Since Brett bought his first house in 2022 and his first investment property in 2023, Lauren had to ask about investing in this current environment. Brett did this deal with his grandparents, and it was a great entry point for all of them! Interestingly, the deal is out of state for all of them. Brett breaks down his numbers of his first (primary) home, a townhome. Then, the two transition to breaking down the rental deal, and start by talking about working with family. His grandparents were doi...
Nov 27, 2023•28 min
Lauren opens by asking the obvious question, as she often does: what’s a mobile home? Rachel touches on the history of mobile homes and manufactured homes. They started as a home for rich people to take with them on their vacations! Now, they’re not moved very often in their lifetimes. They’re usually set on blocks, wheels removed, and hitches removed. Rachel points out that since 1976, HUD got involved and created some standards throughout the industry. Rachel shares how she became “Mobile Home...
Nov 14, 2023•28 min
Bonds are like IOU’s issued by governments and companies. They usually come in denominations of $1,000 with different interest rates (coupons). As yields (rates) on bonds increase, existing bond prices decrease. David (Uncommon Yield) breaks all thismdown and more for Lauren. Then, they get into the importance of the 2-year and 10-year treasury rates, and what it means when the 2-year is higher than the 10-year (when the yield curve inverts). Why do bonds matter? They underpin the whole financia...
Nov 07, 2023•24 min
In honor of both our 150th Adulting Is Easy podcast episode, our 4th podversary (which was Oct 29), AND Halloween we're replaying our most popular episode from 2022. Even if you listened to it last year, you may want to check it out again. Joe is a great STR operator and we're sure you'll get something great from this one, even on a second listen! This week, Lauren interviews Joe about his rental business, which includes both long- and short-term rentals (STRs/Airbnbs). Joe makes a great case fo...
Oct 31, 2023•45 min
Where better to kick off this interview than talking about what investing is? Mark talks about the difference between investing and gambling or speculating. He also goes into the foundation that should be set before investing. So, your personal finances need to be in order first! It’s important to take into account your risk tolerance, goals, and time horizon(s). Sometimes, though, you don’t know what your risk tolerance really is until push comes to shove. Lauren tells her own risk tolerance st...
Oct 24, 2023•20 min
Alan grew up with public school teachers as parents, so he saw wealth as a child, but he never had any. That’s why he wanted to have a million bucks by 30 – and write a book about it! He started this journey right after college, at the age of 21 or 22. Alan’s first step was to live off a small percent of what he was making. How did he save so much? He “hid” money from himself by having his HR department send a huge percent to a bank across town (remember, this was 20 years ago). Every January 1s...
Oct 17, 2023•25 min
What started as a conversation about buying a vacation home led to the realization that they couldn’t even afford a vacation! This week, Lauren interviews the Debt Free Guys, David and John, about their journey of getting out of debt, which leads to a whole conversation about their journey to becoming the Debt Free Guys, which wonderfully includes house hacking. The first step, once they realized they were in a financial mess, was to go through their inflows and outflows. That led to further que...
Oct 10, 2023•39 min
Chris Campbell has 12 credit cards – more than even fit in his wallet! Lauren asked about the difference between rewards, cash back, and travel points. Chris is a big fan of travel rewards credit cards because you basically get a better return on your spending, more than you’d get with cash back, up to 3x times more! According to Chris, you can routinely get 6% back rather than the normal 1-1.5% cash back. Chris is partial to the Chase Sapphire credit card. If you combine rewards with loyalty pr...
Oct 03, 2023•28 min
Lauren had to start by asking about his entrepreneurial journey to date, which is extensive even though he’s only 24. Andres’s drive may have simply continued when he quit baseball after taking it very seriously for 14 years. That’s when he was introduced to the world of sneaker sales. While still in college, he created a company flipping sneakers. It was a “very profitable 8 months” before the stores closed for Covid. Meanwhile, Andres was renting licenses for bots that sourced sneakers in a Di...
Sep 26, 2023•23 min
Jo has been in the short-term rental space for 8 years. He’s done both arbitrage (renting a unit from a landlord on a long-term basis and listing the unit as a short-term rental) and property management. Get this – Jo charges 20% of the NET INCOME for his PM services. The meat and potatoes of the conversation shifts to the “Airbnbust.” Jo goes into detail about his entrepreneurial ventures, including a dog resort, to guess what the future holds for the short-term rental space. He thinks it’s a b...
Sep 19, 2023•30 min
Lauren and Dave start by discussing some mistakes he made early on in his investing career. It started out OK. He was into the book The Wealthy Barber. He actually started investing religiously at 19 years old! Once he got out of college, he started raiding that investment account. So, that was the first big mistake. The second one was marrying the right person who encouraged Dave to draw down his retirement accounts for present wants. Then, the two discuss how to potentially not marry the wrong...
Sep 12, 2023•33 min
This week, Lauren interviews the Budgetdog himself, Brennan Schlagbaum. Brennan talks about parenthood and gets into what it’s like to parent a special needs child. Brennan and his wife Erin have an almost-2-year-old with Dravet syndrome. One theme woven throughout is the importance of having time, money, and health at the same time. Then, the two focus on the topic at hand: investing for your kids. The Schlagbaums started investing for their first child, Logan Lee, before she was even born. The...
Sep 05, 2023•22 min
According to Chris (and probably all STR hosts really), your cleaner is your most important team member. With a low performing cleaner, you’ll have a low performing property. Chris outlines 5 ways to find cleaners: 1) messaging other hosts on Airbnb, 2) searching online and reading through websites, 3) drive around at check out time and talk to cleaners, 4) local investor groups, like on social media, and 5) apps, like Turno. Both Lauren and Chris recommend having the same cleaner or small group...
Aug 29, 2023•30 min
Eric started his first business at 19 years old. He tried a bunch of different jobs before that, like factory work and landscaping, so he knew what he wanted out of a job. Turns out, freedom really is the best part of being an entrepreneur. You can start working at 5:30 am, or even start the day off with a walk! Eric takes issue with the quick entrepreneurship tips he sees online. Does $10k per month really mean success? Business owners need to have goals that make sense for them. Entrepreneurs ...
Aug 22, 2023•33 min
Lauren and Paul talked about what it was like to work at Airbnb when the startup environment had so much money flowing through it. They touched on the short-term effects of Covid, as well as the longer-term ones. It seems like there’s more curiosity from the general public. Of course, they had to touch on the “Airbnbust” idea. Some areas are certainly becoming oversaturated. Paul gives great advice on underwriting your deals: think of the bear case and the bull case. In the last few years, it’s ...
Aug 15, 2023•36 min
Justin received a settlement at 24 years old from his grandmother’s death from mesothelioma. He had just started dating his now wife (Haley) at the time. Not only did they spend all of it, but they also ended up in debt (although they did put a down payment on a house). Vacations, an engagement ring, a time share, but where did the rest go? They don’t really know. This situation was not sustainable, and they realized it when they bought pumpkin muffins while Haley was 8 months pregnant. Justin d...
Aug 08, 2023•25 min
Lauren interviewed the Wealth Building Waiter this week, Adam. He’s a 23-year-old who started in the restaurant business in 2020 and has worked his way up. Adam worked 6 days a week for years as a server and just recently transitioned to 3 night per week to spend more time on real estate: being a Director of a Housing program, managing and rehabbing properties, being on the board of his HOA, and being a real estate agent. Adam breaks down the mechanics of his partnership deals. How does he find ...
Aug 01, 2023•27 min
Today, Lauren interviewed the team from Nexus. Konstantin started investing 10 years ago. You get more from your money when you invest it vs let it sit in a bank account. He’s become fascinated by the numbers behind investing. When it comes to the culture around investing, many people think investing is inherently complicated. Index funds are not complicated and are a great place for new investors to start. You don’t have to day trade or read earnings calls. Should there be a foundation set befo...
Jul 25, 2023•32 min
CJ “walked on” to the NFL when he went undrafted, so Lauren of course had to ask him about that experience. They quickly transition to talking real estate. He house hacked twice to start, once with a duplex and once with a triplex. As a reminder, house hacking is when you buy a property, live in part of it and rent the rest out. He dipped his toe into short-term rentals with the triplex because it was a small studio. With that proof of concept in hand, he started thinking bigger: a 3-bedroom, 2-...
Jul 18, 2023•20 min
Change of pace this week! Lauren interviewed Clint Murphy to celebrate the 100th episode of his podcast, the Growth Guide. The two discussed success mindsets and a bunch of other topics, since the two know each other very well from doing live Twitter Spaces weekly for an entire year. This episode is being posted on both feeds today. Huge congrats to Clint and the Growth Guide team on hitting this milestone, and thanks for including Adulting Is Easy in marking this milestone! Lauren asked Clint a...
Jul 11, 2023•1 hr 29 min
Imagine slowly losing one of your senses. For 10 years, you know your time is limited with this sense you were born with but are destined to lose. That’s what happened (and is still happening) to Adam of the Blind Luck Project. Adam is kind enough to detail what it’s been like losing his vision. It’s an emotional conversation, but of course Lauren and Adam do talk about how Adam is making the best of it. Long term disability insurance plays a big role in this episode. It’s impossible to listen t...
Jul 04, 2023•23 min
This real estate investing journey started when Mike and his wife bought a house in Florida from Ohio, and started short-term renting it to friends and family only in between using it themselves. Then, the family moved to North Carolina for work. Mike got fired while his daughter was in high school. His wife also got fired. They moved into the Florida house for a short time. Now scrambling a bit, the family bought a fixer looking for appreciation, then did arbitrage. What is short-term rental ar...
Jun 27, 2023•28 min
Athena got into the personal finance content creation world to help the Latina community (and everyone) learn along with her. She’s passionate about helping her community because of the wage and income gaps present. Athena discusses the importance of diversifying income streams, as well as her investment portfolio. Since she literally wrote the (for dummies) book on budgeting, of course Lauren and Athena dove deep into this topic. The first method they talked about was zero based budgeting. The ...
Jun 20, 2023•29 min
Lauren starts by asking Suni about what it was like to compete in the Olympics. Then, they move onto a gut wrenching aha moment at the corporate job. Everyone around her was making more and doing less! Cue the personal finance wind tunnel. Suni is still working on balance, after growing up working extra hard as an athlete. She breaks down her 10 doors and reminds us you don’t have to grow for the sake of growing. Remember what your goals are! Get this… you can pay properties off if you want! The...
Jun 13, 2023•34 min
Sean got into personal finance when a boss told him to focus on his retirement. Even though he was just out of college, he listened! He and his wife have been invested every 2 weeks for almost 9 years. They’re more than set for retirement at this point. Lauren and Sean talked about maxing your match in your 401k vs maxing the match. The Wealth Dad broke down stocks, index funds, and ETFs, and why index funds are a great way to get rich and stay rich in the long term. He touched on meme stocks an...
Jun 06, 2023•38 min
James has 2 deaf parents, and he thought other families talked about money (which probably wasn’t true). So, he started researching money and found the FIRE movement. He grew up in near poverty (my word, not his), and decided he wanted his financial future to be different than his past. James knew the best way was real estate. He and his wife, Emily, were able to retire with 10 doors. It only took them 3 years to do it! They’ve converted a handful to short-term rentals (and mid-term). The two sp...
May 30, 2023•31 min
Danny started his career in investment banking. His wife was a lawyer. This was NOT conducive to the life they wanted to live. Lauren interviews Danny about side hustling, using Amazon FBA (fulfilled by Amazon) to leave his 9-5. Rather than take on flipping product full time though, he sold that business. Between that sale and real estate, his family is financial free and expanding - the two welcomed a baby girl last year. Learn how to balance your W2 with your side hustle and what to expect whe...
May 23, 2023•25 min
Bernadette (Bernadebt?) Joy went from being in debt to crushing her money goals and now she helps others too! She tells Lauren how cutting too much from your budget can be unsustainable. You must think about your mental health. A lot of people in debt suffer in silence, and it shouldn't be that way. It’s normal to take on debt for things, like houses, cars, and school. What would your life look like without loans? Shame, guilt, and depression can be associated with debt. Bernadette even said her...
May 16, 2023•31 min
Danny Rusteen wrote the book on hosting. Actually, he’s written 2 of them. According to him, living in Airbnbs is a life hack, it actually makes your life less complicated. That’s why he does it! Lauren has been rotating among her own units for years. This is a good thing – hosts should stay in their places at least a couple of times per year, according to Danny. He suggests spending time in the towns where you’re going to invest. Controversy alert: he thinks you should take your own pictures. D...
May 09, 2023•35 min
The American Dream fails people. There are other ways to make the dream happen though. Devon Kennard talks about the grueling NFL schedule and fitting in writing a book as he creates his own America Dream. Did you know they do 50-60 hours per week, plus playing on Sundays? We talked about how much NFL players really make after taxes and for how long they usually make it. The average career is 3.5 years, and injuries are always possible. On the bright side, more NFL players are talking about inve...
May 02, 2023•35 min
