Money is essential, but there's so much we aren't taught about it.

In fact, while I was in college, I've racked up $20,000 in credit card debt on top of my student loan.

That was all before I actually learned anything about money.

I'm Janelia Spinal, an online new podcast financially inclined from Marketplace.

I'll teach you simple money lessons so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

Listen to financially inclined wherever you get your podcasts.

When Erica Bramowitz was 18, he played in this concert that to anyone else would feel pretty insignificant.

We were playing this amazing symphony by Mahler, his third symphony.

Eric was a clarinet player in a university symphony.

And in the last movement at the great climax of this piece, I just I was like overtaken by these like shivers

and like unbelievable feelings of joy.

It's just like an upward scale, but like within the context of all the instruments, it's just like

but I mean it's just it's huge you know I'm not doing it justice here.

The music completely overwhelmed him to the point where he felt like crying.

Just from feeling that I knew that music was exactly what I had to do with my life.

I'm Marie Macherace and welcome to This Is Uncomfortable, a podcast from Marketplace about life

and how money messes with it. This week a crazy story about one guy's dreams and an unexpected

price tag.

For as long as Eric could remember, he'd been around music. His mom played in a

plasma band and as he grew up watching them perform, he felt mesmerized by the clarinet.

When he was seven, he convinces parents to let him take lessons. By high school, he was winning

awards and playing in local orchestras. And once he entered college at McGill University in Montreal,

...