Hahna:                 Awesome. Now it's time for the final 4. These are the 4 questions that I ask all my guests. Melanie, are you ready?

Melanie:              Yeah.

Hahna:                 Awesome. First question is, what is your favorite financial book and financial blog?

Melanie:              Yes, my favorite financial book is “Your Money or Your Life” by Joe Dominguez. It was the first financial book that I read where it really changed my outlook on making money. You know, in the book, he mentions something about your hourly rate and how much time you're giving to your job and sort of …

Like, when you spend money, you're spending your time, you're spending your hours. You go out for a nice happy hour with friends, you spent $30. That could be spending an hour of your time, right? Really looking at your money and your time and your life as one, right? You know, sometimes we like to think of all these things as separate, which is why I think sometimes we're in financial disarray. When you put your life and your money and your time all together, you can realize how they're interconnected and really start to make changes. That book was a revelation to me.

Then one of my favorite financial blogs is from my friend Shannon [McClay 00:45:30] from Financially [Blonde 00:45:33]. I love her blog so much. She's fun. She makes finance fun. She has a great podcast as well. It's very millennial-focused, and she just breaks down financial concepts about investing and saving in a really fun, fabulous way.

Hahna:                 Awesome. Is there a leader in the financial online space that you're following?

Melanie:              Oh, yes. Jay [Money 00:45:57] from Budgets are Sexy is a total just awesome person to follow. He's a good friend of mine. He's always been supportive of me. I just always love to know what he's doing. He's so innovative. I think, you know, as a financial blogger and as someone that's been in the space for quite a long time, it's been interesting to see his journey and also just I love the way he thinks and what he does. He's definitely someone I always like to keep a close eye on and see what he's doing and stay in touch with him.

Hahna:                 Awesome. What's your favorite financial tool? It could be an app, an online tool, or even spreadsheets.

Melanie:              Yeah. I'm a big fan of mint.com. Mint.com can track all of your spending and savings and investments. You can sync all of your bank accounts. One of the main things when you're getting out of debt or when you're starting to budget is tracking your income and expenses. That can be sometimes cumbersome to do via paper or spreadsheets. Mint is really an easy way of just tracking your income and expenses, what's going in, what's going out. I love that they batch things by categories. You can see, “Oh, I spent too much on food this month.”

You can see which categories you're spending a lot of money in. I think for someone that's especially just getting started with personal finance or if they're getting out of debt, it's a really helpful tool, and it's completely free.

Hahna:                 Awesome. The last question of the final 4 is, looking back on your financial journey, what do you wish you knew when you were 18?

Melanie:              Oh, gosh. I wish I understood how interest actually worked when I was 18 because I had no idea actually how it worked. I sort of had a vague idea of what it meant and what it did, and it wasn't until I graduated with my first degree, my Bachelor's degree. You know, I thought I borrowed $18,000, and then when I graduated, it was like, “Oh, it's $23,000.” That was because interest was accruing the whole time I was in school, and I didn't really understand that.

Then when I got my Master's degree, my interest was just going insane with the high balance and the high interest rates for those grad PLUS loans. You know, I think I wish I was better educated about interest and how much of my student loan payments would actually go towards interest.

You know, I think I did all of those calculators and all of those before-hand, and it's easy to sort of just turn a blind eye to it and be like, “Oh, I'll be able to pay it back. It's no big deal.” It's a different reality when you have to have a job and you have to pay it back. I feel like so many of us focus on school and getting through it, but we don't really focus on what's going to happen after you graduate and how you're going to pay it back. I think that's where we need to shift the focus in financial education for young people, is really having them think like, “You're going to have to pay this back, and you can't just think about, ‘Oh, I'm going to get through the next 4 years,' but what's going to happen after that?” That's what I wish I knew at 18.

Hahna:                 Awesome. Now, is there anything else you would like to add that we didn't cover?

Melanie:              No, I just want people to know that being debt-free is possible. You know, I think so often people can just say, “Oh, I'll never get out of debt,” or, “It's too hard. It'll never happen,” but it is totally possible, and it is totally worth it.