Congrats to Our Financial Planning Scholarship Winner – Payton Myles

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It is with great enthusiasm that we announce out 2nd scholarship winner.  The Debt Fighters support an academic scholarship contest for students who share a time in their life where they learn the importance of financial planning and discuss their financial plan going into the future.

Peyton Myles, a student based in California, started her own dance company at 17 years old, and has taken much of the profit from her business and dedicated it to charity.  In the meantime, she works at the local hospital and is interning at a law firm.  Her essay shows incredible attention to financial planning and her community.

Read her Financial Plan Scholarship here:

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I started my own dance company in Los Angeles, CA at 17 years old, just months after graduating high school, and that really shaped my focus on financial planning. My goal for the company was to host dance conventions all over the country to bring the amazing choreographers you see on television to smaller cities, who otherwise would never get this opportunity. To put on these large scale conventions with these well established choreographers proved to be very expensive, so I had to balance everything perfectly.

When I first began, I put all of my savings I worked for in high school, into the company since I wasn’t quite old enough to apply for credit or a loan. I had to make sure that I had enough to pay my personal bills, but also the bills that piled up to put on the event.
Spreadsheets became a huge part of my business and managing of spending. For the event itself, I did everything myself to ensure the lowest costs. This included the decorating, the planning, the registrations, purchases, and the advertising and marketing. After our first event in
a little city named, El Centro, CA, I managed to only spend $12,000 which included 8 world famous choreographers, our airfare and lodging, the venue, merchandise, and the stage/lights/speakers/etc. Our total revenue afterwards added up to roughly $17,000. I decided
to do some good with that money, so I donated some of that to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Since then, I have fully supported myself financially since the day I turned 18, continued to run my business, volunteered my time and money as much as possible at a local dog rescue, begun the law school prep, and worked full time at the hospital. It has always been my dream to
be a homeowner in California, however even with a successful business, I know how difficult being approved for a home loan is when you file as self employed and are under the age of 20. This is why I have chosen to work in the hospital, it brings in extra income that I can put into my savings for a downpayment, while also better qualifying me for a home loan. After making my own dreams come true, both personally and professionally, I began realizing what was truly important to me, so a few months ago, we started the business’s transition from LLC into a nonprofit organization. So far, we have held events (both in person and virtually) for a long list of beautiful causes- including animal rescues, the NAACP, and Muscular Dystrophy just to name a few.

Currently, with COVID-19 shutting much of our country down, it has been even more essential for me to budget. With the hospital furloughing me, I do not qualify for unemployment, as my company still technically has income. At this point, school is my number one financial focus and after just this first semester much of my savings are depleted, so I keep to only the essentials for everything else I need. This is my last year of undergrad and school will only get more expensive next year, so I have begun driving with Doordash and have been teaching online classes whenever possible to help me supplement my income for this coming semester. I know that if I continue to budget well and continue to do jobs to supplement income, I will make it out of COVID-19 just as strong and with a nonprofit continuing to help those in more unfortunate situations