Hear a live conversation with my client, who I ended up finding 10 scholarships worth potentially $20,500 for college (if she applies for and receives them)! Ever wanna work with me, too?
HEAD TO… calendly.com/moneyandmentalpeace and plan a FREE Scholarship Strategy Session so we can find you some bread for school!!!
LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Related Episodes:
172 - 3 Ways to Search and Find the Scholarships Specific To You
173 - She Paid Off $20,000 in Student Loans in a Few Months, Before Ever Paying Any Interest! Learn How You Can Too (:
158 - How to Graduate College with $10,000 to SPARE! Learn About FREE COLLEGE Here...
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Get scholarships and pay for college without student loans!
Are you worried about how to pay for college? Stressed because it’s so expensive? Are you having trouble finding scholarships, or all you find don’t apply to you? Overwhelmed with all things school and money?
Welcome fam! This podcast will help you find and get scholarships, avoid student loans and maybe even graduate college debt-free!
Hey! I’m Kara, a Christian entrepreneur, amateur snowboarder, and scholarship BEAST! I figured out how to not only finish college debt-free, but I even had $10k left over in the bank after graduation. (& btw, my parents weren’t able to help me financially either!)
During school, I was worried about paying for next semester. I couldn’t find scholarships that worked specifically for me, and didn’t know how to get started while juggling homework and keeping up with ALL.THE.THINGS.
But dude, I learned there was a better way! With God’s direction, I tested out of classes, and found the perfect scholarships, grants, internships, and weird budget hacks that helped me go from overwhelmed to debt-free with $10k in the bank–all with God on my side.
... and I’m here to walk you through this, too.
If you are ready to find scholarships specific to you, learn to manage your money well, and have enough money to kill it at college, this pod is for you!
So grab your cold brew and TI-89, and listen in on the most stress-free and debt-free class you’ve ever attended: this is Money and Mental Peace.
Topics included in this podcast: money management, manage money, money, broke, waste of money, college, debt-free, overwhelmed, scholarships, college scholarships, scholarships for graduate students, undergraduate, Dave Ramsey, grants, college grants, university, free money, A&F Business Consultants, GreenPal Scholarship for Tomorrow’s Entrepreneur, Foundation, Law Firm, Attorney, scholarship requirements, scholarship eligibility, business plan
- Hey fam, welcome to Money and Mental Peace, we're back. I, if you all have noticed, we've kind of gone a little less on the quantity of episodes. I used to put out three. Now it's sometimes two or three a week, probably gonna be two for a while, but that's 'cause I want the quality to thrive. And also, because I've been working as clients and then personally being able to find scholarships for them, which I think is a great then result to actually prove and show what we're doing on this podcast, how people can graduate from college debt-free and find scholarships and avoid student loans and do all the things. So today we have a super cool opportunity to show you when I worked with a client who I ended up finding her college scholarships that she could go and apply for. And do you wanna be next? I'm gonna tell y'all how to do that in this episode. Let's get into it. (upbeat music) Hey girl, welcome to Money and Mental Peace. Do you wanna find scholarships and avoid student loans? You find yourself Googling, easy scholarships and how to pay for college. Do you feel overwhelmed with life in general that you can't even think about paying for next semester? Hey, I'm Cara and in college I too was worried if I was good at money. I couldn't find scholarships that worked specifically for me and I didn't know how to get started while juggling homework and all the things. But that changed through prayer and God's direction. I tested out of classes, learned to budget and found those perfect scholarships and even had $10,000 left over in the bank after graduation. At BTW my parents weren't able to help me financially either. If you're ready to find scholarships specific to you, manage your money well and just stop being broke. Then grab your cold brew and TA89 because class is now in session. Yes, welcome back. One of my favorite parts of that new intro I have is the stop being broke part. I know what that feels like. It's a beautiful opportunity to partner with God for the story of your life and see how he guides and provides. So anywhere that you're at, scholarships can help you whether you need money just to even get buy to pay for college because your money right now is just based on survival. Or even if you have everything covered and paid for and you're like, you know, I just want some more money so that I can pay for gas and everything else. Legit, one of my favorite episodes that I did was with my cousin and he, let me see if I can go find it. He paid for all of his college with $55,000 in scholarship money. But he didn't quite need that much, you know? So he used it for gas and food and all the things. And let's have that be you. Let's get you to the point, no matter where you're at, if you just even need money to survive or you're like, I am good. I just want more money to be safe and a nest egg, you know, to retire on all of these realms. Like, let's find you some scholarships and let's not go the way of every single person in life who's like, okay, loan is just the way to do it. I mean, it's a way to do it, but it's not the way to do it. Probably not the best way to do it. We want you to be free to do what God guides you to do, what you're called to, what you want to do after graduation instead of just whatever job you can take that will best help you survive and pay back those loans, right? All right, that was kind of my soapbox, but if that inspires you or you agree with it or you understand where I'm going with this, I want to help you out, okay? So I have something called a scholarship strategy session where you book a free call with me and we talk about your plans for college and what you're going through, what kind of money you need. If you have questions for me and I get all your details and then if you would like to hire me, you can go ahead and hire me and then I find you scholarships for college that you can apply for. This episode is an example of what that looks like, how I talk with someone, talk through it, you can listen through our conversation and then listen to the end to see what I found for her. So you can see an example of how this works. If you're interested in doing this with me as well, schedule a free call with me, yes, free, a far E-E that spells free, free call at calendly.com/moneyandmentalpiece, it's like calendar, but with an L-Y at the end and it's also in the description below. So it's calendly.com/moneyandmentalpiece and let's get into the meat of this episode 'cause I want you to see how this goes down with a client. Let's go. Yeah, so cool. Let's just do some rapid fire answers real quick. What school do you want to attend or do you even know and what do you want to study? - This fall I'm attending ECU and then I'm majoring in like management and minoring in business administration to be a project manager. - Nice. Okay, perfect. And then so that I don't look at the wrong school, what is ECU and for? - East Carolina. - Oh, East Carolina University. - Thanks. - So I can already tell you because it's June, you're probably past the deadline for school scholarships. So just give your heads up, I probably won't be looking there. But take heart, like they reopen every year. So like literally starting this fall or maybe the early winter or whatever, you'll be able to apply for more school scholarships. So what I find you, like just know there's more. So anyways, just give your heads up. That's great, yeah, I'd study business, so good for you. Have you filed your FAFSA yet or do you even know what it is? - We did. - Oh, okay. - Awesome. A lot of people I talk to don't get any money from FAFSA, that's why they're talking to me. But a lot of times you're still required to do it for certain scholarships to look at it. - There was an error on the form they thought she was married. So when they've been the slow go, they're so busy. So we haven't heard anything yet. I don't know. - That's funny. Yeah. - Well, that's okay. And if you find out some, then that's just icing on the cake. So we don't know about FAFSA, but is your school, do you know if your school is already awarding you any sort of like freshman scholarship or anything or if not, that's fine. But are you already getting certain funding from that? I know you have the 529 plan for a little bit. - We kind of haven't done that before, right? - I think so. - Okay. And then have you looked at any scholarships or applied for any scholarships before me? And I would like to know which ones they are so I don't find you duplicates. - No, you did the Nitro one, that one, that easy one where you don't even have to put an essay in like the 20 million people do. - Nice. - Okay. I just wrote that down. - One and that one. - Yeah. - And how old are you and when is your birthday? - 17 in my birthdays, July 27th. - Nice. - Coming up. Okay, let's see. And you're just graduating high school now, is that right? - Yeah, my graduation is next Wednesday. - Congrats. - Thank you. - And what is your current BPA? - It's either I think a 3.5 or 3.6. - Good for you. - Okay. And then would you be living on campus in college or? - Campus. - Sorry, it broke out. Did you say yes on campus? Can you hear me? - Yes. - Oh, okay. I still didn't hear that. It's like cutting out. She'll be living on campus. Thank you. And so you'll be full-time school? - Yes. - Thank you. - All right, Zoom's weird sometimes. Were you saying you didn't mind when they were due? You wanted more opportunities? - Yes. - Yeah. - Okay. - All right. This is just, okay, just word dump to things to me. Like what are some of your hobbies or interests or experiences you've had? - Oops. - I play tennis. - On the tennis team. - Yeah, on the tennis team, I was the co-captain. Like I was a part of clubs. - He's like pickle balls. - I don't know. Sometimes I play pickle balls. - I don't even ask that. I actually played Monday. That's cool. - I played yesterday. - Nice. - Yeah, I was also going to ask any jobs, internships, or volunteering you've done? - No, I just work. - Where do you work at? - Church. - Sorry, what was that? - Where do you work at? - Oh, I work at this place called Tiziki's Cafe. It's like a Mediterranean place. - Nice. - What did you say? Mom said something about church. - You were a volunteer at a church for a camp counselor with the EDGE program about two years ago before everything changed. You would remember that? That few weeks you were the camp counselor for that one week for Bible, VBS? - Nice. - Yeah, and then you did some active volunteering at school or the wrapping. Those are still little things. I mean, you've done? - Yeah, yep. Okay, we're going through this pretty fast. I just want to tell you, we're a little over halfway through. I just want to tell you what I can think of already so far. You can definitely find some business scholarships, some for like incoming freshmen. Other stuff I could find stuff related to like where you live and whatever, but I just know for sure, I can already imagine some that are on the business, your age range, you know, that you've been a volunteer. Probably not like tennis and such because that's usually only a scholarship if you're actually going to do that in college and that's usually through the school, but that's what's good still to have all the details. And then also, do you like some other things like, I'm just going to throw a few things out there like, I can think of math, reading, exercise, like foodie scholarships. Do you like any of that type of stuff? - Not really. - Okay. - Not really. - Well, does it have to be specific? Like, is it like, because she did good in school or like, she's going to the gym or she's, you know-- - Doesn't matter, it's probably just writing an essay about what you like. I actually think you could probably like the healthy stuff because you're in tennis and you could talk about that. - And you like to go to Trader Joe's or things like that, okay. So-- - Yeah. So those are one of those things where you'll probably run into scholarships and have to email you like, do you like these things? Does this apply to you? But I just know off the top of my head that I found some recently around health related, math and reading, like, I just know of some is what I'm saying. So also, since you said you're open to like, deadlines over a variety of time, I can think of some good ones that opened for January. Are you okay with it being that far out too? Of course you could apply for them now. - Yeah. - Is that okay? Okay, 'cause those are some fun, like, different types of ones that I just thought of that are like, sometimes they're, I'm gonna have to look, but sometimes they're random just like, what do you wanna do as a career or what would you want to be your superpower? If you had a superpower, I just know that some of those recently opened up and I haven't found those or like directed those to any students recently. I don't give everyone the same scholarships, but I mean like, if they apply to you, I want you to have the opportunity. So I just thought I'd ask about that. - You were, oh, that's for the YMCA as well. - Oh, nice. - Or a leader in training. Maybe that's something. I don't know if that just information to feed for, or you know, maybe you like sweet frog ice cream, you know, like things like that, anything. - Yeah, I mean, I didn't think of what's your favorite ice cream flavor of scholarship. If you want that, I'll find that one for you. (laughs) Some of the other stuff like the volunteer scholarships, I know of some, but I have to see when they're due. They might already be past due. So it just depends on the timing. I love it, yes. Good to have mom sending ideas. What are your other, were you gonna say something? - It just popped in my head and I figured I'd just put it out there. I don't know if that helps you in your search or not. - Yeah, yep, it does. And can you tell me, Gianna, what are some of your career and life goals? Just like big picture. - Mm. - I haven't, all right. - Have you gotten that far? (laughs) - Also, I just found some recently on entrepreneurship. Are you interested in anything like that? You don't have to be like, I'm for sure I'm gonna be an entrepreneur, just like they want you to write essays about ideas about it. - No, I don't think so. - Not really, okay. Skip that one. - Okay. Let's see, do you have any immediate family that have been in the military or any type of first responder, police officer, firefighter, et cetera? - No, not me, like cousins and things. Just cousins, but not like a cousin. - Yeah. - Unfortunately, probably would not apply to cousins, usually, unless if I find something. - No. - Okay. What is your religion/church group or denomination if you're involved in any? - Catholic. - Okay. Were you ever homeschooled? For some reason it broke out if you answered me. Did you say you were you ever homeschooled? - I was never homeschooled. - Okay. Okay, skipping that, were you ever adopted or in foster care? - No. - Okay. Do you have any sort of, if you wanna share, sometimes there are scholarships applicable to this. Have you ever had any sort of disability, whether mental, physical, or learning disability? - No. - Okay. Or what about any sort of illness or disease? - No. - Okay. - How about race, nationality, and ethnicity? - White, an Italian. - Oh, nice. So I ask that because sometimes there's scholarships out there like for this and that, for Italian descent. But a lot of times those are applicable to actual schools, so I'm not necessarily guaranteed we'll find those, but I just thought I might ask. Regarding any illness, disability, I'm not saying you have a mental illness, but are you interested in mental health or writing about mental health? 'Cause there are a few of those that I found. - No, not really. - Not especially, okay. And then, all right, I already answered those, those, those. Okay, so those are all my general questions. The last point is just a bit of some ideas and advice on, I know you're talking about wanting to, be able to pay through college, or for college, you know, over college. And have you ever tested out of classes or been interested in testing out? Do you know what that is even? - Tested out of a class before. - Okay, just wondering if you had known what that was. There are ways that you can test out of classes, no pressure, like if you're not interested, that one way or the other. But I can send you some of the episodes I've done on that, because basically, if I already knew it from high school, or I just kind of brushed up on something I'd studied like I did, humanities, English, math class, whatever, that I just kind of learned about. I went and tested out of it. I took a CLEP test. They're called College Level Examination Program, is what CLEP stands for. And I was able to, I think I paid like $100 for the test, but now they're a way to do it for free, so heads up. And if you pass, you get three to six college credits that you transfer to your university. So I actually tested out of a full year college for about $600. That was before I learned there's a way to do it for free. So just a heads up, I don't, you know, I don't know if you're interested in it or not, but potentially if you don't want to sit through like the classes that you hate, that you already just learned about, but let's say you really don't like math and you just learned math, and then they have you in a math class this fall, you might be like, oh, just test out of it. And then I can skip it and go into other stuff. Or if you really want to go gung ho and be like, I'm testing out of all my prereqs, all my general education requirements, you can try to do that. And that could even mean you even do a gap year and do all of those and get like a year of college for free and then go to college more. So I mean, not telling you what to do, just those are options of ways to lower prices. - So was it hard for each school? I mean, is the criteria strict to get to test out of this? And is it something they don't, 'cause obviously they're in the business for money, but how does, do you know if certain colleges are more strict on wanting to test out? Or is it not an option? - It just depends. Yep, it just depends on the college. A lot of times more general like state colleges allow that a little bit more, even though U of M that I'm near really doesn't allow it very much. But there are some colleges that allow most of your degree to be transferred like that, or mine that I went to my university, well, the community college allowed a lot. And then my university I think allowed like 60 credits. So it really just depends. So what I could do if you would like is I'll send you some episodes on testing now that I've done. And then I can do a quick look at your college to see what they accept. Now, within that means there, if you do wanna do that, I would recommend you confirm it with a counselor and talk through the plans on that, and not just rely on my random quick search to find it, but I can still look and see if your school accept that, 'cause some don't do it at all. But quite a few do club tests, and they even lay out like, yeah, if you pass this class, or this test, club test accounts for this class. If you do this one, it counts for this one. I actually had a friend who did most of his bachelor's degree like this, 'cause he wanted to go to law school, so he kind of just needed to get a bachelor's on his belt. Like, you know, it wasn't like he had to go and do like labs and stuff. So there are ways to do as much or as little of testing out as you'd like, and you might as well lower expenses if you're interested. - Yeah, yeah, definitely. - Yeah, awesome. So I'll be able to, I'll just do a quick search on that and show you what I find, and I would still encourage you to confirm it with your people or counselors and stuff. So those are actually all the questions I have. I just do kind of like a final confirming disclaimer that you know that I can't like apply for the scholarships for the student. I know you already said that, but it's just in my confirming things to tell. Also, I definitely don't like give all students the same scholarships I find, but some maybe I found for a student a month ago and it really applies to you. And I also want you to have the opportunity. I might also present that one to you. So as you know, there is some competition, but it's just because I want you to have the same opportunity as that person a month ago. And honestly, it might have already been past the deadline and opened again. A lot of scholarships are reopened every year or even a recorder. So if you don't get the money, just reapply for it. Save your essays because you can use them again. You might want to tweak them to like still reapply to what you're applying to, but you don't have to always rewrite everything every time. And then, yeah. And then also, if I find something for you that doesn't work, and I just had a brain fart and miss it that you're supposed to be like 22 to apply for it and you're not, that's my bad. You just let me know. I'll just find you a replacement one 'cause that has been known to happen that I just missed something. So that's why I have people pay, not pay all ahead, pay half ahead and then pay the rest at the end when they're satisfied. That might change in the future depending if I get more clients, but at the moment, that's what I do. So yeah, those are all my disclaimers and plans. And did you guys have any other ideas or questions or concerns? - No, so what happens next? Do we just, you know, we'll talk about it. And then if we wanna go forward, then I just connect with you and say, "Hey, let's go." So that could be either one scholarship or would it be multiple? Depends on how does that work? - It depends on what I find 'cause there are like $10,000 scholarships out there, but no, I try to find you a variety of them. - Five, like a handful, maybe five, you might find you. - It's usually, I mean, I don't have a definitive answer. I could go back and find the average of that if you'd like, but usually it's anywhere from like five to 10. - Okay. - Yeah, it's an opportunity to get something. - Yeah, and 'cause there are a lot of scholarships out there that are like only worth $500, but don't disregard those because a lot of times those might be less competitive. - Yes. - You know, and then also, right. Also, I don't know what's all going on in your general vicinity of like your workplace or church or school. There's still, still encouraged to like ask prominent influential people in your sphere of influence if they know of any scholarships that I might not be able to find from a state away. You know, just throwing that out there. - Perfect. - Oh, what? - All right, so then we'll connect with you separately. And if I have any other questions, can I reach out? - Oh yeah. - It's so good to connect. - Thank you again. Isn't that great? I'm so glad I could connect with her. Yeah, so I totally found my client 10 scholarships worth $20,500 for college, potentially worth that if she applies for and receives them. They are due through this month and then through like the next school year. So that, you know, it can ebb and flow on when people would like things to buy. So I'm gonna give you a rundown of some stuff of what I found for her. And some are super specific others. I'm not telling you the exact names because you might just have to come work with me and do the same for yourself, you know? But yeah, so for example, the first scholarship I found with her was one about writing a business plan, just kind of like steps so that, you know, it can show the scholarship judges, you know, the idea of a business plan through and through work with her focus on a business administration that was worth $1,000 due mid-December, so she could be done before Christmas. There was another scholarship that was worth $1,000 that had some other random name that didn't describe very well what it was. There was the I.C. Cars Entrepreneurs Scholarship, so just talking about being an entrepreneur, also due in December. Then I, we went off to, well not off, but we went to next year. There was another business consultant scholarship worth $1,000 due next June. The Green Powell Scholarship due in November of this year for $2,000 for my dear client. I health and wellness scholarship I had found because she talked about being interested in that, even if she wasn't studying healthcare or like exercise science, she could talk about her interests in that. That was worth $1,500 and that one is cool because it has two deadlines, so it opens biannually. September and March, so if she didn't receive it one time, she could just apply the next time. There's another one about reading a novel, writing an essay contest on the novel. That could get her anywhere from $50 to $10,000 because it was like a, there's a level of different awards. The Dahlias Foundation, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, was worth $1,000 providing a scholarship to if you composed an essay. Another one based off of a prominent businessman, worth $1,000 due at the end of September. And then another one that was on the website, verifiedscholarships.com and it was open to anyone from high school, college, graduate school or adult students, so like returning students. And this is cool because it has summer fall and winter deadlines, so another example of if you don't receive it the first time to reapply again. And that was worth $1,000. So all of this mishmash together total became worth $20,500 potentially if she applies for and receives them. And it was really cool because she was very grateful that I had gone through and done it for her and all I can explain is it just seems like there was relief that there was somebody else that would work on it for her, you know, outsource and all that, so that she didn't have to, so that she could focus on enjoying this year, you know, getting into fall. Well, I talked to her earlier this year, so getting into summer and fall. And just being ready for school, not having to think and worry over this, also gave her mom a definite piece of mind. So it was super great to connect with this client and yeah, that is how I find students' scholarships for college that they can go ahead and apply for and try to receive. - And would you like to be next? Shall we do this together? You can go book a scholarship strategy session with me to talk about any questions you have, see if you'd like to hire me to do this for you. You can head on over to calendly.com/moneyandmentalpiece and we'll get connected, plan a time, and I look forward to meeting you in person, and you might even end up on the podcast, if you'd like, if you'd like to also be on here like this one, don't have to, but calendly.com/moneyandmentalpiece, let me do this for you and help you so that you can get scholarships and pay for college without all those pesky student loans that are entirely unnecessary, let me just say, calendly.com/moneyandmentalpiece. See you all next time, bye. (upbeat music) Hey girl, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend who wants to get scholarships and avoid student loans just like you? Okay, now I'm off to hopefully play some ultimate frisbee. I'll meet you back here in a few days for another episode. Bye. (upbeat music)
