1656 - Back To School, A Missing $10K & A Wedding On Hold

0:00At my bank, I was literally getting pennies using walfruins, chitching, Meet Angela, a wealth-front cash account client since 2023. I left my job not having something else lined up yet. I was pregnant with my second. We had to think about how do we make our money work for us. Every month there's this much that I'm getting an interest in. I didn't have to do anything. My money is working hard on its own and I can trust walfruins is taking care of me. With a wealth-front cash account, earn up to 4.45% APY on your cash. No account fees, no minimums, and no strings attached. Plus, free instant withdrawals to eligible accounts. Get started at walffront.com. Client was paid $1,000 for their testimonial, creating a conflict of interest. Outcomes vary. 3.55% BACY as of September 18th, 2026 is representative, variable, and earned on funds swept to program banks. 0.65% new client boost for three months on up to $150,000. Direct deposit $1,000 a month and fund an investing account for a 0.25% increase. Cash account offered by Welfare and VogueRidge LLC, member Phynera SIPC, not a bank. Instant withdrawal subject to conditions, fees and eligibility requirements may apply to certain checking features of the cash account.

1:01You have options when forming a business. The attorney who charges more than your revenue, the online forum, where strangers argue what's right. After 25 years and 5 million businesses launched, LegalZoom knows what a wrong move can cost. We don't just file, we're with you after launch, with independent attorneys, and business managers ready to help. When you need a legal hand, visit LegalZoom. LegalZoom provides access to independent attorneys and self-service tools. LegalZoom is not a law firm, just not providing legal advice. Congratulations Lisa! She just won a $1,000.

2:01That is amazing. You all just made my entire morning. Keep it up. You guys are awesome, man. This is the Ross & Mokas Show Podcast. Ross & Mokas fixed my life. What advice do you guys give me? Okay, so my question is, my question is, got a problem you can't fix. Ross & Mokas got you. Yeah, Martin! What's up, man? It's Ross & Mokas. How do I know when it's time to start over? Oh, wow. Jumping right into it. Welcome to FML, by the way. Here we go. Martin, first of all, thanks for being on with us. Martin, you wrote us this. Hey, Ross & Mokas fixed my life. I've been a carpenter for almost 20 years, and I'm still not where I want to be financially, personally, or in my career. You say that you've been seriously considering going back to school to become a shop teacher, but that would mean taking on the cost of more education and potentially delaying some of my family's long-term goals, like buying a home and taking vacations. Fixed my life. What should I do? That's a tough one, eh, bud? Yeah. How old are you?

3:0230. I'll be 35. And you got kids? Two. Two kids. How old are they? Yeah. Two and four. Yikes, man. So you're just not happy being a carpenter? I enjoy what I do. But I'm starting to feel a lot of the physical toll, like there are days where, you know, because it is a very physical job. Yeah. And there are days, you know, I come home and I can barely even bend down to pick up my kids. Yeah. And you're working for yourself. You work for a company. No, I work for a company. Yeah. Oh, okay, okay. And you have other people like within the workforce that can do the same job as you? Well, I'm a lead hand where I work. And the like the social specialists, like everybody in my company will have their own special piece. But we all kind of work together to get the work done. But again, I love the people I work with. That's not the problem. It's just like, it's more of a net. It's becoming an income problem for long term, because you know, the housing market sucks.

4:02And I'm also in a position where it's like, okay, well, I have kids. So I can't just leave a decent, pain job that I have now versus. It's pretty irresponsible. It's pretty irresponsible. Yeah. And especially if you're talking about things like going back to school and becoming a shop teacher, like there's no guarantee that once you get out of school, you're going to get a shop teaching job right away. How many schools still have shop class like Woodshop? Most high schools. Really? Do they still? Would it still be the same amount? Like, would you still be getting paid the same amount? Or more than what you're getting now? The pay would probably be similar, but the biggest thing is I don't have a pension or benefits. Got it. Yeah. And that's like the big thing. Like my wife's also a school teacher. So it helps seeing where she's at and where she's been able to do it. Like, kind of, I think of the life that we could have. How long is school? The 18 months. 18 months. Can you do both? 18 months.

5:03Lauren, can you do both? The school, yeah. So I would be doing the schooling part time. That's fine, but it's still a lot of money that they want. Like tuition costs. How much is tuition? I think all in it. All in. It's about $15,000. Okay. That's a, that's no joke money. 15 years. Yeah. Okay. So I'm wondering if there is some sort of like, I don't know, not loan, but I'm wondering if there's some sort of thing that you can get to offset that cost, like some sort of grant or something like that. I don't, I don't know. But that would be worth looking into, even to just offset some of the cost. If you were to cut back your work hours and do school part time, can your family right now, will, will you be okay for 18 months? Or are we talking to that? I don't know if it would be a disaster, but it would definitely hurt. Have you researched at all how long it would take you to find a shop job out of, out of school?

6:05So we kind of have an, uh, a, so the biggest thing I have going for myself is I'm actually bilingual. So which means I can apply to every single school, essentially. Yeah. But how many schools are looking for a shop teacher? From what I've been told from somebody from a couple of people is a family they're hurting. Yeah. But what research have you done? That's the thing you have to be the one going online. Oh, I've gone, I haven't gone online, but I've talked to people in the industry who are like, do it's on the ground in the school. Yeah. If you, I mean, also if you could speak French, man, you could go, you'll hire you at any school. It's, uh, you're right. It really, really opens you up if you're, if you're fluent, especially if you want to teach. That's a, that's a huge plus for you. Uh, you know, being in the, in the union, getting the pension, all that other stuff, getting someers off with your wife, all that other stuff. Like it does seem great, right? It does seem great. You're a little bit late in the game to go to teachers college, I would say. But, you know, you're, you're, you're, you sort of know what you want and you're, you're specialized.

7:05So if you can make it work, what I would do first is I would exhaust all options on grants and everything else, right? And then if you can, if you can make it work, sit down with your wife and really, really, really go through the numbers, dude, really go through the numbers on what life is going to be like for 18 months and then what life is going to be like if it takes you eight months to find a job. Yeah, that's not good. Okay. Does that offer some insight, Martin? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. All right, everybody. All the best, man. We'll check in with you in a couple of months, okay? All right. Thank you. Ross and Mokas fixed my life. What advice do you guys give me? Okay. So my question is, my question is, got a problem you can't fix. Ross and Mokas got you. Yo, Alia, what's up? It's Ross and Moka. Morning. How are you, girl? I'm good. How are you? Good. What is going on with you, Alia? Why are you on FML today? Okay. So right now, I'm trying to learn how to save for a wedding, save for a house, and still enjoy my life. So Alia wrote us this. Hey, Ross and Mokas fixed my life.

8:06My fiancee and I got engaged a year ago, after being together, for 10 years, we're ready for the next chapter, buying a house and planning for our wedding. But we're struggling to save money because we love going out for dinner and doing fun activities. As a new teacher, I spend a lot on classroom resources. Bills add up and my fiancee owns his own business, which comes with plenty of expenses too, balancing savings, while still enjoying life has been tough. And honestly, we've never had a proper budget in place. So how big of a wedding do you want? It's going to be a little big. Like how big is a little big? I'm trying, I'm aiming for it to only be 300 people. Oh my god, only 300? Yes. Okay, but you think it's going to be more than that, right? I hope it won't be. Have you and your fiancee ever sat down and like actually written out or like on your computer, map out all of your expenses for a month? Together, no. Okay. What's your goal for savings?

9:07Well, that's the problem. I also don't know how much to save. Okay. What are your days are so expensive? What's the priority? Getting your own place first or getting married first? Yes. So do you know how much you need for the home that you want to buy? Do you know like the neighborhood that you want to live in? Have you done any research on any of that? I know. We definitely want to work in live in Durham. Outside of Toronto then, right? Yeah. Do you know what you qualify for? No. Okay. So, okay. So you have a lot of work. How old are you, Alia? I'm 27. Okay. So, a lot of growing off to do when it comes to this financial stuff. So, yes. So, you, I get it. You're together for a while and now you're, it's all working out for you guys, right? And now we're becoming adults. And you don't know how to be adults. Absolutely. So, you've got a couple things. You need to figure out what you qualify for. Okay. And then you need to, you'll come to the realization of what kind of house you can actually afford or how much house you can actually afford. And then so you're going to, you're going to do that. And then you're going to be like, hey, maybe buying a house isn't,

10:08isn't in the cards right now because houses are very expensive. And we're not going to qualify for anything that we'd want to live in anyway. And the worst thing you can do, especially with interest rates, the way that they are, is get into a house that is too big and too expensive for you guys. And that every single dollar you have, literally for the rest of your lives is going to go into that house. So, is that the smart decision? Probably not. Don't know. No. And then you got the wedding on top of that. And do you, are you, are you footing the bill for the entire wedding yourselves or do you have help with that? I'm sure we'll get help, but I think we'll try to do a majority of it on our own. Okay. And the, the recouping from a wedding, because I know people think that they're going to make all the money back at best you're going to break even, right? Realistically. Yeah. Okay. So, so let's say the wedding is a wash. You're not going to get anything from the wedding. But you may actually come out taking a hit realistically, right? Probably, probably will. All the, all the time, the money, the dress, the everything else. You're going to, you're going to take a hit with the, with the wedding. So you got to get your, you're, you got to get your books in order as Mocha just said. Like you got to, you got to figure out first of all what you're going to qualify for. And you got to budget out this wedding.

11:09And the number is going to be astronomical. And I don't know what you make, but you're a teacher. And I don't know what your husband makes, but he runs a business. Is the business wildly successful? I say right now it's, it's going well. Yeah. It's going pretty good. Okay. Okay. So you got to figure out how much you have what you qualify for. And how long is going to take to save to get it? That's, that's just it. And then the number, I can tell you right now the number's not going to work. Yeah. I know we've, we've come to that, that, um, realization that his dreams of having big land at the beginning is not happening. We're probably going to get a townhouse and, yeah, I, I, you know what? I think the eye opener for you is if you actually sit down and map out everything that you spend every single dollar on for a month. And that's not just like the stuff that the two of you have, like when you're going out for dinner and stuff. Like include that, but I'm talking here is how much we pay for our phone. Here's how much we pay for internet. Here's how much we pay literally everything, right?

12:11Like go through your credit cards. How much are you spending on gas if you each have a vehicle or how much are you spending on transit passes? Like log an entire month of pretty much every single thing that you're spending money on, including those nights out. And you'll see exactly where your money's going and where you might be able to, to save. If it's a home that you want to get or if it's the wedding that you're trying to plan. And it'll give you a little bit more insight and you'll be able to take direction that way. Alia, what's the, what's the number one thing that destroys couples? What's the number one thing that stresses couples? What's the number one thing that couples argue about? What's the number one thing that will divide the two of you? Finances. Finances. So now I'm going to say this. Taking a loss on a giant wedding is dumb. I know. It's just one of those things. It's dumb. Oh, wait. It's dumb. Wait, wait. How much debt are you in? Can you share that with us? Well, I have student loans. Yeah. How much in student loans do you have? I think I have 20,000.

13:11Holy cow. And then credit cards as well, right? Credit cards. It's about like six thousand. It's not a lot. So what about your fiance? He does not have student loans, which is great. No, no, what kind of debt is he in? That was, I think it just mainly the like credit cards to be honest. I think he's very much tried to pay off a majority of his debt. No, no card debt. No nothing. No. Okay. Okay. But still, that's even more debt you'll be in. Like you got to clear that. Some of your own debt, girl. Yeah, you're going to you're going to pay for this big giant wedding. And you're going to go in the hole for it. And it is going to be something that you resent. Yeah, now's not the time. Figure out your finances first. Okay. You're right. I feel like you get the pressure from like everyone else, you know? You don't worry about everybody else. Get married. You nobody's stopping you from getting married. You can have it. You can have a cool, you can have a cool small wedding with 50 people. Yeah, my pants are sitting off. Yeah, you can have a really cool small wedding. It happens. People do it all the time. Figure out your finances, Alia. Thank you. All right, girl. Wait, wait.

14:12What? You have to ask me the question. Between Rosamokha, who is your favorite? Moka. He's like guy and he's friend. Yo, what's he got? You know what? Want to get married, go into debt. Go on and buy that house, go into debt. Everything will work out in the long run. Remember what Justin Trudeau used to say back in the day in the commercials? The budget will balance itself. There you go. Bye. Bye, I have a good one. All right. Rosamokha's fixed my life. What advice do you guys give me? Okay, so my question is, my question is, got a problem you can't fix. Rosamokha got you. Matthew, big dog. Welcome to the Rosamokha show. How you doing? Good, man. Good. Good, man. It's time for FML. Why you here, bro? All my cousin knows we've 10 kids. Now what? Matthew, you wrote says, hey, Rosamokha fixed my life. So I gave my cousin $10,000 to buy an engagement ring. He proposed they started planning the wedding. And then he stopped paying me back more than a year before the wedding. I wasn't invited. So I reached out to his fiance who I grew up with

15:15and told her what was going on after that. They both ghosted me. To top it all off, he stopped making payments right when my daughter was born. Do I let it go or try to make amends? How much is remaining in the $10,000 loan that he owes? Well, $800 bucks. Oh, that's how much is remaining? What? Yeah. So how long? He speaks right into your phone, Matthew. It's muffled as hell. Sorry, buddy. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So what was the timeline? Give us a timeline from when you loaned him the money to when he started paying you back to where we are now where he stopped paying you back. She paid me for about three months. We had this little schedule worked out and then she asked her three months. My daughter was a lawyer. Then he just cut me off kind of. How long ago was that? Two years ago and off two years ago. Oh my God. And still 82 hundred bucks. I think that, I mean, legally, like you, there's legal steps that you can go through. Like if you have evidence of like text messages

16:16and any sort of like agreement where he said he was going to pay you back or bank transfers where you transferred money to him and then he transferred some back to you. Like if you have all that stuff, you can take them to court. So I actually didn't give him the money directly. I paid the place he purchased the ring at direct via wire transfer the money to that place. Wait a second. So you bought the ring? Yeah. So go get so that's so that's what you're fighting for then. 100 percent. So what I'm saying is that you're not asking for the payment back. If you go to small claims court, what you're then asking for is the ring back. See, so I was told by somebody else to do that to go to small claims court. And you know, you might as we grew up together. Usually my brother, you know, was very close. So I was having a hard time doing that because I was, you know, maybe he's going to a rough time. Oh, but yeah, we're talking $8,200 man. But it's either you get that ring back or because that ring is yours. His fiance is now your fiance. Not my fiance.

17:20Yeah, I think that the problem with this is had he not ghosted you and then had you not called the wife and told her and then she ghosted you. I could see this maybe playing out differently. Yeah, he's my cousin. He's like my brother. We grew up together. All this, you know, dude stuff. Had he not done that and was very open with you saying, Hey, we fell on hard times. My plan is to pay you back. I'm sorry. I've been lousy at making payments on it, but I'll get there. I promise you I'll get there. I love you, man. If any of that was going on, that's different, but that's not happening. Yeah, take him to court, man. Yeah, absolutely. And do you do you have anything in writing like where you guys were texting back and forth with you saying, Hey, yeah, all paid the ring place and then you will pay me back? Like do you have any of that stuff? Yeah, I have all that. Yeah, all that. Okay, cool. So just I would, I would, I mean, that's no joke money, dude. Eight grand. That's like that. I know how I know how you always say like, you know, you'd like somebody to the money, you got to be aware you might not get the money back.

18:20And that's fine. If it's a couple hundred bucks, yeah, we're talking $8,200, man. Oh, God. Stop lending people money. Jesus. I know, but you trusted the guy because like you said, your cousin, he's like your brother, you guys grew up together. But what is he, like what does he do for a living? Like was like you had to have in the back of your head know that there's a good chance that you aren't going to get all this money back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, come on. Yeah. I mean, not like construction guys don't make a good money, but he's, he's a work of structure too. Yeah, but no, you make good money. But I'm saying is that, you know, you gave, you know, he's got to pay off that wedding. He's got a brand new wife. There's all those expectations. You think that he's like, no, we can't do this this weekend because I got to pay math. You back. We think, right? No. Uh, yeah. You need, uh, you need those funds, man. Take him. Yeah. Small claims court. Yeah. And I'd let him know too. I'd give him the heads up and just say, Hey, listen, you're going to get a letter. I love you, man. You're my bro, but you're going to get a letter and letters. You want to talk to me? Well, you just then just text them and just say, Hey, the letter's going to look something

19:21like this. I need that money. I got a kid. I don't know what else to do. I've tried everything. Yeah. Go and, uh, go take his truck. Or he's not a bull. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of things are fun about it. But like, not forever. I just for a while. Yeah. Until he pays you back. Love you, Matthew, all the best. We're going to check in with you too. Okay. All right, brothers, all the good. The Ross and Mokashow podcast podcast. Ross and Mokas fix my life. What advice do you guys give me? Okay. So my question is, my question is, got a problem you can't fix. Ross and Mokashow. Alicia, hello. Welcome back to the Ross and Mokashow. How you doing? Good. Are you guys amazing? Now we say welcome back because we kind of have an update from you. Last time we talked to you was February of this year. Yeah. Okay. So what's going on now? How do we navigate this new family dynamic? Okay. So the last time we talked, your issue was you were having difficulty managing five kids at messy house and doing it mostly alone.

20:23So you say now that your husband started a new job three weeks ago and now he works 6am to 4pm. So he's home every evening and weekend, which is great. That's amazing. It's been a huge change for our family to say after 11 years of him not being around in the evenings and you say this, my question is, how do we get on the same page with parenting and household responsibilities without it hurting our relationship? This adjustment has been great, but it's also challenging and I don't want our marriage to suffer during the transition. So what's the biggest point here like where's the suffering coming from? So it's more or less the fact that for the last 11 years he hasn't been here in the evening. It's basically been me. So it's kind of been my way and kind of how I like to organize and set up the house and things like that with him kind of stepping in. It makes it a little bit more difficult because we both kind of have a different way of doing things, but my way has been this way for the last 11 years. Like he wants to what build his own routines in the evenings with the kids.

21:23Yeah, he wants to kind of change things up a little bit and it's just like this is not what works before with the kids. This is like we need to find a way that's going to be cohesive for both of us. Like give us an example. What does he what is he trying to change? What routines? More or less like bedtimes or things like that or like friends can't be on at a certain time. Things like that or I tried to set up things where it's like I do dishes if he cooks things. We've been trying to do a couple things. It's been getting a little bit better, but it's more or less he's trying to change things. It's a little bit more difficult because I like the way I do it. Are you guys having conversations about this? Like have you said here's the routine that the kids have been used to for the past little while. Let's try to stick to this here. The reason like here the the positives like you so you've had that conversation already. We have yet and we've tried setting up different things like meal plans and stuff like that. That way whoever's home first makes dinner the other one cooks. We're trying to make sure that we're being on the same page and there's been more

22:23conversations. We've been more open honestly honest and all that sort of stuff and it's been getting better. I just want to find out ways that will kind of help us going forward in case we tend to but head together. So if he I think that the difficulty in a situation like this it doesn't sound like he doesn't want to do stuff right. Like it sounds like it sounds like he wants to do stuff and the the alternative is he hasn't been around at all in you said like 11 years in the evenings right. Yeah. Okay. So this is all new for him. He's walking into. It's all new for him and. He's walking into something that he's never been involved in before and he doesn't want to let you down. He wants to feel important right. He wants to feel like he has something to do because believe me if after 11 years he came home and he had his evenings free and he was at home and all he did was sit his ass on the couch and did nothing. You'd complain you'd complain more. Yeah, I definitely would. Right. But he's helping out. He's doing stuff for the kids.

23:23He's spending time with the family. He's trying to feel important. Right. And I think that you have to give him a little bit of grace in that. But but also I think that you have to be very honest in that is everything you did in the evenings when you were out working was so unbelievably appreciated when I was here at home alone because it was necessary and that we will never forget that. But now that you're back, okay. You're walking into a system that is not necessarily family time. This is a machine. And you've been running this machine for 11 years without him. And he can't just walk in and take over the controls. There's some training that needs to happen. Talk to him like it's it's another shift. Right. And I think that that's the way that you're going to sort of get through because if you're going to let him just kind of go Willie Nilean start making his own rules because he's the dad and it's his house and year is wife and those are the kids and why not, right. But I think that you need to break down the things that are non-negotiable.

24:24Yeah. And I think you would understand that. And then you say, hey, listen man, I hate doing this or you love doing this or this part's really, really fun. You've never got to do this. Why don't you start doing this, right. Like there's a lot of there's a lot of that. But I think that you tell him that what he's walking into he needs to be. There's some training involved. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when it comes to the nighttime routine, the time that the kids go to bed. Like that can't change. I don't know. What the routine has been like and if it's been working, but if it has been working, he needs to know that as well. Yeah. And like I said, I've definitely had a conversation with him and I'm like, you can't just kind of walk in and hey, say, hey, this is how it's going to be now because well, this is how it's been for the last 11 years and you can't go and switch things up this quickly. Like if there's going to be a transition, everyone's got to get used to it. We all need to kind of figure out ways of doing this together. But it's like I said, it's been a process and obviously I don't want to keep butting heads with him and make sure that we can still do this together. And I think it's important for you to say that exactly what you just said to us.

25:25I think you should say that exact same thing to him. I have. Yeah. Okay. Good. I think that also you can you can let him know, you know, for 11 years, you made all the decisions, right? Yeah. In the in the evenings. Now that he's there, you very much want to make decisions together. But the one thing he can't do is start making decisions without you. Yes. But you just have to you just have to hammer home that everything that is done, it is now done as a team. Yeah. That's it. And the team is the two of you. Yes. All right. Hope that helps, Alicia. It does. I really appreciate that. I'm going to have a good time. Got you always love you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Ross and Mocha Show Podcast. Catch the guys live weekday morning from 6 to 10 on kiss 92 by kiss 92 5 dot com or download the seeker app.