Yohance Harrison 0:00
Here we go.
Yohance Harrison 0:02
Welcome to the Moneyscript podcast. It's your host, Yohance Harrison. So happy to be with each and every one of you today. Thank you for tuning in, thank you for listening and thank you for joining us for season six. Yes, six. Season six. Man, we've been doing this a long time. I've been doing this a long time. Hopefully you've already been through season one, when we were in Covid and locked in our homes and washing our bananas. And season two, as we were exiting Covid and getting reintroduced to the world. And then seasons three, four and five, we were out here just balling and having fun. You also made it through the election last year, so we're still here. There was a peaceful transfer of power. I'm actually recording this before. I'm assuming that's what happens. Yeah, that's what happens. So. But welcome back. So this season I have a very special treat for you. And I mentioned this towards the end of last season that we are focusing on this season, interviewing individuals in the medical field to just talk about their journey, to learn more about how they went from, you know, elementary school, high school, college, choosing what they're going to do in their career in the medical field. And I really want to focus on the in between what was happening in those times where you were transitioning from college to medical school and nursing school, from medical school to residency or from nursing school into actually working full time. I want to talk about that transition because that's where most people have the greatest amount of questions, concerns and fears when it comes to their finances. So we wanted to be able to hear from some of our heroes. Yes, we're still calling them heroes. Yes, some of our heroes in the industry. We're not going to bang any pots and pans, though. We're not doing that here. But I want to take the time to interview some folks to give you some insight. Now, if you're listening, you're like, well, I'm not in the medical community. Here's the thing. There's still going to be similarities. We're still going to have our trials and tribulations. And guess what? It doesn't matter what you do for a career. Dollars, a dollars, a dollar, a dollar. You're still trading your time, you're trading your energy for some money. It's just a different line of profession. So I, I want my medical students to listen to this, the college students to listen to this so that you can pick up some of those tips and tricks because you don't have to learn everything by Doing it. I know that's what they teach you in school. You got to practice, you got to cut this body open and all that fun stuff. Yeah, that's. That's true. When it comes to the medical stuff, when it comes to finances, you can just learn from other people. You don't have to make those mistakes. So without any further ado, I want to introduce our second guest of the medical community. We have Ms. Xena Robinson. She is an RN hailing from the great state of California, and she is also the founder of Swallow the Pill, which we're going to talk about that. As long as it's not a jagged little pill. Name that artist in the comments later. So, Zena, welcome to the Money Script podcast.
Lonzena Robinson 2:53
Hello.
Yohance Harrison 2:56
So let's just start with how you got to where you are today. So I want you to go back to what made you decide that you wanted to not just necessarily be in our end, but what made you decide that you wanted to go into the. The area of medicine? What attracted you to that? When did you make that decision?
Lonzena Robinson 3:16
I think I made that decision in high school. I am from South Carolina. I'm not from California. I went to a very, very small school in South Carolina. It was 250 students in the entire school. So everyone knew everyone. Very small.
Yohance Harrison 3:30
Oh, that is small. That was like my PE class. Dang.
Lonzena Robinson 3:34
The. Our senior year, they had this program called School to Work, and it's where you had finished most of your credits and you were near graduation, so you didn't need to be at school all the time. We were on the AB schedule. So one day I would go to school and the other day I would do work. It was a work program and I worked at Savannah Riverside. Some people know what that is, Some people might not. It's a government facility, but it was office based. So I was sitting in a cubicle for eight hours every other day while I was in my senior year of high school. And I hated it. I figured out quickly then I could not do a career where I was sitting at a desk. I just did not like being stationary and it was boring to me. So I wanted to do a career where I was moving and I was on my feet. And so I was like, I want to help people. I want to be moving. So nursing was my career of choice from that experience in high school.
Yohance Harrison 4:34
Okay, so graduate from high school. Did you go to college or did. What happened next?
Lonzena Robinson 4:39
I went straight to college to University of South Carolina in Upstate, which was.
Yohance Harrison 4:45
Gamecocks or is that somebody else?
Lonzena Robinson 4:47
It's Gamecock system. One of their connected schools is just not in. In Columbia. It's in Spartanburg, but it's.
Yohance Harrison 4:49
It's okay.
Yohance Harrison 4:55
Oh, shout out. I got folks in Spartanburg. What up, Spartanburg peeps?
Lonzena Robinson 4:59
So I went to USC upstate. It was a four year program. I did all four years. I. I finished within the four years. I didn't. I wasn't at. It wasn't an extended student, and I ended up settling in Spartanburg. I started working at the local hospital there.
Yohance Harrison 5:18
Now, wait, so. So you went. Did you go to like regular college and like major in biology or you went directly to a nursing college?
Lonzena Robinson 5:25
I majored. My original was. My original program of choice was nursing, so I majored in. I did. The program was through that school. So I did my first two years of Prereq prepared prerebrex at Spartanburg. USC Upstate in Spartanburg, and then I applied to their nursing program. And the last two years was me in their nursing program.
Yohance Harrison 5:47
Oh, okay. So you. So this was. So you were 22, 23 years old, ready to start nursing?
Lonzena Robinson 5:55
Yep, ready to start nursing. Now granted, it did take me a minute to pass my nursing boards because I struggle tremendously with testing anxiety. So I took it a few times. But in the window of me studying for boards, I did work as a cna, what people know as a nursing assistant. So I kind of got my feet in the door right after passing, right after working, after graduating. And then when I finally passed my boards, I just transitioned into being an actual nurse.
Yohance Harrison 6:28
Got it. So I would like to take this moment. Let me look it up real quick
Yohance Harrison 6:36
to do a little plug here. Do you suffer with testing anxiety? A lot of us do. If you are someone that needs help with testing anxiety, I encourage you to let me pull it up. It's a new book by one of the friends of the podcast
Yohance Harrison 6:56
Anxiety. All right, my engineer can cut this up a little bit. There we go. Okay, let's do that again from the top. Do you suffer from testing anxiety? Many people do. It doesn't matter if it's an SAT or an ACT or a nursing board exam or even the cfp. We've got a friend of the pod that can help you out. Introducing Test Anxiety no More. It is a book by Dr. Bianca Bush. She specializes. She's a psychiatrist that specializes in helping individuals in the college and adult learners that suffer from testing anxiety. If you'd like a coupon for a book, see it in the show notes. See what I did there? We did ads. That wasn't that bad? Hopefully you didn't skip past it. But, yeah, for those of you that have testing anxiety, reach out to Bianca. She's awesome. Continuing. So took you a little while to pass the boards because you just got super nervous and you walk in and you're like, I don't remember any of this stuff. And.
Lonzena Robinson 7:55
And I would overthink things. When I was trying to study, I just could not focus. So it was. And plus. And during that time that I. I was trying to become a nurse, I had a nursing job when I graduated, so I had a job that was waiting on me. So that added pressure to that whole, whole situation. Like, I was just like, I got a pat, and then I just was psyching myself out. I couldn't focus. I couldn't really just zone into what I needed to do. So it took me a minute to get there, but I got there.
Yohance Harrison 8:31
So how long did it take? What was this waiting time?
Lonzena Robinson 8:34
Like, about two years.
Yohance Harrison 8:36
Whoa. Okay. So you had. You had a significant gap. So let's talk about the financial parts of that. It's all in the past, so it was what it is, what it is. Can we share with the people a little bit about how you handled your finances while you were waiting to pass these. This exam?
Lonzena Robinson 8:55
So I was. I was still living in Spartanburg. I had an apartment, I had a roommate, so we were splitting the bills, but I was still independent, taking care of myself. I think at that time, the offer was for like $20 an hour if I would have gotten the actual nursing job. But Instead of the $20 an hour, I was maybe making half that as a nursing assistant. So I didn't come right out of school making top dollar at that time because this was way back when.
Yohance Harrison 9:30
Girl, this is like eight years ago. You act like you old or something. It's okay. It's okay. You don't have to tell. You don't have to tell the people your real age. It's fine.
Lonzena Robinson 9:40
And so I. My student loans was on hold, forbeared because I couldn't make that payment because I wasn't making the money. And so I was just living with a roommate. I, you know, had the normal rent, food, water, shelter, car. I didn't have a car payment because my car at the time was paid off. I still was driving the car that I had in high school. My dad had bought me a car in high school, so I was still driving that car. So it wasn't as if my bills was, like, exponential. I didn't know enough to have credit Card debt at that time.
Lonzena Robinson 10:12
Yeah, it was, it was a great time back then. I didn't know nothing back then.
Yohance Harrison 10:17
Let's go back because we, we kind of on. I apologize. I brushed over that. Let's go back to the student loan. So you did mention you went to school for four years. Got it done in four. Didn't take you more. However, it sounds like you had to borrow money to make that happen. So let's go back to graduating from high school. So how many schools did you apply to go to?
Lonzena Robinson 10:42
You know, I don't even remember. I only think at that time I only had like four schools that I might have wanted to go to. I didn't want to go too far from home. I don't know why. I just was really afraid to go out of state. So I think I, and I got into, I remember just applying to the UC system. So USC Columbia, which is Gamecocks. I did USC Aiken, which I did get in there, but that was, would have only been like a 20 minute, 30 minute drive from home. So I did want to leave home a little bit because I wanted to at least grow up and actually have a college life. Because if I would have went to USC Aiken, I probably would have stayed at home with my parents, which looking back on it now, financially, that probably would have been smart to do.
Yohance Harrison 11:27
I mean, it has its pros and cons, but okay, so. So because you chose to go further away from home, your loans for school had to be enough to cover tuition and room and board, versus if you stayed closer, maybe you just would have had to cover tuition.
Lonzena Robinson 11:47
And had I done that because I did go to school on the life scholarship, more than likely I would have had way, way less debt because I would not have had to pay room and board because it would have made more financial sense to stay at home with my mom and dad and just commute back and forth versus going to school two and a half hours away,
Lonzena Robinson 12:08
room and board. And then, you know, add in the fact that after my sophomore year I moved off campus so I had actual an apartment and I was living with my sister. Me and my sister was roommates at the time. But the bill, you know, I was still splitting bills so, you know, still live in a college student, you know.
Yohance Harrison 12:32
So did you, did you ever have any
Yohance Harrison 12:38
doubts or concerns or fears when it was time to fill out the fafsa? I mean, did you, did you read it? Did you understand how those costs were going to add up? Did you? Or was it just I, I gotta, I Gotta sign this. So I go to college and you just kind of just signed away.
Lonzena Robinson 12:56
That's exactly what it was. I don't even think I thought about it. I think in my mind all I knew back then was oh, I will only have to pay these loans back six months after graduating. That was my only thought. So. And at that time, because I worked in the financial aid office while I was in school and so it was easy to Perkins loan. Sure, by all means. Yeah, because you know it's going to be paid back because you a nurse. That was literally my only thought process and racking up the debt that I took to go to school. I never sat down and thought about the long term effects of the student loans and like doing things differently. So that because it would have been smarter. And I put this out there for people who are looking into going into this route for me to go to a community college to do my prereqs versus going to a university. And then I could have just transferred into the university, into that nursing program. So it would have been me not having as much debt or having to pay as such of a high bill to go to school when I could have easily went to school for really free for the first two years and then just had that portion for nursing school. Had I thought about it back then? Had I, if I know now what back then, yeah, I would have done it that way because that's the smartest way to do it.
Yohance Harrison 13:20
Click, click.
Yohance Harrison 14:16
You hear that kids? That's the smartest way to do it. Yes. I'm speaking specifically to the individuals that are under the age of 18 and still in high school and thinking about your next step. I know you want to get away from home, you want to experience the campus life. Maybe you got a boyfriend or girlfriend and you want to be able to have your alone time with that individual.
Yohance Harrison 14:43
Just go get a hotel and stay at home. Go to the community college, knock out those prereqs instead of borrowing 50, 60, 70, $80,000. I'm just saying it's just an idea. Just, just food for thought. Okay, so let's get back on track here. So go to college. Four years done. Takes two years for you to pass your exam. You finally pass the exam and you are officially a registered nurse. What happened next?
Lonzena Robinson 15:11
Yep.
Lonzena Robinson 15:13
So at the time, the unit that I was on, I was a nursing assistant on, they hired me as a nurse, except I went from night shift as a CNA to day shift as an rn. So I'm a brand new nurse. I think at the Time, my pay might have been $21 an hour. And of course, I'm now in instant work mode. I do my orientation. I think it's like a two month orientation with the preceptor, and then I'm out on my own. And so I instantly then turn to grind time. And in nursing world, you know, you make money by the more shifts you work. So, you know, I think that you're always contracted for 36 hours if you're a bedside nurse. 36 hours a week, that can easily turn into 60 a week if you're picking up two extra shifts a week to make overtime. But looking back on it, knowing what I know now, and now I work in California, so I calculate things a little differently. It wasn't that much money to pick up overtime, especially when you're making $20 an hour, right? And time and a half is only $30 at that point. And so I instantly go into grind mode. I'm working, working, working. I stay on that unit for a year and a half, and I get to the point of where I'm like, okay, I feel comfortable in my nursing skills. I want to go to the icu. So I transferred to the micu, and then now I go to from day shift to night shift. Now then, as in the nursing world, you have to calculate the night shift differential. And I think at that hospital, it might have been like a $5 night shift differential to work night shift. So it wasn't that, like an abundance of money. So now I'm working night shift. I'm in the icu, a medical icu. I do that for another year and a half, and then I'm like, I want to be an educator. So I go back to the unit that I started on as a clinical unit educator. But even at that time, I was only. I was up to making, what, $26 an hour as a unit educator.
Lonzena Robinson 17:18
And so I do that for another two years. And so I get to the point of where I'm like, all right, I feel good. I want to make more money. So now I'll become a travel nurse. And at that time, our hospital has started utilizing travel nurses. And they started telling me about all the money, all the perks, which you can do, you know, with travel nursing. And I'm like, all right, I'm single. You know, I had a house at that time and all of that. So I'm like, I want to go travel. It's just me. I've been here, like, let's go. And so I take off to Texas Texas is my first contract that I took welcome home. Which was really interesting because I was on the border of Texas. I didn't speak a lick of Spanish. Everyone there spoke Spanish. I stayed there for 10 weeks, and it was by far the hardest thing I think I've ever done. But my nursing skills was solid, so I can hold my own. I just couldn't speak their language, but I could hold my own. And once again, I fall into that trap of I'm here to grind. I'm going to work. So even though I'm contracted for 36 hours, I'm still working six and seven day work weeks. And I think at that time that, that, that contract I might have been making like $50 an hour.
Yohance Harrison 18:34
Oh, that's a significant increase. Okay.
Lonzena Robinson 18:37
And so it goes up. But at the same time, I'm still not bringing in a significant amount of money when you really look at it, because I had to duplicate expenses. So I have to still pay for my house that I have back home. And I also have to pay for what I'm living in here because I'm in Texas now. So I'm living in, like an extended stay. It was a really nice extended stay, but it was still duplicating expenses because.
Yohance Harrison 19:05
Oh, so they weren't covering your lodging expense.
Lonzena Robinson 19:09
They're not covering my life. They're giving me the money for me to cover my lodging expenses. So I stay in Texas 10 weeks, and then I go from Texas to Arizona. I stayed in Arizona for nine months. I loved Arizona because it was hot. I actually liked the hospital that I was at, and I think the pay was still about the same. And I. I pulled back on some of my hours because now I'm in a. In a place where I actually like being as hot. I want to go and see stuff. So, you know, I'm exploring.
Lonzena Robinson 19:41
And then I go back home. I stay there for nine months, and I go back to South Carolina. So now I'm home. And so now I took a contract that was about an hour and a half from my actual house. And so. And it was. The hospital was in between my house and my mom's house. So on days that I would work, because it would only take me an hour to get to my mom's house, I would just drive from Columbia to Williston. And then on the days where I wasn't working, I would just go back to my house. So that. That was really convenient because now I'm able to save more money. I'm at home, my mom is able to see me I'm not gone. Like, I'm living great at this point. Like, still don't have a lot of credit card debt. I'm. I'm living great.
Yohance Harrison 20:23
How those student loans doing at that point?
Lonzena Robinson 20:25
See, that's. And see, that's the thing. I was not smart to start paying back the student loans.
Yohance Harrison 20:30
Oh, you just kept. Defer. Deferred. Deferred for like, yeah, I got the money for y'all. Defer, Forbear. Defer. You call them up, say, hey, yeah, like, let's guess you want to defer. Yep. You know, how'd you know? Go ahead and defer that. So that means the interest was still adding up.
Lonzena Robinson 20:45
Yep.
Yohance Harrison 20:47
Do you remember how much you originally had when you left college?
Lonzena Robinson 20:51
I don't. And
Lonzena Robinson 20:55
it couldn't have been no more than 40. 50 grand of student loan debt.
Yohance Harrison 21:00
Well, do you know how much it ended up being when you started actually paying on it?
Lonzena Robinson 21:06
When I actually started paying on it.
Yohance Harrison 21:09
Like, how much had that 40 grown to?
Lonzena Robinson 21:13
I'm not even sure because I don't even remember. I remember paying, like, starting to pay, but I don't think I looked at specific numbers. I just remember. I think I got to a point where I'm like, all right, I need to. To. To start paying closer, because I. I had a point where in my life where I wasn't really paying attention to money. I was just living. And then it was like a light bulb went off that was like, all right, you need to do a little better with this, because you really, like, you got some serious debt that you need to pay attention to that you're not paying attention to. You know what? When I went. What it was when I did start paying attention to the debt, because I also. During the time of all of this, I went back and got an mba.
Yohance Harrison 21:57
So you just. You were like, hey, bring the debt on. Let's go. Let's get some more.
Lonzena Robinson 22:00
I did. Because I did hit a point in that two years that I was working to get my nursing license because I was working with some nurses that wasn't too friendly.
Lonzena Robinson 22:12
And I hit that point where I'm like, I'm not going to do nursing anymore. I'm just going to go back and I'm going to get a business degree and just do find something in human resources. I'm not going to do this anymore because.
Yohance Harrison 22:23
So you almost had a career change.
Lonzena Robinson 22:25
I almost had a career change because during that time as a cna, I was a nurse as a cna, and I struggled. I struggled tremendously with that and the nurses that I was working with, some of them wasn't as friendly as, as I would have hoped. I remember one of them in particular, she just was not kind and like, I would be stuck with her all the time. And so I got to the point where I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna do something different. So I went back to school and I got that mba and that added on to the debt that I already have. And so when I got my house, I almost couldn't get my house because of the amount of student loan debt that I had. And I think at that point I might have been at like 100k in student loan debt.
Yohance Harrison 23:10
Wow.
Lonzena Robinson 23:11
Yeah, I was almost at that point to where my debt to income ratio was too high.
Yohance Harrison 23:17
But all right. And I got my pause on that. That's a very important concept that you have to understand about not only student loan debt, but car debt, credit card debt, etc.
Yohance Harrison 23:30
In the medical community you get paid well, you do compared to some of the other jobs out there. You went to school for a long time, you're educated and let's just face it, you're saving lives, most of you, or at least dramatically enhancing them. Plastic surgeons, well, elective plastic surgeons
Yohance Harrison 23:47
actually, you could be saving a life too, if you're elected. But you get my drift. You've worked hard for a long time, you studied, now you're making good money and you want to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor. But if you got it all on credit, whether it's the credit cards or it's the student loans, when you go to purchase a home or do something else that requires them to look at your credit score, that's just one component. The other component that they look at is your debt to income ratio. So they want to know how much of your money that you're earning has to be used to service the debt that you have. And all lenders have minimums and maximums that they'll allow in, in those categories. And that could stop you from being able to get a loan for a home because you have too much debt in other places. And sometimes it doesn't even matter what the payment actually is. They'll use their own formula.
Yohance Harrison 24:43
Probably happened to Xena. She probably had her loans in forbearance or deferment. She was like, I don't even have to make a payment. And they're like, yeah, well you might have to one day. So this is the formula we use. Okay. So that's something to keep in Mind. Continue. So got your mba. What'd you get your mba, by the way?
Lonzena Robinson 24:53
Yep.
Lonzena Robinson 24:59
I got it from Strayer, which was an online school.
Yohance Harrison 25:01
Okay, so you were going. So you were still working as a nurse and doing the night school type deal?
Lonzena Robinson 25:07
Yep. There were some classes that I had to go to because I lived so close to Greenville at that time. I was going to classes in the evening time on some of the days that I was off. And yeah, went to Strayer online. It was. Yeah, I was about to say, you are frozen. You're not moving at all.
Yohance Harrison 25:22
Hold on. I froze.
Yohance Harrison 25:33
Does that sometimes. Don't know why I did this time. Hold on a second. Says my battery's good.
Lonzena Robinson 25:41
It.
Yohance Harrison 25:58
Switch.
Yohance Harrison 27:01
All right, we should have changed cameras here. That's all.
Lonzena Robinson 27:03
Oh.
Yohance Harrison 27:38
Damn chair. I got it.
Yohance Harrison 27:47
Let me move a little bit more.
Yohance Harrison 27:59
Okay,
Yohance Harrison 28:02
we'll clean this up. In the edit. All right, so Strayer University, going to school and working.
Lonzena Robinson 28:04
Okay.
Yohance Harrison 28:12
Got your mba. Continue.
Lonzena Robinson 28:17
So I told you, working, nursing, make you educator. Traveling in my travel endeavors. I got. After coming back home, I stayed in South Carolina for a few weeks. That contract, I think, was like 13 weeks. And then I decided I am going to California. And so I took off across the country. I started out in the Bay Area, so I started out at Kaiser in Santa Rosa, did a contract there. And I was like, oh, this is great, because. And I forget how much that contract was paying at that time, but it's like going from making $50 an hour to $80. It was. It had to be around there.
Yohance Harrison 28:58
Oh, significant.
Lonzena Robinson 28:59
So, yeah, it was pretty significant. So now I'm. Because at that point that I decided to go to California, had heard so many people talk about, oh, you should go nursing in California. They get paid so much more than we do. And I took that and ran with it, not thinking, well, the cost of living there is significantly higher. Like, there's a reason they get paid that much. And so I went from the Bay Area, then I took a contract down in Southern California. I stayed in Southern California for a little while. Then I came back to the Bay Area and did another Kaiser contract at Fremont. And I was just like, man, I like, this is great. They do get paid great out here. And at that time, I had another roommate. I have found somebody along the way, a roommate that we would split in bills. And so I was like, oh, this is wonderful. And so at that time, I was like, I want to stay in the Bay Area. Like, I want to stay here and. And be a nurse here. So I just started Applying to the hospitals in that area. And I ended up getting a permanent position at a Bay Area hospital. I don't know if I should name the hospital, but I got.
Yohance Harrison 29:18
That part.
Yohance Harrison 30:05
Okay, you don't have to.
Lonzena Robinson 30:07
So I ended up staying, like, getting a permanent position. And I think at that time that I started, my starting pay was $83 an hour. I do remember that. And I was working night shift. And so this is where things changed for me. The night shift differential was by percentage. So it's a percentage of your hourly base, and it's a unionized hospital, so things are done differently. Um, and so at that time, the. I think the percentage was, like, 16%. So the night shift differential was, like, 16% of my base. And so it. I was like, okay, great. And so I went back into grind mode, where I'm.
Yohance Harrison 30:47
Yeah, I'm now back to grind mode.
Lonzena Robinson 30:49
5 and 6 days nights in a week. And so that started me back on this night shift journey. And I was just. Oh, my God. And so I then, like, got incorporated in this hospital. So I stayed on unit for about six months, and then I was just like, man, I really want to do icu. I really want to try to do cbicu. And at this hospital. And in order to get into icu, you have to go through a training program. And so I did a critical care training program to get into the CVICU at this hospital, and so started doing cbicu, and like, I stayed on night shift. And so our union contracts went into play, and then the night shift differential went up to 18% of our base. And then now I'm getting raises. Like, raises is a normal part of my routine. And so my hourly rate is just climbing. And there's different incentives in the hospital. You get in an education bonus, you're getting
Lonzena Robinson 31:48
another bonus for your CE to do your CEUs. And so I'm looking at all of the perks, and, like, I'm watching my. My pay rate just climb. And so I ended up staying in the CVICU for almost six years. And in that six years is when we go through covet. And so Covid is. Is pretty significant in my journey, because I see you.
Yohance Harrison 32:12
Yeah, of course it is, man. You were.
Lonzena Robinson 32:15
I was at the hospital all the time. It was like, I lived there because there was always a need. We was always short. The. There was always such high turnover in the cvicu because when Covid hit. Yeah, we had that little grace period when they didn't really know what Covid was. And, like, the. The world Went on standstill. Well, things didn't stay on standstill for nurses. That when it picked up, it picked up. And seeing all of these patients come in, I was ECMO trained. I was all the things trained. So I had all the devices under my belt. Ecmo, crt, balloon pump, impella. So all of those patients I could care for. So for the unit that I was working on, when there was a need, I didn't. It was nothing for me to say, yeah, I'll work an extra shift. You need me to come in four hours early, you need me to stay four hours later. And in California, when you work past 12 hours, that's double time. And so you can make dope like hours, which you can make in eight hours. And so you kind of get, as a nurse, you get hip to being, you know, strategic with your work shifts. Oh, I'm gonna stay an extra four here. Go ahead and get that double time. And so I watched my pay rate increase, the amount of money that I'm making, I watched all of that increase,
Lonzena Robinson 33:30
and it was just wonderful. So I'm still here in California. I'm still working at the same hospital, although I'm not in the same department. I'm in a different department now. I'm in the cath lab, which is a whole other beast of itself. I'm still new in the cath lab, so I haven't gotten to the point of where the call pay kicks in. And here, call pay, you get paid half your base just to sit on call. And then it's time and a half when you come back in. And then there's some moments where if you get side letter pay, that's a whole other. It's like making double time on double time. So that's it now.
Yohance Harrison 34:07
So what I've learned about your journey is, number one, you were very clear on what you wanted to do. So you were clear on what you wanted to do. You. You went through school, you got that done. You did get some test anxiety. That gave you a couple years of setback. However, you're finally able to get over that. And then once you had your credentials, it was work grind mode. It took some years for you to start to really start paying attention to your finances. And as you did, you also said, you know what, maybe I should get some more education so that I can make some more money. But ultimately, it was your nursing career that really kicked off because you learned about travel nursing. You got to get outside of your home state and experience some things and again, get to Focus on the things that you love and you wanted. The things you learned throughout that process is the importance of understanding the compensation plan of the company you're working for. Because once you understood that compensation plan as a nurse, you had the keys in your pocket, unlock. I got, okay, double time this, triple time this. I get this, I get this, I get this. And you were able to decide how much are you willing to do? How hard are you willing to work? So through that, I'd like to just know if there was any. And you mentioned a few different things, but what would you say was your greatest financial mistake that you made across that journey?
Lonzena Robinson 34:15
Yes.
Lonzena Robinson 34:30
Yep.
Lonzena Robinson 35:35
Not paying attention to it early on, I think had I paid attention to and took it seriously early on, I think in my mind it was out of sight, out of mind. In the beginning, I didn't pay attention to. It wasn't even a thought, Girl, you got student loans, you need to pay off. Like, I was just living, just to live. And then I put myself in a position to where I was taking care of external people, external things, instead of taking care of the things that was attached to me, which is my student loans, and instead of paying attention to that, I was putting my money elsewhere. And, you know, looking back on it now, like, I put a lot of money in external things when I could have been done paying off these student loans by now, had I. Oh, so. Still working on the student loans.
Yohance Harrison 36:24
You, so you're still working on student loans? Okay, all right.
Lonzena Robinson 36:29
It is going to be a journey. And even though I've been a nurse for 10 plus years, student loan forgiveness hadn't completely kicked in yet. Still fighting. I've gotten the hospital that I'm at. Like you said, I've made it work for me. That 1800 education fee we get, it goes towards my student loans. The hospital pays them directly for me. So every year they'll give me eighteen hundred dollars towards my student loans. And please, by all means, the student loan company can have it, you know, so it's not paying attention to it early on, not taking it seriously and not thinking wise enough to reach out to a professional to help me financially. Because it was early on that money was not my thing to manage. Like, it was not something I learned growing up. It was not something my parents taught to me about. It was not something I ever saw happen within the community that I grew up in. So I knew nothing. The only person in my life that was like, early on was like, Edgar, you need to pay. My best friend, and she's an accountant and she was like, no, girl, like, you really should be paying attention to them sit alones, like you over here playing, but them sit alone still growing.
Yohance Harrison 37:39
Like, I never left.
Lonzena Robinson 37:42
And so she was the only person that I can think that was like, no, you. You got more serious financial obligations because you get into that mindset of, oh, I ain't got nothing to worry about, you know? And she was like, you don't. You ain't got to sit alone to worry about, like, for real. And so not paying attention to it early on and not taking it seriously early on and just letting it just sit there. Like, I could have been making, even if it was smaller payments, I could have still been paying stuff down and, like, making payments towards it, because, you know, with COVID and then recounting the payment and how that was structured, I could have benefited from that, like, truly benefited from that. Had I done things differently early on and just my finances, I. I think I would be a little, like, better off had I paid attention to things better back then. Because I'm in a great position now. I make great money now, you know, and I know better now to. To be a little bit more disciplined, to be a little bit more structured. But early on, I was out here.
Yohance Harrison 38:46
Playing games, just having fun, grinding, hustling, spending.
Lonzena Robinson 38:51
Yeah, exactly. That was it.
Yohance Harrison 38:53
Yep. That's the move. Got it. So I. You. We mentioned at top of the show, we actually introduced you as the founder of Swallow the Pill. So I'd like to learn a little bit more about this Swallow the Pill. What is it? And. Yeah, how'd you come up with it? What is it? Let's start there.
Lonzena Robinson 39:12
All right, so Swallow the Pill is a health education and advocacy, the education business that I am trying to develop. And what it is, this came to me years ago. I am a nurse educator at heart. It's always something that I've enjoyed doing. It's always something that I've kind of had a few tolls within.
Lonzena Robinson 39:36
And so I've always tried to find different avenues of nursing education to fit within and then to kind of bring out to the community that I'm within. And so I also have msn, which I actually paid for that degree out of pocket. And so my MSN is in nursing education. The focus was nursing education. And so by getting that degree, it has grounded my foundation for nursing education. Like, I'm not just coming off of a whim, trying to educate. I was actually taught how to educate. And with this company. So what I've seen within the nursing world, within my Community, just in general, just from listening to people talk. They go to the doctor sometimes, sometimes they don't go to the doctor. And then sometimes they know what the doctor is talking about. A lot of times they don't. Just being within the cath lab itself, oftentimes, you know, we get patients in where we're putting them on the table and their question is, when am I going to talk to anesthesia? Or when are they going to put me, Are they going to put me to sleep? And by that time that you see me, I'm at this point, I'm a nurse. Those questions should have been answered and you should have understood already that there is no anesthesia in some of the cases that I'm in. And so by the time we get to the table, if you're asking that.
Yohance Harrison 40:52
Cath lab, as in catheter, catheter, there's no anesthesia for catheter, a heart cath.
Lonzena Robinson 40:58
So some procedures. No, some procedures, you can be awake and it's perfectly fine. You do not have pain receptors in your heart. So sometimes you don't feel, oh, I'm.
Yohance Harrison 41:07
Thinking about a different catheter. Okay, nevermind.
Lonzena Robinson 41:10
Sometimes. See, and that's the thing, like, sometimes some people don't even understand if you're.
Yohance Harrison 41:13
See, I didn't, I didn't understand. You said catheter. I immediately went to urine catheters and I'm like, oh, that don't. You can't numb it up a little.
Lonzena Robinson 41:21
Bit, even for a urine catheter. You're awake for that.
Yohance Harrison 41:25
That's not, you can't put some Novocaine on it or something. You can't just. Lidocaine, that's what, Lidocaine, that's the right one, right?
Lonzena Robinson 41:28
But you, you don't.
Lonzena Robinson 41:32
Yeah, yeah, but, but you don't need an anesthesiologist for that.
Yohance Harrison 41:35
Oh, yeah, that's true. You don't. Okay, okay, fair enough. But put me to sleep for this catheter.
Lonzena Robinson 41:41
And we get that from patients all the time. And it's like I'm watching them come in and they're asking these questions after having signed a consent, after having said that they understood. If you're asking me that, that tells me you're not understanding what's happening and you're making decisions about your health that you're not completely clear on. So that opens the door for a number of things to happen. And my goal is to work with patients, work with communities, work with individuals to help them to understand their health, help them to understand what the Doctor is actually saying to them, they told you you have hyperlipidemia. What exactly does that mean? Do you understand what they're saying when they tell you that? Do you understand what changes you should be making in order to reverse that or in order to address that about your life? I've watched my mom going to doctor's appointments and I know she don't understand what these people are talking to her about. And they're not expanding on anything. I, I remember sitting with her, she was having a colonoscopy done and she went to the scheduler to make the appointment. And at that appointment, this girl tells her, yes, you can do the prep with drinking a gallon of sweet tea. My mom is a pre diabetic. She not about you. And you just told her to drink this prep that is a gallon with sweet tea. Absolutely not. No, ma'am. Like, and, and to hear stuff like that. Stuff like that happens all the time. And patients don't know any better. They don't. And they don't have enough information to ask the right questions. I feel like. And so I want to work to bridge the gap between the doctor's office in the home, the doctor's office in the community. They're telling you these things, but do you completely understand what it means when they say that? Do you understand what lab work you need to have, John? Do you understand that you even need to have a yearly physical? Do you even know that your insurance company should cover that yearly physical? It's preventative medicine. So my company swallow the pill and swallow the pill is a playoff words. When I was a med search telling nurse, I used to say that all the time. Did you swallow the pill? When I'm assessing if a patient has swallowed what I've given them. So it's a playoff word. Have you swallowed, have you digested what they've told you about your health? Do you understand okay saying about your health? And so that's my ultimate goal, is for people to have the knowledge that they need to make better health decisions about their health to make sure that they are knowing what options they have before them. I see all the time at the hospital that I work at, people come in because these doctors have talked them into these procedures. And some of these procedures they do not need to have. And I say that lightly, but because they feel like this is the end all, be all they need to have these procedures. Some of these procedures are not necessary. You can live a life that's perfectly fine without having this done. You're actually putting yourself at higher risk by laying on these people table and letting them do what they do. Because then you open yourself up to their knowledge and expertise. And sometimes there are some cowboys in.
Yohance Harrison 44:57
The health care world and there's just.
Lonzena Robinson 44:59
A recovery risk in the recovery. So, yeah, there's tons of risks that you.
Yohance Harrison 45:03
Deion Sanders lost half his foot because he had a surgery which he probably needed to have, but it was the result of surgery that led to blood clots that led to losing half his foot.
Lonzena Robinson 45:14
Yes, yes. And that happens all the time.
Yohance Harrison 45:17
Did he have to have the surgery? I don't know. Not my business from him and his doctor. But it was the result of the surgery that led to the blood clot.
Lonzena Robinson 45:25
Yeah. So it's, you know, and just talking to patients. I remember talking to one of the doctors that I work with in the critical care unit because I was running this idea of this light by her. I was like, just tell me what you think about this. And she was like, oh, absolutely, there's a need for it. Because, you know, at the hospital I work at, we do a lot of transplants. Heart, lung transplants. That's common. We see it all the time here. And she was saying some of the patients that she's encountered didn't even realize that their chest would be open. They just thought it was like a small incision for a lung transplant.
Yohance Harrison 45:59
You know how we gotta crack them ribs, bro?
Lonzena Robinson 46:01
Yeah. Like, let's get it sent for a procedure. And you don't even know that they have to open your chest in. The recovery period for that alone is massive. You know, so I want to work with patients, you know, bring me your medical chart. Let's. Let's go through it. Do you understand this diagnosis? Let's walk through what they mean when they say that. Do you understand what lab work, you know, because if you're on certain medicines that might come with consistent lab work that you have to have drawn, you know, the medicines that you're on, do you understand what these medicines are doing? Like, how they're affecting your body? You know, So I really just want to bridge that gap because I understand it from a medical world. Like, I get some of the stuff, the jar, the medical jargon, but when they're giving that to patients and like, people like my mom, she could. She. Had I not been sitting there, she would have drunk that colonoscopy.
Yohance Harrison 46:52
Doctor said I had to drink it with tea.
Lonzena Robinson 46:54
And she would have told me, they told me I can do this, and absolutely not, ma'am. Your hemoglobin A1C have not been below 6 in years. So you're not about to sit here and drink a gallon of tea on my watch. And so that's just what I want to do with whoever needs that assistance.
Yohance Harrison 47:10
That's beautiful. Well, anyone that wants to learn more about Swallow the Pill, how can they get in touch with you?
Lonzena Robinson 47:18
YouTube. I have a YouTube channel where so far I've gone through diabetes, hyperlipidemia, just different things that you wouldn't know if you were being admitted to the hospital. Go to my YouTube channel, swallow the Pill Health, education and advocacy. You should see my face pop up. And there's a list of videos that you can go through. I'm also on TikTok at Swallow the Pill. I'm also on Instagram @SwallowThePille. So there's a few avenues that they can get to me through.
Yohance Harrison 47:48
And we will put some of the links in our show notes. Zena, thank you so much for opening your heart and your mind and your soul and just sharing it with all of our listeners. Hopefully, as a listener, especially if you're someone that's on that path, you. You picked up some valuable nuggets, hopefully to Xena, Like I said, you don't have to learn everything through experience. So if you're that person that hasn't been paying attention to your finances, start by paying attention. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to change anything. But start by just gathering some awareness. As you gather that awareness, that should lead you to ask more questions. And if you get to a point where you're like, I don't know the answer to this. Ask for help. Whether it's myself, whether it's another financial advisor, there's dozens of financial advisors that actually specialize in the medical field. You can find some of us on all the different social medias. Make sure you're talking to someone reputable, not someone that's just going to sell you some products and say, oh, the answer is, you got to buy this from me. No, you're looking for strategies. You're looking for consultation. You're not looking for a product. So, again, Zena, thank you for joining us on the Money Script podcast. Do yourself a favor, listeners. Not yourself. Do someone else a favor. Do someone else a favor. Share this episode with one person. We'll see you next time. Take care.