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Here’s the best tip for surviving a bear attack: play dead. It will be good practice for when you’re actually dead a few seconds later. OK, maybe we aren’t talking about this kind of bear attack, but seriously…get some mace! We mean the kind of attack that happens when the stock market is down. The important thing when it comes to anything bear-related…do not panic. So, what is a bear market? A bear market is simply a period in time in which stock market prices are falling. Simple as that. A bear market is a time when most investors panic and run for dear lives like the cunning wolf above. But bear markets aren’t for panicking. In fact, there is a lot of opportunity in bear markets. As the famous investor Peter Lynch once said, You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don’t understand that’s going to happen, then you’re not ready, you won’t do well in the markets. So, if you’re unsure of what is a bull vs. bear market, this article will help clear up the difference. Are we currently in a bear market? Maybe, maybe not—but we’re certainly not in a bull market. I know many of you are logging into Betterment and freaking out, even if just a little. And, I’ll include myself in that list. My first foray into investing and the number is negative. But we’re all in the same boat so don’t panic, this isn’t the Titanic. The ship will right itself. But not overnight. This is why we preach buy and hold. Even if that number is down, it’s still better than having that money sitting in a savings account collecting zero interest. And remember, investing is only one piece of your overall financial picture. You can’t single-handedly cure Ebola or defeat ISIS. Unless, of course, you’re John Rambo. Those biceps can conquer anything! What you can do is focus on the other areas of your spending. Throw a little extra money at your debt, tighten up your spending leaks, take on a side hustle. If you just have to do something, then buy now! Remember, be greedy when others are fearful. If you are just overwhelmed by it all, ignore it. Tune it out, don’t watch the news, don’t read the financial section of the paper. Just turn a deaf ear and let it happen. Still not convinced? Okay, if you act of out fear or irrational optimism, you are handing over your money to the investment banks and sophisticated investors. This is when the professionals make mad bank. Don’t give those greedy jerks any more of your money! Similarly, selling has tax implications and the government shouldn’t be getting any more of your money either. So the takeaway is, do anything constructive. Go for a run, read a book, refinance your student loan. But leave that investment account alone! Bull vs bear market First, what is a bear market and how does it work? At its core, a bear market is fueled by pessimism. While there tends to be some kind of economic event, such as falling securities prices, to kick off bear market conditions, the issue is perpetuated by a pessimistic outlook from investors. Because of this pessimism, selling increases and there is a lower rate of investment in the market overall. A bear market is not a technical definition as much as it is an Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s Halloween and nothing is more frightening than money horror stories. Close the blinds, turn off the lights, light a candle and prepare to be scared. Matt and Andrew haven’t always been smart with money, well Andrew mostly has. But even they have finance horror stories and will share them with us. In 2007 everything Andrew touched turned to gold. He read in that secret magazine for high rollers, Forbes, that a housing company was basically printing money. In 2007. A housing company. He lost between $2-3000. Matt’s first foray into the market was Sirius. Tanked, even Howard Stern couldn’t right the ship. He also incurred over $200 in overdraft fees through various drunken misadventures. Matt got the lifetime ban hammer from ING because he may or may not have called a phone rep’s mother a very nasty word. In a McDonald’s parking lot adding to the horror. Andrew lost $450 because he forgot to sign a complicated form that was otherwise perfectly filled out. Matt cashed out a 401K incurring all the penalties that entails. Matt gave a cab driver carte blanche to charge his ATM card when his drunk friend puked outside the window. He got lucky and the bank refunded the overcharge. Matt lost a day’s take from his job. His working theory is that he left the envelope on the roof of his car. Since it’s Halloween, my theory is that it was a ghost. Or aliens. Probably aliens. It’s a scary world out there. Stay safe and have a great Halloween! Show Notes Hopfish IPA: An English style IPA. The Bowery Boys Haunted Brooklyn: Here’s a special Halloween treat. One of my favorite podcasts. If you like history or just scary stories, check out the Bowery Boys annual Halloween podcast devoted to ghost stories of Brooklyn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have lots of loose change hanging around? Or ever find a tenner in a coat pocket? Find out how to turn small change into big money. If you live in a building with coin operated laundry, you can skip this episode. We know where your change is going. But for those of us with the cool chipped laundry cards, we need something more constructive than keeping it in big coffee tins. We at LMM advocate using credit cards whenever possible so long as they are fully paid off each month but sometimes you have to use cash. Where can you find money? Always look down. Things rarely fall up. I found $12 in the street a few weeks ago. And don’t turn your nose up at pennies. Money is money. Check your car, always seems to be some change there. When you go to someone’s house, check their couch cushions! (No don’t really do that). It takes awhile for found money to add up so where can you keep it in the mean time. Coffee tin isn’t a good place long term but it’s the classic solution when you’re saving it up. Zip lock bags work too and are easier to carry to the Coinstar machine than coffee tins. Now you have a little stash. Don’t blow it at the strip club. Use the change machine at your bank if they have one. Then take the receipt to the teller, deposit it and transfer it to your investment account. If you have to use Coinstar, which takes a percentage, they have a feature that allows you to deposit the balance into your Pay Pal account. Maybe you don’t treat yourself often. Then by all means, use that change and get yourself something pretty. Or donate the money to a cause you care about. Found money and change spends just the same as paper money so make sure you spend it as wisely. Show Notes Ommegang BPA: A Belgian style pale ale. Flying Fish Oktoberfish: Pumpkin beer. Betterment: Where to stash your small change and big money. Acorns: Seamlessly invest your small change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Farnoosh Torabi joins us to discuss how to navigate a relationship in which the woman earns more than her male partner. Farnoosh Torabi is a personal finance writer, best selling author and television personality. We were blown away by her presentation at FinCon and are very excited to have her on the podcast. We know that it shouldn’t matter who makes more in a relationship but it often does. It can be especially tricky for men to accept when their female partner out earns them. And it’s hard for women too. Not only are they the bread winner, but many still feel responsible for the more traditional female responsibilities as well. It can cause resentment on both sides. Men may feel like the woman is usurping their role and the women may wonder, “What do I even need you for? I make the money and run the house.” This mind set is dangerous to the relationship. There is a higher rate of divorce and infidelity on both sides of this dynamic. If this sounds familiar, the two of you need to sit down and discuss ways the man can contribute that are meaningful and helpful to the woman. One of Farnoosh’s rules is to give the man’s money meaning. Just because you make all the money doesn’t mean you get to make all the decisions. His income should be deliberately allocated too and not just spent willy-nilly. Farnoosh’s husband is the one putting aside money for their child’s education. That isn’t a frivolous thing. Yours, mine, and our accounts are another recommendation. No one should be expected to account for every cent they spend. That’s what the “mine” account is for. That money can be spent anyway each partner chooses. As younger people move into the period of their lives when they are entering relationships, this kind of tension will be less of a big deal. Many of them were raised by working mothers some of whom were the higher earnings so they aren’t charting completely foreign territory. If you’re in this type of relationship, pick up Farnoosh’s book to help you and your partner work through this issue together. Show Notes Farnooshtv: Farnoosh’s blog. When She Makes More: Farnoosh’s latest book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We love getting questions from our listeners. Today we take five questions about HSAs, timing the market, college savings accounts, compounding, and Betterment woes. We get a lot of questions at LMM, and if you’re asking, someone else is probably wondering too, so we like to answer questions for everyone. 1. Is an HSA a good idea for a family that’s pregnant or has young children? An HSA is a good idea for anyone with a high deductible plan, it reduces your taxable income, and you don’t necessarily have to use it for medical expenses. Check out Episode 171 for a deep dive into HSA’s. The Mad Fientist also talked about HSA’s in Episode 120. 2. What is your advice for someone looking to start investing this year? I don’t want to attempt to time the market but want to be aware of the market climate before making my decision. The best time to invest is always now. Even if interest rates go up soon, it’s still always better to be in the market than to not be invested. Remember, buy and hold; you’re in it for the long haul. 3. What is the best college savings account? 529 Plan is the one you’ll hear most about, but they come with a lot of stipulations, like having to attend in the state. If you want a tax-advantaged account, put the money into an IRA. You can take out the principal without penalty. 4. If I invest in a Roth IRA or index funds, how does it get compounded? What rate do they use? Why not invest annually? Investments don’t have set rates or terms because no one can predict how they will do. It’s better to have your money invested now rather than once a year; you could miss a huge upswing. You would also miss out on dividend payments. As far as compounding, you can describe investing like that. That’s for things like loans. 5. Is your Betterment tanking? What are some strategies to ride this out? Lots of investors are losing money, Ebola, ISIS, Ukraine, Hong Kong. Big, traumatic world events cause downturns in the market. This is a natural ebb and flow of the stock market. If you’re in it for the long haul, as you must be, it doesn’t matter. Thanks, everyone, keep the questions coming in. Show Notes Betterment: Get your money in today. Want to learn more about Betterment? We put our money where our mouth is with The Betterment Experiment. LMM Tool Box: Everything you need to manage your money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On a list of biggest fears, public speaking is #2, death is #6. So we’d rather be dead than give the eulogy. Michael Port will help us overcome our fear. And Michael doesn’t drink so his tips don’t involve liquid courage. We allowed him to finish the interview anyway even after that disturbing revelation. Matt and Andrew lost their fear of public speaking through “exposure therapy.” This is Episode 217 so they’re comfortable now. But most of us don’t have the chance to practice that much. We need a short cut. Michael suggests the “act as if” technique. Act as though you’re already comfortable. This has a powerful effect on your brain, fake it until you make it sort of a thing. The old “pretend the audience is naked” advice is terrible. The only thing worse than talking to a room full of people would be talking to a room full of naked people. I don’t see a lot of naked people when I’m in public so would find it distracting. Instead, remember that you’re doing something good for the people in that room, your speech will impart knowledge to them, always something important and to be valued. Michael also suggests raising the stakes. Commit to the speaking engagement and have a lot riding on it. Make a deal with your boss that if you pull off the speech, you get a raise or a promotion. That way, you cannot allow yourself to fail. We were very pleased to have Michael on the show. He’s a New York Times best selling author and a very sought after public speaker. Michael usually charges $25,000 per speech and we were lucky enough to get an hour of his time. Show Notes Ommegang BPA: A Belgian style pale ale. Flying Fish Red Fish: a hoppy red ale. Book Yourself Solid: Michael’s site about small business coaching. Heroic Public Speaking: Over come your fear. Think Big Revolution: Michael’s key note address on raising the stakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you feel like you always have to one-up your friends, colleagues, and neighbors when it comes to having nice things? Stop that, you’re digging a hole. Many people are competitive and that can take many forms, including always having to one-up those around you with something bigger and better (and more expensive). Marketing has a lot to do with this. There aren’t ugly people in commercials for a reason. If you use Product X, you’ll be smarter, sexier, richer etc. But most of us are bigger than our more base instincts. We all know how marketing works and why it works. What can be harder to combat is jealousy. Your neighbor brings home a brand new BMW. Why should he have one and not you? Guy’s a douche. So now you want a new BMW. But you are not five years old. Just because someone has a shiny toy doesn’t mean you have to have a shiny toy too. And all you know about the guy is that he’s a douche with a BMW. He might be mortgaged to the hilt and working a job he hates to pay for it all. There can be a flip side too. Maybe you have a friend who is smart with their money and isn’t afraid to discuss it, to let you know what they do and what they may have done wrong in the past. You can be influenced by this kind of peer pressure too. I know this works because I’ve done it with a few of my friends. Sometimes you have to say no when you’d rather say yes. If a group wants to go to a restaurant you really can’t afford, no one will remember that you begged off. They won’t discuss the reason you said no while they’re all at dinner. You said no, maybe didn’t even give a reason and it’s fine. Your friends won’t be mad at you and you won’t be mad at yourself for spending money you shouldn’t have. Ok, colleagues, friends and neighbors are one thing, but what about your partner? You have to always be communicating about money and the issues surrounding it. You should know what the other person values and what matters less. It’s not easy to block out all of the things that signal us to spend money but if you’re aware of their affect on you, it’s easier to ignore. Show Notes Ommegang BPA: Belgian style pale ale. Flying Fish Oktoberfish: A savory malt with a nice hop flavor. Mint: Manage your money. Betterment: Start investing today. Texas 4000: Donate to a good cause and help our audience beat Joe’s audience at Stacking Benjamins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re big fans of Vanguard, but admittedly, investing in Vanguard funds is a bit more complicated than using a Robo Advisor. In this article, we break down what we think of Vanguard’s 8 best funds while balancing both performance and cost. If you’re looking for a deeper dive into our logic as well as some colorful commentary than check out the podcast episode we did on this: Before we jump in, it’s important to mention why we are focusing so heavily on fees here. Due to their exponential nature, fees of just 1% can cause you to lose up to 25% of your earnings. That’s pretty horrendous and often what turns investors on to Vanguard in the first place. I also highly suggest you check the fees on your accounts via the free Personal Capital fee analyzer. In addition to running simulations, the analyzer pinpoints all of the overly fee-hungry funds across your accounts – retirement or otherwise. The difference between an Index Fund (ETF) and a Mutual Fund First, let’s quickly discuss what an Index Fund (ETF) and a Mutual Fund are. Who better to ask then Vanguard themselves? An ETF is a collection (or “basket”) of tens, hundreds, or sometimes thousands of stocks or bonds in a single fund. If you’ve ever owned a mutual fund—particularly an index fund—then owning an ETF will feel familiar because it has the same built-in diversification and low costs. Source: Vanguard A Mutual Fund is very similar to an ETF with one crucial difference: You can set up automatic investments and withdrawals into and out of mutual funds based on your preferences. Source: Vanguard on ETF vs. Mutual Fund In other words, if you want to automate your investing, then you use a Mutual Fund. If you want cheaper fees over time and don’t mind making contributions every month, then you should choose an ETF. I use ETFs because I don’t mind making investments manually and fees are the worst. We often get asked how much you need to invest in Vanguard. If you’re investing in an ETF, then all you need is $1. If you’re investing in a Vanguard Mutual Fund, then the minimum initial investment is between $1,000 and $3,000. Total Stock Market (ETF) – VTI NYSEARCA:VTI | Vanguard | MorningStar | Fee: 0.04% | 5yr Avg: 14.24% This ETF is Vanguard’s flagship fund and in our opinion, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wish you could get more done in your day? Mike Vardy from Productivityist joins us to share tips on how to optimize your time and get shit done. We all have the same twenty four hours in a day but some of us are better are maximizing those hours to get more done. How do you go from being a master procrastinator to a productivityist? Stop checking your e-mail first thing! It’s our natural inclination but those e-mails are telling you what others need you to do rather than what you know you need to get done. You can’t not check it at all, but get done what you know you need to go before diving in. Or at least sort by sender. Then you’ll get the messages from your boss before the ones from your colleagues asking where you want to order from on Seamless. Try the two minute rule for e-mails and tasks. If you can do it in two minutes or less, just do it and get it out of the way. Make sure you have the right tools but not too many tools. The tool doesn’t make you more productive, it’s the approach that makes you more productive. Make sure your work space is conducive to productivity. Don’t have too many distractions around you. Don’t have lots of clutter everywhere, it drains your energy. Your work space should encourage work. Sound is important too. White noise can help block out the cacophony around you. Rainy Mood is awesome for that. Surrounded by annoying co-workers who want to tell you the latest crap pansted antics of their demon spawn? Wear head phones, big ones. Write Bose on them with a marker if you can’t afford the real thing. It’s like a do not disturb sign for your head. Come on, get of Reddit, ignore the e-mails for a few hours and get your stuff done! Show Notes Productivityist: October Fish: An Octoberfest style beer. Parallel 49 Lost Souls: A chocolate pumpkin porter. AwayFind: Let’s you set parameters letting people know when you check e-mails. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re not an investor they can seem like a different species. But they’re human too, we’ll discuss how the investor money mindset is different. Nerd culture is having its moment. No one is afraid to admit they love Doctor Who or Lord of the Rings. But no one really goes around bragging that they’re an investor, not even Andrew. We would describe an investor as someone looking for long term benefit. And we don’t mean buying and holding Beanie Babies. If you love Beanie Babies, great. Buy all you can afford. But don’t expect to sell them one day to fund your retirement. We mean stuff like the stock market or rental property. An investor also doesn’t check the numbers every day and panic at the smallest hiccup. Buy and hold. This extends to areas other than money. A person with an investor’s mind is always looking to the long term and not strictly what feels good at the moment. It’s like the old marshmallow experiment. Small children were given one marshmallow. They were told if they waited to eat it until the tester returned to the room, a wait of about fifteen minutes, they could have a second marshmallow. The children who waited were found to have better results later in life in terms of things like BMI, SAT scores, and educational attainment. Wait for the second marshmallow! Not all of us were born with the ability to wait for the second marshmallow but we can all train ourselves to be patient to reap the long term benefits. What happens in the next year to the money you invest now doesn’t matter. It’s what happens to that money years in the future. Show Notes Schneider Weisse Aventinus: A wheat dopplebock. Betterment: Start getting into the investor mind set today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We first met Adam Carroll when he came on to talk about his movie about college loan debt. He’s back to discuss loving our kids too much. What a weird concept. Loving your kids too much. But it can be true. By giving them too much, by coddling them from every possible disappointment, we turn them into ineffectual adults. From ensuring that everyone gets a trophy to always giving them money when they ask, kids today can’t handle normal disappointment and have never had to work or struggle for anything. Mom and Dad are always waiting, poised to smooth whatever path their children are on. But in the name of loving them, we’re taking away character building opportunities. There are good reasons parents do this. They feel guilty for working so much and not spending enough time with their kids. They’re divorced and feel guilty for breaking up the two parent home. But the four most important words to say to your children are “I love you” and “no.” But no with a reason. When you say yes, it means so much more. You can see how this relates to money. It’s not the amount of money you give them, it’s whether or not you teach them how to handle money. No one values what they haven’t earned. Even very young children can understand some simple money concepts. There is a balance between saying yes to everything and saying no to everything. If you give your kids an allowance, split it into percentages. Certain percentages are for spending, saving, and giving. We spoke to the founder of Zela Wela about a similar concept in Episode 176. There are teachable moments every day if you’re looking for them. Everyone loves their kids but that means doing what is best for them, not what is easiest for you. Show Notes Succeed Faster: Adam’s site to help you build a bigger life. Broke, Busted and Disgusted: Adam’s upcoming documentary about student loan debt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You ask, and we answer! Today we answer five listener questions about refinancing a loan, cashing out a retirement account early, how often to pay student loans, HSAs, and getting a first mortgage. This format has become so popular that it’s now a regular feature on LMM. We answer questions sent in by listeners. 1. Why is refinancing a loan so important? If you can refinance, it will lower your interest rate, thereby lowering your monthly payment and interest payments. Refinancing works the same no matter the type of loan, student, mortgage, car, etc. 2. If I invest in the Retirement Target fund 2055 will I invite penalties if I need to cash out early? Can I pocket dividends or so I have to reinvest them? You won’t get a penalty for cashing out early on that fund. It’s okay pocket the dividends; you just have to set your account to send them to you rather than to reinvest them. 3. Is there a benefit to paying 25% of my student loan payment a week rather than 100% once a month? Check the terms with your lender. Some will hold the payments until the full balance is reached thereby removing any benefit you might have accrued. If your lender isn’t a super dick, there is a benefit. You are cutting down on the interest you will owe. 4. What is the advantage of saving health-related receipts to turn in after cashing out your HSA for non-health related expenses? Why not just use it for health-related expenses? It’s really a matter of flexibility. If you have the money in your account and plan to save it for retirement, you could pull it out to pay for an emergency if you had one. 5. Should you pay cash for a house if you can or are you losing out on some tax benefits if you do? If parting with that much cash at once isn’t a burden, do it. The interest you save vastly outweighs any tax benefit. Thanks, everyone, keep sending them in! Show Notes Ommegang Valar Morghulis: A Game of Thrones inspired beer. LMM Financial Rant Hotline: Call 856-818-3737 and let fly with your money rant. LMM Episode 171: Our HSA deep dive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wish you could travel more but think it’s too expensive? Nathaniel Boyle has devoted his life to travel and will school us on finding cheap flights. There are so many air travel booking sites now, Expedia, Travelocity, Hipmunk however the prices are all about the same. Nathaniel recommends booking directly through the airlines. It’s often cheaper and can offer more protection than booking through a third party. It’s much easier if you need to make a change to your itinerary and some low cost carriers like Southwest only offer direct sale. The most important thing when buying a cheap ticket is time. When you buy your ticket, the time of year you’re planning to travel, and the days of the week you choose to fly on. The best time to buy is on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Those are also the best days to fly. Off season will always be cheaper. Orlando over a holiday will always be expensive. Flying to Europe in March is cheaper than flying in July. Nathaniel uses Kayak as a baseline to see what they’re selling it for and then play around to see what you can do to get a lower prices than that. But don’t over think it. If you see what looks to you like a great deal, jump on it. Rome2Rio is another great resource. It tells you how to get from point A to point B for the least amount of money via air or ground travel. SkyScanner and Google Flights with give good over views of pricing. The travel time may be longer but if you don’t mind connections, they can save lots of money. If the thought of pulling the trigger on the ticket makes you sweat, check out Flyr. It tells you the likelihood that your flight price will go up and down. Data nerds like Andrew love this site. I’ve actually listened to Nathaniel’s show from day one and it’s great. He has excellent tips and terrific guests. Check him out. If you are looking for some more great tips on the best time to book your next vacation check this out! Show Notes Ommegang Valar Morghulis: A Game of Thrones inspired beer. LMM Financial Rant Hotline: Call 856-818-3738 and leave us your money rant. The Daily Travel Podcast: Nathaniel’s daily podcast devoted to all things travel. Airfare Watchdog Alerts: See when your preferred flight changes price. The Flight Deal: A site that posts crazy low airfares daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have financial friends? If you don’t, you should get some. Being around liked minded people will help to smooth your personal finance path. You are an amalgamation of the five people you spend the most time with. Think of those people. Are any of them financially responsible? Are any of them materialistic? Adults though most of us are, we can still be influenced by peer pressure. Peer pressure can help you to make good decisions. If you have frugal friends, they understand when you can’t afford to go out to dinner and are happy to split a pizza at your place. It can also cause you to make bad decisions. If you have baller friends, they choose the expensive restaurant and you agree then spend way more than you can afford. Your friends don’t have to be financial ninjas to qualify. Not everyone has a Warren Buffet in their life to go to for money advice. You can both be starting from zero but as long as you’re learning together and keeping each other accountable, it is still a bolstering relationship. Immersion is the best and fastest method for learning nearly anything, including personal finance. Listen to this podcast, read the Wall Street Journal, talk with your friends, family, and co-workers about money. By giving it a prominent place in your life, it is easier to stay on track. If you find yourself with no financial friends, you can convert your existing friends. I start by showing people Mint. Then I introduce them to the podcast and Betterment. It hasn’t worked on everyone but it has worked. And converts always make the best zealots. You and your financial friends don’t have to discuss money the entire time you’re together. It’s not the most exciting topic even if it is one of the most important. But all this money stuff gets easier when you surround yourself with a support team. Show Notes Schneider Weisse Aventius: A deep and complex wheat dopplebock. Leinenkugel Octoberfest: A fall beer with toasted caramel malts. Mint: An easy first step to managing your money. Betterment: The easy way to invest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does champagne taste hurt your wealth building? Unless you’re a Russian oligarch, the answer may be yes. We like nice things even if we can’t afford them. There comes a time when we have to live within our means. Easier said than done when you have expensive tastes. Even harder to do in a big urban area like New York City. The reason we are so revolted by mediocrity is because we are surrounded by excellence. But when it comes to wealth building, this is a dangerous mindset. Dinners, cars, clothes. We all have our weak spots. So what to do about it? Does everything have to be top shelf for your special self? It’s not like you’re the Pope or anything. So instead of the $50 bottle of Bordeaux, how about the $25 bottle? You’re probably no wine expert either so likely won’t notice the difference. That’s not too say you can’t ever have the really good stuff. But save it for special occasions. It’s part of what makes them special. Quality is sometimes largely perception. Quality doesn’t always mean the most expensive. It’s better meaning would be the most durable. Many people who buy only the most expensive things often don’t recognize quality anyway. They just follow the herd in buying what they’ve been told is the best via advertising. People interested in quality have done enough research to discern quality from cost. We’re not condoning PBR consumption but after beer number four, what difference does it make really? I type this as I’m listening to Matt describe Andrew rubbing his new I-Phone on his face. So what is the point of this episode? Do as we say not as we do? No, that doesn’t seem like the correct message to send. How about this? Buy the best that you need, not the best you can afford. Show Notes Mint: Track how many I-phones you buy! Betterment: Invest so you have money for more I-phones! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob Greenfield is an adventurer and environmentalist who’s mission is to teach people to be happier with less and to make yourself and the earth happier. Rob recently biked from Madison, Wisconsin to New York City with no money. His journey really started three years ago when he started to notice the impact his actions had on the world around him. He started educating himself and learned he was unknowingly creating a lot of destruction. But it didn’t have to be that way. Money can be used for good or evil. But it takes more time to do good than to throw money at a problem and that’s what many of us do. America has 2% of the world’s population and consumes 25% of it’s resources. You can’t change this overnight but you can take small steps every day. Rob made a list of things he wanted to change. Only shopping with reusable bags, buying locally rather than at a big box store. Rob started easy but as he progressed, the bigger changes didn’t seem that hard. Yes, Rob is a dumpster diver. He set two rules for himself, he could only eat locally grown food or food that was going to go to waste. And the waste food goes into dumpsters. Two thirds of his diet came from dumpsters during the trip. He never went hungry. One day he drank $100 worth of unopened, not expired juice from Whole Foods. Because such a large portion of our tax dollars goes to war, Rob advocates living a more “moneyless life.” Enjoy the things in life that are free, nature (for now), friends, family. Ride a bike rather than drive a car. Rob indeed walks the walk. His next project is building an tiny house from trash. We’ll have to introduce him to Ethan Waldman! Show Notes Rob Greenfield: Rob’s blog about making yourself and the earth a happier through minimalism and sustainability. Tethered: Rob’s upcoming show on Discovery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fellow Best New Blog winner Stephanie Halligan talks to us about student loan debt, negotiating and Matt’s favorite, the side hustle. Like a lot of teenagers, Stephanie took out a lot of college loans without realizing what that meant. She graduated with $30,000 in debt. She was asked through an internship if she wanted to teach personal finance to newly migrated refuges. The more she learned, the more she wanted to help her students and herself manage money and get out of debt. Prioritizing not only debt, but what mattered to her most was the first lesson. Spending money on the things that really matter to you and scrimping on things that matter less is key. Negotiating is lesson two. Negotiating salary, with debtors, when buying big ticket items, are things everyone should do but few of us attempt. We talked about negotiating in Episode 191 but that was from a male perspective. Things are a little different for women. Stephanie recommends Get Raised to help you learn how to get more money from your employer. Women are generally more concerned with preserving relationships at work so it’s important to come into the conversation about a raise from that angle. Particularly if you’re negotiating with a female boss. Side hustles have been a big topic on this show and Stephanie is in agreement. If you can bring in even a few hundred extra bucks a month, it helps. Particularly if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. Stephanie reached out to companies she was interested in and offered a few weeks of free work. It led to some freelance work and helped to build relationships. Stephanie found that she liked writing about finance and that’s what inspired her to start her blog. Had she never had that debt, she wouldn’t be where she is today but she’d like to smooth the path for those coming after. $30,000 is a lot of money. Stephanie started The Empowered Dollar while she was still working. It started as a “mommy blog” (I hate those words the same way Matt hates side hustle) to help moms teach teens about finance. But evolved to an audience Stephanie was more comfortable with, Millennials. She does the drawings on her site to bring a little lightheartedness to a sometimes dry subject. Stephanie took $30,000 in debt and turned it into a career she loves. Show Notes Rogue Farms Pumpkin Ale: A great fall beer. Empowered Dollar: Stephanie’s blog that explains PF through comics! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We get a lot of questions about bankruptcy at LMM but it’s a complicated subject so we brought expert Steve Rhode to help explain the fine details. Some people consider bankruptcy the easy way out but it’s more complicated that. Any time money is concerned, there is no quick fix. But in some cases it’s also not as dire as some of us believe and may be the best option. It takes seven years for bad marks to fall off your credit report but you don’t have to wait seven years to start rebuilding your credit. According to Steve that is just not as big a deal as people make it out to be. Missing payments stays on your record just as long but you’re still paying that bill. About twelve months after declaration, you can get secured credit cards, get better rates on loans and even qualify for a mortgage and car loan. It might not be a great idea to do that, but it is possible. Bankruptcy doesn’t have to be a last resort. If the amount of debt you have is going to really hamper your ability to retire, screw it. Declare bankruptcy. It’s no moral failing. Do you think the banks and student loan creditors have any morals? Well why in the hell should you take the high road? Student loans are a different story. Some can be discharged in bankruptcy. Federal loans almost never can but private loans can be under these three criteria: 1. The statute of limitations for repayment have expired in your state. 2. If your loans were for more than the cost of tuition, the amount over the tuition expense can be discharged. 3. If the school you attended was not accredited. If you are struggling with college debt, look into these three criteria and see if you qualify. What is the fallout if you declare? You likely won’t lose your home. Bankruptcy may save your house because in some states it removes the second mortgage. You will still be able to get a job, even a job that requires security clearance. Bankruptcy doesn’t solve an over spending problem though. If you’re filing because you have an out of control shopping habit, this won’t solve the root of the problem. Declaring bankruptcy does not make you a bad person. Do you really think you’re worse than the bankers who immolated the economy in 2008 and then took massive bailouts and bonuses? Bankruptcy is the only tool that allows you to take some of the power back from creditors. Show Notes Rogue Farms Pumpkin Patch Ale: Pumpkin beer for October. Village Idiot Punk O’Lantern: Pennsylvania brewed pumpkin beer. Get Out of Debt: Steve’s site about getting out of debt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do so few succeed in the stock market and so many fail? We interview the man who literally wrote the book on the subject, author Steve Sears. One of our favorite quotes in from Warren Buffet, “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” But that takes balls and his willingness to buy fear is one of the reasons he has amassed a fortune. We advocate long term investing and that strategy is better and more successful than jumping in and out of the market. So why do so many people do that? They’re driven by what they hear and read in the news and follow the “market mob.” They hear about a fast rising stock and jump on it without doing even the most rudimentary research. A successful investor stays away from this like the plague. Until the stock bottoms out, that’s when they buy. Fifty percent of your gains will come from doing nothing. Buy stocks that pay steady dividends and make them the foundation of your portfolio. Bad investors think of ways to make money and good investors think of ways not to lose money. You have to learn to tune out the noise that is just information without value. It’s not easy when we are subjected to it constantly. I even wrote an article on it. Focus only on what has value. The most basic step is to pay yourself first. At least ten percent. Make sure some of that percentage is in non-taxable accounts like an IRA. You have to live a little less today to live a little better tomorrow. Empathize with your future self. The future is not some vague, foggy thing, it’s creeping up on you every day. Sorry guys. Steve did not provide us with the magic bullet. He confirms the cold hard truth. Put your money in the market and leave it. You are unlikely to strike it rich an an IPO or whatever the latest stock the media is shouting about. Slow and steady to win the raise. Show Notes The Indomitable Investor: Steve’s book on success and failure in the market. Betterment: The easy way to invest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By now as a long time LMM listener, you have a financial plan. But do you know how to prioritize it? We’ll explain how best to get your ducks in a row. Matt and Andrew got into a pillow fight the last time they tried to do a show on this topic this takes two. The good folks over at LearnVest set out a list of three financial priorities. Retirement, emergency savings and debt. 1. Retirement comes first. Because of inflation, the dollars you have now will be worth less than when you retire so you need to accumulate those dollars now. Most of us will also not be able to rely on social security or pensions once we stop working. Pay yourself first whatever that means for you, 401K, Ira, Roth IRA etc. 2. Emergency Savings. Have a rainy day fund otherwise, you have to rely on a credit card which may mean racking up lots of interest charges or you’ll draw from your retirement account which means robbing the future you. 3. Debt. Debt is an emergency, this is a no-brainer. We have some issues with this list. If you have debt, that should be higher on the list. We would put retirement first only so far as you are getting matching funds from your employer. Mortgage and student loan debt with low-interest rates get a bit of a pass on the “debt is an emergency” category. If your student loan interest rate is high, refinance with a company like Earnest to get the rate reduced. Credit card debt and in some cases, car loan debt, are emergencies and should be dealt with first. Once you have money going into your matched 401K and your credit cards are paid off, save one and a half to six month’s expenses in a checking account. Once you reach that you start investing in something like Betterment or Vanguard up to $25,000. Now you can start playing around a bit. Maybe buy individual stocks you are interested in, emerging markets, Lending Club. You can also start going after your low interest student loans and mortgage. There was some contentiousness in this episode because some of these rules are so dependent on each person’s situation and various interest rates. The interest rate drives the urgency. Show Notes Rogue Farms Pumpkin Patch Ale: The perfect October beer. Village Idiot Punk O’ Lantern: A local Jersey brew. Betterment: The easy way to invest. Vanguard: Next level investing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two hundred episodes! To mark this special milestone we look back at five of the best episodes as voted by our listeners. Here’s to two hundred more! It’s not even been a year and we have two hundred episodes in the books. We’ll look at some of the highlights from the past one hundred episodes. 1. Mr Money Mustache. MMM is a legend in the world of personal finance and you were as excited to hear the interview as we were to conduct it. If you want the road map to retire early, very early, MMM is the go to resource. Hint, live on half your money. 2. The Mad Fientist: A genius when it comes to figuring out tax shelters through various investments. This guy has it on lock down. We redeemed ourselves with some of you who were unhappy with the previous IRA episode and we were grateful for the second chance. 3. Our Twelve Financial Philosophies: This was just Matt and Andrew discussing their twelve financial rules for success. I like guest episodes but there is nothing like a good Matt and Andrew rant. 4. Breaking Bad Habits with James Clear: James laid out some simple ways to break bad habits and replace them with positive behaviors. When you hear someone break it down to such a degree as James did, it makes breaking those habits seem so much less daunting and I think that’s why this episode really resonated. 5. How to Stop Being a Spendaholic: This hit home for a lot of you. It’s so hard to stop spending even when you know you’re putting yourself into a hole. Listening to how Matt was able to overcome his addiction was inspiring for many of us. We owe every one of these two hundred episodes to our listeners, readers, and all the corespondents via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, reviews, and comments. It’s been an honor to reach this point of the journey along with all of you. Show Notes Rogue Farms Pumpkin Patch Ale: A perfect October beer. The Mad Fientist: Take your investing to the next level. James Clear: James’ site devoted to helping you build good habits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Couples fighting over money issues is one of the leading causes of divorce. Learn how to divorce-proof your marriage with Derek and Carrie Olsen. There are so many questions when it comes to marital finances. Do you combine money or keep it separate, three accounts, his, her’s, and our’s? How do you handle it if one spouse greatly out earns another? Can a spender and a saver ever learn to co-exist? We brought on a married couple who are experts in navigating this mine field. Derek and Carrie advocate combining finances. It teaches you to work together and forces conversations you might otherwise not have about values, your past, your ultimate future goals. It can help you know your spouse in a way you might otherwise not. Being the higher earner may make one spouse feel more entitled to dictate how the money is spent. But who brings home more bacon can change. If you wouldn’t like having your spending scrutinized, your spouse won’t like it either and when the tables turn, they might get back at you. Not a good recipe for a happy marriage. That’s why all financial decisions must be shared and agreed to jointly. Whether or not to sign a pre-nuptial agreement can be a big bone of contention. It certainly isn’t romantic and almost feels like you’re predicting the failure of the marriage. If this is important to you, be ready to encounter some push back. A pre-nup can also make it easier not to put the work in when problems arise. If things end, you can walk away relatively unscathed and that can take away incentive to work out the problems. Communicating about money is the key. The earlier in the relationship you start talking about money, the easier it is to avoid problems and anger later. Waiting until you find out your spouse has been hiding thousands of dollars in credit card debt is a bad first financial conversation to have. What can you do when you both have the same blind spot? You both love going to concerts so neither of you are going to wield the ban hammer even if it’s not in the budget. One of you will have to stand up and say no or take money from another area to cover the expense. So you went to the concert and had a great time but you’re going to have to survive on ramen for the rest of the month. Getting divorced because of money problems is a tragedy and depressingly common. Start communicating about money as soon as things start to get serious so your family won’t end up a statistic. Show Notes Yards IPA: An India pale ale. DerekandCarrie.com: How to have better conversations about money and marriage. LMM Tool Box: Everything you need to manage your money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s time for five questions. We answer questions about liquidity, building credit, paying yourself first, vacations and credit card rewards. 1. When do you take the time and money to go on vacation? Whenever you can! Segment an area of your checking account that is your vacation fund and contribute weekly or monthly, just like your investment account. Check out my article on ways to travel on the cheap. You kind of know when you’re getting to the point of needing a vacation. It’s the point at which everyone you encounter is your potential murder victim. Try to feel when this is becoming an everyday feeling and plan your trip a few weeks before that. Bail is expensive. 2. I’ve recently taken out my first, small student loan. I want to build credit. To do so, is it better to pay if off according to the plan the lender set up or should I pay it faster? If you want to build credit, don’t pay it off faster. It will give you less on-time payments which are reported to the credit bureaus. But debt is an emergency, it would be better to pay the loan off and open a secured credit card in order to build your credit score. Being debt free is more important than a credit score. 3. How do credit card companies sustain all the rewards offers they make like cash back and airline miles? Every time you use a credit card, the merchant pays a transaction fee. For big spenders who use their card for everything, this means big bucks for the credit card companies. For those of us who pay our balances in full, we are also subsidized by those who don’t and are paying all that interest. 4. I know that you should pay yourself first but is that true even when you’re trying to pay down debt? Yes, if you have debt, you probably haven’t been paying yourself first for a long time. The best way to do it is to have a certain percentage of your pay routed to an investment account, that way you don’t miss it. This would be after you have $1000 in a checking account as a beginner emergency fund. 5. Is there high liquidity in the stock market? Yes, it’s just a matter of a day or two to pull money out of the market. Much more quickly accessed than having to sell a house for instance. Thanks for the questions everyone, keep them coming! Show Notes Blue Moon: A Belgian white. Richest Man in Babylon: Money lessons taught through parables. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Corcoran from Smart Business Revolution is a networking expert. He tells us why networking is important and how he paid off $600,000 in debt. Between 2006-2010 John racked up over half a million dollars in debt mostly through equity lines of credit. He was working during that period which is why he was able to get so much credit but he went back to law school and incurred $129,000 in student loan debt. He graduated law school at the worst time to find work as an attorney and worked a series of jobs for small firms. During this time he wasn’t making enough to tackle the debt mountain. It wasn’t until he started his own firm that he could start to make some progress. In 2010 he sold his rental property and a year and a half later sold his condo, it wasn’t a great time to sell but it enabled him to clear most of the debt. Not everyone has property to see in order to pay off debt but not everyone accumulated that debt by taking out huge lines of credit. John has always enjoyed writing and has always been good at developing relationships. He married these things together and started Smart Business Revolution to teach others how to build relationships that will help further your career. Sadly, he confirms that it’s more whom you know than what you know. It’s not fair but you know it so growing your network is important. What you have to offer others doesn’t always have to be related to your industry. You probably aren’t going to give Mark Cuban business advice but you might be able to tell him about a great new restaurant. Find commonality with the person you are trying to build a relationship with. Try just having a normal human conversation. Check out John’s article on how he paid off his debt and his website and podcast to help you build your business relationships. Show Notes Blue Moon: A Belgian white that a party guest left a lot of at Andrew’s house. Yards Extra Special Ale: An English style ale. Anchor Steam Beer: Finally, a West Coast beer on the show! Smart Business Revolution/moneymatters: As a special gift to our listeners, follow this link to download John’s book about how to network in order to make more money. Thanks John! Smart Business Revolution Podcast: We already know you like podcast so check out John’s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a battle of hourly vs salary, which prevails? We take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each. It can seem more prestigious to be in a salaried position, maybe more because of what it used to mean that because of what it means now. It used to mean white collar, benefits, an office. Some salaried positions still offer those things but they’re not automatic. How Many Hours? This is the big question when you’re considering hourly vs salary. In some cases, employees are exempt from overtime laws, including commissioned salespeople, drivers, farm workers, and administrative, executive, and professional employees. This is the sticking point because many of you reading this would be classified as one of those last three. Currently, even salaried employees who make less than $23,660 per year are eligible for overtime. The Department of Labor is considering changing that to make anyone, even those once considered exempt, earning less than $50,440, eligible. If you’re a non-exempt hourly employee, you are paid time and a half, your hourly rate multiplied by 1.5 for every hour you work over forty in a week. Sometimes employees are paid double time, your hourly rate multiplied by 2 for holidays and weekends. Some unscrupulous employers will dangle the offer of a salaried position to hourly employees, counting on the employee believing a salaried position is beneficial for all those perks we talked about above. But it might be a trap. It might be the exact same job for the same pay only know with additional duties and hours that they don’t have to compensate for. Some employers will forbid hourly workers to work more than forty hours per week, expecting exempt employees to pick up the slack, essentially uncompensated for the additional work and hours. Hourly workers will have more restrictions on their time, you may have to clock in and out at the start and end of each shift as well as during breaks. Understandable certainly but having to clock out when you need to do a ten-minute errand or grab a cup a coffee, or go to the bathroom can start to feel like being micro-managed. It’s not actually legal to not pay you for those kinds of breaks. A break 5-20 minutes long has to be paid but some employers don’t know that or do know but hope that you don’t. Benefits Some hourly employees will have access to benefits but you’re more likely to have them if you’re salaried. Currently, if you’re employer has more than fifty full time employees and you work 30 or more hours per week or 130 a month, you are eligible for employer sponsored health insurance. Given how stingy most companies with time off since, in America the only people with any legally mandated, paid vacation is Congress, paid vacation is a big “perk” to consider when choosing between jobs. A salaried job is more likely to include paid time off and paid sick leave than hourly. Where Are You In Life? Hourly might be better for younger people just starting their career. You have more time to work and probably need the extra income that time and a half will offer. When you have a family, working long hours and weekends will be less appealing. Scheduling Salaried employees tend to have more regular schedules than hourly employees. If you’ve ever had an hourly job where you didn’t know your schedule week to week, you know what a draw back this is. Trying to schedule things like doctor’s appointments, child care, and going back to school while you work is almost impossible withou... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most confusing aspects of starting a small business are the taxes involved. We get some expert help from Jamaal Solomon. Small business taxes are one of those things best left to professionals, like surgery or dentistry. Sometimes the money you would save trying to DIY it is not worth the aggravation and resulting mess. So many acronyms, LLC, S Corp, C Corp. We just want to do things legally while paying the least amount of taxes possible. Small business taxes are not one size fits all. Each case has to be handled on an individual basis. One piece of advice Jamaal has for everyone is not to wait until April 15th to see a tax consultant. That is a bad time to find out that you should have been setting aside money quarterly to pay the tax bill. And do everything like you’re going to be audited tomorrow. Sitting in front of an IRS agent is no time to realize that you played too fast and loose with the legalities. But remember, the difference between creative and legal is a fine distinction. And the more money your business makes, the more creative you can get. Put all of your business expenses on a company credit card, never pay cash. Cash transactions are almost impossible to back up during an audit and will set off all kinds of alarm bells with the auditor. Small businesses are like snowflakes, no two are alike. That’s why it’s important to seek out a reliable tax professional to help walk you through the mine field. Show Notes The Tax Factor: Jamaal’s blog to help readers with small business taxes. JS Tax Corp: Jamaal’s company to help small business owners prepare their taxes. LMM Tool Box: Everything you need to manage your money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you love buying all the things? You might have a problem. We all love buying stuff but it can become a real problem. Let’s tackle it together. “It’s ok, I deserve it.” Is that something you find yourself saying a lot? Whether or not you deserve it is not the question. I’m sure you do, you work hard, take care of a family. Of course you deserve it! But can you afford it? That’s the question that needs to be answered. Shopping becomes a habit. It’s a way to entertain yourself, to reward yourself, to blow off stress. If spending money has become these things to you, it’s time to break the habit before you are crushed under a pile of your own debt (and detritus). The first step is to set up a budget. Use a spread sheet, use YNAB, use Mint, use the back of an envelope, anything. Just start tracking where your money is going. Even if this doesn’t make you stop what you’re doing, at least at first, this gives you vital information. Where is your money going? If this behavior is sinking you, you need to make a shift. Now that you know where you’re spending, examine it. Does what you’re spending on make you happy, improve your life? Or is it keeping you up at night, trapping you in a job you hate? Matt had a bad breakup and got layed off. He took the opportunity to go all in on starting his own business. In order to survive, he had to cut all spending to only the essentials. No more filling the voids with cars and houses, and stuff. If he was going to make this work, there could be no more of that kind of gap filling spending. His only priority now was making this business work. So how can you tackle this without getting dumped and fired? Make a list of all the things that make you happy that cannot be purchased. A run in the park, a walk on the beach, time with friends, walking your puppy (I’d like a puppy please). Next time you want to blow off steam or you’re bored, do one of the things on your list instead. Eventually you will begin to associate these behaviors rather than shopping, with entertainment or stress relief, or whatever feeling you were trying to achieve by shopping. It’s easier to replace a habit than to break a habit. By replacing the destructive habit with a positive behavior, your life with improve and so will your fiances. Show Notes Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale: A Belgian style farmhouse ale. Mint: Budgeting software. YNAB: We talked to the founder of this budgeting software in Episdode 154. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Competition is heating up among the Robo-Advisors. We get a lot of emails asking which is better: Acorns vs. Betterment vs. Wealthfront so we broke down each of the services to see who deserves your investment. The whole point of going with a Robo-Advisor is the ease of use. Based on the research, it’s highly unlikely you’ll outperform the market on your own. Better yet, if you tried to do it on your own, it would be much more expensive. For someone just looking to invest with the right service, it’s getting harder and harder to tell where you should put your money. Before we get started, I also wrote an incredibly in-depth Betterment Review, an equally detailed Wealthfront Review as well as interviewed the Acorns founders so if you’re looking to go even deeper check those out. In this article, I’ll be focusing more on the nuances of each service than the nitty-gritty features and how they work. Let the Robo-Advisor battle begin! A Birds Eye View Every good investment comparison needs a sexy chart breaking down the differences. I’m not one to leave you wanting so bask in its glory: Promotions Students Invest For Free Up to 6 Months Free Invest $15,000 Free Management Fees 0.25% a year 0.25% – 0.5% a year 0% – 0.25% a year Minimum Deposit None None None Automatic Rebalancing Yes Yes Yes Tax Loss Harvesting No Yes Yes Assets Under Management $73.6 Million $5 Billion $3.5 Billion iOS App Yes Yes Yes Android App Yes Yes Yes Taxable Accounts Yes Yes Yes IRAs Yes Yes Yes On paper they’re very comparable but as you know, the magic is in the details. In order to objectively compare Acorns vs Betterment vs Wealthfront I’ve come up with three main rounds the services will battle in to win your investment. Round 1: Ease of Use and Sex Appeal Acorns has a beautiful app and a beautiful website. It’s one of the best-designed apps on my phone by a long shot. I’m of course not the only one to notice this – they’ve won some design award every year since they opened their doors. That’s sexy investing, am I right or am I right? This Round was just going to be called Ease of Use, but Acorns elevated it to Sex Appeal. I’m willing to bet this is the biggest way they get people to try them out. Sexy screenshots. That can also be a downside though. We’re about investing for the long-term here so if you need to keep opening your app just to see the pretty colors; you’ll also see daily fluctuations and go slowly insane. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Negotiating is a vital skill. For a job, a raise, to get to watch the game instead of The Real Housewives. Dan Green will teach us what we need to know. Not many of us are taught how to negotiate. We might parrot what we hear other people say but how successful were they? We need to learn from an expert how to really get what we want. The most common reasons people give when asking for a raise are: I’ve produced X since my last raise. I’ve been here X number of years. I have a family, student loans, etc.” These reasons focus too much on yourself and too much on the past. Neither of those things are things your boss cares about. What the boss does care about it himself, the company and the future. Be very direct with your boss about what you want to be making. Don’t just ask for more money, say how much more. Then ask what you need to be doing going forward to make that happen. Dan does not advise giving an ultimatum. You want to come across as someone who is excited to do more for the company because that kind of person is deserving of more money. Don’t hedge everything on one conversation, the end of the year or the yearly review. This makes a single conversation too fraught. A general conversation when hired, when getting a raise, when earnings reports come out, are better times to find out what you have to do to grow. Because you aren’t asking for anything, only asking what you can be doing in the future. In fact, during your review is a terrible time to ask for a raise. You don’t want to find out how you’re doing and then ask for a raise. Have the review, find out how you can improve, make those changes and then ask. Because now they have no reason not to offer you more money. A good question to ask is, “What would make you happy to pay me $150,000 (or whatever number you’re seeking) a year?” And remember, whomever puts down the first number, has more control over the final number. You found out what making $150,000 required when you asked that months ago. Now you can slap that number down on the table. There is a difference between haggling and negotiating. Haggling is more contentious and there are more extreme demands. Like when you’re trying to buy a car. Negotiating is better. It builds more trust and both parties come out at the end feeling as though they’ve both made a good deal rather than both feeling like they got screwed. Or just ask. So many people are afraid to ask for something but it doesn’t hurt. It’s like talking to the cute boy at the bar. Sure, you get shot down sometimes but not always. Be bold, be brave! So try it tomorrow. You don’t have to go all in and ask your boss for a 20% raise. But find one thing that you think may be negotiable and ask for a discount. Report back here with your findings. Show Notes Oerbier: A strong, dark Belgian ale. The Negotiation Blog: Dan’s blog to teach you the art of negotiating. Bridge Consulting International: Dan’s consulting company Betterment: This is not negotiable. Start investing today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Afraid you’ll never get a foot on the property ladder? Why not build your own tiny house? Ethan Waldman did just that and tells us how we can too. In 2012, fed up with his job, Ethan quit, bought $1000 worth of lumber and began constructing his own two hundred square foot tiny house on wheels. He has been living in it for a year and it has everything you would find in a regular sized house, just smaller. Tiny houses are becoming quite the phenomenon due to a perfect storm of events. The financial crisis scared a lot of people away from the housing market, those not dissuaded couldn’t get a loan. Kids coming out of college with tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt, saw that home ownership would be forever out of reach and weren’t sure they wanted that part of the American dream anyway. Ethan learned as he went along. The only experience he had was from a tiny house workshop, he hadn’t built anything prior to the tiny house. He did hire some help when construction was taking longer than he had planned for. By the end of the project, the tiny house cost about $45,000, $33,000 for materials and $12,000 for labor. Ethan had about $30,000 saved before quitting his job and still did some consulting work after leaving. To build a tiny house takes about eight hundred people hours, Ethan finished his in about fifteen months, working on it about half time. There are some legal issues regarding this type of housing and the laws vary by state so be sure to check them out before starting your own tiny house. Ethan has unexpectedly become the poster boy for tiny houses. He recently published a book, Tiny House Decisions to help people design their own tiny house. Not everyone has to take out a mortgage and buy a big ugly McMansion, you could build your own tiny house and tell the banks to shove it! Show Notes Cloud Coach: The story of Ethan’s tiny house from start to finish. Tumbleweed Tiny House Company: A California based company that designs and builds tiny houses. Betterment: Start your tiny house fund today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our ongoing series, Better Know a Millionaire, we interview Nellie Akalp to discuss the legalities involved in incorporating your own business. Nellie and her husband started My Corporation in 1997 to help small businesses handle the paperwork involved in incorporating. After eight years of hard work they sold the business to Intuit for millions of dollars. But like all of our millionaires to date, Nellie didn’t stop working once she had that money in the bank. Not satisfied with ultra early retirement, Nellie and her husband started a new venture, CorpNet, a one stop shop for small businesses to help with legal filings, compliance, and the paper work required to set up a business. Nellie and her husband were living paycheck to paycheck when they started the first company. It started making money pretty quickly and they were able to pay off their student loans. When the company was sold they found themselves with twenty million dollars. Now they started living a little more luxuriously, a house bought with cash, a Mercedes, and lots of travel. Another thread running through our millionaire interviews is that they manage their own money. It’s the only way to really know what’s happening with your money. They invest money back into the business and own commercial real estate. And they do not day trade. Nellie has four children and they know not to expect to become trust fund babies. They do chores for their allowance, mom and dad will pay for their education but then they will be on their own to make their own life. All of our millionaires agree that the money did not bring additional happiness. Nellie advises that if you have a business plan whose end goal is to get rich, throw that out and come up with a business that you feel passionate about. That is what brings happiness. It’s so interesting to hear each millionaire’s story and how much they all have in common. I’m actually starting to believe them when they say that money does not buy happiness. Show Notes Corp Net: A one stop shop to get your small business set up. Mint: Start tracking your spending today. Betterment: The easy way to invest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt started LMM knowing very little about personal finance but almost 200 hundred episodes in, he’s learned a lot. We’ll see how he’s doing now. We all should have financial goals. It helps keep us on track and helps us see, in real numbers, that our dedication is paying off. If you use Mint, make sure you put all your numbers in there. It makes you feel good to see a positive net worth but if you left out your mortgage, the picture is not accurate. Matt’s goal is to get to a zero net worth. Which sounds bad but isn’t. It means that his net worth is no longer negative and that’s a big accomplishment. He still has a car payment and is still about $10,000 underwater on his house. He has four credit cards with no overdue balance on any of them and his credit score is a whopping 788! He has $4000 easily accessible in a checking account and $1000 in a business account and about $700 in “miscellaneous” money. In this Betterment account there is $10,652. Six months ago he had $0 invested, a great improvement! All total, he has a positive net worth of about $2900, surpassing his goal of a $0 net worth. Now that he has met and passed the net worth goal, his next is to pay off his car. He could do it right now by taking money out of the Betterment account. He plans to keep contributing $500 a month to Betterment and throw any extra money to the car which has a $300 a month payment. Once the car is paid off, he’ll contribute that $300 to Betterment. Once Matt has a $25,000 emergency fund in Betterment, he’ll use all his extra money to pay off his house and then continue to rent it out for the extra income. And he plans to start an IRA and invest in Vanguard as well. Remember, this podcast is not even a year old. In one year, Matt has made huge strides. He listened, read, and learned about personal finance. He did it and we can all do it too. Show Notes Mint: See where your money is going. Best Travel Awards Cards: Start collecting miles today. Betterment: Start investing now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is no question Dave Ramsey has helped people take control of their money. We wanted to see for ourselves how useful his financial advice is so we review his best selling book Total Money Makeover. The book easily breaks down a no-BS approach to money matters. He teaches how to lay the groundwork for a healthy financial fitness. From getting out of crushing debt to easy ways to invest in your retirement. Introduction In the intro to TMM, Ramsey talks about the success stories, how changing your behavior is key, and how this sure fire plan can work for anyone if they follow it closely. He also tells you what the book is not; complicated, anything new, politically correct, the same as his other books (so he thinks you should buy those too), or wrong. Pros Dave believes that personal finance and most other things in life, is 80% behavior and 20% knowledge. Agreed, the vast majority of America knows what we should be doing with our money, actually doing it is another story. The book explains that what it’s teaching you is nothing new, secret, or revolutionary. Also true, saving money is like losing weight. The principles are very similar, we all know to have more money you must make more than you spend. To lose weight, you must eat fewer calories than you burn. The money/weight loss analogy is touched on throughout the book and it’s a good one. But just because those things are simple, that doesn’t mean they’re easy and the book acknowledges that. The Total Money Makeover system is designed to work in good times and bad weather those good and bad times are personal for you or happening to the economy as a whole. We agree with this too, a good plan shouldn’t need to change due to external factors. Ramsey does a nice job of explaining the 2008 economic collapse in a way that is easy to understand. Cons This book does not contain a ton of the heavy-handed Christian bible dogma that Ramsey is famous for. But it is in there, so depending on your personal tolerance for that sort of thing, it might bother you or it might not. Ramsey does warn you that it’s in the book and acknowledges that not everyone will like it. There are some pretty corny analogies in the intro, stuff about flying turkeys and skinny dipping. They went on at some length. Chapter One: The TMM Challenge Chapter One tells a little about Ramsey’s personal financial problems. He challenges the reader to acknowledge they are the problem and introduces the TMM Motto. It’s a proven plan as long as you if you follow the guidelines. Pros We are the problem with our money and that is true. It’s rare that people are ruined financially through no fault of their own, it happens but it doesn’t happen a lot. If you’re in financial trouble, you most likely put yourself there. The Total Money Makeover Motto is, “If you can live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.” Huh? I get what he’s trying to say but Adam Carroll said it better on one of our past member’s only podcasts “If you are willing to do for two years what won’t most people won’t do, you can do for the rest of your life what most people can’t do.” It means if you sacrifice and suffer for a relatively small amount of time, you can be set for the rest of your life. Live with your parents for two years after college while working full time and saving 80% of your income and you will be ahead for life. Take everything step by step. Cons Ramsey started his whole empire because of his own financial disasters. He doesn’t give a lot of details about what they were. He tells how he felt and how his family has affected but not m... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We answer your questions about mortgages, how to prioritize your finances, and college savings accounts. 1. Why shouldn’t I pay off my mortgage as soon as possible? Unless you get a huge windfall, chances are you can’t cut out years worth of payments. So you might not be investing for twenty years because you’re paying every penny to the mortgage. You also lose out on the tax break, you can write off mortgage interest. If you’re investing and still have some leftover money, go ahead and put that towards the mortgage. 2. What is a good way to set up a retirement account for my young nieces and nephews? A trust is the best way to give money to children. You can set the terms such as, the money can’t be accessed until age 25 or the money can only be used to pay for college. This also removes any threat from greedy parents stealing the money. 3. If I’m doing everything right, can I play with Loyal Three? Loyal Three is a fee free investing tool to buy individual stock. Invest in what you love but if you think you’re going to get rich off an IPO, you won’t. So if you have some extra money to play with, why not? 4. I have an extra $150. Should I pay down my $3000 credit card bill or re-pay money I borrowed from my roommate? You can dodge a credit card company but you can’t dodge your roommate. Pay that money back. 5. I’m a college student investing a small amount of money into Betterment and there is a $3 a month fee. Would I be better off putting it into a savings account? If it’s short term, a savings account would be better. If it’s long term, check out Acorns, their fees for the lowest tier of investing are cheaper than Betterment. Whatever you decide, well done for investing so early! Thanks for the questions guys, keep them coming! Show Notes LMM Tool Box: Everything you need to manage your money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever had someone try to sell you Amway, or worse, try to recruit you to sell Amway? Today we discuss pyramid schemes and how to protect yourself from them. Robert Fitzpatrick joins us to discuss money making schemes. They pre-date the internet but have exploded in number since the advent of the net. Find out how to spot and avoid them. There are two main types of these schemes. One that is presented as a money making opportunity, as a career. These are multi-level marketing schemes. The other type is sold as a social opportunity and commonly known as a gifting circle. The three biggest MLM schemes are Amway, Herbal Life and Nu Skin. Someone recruits you to sell products and get a portion of your sales and you recruit others and get a portion of their sales and the “endless chain” grows. In a regular sales job there is none of this cultish recruiting. It’s cut and dry. You sell product X for $X and make a portion of that price. In these MLM schemes, you are told the amount you can make is nearly limitless because you get a portion of the money those you recruited make and a portion of the money those they recruited make into infinity. Well, hell. Making money into infinity sounds great. What’s the problem? Well, if you follow the model of you get five people, they get five and so on, you’ll reach a number that is bigger than the world’s population thirteen levels in. So that’s a problem. There is a limited number of people available but these scams don’t tell you that. Ask yourself if you could make a living just selling the product, not recruiting. Have you ever seen anyone selling Herbal Life? The money comes from enrolling people who then buy the products, they have to buy the products. The bottom group will always lose out and represent the biggest portion of the entire group. Still not dissuaded? Herbal Life is currently being investigated by the FTC, FBI, and SEC, all the acronyms! Companies like this have not been taken down for so long because they have a lot of lawyers, lobbyists, and PR people working for them. Many people who have been taken in by the scam are too ashamed to report it and so these companies have been unchecked for a long time. A gifting circle works much the same way. It’s often disguised as a women’s networking group. It costs $5000 to join and that money goes to the top recruiter. There aren’t even any products in these stupid things. You just laid down five grand to sit and the mean girls table, good job dummy. These things have broken up families and ruined marriages. The person buying in has so much on the line that when someone close to them calls them out, they double down, making the problem worse and sometimes destroying the relationship with the person who pointed out this was a scam. People have lost their homes because of their complete lack of incredulity. Come on guys. If you are smart enough not to send your bank details to a Nigerian prince, you’re smart enough to avoid this stuff too. Show Notes Pyramid Scheme Alert: Robert’s site to protect consumers from money schemes. Betterment: Make money the legitimate way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you first get interested in managing your money the newness keeps you motivated but staying motivated is once the newness wears off is the hard part. We’ll help you with that. It can be hard to find motivation towards your money when you’ve been at it for awhile but staying on top of things is important. 1. Clearly Define Your Goals. You have to know where you’re going in order to get there. If you want to pay off a $500 credit card balance, what you need to do to achieve that is very different from what you need to do to save for a 20% down payment on a house. 2. Focus on Today. This means having the positive things you did toward your goal every day outweigh the negative things you did. You transferred $100 into your Betterment account and bought a $3 coffee. You can still consider that a positive day for reaching your goal. 3. Have a Buddy. Have someone in your life that shares your goals. This keeps you motivated and accountable. 4. Utilize Smaller Sub Goals. Sometimes if you’re slogging away towards a big number, it can be disheartening. Maybe you have $10,000 in credit card debt spread over four cards. You can’t pay that off in a month but if you can kill off one of the smaller balances, it gives you a psychological boost. 5. Minimize Distractions and Small Obstacles. Be on the look out for things that pull you off track. Stay away from things that tempt you to sabotage you goals. 6. Use Visual Reminders. It’s like when you want to lose weight so you stick a photo of someone with your desired body type to the fridge. Makes you think twice about opening the door. Tape a picture of your goal to your credit card. Every time you pull out the card, you will be reminded of what you are trying to achieve. 7. Have Some Breathing Room. If you live in a state of constant deprivation, soon the only thing you can think of is what you’re being deprived of. Build a little room in your budget for money that you have permission to blow. Otherwise, the deprivation can lead to a binge which will hurt much more than a few small indulgences. 8. Restructure Your Social Circle. If all of your friends are into baller nights out, you may need to move away from them in order to stay on track. Or you can try to organize activities that aren’t so expensive, host a movie night or pot luck at your place. 9. Focus on Your Own Actions. There are things you cannot control. Do what is within your control to improve your situation. 10. Watch the Numbers. You know we don’t recommend obsessing over your Mint or Betterment accounts but you do need to check in from time to time to make sure things are where they should be. Financial independence is not about instant gratification. It’s a journey, do what you need to do to stay on the high road. Show Notes Abbaye De Saint Martin : A blonde ale. LMM Tool Box: Everything you need to manage your money. The Simple Dollar: Stay motivated towards your financial goals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have bad habits? Are they costing you money? We learn ways of breaking those bad habits and replace them with healthy ones with James Clear. James Clear’s first site, Passive Panda, is dedicated to helping people earn more money through freelancing, employment, and entrepreneurship. He started studying the psychology of why people clicked on certain links, read certain articles and bought certain things. The more he learned, the more interested he became in how habits shape our lives and his new project was born. How Habit Shapes Our Life We repeat about 40% of our behavior almost every day. Think about it. Do you brush your teeth every day, wipe down your countertops, take your vitamins? Yep, those are habits. Over time, certain habits can become part of our identity. I’m a runner and when I broke my foot (not running) several years ago, I had to give it up for weeks. It felt strange like I was not myself anymore. This applies to bad habits too. Do you always drink a soda with your lunch, have a cigarette with your first cup of coffee? You probably don’t even think about these things anymore, they’re just automatic, a habit. Creating A Habit There are three steps to creating a habit: reminder, routine, and reward. Even bad habits have rewards, that’s why they become habits. James uses the example of your phone ringing. The sound is the reminder, the routine is to answer the sound, and the reward is finding out who is calling. If the reward is a positive one, even if the habit is negative, you will start to repeat the behavior, or routine, each time you receive the reminder. If this happens enough, you’ve developed a habit. Take The Emotion Out Of It Do you wait until you “feel like” doing something to do it? What if you never feel like doing it? Or by the time you feel like doing it, you haven’t left enough time to actually get it done. If you have things that need to get done, set a schedule and do them. Don’t wait until it’s easy to start. James sticks to a specific publishing schedule and that is what has made the biggest difference to his work. Habit Stacking Habit stacking is a method that can build a new habit into an existing one. Look at something you do regularly, laundry for example. You can stack a new habit into this routine. Every week when you do your laundry, you also set up your budget for the week. Doing the laundry is the reminder, including budgeting with the laundry makes it a routine, and the reward is better managed finances. Now you’ve attached a new habit to an existing one, making it more likely to stick. Tiny Gains James wanted to build a habit of gratitude. He chose a time of day and started thinking of one thing to be grateful for. This on its own, one thing, doesn’t seem like a lot but over a week or a month or a year, that’s a lot of gratitude stacking up. Even if the behavior is small, the gains are cumulative. Breaking Bad Habits How do you break a bad habit? It’s easier to replace a bad habit than to eliminate it. Figure out what reward the bad habit is giving you. Do you eat when you’re bored? Eating alleviates the boredom because it gives you something to do. In order to break this habit, find something healthy to do that isn’t eating. Write an e-mail, call someone, go for a walk, clean one drawer in your dresser. Because habits identify us to some degree, associating a negative identity to the habit you want to break can help. When you think of a smoker, what do you think of? Dirty, smelly, weak, unhealthy? Those are things none of us want to identify as. But if you smoke, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you become an expert at something, it stops the learning process and stunts your growth. But knowledge is infinite and we should always be learning. Charles Holland Duell was the commissioner of the US Patent and Trademark office between 1898 and 1901. He once famously said, “Everything that can be invented has already been invented.” Ok, that was debunked, he never actually said that but think about the ridiculousness of that statement. If that were true, air travel, space travel, the internet would never have been invented. That’s the point of the expert paradox. You can never know everything about anything because there are new things to learn all the time. For some people, the “expert” label becomes such an integral part of their ego, that they can’t bear to come down from their ivory tower to get back in the trenches to learn something new. Soon enough the label no longer applies because they haven’t kept up with the movement in their field. Learning should be an on-going process for everyone in every area of life. There can never be a certainty that everything is known about anything. I am a (very) amateur expert on Percy Shelley. Everything he is ever going to write has been written. But everything he has written has not necessarily been found. Right now his magnum opus could be lurking in a trunk in someone’s attic, one day to be discovered. The thought thrills me and if there is a topic you love, you should be thrilled that there is always the possibility of more to learn. How does this relate to personal finance? If you want to move up in your job, you had better always be learning. Because if you aren’t you can bet there is someone younger than you who is savvier about the new developments in your industry who will happily take your place. The same goes when it comes to your money. HSA’s weren’t really a thing a few years ago but if you listened to Episode 171, you know they are a great place to park your money. Read, talk to knowledgeable people, keep up with the changes around you. Show Notes Abbaye De St Martin: A blonde ale. LMM Tool Box: Everything you need to manage your money in one place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can you get a top notch education for free? Scott Young shows you how to DIY your own top shelf education. Also find out what autodidact means! Scott wanted to go back to school for computer science without all the hassle of enrolling in classes. He discovered that MIT and lots of other universities put their classes, projects, and final exams on-line. He went through the process and passed the classes. And he did it in twelve months rather than four years. He spent about $2000 and that was mostly on text books. Nine months tuition and room and board at MIT is about $56,000. Keep in mind, you’re getting an education this way but not a degree. So can you get a job? Apparently you can. Recruiters have contacted Scott to let him know that people with this kind of drive are exactly what they are looking for. You will have to be a little more creative with your resume to get an interview but if you can get in the door, you have as a good a shot as someone who spent tens of thousands of dollars for that piece of paper. To get the most out of this kind of educational experience, you need to practice all the time, much the way you learn a new language. It’s shown that sitting through a lecture is one of the least effective methods of learning. Scott spent a lot of his time during this project working on problem sets. If you’re still skeptical, Scott recommends the Do It Yourself Degree, it’s a hybrid where you take some classes in person, some at distance, and test out of what you can. You can also transfer credits between universities to lower the cost of education. Scott isn’t trying to over throw the university system. Employers will have to be the ones leading that charge. He just wants to show people there are alternatives to crippling student loan debt and show people who just want to learn a new skill that they don’t have to go back to college. Show Notes Scott H. Young: How to get more from life. Scott’s Ted Talk: Can you get an MIT education for $2000? MOOCS: Massive open on-line courses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we get to know millionaire Jordan Harbinger of Art of Charm where ordinary guys become extraordinary gentlemen. In our on-going effort to break the social taboo of talking about money, we continue our Better Know a Millionaire series. If you didn’t know how to cook, you would ask a chef. If you don’t know hot to get rich, you ask a millionaire. Jordan was a Wall St attorney and saw how people made money and how companies wasted it. He knew if he ever started his own business, he would not be wasteful. He founded The Art of Charm podcast with a friend in a basement, learned how to sell it and now it’s a multi-million dollar business. Jordan drives a Ford Fusion not an Escalade. He spends his money on self improvement, he invests in himself. Speaking classes, broadcasting training, high end networking conferences. He invests a few thousand dollars a month in mutual funds and has an IRA but doesn’t day trade. Something our young millionaires have in common is caring more about their business than their wealth. Jordan reinvests most of his money back into the business and would gladly take a 50% pay cut if it would help his company. So what is The Art of Charm? It’s a live academy that trains people to win friends, earn respect, and get girls. It’s not just information, we all have access to more information than we could ever possibly digest. The academy provides real world training to improve social interactions. And it’s not just some smarmy attempt to get skeezers laid, it’s training that can impact all areas of your life. If you could do with a little more confidence in any area of you life, check out The Art of Charm website and podcast. Show Notes Brew Dog Cocoa Psycho: a stout with flavors of chocolate, vanilla and coffee. Southern Tier Imperial Pumpkin: Pumpkin flavored ale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s time for your questions. We’ll cover brokerage accounts, car payments, and credit card fraud. You know where to come for the answers. 1. Why us Betterment over Vanguard S&P 500 for index funds? Betterment has a much lower minimum for investing. To get into that Vanguard fund, the minimum is $10,000. 2. Is it worthwhile to have more than one brokerage account? It depends on your goals and how involved you want to be. Betterment is the hands off option. A good reason to have multiple accounts is SIPC protection. Each account is guaranteed up to $500,000. If you have more than that in an account, you could lose that amount. Spreading the money out in $500,000 increments is safer. 3. Why is Matt investing when he has a car loan he’s paying interest on? Matt’s interest rate is 2% so he’s making more in investments. As long as your interest rate is very low, keep the money invested. 4. If I have fraud on my credit card and have to receive a new account number, does that negatively impact my credit score? It doesn’t impact open or closed accounts or age of accounts. It’s not the account being closed, just a number change. If someone has fraudulently opened a card in your name, this will impact your score and takes forever to sort out. Most cards are chipped now and are more secure. Just call the credit card company and request the chipped version of your current card. Chip and pin is still a distant dream for Americans but you can get a chip and signature card. 5. What was the name of the fund that allows you to choose your proportion of stocks to bonds depending on your age and how much risk you want to take? This is a Life Cycle Fund. The fee is higher than other funds because it is much more actively managed. Andrew wrote an article on investing and there is information about Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2050 Fund. Thanks for the questions guys, keep e-mailing them in. Show Notes St Martin Brune: A medium bodied Belgium beer Betterment: The hands off way to invest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teaching personal finance is badly neglected in America. Zela Wela is changing that. Nancy Phillips joins us to discuss teaching kids about money. Kids develop their beliefs about money at the same time as they develop them about everything else, during the formative years. By age seven, their ideas are in place. A good age to start is between two and three. Because the learning needs to start so early, parents are the ideal teachers. Kids will observe and model the behavior of their parents. A two year old won’t understand what a 401K is but they can understand choice and are capable of making them. They also understand accumulation. A big pile of strawberries is better than one strawberry. It’s strawberries when you’re two but that lays the ground work for understanding a big pile of money is better than a little pile and how to grow the pile. Giving young children an allowance is a powerful teaching tool. Zela Wela recommends the GISS method, give, invest, save, spend. Part of the allowance is to give, part is invested, part is saved, and part is their’s to spend as they wish. Zela Wela has a book that shows how to build four little banks for each portion of the money. It’s fun for the kids and reinforces the behavior of saving in four distinct areas. Do you just give the kids an allowance or do they have to earn it? Zela Wela advocates “mini allowances.” Giving a small amount regularly and if they want more, that money can be earned through larger chores or creating income another way. The regular amount means that kids are consistently managing money even if they don’t have a lot of time that week to earn money through chores or entrepreneurial activities. You don’t need to be a financial genius to teach your children about money. Just make sure it’s something that is in the foreground of day to day life and your children will be well ahead of their peers. Show Notes Brew Dog Cocoa Psycho: A stout brewed with coffee, chocolate and vanilla. Zela Wela Kids: Personal finance for kids. Enter the promo code LMM and you’ll get 10% of your purchase! FamZoo: A money tracking system geared towards children. Betterment: Set an example by investing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Lynn Schroeder is an entrepreneur with the #1 leather shop on Etsy. Learn how she turned her love of leather into a successful business selling on etsy. Today we go hell for leather with the founder of In Blue Handmade, an Etsy shop with eight employees and over 300 wholesalers. If you’re unfamiliar, Etsy is a global online marketplace for handmade goods. Mary Lynn was failing at fabrics when her dad sent her a piece of leather and told her to give that a try. She crafted some phone cases and journals, put them on her Etsy site, and they started flying out the door. But it didn’t come easy. Mary Lynn was working on her own stuff during the day and working in a restaurant over night. She can pinpoint the exact moment things took off, December 2, 2009. She got a mention on Martha Stewart’s blog and woke up to eighty orders. Part of Mary Lynn’s success is down to not knowing. Late 2008 was a terrible time to start a business but she didn’t realize that. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have done it. Sometimes being naive is an advantage, it means less fear and second-guessing. We know a lot of our listeners are DIYers and crafters. Mary Lynn has advice for you. Sign up for Etsy. It’s a great platform with low start-up costs. Also take your stuff to local craft fairs. There is bound to be one near you and it gives you a lot of information on price points, what people like and don’t like, and if there is a market for what you have to offer. Remember last episode how we talked about finding your passion? Mary Lynn is the living embodiment of that. She tried, she failed, she kept trying and she succeeded in a big way at something she loved to do. That’s what we want for all of you. Show Notes In Blue Handmade: Mary Lynn’s Etsy shop. Betterment: Start investing today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finding your passion has become a hackneyed cliche but there is some merit in doing so, we just have to think of a less Oprah way of phrasing it. People say it as if it’s something easy to do. What if you’re passionate about sitting around smoking weed all day? How do you parlay that into income? You don’t. What it really means is to figure out what you like to do that can also generate income and do that to make money. It doesn’t have to make you a lot of money, not in the beginning, maybe not ever. But being able to spend a part of your time doing something you really love to do is a big part of being happy in your life. Matt loves music and has even toured with his band. But music super stardom wasn’t meant to be for him. It doesn’t mean he can’t incorporate that love into other areas of his life. For example, he created a music video for LMM and recently created one for a podcasting conference. Maybe your passion won’t ever make you money. Or maybe you’re afraid that by turning it into a career, you might come to hate it. Cooking a big meal for friends and family is fun. Cooking in a Michelin starred restaurant is pressure. So you won’t be cashing the Jean Georges paycheck with the bountiful amount of zeros but seeing people you love enjoy your food is a reward too. It doesn’t always have to be about the money. If you can’t name a passion, write down a few things you’re interested in. And try them out. Maybe you won’t like them all but you’re bound to find something that makes the time fly by. The important thing is to keep searching when finding your passion. A lot can happen in a life, especially nothing. Show Notes Betterment: Start investing today. Mint: Manage your money in a single glance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to start investing but a little nervous to get started? We totally get it. Investing should be simple and easy and with Acorns you can get started with just some pocket change. Acorns is a great way to start investing and building wealth. We’re here to show how you how to get started investing without a lot of money, and then forget about it until you retire. What is Acorns? Each time you spend, Acorns rounds up to the nearest dollar and invests that amount for you. So, if you spend $2.50 on a cup of coffee, Acorns will automatically invest $.50 for you. The pizza you just ordered that cost $15.05, $.95 gets invested. All you need to do is download the Acorns app, connect it to your credit cards to get started. A lot of users are new to investing so the app provides a lot of guidance. There are also cool tools, that help you set and reach goals. By just entering your savings goals and what age you want to achieve them by and the app tells you how much you need to invest each month to get there. They also have found money partners program that rewards app users for shopping through certain retailers. When you making a purchase with one of their partners through the app or web portal, the retailer will send the rebate, cash back rewards, and loyalty programs cash into your account. What’s better than cash back? Cashback that is automatically invested. So, is pretty simple but let’s go a bit deeper. Advantages of Using the Acorns App They offer ETF’s, stock funds, and bond funds. The funds are chosen by a team of mathematicians and engineers who work in conjunction with Nobel Prize-winning economist Harry Markowitz. There are no commissions, the cost is $1 per month and a maximum of .5% a year on managed assets. Once you reach $5000, the percentage drops to .25%. There is no fee to add money or withdraw it from the account. Using Acorns is safe, your data is encrypted and they are working with “white hackers” to make sure that everything is private. You can maintain a high degree of control in Acorns but if you want to set it and forget it, you can choose auto roundups where each transaction will be rounded up. You can also have money auto deposited into the account via automatic transfer. Her are the top benefits of using the Acorns app: Fee exemptions The Acorns platform appeals to young people and those who do not have investment experience. It allows college students to register for Acorns for free for up to four years, so long as they sign up with a .edu email address. This makes it easy for students to focus on investing and building up wealth without worrying about account fees when they first start with Acorns. Cashback Investing your money little by little can really make a difference over time, especially when you have Acorns’ cash-back features to help you along. The app has more than 100 partner companies offering cash back on purchases you make with one of the payment methods associated with your Acorns account. These cash-back rewards will go into your investment account to help you move closer to your goals. Minimal upfront investment Some financial institutions require individuals to invest thousands of dollars just to open an account. With Acorns, you can start investing with just $5—and there’s no minimum amount required to open an account. This opens up investment opportunities to people who may not have otherwise had access to them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Health insurance is so complicated. We deep dive into HSA plans so you can get the most out of your health care dollars. What is an HSA? Simply put, it’s a health savings account that usually has an investment option and is tied to a high deductible plan. The money goes in tax free, it grows, and when you withdraw it to spend on out of pocket health care, it remains tax free! And it’s flexible. If you take it out to spend on non-health care purchases, it is taxed and there is a penalty but you do have that option. And once you reach age 65, you can use it without penalty and at the prevailing tax rate which should be lower than it was during your prime earning years. Not to be confused with an FSA (flexible spending account) which must be emptied by the end of the year or you lose the money. The numbers change year to year but currently, a single person can put $3300 into an HSA and a family can contribute $6550. Our guests advise first funding the matching portion of your 401K, then fully funding the HSA, and finally going back to the 401K. Your HSA is portable too, you can take it with you when you leave your job. If you’re self employed you can set up an HSA for yourself. Just buy a plan that is HSA qualified and you can reap the rewards available to the rest of us wage slaves. About 20% of the offerings on the HCE are HSA qualified so you’ll have several to choose from. Once you put money into the HSA, you can spend it on medical expenses for yourself, a spouse, or any tax dependents, for the rest of your life tax free. You’ll generally receive a debit type card to spend the money with. Should you leave your job, get fired or laid off, you can use your HSA to pay for Cobra premiums and once you reach 65 you can use it to pay Medicare premiums. There are some unexpected benefits to this system aside from just the financial. When your insurance covered everything but your $10 co-pay, you didn’t ask to many questions. Now that it’s your money, you suddenly want to know the justification behind your doctor ordering you and MRI. You want the generic prescription at a fraction of the price rather than the name brand. You might even start looking after your health a bit more carefully. Insulin is expensive, maybe I should cut down on the carbs. This has forced transparency is what has traditionally been a very murky world and sunlight benefits us all. Speak to your HR department and see if a high deductible plan with an attached HSA is available to you. Take control of your health and your money. Show Notes Allagash Tripel: an ale with a long, smooth finish. Ask MR HSA: Todd’s site to answer all your HSA questions. Consumer Driven: John helps break down the barriers for health care consumers. HSA Administrators: Awesome HSA side recommended by a listener that allows you to put your HSA contributions into Vanguard funds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim Wang became a millionaire through his finance blog Bargaineering. He sold the site and started Microblogger. Let’s hang with an internet millionaire. Jim could easily have quit working when he sold his site but that’s not what millionaires do. His life also didn’t change much when he became a millionaire, something that all of our millionaires have had in common, they avoided lifestyle inflation. Whether Jim had $10,000 or $1,000,000, he treated his money the same. Invest it in the stock market and know that over forty years, it will grow. Looking at your numbers day to day can lead to poor decisions. Set it and forget it. He slow dripped his money in and bought when others were selling in a panic. Jim monitors the number about once a month just to make sure things are where they should be. Jim keeps up the Joneses but not in the way you would expect. He found success at a young age so when he reads other success stories, it helps to keep the fire alive. Comparing yourself to others can hurt you but it can help you to continue to achieve too. Thirty four is too young to give up any kind of work for life on the golf course. Success didn’t land in Jim’s lap. He was working a forty or fifty hour week job when he started Bargaineering in 2004 and would work an additional thirty hours a week on the site. He did this for four years. Four years of eighty hour weeks is not the definition of success being handed to you. A lot of people who have side businesses continue their day job even after the side gig starts to pay well or even better than the day job. Because they think the job is more stable. But that’s such a misconception and it’s holding a lot of talented people back. The fact is, you aren’t privy to your day jobs finances. Things could seem to you to be going along great and one day you’re fired because the company filed for bankruptcy. When it’s your own thing, you know exactly where things are financially. If you’re thinking of taking the leap from your day job to your own thing, check out Jim’s site. The man has lived the journey. Show Notes Microblogger: Jim’s guide to starting your own blogging business. $5 Meal Plan: Simplify food planning with a weekly plan and shopping list e-mailed to you. Betterment: So we can interview you for Better Know a Millionaire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best selling author, world traveler, entrepreneur, Chris Guillebeau joins us to discuss his latest book The Happiness of Pursuit. Chris became an entrepreneur when he realized he was a terrible employee and never wanted to work for someone else. He started his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity in 2008 and it grew into an empire. He now travels the world speaking and teaching people how to start living their own unconventional lives. Chris attended community college before transferring to a four year school. He graduated with no debt by financing his education through selling items on e-Bay. Once he ran out of things to sell, he tried other small businesses, creating several small things rather than one large thing. It gave him enough money to avoid debt and do what he wanted to do and allowed him to sample a variety of things, seeing what worked and what didn’t along the way. Chris wrote an e-book on discount airfare in less than a week and it started selling. This led to more books about travel and self employment. The e-books led to his first published book, The $100 Startup which became a New York Times best seller. Chris now holds the annual World Domination Summit, a gathering of devotees to his living an unconventional lifestyle philosophy. There are lectures, workshops, and vast opportunities for networking. Chris is about to embark on the tour for his latest which will be published September 9th. You can find out if he is visiting your city here. Go say hi and tell him LMM sent you! Show Notes Chris Guillebeau: Chris’s website on the art of non-conformity. The Happiness of Pursuit: Chris’s newest book documenting his travels to every country in the world and the art of the quest. Betterment: Start investing today for your best tomorrow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you dream of retiring early? We interview the expert in early retirement, Mr Money Mustache. We must learn his ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most people are more willing to talk about sex, politics, and religion than about money. Why is personal finance such a taboo subject? Your parents probably gave you the “birds and the bees” talk but did they ever talk to you about money? A lot of parents don’t and that seems to carry over into our adult lives. That personal finance is so taboo is handicapping a lot of us when it comes to knowing how to manage our money. It’s not polite to flash money around and to brag about how much you make or spend but it shouldn’t be shameful to discuss the opposite problem, how little money you have or, more importantly, how little you know about money. Imagine being illiterate and not asking for help learning to read. What a disadvantage you would be at in every area of life. Being financially illiterate is no less devastating and if no one knows, no one can help you. There’s more openess now because of the internet and the anonymity it affords us but for a lot of people, money matters can be such a shameful thing. It’s hard to admit that you’re drowning in debt or that you can’t fully take care of your family. It’s also hard not to feel judged. Everyone wants to compare themselves and if you tell someone who is a banker that you’re a janitor, it takes a superhuman sense of self worth not to feel looked down on. It can work the other way too. Maybe you’re rolling in it. But you don’t tell people because you’re afraid they’ll hit you up for money or that they will feel judged and lacking. Or maybe you think people will resent you. But not talking about money can mean you lose money. Especially in the workplace. If you don’t know what others in your industry and especially, what your colleagues are making, how do you know if you’re being fairly compensated? You don’t and that’s what employers want. Some even go so far as to tell employees they are forbidden to disclose their salaries. This is not true, in fact it is illegal. Now I don’t suggest you post a spread sheet of what everyone makes on the bathroom wall because they’ll find another reason to fire you. But it’s important information that you have a right to know. Next time you’re out with friends or colleagues, gently bring the subject around to money. If you’re honest about where you are and your short comings, others might be willing to share their stories too. If you have something to teach, teach it. If you have something to learn, be willing to learn it. You can talk about your sex life at the next outing. Show Notes Maine Root Blueberry Soda: A summer beverage for all you teetotalers out there. Betterment: The fast way to start investing. LMM Toolbox: Everything you need to manage your money in one place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices