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And what that means is let's have a fun show. I'm going to release an interview today and we're going to talk about how you can build financial independence in your twenties without missing a party. No heavy lifting here. No really intellectual stuff that you got to dig deep in.

Rather, we're going to talk about how do you save money at the bar and how do you not go broke when you're trying to party. Sit back, relax, and let's have some fun today. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.

Thank you for being with me today. I'm going to try to give you a fun one today. My guest is a man named Martin Dasko. Martin's a really great guy. He writes a website called studenomics.com. You'll hear his story in just a few minutes. But how's this for fun?

Not only is he talking about finance, but he's used his financial independence to become an aspiring professional wrestler. I was trying to think. My brain just blanked. Martin, I think your stage name is The Latin Lover, something like that. I just blanked all of a sudden. But Martin's a really fun guy.

I first met him a year ago at FinCon 2014. I met him and started connecting with his stuff. I hadn't previously been aware of his work. And then this year when we were at FinCon 2015, I decided to invite him on the show. And I thought it'd be really fun because he started his financial blog when he was in his 20s, in college.

And he's got some insights into helping people to set their lives up well in college. And I'm hoping this show can be something that'll be fun, something that you can share with other people who are in college or who are going into college because your young adult years are years in which you can either set yourself up for a lifetime of success or they are years in which you can set yourself up for many years, perhaps even decades of drudgery.

And yet it's not that difficult to go with option A and set yourself up for success. All it takes is making a few simple decisions well. So before we get to the interview though, let's talk about sponsors for today. Sponsor number one is Paladin Registry. Paladin Registry is my solution to the most requested – the most often – the thing that people ask me more than anything else, which is, "Joshua, how do I find a financial advisor?" My hope is that Radical Personal Finance can help open up the curtains a little bit on the financial planning business.

So I talk to financial advisors. I try to share some of my experiences and hope I can help you to see where a financial advisor can be useful and where a financial advisor cannot be useful. Originally, I was going to try to create my own financial advisory firm and serve some of you guys in that capacity.

But I realized that's not the best use of my time. So I was trying to figure out how can I bring someone else on the show that I could send you guys to. Paladin Registry is my best effort to be able to do that. Paladin Registry is a financial advisor referral service.

It's not like a pay-to-play thing where every advisor just comes and gets in. Rather, it's a registry and you have to meet certain strict criteria in order to gain entrance to the registry. So the founder, Jack Wehmeyer, built these tests and criteria to keep people basically transparent, accountable, to try to bring to you the best options for you.

If you're interested in all the details of that, go back and listen to episode 248 of the show. It's an in-depth interview with Jack where we talk in detail, completely transparent about every aspect of the registry. Then if you're looking for a financial advisor, if you don't have one or you'd like to check and see if there's a better option available for you, go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/paladin.

That link will pass you through to a page where you'll put in your information. You'll put in a name, your zip code, your phone number, email address, and you'll put in the amount of assets that you have potentially to manage. That's important so that they can filter. For example, if you've got a million dollars, they'll filter out some of the ones who only accept minimums of $3 million.

Or if you've got $300,000, they'll filter out people appropriately. So go ahead and put that information in there as well. It's important. Then what they will do is they'll take that and they'll send you the information of several advisors. Those advisors will contact you. They'll try to connect with you.

They'll meet with you and you can interview them to see if any of them can serve you. So please check that out. Go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/paladin. The feedback so far has been excellent. Those of you listeners who have used that have told me it's really good. Most of you have met with two or three advisors and that way you had a range of options.

Then the people who have given me feedback so far have usually found one that they started to have a good feeling about. So check that out at RadicalPersonalFinance.com/paladin. Sponsor number two is Patrick Snow. Patrick Snow is a publishing coach. He is my publishing coach. He's the guy that I hired to help me as I've been working on this book that I'm working on.

He's been a great guy and many of you guys in the audience, many of you guys and gals or listeners are entrepreneurs and I think you would be well served by considering writing a book. Patrick is a world class expert at that. Listen to episode 252 of the show which was the interview with him and then if you are interested in information helping him guide you through the pitfalls to do a good job and avoid all the mistakes of publishing a book, go to ThePublishingDoctor.com and get in touch with him.

That's it. Let's get right to it and have a little fun. Martin, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. I appreciate you being with me. Thanks for finally having me on. I'm glad we could make this happen. So you've been in the finance blogging world for, wow, about forever, huh? Well, about seven years which in blogging years is forever because many blogs come and go or they give up when they're not a millionaire after six months.

I'm happy to have made it this long. Your site is called studentonomics.com and so you primarily focus on student economics, right? That was how it started at least? Well, that's how it started. It was 2008 and I was one of those guys that read about entrepreneurship, talked about it but never really did anything.

So I figured I had to do something. So me and a buddy would meet up every day and we would talk about some business plan where we help people with their money. It was essentially a personal finance blog on paper which probably wouldn't work because who reads on paper?

So every day we talked about it but this guy was even worse than me when it came to launch anxiety. So nothing ever happened. So finally I wanted to start a blog. I just started writing articles. I started reading personal finance sites and some of the people are here actually.

So I reached out to these guys and one of the first people that responded was PT Money. I said, "Hey, I sent like a generic template. Don't do that. I sent every single blogger the same template. Like I like your site. It is a good site. Can I start a site?" Not even like, "Hello, Phil." Just like, "Hello, dear sir." So finally Phil told me you can make money blogging and people actually do this.

So then I said, like I said, I was writing, I was writing and then finally I read the dough roller. He's actually here. Yep. And he had a post on how to start a blog. So I said, "I'm going to do this." So it was a Friday night. It was November 7, 2008.

I was at home. I had nothing to do. I said, "I got to do something about this." So I followed his easy steps and then apparently you needed a domain name. So I said, "Well, I'm a student. I help most people and why not student economics, Studonomics?" I thought it was the most clever thing in the world.

I never even thought about Studonomics. Sorry, not to spoil your branding, but I just always assumed it was student economics. I never even thought of the play on words. No. So now I kind of go with it. You know, I guess this won't help listeners, but my business card is a picture of me with my shirt open and I play with it.

It's Studonomics or it's Studentomics. Depends who you are, you know? I like it. You look like quite the... Who's the guy with the long hair that's really famous? Fazio or something? Fabio. Fabio. Yeah. He's a poor imitation. So let's talk about student economics. And what I'm interested in is you have an ability to write in a voice that is able to help a lot of people.

And that's a voice that I just don't have. You know, I'm the Mr. Stuffy financial planner and you've got the ability to connect with the people that are in that phase of life. What do you focus on for people who are students in that, "Hey, we're in school. We're trying to have a good time, but we're also trying to do smart stuff with our money." Where do you start?

Well, so like, as I was saying earlier, the site started with me as a student and a stud, I guess. No, just kidding. So the site grew with me. So now I cover financial freedom in your 20s without missing a party. But so originally I started off with students.

So the one thing I wrote about that I really wanted to stress is that you don't have to go into debt to get your degree. And I think that's the biggest issue for most students right now is that they feel that, "Oh, you know, I'm in school. Nothing really matters right now.

Like I'll just rack up debt. I shouldn't really work." I show people that if you don't get on top of your finances at an early age, it will ruin your life. There's no other way to put it, right? Like you don't want to be in your 30s and stuck paying off debt or worrying about student loans or forced, even worse, you're forced to work a job that you hate just because you financed an unrealistic lifestyle as a student.

So I started off by talking about, you know, paying off student loans while in school. And I show you like, I'm not a boring guy. You don't have to be some nerd who sits around all day and misses out on life to be financially free. Not at all. So I show people like, "Sure, you party on Friday night, but what did you do to earn that party?

What did you do Monday to Friday? Do you have any student loans? Do you have any debt? Are you making money? Are you using your skills to make some more money?" Because college is the best time to start making money. Right. You have nothing else to do all day, right?

You can only party so much in the evening and classes only take what, 15 hours a week. Exactly. You've got plenty more time. Did you go through school without debt? Yes, I finished with no debt. So that... How'd you do that? Do you want the long story or the short story?

Yeah, let's go with the medium story. The medium story. Oh, wow. Go with the long story. That's fine. No, I mean, my one tip for anyone that wants to graduate debt-free is that you have to make one huge sacrifice at some point. So my one huge sacrifice as a student was that I lived at home.

Okay. I mean, it kind of killed my love life, as you can imagine, and my social life. But on the plus side, I graduated debt-free. So I was able to travel the world and do whatever I wanted. Like, my friends are rushing to get jobs and I'm just, you know, blogging about personal finance.

Right. So you have to start by making a huge sacrifice. If you have to move away for school, that's cool. Can you work? What I did was I lived at home and I worked crazy hours. I took the bus to school. I took the bus everywhere. It wasn't sexy.

It wasn't cool. You know, like I had my bus pass on me. I rode the bus for one hour every single day just to get to class. But it wasn't so bad. That's what I did all my studying. So I rode the bus, took public transportation. And you have to cut costs any way possible as a student.

The best part about being a student is that it's cool to be broke. Like, everyone expects you to be broke. So take advantage of it. Everywhere I went, I asked for a student discount. No shame, you know. And then the other thing is textbooks. I did whatever it took to save money on textbooks.

If you buy every textbook new, I don't know what to tell you. That's foolish. I would say the best way is to go to the first couple of classes and see if you need, even if you need the textbook, because you don't really need a textbook for every single class.

And then if you do need it, you can buy used. You can buy, you can share with friends. You can buy the online version. You can find like an exchange program. Most schools have an exchange program where like older students will sell it to younger students. Really? You know, someone took the course, they'll sell it to you.

Do that because saving money on textbooks alone could be thousands of dollars. So live at home, save money on textbooks and work. I meet so many students that tell me, oh, I don't have time to work. Come on, seriously. Like who do you think you're talking to? I was there.

I was that guy. There's time. Unless, you know, unless you're becoming a doctor or an engineer, then I understand. Because then, you know, you don't really have time for much. Right. But if you're just studying anything else but doctoring or engineering, get a job. Right. Work. That's what I did.

I worked. I worked part time hours. I even worked on campus. I was the guy that, I was an exam invigilator. So what I did was I made sure you weren't cheating because you shouldn't be cheating. So I worked on campus and I worked all the time. And then during the summers, I got, I would get another job.

I would do construction. I would be a soccer referee. Eventually, I started blogging. I did. I just worked, worked, worked because you're full of energy. You have time and every dollar counts. If you can, you know, get a job, make an extra hundred bucks a week. Think about what that's going to do to your tuition and your debt that helps you.

And finally, apply for free money. It's unbelievable how much free money exists out there and we just don't apply for it. For example, I ran into a buddy, you know, I was new on campus. I'm like, where are you going? He goes, come for a walk. I'm going to go apply for some bursaries.

So I had a four hour spare and I applied for bursaries. All you have to do to apply for free money is write an essay. What's a bursary? Oh, do you have like scholarships here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's the Canadian term? Well, we have bursaries, like it's like a grant, a scholarship.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, grants and scholarships. Got it. Yeah, so grants and scholarships are amazing. There's like funds out there that exist to give people money. Nobody applies for it. And I'm guilty of this too because sometimes I would see like, oh, write an essay telling us why you deserve the scholarship.

I'd be like, eh, I don't know. But if you think about it, writing an essay takes about like an hour. It's like, nobody fights for the word essay. Sure. What is your job pay? $11 an hour. Right. Imagine you fill out this bursary and you get $200. It's 200 bucks an hour.

That's not bad. Right. So that's what I did. I filled out a bursary with this buddy. I'm like, this seems like a scam. He goes, no, nobody applies. Just the grant exists. They want to give money. These are like, there's government funds, there's private funds. So I filled out this form.

I told them, hey, I'm poor. Here's the proof. I told them, you know, you guys are taking all my money. I have no money. I get an email. I thought, oh my God, I'm going to get arrested. They're going to, I'm going to get in trouble for fraud. And they're like, your check is ready, sir.

I'm like, my check is ready. So I went to the student office and there's a check for $200. I'm like, okay, I can do whatever I want with this. So I had $200. Nice. A girlfriend of mine, we're not dating anymore by the time, she would fill out scholarships religiously.

And she was a minority. So there was a fund for minorities and nobody applied for it. They just figured out, I won't get it. She applied. I forget the number, but it was like $4,000 that she got. She redecorated her living room, but that's another story. But still free money.

So if I can graduate debt free, anybody can. I was out every Friday night. I was always having fun. I never missed out on anything. I just, I worked, I lived at home. I saved money on textbooks and I applied for scholarships. And there's no greater feeling than being debt free in your early twenties.

Did you have financial goals at that time that went beyond simply graduating debt free? Yes. I told a buddy when I was 16, I said, I'm going to buy a condo before I buy a car. I have no emotional story, no epiphany. I was just a greedy kid. And I was always kind of like a party guy.

So I always wanted to party. I just wanted to have money for it. So I told a buddy, I'm going to buy a condo. So long story short, I bought a condo before I bought a car. Luckily, I bought it from a developer. So it was like, it wasn't really ready.

So I had to put down 5% on signing, 5% in a year and 5% on when I actually got the keys. So 5% was not that much. So I saved up and then I knew that I had to save up the next 5%. Between us, I didn't have that money.

So hence why working kind of became a necessity because I had to pay or else I'd lose my other 5%. So yeah, my goal was to get into real estate and I did. I at 21, I got the keys to my condo. Do you still live there? It was an adventure.

I sold it. I made a nice profit. I used it as a, I lived there for a year and I rented a room out to a friend. It's more of a party mate. We just went out all the time. And then when I went to travel, I rented it out too.

I found tenants. And then finally, I didn't like the building. Like it was a nice building, but like the unit was, it was a loft. It was a printing factory that turned into a loft. And for some reason, somebody wanted it. They made a great offer. I said, you know what?

I want to buy more property. So I sold it for a profit and now I'm buying more real estate. That's awesome. You, after college, you just, the blog became your full-time income or what did you do then? Well, everything in my life has been on the job training. So when I started the blog, I, you know, like I said, I thought it was so cool.

You know, studentomics. I'm like, what a clever name, right? Studenomics, you know, awesome. My design sucked. Everything sucked. So finally, after one month, I got an email. Someone says, I'll pay you 20 bucks for a link. I'm like, you're paying me 20 bucks. I've made it. I'm on top of the world, right?

So you can't really pay the bills of 20 bucks a month. You know, you can cover your hosting. So then from then, I would just write. I would just, you know, do normal things like talk to other bloggers, join forums, have a good time. And then people would be like, I'd get emails like, can you write for us?

And I just assumed that they wanted me to write for free. So I was kind of like, eh, not really. I didn't realize people wanted to hire me. So I kind of like created a job, if that makes sense. I started writing for other sites, like freelance writing, blog management.

I mean, I started in 2008. So like all these like social media manager jobs that you see everywhere now, those are new back then because there was no such thing as Twitter. So you couldn't be a Twitter manager if there was no Twitter. So I just kind of, it was all in the job training.

I would just start freelance writing. Then I'd start selling more advertising space. And then I built a blog and someone bought it from me. I'm like, you want to buy a bunch of articles? And because back in like 2010, 2011, people were buying sites. That was the thing to do.

So I sold the site and it's all kind of been like a series of flukes and just me being in the right place at the right time. And fortunately, I've been able just to do that and the real estate helped me. And then just been writing and I've gone on to launch books and courses and here I am.

So you make all your money online? Yeah. Well, you know, I got real estate and do some freelancing. So it's yeah, it's all over the place. Tell me about your travels. So I'm actually the worst traveler out there. Like most people, they go to like, they go backpacking for like a year.

They do all these cool things. I don't like to be away from home. I actually enjoy my life. I do like, I do jujitsu. I do pro wrestling. I'm a member of two gyms. I actually don't like to leave for long periods of time. So my travels are actually shorter than most people's.

I'll go away for a couple of weeks. I'll go away for, I like going away for weekends. I like going to events, conferences. I like going away with a purpose, you know? Right. Because I'm sure it's fun to go traveling for a year, but I just, I just couldn't do it.

I just haven't, I want to do it one day, but I haven't done it. So for me, I just go places and have fun. So for example, like in 2011, I finished college. I wanted to travel with a buddy because I didn't know he could travel alone. I thought those people were weirdos, you know, like that guy's traveling alone.

He must have no friends. So this guy kept on bailing and bailing, giving excuses. I just booked a flight. I booked a flight to Poland because I have a Polish background. So I figured out I'll work on my Polish skills, right? So I booked a trip and my parents thought I was insane.

They're like, why would you want to go alone? I said, I have to go. So I thought, oh man, what am I going to do for three weeks alone? It's the longest trip I've ever been on. So finally, I just, I just showed up. No plan, nothing. And I didn't realize what an amazing community backpackers are.

Like it's, it's like an underground society. As soon as you get to one hostel, you meet so many friends. You find out about all these cool places and I didn't know what I was going to do. So I ended up in Poland and I went to Budapest and I've traveled around and I love it.

In 2013, I went to Argentina. That was another adventure. I went to work on my Spanish because I've been doing Spanish lessons. But I realized that there's different kinds of Spanish. And I also learned real fast that people talk fast. So I thought I was ready to go. I did these lessons and here I am like, hello, sir.

I walk on the street. I got these like very complex sentences. Where is the washroom? And it didn't go so well. Tell me the story of this wrestling thing that you're doing. So I spoke at an event last night, Ignite. And when I first came to FinCon, you know, it was 2011.

FinCon is the conference we're at right now that we're talking about this in case you don't know. So I met people that paid off debt. They're living by the river. You know, they're living in an RV. They're like traveling the world, doing all these things. The only conference in the world where you're cool if you're living in an RV by the river and you spend no money.

It's like you measure it is one of the strange places in the world where in some ways it's all we're sitting around breakfast this morning and, you know, there's multiple millionaires at the table and they're like, yeah, you know, my house has been one hundred thousand dollars, one hundred fifty thousand dollars on my house.

And it's the only place in the world where it's your badge of honor is how little you spend on your on your house and on your expenses. Yeah, it's amazing. So the one thing that kind of struck a chord with me was that sure, you're following your dreams by helping people.

But did anybody really dream as a child that they wanted to write about personal finance? Not me. Like for me, I grew up watching pro wrestling. That's all I watched as a kid. I didn't watch any sports. I didn't I didn't follow any cartoons or anything. I just watched wrestling.

So it was it was like a childhood dream. So I told myself I need to do something about this. I was twenty five years old. I was one hundred seventy pounds. I did everything I was supposed to do. I went to school, graduated, blah, blah, blah, bought a condo.

I was doing what I was doing, I think I said I had to try this. So just by some fluke, this is a sign from somebody. A pro wrestling gym opens up five minutes away from me. Wow. I had to do it. I'm not big enough. I got everything going against me.

I had short hair. It was not feasible. It makes no sense. Why would I do this? And I signed up and then I found out I was going to be on a show. I'm like, I'm actually I have to be on a show. I was just here having fun, you know, living out a dream, you know, being a being a villain.

And then it turns out that I actually made it onto the show. So the first show I showed up like just regular gym shorts. I just it was I was nervous. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't even promote it and tell anybody about it. It kind of happened.

Then I realized I love being a bad guy. It's so much fun pissing people off. So then over the years now, it's been two years. I've just gone on like it's like I've made an event in shows. I've just gone around and I'm having so much fun because this really is a childhood dream to be a villain.

Like I love writing about personal finance. I love helping people, but I didn't grow up wanting to be a writer. You know, I grew up wanting to be a wrestler. So I'm just living the dream, having fun. I mean, whether I make it or not, who knows who cares?

I'm going to give it all that I have and just having fun. In a business like that, from a business perspective, what's it like? Do you make money on the shows? Yeah, it's wrestling is you're a true entrepreneur. You're a true freelancer because when you're an independent pro wrestler, you are your business.

So you are your brand. So you have to get on shows. You have to promote yourself. Like right now, I'm wearing one of my own shirts, you know, self-promotion. So you get paid based on your worth. So let's say nobody knows you. Nobody pays you. It's like being a freelance writer.

You build your name up. You work some shows for free. I'm at the stage now where I'm getting paid a little bit, but now I have to build the brand. I have to build up the persona. So you make money through getting on shows. You do seminars, you do T-shirt sales, and you truly are an independent contractor, an entrepreneur.

You have to get your name out there, travel, find a way to get on shows, record clips, send clips to people because nobody knows you. Nobody cares about you. So you have to prove that you're worth being on a show. So that's what I'm doing now. I've made my videos, my highlight reels.

I'm sending them around. I'm selling shirts. And you just keep on doing that until you hit it. You make it big. How do the fights actually work? Are they choreographed move for move? That's a bit of a trade secret, but you can find the results online if you look that up.

You're not allowed to spill the secret. I don't want to say publicly. You'll find the results online. A quick Google search will help you with that. Okay. It's an interesting perspective, some of those show business type of things. I can't even imagine trying to make it as a primary career.

But hey, as a secondary career, how cool that you can do something that's flexible enough to be able to do that. And it gives you a purpose for your travel. And it forces you to work out because you have to be like, right? You're underwear. You gotta look good in your underwear.

In front of people, in front of a lot of people. And people are kind of rude, kind of mean, you know, especially when you're a bad guy. Right. But I mean, if you think about it, except seven, eight years ago, who would have thought you could be doing a personal finance podcast?

You know, the world is just changing. And now it's like weird when you meet someone that has a nine to five. Right. Well, especially if you go into different circles, that's what is amazing to me. And the thing I love about creating digital content is in many ways, our lives often reflect the lives of those who are around us.

So when you come to a conference like this, everyone's got digital stuff going on. It's almost just normal. Yeah. And you see people creating their videos, making their podcasts, writing their articles. It's people have very flexible lifestyles. You go into a nine to five environment and it's nothing like that.

But it's all based upon your reference group, who you're with and what their lives are like. And I find that it's remarkable how many people think that they need a blueprint. Sometimes readers will come up to me and they want an exact plan on how to start freelancing and how to start doing this.

But a lot of life is on the job training. I mean, you didn't think you could be a podcast host and maybe, you know, many years ago. Now, here you are. And who knows? Who knows what the future holds? Right? Right. So this stage in looking at your career, you didn't need a college degree in order to be a freelance writer.

You don't need a college degree to be a professional wrestler. Do you regret the money that you spent on college? No, no. A lot of one thing that I hate is when people say that college is a waste of time, because I mean, I don't think it's a waste of time.

I think college is a great experience. It's like it's a great thing to go through if you can avoid the debt. The problem with college has become that it's like a debt, a debt sentence. Now, you know, it's like you get stuck with a student mortgage and you're and you're stuck with it for your life.

Like I meet people that are in their 40s, 50s, still paying off their student loans. And I mean, that's not the way it should be. I think that everybody should do their best to graduate debt free or with as little debt as possible, because life's too short to be in your 30s and stuck paying off debt.

Because then you're then of course, you're going to hate your college, because if you're stuck at a job that you don't want to be at only because you went to college to get a degree you don't want. That's a vicious cycle. And that's that's the cycle that you need to get out of or avoid at all costs.

But no, I don't regret college at all. I recommend going to college. I mean, it's not for everybody. You don't have to go to college. But you know, if you could manage your costs and you know what you want to study, then go for it. Tell us about your websites, books, courses, anything you want people to be aware of, of yours that they can consume or buy from you.

So I launched a book this year called Next Rounds on Me. Yeah, it's a I talk about financial freedom in your 20s without missing a party. I take you from a broken, pissed off college student. And I show you how to build wealth, how to buy real estate, how to pay off your credit card debt, how to build your credit score, because college doesn't really teach you these things.

You know, I noticed that many of my friends, they'll just tell me like, oh, I didn't learn that. I'm like, I know nobody learned that. Right. It's nobody's job to teach you anything. You have to go out there and pick up that experience and learn. So that's why I wanted to put together a book that talks about like your credit score.

And then we talk about drinking, because if you tell a 20 something not to go out, they're just going to close your book. Why would you read a book that tells you not to go out like this guy sucks. So I talk about FOMO, the fear of missing out, which is huge right now because I get hit with FOMO the worst.

I was up to four in the morning last night because I didn't want to miss out. So this is the only personal finance book that talks about FOMO, pre drinking, partying, traveling and paying off your debt and building wealth. And I recommend it to anybody in their 20s that's broke or pissed off or wants more money or is just sick of their current situation.

Pre drinking, that's the strategy where you drink your cheap booze at home before you go out to the bar. Is that? Oh, yeah. Pre drinking is an art in itself. It's a... Tell us about pre drinking. What are the secrets of success and pre drinking? You've never pre drank?

No, I'm not a big drinker. Ah, smart man, smart man. Yes. I'll have a glass or two of wine, but nothing more than one or two. That's still considered a pre drink if you have it at home. That's a good point. So, but no, I'm not schooled in the arts of in the fine art of pre drinking.

Well, going out is the best part of your 20s, right? That's how you meet people. That's how you have fun. That's what you do. So the problem is it kind of sucks if you spend all your money on going out because then you're broke. It's nuts how much you can spend in a night.

Yeah. Some people are telling me it was eight dollars a drink last night by some people. I mean me. I went to buy someone a drink last night. It was ten dollars. So, you know, I'm not buying that person a drink again. So, yeah, pre drinking is the art of having some drinks and having fun with your friends before you go out because once you get to the bar, it's loud, it's noisy.

You can't really hear anybody and it's so expensive and there's long lines and it's kind of watered down. So pre drinking, you find a location and you I say you alternate places. So you go to someone's house, a different person's house every time. Somebody's in charge of location. Someone's in charge of the food and someone's in charge of the drinks.

Or someone could do all three or you can split it. You get together. I recommend karaoke. Karaoke is the best way to pre drink because that sets the tone for the night. OK. Get some karaoke, do some corny love songs, have some drinks, order some pizza, laugh, have a good time.

And then when it's time to go out, you go out and then you spend less money at the bar because you already drank and you already ate and you already took care of everything because why spend eight dollars a drink when you can spend eight dollars for a bottle?

But the trick is not to get too wasted. So you have to really watch out with the pre drink. Go to the point where you're feeling nice, but not too nice. And then you go out and you save money. What are the ethics and practice of taking a flask with you?

Is this an acceptable personal finance? Oh, wow. That's that's a touchy subject because if you can get it in, you can get it in. Right. But if you get caught with the flask, I don't know. I don't think they'll let you in. So you have to check if there's a if they pat you at the door, you have to look into that.

That takes a bit of research. But hey, I'm all for that. If you can bring in a flask, save even more money, then you won't even have to buy anything at the bar. You have it on you at all times. Sounds like you've done this maybe. I've thought about it.

I'm not a like I said, not a big drinker. And actually, you and I are probably polar opposites. The worst thing that I could imagine doing with an evening of my time is going to a loud bar. Oh, yeah. It's like I could see that it's just to me, I'm going to go home and go to bed.

But I'm you know, I'm not many people do enjoy it. And I think the key is to recognize, hey, here's what's important to me. Now, how can I get what's important to me without spending a ton of money and without just destroying my budget? And that's the thing. That's why I talk about earning your freedom, because the world doesn't owe you anything.

You don't have to go out every weekend. Nobody has to do anything for you. You have to earn the right to party. So this is why we build wealth. We pay off debt so that you can do whatever it is you want to do. Some people like to party, some like to buy new guitars.

My buddy doesn't go out ever, but he buys guitars. He buys two thousand on guitars. Who am I to judge? I'm out and he's he's buying new guitar and he loves it. So it's about buying the things that you love and cutting back on the things that you don't need.

You know, like you don't you don't need student loans. Right. Right. And the thing about doing it that way, just doing it carefully, is the problem with student loans is once they get you, they got you and you can't get rid of them. If you spend your money and you don't go into debt, well, you may go back to zero, but at least you can start building again.

And there aren't a bunch of tentacles trying to pull you down. If you're in debt, the octopus has got its tentacles up, grabbing you and constantly pulling you down. And it takes work to get your sword out and chop them all off so you can get up the ladder.

I compare debt to a hangover. Your credit card bill is like a hangover. You know, it's the bill. It's the remainder of the good night's fun that spoils the next day. It's the price you pay for last night or for what you did. People tell me, oh, how do I cure a hangover?

It's the same way you get out of debt. You accept the fact that, A, you messed up. Right, right. So you say, how can I change this next time? Do I maybe not drink? Do I drink more water? So what's your spending? Do you have to bring a credit card to the mall?

Do you have to register your credit card with Amazon and every single online outlet? No, you don't. And then you realize you got yourself here. You got to get yourself out now. One of my readers just paid off $45,000 worth of debt. Awesome. And honestly, she got herself into that debt.

I told her, the world's not out to get you. You did this to yourself. It's cool. I mean, it's not cool, but it happened. Right. We have to accept it. Figure out what it is that happened. And now let's work on it. Let's make a plan because nobody plans to be fat.

Nobody plans to be broke. These are the things that happen to you when you don't plan. So create a plan. So I helped this young lady create a plan. And she had to make some tough decisions in her life. She had to work a little bit harder. She had to cut a few subscriptions.

I told her, you can still have fun, but you're going to have to earn it because there's no need to be going out every day. And there's also no need to be subscribing to all these different podcasts that charge you or different things. And the toughest decision that she had to make in this case, like I mentioned earlier about the big sacrifice, she bought an engagement ring that she couldn't afford and she had to sell it.

She bought it for herself? Or why did she buy the engagement ring? Oh, she's a lesbian. So she bought it for her partner. Got it. So that was the one tough decision. So if you take anything away from this, I want you to make one tough decision that will help you.

In this case, that's the toughest decision. Imagine taking a ring back. That's not accepted in society. Once you give the ring out, everyone wants to talk about it, blah, blah, blah. But no, sometimes you have to make that tough decision. It won't be popular. Your friends won't like it.

Your partner certainly won't like it. But you got to do what's best for you to help you get ahead. Because once you get ahead and once you do what's best for you, then you can give back and help others. But just like on an airplane, you got to put on your life jacket first before you can help anybody else.

Right. Do you recommend people take cash with them when they're going out instead of their card? Things like that? Yeah, actually, I recommend doing experiments because I think personal finance is all about experiments. On my site, I wrote about how I drove for Uber for a month. And I also have done the cash experiment.

There's a positive and a negative with cash. Because I say try for a week or two, track your spending. Don't check your spending all the time. But when you do an experiment, it's worth tracking and see what works better for you. Because with a credit card, you can at least at the end of the week or with a debit card at the end of the week, you can see where you spent your money.

You'll be like, oh, no, two in the morning, McDonald's, what was I doing? Yeah. And in this case, I just wasn't thinking so much about tracking, but about control. I mean, there's been many times I've been out with my buddies and all of a sudden, it's 1230 in the morning and they're ready to pick up the bar tab for everyone around and just slap down the Amex.

That's not so good the next day. Yeah. But if you got five $20 bills and that's your limit for the night, then you're able to say, well, sorry, I got five $20 bills here and they got to get me all night. Well, sounds like you guys didn't pre-drink, first of all.

Well, yeah, going out is different. When it comes to going out, actually, my advice is very strict. It's bring your ID, bring $20 for a cap, you better not drink and drive or else we're going to have trouble. Right. There's a $20,000 decision right there. Exactly. Bring your debit, bring your ID, no credit cards at all and bring the cash you plan on spending.

Once you run out, you run out. Right. Because once you have a few drinks, like you said, you're going to pick up the tab for everybody. I got a friend, if you even look in his direction, he'll buy you a drink. I don't even want to think about his credit card bill.

So in that case, no, don't bring your credit card to the bar. But when it comes to everyday spending, I would do it for two weeks and see where your money goes. Because the good thing about a credit card and a debit card is you'll see what you did right and what you did wrong.

For me, my biggest problem area is food. I tracked it once, I spent $565 a month on food. I love eating out. That's what I do for fun. I go out with friends for food. And I mean, I tried using cash, but still a lot of money, at least with a credit card, I saw where the money was going.

But with cash, for me personally, cash works best when it comes to the big purchases, because I have a tough time handing over cash. When it comes to swiping, especially Amazon, Amazon is the biggest culprit here. Those guys will save all your information. They literally make it so easy to spend money, you feel stupid if you don't buy something.

I checked out my own book and keep on recommending me to buy my own book. I almost bought it again. Don't wait a minute, this is my book. Those guys will send you emails like, do you look at something? You'll get an email the next day. Hey, you looked at this, what happened?

And if you save your credit card with those guys, oh my, they will make that you go on there, the one click purchase. Then you're like, wait a minute, you might like this. And I go, yeah, I do like that. Next thing you know, you're down $100. What did I do?

So studenomics.com or studenomics.com, what's the name of the book? Next Round's on Me. Next Round's on Me. It's available on Amazon, CreateSpace. Oh no, that's where I published it, sorry. It's available on Amazon and Kindle. The Kindle's cheaper. Awesome. Martin, thanks so much for coming on, man. Thanks for your time.

It's kind of interesting in the college years, there's a lot of concern, or at least I was pretty concerned about my level of coolness. But you know what's cool? Not being a financial train wreck. You know what's cooler? Not being broke. You know what's even cooler? Being financially independent.

So take this show, share it with somebody, and I hope that they can use the information and the ideas to have a little fun and also really set up a serious plan for their finances. Because if you have a plan behind you, it frees you up. Frees you up to do things like pursue a professional wrestling career.

Or frees you up to pursue things like you fill in the blank with the things that you want to do. Really can make a difference. So that's it for today's show. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are in the United States and celebrate Thanksgiving. I am away. This show was pre-recorded and released pre-recorded.

I'm away with my family. I appreciate each and every one of you who's listening. I hope that you are enjoying your time with your family. The show will be back on Monday, November 30th. No show on Thursday. No show on Friday. Hey, do yourself a favor. Sleep in on Friday.

Don't get caught up in this mania of that. I mean, hey, if you need a deal and you can find a deal on Black Friday, I'm all for deals. But save yourself some money and just live a simpler life. My tip for you. Special thanks to those of you who support the show on Patreon.

If you gain value from the content of the show and you'd like to support it directly, please go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patreon and sign up to support the show. Your pledges are what gave me the cash to be able to justify things like going and getting these interviews for you. Your pledges are what gives me the cash to basically run this operation to try to continue to give you more invaluable content.

So go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patreon. A bunch of bribes there for you at different levels. You can contribute as little as you want, as little as a buck a month or as much as a couple hundred bucks a month. Take the value that you think I deliver to you. Take 10% of that and send 10% of that to me.

That's what I ask. And then if I ever don't deliver the value, just cancel. No big deal. That keeps me on my toes, keeps me accountable to y'all, keeps me working hard. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. We will talk with you next week. (upbeat music)