Welcome to Michelle is Money Hungry, a podcast focused on having real and empathetic conversations about the intersection of money, policy, and politics. In my view, personal finance and money isn’t just about working hard. For the next 12 weeks we’ll be talking about the potential for student loan forgiveness, the cost of education and is this policy an overreach or necessary? My guests and I will talk about what gets lost in all the noise of politics, tweets and everything in-between. Is college really a part of the American dream and is the cost of college a problem?
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CashFreely
For those of you who don’t know, I used to have a ton of unsecured debt. It took almost 8 years to pay off over $60,000 in every kind of debt that you could imagine. Credit cards, payday loans and other random debt. I don’t even want to get into my student loans. That’s why I’m doing this series.
As a result of my debt experience, I was really skittish about ever getting another credit card. I hate to admit that when it was finally time to sign up for my first card in years-I chose badly. I hate this new credit card and I wish that I had known about CashFreely when making this decision. What I love about this free tool is the following. It helps credit card users stay organized when using different cash back programs.
You don’t have to worry about leaving cash on the table. CashFreely helps credit card users optimize the different cash back rewards programs that may be a part of current cards you’re using or future cards that you may be considering in the future. And just maybe, that extra cash can be applied as an extra payment on your student loan. Again, this is a free app or you can use the website and I think you should check it out. Click on the link in my show notes.
Listen to the Show
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Show Notes
What did you think about the first episode of my series: Flashpoint: Student loan Forgiveness and the Crisis of Higher Education Cost in America? When I first started on the project I thought I could cover everything that I wanted to in 5 or at most 6 episodes. Instead, it became a 12 week series that could have easily become a standalone podcast that only talked about Student Loan forgiveness and the potential for this policy for the next year. What struck me when speaking with my guests was how much thought they’d put into the conversations and solutions that they shared with me.
It was nothing like Twitter.
Soon, though, I realized that there just wasn’t enough time to discuss everything that I wanted to discuss related to student loans. I couldn’t cover using side-hustles to pay loans down and the impact those side-hustles had on people’s lives, or how borrowers should navigate the interest rates related to their loans or the deep complexity of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
I didn’t have enough time to talk about what happens when a guardian borrows a Parent Plus loan and their dependent tragically passed away. What next? There was enough time, however, to discuss the complexity, the confusion and the deep sense of angst related to this issue. It’s clear that somehow along the way we’ve gotten this wrong and now is clearly the time to rethink the cost of education and the role of traditional higher education when preparing for a profession. And, as one of guests pointed out, tech companies such as Google have created their own standalone certification programs.
There was no time to talk about GenX and the impact of student loans on this first generation of students who were woefully screwed by the system and now are dealing with parents and kids financially.
And now we’re dealing with inflation.
It’s not enough as a personal finance content creator to share quick and easy takes. Sometimes you need to take a stand. And honestly, I’m not thinking of how this policy could impact me. I am, however, thinking about how I can help change the system so that other Americans aren’t sold a dream that they can’t afford and don’t realize until it’s too late.
I often think about when I was heading off to college. I attended my college sight unseen because I couldn’t afford to visit it. I’d applied to 7 colleges, got into 6 (damn you Northwestern) and attended the school that I was awarded the most money for.
It was an excellent education.
That Time I Rode a Camel
But, I also think about riding a camel at the epic party this school used to throw and how the cost for that party each year rolled into my tuition. The party was so big it made the top 10 college parties in the US list when I was attending.
In retrospect, I would have preferred a discount on my tuition. Thank you for listening to this episode, next week’s episode is with Robert Farrington from The College Investor make sure to tune in.
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