Afford Anything | Get Smarter With Money

Paula describes the experience of having Covid-19, the illness caused by coronavirus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

#248: We are living in a time of extreme uncertainty. Many of us are questioning how we can best use the funds we have to survive it. “Should I sell the funds I have invested in the market, or keep contributing?” “Should I continue with my plans to invest in real estate?” “Should I hoard all of my cash in case this gets worse?!” My friend and former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy joins me on toda...

It's Quarantine Day 10, and thank goodness I've been staying in, because yesterday I learned that I have a 102.3 degree fever. I don't know if it's Covid-19 or if it's a fever with extraordinarily bad timing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new segment giving tips to help flatten the curve and manage your money during this global event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

#247: Caroline wants to buy her first home in Denver, CO. How can she calculate how much mortgage she can comfortably afford? Anne plans to retire later this year on rental income (woohoo!). She’s saved up a hefty emergency fund for her properties, and she wants to know 1) if she should invest a portion of this in index funds, and 2) whether she should rebalance her portfolio to account for this h...

#246: At 19 years old, after completing her first year of college, Jillian married her husband.  During their first year of marriage, they lived in a camper and earned a combined salary of $12,000. One year later, Jillian's husband graduated college and joined the military. They relocated to Washington D.C., where they earned a combined $60,000 per year. They saved half of their income and used th...

#245: Joe has a 24-year-old friend who won a $1 million settlement. How can she use this money to set herself up for financial independence? Jay is 52 years old and wants to retire at 59.5. He began investing in individual stocks to achieve this goal, and has had excellent returns so far. Is this a sound plan for early retirement? Or should he work until age 62 for Social Security? Steve is 54 yea...

#244: Grant Baldwin felt burned out. He worked as a youth pastor, which felt like a 24/7 profession. He had to attend student events held late into the night, which left him exhausted. One night, he came home to find his wife crying. She told him that she felt like she had a roommate, rather than a husband, because he was gone so often. So Grant did something drastic: he quit his job, with negligi...

#243: Adam is 23 years old and wants to achieve financial independence as quickly as possible. However, he’s nervous about investing in the stock market and real estate. How can he overcome his fears? Paris, age 35, has a similar question. She earns $150,000 per year, is debt-free, and doesn’t own a home. How can she reach financial independence in less than 10 years? Paul wants to househack his f...

#242: Ash Ambirge grew up in a trailer park in Pennsylvania. She never met her father. Her disabled mother, who raised her on government assistance, passed away when she was 20. Her childhood goal? To join the middle class. She dreamed of becoming one of those people who eats lemon pepper chicken. What’s more middle-class than that?  She attended college on a full scholarship. When she graduated a...

#241: Anton wants to accelerate his flight training so he can get hired within two to three months, rather than two to three years. He has to raid his retirement savings to achieve this. Should he? Linda and her husband have their eyes on early retirement, but they aren’t sure what their post-retirement lifestyle will cost. How can they budget for unknown expenses that include travel? Joseph contr...

#240: Are you investing, speculating, or gambling? What are the three drivers of asset performance? Are you aware of who’s getting a cut from your investments? Do you even know who’s on the other side of the trade? David Stein is the author of Money for the Rest of Us, a book that answers these questions. He’s the former Chief Investment Strategist & Chief Portfolio Strategist at Fund Evaluation G...

#239: Lo is in a good spot with her career, but she’s struggling with a ton of student loan debt, and consequently, credit card debt. What should she do to manage it? Anonymous wants to know how to set up a backdoor Roth IRA. Eric and his wife own a property in Savannah, GA that brings in more money as an Airbnb than a traditional rental. They want to invest in more properties and are wondering if...

#238: “If I had more willpower, I’d achieve my financial goals.” “I’m doomed to fail with money.” “I’m horrible for not keeping to a budget.” These are common thoughts, but they’re erroneous. You can’t willpower your way through money management, you’re not doomed to fail, and you’re not horrible for blowing your budget. You’re human, and humans make emotional decisions. Those emotional decisions...

#237: Katie wants to know how to purchase a business that’s already cash-flow positive. What indicators can she look for? Rob will retire from the military with an inflation-adjusted pension. Does he need a bond allocation in his investment portfolio? Brian conquered a large sum of credit card debt, but still has student loan debt and a mortgage. Should he pay off his student loans, refinance them...

#236: Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung achieved financial independence four years ago at age 31 and 32. They saved $1 million and live on $40,000 per year while traveling the world. Kristy and Bryce don’t worry about running out of money, they created new identities after quitting their jobs, and their community has quadrupled in size. Here’s how they achieved this lifestyle. For more information, visi...

#235: Anna has made the leap to self-employment … but what’s next? She lives in the Bay Area and she’s trying to choose between five business ideas; she needs to make enough money to stay in her high-cost area. Doug recently won $9,000 from an online poker side gig and is wondering how best to use the funds: pay off high-interest student loan debt, or keep it to increase his poker earning potentia...

#234: We review 26 quick, easy actions that improve your financial life, plus 10 new added bonus ideas that came directly from our community. We issue a challenge for you to tackle one action per week for the first 26 weeks (six months) of the year, so you’ll build stronger financial health by summertime. Download the free book that accompanies this episode at http://affordanything.com/2020kickoff...

#233: Deepak is considering downsizing his family’s home, but wants to know if the savings are worth the transaction costs he’ll have to pay. Anonymous and her husband hold $900,000 worth of privately-owned company stock. How should they plan for handling this money? Shelby is 25 years old and works for a company that awarded her restricted stock units. What should she do with these? Additionally,...

#232: Anthony ONeal is the bestselling author of Debt-Free Degree, a book that teaches parents how to help their children graduate from college without student loans. He’s part of the Dave Ramsey Solutions team, which teaches people how to pay off and avoid debt, and he's the co-author of Graduate Survival Guide, along with Rachel Cruze. Anthony joins us on this episode to share tips and hacks to...

#231: Avie needs to decide between two options: paying off a rental property, or funding a retirement account. Which should she choose? Lisa wants to know: when should you fund an HSA account? Sofia’s parents have lived with her for the past few years, but Sofia’s job is relocating her out-of-state. How can she transition her home to a rental for her parents? Jim is a saver and his wife is a spend...

#230: Dr. Susan David, a psychologist on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, joins us to talk about emotional agility. Dr. David has researched emotional agility for around 20 years. A few years ago, she summarized her work on this concept for the Harvard Business Review. Her article became one of the most popular articles of the year, and the publishers heralded it as the Management Idea of th...

#229: Normally, we’re a once-a-week podcast, with episodes airing every Monday. But on the first Friday of every month, we have a First Friday bonus episode! Helen discovered that her mother fraudulently opened credit card accounts in her name. Eek! How can she protect herself? What will happen to these accounts once her mother passes away? Amelia and her husband cannot fire their financial adviso...

#228: In November 2005, when Noah Kagan was 24, he was hired as Employee #30 at Facebook. His stock options would have been worth $170 million if he’d cashed out in 2014, he says. But he didn’t see a dime. In June 2006, merely 9 months after he started working at Facebook, Noah got fired. Instead of making $170 million, he made zero. He fell into a deep depression for a year. Then he rescued himse...

#227: Lien is taking a year off of work to live the van life with her husband. She wants to know how she can make the most of this sabbatical to figure out how to turn her less-than-inspiring career into a lifestyle that she loves. Lien called in again to say that she wants to start a new business and a family when she returns from her gap year. Her former job offered excellent health benefits and...