BiggerPockets Money Podcast

Passive income is a must, especially if you’re trading your life in America to start living in Portugal. Why Portugal? Besides the climate, coastline, and comfortable cost of living, Portugal allows today’s guest, Brandy, to live abroad with a passive income visa. Brandy already works remotely, but will be giving up a significant amount of her income once she makes the move. Brandy has multiple st...

Do you know how to ask for a raise? If you’re like most people, you probably think that we’re asking a rhetorical question. If you think it’s as easy as simply walking up to your boss, asking for more money, and leaving, you probably haven’t ever asked for a raise before. Behind every pay raise request is a clammy-handed employee, hoping that they’ve done well enough to justify that salary bump. M...

It's not uncommon to have irregular income as a business owner or self-employed individual. But with different amounts of money coming in every month, how can you budget, invest, or plan? Some months you’ll make a killing, while other months may have huge burn rates. How do you gain financial clarity when running multiple businesses with multiple income streams? What about becoming debt-free? Is i...

When most people think of JL Collins, they think of smart stock and index fund investing. In his classic, The Simple Path to Wealth, JL lays out the foundational path that investors can follow to secure financial freedom simply, easily, and without a ton of stress. So it may come to many FI chasers’ surprise that JL has written a new book on real estate investing, and not index funds, the stock ma...

Travel budgeting, sky-high gas prices, and “free” utilities are coming up in this month’s episode of Carl and Mindy’s Spending Summary. Like many Americans, Carl and Mindy didn’t have the easiest time sticking to their March budget. With rising food, gas, and utility prices, it may seem that your budget is squeezing you more and more as the months go on. This month, Carl and Mindy touch on their b...

Multiple streams of income are a must if you’re trying to hit financial independence, retire early, and have the luxury of time brought back into your life. While most people simply rely on one stream of income, their W2, others want more than one leg to stand on when it comes to their financial wellbeing. How would you feel if every day you had eight (or more) income streams flowing into your ban...

Passive income is the name of the game when it comes to real estate investing. While equity can help you build wealth, passive income is what can get you on the road to financial independence. But what if you got a late start in your investing career? With so many millionaire twenty-or-something-year-olds on the internet, it seems like you have to start investing at age eighteen to hit financial f...

Inflation can be a detriment to any early retirement plan. At first, you may think you only need a certain amount of money to retire, and maybe you’re adjusting for inflation when you do these calculations. But what happens when inflation runs more than triple the average or crosses into double-digit numbers. How does your investment strategy change? How does your “dream retirement” come true when...

Investing in real estate is a proven way to build wealth, produce more cash flow, and retire early. But, not everyone is cut out to do every type of real estate investing. Some strategies take dramatically more time and effort than others. House hacking may be perfect for investors or couples without kids, live in flips could work best for those with some rehab experience, and BRRRR investing is r...

Health insurance for early retirement? Is that even a thing? If it is, it doesn’t seem self-evident in the United States. For most early retirees within the USA, you have a couple of options for healthcare—make a low enough income to qualify for government-subsidized healthcare or pay an exorbitant amount of money to either buy healthcare upfront or pay out of pocket any time you get sick. But, th...

If you want to know how to save money, just look at your expenses. Odds are, if you’re like most people, you aren't budgeting or tracking your expenses to a tee. But there’s no need to be so hard on yourself, even our money mages themselves, Scott Trench and Mindy Jensen don’t always write down every cent spent. That being said, if you’re planning for a big trip, different expenses, or a sudden li...

“Hustle culture” has been a term for the past decade or so. It somehow became a badge of honor to prove that you’re working the hardest, longest, and most stressful job around. You can handle it, you’re making money, putting in the hours, but what do you have left at the end of the day? This constant grind is what Mindy likes to call the “death race to FI” due to its unnecessary harshness on your...

Emergency funds, frugal experiments, free photons, and “thoughtful spending” were just a few things that came to light during Carl and Mindy Jensen’s January 2022 budget recap. If you didn’t know already, Mindy has been publicly tracking her expenses and budgeting for BiggerPockets Money listeners (and the world) to see. But of course, as soon as Mindy shared her public budget, things started to g...

Lifestyle creep, budget hesitancy, and cash scarcity are problems you’d likely hear from someone just getting into the realm of financial independence/literacy. But, funnily enough, these wealth woes aren’t coming from newbies—they’re coming from two asset-stacking veterans, Mindy Jensen and David Pere from The Military Millionaire Podcast. While on the outside David and Mindy may look like squeak...

Rental properties can be a phenomenal second source of income for the majority of us who work at regular jobs. One or two rental property purchases every year or so can slowly, but surely, build a strong foundation for financial independence, sometimes within only a few years. Today’s guest Connor has taken this approach to wealth building and now sits on six rental units, splitting some of the pr...

The poverty cycle is a hard one to break out of. For some people, it is near impossible to climb yourself out of the hole that society, family, or unfortunate circumstances have placed you in. But sometimes, through sheer willpower alone, those who break through can crush this cycle and bring their families up with them. Someone who’s done this (and much more), is Dr. David L. Rhoiney from surgiFI...

Ahh, the age-old question: pay off your mortgage early or invest? It’s no wonder so many members of the financial independence community have strong feelings about one or the other. With a paid-off mortgage, you’re less in debt, with more free cash to invest or spend on things you love doing. But, there’s another side to that cash flow coin. If you’re paying off your mortgage early, you’ll have le...

You Need a Budget is the expense tracker/budgeter that requires no introduction…but we’ll give it one anyways! In 2004, Jesse Mecham launched this ground-breaking software, allowing money masters and novices alike to easily track their money and plan for a financially stress-free future. Jesse may have been the perfect person to build a product like this—he started tracking his expenses at age six...

Financial flexibility is one of the hidden stages along the path to financial independence. When you hit financial flexibility, you have far more choices than you did before. You can invest more, spend more, save more, and work less if you choose to do so. But, this type of lifestyle can only be achieved by being mindful and proactive about where your money is going, as today’s guest Kevin, knows...

Today’s guest, Jennifer Grimson, is a prime example that every problem has a solution.  Jennifer has always been a hard worker so she had no problem working through college as she aspired to be a foreign service officer, but her life took a turn when she fell in love and married her (now) ex-husband. Her dynamic with money completely changed as he spent money frivolously while she spent conservati...

Expats and rental portfolios go together like peanut butter and jelly. It’s no surprise that a fair amount of retired globetrotters owe their freedom to real estate investing. While many real estate investors are looking to retire themselves and their families in the US, today’s guest Paul has other plans. Paul thoroughly enjoys his full-time job in Utah. He gets paid well, has access to some phen...

Student loan forgiveness was a hot topic during the 2020 election cycle. With so many outstanding student loan payments, will the government step in to wipe out the debt? While many theorize about this, Robert Farrington takes the opposite angle, urging those who have student loans to prepare for repayment, rather than cancellation. This way, even if your student loans get forgiven, you’re put in...

Bad debt is more common than it seems. Many people you know have a car loan, personal loan, credit card loan, or some other form of high(er) interest debt. If you find yourself with bad debt, the first thing to do is formulate a plan to get rid of it, unless you want your savings and potential investments to suffer the consequences. Today’s guest, Stephanie is in a financially solid position, but...

Home insurance isn’t the sexiest topic, but in the world of financial independence, predictability is quite an attractive trait to have. That’s why money nerds across the world value insurance as a natural hedge against catastrophic wealth-ending disasters. Whether you’re a homeowner, a renter, or a landlord, home insurance could help you rebuild quicker after the unexpected happens. Recently, a l...

Death and finances can arguably be called the two things that people hate talking about most. Unfortunately, these are two topics that cannot be kept in the dark, as we all must deal with loss, both emotionally and financially over our lifetime. What can the average person do when they’ve just received the heartbreaking news that a loved one has died. Even worse, what if it’s their partner? This a...