Episode 98: Unconventional Money Suggestions For Graduates

Student loans, dating, daycare, pets, and income. Those five areas can quietly decide whether your 20s feel like freedom or like financial quicksand. Danielle Reese, money coach and founder of the Better Budgeting Playbook, shares the unconventional advice she wishes she could hand to her 18-year-old self during graduation season, the stuff most people skip because it is awkward, emotional, or not “fun” personal finance content. 

We dig into why avoiding student debt matters beyond the interest rate, especially when repayment plans and monthly payments can change. I talk through a pay-as-you-go approach to college, using cash, scholarships, grants, and employer tuition reimbursement so your degree does not come with a decade-long bill attached. Then we pivot to relationship choices and the real cost of dating, including how chasing the wrong relationship can redirect school decisions, drain time and money, and keep you stuck in uncertainty. If you are dating as an adult, we talk about a clearer path: date to marry and do not ignore early doubt. 

From there, we get practical about family budgeting: stacking cash, practicing living on one income, and planning for a stay-at-home parent setup when possible to reduce childcare costs and daily chaos. We also tackle a spicy one, pets. I explain why waiting until you own a home can protect your housing options, reduce rent fees, and help you handle surprise vet bills. We wrap with the upside: building a business early, learning marketing, and using entrepreneurship to expand your income and options. 

If this hits home, subscribe, share it with a friend who is graduating, and leave a review so more people can find the Better Budgeting Podcast.

Danielle is a money coach helping those who have been trying to figure out their finances FINALLY create a clear plan so they don’t have to worry about waiting to refill their bank account the next payday.

 She is the founder of The Financial Freedom Society on Facebook and her signature money coaching program, The Better Budgeting Playbook. You can sign up for her newsletter by clicking here.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello

Welcome And Coaching Resources

SPEAKER_00 0:08

and welcome to the Better Budgeting Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Reese. I'm a money coach and the founder of the Better Budgeting Playbook. And this is my one-on-one coaching program for women and couples who have been trying to figure out their finances, finally create a clear plan so they don't have to worry about waiting on paying anymore. I became a money coach in 2020 after paying off over $60,000 in debt, rekindling my marriage, becoming financially free, and wanting others to experience the same. If you'd like to work with me, you can check out the link in the show notes there. Also, we have the Financial Freedom Society on Facebook. It's a free Facebook community focusing on debt payoff, saving strategies, budgeting, and money mindset. You can find the link to that community in the show notes as well.

Graduation Season Money Lessons

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Welcome back to this week's episode of the Better Budgeting Podcast. I am so happy you are here. And listen, it is graduation season right now. And with all of these wonderful graduation posts and signs out in the neighborhoods and the school and all these other fun things, I thought, man, if I could go back to my 18-year-old self and learn some real valuable lessons for my finances and my future, these would be the things. And they're super unconventional. It's not start a budget early. It's not investing early. Like that stuff is all over the place. Everybody knows that kind of situation. But what are the like the detailed ones, the nitty-gritty things, the things that nobody wants to talk about, but actually really affect our finances? So I made a list for us and let's get into it.

Avoid Student Debt With Cash

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Number one is avoid student debt. I was watching a reel the other day and they were touring a sorority house. I forget, it was a major college, maybe Tennessee, maybe LSU, like something big, big, big. And they had like 65 girls in this house, the sorority house, and it had a full kitchen and it had this huge great room, and it was it was massive. And I just want you to know that you don't need that to be part of your education. Is it nice? Absolutely. It's also nice to go on a vacation to the Bahamas, but it's also nice to go on a staycation too, right? It's all about connection. So if I was to redo my life over again, I would a thousand percent pay for college by semester. I feel like there is so many more opportunities now, 16 years out of high school, that 16 years? No. I think I just realized that I'm getting close to 20 years. Yeah. Okay, little side rant. But I think now, compared to whenever I started college, there are so many opportunities to get education now that doesn't require you to go to a school that's going to just empty your pockets or put you so far into debt. And listen, I've got so many clients that have student loans, and it's ugly. It is so ugly. I have one right now that her payments are going from $150 a month to $890 a month, just like that, because they can. And it's so crazy because the government is in control of that loan and they can decide at any point what they want to do, how they want to change the repayment plan. We're seeing it right now with repayment plans going away and new ones starting. So if I was going to restart, I would be paying per semester with cash. And I would even like bump it down to per class. Now, here's the thing: some people are like, oh my gosh, Danielle, it'd take us eight years to get a job, like to finally get the degree and get the job. And listen, you can come out of college making $25,000 a year, or you can start now and work your way through college while making $25,000 a year. Like there's no difference there, if we're gonna be honest. You're going to graduate college and you're going to start at the bottom of the totem pole, or you can start at the bottom of the totem pole now, also go to college at the same time and work your way up through the company or multiple companies, whatever you decide to do while paying for college. Also, a lot of companies, national global companies, actually have school reimbursements. Um, Target is one of them. I have a client that she's been working at Target part-time because she can go finish her master's. Like they pay for it. So don't go into these four-year universities because of the lifestyle. Go into it because you need the education, because you're all gonna start at the same place at the same time at the from the very beginning.

Dating Choices That Cost You

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Now, this next one actually came from my husband. And because obviously I asked him, hey, if you could go back, his 20-year reunion is this year, so he better be feeling old. But I asked him, you know, what would you have done different? He's like, everything. But now my husband, he was that bad boy, okay. And that's initially what drew me to him. And if you've listened to episode one, you know all the chaos that that has caused. But I did ask him, hey, like, what would you have done differently, more specifically? And he said, Okay, he said, stay a virgin. And I was like, can you can you enlighten that a little bit? And he's like, No dating. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have been chasing girls. And I was like, huh, okay. And I got into thinking about my own life, and that my very first year of college, I went to a university and I specifically went there because my boyfriend was going to be going there. And my boyfriend actually dropped out at the time and he went into the Navy. And I was like, Oh, well, now I gotta stay here because I started here and I wanted that social life, I wanted the sorority life, I wanted all of those things, which I end up not doing anyway. And I thought that was so interesting. And last night I was at our church's local um youth group, and I was like, wow, these kids have no idea what's about to hit them. You know, kids not dressing, um man, I don't want to be judgy. I'm trying not to be judgy, not dressing modestly, right? Holding hands, leaning on their boyfriends, like, you know, all these things. And I'm just like, man, if you only knew how silly you look right now. Oh my gosh. But nobody wants to hear that at 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. All right, I didn't want to hear it either. But if I would go back, I would ignore every single boy that I ever thought I had a chance with or had the chance with. And and no, I would, I would get rid of them all. I would find Jesus Christ early on, and I would stay a virgin and I would have no dating. Because that that is costly. It it pivots us, not just costly financially, but it pivots us from a point of where we're actually going in life so much. When we start putting those love emotions in play, uh gosh, we start making really funny decisions. So I thought that was interesting that my husband gave us that one. After you know, you've gone to college and we've avoided debt and we're we're not really dating, maybe we get into this cycle of life where we are actually dating.

Date To Marry Or Move On

SPEAKER_00 7:30

We are dating. I would be dating to get married, I would avoid dating for long term. Like if you don't know in the first year, year and a half, it's a no. It's a no. If you have doubts in the first year to year and a half, it's a no. And this was so important for me. I did not exercise this at all. I just held on to everybody that would love me, and it turned out to be pretty terrible. I had a lot of heartbreak and it cost me so much of my time, my resources, finances, emotions, all of these things. So if I could go back and I get to a point where I'm actually dating to Mary, I would be doing that. I would only date to Mary. That's it. That's it. Now the next one is if you've gotten married, what do you do about the future?

One Income Parenting And Childcare

SPEAKER_00 8:28

And if I could start over, I would not change a thing about how we manage to raise our kids so far in the journey. My kids are eight and nine at this point. And I will say that if you can afford to have one parent home while raising kids, it is so beneficial for you, for them, for your finances, it is so beneficial. I see all the time moms and moms group, hey, where can I have somebody watch my kid? I can't take off work, my kid's sick, who's willing to watch my my baby? Um, anybody find a daycare that costs less than this? Daycare is very, very, very expensive. And if you've got two high salary people in the household, it you might swing it. It might be great. But if you could get married, stack up a ton of cash, live on one income so that you get used to it, start having babies, and one parent stay home. I don't care if it's the woman or the man, it doesn't matter to me. But you have one person that stays home, you are already winning. Yeah, you're not gonna be able to go on vacation every year, you're not gonna be able to run to Starbucks all the time, you're not gonna be able to do all these things a lot of the times. But you aren't paying $2,000 a month in daycare for one kid. I had this moment the other day where my son was sick, and then two weeks later my daughter was sick, and I run my business from home, so you could call me a stay-at-home mom, I guess. But it was so good to not have to figure out who's taking who where. Are you good? Am I good? Who's gonna do that? Like there's all those questions, they just disappear because there's one person that's gonna be the caretaker and take care of those things. Now, I told you that these are pretty unconventional, okay?

Pets And The True Cost Of Renting

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And some of you are gonna want to turn this podcast off right now because I'm gonna talk about pets. And before you do it, don't turn me off yet. Don't turn me off yet. I just want you to have open eyes, open heart to see. You only have a pet once you have a permanent residence. And what I mean by per permanent residence is not an apartment you're renting, not anywhere that you are renting. Once you own a piece of property, then have a pet. I know some of you are just like, Danielle, that is dumb. I will never give up my dog, my cats, my goldfish, whatever. Okay, I got you. I just I want you to hear me out here. A lot of the times we get ourselves in pickles because we have pets. A lot of landlords, especially if you're in your early 20s, you're coming out of high school and you want to go live on your own, which is fantastic. It's difficult to find a place that will rent to you with pets. All right. It's also more costly to rent from someone that will allow pets. You've got a pet fee typically every single month. There's also the cost of your pet. It's outside of just dog food. Thank goodness. Just last week I had to spend six hundred and thirty-nine-ish dollars at the emergency vet for my dog. And that was unplanned, unexpected, all those things. And you are not invisible to those costs either. So when you get out on your own, I really, really encourage that you get a pet once you are established in a home that you own. And some people were like, well, once I get a rental and I have, you know, I'm paying the $25, $50 a month and pet fee, my dogs are worth that. Great. But one day there might be the possibility where that landlord wants to sell that property. And the new owners don't want you there because of your pets, or they don't want their pets there at all. And you can stay, but your pets gotta go. And now we're rushing around trying to find a place. If I would encourage you on this list, this is number one. And I'm not talking about service dogs, service pets. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about leisure pets. Is that even real? Leisure pets? Family pets. Okay. I would highly encourage you to hold off until you actually own a place because it takes out a ton of headaches for you.

Build A Business For More Options

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And my last one is going to be build a business. Build a business. There are a million ways to make money anymore. And I am always surprised on the crazy things that you can do to make money. Did you know that there is a company out there that will engrave whatever you want on a potato and they'll send it to you? What? That is great. That is so weird. It's great. I wonder how much they're much money they're actually making, but still, that's a business. That is a business. There are some really funky ways to make money out there that aren't just punching a time clock. So I would encourage you, the sooner the better. Go ahead and start a business. Anything that you love to do, we can find a way to monetize it. Obviously, right? Like somebody loved engraving and they were like, or maybe they loved potatoes, I don't know. But at some point those two meshed. We can figure something out. You love photography? Great. You love painting on rocks? Wonderful. Let's get an Etsy shop going. Where people get stuck is they have the great idea they just don't know how to monetize and market it. And that we can help you through. So many people can help you through. Not just myself, but the internet in general can help you through. There are so many business coaches out there. Some of them are fantastic. Some of them are a little questionable, but I've invested in business coaches so that I learned how to make a podcast. I learned how to build a business. I learned how to get clients. I learned how to serve clients. I learned how all of these things I learned how to do from someone else. And I bet you you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Photography, there are millions of photographers out there. That doesn't mean that the world doesn't need you. It just means that we gotta find the perfect people for you. And they're out there. They're totally out there. So if I would restart, you know, back to 18 and not the traditional financial advice stuff, I would definitely build a business. Definitely early on, figure it out and build a business early on.

Fast Recap And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 15:22

So to recap really quick, we are not dating. I am not dating. I'm only dating to marry when I'm ready. I am paying for school by class or by semester, by cash, because there's so many opportunities out there to have her either have it funded for me or I can pay little to nothing. Right? Scholarships, grants, all kinds of great things to avoid student debt. Once I am married, I'm gonna stack up some cash, live on one income, so that when we're ready to have children, somebody can stay home. So then we can save a ton of money in childcare cost. I would suggest no pets until you have your own home that you own or have a mortgage on. And lastly, I would just I would get into the business world. Start building a business. There's so much freedom in that. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of the Better Budgeting Podcast, and I'll talk to you again soon. Bye bye.