206. College Money Mistakes Parents Make Years Before Tuition Is Due //with Brian Eyster

Paying for college does not have to mean draining your retirement, taking on overwhelming student loans, or waiting until senior year to panic.

College planning expert Brian Eyster joins Laura to explain what families should be doing during each stage of childhood to prepare for higher education. They discuss why strong household cash flow comes before college savings, how PSAT and SAT scores can unlock major scholarship opportunities, and why parents should pay attention to their child’s strengths and potential career path long before choosing a school.

You’ll also learn how families can balance saving for retirement with funding college, when student loans may be used strategically, and why having both parents and students invested in the process can lead to better decisions.

Whether your child is five or already in high school, this conversation will help you begin building a college funding plan that protects both their future and yours.

Website: www.essentialstrategies.net

Certified College Funding Specialist: https://www.hireaccfs.com/brian-eyster

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianseyster/

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Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants-52 0:00

Hello, Legacy Builders. I have a special treat for you today. Today we have Brian Eister with us, and now he is the founder of the Grad Process, which is a system that helps families pay for their children's college education, which I know that all of you are thinking about right now, but he does it without sacrificing your retirement, which we all know is really important. With 28 years in the financial services and a personal background in planning for his own children's education, he specializes in wealth management, risk mitigation, and resource allocation. So he regulates, regularly speaks on topics such as creative funding for college and tax advantage strategies, drawing on years of experience helping families navigate complex financial decisions. Brian lives in metro Detroit with his wife, two children, three cats, and enough guitar and softball gear to outfit three generations. Brian, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat this afternoon. This is gonna be a great conversation. Brian, I'm gonna ask you the question that I ask all of my guests to start off our calls. Who is someone whose legacy you would like to emulate? Oof. Can it be a combo? Of course. My parents are the first to jump off. My father, he passed away a couple years ago, but he was, with my mom and my younger brother and I. It was his second marriage, so he had to start over in his mid-30s. So there was a lot of, financial discipline and budgeting and things like that, oh, double coupons. And he was able to retire at 59, and he passed at 82, and there was not a care in the world about money. And he also bankrolled my, younger brother and my college education, so we were not saddled with any debt. so certainly since t- kind of tying in legacy and principles I've instilled the same thing that I am not in- instilling, my girls are not gonna be saddled with debt. My mom gonna emulate as well. Those that know my mom, there's a- sassiness, to her where I know I get my Irish I know when, I get upset and I start spouting off where I get it from. But my mom is great. And then also my in-laws, believe it or not, are both, salt of the earth people. They were always fantastic from day one. And then I have a, old high school tennis coach, that was fantastic in terms of coaching. And then there's a current close friend of mine, that I coached with. Great legacy and mentor. He's fantastic with kids. You could tell him that all of his kids and his dogs are ugly, and he would not break a sweat. He is the coolest cucumber ever. And so those would be the ones immediately, Laura, that jump out. It's like I wanna take a little from there, a little there, a little there. And, I'm glad you brought it up, 'cause I should probably take some time and ponder and, let's have more of them and less of Brian. I love that you found big things from multiple different people, but you're able to pool and decide what you wanna take. what was your father's name? Daryl. Daryl. Mm-hmm. Good guy? He was. Quiet. Funny. He's one of those where, He would not offer his opinion. But if you asked him, you need to be ready to face some uncomfortable truths. So he's the one that's always in the corner watching and observing, listening. And you know what? I think maybe once in my life I ever won an argument, so to speak. 'Cause he will just, he'll lay it, and then he's like, "Well, what, you gotta... Did you do this? Yes or no? This." it was almost like an attorney. He already knew the answers and so I take a lot from that. Oh, that's amazing. I'm glad you told me about him. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's one of the reasons why I like asking this question, 'cause I get to hear a little bit about what makes the people that I'm speaking to into the people I'm speaking to. And Brian, I have to tell you, already I've... Talking to you before we hit record I can see pieces of you that you just explained about your dad. So he's already impacting the legacy that you're gonna leave, so thank you for that. All right, I'm gonna get off the sentimental track. Can you please tell me and the listeners how you chose college planning as your field of focus? Yes. So let me dry my eyes. The Industry that we are in, Laura, while, we- we're all in it, we're just in different rooms, there is not a lot of education, training, real-world application of this thing called college planning. I look at it a- as college is here, and then you have three phases, and then underneath it you have more sub-levels. But there's a planning stra- stage A strategy stage, and then ultimately a funding execution, whatever you wanna call, implementation. You choose, it doesn't matter to me. There's phases to this as well, you know? And a lot of these conversations also can be applicable to any other higher education. I know of folks that end up in just, getting, like, a, a two years associate's and goes off into the medical. There's, some technical medical programs where, you don't need the four-year degree. You know, you don't need to brag about your ancient history in Rome from 1842 class. Around 2018 and 2019, there were many of my clients where we had talked "Oh my gosh, Brian, can we meet? What are we gonna do?" junior's graduating. Sheer panic. Sheer panic on both sides, both the husband and the wife. Because I, I, I would get calls and emails from both of them, "Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?" So let me condense my story. I am a huge sports fan. Have always played baseball and softball. I have girls that went through it. I've umpired since the Reagan administration. Okay? And I love nuance, and I love details, and I also, I hate to say it, this does come from my mom, I like being right. And I will prove the facts, okay? I joke around. I keep receipts. And if I'm wrong, I will admit it. And so this college thing has so many different layers. It's not just about a product. It's about the child, the student. Where are they? Who are they? The university, what can they bring to the table? Can you match them up? Is there good fits? What sort of path are they gonna be on? Is it need-based financial aid? Is it merit-based financial aid? For your audience, real quick, the best way to separate the two is need-based financial aid is because assets aren't maybe where you would like it, your income isn't maybe where you would like it. And then merit-based aid is regardless of- your finances. Right. It's because your kid has the 4.2 that created their own passion project where they, were tutoring other students, and that money ended up, they bought snacks. This is a real-world, example. I won't name the, the state or the city. It's just they bought snacks and started selling them on hours. And, well, sooner or later, they ended up having enough money to send $5,000 over to a village in Africa, and they were able to outfit three or four students. This girl, by the way, she's 17 years... What were you doing at 17? I know what I was doing. Not that. I was listening to Van Halen and playing tennis. So continuing on. Then we start looking at, okay, what do we got with, it, what are the rules? What state do you live in? What, are there other nuanced rules that the average financial professional, doesn't know? Yes, there is. Because going back to what I said earlier there are certain equity designations that one can acquire, and not naming them. And I was just thumbing through one the other day. It was a license that I had that I willingly gave up, and there was about, out of a 350, 400-page book, trading book, take a wild guess as to how many pages talked about college planning, funding, anything with the word college to it. Oh, like, three. You're off by one. It was four. Four pages. Wow. But we can go spend 32 pages on options and puts and calls. I mean, that's real appropriate for, the general public. Right. So I just took it upon myself. I'm inquisitive by nature. If my clients... I don't wanna ever have to tell my clients, "I don't know. I don't know where to go. I don't know where to send you. I don't know what to do." I don't wanna fail in front of my clients. And so I just started chipping away, looking at this, looking at that, and acquiring college designations. I'm not done. I got two out of the three. I will get the third, but right now, what is more important in my world with the college planning is that I'm actually studying to become an enrolled agent, okay? Oh. That is different than a CPA. I have a four-year degree from Michigan State in Finance. The main difference with a CPA is that they get into elements that I just don't need with clients. I don't need to do bookkeeping. I don't need to do profit and loss. I mean, we could talk about it, but I'm not providing those types of ser- like corporate type stuff. CPA, you need to do that. So an enrolled agent is using the IRS tax code as it relates to clients and families. And so the state that you came from is a highly taxed state. Yeah. So I have individuals that are high six-figure earners, seven-figure earners, and for every dollar that they earn, they're tired of only spending 47 cents on that dollar. When you add in federal, the highest federal bracket, the state tax, and then any local bracket, 47 cents on the dollar. If you're making $750,000, there's not a lot of schools that are gonna give you need fa- need-based- Right financial aid. So now what it comes to is how's the student with merit? Are they a good student? We'll talk about standardized tests, like the PSAT and SAT. Highly underrated. Mm. So for, we were mentioning talking off-camera about, like, young families. I cannot scream that enough is the emphasis, so let's make sure that we, we spend some time on that. Tax scholarships. What are tax scholarships? This is where I'm taking the financial advising/planning world, the tax world The designations that I've acquired from college planning where I learn these strategies, and I'm mixing them all together and create this beautiful thing called tax scholarships. A California resident, I'm thinking of a, of a situation, that is making seven figures, it is not unusual to see in the neighborhood of 350 to $500,000 in tax. Now, I know that's a lot, and for someone that's making 100 grand, it's hard. You can do tax scholarships with $100,000. All I'm saying is that it's a lot of money that they're paying to the government- Right So what if we can ethically, legally, and morally reduce your tax liability? Don't take my word for it, because here's the tax code. I, on average, I will listen three, four nights a week from CPAs, from attorneys that have JDs in a JD LLM, so that's a master's in taxation for attorneys. They're all sourced, okay? The idea of college planning and funding like it officially was launched a little less than a year ago, but it was soft launched for six years. CPAs are like, "I've never thought about it like this, but y- yeah, you can do that." Attorneys, yeah. They're my lunch buddies, attorneys and CPAs all the time. I'm not asking them for clients, I'm just like, "Hey, I wanna talk shop with you." And they love it, they, 'cause they, no one wants to talk shop with them. No. Except me. And I'm like, "I wanna talk about treasury regulation one point da da da da da." What did you just say? I'm like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Do you mind? Can we chat?" I'm like, "I got some questions." And then we vet through, and then I can, then I now can say, "Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Client, we need to talk about this," so forth and so on. So that's why I'm going to acquire the EA designation because ultimately it's not about me. Clients don't want the know-it-all. What they want in this day and age, they're busy. They have families. They have travel sports. They're eating dinner at 9:30 at night. They're exhausted, okay? They just want to meet with someone, talk with someone, and on their own time they will be like, "Yes, this guy's a pro. This gal is a pro. Take it from here. Just tell me what to do." Right. Yeah. Okay? They don't wanna know how the watch is made. Some do, which is okay. But and so I just, in order for me to provide value for who I work with, I just always over-prepare. Well, I, I think that's wonderful, because one thing that you mentioned that happens to a lot of us is we hear something, we get nervous, and for a lot of people, it, I don't have time to look into it, I'll think about it later. And I'm sitting here right now where I have, I have a nine-year-old. She's almost 10, which means I'm closer to paying for college than I am to not. I, I should have started earlier. And then parents get into the cycle of, well, I should have done this, and I didn't do this, and I don't know where to start, so I'll just think about it later. But later comes very quickly, so you need somebody in your corner that's going to be able to understand this, because we have to start earlier. But what would you say, if you could boil it down to one or two things here, what would you say is one of the biggest mistakes that a family is gonna make when planning for how to pay for college? Biggest mistake that families make paying for college. Okay. Let me ask some clarification questions here. Where are they in this zero to 17, zero to 18 years of age? Where are they in that timeline? Okay let's go with they're on the earlier end. You got a five-year-old, you're busy, you're in the trenches. Okay. Um, what mistake are they making there? Okay. So let me, b- before I answer, let's, let me give, uh, for your audience, let's go, I kinda have three pha- uh, four phases. I have the zero to entering middle school phase. Okay. Birth until middle school, I have the middle school phase. Then high school is two separate and distinct parts. You have freshman and first half of sophomore Second half of sophomore, we now are getting into when the government looks, when you fill out federal forms, they're looking at your, what you have going on in your own financial world spring semester sophomore year, fall semester of junior year. So it's a prior. So like right now, my daugh- my youngest just graduated in '26. You have to disclose what's going on in your world from '24. So if going back that's highly important. So let's get back to that. So, you got the, like a freshman/sophomore phase. Okay. And then I got the junior/senior. So there's four phases. Zero to middle school, middle school, underclassmen, upperclassmen. All separate and distinct. Let's just do a couple of bullet points. There's a ton in each, but here's the main one. The main ones I see all the time, zero to eight It's not the issue of college, it's the issue that they don't have a handle on their own cashflow and their own budget. And I know this is near and dear to you, 'cause I've had a chance to listen to some of your podcasts, and you have a riveting story. And I think in the fall when I ramp up my own webinars and stuff, I wanna have you on. So number one, for K through 8, get your act together when it comes to cashflow and management. That's number one. People will always say I don't know how to save. Where should I save?" No, let's start first with the goal needs to be 15% for incomes less than 250,000 gross, by the way. 20%- these are our guidelines, okay? Everything is unique. 20% for incomes north of 250,000. And there's all reasons for that. But if someone's at 7%, how do I get to 8%? Or, or how do I get to 15%, you know? Well, maybe we start from 7 to 10, 10 to 12, 12 to 13, so forth and so on. I have tools. They can go to my LinkedIn profile. I have a cashflow management system called Currents that I use with my clients. It's absolutely fantastic. It is product agnostic. It's just about controlling your cashflow, okay? And getting a mindset on that. Paying yourself first- then living on the, on the rest. And it's, it's... I use it a lot with my clients. Fantastic. So that's K through 8. Also, if one is fortunate enough to have discretionary income at that age and level- and if they are clients of mine or if they're interviewing me, I, I will say, we're gonna have a very real conversation about you having a balance between pre-tax accounts and post-tax accounts." That is a tough one. We could do a webinar. But pre-tax accounts are the alphabet soup of retirement planning, the ABCs, your 401, 403, SEP, Simple IRA, Solo 401, blah, the rest of it. Cool. And all they are are a tax wrapper. That's it. The underlying investment you can own by yourself. You don't need XYZ investment from your 401. You can go own it outside post-tax. Why is that important and advantageous? Because if there is situations with clients where they're young and all they have are pre-tax accounts, fantastic. There's, I'm not gonna knock it. It helps you out in instances. But guess what? If all you have is your discretionary money in pre-tax accounts And you don't have money to pay for school, you are now forced to take out loans. And guess what? You are also forced to follow their terms and conditions. I don't want that for my clients. Now, let me give you a real world scenario. I have loans for my kids, both.. My oldest is in school. My youngest knows that she's gonna take out loans, and there's reasons for that. A, there's skin in the game. It's a little bit of dangling. You know, I understand you're gonna have fun, but it's not all fun. There's gonna need to be some work. And my loans also are private, and they're asset based. Okay. So if I have a brokerage account of X, let's just call it 100 grand, I can go into a bank, and a bank's gonna say, "Oh, you wanna take out a loan? Well, let's pull your credit. Okay, that's cool. Well, what do you have as collateral?" Asset Well, Mr. Eyster, why don't you come back? Would you like anything to drink? You are, like, the banker's like- like, "Oh my gosh, this is Christmas in July." it's called asset-based lending. And so you can pledge your own capital as collateral for a loan- Yeah use other people's money to pay for school. Now, the key to all of this, because I ha- hadn't a chance, is I get it, people are debt adverse. But in this case, we are intentional, I am working with them, and that money is not gonna be spent away. That money now is going to be available when these loans come due to either take the interest or the earnings or the capital gains and pay off the loan. Yeah. And you still hold onto Your assets are the golden goose. Let's try and minimize writing those checks to the university. I mean- how many coffee mugs of alumni do you need from the school, and you've mitigated your risk by making sure that you have the cash available should you need to- Yes you know, move forward. You made a comment, I just wanted to clarify. Is a 529 a post-tax account, or post, yeah, post-tax? So the funding is post-tax. Okay. Okay. But it has characteristics of a retirement plan, meaning in order to distribute it and it be deemed qualified, meaning you don't have a tax liability or a penalty- Okay it has to m- to meet certain criteria. Certain okay. That has been expanded, Laura, with the latest legislation, which was the Big Beautiful Bill Act. And there's a list. We, I will make sure to supply it to you so you can put it in the link so people can- That'd be wonderful. Yes. So let me go back so I don't get off track. So K through eight is budgeting, cashflow, a balance between pre-tax, post-tax, and then other things like making sure all of your insurances, let's just lump them together, and your legal documents, everything is- is all set up. Middle school, now if they were with me in phase one and they're now with me in phase two, now we're gonna spend more time in middle school about the child. Where are they? Do they have talents? Are they just an idiot savant with numbers and mathematics, like Rain Man? Yes. Um, or are they gifted musically? Do they have perfect pitch, or they can sit down and hear something, and on the piano they're banging out a composition and five minutes later... Is... You know, I'll use my girls. Who is Jordan and Kate? What are their strengths? They're just learning their worlds, and there's, and that also dovetails into the freshman/sophomore year. I will send you another link. There's a wonderful test that I, all of my clients have their kids take it. It's not a personality test, it's an offshoot. It's from Kolbe. Okay. It's called the Kolbe- so Laura, let's pause. If the audience listening doesn't know what's with Kolbe, let me give you my numbers. Nine four four two Nine is the fact finder research four is the follow through, four is a quick start, two is the implementation. Anyway, why do I bring that up? Why does anyone care? What that does is that tells, that is a test that you take, and there's no right or wrong answer, Laura. And it, it gives a parent or yourself, depending on which one you take, an idea of who is Laura Sexton? Who is Brian Eister? What makes them click? Remember earlier when I was talking about quick-witted people in our industry that, cool, uh, that's just not me. I'm uncomfortable. But- Yeah you give me a tax code book that's 132 pages, by the end of the weekend, I'll be able to recite it back to you. That's my- That's your fact finding, right? Yes. Or you ask me a highly technical nuanced question, I'm gonna be like You got me, Laura. Mm-hmm. But right now, a- and again, like, I'd be staring at you and I'm like, and it looks like I'm a blank stare, but no, w- I'm going into my, my mental library. I'm like, "I need to talk to Jane in accounting at this firm. I need to talk to Joe, who's this attorney. Uh, I'm thinking of my mentor in the college planning space Connecticut or Boston." You know, I'll go find it for you. So what it does is it provides a score for your kids. So if your child says, "I want to be an engineer," but the score results says they're more artsy- don't you want to know that ahead of time- before they get into a school and a university and they realize that, hey, you know what? This, uh, this degree isn't fitting. My college roommate, we're still close to this day. We're gonna go to, uh, Chicago in a couple of weeks for, uh, the Tigers/Cubs. His parents wanted him to be an engineer. He fought it for a couple of years, and then ultimately settled on another degree, and then another degree, and another degree, and finally about six deep, he finally made it out alive. And so what this does is I... And I have contacts and resources within Kolbe. You can take the exam. I have a link, and it's called Kolbe Y for Youth, and it'll give you the scores, and it will always say what suggested professions you should look into So if your child is very science-y, like my youngest, okay? Um, she's gonna go off to Hope College, and she's gonna start off with a four-year biology, and ultimately do pharmacy. Her two cousins are PharmDs. One's in New Orleans and one's now in San Fran. Perfect. I have still a pocket of doctors. They're gonna know people. Or what if they wanted to get into anesthesiology? Like now if s- if I know someone is testing and, uh, and a ninth-grader is afraid to approach the adult, "Hey, I know Bob. We sit out in right field. Bob, you are a mechanical engineer. My kid- Yeah is taking apart and putting together everything. Could he follow you around for a day? I, I mean, it's not your kid, but it... Could we just have a take a kid to school?" You see what I'm saying? So that's a fun piece that I like, too. I like connecting people. This is something that I want all of my listeners to really hone in on in here right now, because what you just said was, "Pay attention to your children. Notice what they are doing, what they like, and what they don't like." But also, you're doing this proximity principle thing, which I highly recommend. Getting kids to go and observe the career that they think they wanna do early on, where they can put their hands on things, they'll find out quickly whether or not that is actually for them or not for them, and they're able to meet people that are doing it, so they can ask all the questions. "What's good about what you do? What do you hate about your job?" Because the last thing we want them to do is go through four-year degree and then come out the other side and realize they hate it. I have one girl that I was working with who literally went to nursing school, graduated, went to her first day on the job. Oh. Somebody had a, like a giant wound, and she passed out because she couldn't handle the blood. Yeah. Four-year nursing degree. First day on the job, quit right there, decided she had to go back to school and do something else because she, she didn't know the hands-on part. Okay. So your high school. Up until you start filling out your applications and saying yes to a school, the most overlooked, not talked about thing is PSAT. Every school does it, okay? If you take PSAT as a junior and you score high enough, red carpet, champagne, and truffles. Y- you are writing your own ticket. PSAT scores in junior year. But if you don't, if you do PSAT later on, yes, there, there's a window where if you take it during this time and you score high, the Cs part and you got... The people are throwing money at you. Okay? Wow. SAT testing and S- A- ACT. Again, that's very regional and very nuanced. Uh, our district, it w- had emphasis on SAT. And I'm just speaking from experience, from observation in my world over the last 12 years, you got families that are paying, they have no problem striking out $2,500 for travel ball when they should be playing in a rec league. But they're gonna balk when I suggest $795 for your child to take a SAT or ACT. So let me get this straight. You are paying $2,500 so you can be chesty, and your kid really is gonna struggle at a rec ball level. But you're gonna balk at me for paying $695 because if your child can get a score of this, you aren't gonna have to pay thousands and thousands of Gotcha. It's amazing. I, I can go back and think about I can't remember my SAT score whatsoever. But I remember taking my ACTs, getting a 32, and being told, "Hey, go take it one more time. See if you can get better." And I was like, "Highest is 36. What is this gonna do for me?" Went back, got a 33, got higher scholarship offers. Laura it's, it doesn't take talent, and we can find the money. And now, with the Big Beautiful Bill Act, fi- you can distribute money from a 529, not have a tax penalty, and, and take that sort of test prep. Mm. Holy cow, if you aren't doing it, sometimes I do A- as you can tell, I'm passionate. I can. If someone is gonna fight me, be like, "Eh, I'm not gonna pay $695", there's a high I, I'll be polite, and we'll finish the hour, but chances are we're done. And if I started working with you, I'm gonna give you your money back, 'cause I just, I can't It's free money. You just gotta put forth a little bit of time, energy, and effort. For a while there, they were like we don't need these standardized test scores." and now they're like, "We actually really need these standardized test scores to find out whether or not the kids can actually be here in college." And so, the, the amount of money they're willing to give you if you have high scores is outrageous. So yes, Ryan, yes, go take the test again. Spend the money on the test on the front end. You said something earlier that I thought was interesting about how not only were you taking out loans for school, but you had your daughters doing the same, uh, so they'd have skin in the game. What would you think the what is the split there on financial responsibility between the parent and the child? Like, what do you see as a benefit to having both have skin in the game? Excellent question. Let me take one second, get all my thoughts, 'cause I, this is the one where it's, there's a lot of opinion. Uh, I like to tell my clients, "Don't take my opinion. I, I will deal with fact." But this is an opinion, and it has been developed over my entire adult life. I'm 50. And the biggest issue that my wife and I will have are things like this, because her world and upbringing, and she is the youngest of three. So by the time that she was around, her parents were tired, man. "Leslie, do whatever you want." uh, that wasn't the case with my parents. Again, uh, my dad's second marriage, had to scrimp I like skin in the game because I'm all for fun. Trust me. I'm all for the, the, how can we get there as quickly and what, uh, shortcuts can... I'm all about the shortcuts, all about it. Where my youngest brother and both of my kids, they wanna do it all. Eh. Hey, Cs get degrees. No one has asked me what my grade point is, My parents were like, "If you fail a class-" It is what it is. You get to repay. You can, you're gonna have to take it again. Oh. You're gonna have to repay. I remember calling once, I forget what year it was. I thought I was gonna get a D, and I was given the advance. I'm like, I mean, the fear of God was put into me. It's, this is between '94 and '98. It's 1995. Uh, whatever the credit hour was. I didn't have that kind of coin laying around to pay for another three credit. So I did pull it out. I pulled it out by the skin of my teeth. C's were okay, D's weren't. And so with my kids, I have told them that we're taking out student loans for a variety of reasons. Both of them over the last week, I've each had, separate daddy-daughter lunches- to talk about what's going on in their world. Jordan's gonna be 22 in the summer, and, or, or at the end of this month, and Kaitlyn is 18. And so they're at different facets, and I just wanted to reconnect and also kind of say like, "Okay, we're coming up here. Dad doesn't like surprises. So what's going on? What sort of emails?" I already know the emails 'cause I'm on both of them, so I get CC'd, but I want, are they gonna come to the table? And I said, "Just so you know, you're gonna take out some student loans." why are you taking out student loans? Because I'm a business owner, and I utilize the tax code where I look like that I could receive food stamps. So you are getting subsidized student loans. You would be stupid not to take them. Let's talk about what subsidized and unsubsidized is, Kaitlyn, Jordan. That means that the government gives you money and the government is paying your loan interest. Why? Because I took the time to read the tax code and realize where my assets are positioned, some are gonna help my cause, and some are gonna hurt my cause. And I do this all the time with clients, and that's why, again, in my bio, it's like I'm doing this as well. So don't just take my opinion. I'll show you all my stuff. And so we qualified for subsidized loans. Some... Hey, I don't make up the rules, I just follow them. Yep. Okay? So you, you can have a debate on whether that's ethical, legal, or moral or not. You know what? I don't care. It is what it is. Meanwhile, I can show you using a piece of software, that's money that Dad doesn't have to write a check to. What happens if this money continues to grow? Now I have an option. I can pay it off at the end, or you're starting out working, or maybe you know, depending on where you're at, if you need a little more tough love, you're gonna have to pay $100 a month when you start working. I'll cover the rest. I don't know yet. I got options. That's all I have, is I got options. That's the federal loans, and then there's going to be private loans as well. Because again, Laura, I don't wanna get too nuanced, however, my oldest is 22. There's provisions within the tax code since I'm a business owner that I can pay for her tuition on a pre-tax basis if I create some things. Oh. Because she's over 21. Now, my youngest, 18, can't do it. Okay? So again, it's facts and circumstances, and ultimately what I... And, uh, by the way, if something, heaven forbid, were to happen to me, death, disability, lawsuit, unemployment, all of that, our financial house is in order so that if, heaven forbid, I don't wake up tomorrow, there's enough life insurance to come in to pay off the student loans. Or they can keep it because they want to. A- again, they have options. They're getting a Money 101 course. They're getting introduced to Currence, uh, which is the cashflow management there was an example on something, and I said-- and they thought, "Oh, well, it's not a lot of money." It was like $5,000 or $6,000. And I said I won't say which kid it was so they won't be embarrassed. I said, "Do you realize that that number that you quoted that you think is nothing-" Would have paid for your entire semester at school. Wow. Or going to pay your entire semester at school. So what I've been doing lately is when they're looking at money, I always relate it to they know what it is per credit hour. And I just tie it in. You can do it. It's all about choices. Going back to, you said influences with my dad, my dad, one of my dad's favorite quotes is, he's like, "I'm gonna treat you like an adult, and I'm gonna give you a lot of rope. I'm not gonna tell you yes or not or no. H- If I've done a good enough job, you are not gonna hang yourself with that rope. But if you didn't listen and I did a poor job, you're gonna hang yourself." So he let me walk, and I made some pretty bad mistakes. So it's the same thing. I'm like, "Look, girls, I'm gonna give you rope. It's up to you if you, what you want to do with the rope." how early do you have the college conversation with your kids? Yeah. Were you talking to them about it super early? Oh, I'm so much better now with my youngest, Caitlin, and she just graduated high school. Mm-hmm. And with Jordan, um, she started in '22. And so, with my clients and, uh, from like '18, '19 through '22, so about three, four years, it was not nearly as nuanced, not nearly as detailed. It still got the job done for my clients. And but there was things along the way with, "Oh, by the way, oh, by the way," so with Jordan we did it on the fly. Um, I also have real-world experience of what it's like to start at one university, have to take some time off for whatever the reason may be, because things don't go according to plan, and then start up somewhere else. And so you get to learn about what it's like to watch thousands and thousands of dollars go down the toilet. The college conversation I've had with both again, real world experiences, nothing always goes according to plan as, if you're drafting it on paper. Like my oldest started at one university. It didn't go according to plan. Now she's back home and commuting and going to another university, which is, by her own admission, is where she should have started in the first place. Once again, don't listen to Dad that has a gray beard- and some real world experiences. Trust your friends and family that are 17, 18 years old because they saw a 30-second clip on TikTok. I'm exaggerating the point to prove the point, but you get it. That didn't, that isn't how exactly it went down, and then now with my youngest, with Caitlin, uh, now a few more years into the business losing the insecurity, getting highly confident, 'cause I've tested it. She knows exactly what's going on. I could do a case study she's at a prestigious private university for a fraction, fraction of the cost. 'Cause I can tell you right now there's no way that I would have bankrolled it if I was just like, "Oh, what does it cost?" right. Because I took my years of training and designations and the nuance and the tax code and how the schools look at things and put it all together, and here's the offer. Oh, by the way, and some SAT test prepping you know, like you did. Mm-hmm. And we mixed it all together, and it's fantastic. And, uh, you know, she's going to a school that she thought that she had no chance of going to. Wow. And so I bring that up because there are a lot of families moms or dads. And in reality, it's like we would love for our daughter to go here. We'd love for them to go to the Champaign school, but we got the Natural Light budget, you know? Okay. What if I can show you how they can go to the Champaign school on the Natural Light budget? It's like, "You'd do that? It's fantastic." And so that is, I have a lot of conversations of that of, like that with, uh, moms and dads. If money wasn't an issue and you had a magic wand- what would it be? Then it becomes fun. It just becomes a chess match. That's really awesome. I know that a lot of people listening right now, for a lot of them, college is far off in the distance and they're like- Of course "I don't even know what I want. I don't even know." But I do know that there are some people listening, I can think of a couple very specifically right now, who are listening going, "I'm gonna have to figure out where we're going in the next four years. We're in high school now. What are we gonna do?" That's when we have to actually sit down and make a plan, a strategy, use some of the resources that you have. Guys, call Brian. And just one of those things where we have to make a plan today. Mm-hmm. We can't keep putting it off. We can't keep waiting until the future. Thank you very much for coming and having this conversation on a much different level than I ever could, because I'm not there yet. And also you know so many more things than I do. So thank you for coming and having this conversation. I'm gonna ask you one more question. Sure. And hopefully not make you cry. Okay. Brian, what is the legacy that you want to leave? I've thought about that at various times and lengths and, uh, it's still, I feel like I'm in phase two. So it's, uh, I'm not skirting it. It's hard to say. So I had a certain idea up until 40. My 40s were interesting, I kinda like to say that my 40s would be, where I started to grow up, for lack of a better term, made a ton of mistakes probably in mid to late 40s as well. And now I'm finally just getting my bleep together. My legacy that I wanna leave, at least with my kids and anyone else's, it's okay to be opinionated. Just make sure that you have facts and you stand your ground. If you believe in something then by all means go after it, whatever that cause is. It, it's not just a point like the sky is gray. No, it's blue. Not, not like that. But, like, if there's something you really believe in, go after it. Stick to your guns. Be resolute in your principles. However, if you are wrong, don't walk, sprint to the front of the line and tell that person that you screwed up I'm not... I, like I tell them, I'm like, "Yes, if, if, uh, if I know I'm right, great, fantastic. But if I'm wrong," a- and we might, you know, we could be debating or arguing about a topic, but if I'm wrong and I learn it, I will go up and be like, "Yep, I messed it up. I'm sorry." and then it's up to them, uh, forgiveness or not, or, or depending on the situation. But no, I want my kids to be extremely confident and know that it's okay to ask for help. I can't think of a better way to end any kind of discussion, encouraging our children to hold tightly to their beliefs and move forward through the world, and, not be afraid to say you're sorry, and not be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I think those are incredibly valuable and important things. So thank you so much for being here on this episode of the podcast. To my Legacy Builders, you know what it is. Go out this week and make a difference