Whether you believe it or not, we have all heard the age old saying money can’t buy happiness, but there certainly is a relationship between your personal finances and your happiness. Maybe it’s time to change your mindset. People who earn a more are often happier than people who live in poverty, but it’s not just about the money itself. It is about providing insurance that you and your family can live a comfortable life no matter what life throws at you. Many of us think we only need so much to...
Feb 01, 2016•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been too long since we’ve done a five questions episode. Today we talk about lotto, stock games, APR, diversification, and student loans. Five questions are back! We answer questions we get through e-mail and the LMM Community. 1. What would you do if you won the lottery? Thomas doesn’t want money he didn’t earn so if he somehow won the lottery, he would hand it over to various charities. Andrew actually did buy tickets, $20 worth. He thinks winning the lottery would ruin his life because i...
Jan 25, 2016•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s the time of year to reflect on the past twelve months and set goals for the new year. What does figure skating have to do with it? Tune in to find out. At LMM we prefer the word “goals” to “resolution.” Resolution has almost come to mean failure in three weeks time. We think framing our resolutions as goals will help us reach them. Sometimes you just have to trick your brain! Why January 1? You can see the appeal. Everyone likes a clean slate and the slate is never cleaner than it is on Jan...
Jan 04, 2016•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Want to level up your life? Steve Kamb from Nerd Fitness joins us to discuss turning your life into a game. We’ve discussed the ways being physically fit and financially fit are similar. Steve Kamb learned that when he started Nerd Fitness. His health improved alongside his finances. He turned his life into a video game with himself as the protagonist. Now he’s written a book on how we can do that too, Level Up Your Life. Nerd Fitness Steve was working a sales job he hated and wasn’t very good a...
Dec 21, 2015•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Look at your family, just sitting there costing you money. Slackers should be making you money, pulling their weight! We found a way to do it. We will show you how to turn your family into a profitable business with Natali Morris. Incorporate Your Family The tax system is not set up to benefit the individual; it’s set up to benefit businesses because businesses drive the economy. That’s why eleven companies on the S&P 500 who made profits last year paid less in income tax than you. How much less...
Dec 14, 2015•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Adam Carroll joins us to discuss how to actually save thousands on your mortgage with home equity lines of credit. When we interviewed Adam for our new Rich Tips series, he mentioned how he is paying off his mortgage years ahead of schedule and saving thousands of dollars in interest. We were intrigued and asked him to join us to explain his strategy in greater detail. What Is A Home Equity Line Of Credit? A home equity line of credit, HELOC, is “An open ended line of credit extended to a homeow...
Dec 07, 2015•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ace Chapman joins us to explain how to buy a business. Something he’s been doing for sixteen years and it’s made him a millionaire. Ace was on the usual college path when the opportunity to buy a business fell into his lap. He was playing with an online stock simulator that crashed a lot and found the company unresponsive. He reached out with an offer to help, merely hoping for an internship. Instead, he was offered the chance to buy the business for $70,000. Ace had just $3,000. What he also ha...
Nov 23, 2015•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our listener Eric has made an appearance in the past to school us on bonds. Today he’s back to teach us about inflation. What Is Inflation? Economic concepts can be broken down into the micro and the macro. Micro looks at the smaller picture concerning the behaviors of individual consumers and businesses. Macro is the study of the economy as a whole and where inflation falls. Inflation is one economic concept that most of us see on a regular basis. It’s the purchasing power of your money, the ge...
Nov 16, 2015•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we interview Bobby Monks and Justin Jaffy about their book, Uninvested and understanding the pitfalls of Wall Street. Bobby Monks calls himself a “chronic entrepreneur” and as such, understands the dirty dealings happening on Wall Street and how they effect the average investor. Justin was new to the subject of finance but a journalist who wanted to know more. Together with a third author, Bree LaCasse, they wrote Uninvested: How Wall Street Hijacks Your Money and How to Fight Back. The Bo...
Nov 09, 2015•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we interview Joan Sotkin of Prosperity Place, who approaches money in a holistic way. Because listen, emotion matters when it comes to money. Joan’s Story Joan comes from a family of compulsive debtors. She was born in 1940, a time when women’s roles were pretty prescribed. Joan got married and started on the prescribed path. She became a teacher but didn’t like teaching any more than she liked being married. She felt out of place. Looking for something else, she started studying what she ...
Nov 02, 2015•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast You may have a budget but what if you have a big life change? Move cities, have a baby, buy a home. Budgeting for a lifestyle change can make or break you. You got the new job in a new place, your family grows, you need to care for a parent. Your old budget won’t do. A New Place What if your new job involves a big change of location? Moving from the suburbs to a city for example. Will you still need a car? Will there be a place to park your car? Maybe, but it might not be free and if it is free,...
Oct 26, 2015•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Learning how to negotiate is not just a nice to have skill – it’s critical. Everything from your salary to your purchases to even your relationship requires it. Here we break it down for you and give you the knowledge you need to hit the ground running. Perhaps the most important thing you need to understand is that most successful negotiations come with skill and practice, not force. We’re not going to show you how to strong arm your opponent or debate them into submission. Instead we’ve create...
Oct 19, 2015•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Have you ever thought about starting a Kickstarter campaign? We interview Chez Brungraber about how she did it for her travel bag. It takes some doing to get people to give you money for something that doesn’t yet exist. Chez tells us how she did it. Kickstarter is a place to get funding for a product that is still a prototype or a project that hasn’t been completed. The first rule is to have a product that you believe in. Once you have that, you have to get the word out, friends, family, blogge...
Oct 12, 2015•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast We haven’t done a Five Questions for awhile! We’re back to answer your questions about minimum wage, lending money and debt. We get a lot of questions and if one of you is wondering, more of you are wondering. How can you get by on minimum wage? Well, first of all, you have to live in a place like Iowa where the cost of living is very low. You also need to take advantage of any social programs you might be eligible for, low income housing, food assistance, reduced cost utilities. Work as many ex...
Oct 05, 2015•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Early retirement sounds ideal but is it always? Retire or not to retire with Roger Whitney, the retirement answer man. Roger believes rather than setting retirement goals, we should set retirement priorities. Not that you shouldn’t have goals. But when retirement is decades away, priorities are more flexible. The closer you get to retirement, the more you can concentrate on making concrete goals. Roger believes you should decide what your ideal retirement would be, not what you think you can aff...
Sep 14, 2015•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast We receive a lot of questions on these topics so we brought in an expert. Today we discuss wills, trusts, and estate planning with Tyler. This is a big topic so we brought in a member of the LMM Community Forums who deals with this for a living. Tyler and is estate planner and a lawyer in the military. Put simply, estate planning is deciding where you want your stuff to go when you die or are incapacitated. Do you need a will? Probably. Do you need a will if you have a kid? Absolutely. You can’t...
Sep 07, 2015•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we welcome Forum member Chloe to discuss her finances. We’ll tell her what she’s doing well and where she needs some improvement. Chloe is a 28 year old nurse who recently got her masters and has been looking for a full time job with benefits. Even working part time, Chloe is doing pretty well. She went to small, inexpensive colleges on scholarships, federal aid, and one small loan. Most of her loan was forgiven due to her public sector work. Chloe made an incredibly detailed pro/con list ...
Aug 31, 2015•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast We interview Chris Clothier from Memphis Invest to explain real estate investments without the mess. Collect the rent check while someone else does the dirty work! Passive Income If you’ve listened to LMM for any length of time, you know how much we emphasize the importance of passive income. One of the keys to building wealth and achieving financial independence is to have more than one source of income and because there are only so many hours in a day, some of that income should be passive. Pa...
Aug 17, 2015•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fights over money are a leading cause of divorce. Andrew’s wife Laura joins us to talk about getting a reluctant spouse on board financially. Laura does a lot behind the scenes for LMM but this is her first time on the show! She was the spender to Andrew’s saver when they met. But after a few years, he whipped her into shape. Laura’s parents aren’t bad with money but they didn’t teach her enough growing up to be good with money. By the time she met Andrew, her wages were being garnished. When th...
Aug 10, 2015•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you are tired of your time and your income being tied together, you might have considered a career as a freelance writer. But can anyone actually make money writing? You can, and I do. I finally quit my full-time gig and now work for myself. I’ll show you how to become a freelance writer and quit your full-time job. Many people dismiss freelance writing, considering it not a real career. But a career is something you get paid to do. And if you can crack how to become a freelance writer and ge...
Aug 03, 2015•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast We haven’t done one of these in awhile! Better Know a Millionaire is back to see if the other 1% really live that differently to the rest of us. Today we interview millionaire Adam Dicker. Adam made his millions by selling domain names, some for as much as eight figures! Adam has been in the business for about twenty years and was a VP at Go Daddy for a few years. Adam buys and sells domains that have expired and tries to stay two to three years ahead of trends, particularly in the medical and t...
Jul 27, 2015•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do you have kids? What are you doing to teach your kids about money? Adam Carroll joins us to talk about teaching your kids the value of a dollar. Adam is one of our favorite guests here at LMM. We first met him to discuss student loan debt. Today he’s back to talk about teaching kids about money. Under-Educated More than anything, aside from health, money can make or break your life. Not in the sense that money buys happiness but that lack of money, or knowing how to handle the money you have, ...
Jul 13, 2015•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we dissect listener Andrew’s finances. What is he doing right, what is he doing wrong, and what can he do better. This financial life. Andrew is a long time listener and today he shares his financial situation with us to get some advice. Before Andrew found LMM he had student loan debt, credit card debt, high fees on what investments he had, no budget AND he bought a new car. Andrew recently married and brought about $75,000 of debt into the marriage while his wife had about $22,000 from s...
Jul 06, 2015•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast With so much of our personal fiance information floating around the internet, how can you secure your accounts? We’ll give you a few ways to stay safe. Many of us have had some aspect of our life hacked, bank account, credit card, naked photos. You have to protect your on-line information. Some sites are more secure than others. You are pretty safe at Betterment, maybe not so safe at your local carry out restaurant. So don’t use the same password over and over! Use a site like LastPass to manage...
Jun 29, 2015•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Most of us are not going to get rich simply from our jobs – we have a limited amount of time for actively working. To reach financial independence, we have to create sources of passive income. Smart real estate investing can bring in big returns and grow your net worth. Like investing in the stock market, real estate investing can seem intimidating. It’s really not though. There are just some key fundamentals you need to know before you get started. Everyone wants to be the Donald Trump of their...
Jun 22, 2015•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Today we have a This Financial Life episode with listener Lindsay. We break down her finances to see what she’s doing right and where she can use some help. Lindsay is a second grade teacher living in Seattle. We’ll help her get her financial life in order. Lindsay’s salary is a little over $58,000 a year, it’s spread over twelve months and she makes a few extra thousand teaching summer school. Lindsay decided that 2015 would be the year she stopped ignoring her finances, partly thanks to LMM! L...
Jun 15, 2015•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s important to get the most out of your day. But you can take the quest for productivity too far resulting in burn out. Find the productivity sweet spot. During Andrew’s recent burnout, he realized he was taking the need for productivity too far. Sometimes you just need a night vegging out in front of a video game. We’re all motivated by different things, the key is to find out what motivates you so your productivity isn’t scattered and ineffectual. External forces, internal? Are you a mornin...
Jun 08, 2015•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Larry Ludwig from Investor Junkie is our guest today to explain what the Federal Reserve is, does, and why you need to know. Put simply, the Fed sets monetary policy and either adds or removes money from the system. There are twelve regional Feds across the country to help manage local banks. It was created in 1913 as a way to prevent feature economic disasters. Bit of a fail I think. The chairperson is appointed by the president but is supposed to operate independently of the government. Prior ...
Jun 01, 2015•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we interview Benjamin Miller from Fundrise. Fundrise is a crowdsourcing site that allows anyone to invest in real estate. Real estate can be a great investment but you need some serious money to do it. Not anymore. Fundrise allows you to invest small or large amounts of money in various properties. We even wrote a full review of Fundrise – you should check it out! The commercial real estate market has outperformed other investment vehicles for the last thirty years. It would be great if we...
May 25, 2015•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yeah, backdoor Roth IRA sounds pretty badass – badass but complicated. Many of us have tossed around the idea of having a traditions IRA or a Roth but what if you can have the best of both worlds? There are not many times in life that allow us to have our cake and also to eat it, but this is one of those times. Quick IRA Re-Cap We could do a year of shows devoted to all things IRA and there would still be questions. They are confusing so here is a bit of a refresher on the basics. IRA stands for...
May 18, 2015•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
