[Music] Joe C has a question. He says, I graduated college and I'm making my budget. I recently changed credit cards and have 18 months of 0% APR. I also have an expected bonus of 60 to 80% of my base salary a year from now. Am I crazy to invest everything except for rent and live off of my credit card and put my bonus directly to my credit card bill? It would be enough, he says. Oh, I would be able to max out my IRA, 401k, and HSA. I can't wait to see what... By the way, Joe, Joe Millionaire Mission, this is like... Let me tell you why. When you get to the financial order of operations, when I talk about step four, I detail my own financial mutant mental trap that I set for myself because I was so good with money. I was so proud of how good I was that I fell into what I call an access to cash trap. And what's even scarier about what you're talking about is that you're using this 0% credit card.

you're trusting that this bank is going to be kind to you if things go sideways. I'll go ahead and cut to the chase. They will not be kind to you. These banks, um, they will rip the carpet out from underneath you. And look, that's the way the business is set up. That's the promise you signed off on. But don't fall into that trap. Don't create a self-inflicted wound that will ruin your financial life. One of the worst things that you can do, Joe, is spend money that has not shown up yet. And why get I get so nervous when you talk about having this likelihood of a 60 to 80% bonus that what if something happens with the economy? What if something... I was trying not to use it, but I have to... exactly what all you get at the end of this year, a jelly of the month coupon, and you don't actually get that bonus, and you had this whole strategy where you were taking advantage of the 0% APR, and then that happens, and

now you have debt that's at 25-30% working against you. We are not, we just unequivocally are not fans of the 0% credit card game or swimming naked. Now, if you want to put everything on your credit card, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with using your credit card to pay for living expenses so long as you pay it off every single month. I don't even like those introductory offers, though. I don't like if you pay it off every month. You treat it like every other credit card you would use, so there's nothing wrong with using it and paying it off, but you can't carry the balance. Even if it is a 0%, you have to be paying it off every month. And if that means that you can't max out your Roth and max out your HSA and max out your 401K, that's all right because you said you just graduated, you're starting out, you're early on in your journey. Even if all you're able to

do is save a small sum of money: $100, $1 a month, $200 a month. That small sum will be huge. What you want to do right now is don't make a financial decision that is going to derail you before your financial journey even starts. Look, I think Joe just let us know he just graduated college. He's got a lot of good prospects, but a lot of this is training his brain and the behaviors of what is healthy, what is good. And what I don't like about using debt as that bridge or that crutch is that it kind of slows down your mindset on the how sharp you have to be with your thoughts when you face any type of struggle. Because I can tell you when I had the home equity line, there were a few months where I could either choose a lifestyle decision where I'd trim it down a little bit so that I wouldn't have to use the home equity line, or I was just like, you know what, I'm close.

enough. It's easy. I'll just go transfer, and I'll catch it up next month. That mental trap that you get yourself into. What I was shocked when I was preparing the book, and I was researching that home equity line, and pulled all the statements. I didn't remember in my brain, 'cause remember blossoming memories, we typically take out the negative stuff, we only keep the positive. So I had in my mind that I was super healthy with this line of equity, but when I actually pulled the old statements, I was transferring back and forth more often than I should have. I was way too comfortable with it, and yes, there were good quarters that I was then paying it way down, but that Comfort level is what, when it got ripped away from me, actually created the scarcity and the fear within me. So that's what everything that Bo just laid out. What if you start getting, you're cutting off the corner, you're rounding up, you're rounding down on your lifestyle because you have this 0% credit card, and then it

goes away. I think you're going to find out you'd have been much healthier if you went into this with a healthy mindset of scarcity. Set up your budget correctly as a graduate. Look, we had somebody who shared with us, and I resemble this in my own life in college. You can make a $20 bill just do so much. I mean, you can think about how well you can go out to eat, how you can even create a good time off of small sums of money. When you now get into the workforce and you start making more money, try to see if you can hone that same financial mutant skill that can make $20 do a lot and expand that into your current life. So you can set up good saving, good investment behaviors so that your money can work harder than you can, and you can own your time that much sooner.

Should I Invest Everything and Live Off My Credit Cards?

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