Trans Socialists Hate America | Financial Audit

We're so anti-American. No, we're going to Germany. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Are we sure we're not just fleeing because we can't survive in the system because we haven't put in a single ounce to learn? We can absolutely survive in this system. This doesn't look like surviving in the system. This is a pile of debt. I'm not in the belief that money should exist. Time. What are we doing here? You're not a little victim at everything. You have a little thing called doing sometimes. We need 12 grand uh by September. That's when we're we're getting out of. Good thing we don't believe in money.

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Hello, I'm Elliot. I'm 24 years old. Hi, I'm Matteo. I'm also 24 years old. We're from Portland, Oregon. And this is Financial Audit. Thanks for coming over from Portland. You look like you're from Portland. You got the full man bun. Really stuck in 2012 there. Uh, he does my hair. He chooses what the hairstyle is. Yeah, that was me. Really stuck in 2012 there. Thank you. We're starting a burger place with like metal chairs and stuff soon. What do you do for a living? Let's start with you. Uh, I'm an auditor. I What do you audit? Uh, it's inventory at uh Intel warehouse. Yeah. Um, I work in the lab at at Intel. Um, I test the systems before we send out both at Intel. Yeah. Yeah. I got him a job at Intel. Really? Okay. What do you make? Let's start there. Uh, uh oh. I make Do you want me to answer this one? I Yeah. Why? I do the money in the relationship. But you don't you know what you make? I make like 20 hours or $20 an hour. You He make You don't even know your hourly. No, not really. Wait, but how are you accepting a job, trying to negotiate for raises, looking for a comparable or competitor job, trying to make more money? How are we doing that without knowing what we're making out of the gate? Intel has to do good enough for us to even approach the topic. I can't even ask about it. Yeah, but you can find there's other companies in Portland than Intel. Another job can be found. You need to know if you're getting paid competitively for your space. But you don't know that if you don't know what you're making. Okay. That fine. What What is made? He makes 19 an hour. I make 2050 an hour. You said 20. Okay. And yours is hourly. What? Uh $20.50 an hour as as contractors to Intel. How many hours a week are we working? 40 exactly full time. Okay. So, what's hitting our account? Shared account. Uh, yeah. Yeah, we have joint finances. Uh, 40. Yes, we're married. How long has it been? Uh, a few months. Yeah, we got married back in December. Brand new. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Okay. So, what hits the account on a monthly basis? Uh, about 4,800 a month after taxes. We get paid weekly. 1,4800. I had 5560. Was there overtime here and there? Uh, if a month is uh like five weeks, then we get paid five times in the month, which it may have been at that time. Yeah, there may be holiday. No, we don't get holiday paid. Okay. We get paid on holidays. We get paid on holidays, but there's no special pay adjustment. It's just eight hours of pay. Okay. For what it's worth, you guys have been together for only 3 months. So, would we know that you We've been together for longer than 3 months. We've been married. Well, how long have we combined our finances? Uh, since August of last year. Okay. So, some catching up. I am definitely allowing a part of grace of not knowing the household finances. But why are we just like putting it on one person's shoulders and the other one just doesn't care? Like, why do we why why are we doing it this way? It's not so much not care, uh, but me being involved in the money would be more of a burden, I think, for you than otherwise. It's like doing a task yourself versus versus teaching someone how to do the task. Uh, it takes longer. Um, it would take longer. B. It would make sure that you're not the only one doing the task. And if you can't do the task in that moment, you can make sure the person that's also your equal in life can do the task. He has access to all of the documents as well as all of the passwords for all of our accounts. So, if I were to drop dead, uh, he could hand it to like my dad and figure it out that way. Maybe I'll learn it over time. But, yeah, you disagree. Uh, well, it's certainly not been uh in the plans. How long were we together before? Uh, we got married after a year of being together. Um, okay. Yeah. So, it's pretty quick. Mhm. And we were planning on getting married uh a lot later than that, but uh current events kind of spurred things along. Yeah, we were planning to get married in like September of this year. Yeah. Um, something happened in Portland that I'm not aware of. No, not in Portland. Just um in the nation. So we Are they importing trans people? No, not not yet. Oh, wasn't aware of that one. Yeah. Uh, but there's there's definitely been some uh executive orders that made it uh harder to leave the the country as a trans person. Harder to leave. Really? Tell me. Because of um it's related to passports. They because of the executive order he signed about like there only being two genders. People with passports that have um an a different gender gender marker on this new. No, the getting married quicker part was because on November 5th when Trump was nominated for the uh for to be president, we uh had to move up our time project 2025 and uh it's not uh good if they go through with that for us. So it makes living in America very difficult. Is this going to be a very political conversation? I'm going blind. Okay. I'm not going to give my opinion on anything. I'm just going to ask questions cuz I want everyone and anyone from any walks of life, whether you are right or left, I don't care. Get your finances taken care of. Get your [ __ ] together. I don't give a So, I'm just ask questions. Okay. So, okay. So, you got spooked by the election. So, yeah, we we had plans to uh to leave for Germany in 2026. You know, they just elected their first right-wing government for in the last like couple decades. Uh, the one of the right-wing parties is part of their government right of the western European countries, isn't it? We were watching the elections because of that. Um, besides Italy, there there's there's a lot going on in the rest of the parties in the coalition are like refusing to work with AFD. So, there's hope there. But with um, there's no hope of GDP growth. Well, yeah, we're we're going for a different reason. More scared here. But the marriage did that happen to you? Not to me specifically. We're leaving for Germany for our like building future purposes. That's what we're talking about. I'm trying to get you guys to Germany. Yes. Yeah. You uh your job is I'm going in blind here, y'all. Yeah. Your job is to fix our budget so that we have enough in the bank for when we leave for Germany. Um, we're going How much you need to live in Germany? I've never calculated the need for living in Germany. More of a social safety net, but you guys wouldn't be citizens. So, I don't know what you'd qualify for out of the gate for getting Yeah, we need ions. Europe isn't very pro-immigration right now. I don't know if it's different. So, for for qualified individuals, they're very uh they're very interested. Um, Germany's Portland, you guys are making kind of low though. So, what are you guys qualified individuals? Yeah, I consider qualified individuals. I work in a technology position and so they have an expedited visa process for that. What's your job again? Uh, I fix up computer systems. I do um some basic programming stuff. Why do you get paid pretty low for the Portland area? Portland's expensive cuz we're contractors. Cuz we're contractors with Intel. Uh, there's some But there are contractors that do make a lot of money though sometimes if you're higher up. Yeah. But for most of the 24 I have to remember where 24. Yeah. 24. I'm still finishing my degree. So, um, undergrad. Yeah, undergrad, bachelor's. How long have you been in? Uh, I started college at 16, getting my two-year, and then I had to wait for FAFSA to kick in because my parents were in that sweet spot where they made too much, but not enough to help with college. So, um, last year I finally hit old enough that FAFSA was like, "Sure, we'll give you money." And here I am finishing my third and then fourth year next year. Okay. But uh and you qualified. Uh, no no I qualified via experience maybe work experience. Yeah. Up until recently we were going with a different plan for me because I have I have a chance with the derivative citizenship for Germany. But unfortunately that's like a two-year process and we don't have time for that anymore. So okay it's going to sometime I joke about Europe all the time. It makes it sound like I hate it. I actually love it. I love how they build their communities as walkable communities. A lot of stuff like that. I feel like you're going to have a relatively decent chance getting there because there's been a massive drain uh brain drain from Europe because their economy is not keeping up across the board. Their wages aren't keeping up across the board. Same here. So, their social safety nets are going dry. Um, about the same here. We would have to drop like 40% to make up for the gains since 2009 that they've never been able to make. So, oh yeah, 2009 when I was 9 years old. It was a great time to get into the stock market. That is exactly what Europe's economy GDP is still, by the way, where it was in 2009. Okay. Yeah, that's where you're going. Okay. Cost of living is also a lot lower though. That's what happens when economies don't grow. We'd be able to afford an education over there, which is kind of the most important thing with executive degree, though. Again, I'm not I I like to I like to, you know, make little European jokes. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Uh, you move there if you want. It's okay. I think it would just I'm just saying it's probably easier to move there because a lot of qualified individuals have left Europe because they don't make as much there. It's harder to make ahead. Things are not going as well there economically. So that is it should be easier for you to go there is all I'm saying. So if you want to go there, I'm down to help people get to their goals regardless. Let's get you there. I pay 17 grand a year for college right now. And uh and in Europe it is 12,000 per year for rent, groceries, cost of living items. Um, and then also their their tuition is included in that 12,000. Don't get me wrong, it's really nice when everything is uh subsidized. It it feels really nice um on, you know, the other end for the person that's going there. Whether or not that's sustainable since their economies aren't growing, who knows? So, if your kids can get that, good for them. I mean, I don't know how that'll work. We're not going permanently. We're going until I finish my degree. Um, and then hopefully after the administration is over, assuming things don't get worse. Yeah. So, assuming he doesn't go for that third term, um, then we'll come back, I'll have my degree. That would be constitutional. But it's not, but that hasn't stopped him before. Yeah. So far. Okay. Feel like you guys Okay. This is a very big life choice to make just from an election. We had whether or not I like who would have won either way. I don't base my entire life off of an election. I get you're in a more unique situation, but you're also in Portland. It's like the most originally the plan was he was going to get his derivative citizenship and then tuition for him in Germany would be free. And tuition is that the big focus? Is that the are we really just using the whole election as an excuse not to election? It's really seems like we're landing on this degree thing, which I'm again, let's go. He cannot effectively get a degree in America. Why? Unless it's free. Well, it's just I Well, that's kind of [ __ ] I can go to Austin Community College right now in semester take like eight credit hours for like a couple thousand bucks. Yeah, the the debt incurred is the issue here. Yeah, I agree. A couple th Oh, debt that's already existing. Yes. Oh yeah, we'll we'll get into that. Why'd you get into debt? I wouldn't really Well, that's I feel like that was a choice and sometimes we deal with the consequences of the choices that we make. Definitely was um the Hold on. Sorry. Are we moving on to the what? Yeah. Are we getting into why you have student loans? Yeah. Yeah. Are we doing German? I don't know. I'm I feel like I'm just along for the ride right now. I I I don't know what's happening. I want to get you guys to the goal. I like to make little cheeky comments about Europe. Listen, I'm not pro or anti-Europe. I don't care. They can do whatever they want. We can do whatever we want. I'm not pro or anti this last election. I don't give a, you know, I just want to invest and make money. That's what I like to do. And I want to get people out of debt. So, whatever. Doesn't matter to me. Let's get you to your goals. Let's talk about student loans. 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What is life look like today if our big goal is to get to Germany which probably isn't necessarily cheap because there is going to be moving. We're going to be trying to settle. Are you going to get accepted into their college programs before you move? Like so for for a German visa, if you're if you're going for a student visa, um, a university has to accept you into their program. Um, and you apply to a degree specifically. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I'm waiting on the application response and if we don't get it, uh, then we're going for work visas and I will but then that negates the big college part. But um, I'm going to online school right now. Um, and so with that, I can do it from anywhere. What do we hate about community college? What's wrong with like going for a couple thousand hours a semester? Once you've got your two-year, community college doesn't No, I know. But for you, for Yeah. For me, I I don't think it's a good idea for me to continue doing college here in the States when it costs so much money, couple thousand a semester. I I went to PCC when I was much younger and that was a disaster. So I I would if we were going to Germany, uh, I Yeah, I flunked out. It was during Is that the community college's fault or No. And it's What's going to be different in Germany when you can't Can you speak German? Yes. Yes, he can. But the Okay, the difference this time around is that he uh is now medicated for ADHD. That also So that doesn't change going to community college now for a couple thousand. That what the cost in Germany is going to be cheaper than if you were to go here. It's roughly €300. 300 a semester. Mhm. Wait, I thought you gave me a different number. No, no, no. I spend here today €17,000 a year. What did you say it would cost over there with you said everything included? Oh, uh, yeah. So, rent and groceries and all of that, the German government wants you to have €12,000. Um, that's what they recommend so that you stay afloat so you don't sure. You guys are dual income household though we can kind of support each other as we go through. Yeah. Uh, so long as the education department remains solvent and FAFSA continues to exist. Also, if I'm not mistaken, don't they recommend having more like 12,000 in savings? Well, that's that's what it would be. It would be 12,000 in savings. Oh, before going in? Uh, yes, before going in. I assume if you're on the show, you pro would probably have immense debt and the savings is Okay. Okay, I'm still confused of the anti- community college thing because it's going to cost money to get over there. Yeah. And then there's also going to be likely a loss of potential income as well. Cuz again, usually when you get a lower cost of living area, you get lower income how it works. I don't know if we know this or not, but um, does that not concern us? I'm not so I if we stayed in the states I wouldn't be interested in going to college here but if we went to because of the cost and because a semester for community college yeah, it's the median person in the United States makes like what is it like $50,000 a year. I think a couple thousand a semester is worth the investment. We already make uh close to that amount. Uh, well, you don't make the median household. That's for an individual. I don't see the uh there there's no incentive for me to go to college here cuz I don't feel like I could go the distance to get like the the level of degree that I would want if I was going into college. College in Germany also only takes three years instead of the four here. So, it's less time. Uh, it's most of the year. So, take summer semesters and make it three years then. Well, and I could actually go into like I could go further than What do you want to go into? I'd like to do something with like languages or history. So, Oh, so we're not going with the intent to make money. If we're going to Germany, we're going with the uh intent to make money for for me at least. He's debated getting a full auditor degree instead of uh just that's not what was just said. No, I would need to find a way to make the the cost of going into college worth the effort because I would want to come out with a job that I could actually stay in forever. The I don't know what that means to you. I don't know what that means. Yeah. No one stays in one job forever. No one does that. He's the kind of person who would. He finds the things that he likes and he does them forever. What if it's a industry that nobody's hiring? He will find the one job that maybe I think there's going to be a thousand other people usually in those more artsy. He's just better. He's making $19 an hour. I mean, I have uh established myself very well in the team in a very short amount of time. Yeah, he he has essentially created the position he now occupies uh for $19 an hour. $19. Yeah, I do not get paid for the work that I do. That's for sure. But he's building the experience so that he can transfer to a better job later. I guess we have little gifts for you though since you're so headset. I just wanted to give you a little preemptive welcome gift. So, I think I think we have those. What do we got? Cuz we're doing uh uh you're making Oh, what do we got? Oh, it's already here. Authentic German food. Yo, straight from the source. Yo, that's exciting. There you go. Are we allowed to eat this on set? Sure. Hell yeah. Sure. As long as they're not smacking into the camera. No. No. We're We're going to get an ASMR segment. No. I can't do ASMR. What is it? What is it called? Mukbang. I don't know. We're just We're giving you guys a sausage to eat cuz we know you like that. There's so many. Well, thank you. That's reasonable sized. Okay. Well, there you go. You get your You get your cheap college [Applause] and kind of cheap healthcare. Can we get some water? Oh, wait. There's You can gargle some spit. I got you. I Okay, listen. I was about to jump into the finances, but Lindsay, our master of tea, really wants to hear more about your origin story. Yes. Yes, I guess. And then we'll jump into the finances here. Oh, you're still chewing. Okay. So, um, we met uh at a different job uh several years ago. We worked at a company that made the machines that Intel uses to make their computer parts. Um, we were both dating different people at the time. He was engaged uh engaged to someone else. What was this? You're 24. You're now what? When was this? 2021. Yeah. 2021. Okay. Um, lot of engagements and marries and just before 25, but okay. Sure. Live fast, eat ass. Oh, uh, interesting. Yeah. So, uh, he was engaged. I was in a long-term relationship and then um uh and you were only at that job for like a couple of weeks. I stuck around, but I stayed there cuz I was waiting for a different position to open up and then Bill's still got to get paid. Yeah. Um, but I I met this knucklehead and then uh knucklehead. Well, okay. He got himself laid off u after I left. I was one of the last ones to be laid off. I will let you know. Yeah. Uh, the some executive order essentially shut down half of their warehouses, so he was out of a job. Um, we were Yes. So we were we were uh well, we were both with women at the time. Yeah. Um, Huh. Yes. Both what? With women. Like dating women. Um, his fiance uh was was a woman. My longtime relationship was also a woman, believe it or not. Right. I believe it. And then uh yeah, so we both leave those jobs. Uh, and we stay in contact by going on double dates with our with our partners, watching various horror movies and whatnot. So, the beginning of our relationship started with us going on double dates together with our partners, just hanging out as friends. Yeah. Um, and then um when I ended up like breaking up with Well, I didn't break up with my ex fiance. Um, I'm sure she'd be in the comments about that if I uh lied about that. But, uh, when we broke up, um, and I were planning on going on a double date together with our partners in December of 2023. I uh I asked him if uh if we could become partners, I guess. Oh, [ __ ] Where do you think your hammer financial score is in the world of 0 to 10? Kill me now. Uh, zero. No, no, no. The online thing said it was like a a one or a two, right? If you want to take that online thing, it is in the description below or go to kaleammer.com. Okay. So, we we uh broke up and yeah, found each other. Okay. I just told that story in 5 seconds. All right. Capital One Venture. What is going on here? Uh, I don't know. You tell me. What? What do we got? Uh, that would be You've got it right there. You're the finance one of the relationship, I was told. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I make sure we we pay it every month. Um, what? That's your No, no, no. Not pay it off. That uh that balance went up rather quickly. Why? What is going on with this card? Uh, when we were still friends, we decided to go on a trip to Greece. Uh, as friends. Yes. As friends. Yeah. Believe it or not, I haven't seen the movie Mamma Mia, so I didn't understand what I believe it. I haven't seen it either. Going to Greece with a I tried to explain to him that uh going to Greece with someone that you've more or less only spent a little bit of time with has romantic connotations. Uh, a little bit of time. We've been friends for a year and a half at this point. All right, I get it. We touch each other's butts. I don't care. I don't care. No, no, no. We went as friends. Um, my mom told me that uh if I was going to go to Greece anyways, I I had already had a trip planned. um that I should get a travel card for it so I could get the miles. And I was like, "That sounds great. I'll get the Why is there a lot of debt on this card?" Uh, because we didn't end up fully paying it off and it kept Why? Because um he asked me if I could afford to go on this trip. Uh, and I was like, "Yeah." Thinking I could uh pay it back to him a little bit slowly over time, not realizing that he threw the whole trip on a credit card. I put the trip on the card. paid my portion immediately and then kind of just twiddled my thumbs waiting for him to give me the rest. And that urgency was never quite uh uh communicated to me. I don't know if someone says uh yeah, I can afford it. You know, you would expect that they they hand the money. Okay. Oh, you purchased $2,78829 on here. All right. With $27 of interest. I don't know why the we're purchasing that much money. Why are we Why are we purchasing that much on a card that is acrewing interest that we are not fully paying off? The [ __ ] are you talking about? Have you paid back your trip yet? Uh, no. Almost. We're We're almost That means no. Almost is no. I don't know if you know that. Okay. So, why the are we purchasing 2788 uh groceries? We know we make $4,800 a month. How much did you guys spend last month? I don't know. But what does it say? We would probably spend I asked you a good death $1,000. Why would we only spend $1,000? No. $2,000? No, we spent more than we made most likely. Uh, I would say we spent so with all of our our debt payments and stuff plus how much we uh spend on just groceries and whatnot, we probably spent like4500 is going to be my guess. 8,642. What the are we doing? What the are we doing? We have 1,000 then 4,000. We think you spent what you made. No. No. 1,000. How do you even think you spent? What's your rent? What's your rent? We spend. What's your rent? 1300. So, you thought your spending was a,000 for the month? I guess I I don't know how German math works, but I don't think that'll add up there either. Yeah, we we live with roommates. Um, so a lot of our our grocery budget just goes onto the card and they will send me money. Um, I'm sure there's a lot of that means we only spent a,000 last month. No, no, we it may seem like a lot, but a lot of that was recouped in this the money that I get back from from the roommates. Um, million $59 account transfer in of $45. It's probably more. All right. Interesting. Interesting how this is uh uh working out. Are you sure you guys aren't just trying to move to a system that's a little easier because we're lazy as [ __ ] How much was deposited? How much was deposited? Deposited? Yeah. Yeah. Cuz uh if that's what was sent in if the uh amount we got from Let's see. We had our wedding um and we got a lot of money from that. How much was your wedding? Uh, we spent How much did you get on it? Oh, uh, I don't know if that's in these statements. Couple grand. Well, the the deposits that I made into our savings account should be in the statements. ATM. Yeah. Deposits via ATM. We had that. Do your roommates pay you via ATM? No. No. That's that's the PayPal Venmo. Then I don't care. No. If we spent 8 grand, uh, the only way that we could have done that, I asked you how much you spent. I heard 1,000 and 4,000. The reality was 8,300 something. You don't know your numbers. I don't know. This is a harder system. We can we can like it or we can dislike it. And that's okay. Well, everyone's entitled to their opinion. And I don't honestly think there's a right or wrong. It's just depending on what you kind of just value. Okay. This is a harder system. A lot of the times the harder you work, the bigger risk you take. You can make a bigger pie here. That's kind of the thing. But for people that tend to not care or be lazy, they're going to have a harder time. That is that is a fact of our system. There's a system that you guys are going to where you're able to be a little more chill. You can be a little more lazy and there's less consequences, but also you don't get as big of a pie if you go ahead and risk a lot of things. Okay. We do we agree with these at least basic things? Sure. Yeah. I don't know. Are you sure you guys aren't just leaving because like you don't know what the you're talking about? You haven't spent a single second to learn. I don't know about these finances. these finances. I the ones we're literally having to pay bills finances. You said a thousand. I don't Would you think it was just a thousand for you? Your rent is money. But no, no, no. But are we sure we're not just fleeing because we can't survive in the system because we haven't put in a single ounce to learn. We can absolutely survive in this system. It's just miserable. This doesn't look like surviving in the system. This is a pile of debt. I don't know. Check the check the can survive. I don't know what the we're talking about. Okay, here's a payment. You know, you made a payment. Oh, good. Even though you made a $4,350 payment, the balance only went down $1,000. That's my rebuttal. Like, I don't know what you What do you want? What are you talking about? Balance still went down. Balance still. Still went down and you still acrewed $27.66 in interest. It's uh Yeah, why don't you teach a personal finance class? Everyone's going to be so well off. It's for Joanne Stores and Yeah, that was us buying stuff. McDonald's and McDonald's. Yeah. Are we supplying fries for everyone at the wedding? No, not the McDonald's. Joanne Stores, Sweatzen House, McDonald's. Lots of McDonald's. Who's McDonald's? Cuz neither of you are fat. We both enjoy McDonald's. I'm so jealous. Why can I not have that metabolism? It's great. Srano Italian. Srano Italian. Thirsty Lion. Mamawarma. McDonald's. Ross. Ross Rossing it up like crazy. More more wedding supplies. Yeah. Going in and getting some [ __ ] in the gas station. McDonald's likely getting some [ __ ] Seattle Specialty Lovely Dapper Desserts. Isn't Fred Meyer a grocery store? Yes. Yeah, quite a few of those, but they seem to be more smaller purchases, which I never really known. Our our big purchases uh for groceries come from Costco. Uh, so what the are you getting at Fred Meyer? Like the onesie twoosie things that what's a onesie twoosie? We're not good at small quantity items. Costco's a twi. We call them onesie toy. 50 avocados. That's fine. I've just never heard of onesie twoosie. Is this a West Coast thing? You should go to Portland. It's great. Yeah. Onesie twies. That's what we call them in Portland. Yes. Small items. Yeah. One or two things, you know. Onesie twoosies. We speak like toddlers and Okay. Hey, Canada calls them loonies and tonies, man. What? Yeah. Can Canada like they're they're $1 and they're $2 loonies and tunies. Canada can't figure out how to get like a house under a million dollars. I don't give a what Canada says. They don't know what they're doing. Except for the ones that download a budgeting app. You Canadians are doing I don't know. They're they're doing better than us in the economics department right now. That's legitimately not true. They haven't had a growth in productivity in four years. That is unheard of in Western civilization. That is beyond factually incorrect. Economically, they're horrible. The economically the median house housing price in Canada is four times ours. Their GDP has a growth for the last quarter. Our growth is going to be a a a reduction. Well, let's see. We haven't had those numbers. Uh, the listen, I'm not debating the count. I don't even I'm noting red, white, and blue jacking myself off. I don't even give a But if you're talking about that, that's objectively incorrect. The Canadian productivity growth is an absolute disaster, which means wages do not increase. Their housing prices are four times what ours are. They have a population of what 40 million, but they had uh wasn't it like immigration of 400,000 or something, an absolutely crazy percentage. And they can't house those people. And it pushes everyone's cost of living substantially higher. Even though economically if they have an immigration of 400,000, then they've got to have spaces for them to go. Oh, guys. So, that's how that works. I don't know. We're going to Germany. Doesn't matter. Yeah. I I know. And I know I'm definitely off a little on that statistic on that last one specifically, but it's still a crazy percentage. Like, people can't literally get housing in Canada. You think our housing's bad here, buddy? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm okay with a GDP on a quarterly basis that does this. I'm just glad ours has actually grown over the last decade. Fred Meyer. We're getting onesie, twzies, cafe and deli, Wendy's, Arby's, McDonald's. Some [ __ ] Gas station. [ __ ] from the gas station. Something amusement. Amusement. It's interesting. Gas station. Listen, I I'm just again I'm concerned that as this conversation I wonder if there's even a point to it because there are so many things I will rag us about. I will rag on the United States. I will rag on individuals. I will rag on anyone for objective reality things cuz that's all I care about. But you guys seem to be in a world where just like everything's bad. And then if we're in that situation where that is not objectively true when it comes to numbers, like inflation data came in today. That's when we're filming it. It's the best it's been in like four years. Like that's incredible. What was it? Uh under 3% 2.8 if I'm not mistaken. Okay. Out of out of this. That is actually really good. That's great. But uh all I'm saying is does this conversation even matter? I feel like you're just so anti, which is a very classic Gen Z thing to do is be complete anti- West anti- West. I can't finish my degree if the Department of Education gets shut down. If FAFSA's gone, I'm What's your What's your tuition? Uh 17 grand a year. How many scholarships did you apply to this last semester? Zero. No sympathy for me then. Listen, man. Come on. That's sing stupid. Where's any kind of responsibility? Ships require you to put in your SATs or ACTs and I didn't Oh, they require you to put in all your I did not get those. Yeah, you didn't get those. That is true. I started college at 16 and uh through like a program with my district and so I didn't I didn't take those cuz he already had college credit. I was already in college. He didn't need to. Yeah. Um, and not like the the AP stuff. I went to the community college. Um, but yeah, no, I didn't have to take my ACTs or or SATs. And so applying to scholarships, uh, they they ask for those. And so I'm kind of but, uh, you could like, but current current estimates are suggesting that about 50 60% of scholarships are merit-based, meaning they require SAT to ACT scores. So I will rebuttal again with a I mean, you're taking a copout. you just immediately threw out a thing that was factually incorrect. Even though 50 to 60% do, that doesn't mean that you haven't put in that effort. If you're immediate complaining about the cost of college, and the cost of college is something that is very valid to complain about, but you didn't put any work into the alternatives that have shown up on my university scholarship page rec. Don't look outside of that. Are you incapable of doing anything? Do people have to come to you? Are you only able to do things if people come to you? You can't go out. You can't go out. You're not an adult. You're not 24. I came to you. You're 14. I came to you and I'm telling you, maybe you should go to other boards than just the one that pop up on your college website. Like, like I'm sorry. I have sympathy for the cost of college. Deep sympathy. I have student loans still. It happens. That sucks. But if you don't put in work for alternatives, then that sympathy goes away because you didn't put in one minute of effort. I don't where is any kind of personal responsibility here? There's nothing to go for these scholarships when FAFSA has already covered my tuition. But you owe that still. No, you're not taking student loans at all. Nope. Not at all. Okay. Well, that's great. Now, you can still take student loans and finish school. That student loans are absolutely horrendous. They have ruined my parents' lives. They have impacted his ability to complete college. How much student loans do you have? Like 12,000. That's incorrect. Let me share a little secret about building a winning team. It's all about finding the right talent and fast. Are you struggling with slow hiring? Flip the script with Indeed, our sponsor for today's episode. Here's the deal. Indeed is your onestop shop for hiring. Forget the endless scrolling on other job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your listing pops right to the top where it's most visible to the perfect candidates, speeding up the whole process. 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The 12 grand will be in his life for a very long time. For a very long time. That depends how you do it. Guys, I saw how much you spend on your monthly basis. I see in here is going through bull. You could sacrifice and pay off student loans. You're not a little victim at everything. You have a little thing called doing sometimes. You're able to put in work. Student loans. It is a mathematical equation that if you borrow in federal student loans, what you would make in your first year outside of college, it still works out and you can pay those off in the 10-year repayment program. 10-year pay repayment program. Well, that's a thing, huh? If that goes away, you're still a 10-year repayment program. Yeah, the public service loan forgiveness thing. That's not No, I'm talking about forgiveness. The traditional payment program pays them off in 10 years. Oh. See, he doesn't even They're not my student loans. No, you just don't even know. You're You're against something that you don't even know. You're against something that you're not You don't even have the slightest det cuz that's the that's the normal student loan. And you don't even know that. Yet, you're so vehemently against them. Yes. Because my parents have been paying them off greater than that 10year. Yes. Because they weren't on the traditional repayment method. They probably borrowed too much for a worthless degree or they probably around their spending and were done with their money. My parents are government service workers. They uh they're working through the public service loan forgiveness program, but it's been uh difficult with all of the the that's been going on. What? They only have started to qualify in the last two months. I don't know the specifics. I just know I don't think I can deal with these people. Oh my. You don't even know their situation. Listen, I don't know their situation either, but we can't say it because it wasn't because of their actions. We can't say it because they weren't willing to sacrifice and pay off their student loans. A lot of people, they immediately go on to an income driven thing even though they can fully pay them off. They do that. Me, I'm paying the minimum monthly payments even though I could pay them off today. But that's because I find better value investing in the stock market, especially right now since we're down a little bit this week. I'm just like, let's go. We're down. Invest. Love into doing this. It's It's scary though cuz I The longer we're in the market, the better. And right now is like the best time to get. Absolutely. If it's down, take advantage of it. I know. I love nothing more than a down day other than a down week, other than a down month, other than a down year. That means it's money to be made. Yeah. Um, we're I I'm in the process of getting my retirement moved over to to Schwab because if we're retirement, buddy, listen, you said it's impossible to complete a degree. We proved that incorrect, but then you said it's horrible to take out student loans, but you couldn't actually say why. And you don't know anything about student loans. You, as we go through this conversation, I'm going to have a hard time. Genuinely, just between me and you, I'm gonna have a hard time because you don't see yourself anything else in this life other than a victim. And I don't know how to deal with that. When someone is a victim in everything, I am avoiding creating problems for myself down the road. Lots of people take out student loans and they do okay. 40% of people take out student loans, don't graduate from college. Don't be that person. Graduate from college. I'm going to be able to graduate from college without a dime in student loans. Yeah, but you said you don't know if you can. You're afraid of the Department of Education going away. Yeah. No, that's why we're going to Germany so I can finish my degree. Okay, listen. The Look, bottom line, I I'm not super even in the belief that money should exist. So, it's like I have a hard time. What are we doing here? Money should even exist. You're right. Let's go back to bartering bartering skins for beer. And let me go ahead skin an animal for my meal later today. What the [ __ ] That's how I prefer things to be. Yes. Life was so much better, especially for someone like you a few hundred years ago. Fair off. Fair. We're literally the best time to live in the entirety of humanity is in this present. I don't know about right this moment. That's kind of not. It's I I'm sure you could go back a couple years. Sure. But in general in our lifetimes us living our life will be better statistically than any other human being's lives in terms of the technological advancement that we have the medical things that we have the food that we can go eat we can gorge ourselves on McDonald's people couldn't do that 200 years ago in terms of theing dopamine in terms of we are in the best period of humanity companies weren't able to oh Come on. We're from Portland. What do you expect? What have the poor widow companies done to you? Not to me. Well, I mean, not to me specifically, but like three layoffs. I have been that that is true. But money allows uh companies to Yeah. Yeah. It it was that sucks. You

landed, though. Like, he, he is, I had to keep pivoting. The best, or if not the best, one of the best employees in whatever position he's in. He made the position he clearly doesn't demand. So, but we don't believe in the market at this table. So, yeah. Uh, and he gets laid off anyways. So, yeah. Yeah.

No, I've, I just, I don't value money and I haven't valued money most of my life, which is why he's a big finance guy, which is okay. I mean, you can live under a bridge if you want. You don't have to operate in society. I've tried to make enough money to sustain myself and in the past, but there's more to that than that. There's life you can go live that money provides. There's retirement. That's what you do. I don't. No. No. We live our life plenty. Yeah. Yeah. We, we invest enjoyable things.

You know what's wild? What's wild is people out there, and I'm going to reiterate this again. I never talk about my town politics. And the reason is actually because a lot of people would just, I'm everywhere. I'm everywhere. I have sign language. Oh, for drink. I thought we were about to take a hit. Okay. No, you were like water. Okay. Um, I was like, I can fall all over the place 'cause I just try to go with what is true and I will always change my opinion if there is new information. So I am everywhere. No one knows my politics. I'm ambigous. I mean, I see a lot.

You're a hypocrite. Hypocrite. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You say one thing and then you change your mind the next week. I will always be willing to change my mind if new information comes out or if I learn new things. Not to do so would be a literal infant. The, are you talking about, hypocrite? That's the dumbest [ __ ] thing I've ever heard in my life. You're not willing to change your opinion if all the time. Yes. And it's okay to change your opinion and then the next week more information comes out and, and it's okay to change your opinion. Yes. 'Cause you want to be correct, but you're not correct by just sitting there and being like, incorrect. You're correct when the data, facts, whatever is in your side. What the, are you talking about? Either way, all I'm saying, all I'm saying is what I was trying to say is that no one can place me. People have tried to place me, but they're never correct. However, based on this conversation talking to you two, I probably sound like the most conservative person that has ever existed in the history of this world because you guys are so far gone. You should see his parents. Yeah, that's, yeah.

So, definitely an interesting conversation. Anyways, uh, we need, we need 12 grand, uh, by September. That's when we're, we're getting out of here. Good thing we don't believe in money. I believe in money. He goes on and on about how money is a tool and you can use, which means you would know that student loans can be used as a tool if used correctly. Yeah. If used correctly. So use them correctly and not like a dumb. It's safer for me not to get student loans. Sure. It's safer to not have loans, but I mean, you have to get accepted in this whole program. So I hope you do, I guess. Uh, I mean, even if I, even if we go over on work visas, uh, while there, I can still wait for the university, uh, application process and there's more than one university over there that I've applied to. So, one of them, you haven't heard back by anyone. No, they, very confident will, well, it has been really recent. We, um, yeah, we got this process started, uh, like six months ago. Um, but Germany takes forever for pretty much everything. And can you speak German? I speak a little bit. He's teaching. Will they all be in German? No. No. Um, German universities, uh, a lot of them teach specific degrees in English. Um, and so you don't need to have a German language proficiency. Probably that's probably trying to get qualified individuals to go there since they've lost them all. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, for my computer science degree, they teach that in, uh, in English.

So, USAA, what's this? That would be mine. Oh, okay. So, last was yours. This one's yours. We're not authorized users or anything. Uh, this was the card that I used primarily before, uh, we were together. So, this doesn't exist 'cause it's fake, right? That one, we've mostly been focused on, uh, paying it down. Yeah, we, we don't put too much on it. We put, uh, most of our expenses on the travel card because we get most of our miles from that. As soon as I moved in, I basically stopped spending money on that card. I think we just use it for breakfast at work now, right? We were for a while. I don't know if we're even using it for work. He's sitting in silence. Oh, yeah. Uh, so, let's see. Yeah, we, we put most of our money on that, on that travel card, the, the big $8,000 expense. Um, even though we, we paid most of that. Uh, because we, we like to, sorry, I had to fact check myself earlier 'cause I like gave a statistic, but I was like, wasn't super confident it 'cause I haven't studied it in a second since we, uh, I did the other show. Uh, but they had 500,000 new immigrants come in with, with 40 million people in the population. Sorry, I thought it was going to be a little less. And I said, "That's a lot." No, no, no, no. Canada, that's a lot when they have a housing shortage. That's a wild number. I mean, for 41 million. I mean, yeah, that's pretty intense. That is crazy. I don't know how you do that with a population shortage. Well, it's a good thing we're going to Germany. I just had to fact check myself. Sorry, that was eating me up. Okay. Sorry. What were you saying? Uh, I was just saying that we, we enjoy the finer things in life. Um, we, What? Yeah. So, in our budget, we have, You guys deserve all the good stuff, just not to work for it. I mean, we work for it. We set aside amounts in our budget so that we can go and do these things. And, and education in Germany means I can afford an education so that I can afford to get a job. This is planning for our future. You're saying that $12,000 in student loans is what's holding back. That's not even true. The, the median person's cost of $40,000 in student loans that graduates college. So, 12,000. We have to get to Germany by September. Yeah. It's the time by September. The, uh, the next school year starts in October. I know, but you, but you said you couldn't go to college because you have $12,000 in student loans here. That's why I wasn't willing to go to college here. That doesn't make any sense. He spent 12 grand, uh, and didn't get much out of. Don't be a dumb next time. Go into it with a responsible plan. That's your problem. But you're looking at, you're looking at 12 grand in student loans and more if we go to community college here versus the 300 years. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just, I'm just saying you saying you can't do it is incorrect semantics. Good. What are you trying to do? Are you going to go on to likeing, uh, Destiny next and debate? Like, what? Like, what are we doing here? What are we? What are? Why are you here? We're here so that you can give us a budget so that we can go to Germany. Use theing budgeting app. Then just use the budgeting app. Just download simple budget. Create a budget. the text to your accountant or tell you what you spent. I already mean me. I already have a budget. I've got a spreadsheet. What are you? What are we doing? I'm going to squeeze blood from this stone so that we can have the money we need. Uh, by the time we leave. Okay. Well, we have USA. We, uh, we put a, a crap ton each month into our debt. Um, but we're trying to get. You spend a lot on it, too. You put, $1,474 towards it, but you spent $745. So it's like the balance didn't go down that much even though you put $1,474 towards it. Yeah. It's all Mexican food. Mexican food. Cafe liquor. Cafe. Cafe. Cafe. Cafe. McDonald's. Cafe. McDonald's. Going in. Getting some [ __ ] from the gas station. McDonald's. Mexican food. McDonald's. Aala. Come on. This is your [ __ ] I know what aing a wall is. Oh my gosh. Tap house winning got some bull and creep page done. I don't [ __ ] know. Whatever. You spend a lot of money there. It looks like a restaurant. Wendy's, McDonald's. Some [ __ ] It's McDonald's, Wendy's. It's all [ __ ] We, we go to, we go to good restaurants. Uh, quite. I don't give a. You don't have any money and you refuse to actually spend for things that benefit your life. You just run away. I don't know. I'm not willing to take the risk. And you know, I know one of the big reasons I'm going to do another America versus Europe thing for a second. Um, I know Europe is more left economically, but typically the United States has been more left socially historically. Yes. Germany is very forgiving, uh, and very left. Depends on where you are. But yeah, uh, social stuff, but that is historically United States, any of the, the big cities in Germany. Uh, which we would be scale is tipping Portland. What do you guys think you are? No, we're, we're leaving for the education purposes and we're staying in the big cities in Germany for, uh, the. I mean, it's going to be the hope is that we will be able to return to America eventually, once we have better educations and we're on better footing, um, in the event that. So you want to come back? Oh, yeah, we would like for what? Uh, after my degree, after. So, we're going there just to get the degree, but I imagine like social policies. Obviously, there's like health insurance and stuff like that. But, you're right. Historically, we're, we were doing pretty good, but now we're kind of things. At least the forecast into the future doesn't look super hot for that. The, I mean, gay, like abortion was repealed, gay marriage is on the docket to, uh, to end up in the Supreme Court's, um, I guess on their docket as well. I haven't seen that challenge. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's, that's coming up in the next few months. It's, uh, in the lower courts right now. Um, and so us being gay married, don't want that, don't want that nullified. Most of the legislation is in lower court. Does the court see you guys as gay married? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I'm legally a man. Like, all my documentation says that I am. Even with the new stuff? Yeah. Even with the new stuff. Okay. The new stuff currently bars you from renewing your your documents and getting new stuff. And then what would the court say about the marriage? It would probably say that like when I went to go renew my passport or my ID or anything, there would probably be like, it wouldn't go through. So I'd have to. It's a whole bunch of, yeah, mess. It's a big mess. What it means right now is that anyone who had like the original, the old, like a different gender marker on their identification documents, um, when they go to renew, like an error is going to come up. It's not, they're going to say that they can't go through with, uh, your renewal because your documents don't line up. Yeah. So, we're, we're getting out. Uh, we're waiting for term to be over. You want to come back though? I am a. We're so anti-American. No, no, no. You, you mistake me. I am so very pro-America, but we are not in the positions right now to do any sort of effective action to change it. Go to Germany. Not that you're willing to do. You wouldn't apply for one scholarship and you think student loans are the most evil thing ever created in the history of the world, even though a lot of people use them and end up in a better position. I mean, you haven't put in any work. I've put in plenty of work. Thank you. You're showing up to a job, but you haven't actually put in the effort. You just complain and then pretend like you're a victim at everything. That's what you've done from this conversation so far. And then, by the way, you then just go spend all your money on [ __ ] Like, here it is. I have it. That's all. But nothing. There's some good restaurants. You got a $150 bottle of wine for a dinner. It's good. It's great. Yeah, it's good. Guys, I can't pay for college. $150 bottle of wine. For his birthday. That was for his birthday. Happy birthday. Get a [ __ ] degree. I don't give a [ __ ] No. Birthdays are nothing. Who gives a. How will we better our lives? I don't care. Not going to cuddle you. I don't give a. You turned 24. It's an insignificant birthday. It was a significant birthday for me. Why? Most of his birthdays have been, uh, not so much about him. Historically, very. Congratulations. Have a good one in two years. We're adults. I don't give a. You're just trying to live a better life. Doesn't mean you have to spoil yourself now and delay everything and then run away. No, no, no. You can and play at the same time. You don't need to. You sure can when you're in a better place. You're not. I know. We're pretty good right now. Yeah. And that's why you have to run in order to go to college. If, if FPS is still around, I can stick to the, uh, to the online school and, and still complete my degree. Caleb here. And I got to say, I've tried a lot of earbuds that hurt my ears or made me wonder how they could possibly be. $549 for something so mid. Enter Raycon's Everyday Earbuds. They come in a bunch of cool colors, and my favorite is forest green, matching my office vibes, and the fit is so ergonomic, I sometimes forget they're in. They've got active noise cancellation, blacking out my neighbor's barking dog, or when I'm outside. And the protective case cover is wirelessly charging friendly, so I don't even unplug it to power up. 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I mean, was that allocated via Congress for spending? If it is, then an executive order can't take that away from now. Yeah. When they, so, but like they just laid off half the Department of Education. Um, I know. And that'll likely be challenged by in court for what we've seen. I mean, they just revoked the. I don't want my education being in limbo at the whim of a court. Sure. Your education paid for by somebody else. Yeah. I pay into the same systems that I am currently taking out. I highly doubt you net pay very much in taxes. Net, uh, net. Let's see. For, for our last year, we highly doubt got back $1,500, but we, uh, we still paid like a very, probably very small net. If anything, it's mostly social security, which you will eventually recoup. Not with a good return on greater than $15 grand in taxes, joint. Okay. Well, probably some state as well. Yeah. Yeah, state and federal. But like, we're paying, seems like a lot of taxes. You file joint jointly? Yeah, I, I did our taxes this year. Okay. What did we file jointly? Yes, we filed jointly. Okay. Yeah. Um, us making, I, I think we make a little bit under $80 grand. Uh, we still paid like 26%. That's a little more than that in taxes. What, what, what income was filed? What did your, what did it say for the house? Oh, uh, I don't remember. Um, but like I had worked quite a few jobs that year. He worked a lot of jobs last year. Uh, that's, that's our current joint income right now. Um, but yeah, so I filed our taxes this year. Last year I filed my taxes and his taxes, um, and, and helped him with his previous year's taxes. He, he's, he's got a, he's got a thing with taxes. He doesn't like paying tax. I really hate doing taxes. I've had. Who likes having money taken away? Multiple jobs for quite a few years now. And so tracking down all those W2s is a nightmare. Yeah. He just straight up didn't pay his '22 taxes. Uh, oh, so I, I had to help him for many painstaking hours get all of the taxi taxes did you say? Uh, probably somewhere in the ballpark of $15 to $20. It would have been about closer to nine for federal for you, but I'm sure you got Oregon pretty high. So, Oregon income taxes is Oregon. Okay. Yeah. Or Oregon income tax is brutal. We don't have state tax or, or sales tax. That's what it is. We don't have sales tax, but the, the income tax is, is brutal. Um, I, I think my spreadsheet says we pay like 26% in taxes split between federal and state. It always looks like a huge chunk. Yeah, it absolutely is. However, you know, I mean, it was an effective tax rate with Oregon being combined of about 19.4%. Um, that's probably because you weren't like all of your different jobs were different wages until you got on. Yeah. Well, and I also like never worked 40 hours a week because my job always prior to getting. However, in Germany, if you make that same income, you'll be instead of, 19% it will be 32.9%. So, I hope you love paying taxes. I am. I will happily pay taxes if they're going to validate taxes until the cows come home. If they're there to benefit. You know, a lot of people think on both sides of the economic system, left and right, a lot of sides think that they're gonna have to cut back on a lot of that stuff if they have to start investing more in their defense if the United States doesn't invest in their defense as much as that. That's, that's hardly even politics. You hear a bit more of that on the right, but economists on both sides agree that if the United States stops spending as much in defense there, which the current administration doesn't want to spend much in defense there, Germany will then have to fund more in defense as it essentially runs Europe. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Which means less of your tax dollars will be going to those things you like there, or they have to raise taxes even more. I will also, I'm very curious to see what's going to. I will also pay taxes for defense if it's going towards. But that might mean things, the things that you care about might be cut and or you're going to have to pay more for college or that it'll just be borrowed and borrowed and borrowed. I don't know until, until the tuition of Germany goes from €300 per, until things change, but you guys are running else until things change, but you guys are running away from something right now with the anticipation of it to change. Why not until? It's not anticipation, things are already changing here. Yeah. But most of the things you said, it's like the anticipation of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, but I guess that doesn't apply in planning for the future. I don't want to leave my future up to chance. Okay. So, we're doing the security. So, the same applies there then with potential higher taxes or unless Germany goes from 300 a semester to 17 divided by two. Uh, I don't really know. That's not the only thing. Again, I'm not against that. It's just it's your philosophy that I am trying to bring down here a little bit because you're a lot of run because right now is impossible here whereas that's incorrect like the student loans like look at your spending, a lot of that could be going towards college. Student loans not the worst thing in the world if you do it correctly. It's the. So we also just going to Germany. Germany is a great country. I've been there. We just had a round of layoffs at our current position. Yeah. Um, scary. And we, we survived those thankfully, but surprisingly, I don't want to put myself in debt, um, with the layoffs will always be a possibility. Yeah, I know. And I'm, I'm just, I'm worried about that. I'm afraid of that fully funded emergency fund. That's what it's for. Yeah, we're working on that. We're, we're currently at. What are we working on? Germany or? No, the, the emergency fund. We've got one month of all of our bills and savings. Um, and, uh, and every month I just throw that into the bills account and then, um, we build that, that up again. And we, we build more than a month's worth at a time. Do you owe on your student loans right now or they deferment? No, they're on deferred. Yeah. You, okay. They're on deferment or you're in like save, which is being challenged in court. Uh, they're on deferment right now through the save thing, but it, um, the. Well, we don't know what's going to happen to that. Yeah, he's got a message saying that things are going to have to start being paid in a couple months here, but maybe there was a court decision that I'm not aware of. Yeah. Uh, but we're, we're still waiting on that. Yeah, it looks like, uh, it's, but even with, uh, having to pay it, it's such a small amount each month that, um, we're like, is it even worth it to pay it? 'Cause, uh, if we're in, if we're in Germany, the foreign income, you want to come back? Yeah, we want to come back. But are you going to come back in under 10 years? Yes. Well, even still, I don't think the federal government's going to forget. No, no, they're not going to forget. It's not a Sally Mae loan, thankfully. It's just, it's just the federal, but, um, the federal income tax credit means he's not going to have to like, his, his monthly payment on it is going to be zero, um, while we're over there and then when we come back, we'll just like, so we're going to be living and working in Germany while I'm going to school. He's going to be working when I finish, um, I'm going to be working and he's going to get as much of his, uh, his degree out of the way as possible. And, um, in that. Can we get a better degree though, please? Yeah. Yeah. I want him to get the auditing degree. Do you want to get the auditing degree? I really like the auditing. I'm a little worried about me and numbers, but like, we spend a bit more than a thousand a month. Things we talk about on the show are actually really not that complicated. It's like, you could learn this in like a month if you wanted to. Yeah, he, he prior, prior to this, he spent like a couple weeks just playing with Excel, going through an online course on that. Um, Excel is a great tool. I mean, we're going to put you through all four of our courses. So, go through those, take the quizzes together. Highly recommend it. Uh, they're bundled together for 30% off for you guys if you get them all. But again, more than anything, I recommend going through, uh, just downloading the Sipper Budget app since you guys are connected on all that stuff. Input everything, build out your categories, use the automatic connections, use the community chat in there, hold yourselves accountable. It's like the best, best thing you can get. Yeah. With, uh, with €12,000 saved up, by the time we're done with Germany and we come back, um, we should still have most of that €12,000 because we're going to be working, uh, most of the time that we're in Germany. Um, so then we'll just come back and throw that, uh, the, the, the euros back into dollars and throw them at his, his student loans and we'll just be done. Yeah. So, for the student loans, I'm not super worried. I don't, I don't really think we should pay them. Um, so that just leaves the, the rest of our debt to work through, which we're, we're throwing, uh, like 40% of our, our income at right now. The rest of it going to, to bills and then a little bit to savings. Yeah. Well, for Worthworth, you probably have a better chance in Germany finding that employment. Their employ unemployment rate's like 6% or something where the average in Europe is something like 13% for people under 30. Yeah. No, their economies are not good. That is like an actual factual thing. Uh, so, but you should, I think you'll be fine in Germany. I'm glad you guys said Germany because out of many of the European countries, that is like where they're at least like doing things. We looked at, we looked. Do they have tech innovation or are they competing against China or the United States? Special visas for, for IT professionals and that's, um, like if, if the education route is just taking too long, um, 'cause you know, you've got lead times in visa processing applications and stuff like that, um, then we're just going to go with the, the IT work visa and I'm, it for that. Oh, that makes me a little nervous because the United States innovates our, our tech industry, China replicates, and Europe regulates. Miserable. It's, it's really difficult. It's really difficult right now. You know, you know that's closer to a normal job market though, right? Like we've had like the best job market for tech in the history of ever over these last four years. We're closer to just normal and it's difficult. It is difficult, but it becomes more competitive in a normal market. That's what happens. The percentage of our unemployed workers, uh, is disproportionately unemployed tech workers in Portland. Like, all we hear about is people in the US, Silicon Valley. Tech is hard. We all know tech is hard right now. That is absolutely true. But you have to remember it's also coming from a place where three, four years ago, literally anyone could walk in and get like a six-figure job at tech. It's, it's, it's a different world. It's having probably an overcorrection. It'll probably balance out with the German IT work visa. Part of their application process is pairing you with, um, industries over there to sponsor you for, uh, for the tech positions that they have available. So you have to do that too. Uh, no, get the university. Yeah, that's if I need a work visa. And when I looked at, they have a lot of resources, um, online for finding jobs in Germany. They even have, uh, websites that you can look at for specifically finding jobs that where they're like looking for, uh, people who are. I get it. In tech, in tech, the United States unemployment in tech is 3.3% at 6.2 in Germany. So, it is double unemployment in Germany for tech. Remember, uh, they don't have an overly competitive tech market in Europe. Across Europe, they do of course have a tech market, but compared to the United States or Southeast Asia, they really don't. That's not a big sector they've really cared about. Um, they more care about making sure, uh, the lids on your water bottles don't disconnect. I guess that's more critical than people having jobs. But yeah, I get it and I hope you get the job. The unemployment rate is double in the tech sector there from what I could quickly for the, like, sure, the unemployment rate could be crazy, but for the, for the visa program, um, this is direct, like, hey, we want you, you're a qualified individual, here's what kind of job, what kind of pay range are we talking? Germany, their pay range is roughly half of, of what we make here, but their cost of living is like. I know, but if you're planning to come back, that makes it difficult. It does. It, okay. What is the $600 owed to Elliot's mom? Uh, not my mom. Uh, that's my ex-fiancé's mom. Oh my. How was your relationship with your ex-fiancé? Uh, with my ex-fiancé. Not good. Um, why? Just. Did you guys cheat? No. No. Okay. And I, I was not into dudes at the time of their breakup. Yeah. Uh, it was like, we had moved in and we spent a month living together and that was a nightmare for both of us and then, uh, that kind of fell apart and she's like, let's still be friends. And I was like, I don't think that's going to work out and it definitely didn't. We have not messaged each other since, uh, other than like little passive aggressive comments. But the, the debt is because for part of, uh, that you were living, I lived with my ex-fiancé's mom's house because me and my little brother were living at my ex-fiancé's mom's house because, um, our parents, uh, sold the house underneath us and we had to find a place to live. Yeah. His parents, uh, for. How long have you been out trans? Uh, since I was like 15. Okay. So when you guys met, you identified as? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I did not meet him as anything other than Elliot. Okay. Uh, is that all the debt? It's just those four debts. Wow. All that for four debts. You guys are in a much better position than like 90% of the people on the show. And guess what? The majority of them make progress. But of course, you guys can't 'cause the system's against us. We're, um, when, uh, when Elliot spending in this check. Yes. What? When Elliot, uh, moved in, we were, uh, we have two cars, so we're gonna get rid of one of those to take care of the, a good chunk of the debt. Yeah, we don't need three cars. Well, we don't own the cars. Uh, no, we don't own the cars. I own my car outright here. So, this is a checking account and it's all just bull. It's going and getting some bull like Goodwill. It's a little hard to tell. You never really know. You can get knickknacks, you get clothes, you whatever. PayPaling out. PayPaling out. Venmo went out. Craigslist. PayPaling out. Getting some bull. PayPal out. PayPal out. What is all this PayPal out? Uh, paying roommates for stuff. Yeah, it's probably for groceries. I thought they all gave to you. You said that. Well, sometimes they shop, too. Yeah, sometimes they shop. Sometimes I shop. PayPal instant $298. Venue Wayne out $2. Ven out $10. Cotton bureau. I don't know what that is. I don't remember. And let's see. Yeah. Oh, that's, uh, that's the, that's the fun money account. A fun money account. Yeah. I, uh, I budget out for, for us. So that's my fun money. Oh, it's real fun 'cause you're overdrafting. You're overdrafting. I'm pulling from savings. Yeah, it immediately pulled from me because you didn't have enough. Good job. You're taking from savings for fun. For fun spending. What an upstanding individual. We're really gonna survive, guys. It's a system. It's not our responsibility. Went and got some bull to Craigslist, PayPal out, Overdraft, Amazon, PayPal out, PayPal out, PayPal out. My one fun spending keeping you away from getting into Germany quicker. Um, the crazy thing is again, I've sounded so anti. I love German. Germany is a great place. I enjoyed visiting Germany and I hope to again at some point. I love Germany. Great place. Yeah. So, what's the, what's the tax percentage down there? You, you'll see the at a glance probably withholding, but remember you got a return. That's fair. That's fair. Plus, there's also social security, which you will get back hopefully. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know if there's anything left for us. Jeez. Unfortunately, our job doesn't do any, uh, as contractors. Um, there's no 401k matching. Sure. Um, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. It's basically exactly what we just said. Uh, but of course, you get some back. Yeah, we, we do get some back. Okay. A bill accounts. Yeah. So that's, uh, every month I do Relay for Red, Living Writer, Netflix, Amazon, Amazon, Spotify, those are. We're doing here? Those are our subscriptions. Yeah. Uh, Spotify is an absolute must have. Regular savings. This is stuff going back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, that's, that's a lot of back and forth. There's your overdraft. I mean, savings. I mean, you, it went down from. Is that down? No, that went up. Wait, did it? Yeah, it went up. What's in your SA? So, $5,000 in savings. Mhm. Yeah. Not bad. Our, our monthly bills is somewhere. I'd rather get you to a risk-free position by getting yourself out of debt instead of using it to flee. But we're up to a weird situation. And you need about. Well, $12,000 is what they recommend having saved. Yeah. What do you need to actually move there? Uh, $12,000 plus the, uh, the like plane tickets, which are not cheap and the cost of our lawyer. Yeah. Yeah. The cost of our lawyer, which we, we already paid, uh, paid for, but we paid our immigration lawyer and he's taking care of the application and all of that stuff. Making sure all of our documents are correct. This is $44 in this USAA. ATM withdrawal, PayPal transfers, blah, blah, blah. Cafe ATM withdraw. Any, any ATM withdrawal of around $40 is going to be his much more important than I use my fund money for it. I, I don't spend outside. You guys have fun money. You're trying to get to Germany. You have bad debt and we can't afford to go to college. Where's fun money? It's like $50. It's $100. Oh, I know. So, two $200 a month so that we can enjoy our life. Like, like I said, you got, you can work and play at the same time. I agree. When you're not in a position of immense risk, you're also delaying and saying you can't do the things you need or want to do because of your financial position, but you're blowing money on fun. So much money. Like that is your personal choice. You can make that choice. That's fine. You can walk out and I will fully just be like, okay with it. If you want to live that life, that is okay. But the conversation at this table is to usually go and meet the goals we're trying to get to and live a budgeted life. Live a financially healthy life. You can live this life if you want. I don't give a. That's your choice. Live your choices. Everyone can make their own choices. I'm down with it. I'm of the spirit that anyone can do whatever the, they want to do unless it's smoking meth in a [ __ ] subway. Like, do what you want to do. I don't care. Haven't gone that far. Do what you want to do. I don't care. That is you. I'll have sympathy, but do what you want to do. However, people come to this table to get to that better financial life, to take this seriously. I, I don't know. To you, it's just like victim, victim, victim, victim, and not understanding the systems that you're even against. It's like, what is this $2,600? Oh, it was taken out, so it doesn't matter. Oh, that's, uh, that's rent each month. So, um, 15 shares of Game We. Well, what do we? Okay, this is some stock account. We have 15 shares of something. Yeah, we got 15 shares of of GameStop. Oh, critical. That'll get us to Germany. Okay. Uh, I think we're up on that actually. And then $1,200 in this retirement fund. Yeah, we're, we're, we're up quite a bit on that. That's nice. I got that at a very low, very low amount. Wonderful. Um. Oh, budget. There it is. Right on top. Oh, no. I'm building a budget. I don't understand the point 'cause you have a budget. So, if you have a budget, why don't you just. Well, what am I doing? You need to squeeze more blood from this stone. But you're not going to. You want to whiff my pool. It just can't be the fun money. Can't be that. I don't know. I don't know if I have a budget. Can I have a budget? Thank you. Oh yeah, that guy's, uh, that guy's right here. I just stupid. Okay, $4,800 comes in on a monthly basis. This was a pointless conversation. If anything, I've just made people think I'm either far right or far left based on whatever they heard and didn't like. I mean, they're your worries, Caleb. I know, but I just never gave any of like actual opinions. I've talked about Europe's economic system and our economic system, but it's just like this is a dangerous conversation 'cause people hear that and then they immediately think they know your entire ideology, which I guarantee you don't. Debt payments. That sounds like a them problem. No, it's a me problem 'cause sometimes people get turned off when they think they know your politics. I don't know. I'm okay with people knowing my politics 'cause I feel. No, you have no impact on anything. You like, you don't have a platform. No, nothing happens when people know your politics. What's your rent? Uh, $1,300. Utilities included in the rent. Internet. Uh, we pay $22 a person for that. So $44 bucks. I also don't have an ideology. I really don't. It's bad to have an ideology in my opinion because then all of a sudden every opinion you have to have has to stem from the ideology instead of trying to be open-minded about whatever reality. Open-minded with an ideology. Yeah. But it immediately comes back to stemming from that. People have a hard time getting outside of their ideology because it's such a core basis. Yeah. And so I try to be ideologyless. Now that being said, I try to be more in the realm of like freedom. Like if I have to pick one, that's I tend to at least personal freedoms. Well, in general, just people doing whatever the, you know what they want. Like I tend to glean that way if there's not hardcore facts on either side. I'm a pretty big do what you want as long as it's not hurting anyone. Yeah. Kind of. Okay. Gas from drive drive. Uh, $50, uh, like $25 a month. We, uh, I drive hybrid. Okay. So our, but utilities are included. Yeah, it's a good deal. Phone bill. Uh, do you pay your? No, I, I don't pay a phone bill. Okay. Uh, my phone's paid off. Uh, the. But do you have coverage? It's the family plan. Um, I, I don't. So, you don't pay? No. Yeah, we can't pay for anything. Okay. TV fund. Anything else you need to survive? $200. Food, groceries, $300. Uh, $600. $600. Use the cookbook we have. You get that in the premium versions budgeting app you guys get for free. I like cooking quite a bit. Good. Yeah. Well, with going out as as much as you do, I wouldn't have believed it. Medical care costs on a monthly basis, medications, whatever. My parents, he's got. Yeah, sure. But like co-pays and. Oh, um, no, not, not a lot. I'll let you, I'll also set you guys up with three free therapy sessions with Sound Mind. I use them. Audience uses them. Pretty good. Actually, I'll get you a course career certification of your choice if you want something that boosts you in the tech field. There's a lot of tech stuff there that can help, uh, really up your income. Um, okay. Okay. So, nothing there. I don't know how we can't survive subscriptions. No. Do you have pets? No. Car insurance? We have. We have. We have a gecko. We have car insuranceances. Uh, $165 a month. I'll put in like $20 bucks a month for the gecko. Yeah. That, it's, it's more like $20 bucks every couple of months. Good so far. Yeah. I mean, I see no reason why you, you can't cash flow community college to be completely honest. And I see no reason why. Uh, 'cause we're trying to get debt-free and all of our disposable is going towards the trying to get debt-free. We're trying to get $5,000 to go to $12,000. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It, it was debt-free and now it is get the $12K in the bank. And I'm not personally willing to go to college again unless I can do it for cheaper. Yeah. $300 a month is a lot better than last time. Not $300, $300 a semester. Yeah. You're, you're relying a lot on getting accepted, going through the whole visa process, paying for all that, relocating your entire life, settling down. Some still going to be cheaper than I get. I get it. I get it. I get it. Comes with you making half the income as well. Okay. $1,000. It's going to make it harder to pay off debt as well. Often times with your half income situation, $1,424.26 a month is what you guys have left over. Boom. You guys have left over a month what you could essentially put towards almost a paid for semester at community college. I mean, capital, uh, USAA pay off that in three months. Capital One Venture pay that off in like six months after that. Student loans I wouldn't pay off. I just do minimum payments so it's paid off. You can pay off the mom situation in like no time in less than a month. I mean, this is stupid. I really don't get it. Move to Germany in a year. I mean, I don't care. We, we got to get there by September, though. We, we need the, uh, $1,000. Yeah. Five, five grand. We need, uh, seven, seven grand more. It's roughly. You can afford it. You can get there. If you follow the budget, you can get there. You can also pay off some debt. Okay, there you go. You have it. That's not my concern. Your finances aren't the absolute obliterated worst. My concern is it's not your worldview. I don't care about anyone's politics. It's not that. It's how you view yourself in this. That's my main concern is especially when you come back, you're going to find a way to be a victim there, too. You refuse. No, no, no. You immediately thought student loans would kill you. You don't even know the whole system for that. You don't even, you didn't even understand a traditional repayment plan for that. Like what everyone gets put into automatically. You immediately, like, you're the way you've presented yourself has been endless victimhood. And that's my big concern. Instead of you actually going out there, you haven't applied to one scholarship, one. So, I have a hard time with this. Listen, if you applied to every scholarship in the world, you've worked your up, you've put yourself to your limit and tried every single option and you couldn't get there. That is where I'm like, let me pay for it even. Like, I don't even care. But you haven't put in one single ounce of effort into that. That is spending in a budget score. You overspent, zero out of 10. Debt, I mean, family debt's pretty rough, but it's going to be a two out of 10. It's not the worst debt. Emergency fund. Well, yeah, but it's, it's going to the Germany situation, but I'm going to give it a five out of 10 there. Retirement definitely behind. Technically started. One out of 10. Maybe a two out of 10. No, 24. One out of 10. Real estate, zero out of 10 for now. Let's see. I think you guys could be in a lot better place if you just kind of grew up. Two out of 10. That's your H financial score. Join us in the post show. There's a lot of other tea we haven't talked about 'cause I just wanted to steamroll through this thing to be completely honest. And, uh, hang out, hang out with us in the post show. Join Hammer Elite for thousands of hours of extra content. We upload something every single day for that membership. Um, and make sure you download Simpler Budget. We want to make this the best budgeting app that has ever existed. So download it and try your free trial for the premium version. I'll see you in the post show. Bye bye. We like our fine things. Yes. You always have a stocked drawer and a liquor cabinet. Over 25 bottles of wine just stashed away. And you like to host nice parties. And then you said you just went to Costco and put $215 on liquor. $50 on buy booze. Buy it in bulk. This guy will talk about anything. Oh god. I'm just certified yappers. To watch the financial audit post show, click the join button below.