How to Keep Debt from Ruining Your Life (and Fix It If It Already Has)

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the Corps of Cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one college for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the Corps of Cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the a lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys. They you also get access to The Citadel's alumni network.

Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders. It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture.

They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs. You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that.

If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities. There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. And that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

Look. The world is a crazy place today, ladies and gentlemen. A crazy ass place. And you can go out there and you can find things that are gonna piss you off. But one of the tenets of this podcast is this.

If you are looking for things to piss you off, you're gonna find them real easily. But what you should be doing is you should be so focused on your goal, so focused on who you wanna be as a man or as a woman, so focused on your path that the world shouldn't make a difference to you. Right? Don't worry about the world. Worry about yourself. Worry about making your life right.

And once you do that, then you can have an impact on the world. Welcome to Warrior Soul podcast, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Chris Albert, and this podcast is where we deliver tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. Today, I wanna talk to you about what I think is one of the most important things to help you to live your best life, and that is knowing about and managing money properly. There's so many of us who, as we reach adulthood, we decide we're gonna go out, we're gonna buy a bunch of trash.

We're gonna go out, we're gonna stroke our egos, we're gonna try and get this fancy lifestyle that we see on Instagram. So we throw money at it, and in doing so, we get ourselves into debt. That's the wrong way. I've been through hell and back again when it comes to money. I've been an idiot when it comes to money.

And I'm gonna talk to you today using my age and my experience to give you some insights on what you should be doing to get yourself into a better financial place. Now if you listen to this show, you might be a younger veteran. Maybe you're still in the military. If so, you've got a huge opportunity to make things right before you get out. Maybe you just got out and you're starting your life out there.

And if so, maybe you're close to the edge of doing some of these things. Well, I'm gonna try and help you today to keep you from doing those. And maybe if you're like me, you're a bit older, maybe in your thirties or your forties, and you've made a few mistakes around along the way. And I'm gonna try to use my story to help you to change things, to turn things around because you can always can. What I want you to understand above all, it's never too late to turn things around.

It isn't. Don't keep telling yourself in your mind that you're a failure or that you're so screwed up that you can't turn this whole financial situation around. You can. People have done crazier things in this world. Right?

You just need to have some insight, some some education, and you need to have a plan. First thing I want to talk to you about today is this idea of overreaching your lifestyle. Alright? Like I said before, so many of us, we get out of the military or we get out of college and we get out there into adult life. Well, you're in an adult life when you're in the military, but, you know, you know what it is.

Right? We get to be kids for a little bit longer than everybody else. And maybe while you're in, you're using your credit card at the bar or you went out and you bought a car at some crazy interest rate, maybe you bought a motorcycle, maybe you spent your money on vacations. Right? And and you just traveled everywhere when you could.

And that's cool. You got some experiences. But what happens is you end up getting yourself into debt. Alright? When I grew up, this is a crazy thing.

I was never taught about money. Nobody teaches us about credit in school. Nobody teaches us about the impact that taking out student loans is gonna have on us. Nobody teaches us that taking out a credit card and spending it on trash is is gonna, you know, rope us into working in jobs that we don't want for the rest of our lives or or rope us into an unhappy life where we're spending most of our paycheck to cover our debts. I don't want to see you go through that, and I don't wanna see anybody go through that.

It's awful. But there's a way to keep us from doing that. That way is keeping ourselves from letting our ego get the best of us. Right? Your ego is a reason why you decide to go out there and get some fancy ass car for a 30% interest rate, alright, on a car loan. Your ego is the reason that you go out to the bar and you buy rounds of drinks on your credit card, and you're paying those off at some crazy interest rate. Alright?

Once you do that, the credit companies, the loan companies, they have you. They have you. If you are maxing out your credit cards, if you're taking out car loans, you are increasing your debt to income ratio. And you're making it a lot harder for you to get out and to get a mortgage to buy a house. Right?

Real estate is the one thing in this world and in this country that could help you to climb the social ladder, to become richer. Right? Every rich person in this country has real estate. And if you can't get a mortgage, well, you're not gonna be able to get real estate. It doesn't matter if you have the VA loan or not.

There's still a bank underwriting that loan. So my advice to you, first first thing right off the bat is live below your means. Live below your means. What does that mean? That means if you're earning $40,000 a year, then live like you're earning 25.

Don't go out there and buy the latest of everything. Don't get the latest iPhone. Don't get the latest car. Don't take out a car loan. Don't max out your credit cards.

If you are spending on your credit cards, pay them off down to zero every single month and try to save money. Try to put $50, 100 dollars away each month. If you've got debt, try to pay that debt down to zero. Because at $40,000 a year, if you're living like you're making $80,000 a year, you're going to be a slave all the way up into your forties and fifties like I was. Alright?

My life, I did a lot of stupid things. I maxed out credit cards. I I took out student loans that I shouldn't have even though I was on the GI bill. I took out I bought a car at a dumbass interest rate because I let some car dealer take advantage of me. And I went through bankruptcy about nine years ago, and it was one of the worst times of my life.

It caused my divorce. It put me out on the streets for a few months, and it sucked. It really sucked. And I got to start out at zero, and and by the time I lost everything and I was living out of my car, I actually considered that a blessing because I didn't have the bills hanging over my heads at that head at that point. I'd filed for bankruptcy, and I got to start from zero.

And then what I did from there was I slowly built myself up. Started a business, started earning money, started putting money away, you know, got myself into a rented room, slowly repaired my credit, eventually got to a point where credit card companies would let me take out a credit card, and then would use that credit card but pay it down to zero every single month. And I slowly built my credit up over 750. And then finally, at 41 years of age, was able to buy a house on the VA loan. And I didn't buy some fancy house.

What I did was I bought a single family house with an attached efficiency down here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Decided to live in the 300 square foot efficiency. It's it's like a little studio apartment. And then rent out the the main house. I bought that house on the student not the student loan, the VA loan, and got to pay no money down. And right today, I'm living rent free, mortgage free because I have a tenant paying for the mortgage.

Right? Renting out the main house while I'm living in a little apartment. Now what I could have done, I could have gone and and said, when I moved to Florida, I wanna live in some fancy condo over by the beach on the waterfront, and I could be paying $2,500 a month right now. I'm earning a really good income. I could be doing that.

But instead, I decided to live below my means, and now I'm stacking money. I've got one house, and I'm trying to buy another one. And that is an upward trajectory. Right?

I'm not rolling around in a fancy car. I got a old Honda Civic. I the the biggest thing I spend money on every week is groceries. That's it.

I don't have debt. Paid it down to zero. The only thing I have is my student loans, which are a low interest rate, so I'm paying them as I go. And that's that. Right?

What you wanna do is you wanna bring yourself down to as low of a debt as possible. You wanna bring yourself to a point to where, you know, you're gonna be able to manage those bills every month. You wanna pay that credit card down to zero. You want to focus on getting assets in your life. Right?

You want to focus on getting assets. What are assets? Assets are things that you buy that make money for you. Right? If you buy a house, you rent that out, that's income, passive income that's coming into your paycheck every month.

If that income isn't, you know, necessarily paying over the mortgage, right, maybe you're not making money on it, but maybe you're breaking even, You're still putting that money into equity in a house that you can use to to get money later on. Right? You need assets. Maybe you're taking your money and you're saving it up every month, and you're putting it into a savings account. Maybe you're putting it into an IRA where you're investing it.

Right? And you're you're adding to that IRA every month, and and you're you're buying index funds. Right? You're buying stocks, bonds, things like that that are gonna help you to grow your money. That's awesome too.

Those are assets. Right? What you don't wanna do is you don't wanna sit here and buy your money on trash that's just gonna rush, rot, and depreciate. This is real, like, basic stuff, and I'm no financial expert. I think I've said this before so many times on the show. I'm I'm a financial idiot who screwed up over and over again. But what I'm speaking to you from is experience. Right?

If you allow money to wrap you up, you're you're not gonna live a happy life. You're gonna be sitting there bitter, wondering why everyone around you is able to do this or do that when you're still focused on putting 90% of your paycheck to pay down your debts. Don't let that happen to you. Few books you should be reading. One, I think everybody should read, Rich Dad Poor Dad.

It's not my favorite book, but it's a book that's changed a lot of lives. It's the first book you should read because that's what's gonna help you to change your mindset. Right? From somebody who's gonna be a slave to the rat race to somebody who's getting out of the rat race. Then after that, you should check out The Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam.

That's a great book that'll teach you how to invest in stocks. And then check out a few different podcasts here. There's Active Duty Passive Income, which I don't think is a podcast, but it is a group on Facebook that you can get with. That's a group of veterans who are teaching other veterans how to invest in real estate. And then check out the BiggerPockets podcast that both the the main podcast and they have one called Rookie Real Estate.

They both helped me to start to get into real estate investing. And I'm gonna try and get some more guests on here that could talk about this stuff that can help to educate you better than I can. But that's my piece for this week. If you guys have examples or questions that you wanna share with me, please reach out. I'm on Instagram at Warrior Soul Agoge, or you can hit me up at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com, and take action on this stuff, guys.

It's never too late. Just keep pushing toward those financial goals and keep yourself away from that trash. Talk to you soon. This is Chris Albert. Get out there and live your best life while you can, and I am out.