Jeff Rose describes himself as an entrepreneur disguised as a certified financial planner, author, and blogger. He's the founder of the well-known blog Good Financial Cents, a best-selling author, and a self-made millionaire.

But, surprisingly, Jeff said that out of high school, his life was heading down a dead-end street. After delaying too long to make a tuition payment, his school actually dropped him out of all his classes.

He said he vividly remembers begging teachers to allow him back in. And when he got back to the car from talking to those teachers, he found that he had a $75 parking ticket waiting for him. He was so broke that he couldn't even pay for the parking ticket.

He recalls being so angry that he decided to quit school. About a semester later, it finally dawned on him that his life was going nowhere fast. So he decided to join the Army National Guard. And that was a smart decision as it helped him develop the work ethic that led to all the successes that he's enjoyed later in life.

We discuss many of those successes in our interview. Check out the full show notes here.

Tom Drake is the founder of Maple Money, the most-read personal finance blog in Canada. Tom is somewhat of a legend in the personal finance community and he’s a blogging and SEO genius.

But what a lot of people don’t know is that Tom built up his blog while keeping his day job as a Financial Analyst for a major grocery retailer. In fact, he still has that day job today, even 10 years after founding his blog.

So if you think that it’s impossible to build a side hustle while holding down a 9 to 5, think again. In this podcast, you’ll learn how Tom was able to do it. We also spend a lot of time discussing some of his college side hustle ideas and how he became passionate about personal finance in the first place.

Related: How I was able to turn a freelance writing side hustle into a full-time job.

Tom Blake is the founder of This Online World, a website that shares ideas on how to make money online, save money, and use the internet to improve your life.

During our interview, Tom talks about some of the college side hustles that helped him graduate debt-free (one of the craziest ones being a strategy known as "phone farming.") But Tom's break-through "side hustle" was a 4-month paid internship that he took with a local digital marketing company.

Tom had already begun to doubt that he wanted to spend a career in social service. But his internship sealed the deal because he quickly learned that he had more of a passion (and aptitude) for online business. Thankfully, Tom was offered a long-term contractor position at the end of his internship and that's what he still doing today.

Interested in starting a side hustle in digital marketing? Check out this awesome guest post that Tom wrote for my site: How to Make Money With Paid Advertising in College.

And if you're looking for ideas that can help you land that amazing internship opportunity, check out 8 Smart Ways to Land Internships (and Make the Most of Them).


 

Mark Wickham is the founder and president of Quality Growers, an importer, exporter and manufacturer of floral and decorative products. He started his business out of his garage at the age of 19, while still in college. Today, Quality Growers' products are sold in all 50 states and overseas.

In my interview with Mark, we discuss the key moments that led to the success of his business, including a conversation with a school counselor who encouraged him to LEAVE school for a year. Hear that story and several others and learn ideas for how to overcome fear as a young entrepreneur.

Travis Hornsby is the founder of Student Loan Planner, a student loan consultation service and website. His team has helped over 3,000 clients take on over $760 million of student debt.

Most of the student loan advice that you see online is either wrong, too simplistic, or is meant for the "average" borrower. But the right repayment strategy for someone with $15,000 of student debt could be the wrong strategy for someone with $150,000 of student loans.

Travis and I discuss some of the best student loan repayment strategies available today. And I ask him what are some of the things a borrower should think through before choosing income-driven repayment, vs. forgiveness, vs. refinancing. 

If you've been looking for innovative student loan solutions to your own student debt, this is the episode for you!

Ashley Patrick is a financial coach and the founder of Budgets Made Easy. During her years as a detective, Ashley and her husband were able to pay off $45,000 in just 17 months, including $25,000 in student loans in just 10 months. She explains the decisions led them into debt in the first place and the "light bulb moment" that finally got them serious about kicking their debt to the curb for good.

Kayla Sloan stops by to talk about how she was able to build a $10k per month virtual assistant business in her early twenties. Listen closely during this episode to learn all her secrets. And if you want to learn more, consider taking one of her 10kVA courses using this link: walletwiseguy.com/10kva. And enter the promo code WalletWiseGuy50 at checkout to get 50% off your order!

Logan Allec, the founder of MoneyDoneRight, stops by to talk about buying his first investment property in his 20s. It was a quadplex and Logan lived in one of the units while renting out the other three. Because one of the four units was his primary residence, he was able to qualify for a 3.5% down FHA loan on the property. And since he was renting out the other three units, he essentially lived mortgage-free -- a strategy often called "Housing Hacking." From there, Logan moved into other real estate investment opportunities. Learn all his real estate investing tips and tricks in this week's episode!

Ben Watson, CPA, and founder of Fiscal Fluency, talks about some of the strategies he used to earn his accounting degree without taking on any student debt. In addition to spending his first two years of college at an affordable community college, he did a lot of side hustling during his last two years of school. His favorite side hustle during his college days was working as a notary public. Ben also talks about beginning his career as a CPA and why losing his 9-5 job ended up being one of his best things that ever happened to him. Learn more college side hustle ideas!

Episode #1: With HSA Day around the corner, Jean Chatzky, founder of HerMoney, discusses the benefits of Health Savings Accounts and why more people should be taking advantage of them.

Impressively, HSAs come with triple tax benefits. And after you reach retirement age, the money can be used on any expenses without penalty, making them great supplement retirement accounts.

Jean also gives general retirement savings advice for young professionals entering the workforce in 2019.