This Nurse is a Six-Figure CRNA - Ep. 24
Crystal graduated with her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, NC. She began her nursing career in the Medical-Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, NC. Over the next eight years, Crystal worked as a registered nurse before deciding to go back and obtain her Masters of Science in Nurse Anesthesia. In 2010, Crystal graduated with her MSN from Rutgers University in Newark, NJ. She began her CRNA career in Western Massachusetts and has been practicing in a number of areas and settings since. She is a business owner, a dog mom, a friend, aunt and passionate travel enthusiast.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy: 06:07 All right. I'm super honored to have Crystal Grant join us on the Nurses on Fire Podcast. Hey Crystal!
Crystal Grant: 06:16 Hi!
Naseema McElroy: 06:17 Can you please tell the community what you're all about?
Crystal Grant: 06:21 Okay. Yes. So hello Nurses on Fire. Thank you so much for having me, Naseema. My name is Crystal Grant. Like you said, and I am a certified registered nurse anesthetist. I've been practicing nursing for 17 years and when I went back to CRNA school in 2010, I graduated with over $208,000 in student loans. So that's why I'm on this podcast.
Naseema McElroy: 06:53 Wow. So I see. Yeah. And, when you graduated just from that, it was $180,000 in student loans, bringing your total debt up to almost 400,000. Right?
Crystal Grant: 07:08 Well, okay. So, my total debt was $356,000 when I graduated. Now, that included credit cards that I use to kind of get through school. That included a home that I had purchased prior to starting school and included some cars that I financed and did not buy outright. So I was doing a lot of very immature and irresponsible things with my finances in my twenties. I was reckless. [both laugh]
Naseema McElroy: 07:42 Yeah. And you know what's funny is that it sounds kind of reckless now in hindsight, but when you're in your twenties you're just doing what people expect you to do or what you're expected to do. Right? It's not like you were doing extraordinary things like crazy off the wall things. You were just doing what you were told to do. You are told to get a new car. You are told to buy a house. Like these are societal norms, right?
Crystal Grant: 08:06 Right. That's what society do.
Naseema McElroy: 08:09 Yes.
Crystal Grant: 08:10 Yeah. We'll dig into that later.
Naseema McElroy: 08:12 Right, right. So, one of the big things I get is people, like, I think it's funny 'cause you had $180,000 in student loan debt and that's exactly how much I had. So, we're on the same page there. And then another thing I forgot to mention is CRNA is like my dream job. If I was ever to go back to school to be a nurse, I would totally be a CRNA because I love what the nurse anesthetist could to do. But I don't think I'm smart enough. [laughs]
Crystal Grant: 08:46 Oh no, no. You know what's funny is I didn't think I was smart enough. I didn't think I was good enough. I didn't think I had enough experience. Imposter syndrome, I guess is what they're labeling this as nowadays, but I had a lot of those doubts as well. So I'm sure you're much smarter than you think, especially if you became debt free. You're already smarter than the majority of people. So, I think you could do it.
Naseema McElroy: 09:13 Well, yes, that is definitely a limiting belief I have to overcome, but I don't think I'll ever go back to school. So, that's not gonna happen unless I could be a CRNA in the other way.
Crystal Grant: 09:25 Yeah. If I had to redo it again, I would not be going back to school either.
Naseema McElroy: 09:31 So let's talk a little bit more about your trajectory of becoming a nurse and then into being a CRNA.
Crystal Grant: 09:39 Okay. So, actually I started out as a physician assistant major at a private college down in North Carolina. I'm originally from Massachusetts and I always loved going to North Carolina. My mother's side of my family is from there. So, we would often go down there for the summers. I knew I wanted to go to in North Carolina. So, I already was preparing my parents for out of state tuition. My mother got very sick right after I graduated high school and she ended up passing away shortly thereafter. When right before she passed away, I had begged her to transfer colleges because I wasn't happy at the first college I was attending as a PA major. So, Against her better judgment, she, you know, kind of said yes and I transferred to North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, and they did not have a physician assistant program. I could have either chosen to maybe be a biology major, chemistry major, but at that time it was pretty much known that my mother was going to pass on within the next year or so. So, I really needed something, one that I knew I would have a job in and two that I could achieve within those four years of college essentially. So, I went ahead and chose nursing and I was accepted into their nursing program and I graduated in 2002 with my BSN from North Carolina A & T state. After that, I got a job in the intensive care unit. I had actually heard about the career of nurse anesthetist while in nursing school, but it was a very short blurb in a Nursing 101 course that I was taken. It wasn't very highlighted and nobody really talked about it other than it was like the cream of the crop, you know, job that you could be as a nurse.
Crystal Grant: 11:33 So, in my mind I was thinking, well, you know, I had really originally thought about PA and you know, if this is the highest that I can go into nursing, perhaps I'll do what I need to do in order to become a CRNA. So, once I graduated, I did get a job in the medical intensive care unit at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. And, I took my GRE and you know, I got my ICU experience and about 18 months in, I decided I'm not smart enough to be a CNA. I'm going to go do travel nursing. So, I'm not joking when I say I really did, you know, I did not think I was smart enough. And also, you know, looking back at, because it's been 15 years ago, you know, mentally I just wasn't in a good headspace. I was very sad. I was very depressed. My mother had died. I was 500 miles away from my family and it was really hard for me. So, at the time I was dating this guy and he broke up with me. So, I decided to do travel nursing. And traveling was great. You know, back then they paid for your housing and all you had to essentially do was go to work. So, I actually, I didn't have any bills really back then and that's kind of when it all started going down hill because... [Both laugh]
Naseema McElroy: 12:55 It seems like that would like things got better. Right? You were like I didn't have any bills. But no, it went down hill.
Crystal Grant: 13:02 Yeah. Because, you know, under the, we're sold this idea that, you know, if you have this income coming in, the money has to be going towards something. And, especially in my twenties you know, this is prior to podcasts and this is prior to YouTube. And, the information that we have now was not nearly as accessible back in the early two thousands we're talking flip phones and unlimited minutes after 7:00 PM era. You know, it wasn't like it was now. So the people that I did follow financially were like Suze Orman and we know that Suze Orman, she speaks about having a high FICO score and you know, buy, buy, buy and you know, keep your credit card balance at this. So, I was very much about having a high credit score and having a high credit score means that you owe a lot of people money.
Naseema McElroy: 13:55 True.
Crystal Grant: 13:56 Which is what I've learned now. I didn't know that then. So, I bought the cars and I got the credit cards and you know, I made the minimum payments and you know, never missed the payment, but I really wasn't investing my money in my twenties like I wish I had. And so, that's why I'm so passionate about speaking about it now because I look back and I'm like, oh, I made a lot of money and I had nothing to show for it, essentially. I really wasn't saving. I had kind of thrown out the idea of becoming a CRNA. So, I actually went to nurse practitioner school instead and eventually I just, after about, I think it was about four or five years, I realized that probably wasn't going to be fulfilling to me because that wasn't my original dream.
Naseema McElroy: 14:50 So, you actually went to school and did your FNP, your nurse practitioner.
Crystal Grant: 14:55 I was actually in an adult nurse practitioner program and I did everything except for the clinical aspect. So, all I had to do was the two semesters of clinical, I believe. I had done all the didactic work for the program before deciding I was going to give the CRNA thing a shot. So, by now, I had been a nurse for eight years when I decided that.
Naseema McElroy: 15:21 So, you just decided that even though you took all your classes that you just didn't want to do the FNP. You know why I'm saying it like that is because I was almost like that. I almost gave up my FNP program. It was just because of the politics of the school that I was going to. It was a horrible environment and I was just like, you know what? I make enough money as a nurse. I really don't need this. And I think it traumatized me so much. It's one of the reasons why, like now I'm an FNP, but I haven't ever used that degree. I finished a degree because people begged me to, but I never used it because the program was so horrible. I had such a horrible experience. But nevertheless, I still had to pay off those loans associated with FNP.
Crystal Grant: 16:08 Use it or not. They want their money back.
Naseema McElroy: 16:12 Exactly. So, then you didn't complete your clinicals, but you had those units. Did any of those units transfer over to your CRNA program?
Naseema McElroy: 16:20 They actually did. So, I actually applied to seven programs and I went on six interviews or maybe it was six programs and five interviews. I really, honestly, it was so long ago, I kind of get that number confused. It was either six or seven, but I know one school didn't interview me. I never heard from them actually. So, I don't know what happened. But yes, I was able to transfer over, I believe it was nine credit hours, so I didn't have to take like theory, farm and P maybe. So, my first semester of CRNA school, once I finally did get in, I was only taking one course.
Naseema McElroy: 16:56 So, you were saying like in your first semester of CRNA school, you only had to take one class while everyone else had like...
Crystal Grant: 17:03 Yeah, because the rest of my stuff had transferred over. But I decided, so I got into CRNA school in Northern New Jersey. I went to Rutgers University and so I had to move from North Carolina to New Jersey, North Jersey. I practiced that it was North Jersey 'cause North Jersey is similar to New York city prices when you're talking about rent and things. So, here I was living in Greenville, North Carolina where my mortgage was, I don't know, $800 a month. And then, I moved to North Jersey and I rented a bedroom for $800. So it was, yeah, and I had not saved any money. So, I worked all those years as a traveling nurse and I hadn't saved one penny for school. So I ended up taking out loans to go back to school and to live off them.
Naseema McElroy: 17:55 So many people have been where you've been. I mean, like when I started on my journey, I was like, you know, I've been making six figures for years, but I did not have $100 in my savings account. Don't feel bad. You're not the only one. And just in general, most Americans aren't set up to be able to finance or pay for a $400 emergency. They don't have enough savings for even a $400 emergency. So, you know, don't feel bad. We've all been there, but that's why this podcast exists that show people that it does not have to be like that. There's a better way.
Crystal Grant: 18:29 There is and I'm so glad you know, for people like you and you know, I'm sure we'll talk about in later, but for Dave Ramsey, had I not found Dave Ramsey and learned his teachings, I'm sure I would still be, you know, severely depressed with $356,000 or more worth of debt by now. So, I'm very grateful for the people who do speak about it, including myself. I speak a lot about it now because it's something we're not taught. It's something that I believe society doesn't want us to know how to do because it's modern day slavery. If you just go to work for 70 years of your life, you know, so no thing.
Naseema McElroy: 19:09 All of that is so true. You know, we're set up to me, consumers were not set up to be smart about our money. And so that's why there's so few people talking about this stuff, but hopefully we'll spread the message and get more and more people aware because things have to change if we want to do better as a society. I mean like we're losing our place. I feel in the world as a superpower because we are so much a consumerist culture and we're not focused on enriching each other and I feel like we're going to really see the impact of that in years.
Crystal Grant: 19:39 Absolutely. There's another recession coming, which I very know, and it will hit the people who have these student loans, these astronomical student loans, they can't get jobs or you know, good paying jobs and the accumulation of the interest on these loans in the capitalization of the interest on these loans. It's making people poor. I mean they're living at poverty levels with bachelor's and master's and doctorate degrees and it's very sad.
Naseema McElroy: 20:09 It is sad and it's indefinitely recession is coming and basically what we need to understand is recessions always come, like even when they talk about economic cycles, like you're always either in a recession or you're in a recovery. And, we're in a recovery right now, so we're about to hit that very soon. And, this is one of the longest recoveries that we've experienced in the history of, you know, just US history period. So, you know, we need to understand that we need to prepare ourselves for this. You know, what, this information that we talk about, these are some ways we'll get into some ways that we can do that later on. But let's go back to your story where you're in CRNA school at this point.
Crystal Grant: 20:53 Yes. So I'm in CRNA school in North Jersey and I had not prepared for it, like I said. So, I didn't have any savings. It was actually when the recession hit. Speaking of recessions. So I had purchased this home in Greenville, North Carolina in March, 2007 and we all know what came, literally right after that was this recession. So here I was purchasing this home thinking, oh, I can do like all my other nursing friends in their twenties I can have this house for a year or two and turn around and sell it. No problem. Literally, all my friends were doing this. I was like the last one. So yeah, I buy my house March, 2007 and boom, recession hits. They stopped building in my cul-de-sac area and you could not get a personal loan. You couldn't get anything. It was like the banks were closed. So, when I decided to go to CRNA school, in the back of my mind, I had been thinking, oh, I'll just, you know, take out loans like you always do.
Crystal Grant: 21:58 So when I applied, the only thing at first that I was able to get was the Stafford loans and the Stafford loans only cover, I believe it's $20,500 per semester. Well, that wasn't going to cover the cost of me to attend and live. So, I didn't know how it was going to pay for the rest of my program until I was offered a grad plus loan. And the grad plus loans are what covered the remaining costs of my program and for me to live. So now I have this house that I need to still pay for or get renters into. I have a car that I did never pay it off. Like I was just so ill prepared. I don't know what I was thinking. I was, I don't know, I just, that's why I speak so much about it now. Like get your stuff in order before you go back to school and it'll be one less stressor that you have to worry about once you're in. So, all of my loans that I took out were paying for these things, plus my tuition room and board and for me to eat essentially. So they added up very quickly, each semester, and about six months prior to the end of my program. You don't get any more money the last summer. Yeah. It's like that's it. Like there's no more money. So, you have to make it like the last semester with what you were given the prior summer. And I didn't account for that. So, I actually ran out of money six months before the end of program. Yeah. And, like I was passing but I didn't have any money. So what do you do?
Crystal Grant: 23:43 And luckily, I had this very sweet classmate. She was a lifesaver. She loaned me money and I was able to finish my program. If it wasn't for her, yeah, I don't know what I would do. That is the God's honest truth. She literally saved me. So, I'm still to this day, I always tell her how much I appreciate her. She's amazing. She really is like just thinking about, I'm just like, oh my gosh. She saved me. She did. Yeah. And then I moved back to Massachusetts and had already taken a job but you can't start working until your pass your boards. So I literally had, I believe I have $500 in my bank account when I moved back from New Jersey to Massachusetts and I studied for boards for six weeks. Now with that $500, I had to pay my car note 'cause still hadn't pay my car off. I had to pay the balance of my mortgage because I did have renters, but their rent didn't cover the full amount of my mortgage and I had like, my bills are due like my credit card and everything and I have $500 to my name. So, I studied for boards cause that was, I mean I can't do anything until I graduate. So, those things were just going to have to wait. So I studied for boards, sat for my boards. That was the hardest test I've ever taken and I'm a good test taker so I don't know what test they gave me still to this day but I locked out of there crying and I had passed. And then it's about, it took another four weeks or so before all my credentialing and paperwork went through with my new job before I could even start working. And then, it was another two weeks once I started working until I got my first paycheck. So, I literally had no money for like three months after graduating. So luckily, my niece took me in. She, her and her now ex-husband and their five year old daughter. I slept in my five year old, great niece's bed as a CRNA 'cause I was broke.
Naseema McElroy: 26:01 Wow. So, what was the turning point that made you say, listen, I am sick and tired of being broke. I'd be like, if that wasn't it, like I don't know what it could be because...
Crystal Grant: 26:18 No, I still had more debt to get into. No, no. I let them done yet. [both laugh] That's why so, after I graduated. I actually lived with her for about three more months before I was finally back on my feet. I paid my classmate back. I had taken out a payday loan. I was just again, messy with my money. I started working, got my own place and then I bought a BMW, leased a BMW for like $800 a month.
Naseema McElroy: 26:48 For the same price as your mortgage, right?
Crystal Grant: 26:52 Not with $208,000 worth of student loans. You should not. But actually it wasn't $208,000. So, it was $180,000 in student loans. And I decided, well, I'm never gonna pay that back. You have your student loans forever. So, what I'll do is I'll go ahead and get my DNP and I'll put those on deferment for right now. I told you I have more debt to get into. So again, I did a couple of semesters of my DNP, took out, I think, I don't know, I can't remember, $10,000 maybe for that. And then I had met a guy by then and he's like, why are you going back for this? Like is it going to change anything? Are you going to get a raise or are you going...? I was like, no. So he was like, is this what you really want to do? I was like, no, not really. So I ended up not proceeding with my DNP after the second semester. So now we're up to $190,000 or so in student loans plus the interest. So when I finally, my breaking point was after I got married and we were making, gosh, probably like $205,000 a year combined or something like that. And we were living paycheck to paycheck. We had no money. And if we did, looking back, I see we did have money.
Crystal Grant: 28:17 I just wasn't managing our money well. So we were literally living paycheck to paycheck and the debt was just, I was like, well, let's get another credit card because it's a 0% balance transfer. And if we do that, then I can transfer this. Never thought about just sitting down and actually paying the debt off. Didn't even know how to do that. So I was just digging, we were just digging ourselves into more and more debt. And finally one day I was at work and I was just like, I'm worth more dead than alive right now. You know, my life insurance policy, if I die right now is X amount but I'm worth negative 300 and something thousand dollars right now alive. Like how is that life? And I make good money, you know? And so sat down with one of my coworkers and she was like, oh, something something Dave Ramsey. And I was like, yeah, I don't know what's he really talking about? And she's like, no, you should listen to him. So went home, listen to this podcast. And we were like, well, let's try it. And that was March, 2016, we started with 356,000 in debt by the nine months later. So by the end of that year we had paid off $61,000 in debt. By the following year we have paid off, I believe it was this $51,000. We got divorced shortly thereafter and so I was hit with, you know, some stuff I had to pay for as far as that went and I was hitting... and I had to pay a very large tax bill of about $17,000 on my own. And, I also had surgery that year. So, I was out of work for about eight weeks. So, I had to save for that surgery. So to date, as of November 29, 2019, I have paid off $256,000 of my $356,000 so I only have $100,000 left to pay.
Naseema McElroy: 30:22 Woo, girl! Congratulations! I'm telling you, oh my God, the finish line is so close and you've just started in 2016 like that is crazy. I love it. Yes. And girl, once you get under that hundred thousand dollars, it just melts away like it's going to go so fast. I'm so excited for you.
Crystal Grant: 30:44 I'm actually challenging myself. I mean, girl, you and me both, like I'm counting myself on Instagram. So, all my Instagram followers know that I'm giving myself 12 months to pay this off. So I have literally, I'm selling stuff. I've become, I won't say a minimalist, but once you start journeys like this, I attribute it also to the same as weight loss. Like you really just see where your needs versus your wants are separated. So, we need water, we need food, we need transportation to and from work. We need clothes on our back. Everything else is just an extra. So when you're really gung ho, like I'm gung ho, like I am full gazelle intent as Dave Ramsey would say. Like I've been selling stuff that I don't wear anymore. I mean, you just go back to the basics and I'm fine. Like I don't want for anything, have everything that I need truly. And the sooner I get this debt paid off, the sooner I'll be free and can actually breathe and help others. Like I really, really want to. So...
Naseema McElroy: 31:59 You're already there. You're already helping so many people. But man, that debt freedom is like nothing else. And especially for these student loans. Lord, I hated them. I'll never again. Never again. So, you talked about using Dave Ramsey's program. Can you speak specifically about what you did and you'd like what tools specifically you use to pay down your debt?
Crystal Grant: 32:21 So, I only listened to his podcast. I never purchased any of his books or other items that he sells. I listened to his podcast on my iPhone for free every day for a year straight, to work, from work. Everywhere I went, he was playing in the background. It got to the point where wherein callers would call in to his show and start asking a question. I'd be like, oh girl, no. He's going to tell, you know, like before he could even like answer the people's questions. I was already answering them. So, I did that. I went to the library and got his Total Money Makeover book. But by then, I had listened to him so much that reading the book, it was the same information, actually felt like the podcast was more detailed. And then a friend of mine who had done Dave Ramsey, she let me borrow his Financial Peace University CDs and at the time, I had my BMW and so you could store the CDs. So, I stored each CD kind of in the, I don't know what it's called in the system, the BMW system. And I was able to play and listen to his Financial Peace University course. But I did not buy one thing from his, I'm not not promoting it, I'm just saying how I did it. And we wrote out a budget, when we first started at, like I said I was married, we wrote out a budget of you know, how much our mortgage was, how much cars cost, how much my stepson at the time cost. We wrote everything out and we did a cash envelope system for anything that wasn't a household need.
Crystal Grant: 34:05 So the way I, I still kind of do it the same. You write down all of your expenses and then like my hair, I take out cash and I put it in an envelope because my hair costs the same every five weeks. If you get your nails done... The dogs, we know that the dogs, their food costs the same, you know, every six weeks. So we would account for each of these things so that nothing was a surprise. You're not at the grocery, you're not at, I don't know, you're not at the mall and saying, oh my God, I need a new pair of jeans. Well do you, do you have money in your cash envelope for that pair of jeans? So we kind of lived by that system. It was great at first and then it got to this point where it just sucked and we were like, man, I miss going into movies. I miss, you know, just whatever spent, I don't even know cause I don't even do anything anymore. But like I miss going out to eat or I miss whatever. So we actually paused it for awhile and then we got divorced. I came first, but after we got divorced, I got back on track because all the rest of the debt was mine until I was like, I need to get this paid off. And that's the system I pretty much live on each month. I budget out my cost. I've gotten my cost of living so low that you know, essentially I only have to work like three days a month just to live. And, that makes everything else goes towards student loan debt and then once that's paid, everything else will go wherever I want it to go.
Naseema McElroy: 35:49 It was almost like a 70 to 90% savings rate right there and that's phenomenal. Yeah, exactly. You basically use like zero based budgeting, like where every one of your dollars had an assignment and then you use the cash envelope system. Yes. So, those are some incredible tools and those sorts of tools that I also use and paying down my debt and, and things that super easy to implement that anybody can do. And even if you don't feel safe carrying around cash now there is like digital envelopes and all kinds of things that you can use. So that's not an excuse, but these systems work, these systems totally work. So were you 100% like gung ho on Dave Ramsey like did you pause your investments at work or how'd you even started investing?
Crystal Grant: 36:40 Yes, I did pause my retirement at that time and I'm trying to think, 'cause we were married. So what else did we do? We, yeah, we didn't go out to eat. We actually saved up a couple thousand dollars. We brought my leased BMW back six months early, paid off the remaining part of the lease and then bought a $2,000 Honda accord, like a 97 Honda accord.
Naseema McElroy: 37:09 I was going to ask you if you kept that BMW.
Crystal Grant: 37:12 It was beautiful, but I was tired of literally throwing my money out the window. Like that's what I was doing. $700 a month each month. And when we brought it back to the BMW dealership, they didn't understand. They were like, what do you mean you want to bring it back early? And I was like yeah I don't, I don't want it. Like I'm good. And they were like, yeah, but you still have six months. I said, here's a check for the rest of the six months. And they're like, no, but you can keep it and I'm not, I don't want it sir. Take it back. Take it. Yeah. I'm going to go get this Honda Accord down the street. We're good sir. Thank you. So they were actually, it's like we talked about like that's not what people do. Like Dave Ramsey said, if you're not being weird and doing weird stuff, then you know, you're just like everyone else. So, it was a very weird thing. They did not understand it. They tried to get me into something else so.. So yeah, we did that. I have two dogs and I was spoiling them quite a bit. They were going to doggy daycare and you know, they were getting new sweaters and all this stuff and we cut back drastically on that. But they do have their own envelopes and they get tracked with their envelopes because they are an expense. So, there's never a surprise. And I won't say never, but there's really no surprises for me. And if there is a surprise, then I have an emergency fund and that's part of the Dave Ramsey baby steps. That's the first baby step is to have an emergency fund of $1,000 so that you can buy a new washing machine on labor day weekend when your washing machine goes out.
Naseema McElroy: 38:58 Right. But also when you know where your money is going, you can cashflow a lot of things. You just know what you need to move around. Like because you already know that you're allocating so much money towards your debt payments. But instead of maybe like if you have a catastrophe this month, it's not going to be hard for you to cashflow something that's a couple thousand dollars this month. And it kind of delayed those, that debt pay off. But I mean without even touching your emergency fund, but what most people do, because they don't even have that, they don't know what's coming in and going out. They go and spend on credit cards and go into more debt. And so, it's super important to make sure that, you know, people look at budgeting as a cuss word, but really a budgeting is your money plan. It's telling your money where to go and it's giving you permission to spend. It's your spending plan, you guys, it's not deprivation. It's like, okay, now you know what you have and you know what you can do with it. And so it's super powerful to be in control of your money and if it makes you feel better, not to call it a budget, so be it. But it's super essential in making sure that you do better with your finances.
Crystal Grant: 40:06 And it's so interesting to see. So I've been preaching about it so much on Instagram that I do budgets for people now and a lot of people have much more money than they think they do at the end of each month. And I just literally, I can look at the numbers for the most part, I've yet to have anybody's budget that I've done and I say, ooh, I don't know what you're going to do. Everybody. 100% of the time they have more money than they think they do. I just tell it where to go. I'm even kind of nice with it. I've given people like Christmas budget. With you know Dave Ramsey like no, nobody's getting anything. But no, I'll be like, no, go ahead and budget for this. It will come out of this paycheck. This is how it looks. And every single one of them is like, Oh my God, I didn't know I had that much money or I never thought to look at it this way. And I said, I know. I was you. I had no idea what I was doing with my money. So, I actually think it's fun now. I love budgeting. I tried to see where I can pinch pennies even tighter.
Naseema McElroy: 41:14 Right. It's a challenge. Like a fun challenge. I think it's funny because when I first started I used to be like, well you know like once I started doing my budget, like I found all this money and it was like, I mean like how do you just find money? I mean, you literally like find money you didn't even know you had because you'll have no idea what you're spending your money on until you just like sit down and be like, you know what? Like all those mindless trips to fast food restaurants to target, which is a money pit, like all those places where you don't consciously spend your money, like even extra stuff at Costco and all that stuff. You know like you don't consciously know. Yeah. Yes. You don't consciously know where your money is going and then you're just like, Oh well dang, like that's a lot of money that I'm just throwing away.
Crystal Grant: 42:08 Yup, especially if you're typing. If you're just mindlessly handing a card over or putting it in the machine or whatever, it's not making an emotional connection like cash does. I can't tell you how many times I've been at a restaurant with a group of people and they all put their cards down and here I am with my cash. One, two, three and they're laughing. They're like, 'cause you carry gas. I'm like yes, I do and that's how I've paid off $256,000 of debt so far. And their ears perk up and they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, 'cause I know where my money's going. I know how much the Turkey burger just caused me to. How much is your bill? They're like I don't know.
Naseema McElroy: 42:51 Exactly, exactly. And so, I love that you share that you help people with their budgets. Can you share with our audience what other things you have? What are you working on?
Crystal Grant: 43:03 So, I am an author. So I wrote a book about my journey of becoming a nurse anesthetist and just how to do it, what the qualifications and specifications are, what it was like for myself as well as a few other people that I kind of interviewed for the book. So that is available on Amazon. It's called Acceptance Granted: One Woman's Journey to becoming a CRNA. And then, I also just recently released my second book, which is not really a book, it's called My Net Worth Journal. And it's speaking about net worth. It's speaking about how to budget and it gives you an outline on how to do a budget, how to do the cash envelope system. Because if I do it for you, I'm going to charge you a whole lot more. There's journal for $11. You can figure it out yourself, but no, it's just, you know, it's educating the people about what an asset is versus the liability. What does net worth even mean? I did not know this word until I was 35 years old. I didn't know that I had a net worth. I thought only famous people did. I didn't know what an asset was over a liability. I thought having a car payment meant I own that car. No, the bank does. So just it touches on that and then it just helps you break down a budget and so that is also available on Amazon, on Amazon.com My Net Worth Journal. So, that's what I have going on.
Naseema McElroy: 44:39 I'll have those links. I'll have the book Access Granted and the Net Worth Journal linked up in the show notes so you guys don't have to worry about trying to write it down and rush over to Amazon right now. You can just covert on the link in the show notes.
Crystal Grant: 44:56 Yes. And then, I help people with budgets, but that's, you know, if you need help with budget, find me on Instagram. I'm sure Naseema will also link me there and I'm happy to help. But once you do it a couple of times, it really becomes second nature and like I said, it actually becomes kind of fun.
Naseema McElroy: 45:14 It is, but, but you know, I do want people to know, like a lot of times people are like, oh my God, I've tried to budget and it never works. But typically it does take about three months of doing it consistently on average for you to get comfortable with it. I mean, I know it took me about that long to get comfortable with this. I'll give yourself some grace, but know that yeah, it totally is fun. It's super fulfilling to me to complete my budget. And nerdy as that might sound.
Crystal Grant: 45:49 And what's funny is I never liked math growing up. I wasn't terrible in math. It just didn't always click with me. And I remember getting like tutors for algebra and trig, but to me that a budget is different. Like those numbers just make sense to me.
Naseema McElroy: 46:07 But Crystal, you can not be bad at math and be a CRNA. Okay. That's like the biggest thing.
Crystal Grant: 46:14 Math. I mean like you know like trig and like a calculus and all that stuff. I'm not using that in the operating room. But the budgeting numbers, they just make sense. I don't know if it's, 'cause I've been doing it for three and a half years now, but when I tell people, I said, listen baby, I'm going to pull this budget all the way in. Okay. Like how are we string oppose the waist all the way in. I'll pull this budget in. So, I'll be prepared. And for the most part though, I'm not terrible. Like I'll tell people they're doing some ridiculous stuff. I'm like, okay, you're spending $900 a month on food. So that's going to stop, but they can do whatever they want. You know, they can try it out for a month or two and have great progress or they can keep doing what they're doing and then you know, they'll be in debt so give me a chat.
Naseema McElroy: 47:11 Those are some awesome parting words. I want to give you an opportunity to just impart any other further knowledge that you think our audience could benefit from. And then we're going to just close things out.
Crystal Grant: 47:21 I will say if you are trying to go back to school, I'll focus on that. But this can kind of be applied to anything you're doing in life, especially with, like we said, the recession coming up, you know, pay off your debt, get on a budget,. Pay off your debt, lowest to highest. That's another thing I didn't touch on. But list your debts, lowest to highest. I use the debt snowball method, not the debt avalanche. If you don't know the two, one is by interest rate, that's the debt avalanche. The other is by amount of debt. That's the debt snowball. So pay off your debts, have an emergency fund, even if it's only $500 to $1,000, have something in a interest bearing savings account that you can quickly get access to in case of an emergency and then pay your debts off. Live below your means. If you make $50,000 a year, live like you only make twenty five thousand thirty thousand a year, don't go buy a new car. A new car depreciates as soon as you drive it off the lot. Do not buy a new car. Buy a used car. Buy used reliable vehicle. I love CarMax. I've been to CarMax four different times to purchase used vehicles. It's the no pressure place. So whether you buy or not, they don't hound you like some other dealerships, but please don't buy a brand new car. I mean, honestly, just live below your means. I'll be outright, I make well over $200,000 a year and I live off about $40,000 a year. That's how where I've gotten my cost of living and I'm not starving, I'm not starving. Hair is done. I don't get my nails done. I do get pedicures though. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm not...
Naseema McElroy: 49:05 You're not living in deprivation like most people think. It doesn't matter how much to live, you know, once you understand your numbers.
Crystal Grant: 49:15 Yeah. I don't have cable. I haven't had cable in years. I live a simple life and I'm very happy, I don't long for much. If I do want to take a trip, I'll take a trip. But I have gotten myself to a place financially where I can do that. And I always pay for my trips outright. Like I don't charge my trips. I don't even have a credit card. I closed all my credit card accounts back in 2017 because I'm not one of those people that can like pay for gas and then pay off the credit card each month. I can't. Don't give me a credit card. I'm not responsible enough.
Naseema McElroy: 49:53 Know thyself. That's what it's about.
Crystal Grant: 49:57 Yeah. I know myself. I know my limits and giving me a piece of plastic with a $25,000 credit limit on it is not something that, don't do that. No. So you know, just live below your means really. Live like your grandparents did. They didn't buy something unless they had saved up for it. They didn't swipe, they didn't do Apple pay. They didn't do PayPal and all that stuff. If they didn't have the money for it, they didn't buy it.
Naseema McElroy: 50:23 I love it. Yeah. I mean it's because we live in this instant gratification, but you have to buy all these things for your kids and all that stuff. And you know, it's not necessary.
Crystal Grant: 50:35 If you go to third world countries, which I mean not even terrible. If you go to Puerto Rico, I went to Puerto Rico in September, it's been almost two years since the hurricane hit. And there's still a lot of places that are very desolate and in a lot of need. And when you see people walking, you know, no shoes or one flip flop and one sneaker 'cause that's all they could find. You know, it just makes you realize like us, especially as Americans, we are like so fortunate and I think take a lot of things for granted. The fact that we have running water and clothes on our back is a blessing that millions of people don't even have. So, when you start just thinking like that and you know it's all this other stuff is not necessary, it's really not especially if your thousands of dollars in debt. Get your finances straight and then pay yourself first, invest in yourself, get your net worth up. That's what it's about. And then give back.
Naseema McElroy: 51:40 Exactly. It's all about those freedoms that get it in control of your finances afford you. So, thank you so much, Crystal, for joining and we'll make sure to link up your Instagram profile and your books Access Granted and your Net Worth Journal in the show notes. Again, I want to express how much I appreciate you for taking the time out of your day for joining us in. Everything that you have shared with us has been super valuable.
Crystal Grant: 52:14 You're welcome. And I'd love to send you a journal and maybe we can give one away as well to a listener. So yeah.
Naseema McElroy: 52:24 Definitely. All right, you guys, you here, we'll give you a opportunity to get a journal, so stay tuned for details about that. Oh, thanks again.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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