Cyril Jose (00:00): And there's a lot of people out there like myself that feel like they should be managing their money and they haven't started yet. And they're just stuck somewhere along the lines. And I just want them to know that even though you might've had chances earlier and stuff that it's not too late to start now

The Student Loan Podcast Intro (00:17): Welcome to the student loan podcast here, you'll find practical advice on tackling student loan debt, paying down your higher education expenses

Daphné Vanessa (00:26): And inspiring stories about paying off student loans, we're your hosts, Daphne,

The Student Loan Podcast Intro (00:32): Vanessa Rodriguez,

Daphné Vanessa (00:36): Please rate review and subscribe to the student loan podcasts by visiting the student loan podcast on apple podcasts or wherever you find your podcasts.

Shamil Rodriguez (00:46): This is not professional advice. And we speak from our own personal views and opinions.

Daphné Vanessa (00:52): The student loan podcast is brought to you by start new, where you can serve your community and get rewarded with tuition and student loan payments to check out of start new is on your campus. Visit start new.com. Welcome everyone to another edition of the student loan podcast. Today, we have an amazing guest Cyril Jos, who is a leader in the online community for millennials who may not have started at the same time as everybody else with investing. So we are so, so excited to have CEO from train your dollar here on our podcast. So in that syrup, please tell us a little bit about who you are.

Cyril Jose (01:32): Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me. So I am a dad I'm 34 years old. I'm married have two kids. My story kind of begins with learning late about money and just getting a late star with it. And I really felt like I had to catch up, you know, cause you know going through college like in my twenties spending a lot of money and I really, you know, saving a little bit here and there spending the most of it. Not really knowing anything about investing. I felt, I felt like last year was when we really had to take it seriously. So you know, so I started like just taking in all these like personal finance books or doing my own research online and long story short, you know, I, we, we made a plan to pay off $35,000 in credit card debt and we have a plan going forward for retiring, you know, making sure our kids kids are well off paying, you know, starting a 5 29 paying for their school. And that's pretty much our story, you know, just starting late, but then making sure that we, we, you know, we make use of our time going forward now.

Daphné Vanessa (02:50): And when you say starting late, what does that mean for you?

Cyril Jose (02:54): Yeah, definitely. So in a lot of the online communities they always rightfully stress to start building wealth and investing early. And I know there's a lot of people that out there like me who weren't necessarily weren't into money or manage their, managing their money early in their life, you know, in their twenties and stuff. Cause that's honestly the last thing that we think about. Right. So I felt like I had a late start, you know, cause I started taking was taking a seriously last year, which is, I was 33 when that happened. So and I think the the biggest takeaway was that after accomplishing that big goal of off the credit card debt was that it's never too late to start, you know, as long as you make a plan and have the right information and are willing to learn and get out of your own way. Anything's possible.

Daphné Vanessa (03:48): Yeah. And so let me get this right. You paid $35,000 of debt off in one year. Is that right?

Cyril Jose (03:58): Yeah, definitely.

Shamil Rodriguez (04:00): Wow.

Daphné Vanessa (04:02): That's a huge accomplished.

Cyril Jose (04:04): I definitely want to stress that we have like a two income household you know, both of us you know, with me working full time, my wife working part-time so that definitely helps a lot. But I think like the, the main reason was that, you know, we were able to align our goals, you know, and come up with a strategy and I think no matter what your income situation is, whether you're on your own or you have a partner as long as you're clear on your goals and you make a plan it'll happen. Yeah.

Shamil Rodriguez (04:39): Yeah. And I, and I think on that front, because the initial thought that came to mind was, well, kids are free, so how did they make this work? Right. So how did you guys, let's say, if you don't mind sort of how you say the alignment process came about, right. Because did you guys, were you guys like already moving in your own direction and then you were like, Hey, you know what, like just one day you were just like, I need to get this going. Or like, how did that process go? Because I feel like if people are in a similar situation, they may already have like a routine that they're used to in terms of their money and their finances. What was it that was the spark for you and your wife to make that change?

Cyril Jose (05:16): We were looking at our debts one day. I think it was, it was me. I was looking at our, our money situation and this randomly, I decided to list down our debts question, the loans balance our car loan balance, our credit card balance. And I was, we were just like shocked. We couldn't believe that like we had, you know, so much in savings, you know, and then so much in debt and it just, it just didn't feel right. And we needed, we knew we needed to make a change. Right. You know, after going all these years of you know, just going through the motions, you know, just going out to bars, eating out of restaurants and not really, you know, thinking about the consequences of like having so much debt. So that was a wake up call that we needed.

Daphné Vanessa (06:05): I love that. Love that. And so I would love to pick your brain about the methodology that you used. Right? That's a lot of debt and 12 months is a short period of time. It's like 12 to 24 pay cycles, 26, depending on where you get paid. But the idea to just really buckle down and pay that much money. Did you prioritize my interest rate? Did you do the snowball method where you prioritize by debt size? What was your, what was your methodology and approach?

Cyril Jose (06:37): Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. So we wanted to focus on the height and trust at first, just so you know, we have our auto loan debt, student loan debt, credit card, debt credit card debt was definitely the higher interest debt. So we tackled that first. So we can get that out of the way and have less of the bank take our money. So, you know, didn't want them to take any more than they needed to. So we focus on that first and then since we had multiple credit cards, we focused on the debt snowball method where you focus on the, the lowest balance. First, it was really important for us to stay motivated. So we felt like the debt snowball was the right approach for us because we could see those wins quickly, you know, and get those small

Daphné Vanessa (07:24): Balances

Cyril Jose (07:25): Exactly. Yet getting those knocked out first was like huge for us. And it gave us some momentum which is contagious, you know, like, you know, you knock out one debt and, you know, you start adding the, the extra money that you added towards that payment towards the next one, you know, and that snow and that snowball fashion. So that really helped us, you know, make changes quickly.

Daphné Vanessa (07:51): Amazing. Amazing. And so just getting technical and specific because I love technical and specific. Can we talk about the actual numbers? Right. So how much in credit card debt did you have sort of broken out by card and what were the interest rates? How many approximately were there and did you automate your payments or were they manually made, did you double payments in a month? So did you do more than one payment per cycle? Just talk to us about sort of like the specific,

Cyril Jose (08:22): I think it was like over a year ago. So I'm trying to remember, but I think we had five or six credit cards that had balances on it and we just sorted it by the, the balance, you know, starting with the lowest first. And we, we paid the minimums on, let's just say, I, I think we have five, but we paid minimums on four of them. And then the one that we were focusing on, we just added extra cash towards that payment. So we made that automatic, you know, once was done. I did some manual work to readjust, you know, paying off the full balance and then, and then adding more money to the next card and then automating that. And then once I was done, then, you know, making that slight change again. So like if I was, if I had a minimum payment of like 70 bucks, you know, I would add an extra a hundred on top of that, make it a whole one 70. And then once that balance was done, take that one 70 payment added onto that minimum payment for the next card. Yup. Yup. Yup. And then just keep adding that going forward. So yeah, so it was a little bit of manual and automation there, you know just to make sure everything was going right according to our budget and stuff. So, and which was new, which was new to us to like be having like a, like, like a budget for us. You know, we knew that,

Daphné Vanessa (09:46): I love it. I love seeing sort of the growth and I think that's so inspiring. The, just the idea that you're executing something consistently on habit, it becomes almost internal. Have you applied some of these same habits to other types of debt that you may have or are you completely debt free? Just share, share a little bit about that if you don't mind.

Cyril Jose (10:08): Yep. So we don't have any credit card debt, but we still have our car loan to pay off our student loans. My wife's student loans actually. And we it's the same principles. Like we just add a little bit more than the minimum payment that the bank requires. And yeah, we just put it on autopilot. We just pay it off every month so that we don't mess with it, you know? So, you know, it's, it makes things super simple. And I think one thing with paying off debt is getting to spending, right. You know, like, you know, the mindset needs to change because like you're paying off debt, but you also have to still control your spending. So that way you're not, you know, going back into that same cycle of like, you know, spending, getting back in debt, paying it off, that type of thing.

Cyril Jose (10:52): So one technique that we use was that we opened a separate checking account and it was, it's kind of like, we kind of use it as a digital envelope in a way. So if we had, for example, like I do our budget and we have a spending plan for the month for like $400 for the month of like whatever we needed, you know, and using a guilt-free for whatever we needed. We use that debit card to make our purchases. The only thing is I wouldn't recommend that for everybody only because when you use a debit card, it doesn't have the consumer protection that a credit card would have. Right. But in our situation, it worked for us and we haven't had like any problems with it. But what was nice was that we opened up a checking account that had didn't have like a minimum. So like we can literally go to like $20, you know, $15. And we would know that this is how much we would have to spend for the month and not have worry about like any extra fees from like going, like, you know, under like a hundred dollar minimum balance or something like that. So that w that, that technique worked for us because we didn't have to rely on a credit card to do our spending.

Shamil Rodriguez (12:05): So what about the I guess I wanted to emphasize one point the consumer protection. I don't want to gloss over what that means for those of you who aren't into you know, finance the way that you all are here. So would you mind just quickly just summarizing what that means and why you would want to use a debit card versus a credit card

Cyril Jose (12:24): With a lot of purchases? Especially big purchases, there's a big chance for a fraud to happen. So it's always best practice to use a credit card versus a debit card. Whereas when you're making the, like a $500 purchase or something like that, the money's being directly taken from your account using the debit card. And if someone gets access to that transaction, for whatever reason, then they can take more money out of that account, you know, cause they'll have the card information, so credit cards because they want you to spend and they want you to use their their bank and their systems. So they would, they offer better protection to you as the consumer for those purchases. So and they're really good about that. I mean, you can report a illegal activity or a transaction online. They make it really easy to do that with banks, not so much. Like we, we had a debit card with specific, like a specific bank which, you know, I won't name, but it took us six months to get almost $700 back. And I had to file a police report and and I had to do some, like my own investigations into like like I had to do all the work in reaching out to companies that the person bought from, you know?

Shamil Rodriguez (13:53): Oh, wow. So you, you were the investigator, you, you were the person good for you for doing?

Cyril Jose (13:59): Yeah, because like no one else was going to the bank, wasn't helping with that. So I'm pretty sure if I had fraud on my credit card, I wouldn't have to do even like a quarter of the work that I did. Okay.

Shamil Rodriguez (14:11): No, that's good. No, that's good. That's really good. I want to make sure that people are out there when they're making these decisions and they're looking at their student loan debt. Right. You know, for the student loan podcast, these principles apply to both consumer debt or student loan debt. Right. So take a look at how you're making your payments, what methods you're using so that you are maximizing the best tools out there to protect you. Right. Because in the end, a $700 is still $700 that doesn't need to be tied up by anybody else except you, because that's your money.

Cyril Jose (14:44): Like we worked so hard for our money. Right. And to have someone, you know, commit fraud and go through that process, it was such a pain. No.

Shamil Rodriguez (14:52): Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're on the same page. So what about Sarah on this question here I know you guys said you, you decided to make a budget and that was like a new habit for you guys to build. Did you follow anyone in particular or did you just, or did you just like Google it and were like, you know, we can just pick a random method. Like how did it work for you guys and what type of advice have you given to people that interacting with your, you know, with your content now?

Cyril Jose (15:16): So I'm a big fan of a roommate. Satie I read his book was the first book I read on personal finance. It was called I will teach you to be rich. And I, and I used a, is a spending plan, like the concept for it. And well I used Dave Ramsey's snowball method to get rid of the debt, to plan the paying down the debt. And then I used his roommates spending plan, conscious spending plan to kind of figure out how our finances would fit with that, within that plan. You know,

Shamil Rodriguez (15:52): What, what is, what does that mean? Yeah, go ahead. Tell it, tell the listeners, what is that a spending plan? Because we did go over the, the snowball method which worked with

Cyril Jose (15:59): Yeah. So spending plan budgeting, it's all, it's all at the same thing, right? I mean, it's just different, you know, different term terminology there. But you definitely want to have a plan for your fixed costs. You're investing, you're saving and you're spending, you know, and his philosophy is being able to spend guilt-free on things. You know, which a lot of personal finance experts don't really talk about, you know, they talk about saving and investing, but you also want to live, live your rich life as he calls it. So, and that includes a guilt-free spending. So it's really allocating certain percentages to money, to, to money. So I think it's, and I, I'm sure you guys have came across a spending plan, but I think it's like 50 to 60% fixed costs, 10% for investing 10% for saving and 20 that 35% for guilt-free spending. Right. Yeah. Something like that.

Daphné Vanessa (17:00): And then he says to allocate it in like these sinking funds, he recommends a particular institution that I think, I think it's a good idea, just not to name institutions, but he recommends

Shamil Rodriguez (17:12): Co-Sponsors,

Daphné Vanessa (17:14): But he recommends a particular institution where you can sort of have these many savings accounts and allocate funds towards your guilt free spending. And so I, I am totally so aligned with you in terms of, of methodology. I also started with Dave Ramsey and ended up in the Rameet Satie land because I think the principles of Dave Ramsey are quite foundational, you know, like have a savings, have an emergency savings account, you know, make sure that you're paying off your debt, make sure that you you know, are contributing to your retirement accounts. I think everybody sort of says the same there, but where I appreciate roommate's method is also just that guilt free spending life, not living in deprivation. And he also said living outside of the spreadsheet, right. I'm the, I'm the person that would have been living in the spreadsheet. In fact, I just reviewed my spreadsheet last night, very

Shamil Rodriguez (18:11): Frequently.

Daphné Vanessa (18:15): So I love his reminders, right. To live life in real life and not online and not on a spreadsheet, but really just enjoying, like for you, it's enjoying your family, right? You have two children, you have a wife enjoying your family and you're still making progress. Right. Life is about progress, but it's not necessarily about, I'm not going to do anything until that the goal I had to get to that mentality, but I think remeet for helping me get there.

Cyril Jose (18:41): Yeah. I think like, you know, the way I look at things and his philosophy some of the things are definitely aligned with like kind of just getting started and taking action and with his, like this get started and move on, like, you know, life is more, you know, definitely more than about money. There's a lot of other things that are important to us, you know, and money is definitely a big part of it, you know, but, you know, we don't want to get too caught up in indecision, you know, and we just need to like kind of pick a course, take action and move on. So yeah.

Daphné Vanessa (19:14): Well, love, love smell. Do you have any questions?

Shamil Rodriguez (19:18): Absolutely. Yeah, no, I'm really sorry. I feel like I'm hogging up the time here, but I just have some really I think it's really important to, to stress. Like what you're, what you're doing is something that we had said before the show that a lot of people oftentimes feel like they've given up or like, oh, it's too late for me. And I actually heard, Rameet say that to him when, if it's pause, but like I just meet those people. Right. It's not uncommon in my circles to meet people that just feel like, oh, it's too late for me. So, you know, tell us a little bit about your, your mission, right? Like you're, you're still working, but you still decide to now share this knowledge with people you've been featured on bank rate. Right. Like, so just tell us a little bit about what it is that you're trying to accomplish and what motivates you to even share it in the first place.

Cyril Jose (20:01): The motivation is kind of what we went through. When me and my wife went through like just paying off our debt and getting just really involved in this personal finance world, at least for me you know, the foundational concepts and getting started are really important to, I think, one of the very first steps in managing the money that you have to underst you have to want to learn about managing your money, you know, cause like, cause at a certain point she was like, you're not going to be ready to listen. You know? And that was, that was definitely me. Like I wasn't ready to listen and manage my money and my twenties, you know? I talk about all the time with everybody. Like it was at a point where I had to learn and come to that, like the grips of that, that decision, that indecision that I had long ago and I was ready to learn last year, you know, as a, as a 33 year old, you know?

Cyril Jose (20:55): And I think learning the basics and the foundational stuff really helped give me confidence in managing my money and, and also propelling me to learn more. So I, yep. And that's what kind of caused me to start training your dollar? Cause I, I felt like there's a lot of people out there like myself that feel like they should be managing their money and they haven't started yet. And they're just stuck somewhere along the lines. And I just want them to know that even though you might've had chances earlier and stuff that it's not too late to start now. Wow.

Daphné Vanessa (21:35): And so how are you helping people get through that blockage? Right? Is it that they, is it a psychology sort of play? Is it a motivational play? Is it like actual tactics for, you know, you think that these are the steps to get out. What is your sort of secret sauce and helping people that you know, are starting at a later stage from what the industry suggests on, get reaching financial independence and being debt free.

Cyril Jose (22:03): When I first started in my account, I focused a lot on tactics. So the way I, in general, you know, I put out content on Instagram, you know, and a lot of my posts in the early days focused on tactics like specific steps on like how to like pay off your debt. Specific strategies like for saving, like getting really like technical. And as the account evolved, I started focusing more on productivity and mindset. Cause I know that's all tied in with tactics, right. Because you know, you can focus on tactics first, but you need the mindset that to keep it going, you know, like you want to be in that frame of mind of like, you know, how do I, how do I optimize this? You know, how do I make this better? How do I keep learning about money and my own productivity? And, you know, cause like the, you know, getting started and taking action takes place in all parts of our life, you know, whether it's relating to money or not. So, you know, and that's part of the reason why I focus on productivity and mindset because you know, if it'll help you in all parts of your life, then it'll definitely help you in your, in your financial journey as well. So yeah,

Daphné Vanessa (23:15): I love that. I and w so what helped you get there? What helped you decide that your sort of secret sauce to use the same word again? Sorry. was, was the mindset aspect, like that was the value that you were bringing to the audience? Was it the audiences engagement that let you know that that's really where they were getting value? Or was it you just realizing that that's where you had the most talent?

Cyril Jose (23:41): For me personally, I think it was a combination of seeing other content creators talking about mindset and productivity, but it was also me reading. I'm a big like self-help person. So like I read a lot of stuff on self-help personal development and growth and stuff. So I think like one of the biggest books that had an influence on me was James clear as atomic habits. Oh yes. Good one. Yeah. Like creating systems and like just, you know, that sort of thing. So like I think that, and a bunch of other books that I read and stuff that I read online and stuff that I, I do personally, you know, without reading those books, I think that all comes into play in me creating content on Instagram. So to help people like kind of be more productive in general and just get started taking action. So, okay.

Daphné Vanessa (24:33): So do you have a timeline when you want to be debt free by for you and your family? Or are you just taking, playing it by ear? What's your strategy that, that you hope to?

Cyril Jose (24:46): Yeah, we have our debt-free dates figured out for our car loan and for our student loans. So, so yeah, so we're just kind of sticking with the plan, so hope planning to get debt-free by at least in the next five or six years, it's completely like, you know, we're credit card debt free, but hoping to get rid of the student loans and this car so

Daphné Vanessa (25:08): Amazing. Amazing. And so if you're comfortable sharing the student loan journey, just because like, this is the student loan podcast, we're assuming that you use the same methodology, right. That you use for credit cards, but is there anything specific in terms of paying off student loans that you think is helping you accomplish it more quickly or more efficiently? That would be really interesting just to hear from your perspective.

Cyril Jose (25:34): Yes. So for my wife's student loans which is what we're paying off now, they, I think we had like three or four different loans, student loans for her, and it really helped us just to organize things, was to consolidate the debt. So we consolidated the debt and made it one like, like a singular interest rate and not having like four or five different industries that we had to worry about and, you know, paying for different, like five different lenders. So paying one lender with one fixed interest rate really helped a lot. And yeah, and then once we got that, you know we got our payment, which is like our minimum payment and we just added a little bit extra to it to kind of accelerate it. And, you know, we use like financial calculators online to help us figure out like, you know, what works for us and what works within our budget and figured out what our debt free data is, things like that. So that really helped us in our strategy kind of figure out what we're going to be debt free and how much money we can actually put towards the debt. Nice.

Shamil Rodriguez (26:42): Quick question on that. Do you, and this is inspired by another guest that we had recently episode 51 Rockfield and actually was speaking about using visual cues or different ways to like, kind of motivate yourself. So what were some of the hacks that you and your wife implemented to help keep you guys on the path

Cyril Jose (27:00): To keep us on the path, to keep getting an officer to run that?

Shamil Rodriguez (27:04): Yeah. Or just both, both at that point, did you come up with like a map? Did you have like a thermometer that you guys for that on the refrigerator, like anything like that? You know, you have kids, I can imagine arts and crafts is not foreign to you,

Cyril Jose (27:16): Right? Yeah. I know. It's funny. Like our is like two years old, you know, and she's just starting getting into like drawing and finger, finger painting and things like that. But actually for the student loan payoff, we didn't, we honestly just use automation. We just like have a monthly payment. And we just figured out from our budget, how much we could put towards that. Like we didn't have any visual cues specifically to help us with our student loan pale.

Shamil Rodriguez (27:42): Okay. No, thank you for,

Daphné Vanessa (27:46): So we're here just in the space where you're creating an and, and a motivating, really a large group of people, thousands of people, right? Thousands of people are following you. So you're motivating them. You're, you're showing them you're leading by example by implementing it in your own life. What's next from here for you, where is the future of train your dollar go?

Cyril Jose (28:08): So I do have plans to make a blog, so I haven't, I haven't started that yet, but I do want to at least get my first blog post out by the end of the year at the latest. So I have that and I do have an email list, you know, so, you know, so people can find me on my email list as well and join me there and talk to me directly through. There has probably the best way to get in contact with me and also in Instagram and Twitter, just anyone can get me there, but that's pretty much the plan. It's just a build up the blog and for now.

Daphné Vanessa (28:41): Nice. Thanks. And do you see that eventually becoming a revenue source that helps you pay off debt and reach financial independence? It's financial independence, not even in your plan?

Cyril Jose (28:52): Yeah. Financial independence is in the plan, but I haven't tracked it as detailed as a lot of other people who are doing fire, you know, so I'm, you know, I'm kind of, we have a busy house here, so, you know, you know, so, you know, it just, you know, making sure that we're, you know, our budgets and on track and we're paying off our debts and stuff and

Shamil Rodriguez (29:20): [Inaudible],

Cyril Jose (29:22): We have a dog as well.

Shamil Rodriguez (29:26): [Inaudible]

Cyril Jose (29:27): Exactly. Yeah. So making sure everyone's everyone's safe and fed and you know, all that good stuff, you know, so, yeah. So I'm not tracking it as much as other people are. It's definitely on my mind. Like I think, I feel like once we, once we're done with our debt, then I can really focus on ramping up our investment contributions and things of that nature. So

Shamil Rodriguez (29:50): Yeah. Use that, use that slow ball and roll it into your investment account.

Cyril Jose (29:54): Yeah, exactly. Use those extra debt payments that we're paying and funnel that towards our, or beefing up our emergency fund and investing even more so.

Daphné Vanessa (30:04): Oh, so exciting. Well, your journey sounds super exciting. Do you have anything that you'd like to share with the audience?

Cyril Jose (30:13): Yeah. I just want everyone to know that, like I noticed student loan debt in particular can seem very like daunting. You know, like five figure, six figure student loan debt. And I just want people to know, like if you start taking action now to make a plan and you keep your eyes on the prize of like, whatever your goals may be you'll be able to pay down your debt, you know, it's possible. You know, we made a plan and we, we planned to be debt free in the next like five to six years. So yeah. So I, that's the main takeaway I want people to take away is like, you know, no matter how old you are, you can start making a plan at any time. And it may take you a little longer than, you know, than other people, but you just need to stay focused on what you have to do.

Daphné Vanessa (31:03): Love it.

Shamil Rodriguez (31:04): Yeah. No. And thank you for sharing this that I'm really happy to join this show before we wrap up today, actually we have a surprise that we don't tell the guests. And I think we have enough time to have a lightening round. So what we do is we call lightning round. You're not prepared as everybody's listening, who knows the show already knows that we're going to throw some questions at you and want you actually your impulse response. Okay. Okay. You don't have much time to think so, so, all right. So here we go. Daphne

Daphné Vanessa (31:33): Chocolate cake or vanilla,

Cyril Jose (31:35): Vanilla

Daphné Vanessa (31:37): Now met or Navien

Cyril Jose (31:39): Maybe.

Daphné Vanessa (31:40): Oh, interesting. That's

Shamil Rodriguez (31:42): The first

Daphné Vanessa (31:45): Avalanche or snowball

Cyril Jose (31:47): Snowball

Daphné Vanessa (31:49): Fire or fat fire fire F I or fire.

Cyril Jose (31:58): That's why. Okay.

Daphné Vanessa (32:00): That's all

Shamil Rodriguez (32:02): Awesome. All right. Thank you sir. So much for joining us. And, and where can people find you again just to make sure everybody's got it

Cyril Jose (32:09): For sure. I'm mainly on Instagram, but you can find me on Instagram and on Twitter at train your dollar. Okay.

Shamil Rodriguez (32:16): Yeah. All right, guys. So here, you've heard it from Sarah. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate you sharing your personal experience, giving motivation to people that feel like it's been too late for them, right? It's not too late. As you can see, you've paid off over 30 grand in consumer debt in a year. So all of it is possible. It just took a little bit of planning, right? It wasn't cumbersome. It didn't take tons of spreadsheets looking at Daphne. But you know, all took was some action, right? And some motivation and, and communication with your spouse, right? Once you guys get on the same page, you know, you guys were able to rock and roll. So for more information on today's episode, visit the soon loan podcast.com for slash episode 53. That's the student loan podcast.com for slash episode 53.