The idea of college comes with a lot of questions—but there is one question that isn't usually asked: is college worth the cost ? Most would say yes, but the honest answer is sometimes. Today’s guest, Robert Farrington, the College Investor, answers college questions in a detailed manner to help you make profitable decisions on your higher education choices. Robert goes over how to look at college as a business decision rather than a necessity. A deciding factor in any college decision should be...
May 02, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 297
Everyone has experienced negative cash flow . If you have a troublesome rental property, you may experience negative cash flow. If you have a low income but an appetite for expensive eateries, you may also experience negative cash flow. But, more common than most, if you’re in the early stages of building your small business, negative cash flow may be a harsh but hard to mitigate reality. Chris is feeling the sting of sinking purse strings every month. At the start of 2020, Chris left his old jo...
Apr 29, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 296
Early retirement was a goal for today’s guest, Antoinette Munroe, the moment she started making money. Her money journey started in second grade when she sold her Halloween candy for extra cash. By high school, she graduated to selling a wide variety of different things and even started her own distribution network with her cousins at their respective schools. By the time she got to college, her main focus was staying out of trouble, avoiding debt and saving. It wasn’t until her last semester of...
Apr 25, 2022•57 min•Ep. 295
Index funds and rental properties are at opposite ends of the investing spectrum. On one side, you have highly diversified, almost entirely passive index funds. On the other, you have cash-flowing, yet far more hands-on, rental properties. Both of these beloved types of investments belong in (almost) every investor's portfolio, but how much should you have of one or the other? Today’s guest Cecilia has built a strong net worth while keeping her income high and expenses low. She bought at the bot...
Apr 22, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 294
A master’s degree shows quite simply that you’re a master (at least to some extent) in a certain subject. For decades, getting a master’s degree has been seen as a financially savvy move to open you up to higher pay, better job opportunities, and golden networking connections. But times have changed, and as more students see college as an inferior option to working, it begs the question: is a graduate degree worth the price? You can’t know the answer unless you compile tens of thousands of piece...
Apr 18, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 293
Financial independence is not a new concept to Carl and Mindy Jensen. For as long as they’ve been together, Carl and Mindy have been open and upfront about their financial situations. When they learned about the FIRE movement , they knew they had an all-time goal to hit. Fortunately for them, they hit it earlier than they needed, but has their current spending forced them to recalculate what it takes to hit financial freedom? Welcome back to Carl and Mindy's Spending Summary, or as we’re naming ...
Apr 15, 2022•38 min•Ep. 292
eBay flipping isn’t something new. You’ve probably bought something on eBay that was sold by a reseller. Maybe a type of makeup you liked got discontinued. Maybe your favorite pair of jeans from a nationwide chain suddenly disappeared. For eBay resellers like today's guest, Tom Brickman (The Frugal Gay), it’s all about finding the products that people love but can’t get a hold of anymore. Tom is a master of frugality . Raised by a real estate investor, he knew what cash flow could do to a nine-t...
Apr 11, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 291
Renting vs. buying a home , debt payoff, and the best investments of 2022 are just a few of the topics discussed in this week’s Finance FAQs. That’s right, we’re here with a new segment where Scott and Mindy take your questions directly from the BiggerPockets Money Facebook group and give answers so you can make smarter investing, saving, and life-changing decisions. In this episode, we get into questions from a range of different financial situations. We have questions about debt payoff schedul...
Apr 08, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 290
Real estate and early retirement go hand in hand. Most people think that it’ll take years (or decades) to build up enough cash flow to simply break even on your monthly expenses (lean FI). Those people probably aren’t thinking as big as today’s guest, Hugh Carnahan, who retired in only three years thanks to speed, diligence, and a courageous amount of risk-taking. You’d probably assume that to retire in three years, Hugh had to be a very financially adept person. Well, you’d be 100% wrong! Hugh ...
Apr 04, 2022•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 289
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 streams of income —her contract work, her eBay business, her rental portfolio, and her husband's job. ...
Apr 01, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 288
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. Maybe you’re nervous to talk to your boss, maybe you feel unprepared, or maybe you just find it hard...
Mar 28, 2022•53 min•Ep. 287
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 it possible with such inconsistent income? This is how Eric Dunn has been feeling lately. After payi...
Mar 25, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 286
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 market, or our current state of high inflation. In, How I Lost Money in Real Estate Before It Was Fa...
Mar 21, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 285
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 biggest budget busters and wins, plus why budgets are meant to be adjusted when life permits. Carl an...
Mar 18, 2022•39 min•Ep. 284
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 bank account? Tiffany Grant from Money Talk with Tiff spent over a decade building the income streams t...
Mar 14, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 283
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 freedom. This couldn’t be more wrong. Even if you feel like you’re a late bloomer when it comes to i...
Mar 11, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 282
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 it costs ten percent more than you originally accounted for? These are all questions that average A...
Mar 07, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 281
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 reserved for those with proven investing experience. While some of these strategies are as simple as ...
Mar 04, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 280
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, that’s not a terribly safe way to live, especially when you’re working with a (relatively) fixed inco...
Feb 28, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 279
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 life change (like leaving your job), there is no better time than NOW to start tracking your expenses...
Feb 25, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 278
“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 free time, relationships, and mental health. Pete McPherson foresaw this “ hustle culture ” taking o...
Feb 21, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 277
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 go awry. Nothing says “let’s start the month off right” like car repairs , furnace replacements, and ...
Feb 18, 2022•47 min•Ep. 276
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 squeaky clean financial figures, they’ve realized recently that they have to tighten up their systems to...
Feb 14, 2022•55 min•Ep. 275
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 profits with his partners. Connor runs a lot of the operation for these rental properties. He has a b...
Feb 11, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 274
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. Dr. David is a renowned “robot surgeon”, operating on patients using the finest precision that mod...
Feb 07, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 273
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 less money to invest, leaving you with less compound interest . If you’ve been asking for someone to a...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 272
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 sixteen for fun! As Jesse grew older, he continued to track his expenses regularly, allowing him to hav...
Jan 31, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 271
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 very well. Kevin’s story was posted on the BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group , where he relived th...
Jan 28, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 270
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 conservatively. When things ended poorly 8 years later he sued her 25 times, not including when he sued her mot...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 269
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 phenomenal benefits, and isn’t planning on quitting anytime soon. That being said, Paul has had the itc...
Jan 21, 2022•58 min•Ep. 268
