Hear a live conversation with my client, who I ended up finding 14 scholarships worth potentially $23,000 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
- Hey fam, welcome to Money and Mental Peace. We're back with episode 255, which is honestly crazy that we're past 250. 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 $23,000 worth of 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. 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. Sometimes you'd have enough money, like, I don't know if y'all are like me, but when I have a hard time in life, I mean, it could be a hard time where if I need money for stuff or finances are tight. But then I always go into the phase of like, but I'm alive and people in third world countries are starving and I have food on my table. And so, why am I feeling like this? I can just get through it. But no, I have to remind myself that what we go through and what we experience are relative to us and are hard. So even if you're like, this is first world problems, no, you're still frustrated with money or struggling with money and needing to make ends meet or just wanting to not be in debt to the man for years and years of your life. So what you're feeling is valid if you ever feel that way like me, even if we might not be dying of some disease in another country and we have the blessings of actually having breakfast and being able to go to school, doesn't mean your struggles are any less valid. And those struggles are probably how to pay for college, even to the point of whether you have enough money for food or not next month or like, you're like, yeah, I have tuition paid for it, but I want more money. Like all of those is, let's do it. I mean, all of those are valid. All of those ranges of what you need is 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 saving 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 that 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, F-R-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. Hey, Jasmine, thanks so much for coming on with me and for if anyone's listening and the podcast, you heard that last, well, probably a few weeks ago by the time I post this, was doing a free contest dealio to help some clients for free. If I can air it on the podcast and show you all what we do and this lovely lady found it like that first day, we're saying it was god-led and I'm so happy to connect with you, hi Jasmine. - Hello, hello. - So what I like to do is first just ask, can you kind of tell me your college career story? Story plans, you know, just like where you are, what your situation is and usually that answers a lot of questions I have and then I'll go back and ask some very specific questions. I know you started to say what college you went to but if you could just kind of start that and I'll just take notes and we'll just get going. - For sure, so I am a first-gen student. So when I first went off to college, I went off to Florida State and I didn't know that I was going to be off campus. I knew that but I didn't like realize how serious that was like having to pay for rent and all that extra stuff. So I ended up returning home after my first year. I was initially trying to pursue nursing but when I saw how real life was, I ended up coming back home and I still wanted to do nursing of course but ended up deviating from that plan after having kids and whatnot. So here I am at 24, trying to go back because all my prerequisites are done. I finally got accepted into the nursing program at the community college and I'm just trying to finish out with my RN should be about two years but being that I had the kids and bought a house and did all that extra other stuff, I kind of counted myself out for a long time. My notes, well, don't count yourself out but I understand a concept of doing things a lot of order. I didn't finish my bachelors until I was almost 26. So it's not an exact thing, don't worry. But I know what you mean. I think a lot of people go off and they're like, okay, this is way different, you know? But good job, keep falling up and may I say community colleges are amazing. So thumbs up to that. Before we, yeah. And before we even go any further, just to advice thrown out this to you and you might already know this, I'm pretending you sound amazing. I'm pretending kind of like, you know nothing so I can coach stuff, you know what I'm saying? But I'm sure you know already some of this. So if you're already enrolled at community college and it's gonna be a couple of years, I would encourage you to also look for scholarships there, even just like every semester, just like follow up again if there are any new ones that open 'cause sometimes even what I can find, something might open by next spring, you know? And there's one there and you have more of a chance to get the community college scholarship that you're super like already in versus some other random person that doesn't go to that school or these other general ones I could find out in the blogosphere or the Google sphere, you know? So just throw that out there and make sure you look, I would even suggest every semester even during the summer and 'cause sometimes stuff pops up, something new. So good for you. Okay, so I am pulling up my other list of questions. So okay, and that's the general story. And then so I will have kind of like the, generally I ask students about their college to start with and you can share that with me, but since it's like the fall, there's not really gonna be scholarships for you to get to at your school this semester probably. So I don't as much focus on that unless if it was like you were looking towards next fall. And those generally at community colleges, there's not set in stone, but just generally at community colleges, those will open later this semester or like early winter for like next year. So I probably, I mean, I can kind of look at your school website, but since it's September right now, generally there aren't ones open that you can get for this semester 'cause I already started. So. - Right, I'm more worried about like, 'cause I already paid my tuition for this semester. - Good. - I'm more worried about when the nursing starts next semester. - Got it. And is it starting? Starting, whatever you call it, spring or winter semester, like the next. - It'll be spring of January 8th is when-- - Perfect. Okay, all right, cool, cool. So then my next question, or it's more, I guess it's more of advice or checking what you've done with your school advisor, financial aid. Have you talked with them about, I mean, I'll still find stuff for you, but just have you talked with them about if there are any scholarships that are like per semester that you can look at now for the winter or spring? I say winter spring, some people call winter, it's spring for you. - Yeah, you're all good. So when I was looking, 'cause I haven't really had time to stop in there and be like, "Hey, I'm growing." But when I went in and I was searching online, most of them open in January. So the stuff that I was finding, it was like the WIO, something like that. With the career source, I started that and they should be pushing my stuff up. But as far as like the community college and whatnot, I'm running into everything starting in January, but I kind of just want to get my list together so that when January opens up, I'm like, (laughs) - I love it, I love it. And so yeah, okay, so if they have stuff that opens in January, that's pretty normal for community college. So then that will be for especially the upcoming year and everything. So definitely what you've looked through. And if you get a chance to talk to an advisor or counselor there, that would be helpful, 'cause I don't always know what they know, but that's of course your choice. Yeah, I love that. I love those steps, I love those ideas. And what I can come into play out for you is we can talk about finding you other scholarships, quote unquote, out in the world that could be due within the next few months, a couple months for this coming, that you could use for this coming winter or spring. Sorry, our car is called it winter. So January, I'm gonna say January. So okay, so that's where we can come into play and that will be awesome. Now, the thing is, scholarships don't always tell you when you'll know by. And yes, at like a college, sometimes they're like, okay, deadlines are by this time, you'll know by this time, like if it's like a routine thing, but those other ones, just like in various databases and online places that I look and know of, they don't always say when you'll get the money if you win. So some do, some say I will let you know by this point. Others just don't, 'cause I don't know. It's their choice, it's usually private scholarships. So I can't always guarantee that you'll get it exactly before a certain date January or whatnot, but we could kind of guesstimate that like today is, or now is kind of like mid September. If you get scholarships that are due probably within the next couple months or so, that would probably leave enough space to see if you would get them, if they would let you know by January. I just can't like commit to that, 'cause I don't know how different scholarship judges do it. But if that makes sense to you, I would be looking for scholarships due within the next couple months if that's okay with you. - Yeah, of course. - Okay, sorry. The long explanation, okay, I'm gonna write that down. So I'm gonna say due through November or something like that. Okay, cool, cool. So then, yeah, we're gonna do some just bullet point questions. You can expound, but I also don't need huge paragraphs. I mean, you totally can, but like I usually can get the bullet points really quick. So don't feel like you have to be exhaustive. What is the school that you had said you wanna attend, and what do you wanna study? And they said nursing, but we're going, like were you LPN to RN or how's that working? - So I had to finish my prerequisites. So I'm just now finishing everything for that. So I will be going into the basic RN program. This is at the State College of Florida. - Okay, okay, right note. - And then, okay, and then do you, well, I don't need your exact address and safety, whatever, but like which area do you live for like county? 'Cause sometimes they're county related, you know, area ones that I can find. I'm in Manatee County. What, do you know what your year standing is in college? Are you counted when you start the nursing program as a junior? Do they not even take that into account? - I'll be a junior. - Okay. Junior in January. Okay, and when I- (laughing) And when I, okay, I did so many like working part-time, working full-time, going to school part-time. Technically, I don't think I was a junior till like, I was almost 25. But then I like knew what I was doing, then I was like boom, boom, boom, and then I was done. So- - Right, it just took a while. - Yeah. You're the same wavelength as me. And I'm not saying that I have like the best career ever, but I have done stuff in life, you know? So we'll be good, you know? When are you estimated to graduate? I believe it is scheduled for December 2025. Awesome, good for you. Okay, and you pay currently? I believe by the end of semester I'll be at like a 3.1. Okay. Do you know what it is counted as right now? Because if you're applying for it right now, they might want to see what you have thus far. - I have my official transcript picture. I think it's like a 3.06. - Oh, that's okay. I'm just going to say 3.0. Well, I know it's more and you can definitely acknowledge the more because that's great. But just for scholarship rounds, usually there's stuff in like the fives, you know, 2.5, three, 3.5. Okay. - Yeah. - Cool, cool. You live off campus, right? And are you going to be full-time? Do you do? Okay. Do you have any concerns about like requirements of your own like other non-negotiables? Like you really want essay scholarships or you don't want to apply for essay scholarships or you really want to find scholarships that pay you versus the school. Now, it doesn't always mean I can exactly find all that you would prefer if we're on a short deadline in the next two months, you know? If it was hypothetically for a year from now, maybe I'd have more flexibility. But I want to know some preferences you might have. - I don't discriminate. I don't just want to know what it means. (laughing) - Okay. And then tell me a little bit about any past jobs or internships you've had. 'Cause I'm just wondering about job experience. Some scholarships are related to that. - So before I came back to the nursing industry or nursing healthcare, healthcare, I worked as a property, I worked as property management for the past five years. So that's like what kind of took away from me coming back to this. 'Cause the money was good and I was comfortable. So I decided to jump back into this when I was eight months pregnant, so go figure. Look at you. Okay, yeah, that makes sense, but it's also a passion of yours. You know, that's awesome for nursing. - Oh yeah. - So then, yeah, I'd say property management, that's hard, but that's probably also a lot of like people skills and management type stuff, right? Okay, and I'm moving on. Let's see. Any other times you've done like volunteer opportunities or other random skills you've worked on or learned? I'm just kind of getting the random points of your life to take note of. - So as far as like volunteering, I feel like it's outdated though, 'cause it's been like a long time, you know what I mean? I used to volunteer at the church at the nursery. That was like so long ago. So there's a church out here called Bayside. It's like huge. I used to volunteer there. I used to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club and two of her kids. What else does it do? I don't organize community events at the apartment complex that was nearby. - I love it. Yeah, that's great. I mean, 'cause it's stuff that you could write about that you've done in your life. There's something, now I don't know off the top of my head, some stuff I know of scholarship, some just open this week and I've never heard of them. But sometimes there might be some about, you know, you're involved in your community, you know, and then I noted that you've done that and so I could find it for you. That sort of thing. - Right. - With running, are you interested in like health and exercise stuff too? 'Cause sometimes there's some like that out there. - Yeah, I'm interested in everything on it, everything. - All right. So basically you're telling me you're open to a random topic scholarship. I'm gonna write that down if that's okay. - Yes. - Okay, that's really good. Because even if I don't always find everything, I do know like some nursing ones, but I know some are past do at this point. So that's why I just, I have to be creative, you know? Can you tell me about any other career or life goals you have? - So as far as like what I have going on right now, I do, like once I finish with my nursing, the RN part, I wanna of course like figure out what field I wanna be in so far. I'm leaning towards being at L and D nurse for like labor and delivery. Then I wanna be with mom and baby for a while. And I'm thinking I wanna go achieve getting my midwifery certification. - Yeah. - But you do have to go through school to become an MP. So I think I'm just gonna like get my master's and then well, first get the bachelor's then get my master's and then go for the MP. So I'm just gonna climb up the ladder and see what I wanna do later. - Yeah. - But I'm thinking that's where I wanna be 'cause I work at the hospital now and I've been able to kind of like feel it out in different floors and you're on the cardiac floor right now but I really wanna go now indeed. - That would be fun. And the kids are so cute. I hope that you can do that and you sound like your go getter self helper that I'm sure, I'm sure we could work it out, you know? You could use the money for it. And then were you ever adopted or in foster care? - No. - Okay. Do you have any sort of disability, mental, physical, learning disability? - Not that I know of. - Okay, sure. And then I just ask 'cause sometimes there are scholarships related. What about any sort of illness or disease, mental illness, physical, learning, et cetera? - So I'm not gonna lie, I did go see a neurologist because I feel like I might be ADD. But when I spoke to the neurologist, he was like, you very well could be but diagnosing ADD is like diagnosing a cold. He's like, it can be there and I don't see it or whatever. So he was basically telling me like, because I'm smart that my threshold might be a little higher and that if they were to prescribe me meds because it works for everybody, it might not necessarily like be a telling point of whether I have it or not. But I feel like I got some going on with my attention span because it's constantly to be stimulated. - Sure, sure. Okay. So, you know, I'm not sure I could find you anything specifically that was exact on it 'cause sometimes I need diagnosis, papers and whatever. But would you be interested in writing on anything related to mental health related and kind of tying in? Okay. - Mental health is so important. - Oh yeah. Okay. And then let's see. Can you tell me race, nationality, ethnicity? - So my grandmother is an immigrant from Greece. - Oh, cool. - She actually just passed away last month on my fourth hospital. Oh, another story. - Oh no. - But she's from Athens, Greece. And then my grandfather on my mom's side, he's a native white man. And then my dad is African-American. So, Greek, black, white. Oh, I forgot to put a Greek in. - Okay. - Put a Greek into it. - Nice. So, basically, you can say is in your life, you're gonna need to travel to all those places to learn more about your heritage. Like, you just gotta take vacations, right? Okay. I love it. Okay, so definitely with a variety there and I can look into some minority related gosh. - Well, thank you so much for what you're doing. This is amazing. - Oh, you're so welcome. And, you know, I hate to bring down your enthusiasm, but just remember, I cannot guarantee you, if you'll get these or not, because you're applying for them. But I'm finding some that you're eligible for. And so, I try to get a variety and I just wanna be clear. - Oh no. Totally. Thank you. - Okay. Well, have a really awesome day. It was so nice to meet you. - Likewise. You too, Jeff. - See you later. - Okay. Thank you guys. Isn't that just awesome to meet and talk to Jasmine? Okay. So I have some details for you of what I ended up finding her. As you heard, she was wanting them to do through November of this year. And she's also good with talking about random things. So like, I definitely wanted to find scholarship specific to her, but also for people who are like, yeah, I'll write about, you know, water safety or skiing or other random stuff. It kind of opens up a wider range of possibilities of potential scholarships. So I have some details on ones we found for her. Why I say we is something, it's me and a team of sometimes just me, sometimes it's with a team of a few people. If it's, there's a lot going on, you know? All right. So, well, we found one that is just with an educational group, the Platinum Educational Group worth $1,000. Found another, which is Minority First Generation Scholarship, which is very specific because she's first gen and minority. There's literally worth $10,000. Let's see, found another one that's just kind of a general scholarship through Unigo. I am, I'm gonna say it 'cause we've talked about it before in the podcast. It's called Shouted Out Scholarship, which is basically talking about what you wanna talk about. What's interesting to you is worth $1,500. Let's see. There was an overcoming adversity scholarship, which was through some law attorneys, which is cool because it's not just super competitive in those general scholarship databases. They're actually through specific law offices offering a scholarship to help, you know, help people. And so she had read about overcoming adversity. That was worth $1,000. Also, one about outstanding citizen scholarship that was also through a law firm, $1,000. We're kind of on a, we were on a role here with the law firms, but they were all due within September, October, November. So like I was on it, you know what I mean? Family adversity scholarship, all the stuff she told me about and she could write about stuff she's gone through and adversity she's had in her life, that was worth $1,000. I found one for returning adults and non-traditional students. Like she is returning to school, already had, you know, a family and whatnot. That was worth $1,000. I'm not quite telling you all of them 'cause I'm kind of just telling you the highlights of them. But let's see, there's a few more worth like 500, 1500. One from coupon birds, which is super random. But yeah, it's like couponing and helping you save money, you know, for scholarships. Coupon Birds has, let's see, explain a little bit. It's a help to save scholarship for high school and college students who need help with their tuition fees. And this one, they're not necessarily writing an essay, but it's uploading a two to three minute video and hosting it online related to how they can save money with like coupon birds, coupons, et cetera. Not actual birds, okay? It's just the name of the company. That one, the top prize is $1,500. One about mental health, clean and recovery scholarship, worth a thousand. And again, a couple more law firm ones, which is not always common, but definitely I've seen some open like that in the fall time just because it's going into school. So there were a couple more law firm ones open $1,000. In addition, I found some nursing scholarships that she could learn about. And then of course, just a random bevy of general scholarships and mental health related ones and choose into running an exercise. So there's some around that that are worth anywhere from $500 to $1,000. Now, all of these scholarships might not have been exactly specific to her in the sense of like, it's where she lives. It's her, you know, where her nationality is. It's what she's studying like, but they include parts of her story, of her experience, her situation. And so she still thus qualifies for them and why I could gather all of these scholarships for her for total worth of $23,000 worth of scholarships if she can now go apply for and receive them. And would you like to be next? Shall we do this together? You can go book a college strategy, 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 at 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. - 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)
