BiggerPockets Money Podcast

Felipe Mejia’s relationship with money started at an early age - when his parents divorced and his world turned upside down. His mother introduced him to the power of real estate by fixing up the basement and renting it out to generate income. His mother further influenced his money story by creating her own cleaning company and introducing Felipe to a client who hired Felipe to clean up his job s...

Ashley Kehr married a dairy farmer. With a dairy farm comes farm equipment. And with farm equipment comes farm equipment loans—to the tune of around $169,000. Three years ago, she read Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, and it CHANGED. HER. LIFE. Ashley knew she needed to get rid of their debt, but her husband wasn’t totally on board with the plan. So she tackled her student loan debt first—and...

This week we sit down with Bianca DiValerio, a flight attendant who makes an hourly wage, has no college degree, experienced THREE short sales during the economic downturn, and yet is STILL financially independent—all before turning 40. How did she do it? She saved her money. She didn’t spend it on things that didn’t matter to her. There is literally NO secret sauce to her story. In fact, she thou...

Natalie Kolodij is a tax strategist. (You’ve probably seen her in the forums!) With April 15 looming around the corner, we’re going to chat about ways to choose the RIGHT tax professional who can best serve YOUR specific needs. Natalie also shares a few red flags about potential tax preparers, as well as specific things your tax pro should be asking for—and what it means if they do not. She’ll als...

On episode 110, we interviewed A Purple Life. As she was sharing her story of financial independence, she casually mentioned that her mother didn’t start investing until later in life, and STILL managed to retire at age 55! So this week, we’re talking to her mother - who has her own amazing story of early retirement which she was able to accomplish even though she didn’t START investing until she...

Purple graduated from college and got a job in New York City making $35,000 a year. And spending $35,000 a year. Her net worth was a whopping $5,000. Her partner shared the concept of financial independence with her, but she wasn’t interested. Two years later, her net worth had grown considerably, but she was still not tracking her spending or paying attention to much of her finances. So, she took...

This week, we sit down and talk with Airman Mildollar, from Military Dollar. (Spoiler Alert: Despite the name, Airman Mildollar is a woman!) Airman Mildollar shares her story of college debt, car loans and rapid payoff to start building her wealth to become financially free, despite not being married, having kids or working in tech. In fact, she’s an officer in the Air Force. She shares her system...

Kristi Tanner Smith considers herself privileged—she was an only child in a big house with lots of toys. But Kristi’s mom was diagnosed with a fatal disease and given six months to live when Kristi was five. While her mom did beat that estimate, she ultimately lost her battle when Kristi was 12. During her mom's final years, she tried to teach Kristi about money: "Save up and pay cash for purchase...

Financial Panther (Kevin) went to law school, graduated from law school, and took a job as an attorney. Attorneys make a lot of money, right? So, with all this income potential, why is he doing side hustles that pay him significantly less? Happiness. Being an attorney didn’t make Kevin happy. In fact, it made him decidedly unhappy. He changed jobs several times but in the end decided being a lawye...

Megan Gorman started learning about money very early – at age 5 she begged her parents for a Little House on the Prairie Dress. Her parents said we’re not buying it for you, but you can save up for it yourself. 18 months later, she was the proud owner of a new dress – and a bonus bonnet from her parents who were so proud of her for saving up and being so determined. Fast forward to high school, an...

Jen Hemphill was born in Colombia and lived there for the first eight years of her life. The economy was really bad, and her earliest memories were of a scary time when her educated father did whatever he had to do to make money. Her redheaded dad stood out in Colombia, and it wasn’t a safe place for him to be. So, they moved to the U.S. Jen remembers being embarrassed for not having money, knowin...

Lauren and Steven met in high school and attended the same college. After undergrad, Steven was accepted into the Ph. D. program at UC Irvine. During the first year, he decided he didn’t really want a Ph. D. in Physics, but he really enjoyed working with students. They moved back to Florida so Steven could get his master’s in Education, while Lauren worked her first “real” job. But after two years...

J Money wasn’t necessarily BAD with money, but his first home purchase - made because everyone else was doing it - prompted him to seek out advice about money. He stumbled upon the blogging world and was enthralled with the transparency. Here were real people talking about real issues they were facing - similar to what he was going through himself. He started his own blog called BudgetsAreSexy, an...

Jean grew up in a family where money wasn’t a big issue. Her parents saved for big purchases like vacations, but frugality was part of her everyday life. She graduated from college without any debt, and soon found a job - that she immediately regretted accepting. She moved quickly to change course, and ended up in a job that paid less than half of that first one - but was so much better for her. ...

Sunitha Rao remembers a childhood of scarcity. Born to immigrant parents, some of her first memories are of her home being broken into, and her things being stolen. The only money lessons she was taught as a child were frugality and saving, because you never knew what was going to happen. Her father had grand tennis plans for her, and pushed her into tennis. By age 9, she was playing tennis six ho...

You probably know Brandon Turner from the BiggerPockets Real Estate Investing podcast. On that show, he sounds like he’s got his life all together. But before he discovered the RIGHT way to do real estate, he made mistakes. LOTS of mistakes. Today, Brandon shares everything he did wrong - from financing rehabs with a credit card to accumulating six figures in debt on properties he couldn’t sell. B...

On today’s episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, Co-Host Scott Trench teams up with two personal finance superstars in Whitney Hansen and Doc G of Diversefi.com. Together, they hear four “life after FIRE” stories, each completely different, each extremely powerful. We talk with a business owner struggling with millions of dollars in debt who was able to sell his business, re-write his career...

You know Vicki Robin as the author of Your Money or Your Life, but on today’s show, we dive MUCH deeper into her story and her background. Growing up without a lot of money, she learned how to use her resources to appear as though she had more. With limited funds, her mother taught her that she could use them all at once on one thing, or she could stretch them further by shopping at a discount sto...

Financial Mechanic wanted a puppy - and her parents told her she could have one when her little sister turned her age (in four years). When she asked how much puppies cost, she was told $100. So Financial Mechanic started saving. Everything! Birthday money, Christmas money, anytime she received a dime, it went into her puppy fund. Fast forward 4 years, and she tries to hand over the $100 - to her...

Wilson Muscadin grew up knowing how to handle money. His father assigned him “book reports” rather than simply giving him an allowance. But the books he read were personal finance books, like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Millionaire Next Door and Think and Grow Rich. Unsurprisingly, Wilson learned a lot from reading these books. Well played, Dad Muscadin. Wilson handled his finances intelligently throu...

One of the most commonly asked questions in the BiggerPockets Forums is “How do I get started investing in real estate with no money?” Craig Curelop has the perfect answer to this question - House Hacking! Craig shares his own story of three house hacks - and counting! We dive into the numbers, look at what makes a good property to house hack, and even talk about the different ways to hack your ho...

The absolute MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED question I get about Early Retirement is “What do I do about healthcare?” Without going into too much detail, we’re all aware that healthcare costs are fairly ridiculous in America. Not properly planning for healthcare can be catastrophic - one unexpected event can literally wipe you out. Lynn Frair from FIHealthcare.com joins us today to share the results of her...

All the BiggerPockets podcast hosts on stage in one place!  This bonus episode was recorded at the BiggerPockets Conference 2019 on October 7th in front of a live audience of more than 1,000 people at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tenn. We turned the mics over to our members, who fired a bunch of great questions at Scott Trench and Mindy Jensen, Brandon Turner and David Greene, Joshua...

Financial mistakes can have a HUGE impact on your future retirement savings - the opportunity costs can be enormous! In this episode, Scott and Mindy discuss some of the biggest mistakes you can make financially, and ways to avoid them so you can give yourself the highest potential for financial independence. Mindy and Scott move past previously discussed mistakes such as housing and transportatio...

Personal finance is easy, right? You read a blog or listen to a podcast and just follow everything they did. Easy, Peasy, Lemon Squeezy. Except that’s not how the world works. What brought success to one person may bring misery - and ultimately failure - to someone else. Personal Finance is P-E-R-S-O-N-A-L! Of course that said, there are some general principles that apply to everyone:  Spend less...