In this week’s episode, we talk about how the FIRE community traditionally defines Financial Independence (FI) and how you can use that information to help you plan your own life. We explain the ever-popular 4% rule and dig into the benefits and drawbacks. Finally, and most importantly, we share how you can establish your own criteria for FI.
In this week’s episode, we discuss the gift economy and how you can use it to improve your finances, community, and happiness. We talk about how to join and leverage buy nothing groups, borrow things from neighbors on facebook neighborhood groups, and other ideas to drive a gift economy for yourself and those in your community. Changing your mentality about consumerism and what you need to personally buy and own can improve your community, make you happy, save the environment, and save you money...
In this week’s episode, we talk about using automation to improve your finances and create strong financial habits. We explain why automation can be so impactful and then talk through the specific ways you can automate your finances and some extra tips and tricks to make the most of automation. You can automate your savings, investments, paying your bills, tracking your expenses, tracking your net worth, and much more. Automation saves you time, creates positive habits, and pushes you to increas...
In this week’s episode, we share tips and advice for how to talk to your partner about money. Getting aligned with your partner about money can be such a positive boost for your relationship. Money is the number one issue couples fight about, and it’s a topic many couples avoid discussing altogether. It’s great if you and your partner are already on the same page when it comes to money, but this isn’t the case for many people. We share why talking to your partner about money is important, share ...
In this week’s episode, we share a mid-year expense review for both of our families. And for a special treat, we invite our spouses to join us as we share and review our 6-months of expense tracking. We start by reminding everyone why we track our expenses and specifically how we each track our expenses. Then, finally, we talk through what we’re feeling good about, what we’d like to continue to improve upon, and what we can learn from seeing each other’s expenses.
In this week’s episode, we talk about one of the most popular debt payoff strategies, Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball Method. It’s been around for a long time and has helped many people get rid of their debt. But this doesn’t mean it’s the best strategy for paying off your debt and maximizing your financial recovery. We discuss our thoughts on this method and explain why you should ignore it. And then provide you the reasons why a different method is better!
In this week’s episode, we talk with A Purple Life, who recently retired at the age of 30 after spending a decade getting her cost of living low through a mix of frugal living, lifestyle decisions, and geoarbitrage. In her 20s, she realized she didn’t want a traditional career, wanted a different life, and created an intentional plan to retire by 35. She shares her journey with us, and we dig into her childhood, being a 3rd generation early retiree, how she keeps her expenses so low, what quitti...
In this week’s episode, we reflect on our recent family vacations, more recently known as vaxications. Mike went to Colorado; Maggie went to the US Virgin Islands. They were very different trips, but you can learn a lot from the details of other people’s travels, especially when they share their detailed costs. So we’re sharing the specifics, including all the costs. We break down what we spent across airfare, lodging, car rental, food, activities, clothing, and gifts.
In this week’s episode, we share how you can and should appeal your annual property tax assessment. If you can do this successfully, you can save hundreds or potentially even thousands on your annual real estate property taxes. Maggie has successfully done this twice, using a 3rd party service and doing it herself. We talk through the step-by-step process, and like all things, you do it yourself or pay a 3rd party service to do it for you. We also share a template you can use for your property a...
In this week’s episode, we talk about spending more time with our kids, friends, and family and how this is a strong case for achieving financial independence. We share the reasons it’s hard to spend quality time with your kids as they age, through what’s left of you at night and on the weekends, and through limited vacations. We also talk about how tragically brief the time is we have with our kids and how we’re working so hard to provide for our families, yet the irony is that means we spend l...
In this week’s episode, we talk with the Wealth Twins, also known as Nadia and Nicole. Nadia and Nicole both went to Columbia University and spent decades working in investment banking and financial services. They retired early in their 30s and are now entrepreneurs, investors, and passionate about teaching others how to reach financial independence. We discuss the advantages of growing up poor, what gifts their mother taught them, how they learned to save money, how they learned to avoid materi...
In this week’s episode, we delve into a discussion on friends, family, and money. We started this podcast because we both learned first-hand that talking to your friends about money can improve everyone’s finances. Yet, for some reason, most people do not talk to their friends or family about money? It’s a taboo topic. But it shouldn’t be. We discuss why friends don’t talk about money, the benefits of talking to your friends or family about money, and some ideas for opening up the conversation....
It’s our 100th podcast episode, so this week we’re having a 100th episode extravaganza! We ask each other some surprise questions and share our reflections from podcasting 100 episodes over the last year and a half. We also share our favorite episodes, read some recent reviews, answer some listener questions, and share a mid-year goal check-in. And Mike finally unveils that he’s been saving up 99 episodes worth of bloopers, of mostly Maggie.
In this episode, we talk about a summer purge to rid your house of all the worthless or unnecessary stuff you’ve accumulated over the years. We all have those items that we’ve moved from house to house and just won’t let go; but have you stopped and asked yourself why it’s so unthinkable to get rid of those things? We discuss the psychology behind attachment and provide some tips for decluttering your possessions once and for all.
In this week’s episode, we discuss eleven tips for planning your dream “vaxication”, which is a post-vaccination vacation. People are excited to travel again, but there are some new challenges to navigate when it comes to transportation and hospitality and some great opportunities! We share our summer vacation plans and tips for making the best of cost-effective summer travel during this unique time.
In this week’s episode, we discuss the emerging trend of revenge-spending. As vaccinations increase and our year of the world being in quarantine starts to show signs of opening up, consumers have a pent-up need to do things and buy things. People feel like their opportunity to live life and spend money was taken from them, and now they are out for “revenge.” But don’t let this hurt your finances too hard. We encourage you to be thoughtful about where to “revenge spend” and don’t lose the moment...
In this week’s episode, we discuss the less-known path of financial freedom, what it is, why you might want it, and how to attain it. The FIRE, or “financial independence retire early,” movement isn’t about retiring early to do nothing; it’s really about seeking financial freedom. And financial freedom attained on many different levels gives you options in life. And options and freedom bring with it a level of security and happiness. Most people think they have to work until they are 65 or 70 be...
In this week’s episode, we discuss how nobody cares and how realizing and accepting that can save you a lot of money! You’ll be truly happy when you’re spending money on what makes you happy, not what you think other people will admire or respect. People are not thinking about you nearly as much as you think they are; they are busy thinking about themselves. Yes, they might notice when something is particularly fancy or new, but they quickly forget and then definitely don’t care about it.
In this week’s episode, we share 10+ tips for creating a frugal home office to get ready for the new normal. We discuss the future of working from home after major companies have started to minimize their office space and establish more clear long-term plans for remote work. We share our advice for how to establish an effective home office that will keep you working productively and comfortably, and won’t break the bank. We dig into your home-office location, technology, ergonomics, DIY dry eras...
In this week’s episode, we talk to Haley and Justin from the Price of Avocado Toast podcast. Haley and Justin share their story of inheriting $600K, quickly spending it and getting in more debt, and then completing a total 180 and turning around their finances. They share their thoughts on lifestyle inflation, fulfillment and what creates happiness, and how they are still paying for their past decisions. They now live more intentionally, with less and on a budget, but are so much happier. And th...
In this week’s episode, we dive into our biggest financial pet peeves that drive us crazy, and then our best financial power moves that make us happy. These pet peeves range from slightly annoying to the type of things you should try to avoid at all cost, and these power moves can have such a positive impact on your financial situation. Our pet peeves include shaming others, not taking your company’s 401-k match, buying your kids everything they ask for, mortgage misconceptions, misleading sales...
In this week’s episode, we talk to Jose Hernandez from Millennial Money Mentor. Jose and his family came to the US as hard-working immigrants with little money and even less understanding of money. After ending his baseball career earlier than he had hoped, he landed his dream job with a large financial firm. He then made the brave decision to leave that job and grow The Millennial Money Mentor full-time. Jose saw first-hand what it was like to grow up socioeconomically disadvantaged and financi...
In this week’s episode, we discuss why we think you do not need a financial planner. We explain the different types of financial planners, why we believe you can do better on your own, and how to get started without one. We also share our personal stories of experiences, and what we’ve learned over the last two decades. In our experience, financial planners cost a lot and that money could instead be invested, you can do it better yourself, you have to put in work either way, there’s value in lea...
It’s the official one-year anniversary of covid quarantine in the US, and when covid sent many of us to work from home. Happy anniversary, and what a year it’s been! We don’t want to make light of the devastating impact the pandemic has had on people; so many people have died, so many jobs lost. But it’s also important to use difficult times to take a moment to step back and reflect and grow. So in this episode, we each share our top five reflections on the past year.
This week we discuss tactical advice for buying a house or any home that you want to own vs. rent. This is a part 2 follow-up to last week’s episode on whether you should buy a house vs. rent. If you’ve decided to buy a house, it’s important to understand what the process will look like. We dig into the more tactical steps and advice in the home buying process to ensure you have a smooth experience.
In this episode, we discuss the benefits of renting vs. buying a house and if you should buy a house just because interest rates are low right now. We start with a voicemail from a listener and discuss her question about buying a home for the first time. There is a lot of pressure on renters to buy homes right now, but it’s not unique today. There is always pressure on people to buy homes like buying cars and clothes and everything else. So we dig into how first-time home buyers and all buyers s...
We talk with Kiersten and Julien, the power couple behind Rich + Regular. They created Rich + Regular in 2017, and it has grown into an award-winning blog, social platform, media brand, and they are now in the process of writing a book with the world's largest publisher, Penguin Random House. Their mission is to inspire better conversations about money, and so we do just that, we have a conversation about money. We discuss our experiences working in the same company in Corporate America, how rac...
In this episode, we discuss Glennon Doyle’s amazing book Untamed and talk about our feelings on being caged and how to use money to get free. Maggie recommended Untamed to Mike in 2020 because she thought it was relevant to him raising two daughters. But after reading and discussing, there are many deeper narratives about life and money. The book is really about being trapped in your own life and how over time we create a life that really isn’t ours. A big part of that is the search for money an...
In this week’s episode, we talk about how you can avoid being a victim of over-scoping or upselling. Have you ever taken your car to a dealership to fix a headlight and leave with $2,000 of repairs you didn’t know you needed? Or did you ever hire someone to mow your lawn and end up with $100 a week of chemical treatments? Or perhaps you called AT&T to lower your cell phone bill and end up with fiber internet, TV, and HBO? This is all part of a ubiquitous sales tactic Mike likes to call “over sco...
We talk with Julia Menez, who is a travel hacking coach, speaker, and founder of Geobreeze Travel. Travel hacking is the art of getting free travel, using loyalty programs set by hotels and airlines, and credit cards. Julie traveled to more than 30 countries before she was 30, and has saved thousands by travel hacking. We think Julia has her Ph.D. in travel hacking, but we hope this discussion encourages you to start learning more and enjoy the benefits of more discounted and free travel. There ...
