Scott Alan Turner was a money moron at one time in his life. He made many mistakes, but each time he made a mistake, he learned a lesson and applied those lessons to become a financial rock star.

Scott Alan Turner started like most of us:

• Living paycheck to paycheck
• Accumulating credit card debt
• Buying a luxury car
• Gambling in the stock market
• And the big blow, buying a house he could not afford.

Scott felt trapped in his conundrum and started looking for solutions. He started educating himself about reducing debt, saving money, and investing. Eventually, he eliminated his debt, started earning more about money, became a better investor, and by age 35 he declared himself financially independent.

Let’s find out how he did it.

Highlights from the interview

• • Scott didn’t get much mentoring from his parents as he was growing up. His parents were not financially irresponsible but never took the time to teach him personal finance.
  • When he got out of college he started facing some financial challenges: Student loans, credit card debt, a car loan, then a bigger car loan, and then a house that he could afford.
  • One of his college professors told him to save 10%, give 10%, and live on the rest. Scott laughed on his face. His response was that he was going to wait until his 40s and then save twice as much.
  • Finally, Scott was aggravated enough by his student debt that he decided to get rid of it and it took him 2.5 years to pay it off.
  • How to eliminate debt? Look for the emotional trigger which will make you upset enough to take action towards getting rid of your debt. One of those triggers is to add all the interest you have been paying overtime.
  • He got inspiration and guidance from a radio show hosted by Clark Howard to start making some radical changes to his financial life. He started by getting rid of the car and continued making other improvements from there.
  • Should we own or lease a car? Scott tells us his opinion.
  • It took Scott 10-12 years to reach financial independence.
  • As for the investing part, Scott made the typical mistakes: day trading, penny stocks, IPOs, commodities, and much more, until finally, he discovered index passive investing.
  • discourages the use of commission-based advisors.
  • After reaching financial independence, Scott decided to start a blog and a podcast and wrote a book, a 99-minute millionaire.
  • We both recommend the Paul Merriman Podcast.
  • Alain is jealous of Scoot’s biceps. Check out the image on his website.

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