but we don’t want to – you know, we can’t get approved for, you know, something. You know, we don’t have the money to do it because, you know, we don’t have permanent jobs right now, so it’s – you know, it’s – there’s a lot that I want, but you can’t – you know, if you don’t have the money, you know –

Interviewer: How does not having the money make you feel?

Derek: You know, there’s always – you always want what you can’t have, you know. It’s frustrating but, you know, they get by. Maybe one day you’ll have it, you know. Maybe one day there’ll be something better.

Interviewer: Okay. So if somebody came up to you right now and said, “You know the house that you want? You can have it right now. You just have to sign right here.”

Derek: (Laughter) Have to read the paper. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Do you read contracts, honestly?

Derek: I start. (Laughter) And then I get bored with it, you know, and I figure they’re all probably mostly the same, but I probably should.

Interviewer: So how many credit cards do you have? One, two –?

Derek: Whew. I think one now.

Interviewer: One, okay. And have they ever raised your interest rate?

Derek: Yeah, I missed a payment on one that I had a long time ago and they completely – they raised it. I lost my introductory rate and I had to pay a really high like, you know, minimum payment and they had a fee that you had to pay if you miss it, too, so I learned my lesson. I – it wasn’t even that I didn’t have the money or anything. I just lost the bill on the corner on the kitchen table, you know, so yeah, that was – it was a mess. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Probably the last time you do that.

Derek: Yeah, yeah. Lesson learned. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Do you have a government-backed student loan?

Derek: I think so.

Interviewer: Is it – or is it a private student loan?

Derek: (Laughter) I think they’re government, the Stafford loans.

Interviewer: Mm-hmm.

Derek: Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. There’s been a whole lot of stuff in the press about foreclosure and people losing their homes and have you known anybody who’s lost their house?

Derek: Not personally. No, I haven’t. You know, I hear that foreclosures are the way to go if you’re gonna buy a house though. I’m not sure and – you know, how true it is or not, but yeah.

Interviewer: When you were growing up, was there ever any feeling of kind of economic stress or having to do without or “you can’t get that now?”

Derek: You know, my mom always said – I sound like Forest Gump. (Laughter) But, you know, “You gotta learn like the value of the dollar,” you know, and I think there’s not a lotta that going on right now, and I think parents will just buy their kids anything and, you know, you notice that they’re kind of all snots now, you know. (Laughter) They’re – the kids are mean and – you know, and you always have to do like the social studies classroom stuff, like you had to interview somebody from the Depression, you know, stuff like that. But, you know, nothing – you know, I didn’t really worry about it.

Interviewer: So when you interviewed somebody from the Depression, what did they say?

Derek: I interviewed my great-grandma and it – you know, it seems – from what she said, it sounds kinda like where we are now. You know, she wasn’t – they weren’t too bad. You know, they didn’t live in the city or anything so, you know, they didn’t have to sell apples on the streets and stuff but, you know, it sounded very similar to what’s going now and just hard to find jobs and stuff.

Interviewer: Do you have a checking account?

Derek: Yeah, I think so. (Laughter)

Interviewer: (Laughter) Okay. Maybe.

Derek: Yeah. Yeah, I have a checking or a savings. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Now usually – you know how opposites attract in a relationship?

Derek: Mm-hmm.

Interviewer: One person’s usually a saver and the other person’s usually the spender. Is that true in your relationship?

Derek: I – yeah, I think I might be more the spender. (Laughter)

Interviewer: Really.

Derek: Yeah.

Interviewer: What’s your vice?

Derek: Just – I don’t know. I just like to not sit at home. (Laughter)

Interviewer: I mean just do you feel that you spend to go do something or video games or –?

Derek: No, not – just going to do things, like just not being at home. You know, I don’t own too much to show for what I spend, I guess, but a lot of experiences, which is cool. I like – we like state trips, you know, weekends trips and stuff and, you know, they’re not that expensive so we try to do it on the cheap weekend.

Interviewer: You mentioned before just about benefits, about WIC and I think it’s now called SNAP actually.

Derek: Oh, is it?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Derek: (Laughter)

Interviewer: I don’t know who changed it from food stamps to SNAP. If you were – if you did have to go into a benefit program like that is that no problem? How does it make you feel? Is –?

Derek: I – you know, I was talking to my friends at work and stuff about it. I’m like, “Yeah, I’m a little embarrassed about it, you know.” But they’re like, “You know, you gotta do what you gotta do.” And, you know, I’m thinking if it’s out there you might as well take advantage of it. You know, there’s no – or you’re not being penalized for doing it at all, like I’m pretty sure that you don’t go under that ______. (Laughter) But, you know, so I don’t know how it all works exactly, but it’s – yeah.

Interviewer: It’s interesting. There are – some people have a big stigma about that.

Derek: Yeah. Yeah, it’s – you know, I mean I’m pretty sure I grew up on food stamps and a lotta my friends did, you know. You know, I don’t think – you know, we’re not too many – we’re not friends with too many rich kids or anything, so I think we all came from the same boat and – yeah, and – but you think, you know, you don’t want to – you think of a lotta dirty, you know, kinda people around food stamps and, you know, like drug dealers or something, you know, and just people taking advantage of the system and stuff. But, you know, it’s – you don’t want to be lumped into a group of people that – you know, that are taking advantage of it as opposed to people that are – you know, just ran into a hard time. You know, it’s very –

Interviewer: You mentioned when you were growing up you and other families were on food stamps.

Derek: (Laughter) Right. Yeah, so I was –

Interviewer: Did you know anybody that was taking advantage of it?

Derek: (Laughter) No, I don’t, but you hear about it, you know, so it’s – I mean I have no idea. Maybe somebody was. I have no idea. It’s weird. (Laughter)

Interviewer: It’s funny because, you know, I always hear those stories, too.

Derek: Uh-huh.

Interviewer: But it’s almost like it’s become an urban myth, you know?

Derek: Yeah, exactly. You don’t really – it’s, yeah, true.

Interviewer: Was there ever – did you ever feel embarrassed about the fact that ma had to _____ _____?

Derek: No, I don’t think I –

Interviewer: Just didn’t register.

Derek: Yeah and like that.

Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. I don’t think I have any more questions.

Derek: Cool.

Interviewer: So one – actually, I do.

Derek: Okay.

Interviewer: You’re 22?

Derek: Twenty-three.

Interviewer: Twenty-three. I was 22 when I got married, so –

Derek: Yeah.

Interviewer: So looking back on kids that are now 15, 16, 17 getting ready to go into college, what advice – from what you’ve learned about so far – credit, debt, money, student loans, whatever – what advice would you give yourself if you were going to talk to yourself when you were 17?

Derek: You know, apply for scholarships and stuff for school definitely. You know, the – you can go for as cheap as possible. You know, you gotta really apply yourself, but there’s help out there, you know, grants and scholarships and, you know, don’t get into credit cards. You know, probably stay from a car even if you can, you know, ’cause gas is expensive and you gotta pay insurance and all that. You know, if you can – you know, to have as, you know, a small amount of spending as possible, I think that would be great.

Interviewer: Before you went into archeology, did you think about how much – what those jobs paid or did you –?

Derek: Nope. (Laughter) No, I didn’t. I – you know, I wanted to – I started out thinking – you know, I was always interested in archeology and stuff but, you know, thinking like maybe I’ll be a – you know, a pilot or something and then I figured I wasn’t good enough at math or, you know, psychology and then I just kinda didn’t really like psychology. So I just went with my gut and went with archeology and, you know, I like it and I think that’s important but, you know, nobody ever really told you – like the high school counselors don’t tell you, you know, you’re not gonna make money doing archeology. You know, you gotta find a job that’s probably, you know, gonna make some money.

You know, a _____ _____ like, you know, nursing and stuff’s actually making a lotta money and the computer jobs are always pretty good and, you know, even entrepreneurial stuff. I think cities like Buffalo could benefit from that but, you know – and my wife and I talked about it and, you know, we were never told by our counselors, you know, “Go with something that’s gonna make money” or, you know, “This is what’s a hot, you know, kinda job right now.” I mean it’s mostly just, you know, go with what you want to do when you grow up, but that’s – I don’t think that’s necessarily how it is.

Interviewer: If an archeology job was open in Buffalo –

Derek: Oh, I would apply for it. (Laughter)

Interviewer: (Laughter) What’s the average salary for a job like that?

Derek: It’s not very high. I mean unless – there’s a lotta like federal government jobs and then, you know, I go on usajobs.gov a lot looking for them and they seem to be out Southwest and stuff, but they earn anywhere from like $50,000.00 to like in the 100 and something thousand, so there’s a huge scale but, you know – but you need your doctorate or whatever in there, so –

Interviewer: Do you think you could get a $50,000.00 archeology job in Buffalo?

Derek: No. No, there’s not –

Interviewer: What would it be, 20?

Derek: Yeah, 20, 30, you know, depending on how – you know, if you’re fulltime or seasonal. I mean there’s not too much fulltime here. You know, it’s – they call it shovel bumming. You know, you go where the jobs are, you know, and people that’ll just work all year long _____ _____ working here in – up here in the summer and they’ll wind up going down to, you know, Arizona or, you know, Colorado and stuff in the spring.

Interviewer: Would you consider doing that?

Derek: Well, if I wasn’t married and having a kid. (Laughter) But I would, yeah. It’s kind of a cool idea for me, you know, adventure. Yeah.

Interviewer: So let’s say that that job doesn’t show up in Buffalo. How do you feel about maybe having to set aside your dreaming in order to get some job just to pay the bills?

Derek: I – you know, you gotta do what you gotta do, you know. I haven’t ruled out going back to school for something else and it’s – I’m all right with it. Something might come up in the future and then I have the historic preservation that – you know, that – my higher education to fall back on, I guess. (Laughter) But yeah.

Interviewer: Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much.

Derek: Yeah.

Listen to Me on NPR, Please, Please.

Steve Rhode — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:20:01 +0000

From How to Get Out of Debt

Starting at about minute 22 you can hear my segment about financial education and my personal story of debt. You can see the segment in the podcast bar as the “Getting Into and Out of Debt.”

If you can’t see the podcast show above, click here.

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How to Get Out of Debt With the Get Out of Debt Guy » radio

I Interview Allie, the Navy Wife in Charlottesville, VA

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How to Get Out of Debt With the Get Out of Debt Guy » radio

I Interview Allie, the Navy Wife in Charlottesville, VA

Subscribe to Debt Interviews

Transcript

Other Related Articles to Read

An Interview With Two Guys Standing Atop a Burning Coal Mine

Subscribe to Debt Interviews

Transcript

Other Related Articles to Read

Thomas Fox Chats With Me About You. Listen.

Subscribe to Debt Interviews

Transcript

Other Related Articles to Read

Jug Rents Me a Harley, Talks About Life, the Economy, and People That File Bankruptcy

Subscribe to Debt Interviews

Transcript

Other Related Articles to Read

My Interview With the Leaders at the Vermont Country Store

Subscribe to Debt Interviews

Transcript

Other Related Articles to Read

My Interview With Derek, a 23 Year Old Soon to be Father

Subscribe to Debt Interviews

Transcript

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Listen to Me on NPR, Please, Please.

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