Nick Groover is 25, with a young daughter and a fiance, looking to make changes to his finances so he can start married life off on the right foot. He has some debts he'd like to knock out so he can start investing in real estate, and potentially start a business. He just got a promotion and a raise, and on paper is doing pretty good. But Nick needs to start budgeting, because a dollar here and five dollars there is eating up his overage, so there is very little to save. In today's episode, Scot...
Nov 02, 2020•58 min•Ep. 149
Chris Hogan joins Scott and Mindy today to chat about becoming an everyday millionaire. Chris and his team interviewed more than 10,000 millionaires to hear how they did it. Hard work, determination, spending less than you make, investing wisely, and eliminating debt. Chris shares how to discuss your finances with your spouse - and how to bring them on board when you have differing views about money. He talks about the emotional journey that debt paydown can take you on - and how to handle that ...
Oct 26, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 148
Cathleen Hutchins grew up in Hawaii. She come over to the mainland for college, but Hawaii kept calling her name, so she moved back home. Hawaii is an expensive place to live, and Cathleen knew she'd need a plan in order to reach financial independence if she was going to live there for the rest of her life. So she saved. She invested. She made smart decisions about her money and is continuously looking for ways to generate passive income to help fund her retirement. She has also sacrificed some...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 147
Ambus Hunter grew up with a fair understanding of how money works. He received a partial scholarship to play drums in college, and graduated with a small amount of student loan debt. His first job was with the Department of Defense, making a decent salary for someone who had just graduated from college. He started saving his money, like a good FI-devotee does, but his story takes a sharp left turn. Ambus discovered gambling. At first, he was winning. (That's how it goes with gambling, right?) Bu...
Oct 12, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 146
Chelsea Brennan was a hedge fund manager for several years - until her second pregnancy when she ended up in the hospital with sever complications brought on by the stress and emotional toll her job took on her. She and her husband looked over their savings and investments, and decided that she'd leave her job in order to focus on her health and her kids. Her baby was born healthy, but their income went from six figures to zero figures, and she needed a way to bring some money in. She looked bac...
Oct 05, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 145
Kirk Chisholm is a fee-only investment advisor with a secret passion - finding new and different ways to invest money. Kirk shares his Big List of 75 Alternative Investments with us today - and more importantly, how to vet the investment vehicle to see if it's right for you. Not everything is a great fit for every person, and you certainly don't have to choose everything on the list. Play to your strengths when choosing investments and don't discount passion for an idea. If you HATE the thought ...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 144
Shannon Gauthier discovered the debt she and her husband had gotten themselves into when a debt collector caller her at work and she started asking questions. Shocked to discover $30,000 in unpaid debts, she quickly found herself a single mom as her husband left. She tried to pay them off as best she could, but found herself somedays deciding whether to buy a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas to get to work. Fast forward a year, and she met a new man who brought significant debt with him to the ...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 143
Scott & Mindy sit down today to answer questions sent in by listeners. They address topics all over the board - from student loan repayment and early retirement account withdrawal under the CARES act, to the best high-yield savings accounts, and planning for the gap between early retirement and traditional retirement age when you can access your retirement accounts penalty free. Scott & Mindy also discuss different investing platforms as well as retirement planning, taxes, and even how i...
Sep 14, 2020•58 min•Ep. 142
Blake Nielson is a college professor whose wife stays home to raise their four children. Despite having only one income - and six mouths to feed - they have paid off their home and are on the path to early financial freedom. Blake currently loves his job and has no plans to stop working - but still wants the freedom that financial independence gives. So how did he do it? He started off debt free from college, a HUGE leg up in life in general. Blake details just how he accomplished this feat, fro...
Sep 07, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 141
Belinda Rosenblum is a CPA, a certified coach and her clients include Harvard Business School, Harvard University and the SEC. She’s worked for Arthur Andersen and L3 Enterprises. She’s got money all figured out, right? Well, she does now… On today’s episode, Belinda shares her biggest money mistake - ignoring a giant pile of mail as she cared for her recovering father. Once she cleared that up, she focused on her own finances, growing her net worth to more than $1 million by the time she was 33...
Aug 31, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 140
Life Insurance is the most exciting topic on the planet! Just kidding. But just because it isn’t a super exciting topic doesn’t mean you don’t need to know about it. Today, Joe Saul-Sehy, host of the Stacking Benjamins podcast, joins Scott and Mindy to talk about Life Insurance. Joe comes from a background as a financial planner and was licensed to sell every type of insurance product available. Joe is here today because he understands how life insurance works - how it's priced, how you can use ...
Aug 24, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 139
Farnoosh Torabi grew up talking about money. Her parents are from the Middle East, and in her culture, they “never miss a moment to talk about money.” As the go-to girl for finance advice among her friends, imagine her surprise when she sat down and looked at her financial situation to discover tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt! Farnoosh realized that paying for everything with a card, then paying the minimum balances didn’t lead to debt free life. Not wanting to continue a life o...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 138
Felicity’s story to financial independence is going to be similar to listeners of The BiggerPockets Money Podcast. She got a good paying job, spent less than she earned, intelligently invested in Index Funds and is now financially independent at the age of 30. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Except, it’s NOT that easy, actually. She lives in America, and for much of that time, she lived in a very high cost of living city, Boston. Felicity rented a 250 sq ft apartment with her husband, Fergus, while ...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 137
Doug Nordman wanted to teach his daughter about money. But he knew that to get it right, he’d have to start when she was very very small. So he did. First, he taught her how to count, then he taught her how to add, then he showed her what she could do with money by using cash in transactions. As Carol got older, she was able to handle the cash herself, learning how to make change, count change, etc. Carol started “earning” her own money, through allowance and jobs - which could only be done afte...
Aug 03, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 136
Seth Williams invests in real estate in a way you may have never heard of before. He buys and sells land. And no, he’s not a developer. He literally buys a piece of blank dirt, and then sells it—frequently within days of buying it—for fairly high margins. And he does this without taking out loans for the purchase. How? He’s paying hundreds of dollars for this land, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a piece of land with a house on top of it. He turns around and sells it quickly, ...
Jul 27, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 135
Chris Browning had dreams of creating movies for Pixar - until he started art classes in college and realized that wasn’t his calling. He was also taking a personal finance class and thoroughly enjoyed it, so he changed his major to finance and never looked back. Chris should have perfect finances, right? Well… Chris found himself in debt after graduating in 2009 and working as a bank teller, trying to impress his girlfriend (now wife). He took control of his finances, telling his girlfriend tha...
Jul 20, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 134
Doc G wanted to be a doctor since he was eight years old. He went to medical school, started his career and quickly realized he actually didn’t like all the parts about being a doc - and didn’t know how to leave the profession . Something he’d wanted for 20 years suddenly wasn’t so awesome anymore. Cue The White Coat Investor . He’d written a book and asked Doc G to read it and review it for his medical blog - and suddenly Doc G saw a way out! This way out didn’t have the expected results, howev...
Jul 13, 2020•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 133
Marquez Griffin graduated from high school but did not feel that college was his path. His uncle worked in a sheet metal shop, and was able to get him a job there. He quickly learned that taking a bit of action with regards to his sheet metal training would catapult him higher in his earnings, so he enrolled in trade school and alternated between work and school to learn the trade faster. His earnings rose as he completed coursework, but Marquez found himself unexcited about his path and started...
Jul 06, 2020•54 min•Ep. 132
Kevin Matthews II started paying attention to finance way back in 6th grade - because his parents said they wouldn’t buy him any more video games, he’d have to buy them himself. Kevin’s parents telling him no propelled him into a lifelong planner - saving up for purchases rather than buying and figuring out how to pay it off later. And he parlayed his planning skills into a career as a financial advisor, eventually being named one of Investopedia’s Top 100 Advisors in 2017. Kevin is passionate a...
Jun 29, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 131
Susan and Norm got married a little later in life. They started off basically flat, with debts equalling assets. Neither wanted to have the debt, and focused on paying it off and building an emergency fund. Then they discovered that they could retire early if they put their minds to it. So they jumped in with both feet, paid off the mortgage, bought an investment condo, paid it off, and aggressively saved to buy the second condo. From the time they met until the time they were ready to retire, s...
Jun 22, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 130
Today, we welcome back the Budgetnista, Tiffany Aliche . When we spoke to her way back in episode 8, we heard her story of an investment gone wrong and how 2008 really threw a monkey wrench into her life plans. But instead of allowing that to deter her, Tiffany committed to teaching people how to budget. Since we last spoke, she has expanded her original, uber-successful Live Richer Challenge ( www.livericherchallenge.com ) into a savings edition, a credit edition, a net worth edition, and a hom...
Jun 15, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 129
Whitney Hanson is one of six children. Growing up she watched her father start a business, watched it fail, and watched him turn destructive, eventually leaving her mother to raise six kids on her own - all while making $7.25 an hour. Whitney has seen the ugly side of money - and what can happen when you have none - and decided she wanted no part of it. Money equals options, and she wanted as many options as she could get! She began to research how to build wealth, because she did not want to pe...
Jun 08, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 128
Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You To Be Rich is back again to chat with Scott & Mindy about money, unexpected events, and taking advantage of opportunities by being prepared. Ramit does not hold back with his advice that the Coronavirus should be a financial wakeup call to you. A crisis like this WILL happen again (maybe not viral) and NOW is the time to prepare yourself. He’s increased his recommended Emergency Fund to one year of expenses. If you’re struggling right now, you should be maki...
Jun 01, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 127
Financial Education is so important - but so many people are graduating high school without the basic skills to make informed decisions. Today, Scott & Mindy sit down to share some of the big money moves you should make - as well as some of the big money mistakes you should avoid. These are the tips you didn't learn in high school. From choosing a major wisely (or even deciding if college is truly the right choice for you) to paying for college, to truly understanding just how much it will c...
May 25, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 126
In today’s episode, we speak with Fritz Gilbert from The Retirement Manifesto and go through his checklist to ensure a smooth transition into your new life. Fritz speaks from experience and wrote the checklist during his own transition, starting five years out. Oh yes, FIVE YEARS. If you want a smooth transition, you’ll need to plan ahead. Scott and Mindy go through the checklist with Fritz, starting at five years before your retirement date. (They even touch on what to do BEFORE five years out....
May 18, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 125
Gerry Born is a teacher who is married to a teacher. He started his financial independence journey when he was 33—with a wife, $45,000 in college debt, and a job in Saudi Arabia teaching English as a second language (ESL). He knocked out his debt in two years, then threw everything he could into savings. The ESL job provided everything but internet and phone, so he really didn’t need to spend much money if he didn’t want to. After 9/11, they moved back to the United States and got jobs teaching—...
May 11, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 124
Joining us today is Avery Heilbron , a listener on his way to financial independence through real estate investing. But Avery isn’t going all out and buying up every property as fast as he can. He’s making calculated purchases that allow him to live for free - and also cashflow while he’s there even though he lives in a high cost of living area. Once he moves out, that cashflow increases even more! Avery is also thinking ahead, and mitigating his risk of non-payment of rent by using the Section ...
May 04, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 123
Scott and Mindy have focused on Coronavirus for the last few episodes - talking to experts about how the virus has affected the stock market, the 4% rule, and even early retirees. They’ve interviewed Financial Planners to get tips for using the current market conditions to their advantage, as well as chatted with a mortgage broker to determine the best time to refinance. In this episode, Scott and Mindy talk about lifestyle creep - and how they have both been affected over the last couple of yea...
Apr 27, 2020•54 min•Ep. 122
In this episode, Mortgage Broker Seth Jones talks about the current mortgage market. We discuss mortgage forbearance - how it affects your credit and why it's NOT a good idea to go into forbearance if you can still make your mortgage payments. We also talk about mortgages - how to apply for a new loan or refinance, what lenders are looking for and how to get the best rate on your new loan. We'll also dive into comparison shopping and how to choose the right lender. Lending is tightening up, whil...
Apr 20, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 121
Michael Kitces joins us today to talk about Early Retirement - and how the recent stock market movement affects the FIRE Community and the 4% rule. We spend a lot of time on the 4% rule - including this graph which illustrates what Michael discusses - basically, there is an ultra-high probability that you will come to the end of 30 years with MORE money than you started out with, and an extremely LOW chance you’ll spend it all. In fact, only one time does the retirement fund hit zero - and even ...
Apr 13, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 120
