Listen Money Matters - Free Your Inner Financial Badass. All The Stuff You Should Know About Personal Finance.

You may have a budget but what if you have a big life change? Move cities, have a baby, buy a home. Budgeting for a lifestyle change can make or break you.  You got the new job in a new place, your family grows, you need to care for a parent. Your old budget won’t do.  A New Place  What if your new job involves a big change of location? Moving from the suburbs to a city for example. Will you still need a car? Will there be a place to park your car? Maybe, but it might not be free and if it is free, you’ll likely be competing for lots of other people for the spot. Not many attached garages in the big city.  What is the cost of living like compared to your current location? You might be getting a $20,000 jump in income but in the right (or wrong) city, that can be gone just paying deposits and broker fees. City-Data is a great resource to help compare the cost of living between cities. The Best Laid Plans Hopefully you’ve planned when to start your family but accidents happen. What if that happened to you? Wo

Learning how to negotiate is not just a nice to have skill – it’s critical. Everything from your salary to your purchases to even your relationship requires it. Here we break it down for you and give you the knowledge you need to hit the ground running.  Perhaps the most important thing you need to understand is that most successful negotiations come with skill and practice, not force. We’re not going to show you how to strong arm your opponent or debate them into submission.  Instead we’ve created an epic resource with everything you need to know to get what you want and walk away from the table with everyone happy.  Podcast Episode  Want to learn but would rather do it during your morning drive or while you’re working? Give this episode a listen, it’s pretty awesome.  (show note links are at the very bottom of the article)  Negotiation Vs Bartering  Before we jump into it we think it’s important to discuss the difference between negotiation and bartering. There tends to be a lot of confusion around the two.

Have you ever thought about starting a Kickstarter campaign? We interview Chez Brungraber about how she did it for her travel bag.  It takes some doing to get people to give you money for something that doesn’t yet exist. Chez tells us how she did it.  Kickstarter is a place to get funding for a product that is still a prototype or a project that hasn’t been completed. The first rule is to have a product that you believe in. Once you have that, you have to get the word out, friends, family, bloggers, media.  You have to keep your backers updated with how the project is progressing and when they can expect it to be complete. Chez’s company makes money but not enough to make large capital investments in things like new products. And it doesn’t make enough for a bank loan. That’s why she chose to fund this way.  You have to hit your funding goal in order to receive the money towards your project. That sense of urgency helps to reach the goal. Most campaigns over $10,000 fail on Kickstarter so don’t ask for an in

   We haven’t done a Five Questions for awhile! We’re back to answer your questions about minimum wage, lending money and debt.  We get a lot of questions and if one of you is wondering, more of you are wondering.  How can you get by on minimum wage? Well, first of all, you have to live in a place like Iowa where the cost of living is very low. You also need to take advantage of any social programs you might be eligible for, low income housing, food assistance, reduced cost utilities.  Work as many extra hours as you can to save up enough for a $1000 emergency fund. Next, try to build a marketable skill using all the free resources you can find, the library, the internet, Coursera, Khan Academy. A minimum wage job should be something you have while you build additional skills toward getting a better paying job. Apply to jobs you’re not qualified for. It may not always work but it only has to work once. At the very least you may get some interview experience. How do you know what tax bracket you’ll be in whe

Early retirement sounds ideal but is it always? Retire or not to retire with Roger Whitney, the retirement answer man.  Roger believes rather than setting retirement goals, we should set retirement priorities.  Not that you shouldn’t have goals. But when retirement is decades away, priorities are more flexible. The closer you get to retirement, the more you can concentrate on making concrete goals.  Roger believes you should decide what your ideal retirement would be, not what you think you can afford. This allows you to see what your priorities really are and you can work harder towards those and spend less energy on the things that are not as important to you.  Even if you retire at 65, you may still have twenty or more years of life ahead. You don’t want to get bored! Roger suggests crafting a life you don’t want to retire from. You don’t have to stay at your 9-5 but you don’t have to give up working for money forever either.  But try out the life you don’t want to retire from before you retire! It’s a rom

We receive a lot of questions on these topics so we brought in an expert. Today we discuss wills, trusts, and estate planning with Tyler.  This is a big topic so we brought in a member of the LMM Community Forums who deals with this for a living. Tyler and is estate planner and a lawyer in the military.  Put simply, estate planning is deciding where you want your stuff to go when you die or are incapacitated.  Do you need a will? Probably. Do you need a will if you have a kid? Absolutely. You can’t count on the state or sometimes even family, to carry out your wishes.  An asset that doesn’t have a next owner listed, some checking accounts for example, has to be assigned by a probate judge. A non-probate asset, like a life insurance policy or some brokerage accounts, bypass the process and are paid out pretty quickly.  If you die in debt, creditor’s get first crack at your estate. But your family will not be held responsible for that debt unless they have co-signed for the debt.  A living trust can help to tak

Today we welcome Forum member Chloe to discuss her finances. We’ll tell her what she’s doing well and where she needs some improvement. Chloe is a 28 year old nurse who recently got her masters and has been looking for a full time job with benefits. Even working part time, Chloe is doing pretty well. She went to small, inexpensive colleges on scholarships, federal aid, and one small loan. Most of her loan was forgiven due to her public sector work. Chloe made an incredibly detailed pro/con list of the two job offers she received in our Forums. She got some great advice and that helped her make her decision. In the end, she chose the lower paying job with better quality of life and better future prospects. It’s not always about the money! Chloe uses Mint to budget. Like most of us, food is her biggest budget problem. She maxes her 401k and Roth IRA but doesn’t have a lot of room to save for things like a wedding or a home. Chloe has a net worth of $140,000! She attributes this to having priorities. Saving

We interview Chris Clothier from Memphis Invest to explain real estate investments without the mess. Collect the rent check while someone else does the dirty work!  Passive Income  If you’ve listened to LMM for any length of time, you know how much we emphasize the importance of passive income. One of the keys to building wealth and achieving financial independence is to have more than one source of income and because there are only so many hours in a day, some of that income should be passive. Passive income is income generated with minimal effort on your part. Good sources of passive income can include your investments and retirement accounts, making money from things you already do like driving, shopping, or going out to dinner and our favorite, rental property income. Becoming a landlord can generate significant passive income. But how can owning rental property be considered passive income if you’re searching for homes to buy, tenets to live in them, and handling any repairs that have to be done and th

   Fights over money are a leading cause of divorce. Andrew’s wife Laura joins us to talk about getting a reluctant spouse on board financially.  Laura does a lot behind the scenes for LMM but this is her first time on the show! She was the spender to Andrew’s saver when they met. But after a few years, he whipped her into shape.  Laura’s parents aren’t bad with money but they didn’t teach her enough growing up to be good with money. By the time she met Andrew, her wages were being garnished.  When the couple moved in together, Andrew said one thing he never wanted to fight about was money so they needed to communicate openly and often about it.  Strong arming any topic, especially money, is a fast way to fail. A crash course in what someone should have learned over a few years isn’t helpful either. Addressing money issues as they come up is less contentious and less intimidating.  If one partner has a business the other is not involved in, large business expenses can cause problems. You’ll need to “open your

If you are tired of your time and your income being tied together, you might have considered a career as a freelance writer. But can anyone actually make money writing? You can, and I do. I finally quit my full-time gig and now work for myself. I’ll show you how to become a freelance writer and quit your full-time job.  Many people dismiss freelance writing, considering it not a real career. But a career is something you get paid to do. And if you can crack how to become a freelance writer and get paid a decent amount for it, guess what? You can have a career as a writer.  How to Become a Freelance Writer  You can begin to make money writing by starting your own blog and monetizing it. The problem is, this takes some time. You often hear about “overnight successes” in blogging or lots of other careers, but that is rare, very rare.  It’s much much faster to get someone else to pay you to blog. That’s how I get paid to blog. You still need to start a blog though. Your blog is your personal portfolio. It’s a way

We haven’t done one of these in awhile! Better Know a Millionaire is back to see if the other 1% really live that differently to the rest of us. Today we interview millionaire Adam Dicker. Adam made his millions by selling domain names, some for as much as eight figures! Adam has been in the business for about twenty years and was a VP at Go Daddy for a few years. Adam buys and sells domains that have expired and tries to stay two to three years ahead of trends, particularly in the medical and tech sectors. You can’t just go and buy a domain name with a trade mark in it. So no, five years ago you would not have been able to purchase Applewatch.com. No need to beat yourself up about that one. This business takes a lot of research. You have to buy a name that in the future, a business would want to buy. Like a lot of millionaires, Adam wanted a business that would make passive income. He once went to dinner before replying to an offer and in the space of that dinner, made an additional $50,000 from an anxi

Do you have kids? What are you doing to teach your kids about money? Adam Carroll joins us to talk about teaching your kids the value of a dollar.  Adam is one of our favorite guests here at LMM. We first met him to discuss student loan debt. Today he’s back to talk about teaching kids about money.  Under-Educated  More than anything, aside from health, money can make or break your life. Not in the sense that money buys happiness but that lack of money, or knowing how to handle the money you have, is a major source of stress. In 2014, 64% of American adults sited money worries as “a significant source of stress” making it number one on the list ahead of work, family, and health. You would think that something so fundamental would be well covered in schools, from kindergarten all the way through high school. Well, it isn’t. Maybe because there are “legacy” subjects taught that leave little room for new ones. Maybe because so much hinges on standardized testing and those tests don’t include a personal finance

  Today we dissect listener Andrew’s finances. What is he doing right, what is he doing wrong, and what can he do better. This financial life. Andrew is a long time listener and today he shares his financial situation with us to get some advice. Before Andrew found LMM he had student loan debt, credit card debt, high fees on what investments he had, no budget AND he bought a new car. Andrew recently married and brought about $75,000 of debt into the marriage while his wife had about $22,000 from student loans. They have paid off about $20,000 in a short amount of time. He moved his investments over to Vanguard to save on fees, and set up a budget. Andrew lives in Minnesota and the couple make about $100,000 a year. They pay just $600 a month in rent on a two bedroom apartment. The monthly living expenses are about $2,000. They want to buy a house but are first working to build their emergency fund and pay off debt. The student loans have a high interest rate, over 6%. He is paying $2,300 a month in loan

   With so much of our personal fiance information floating around the internet, how can you secure your accounts? We’ll give you a few ways to stay safe.  Many of us have had some aspect of our life hacked, bank account, credit card, naked photos. You have to protect your on-line information.  Some sites are more secure than others. You are pretty safe at Betterment, maybe not so safe at your local carry out restaurant. So don’t use the same password over and over! Use a site like LastPass to manage your passwords. Use tiered passwords, a complicated one for things like bank accounts but a simple one for your Disqus account. Two-factor authentication means you provide two forms of identification, something physical like a key fob and a security code. Prey will use your web cam to periodically take pictures so if someone steals your device, say “cheese” mother fucker. You don’t have to be rich to be ripped off. Hackers don’t want to steal $10,000 from one person, they want to steal $100 from 100 people. A

Most of us are not going to get rich simply from our jobs – we have a limited amount of time for actively working. To reach financial independence, we have to create sources of passive income. Smart real estate investing can bring in big returns and grow your net worth.  Like investing in the stock market, real estate investing can seem intimidating. It’s really not though. There are just some key fundamentals you need to know before you get started.  Everyone wants to be the Donald Trump of their neighborhood. But with less turnover. Fewer walls. Better inter-neighbor relations.  OK, maybe that was a bad example. But, maybe not.  “It’s tangible, it’s solid, it’s beautiful. It’s artistic from my standpoint, and I just love real estate.” – Donald Trump  Maybe this human candy corn topped with cheese whiz is on to something. Real estate is a physical asset you can touch and is not going out of business any time soon. Unless people all of sudden choose to live off the land again…    Nah!  No matter how you sli

  Today we have a This Financial Life episode with listener Lindsay. We break down her finances to see what she’s doing right and where she can use some help. Lindsay is a second grade teacher living in Seattle. We’ll help her get her financial life in order. Lindsay’s salary is a little over $58,000 a year, it’s spread over twelve months and she makes a few extra thousand teaching summer school. Lindsay decided that 2015 would be the year she stopped ignoring her finances, partly thanks to LMM! Lindsay divorced in 2013 and it caused some tax problems. Your marital status matters on the last day of the year. So even though the Lindsay was married for almost all of 2013, for tax purposes, she was considered divorced. She ended up owing $2,400. She had about $20,000 in credit card debt after the divorce. Lindsay got a loan from Prosper to help conquer the debt. She also used Ready For Zero to help pay things back. Within three years she will have killed all that credit card debt! Lindsay also has $56,000

It’s important to get the most out of your day. But you can take the quest for productivity too far resulting in burn out. Find the productivity sweet spot.  During Andrew’s recent burnout, he realized he was taking the need for productivity too far. Sometimes you just need a night vegging out in front of a video game.  We’re all motivated by different things, the key is to find out what motivates you so your productivity isn’t scattered and ineffectual. External forces, internal? Are you a morning person or a night owl? Knowing what moves you is important to get moving.  If you have a month to do a project does it take you a month or three days? If it takes you a month, is the whole thing done the last day of that month? Do you like a stark space or one full of clutter and color?  Are you a list maker? Especially for your long term list, go through it once in awhile and make sure you still need to do all the things you wrote down. Crossing things off is satisfying but things change and still doing something

   Larry Ludwig from Investor Junkie is our guest today to explain what the Federal Reserve is, does, and why you need to know.  Put simply, the Fed sets monetary policy and either adds or removes money from the system. There are twelve regional Feds across the country to help manage local banks. It was created in 1913 as a way to prevent feature economic disasters. Bit of a fail I think. The chairperson is appointed by the president but is supposed to operate independently of the government. Prior to 1971, we operated on the gold standard so the Fed made sure the amount of money matched the amount of gold. Now we operate on a “faith based” system where we rely on the government to determine the value of money. In order to help stimulate the economy after the crash, the Fed allowed banks to borrow money at 0% interest. The rate has been that low for seven years. Lowering the interest rates is meant to stimulate the economy. When rates are low, people can borrow money to buy things they couldn’t afford befor

Today we interview Benjamin Miller from Fundrise. Fundrise is a crowdsourcing site that allows anyone to invest in real estate.  Real estate can be a great investment but you need some serious money to do it. Not anymore. Fundrise allows you to invest small or large amounts of money in various properties. We even wrote a full review of Fundrise – you should check it out! The commercial real estate market has outperformed other investment vehicles for the last thirty years. It would be great if we could all become commercial land lords but most of us probably don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting around. With Fundrise, you need $1,000 to open an account. They have dozens of people looking at hundreds of possible investments. Finding a good commercial real estate investment isn’t easy. Fundrise negotiates the deal and writes then check and then offers the opportunity to investors. The investment management fee ranges from .33-.50% per year. How fast can you pull your money out of Fundrise? Not

Yeah, backdoor Roth IRA sounds pretty badass – badass but complicated.  Many of us have tossed around the idea of having a traditions IRA or a Roth but what if you can have the best of both worlds? There are not many times in life that allow us to have our cake and also to eat it, but this is one of those times.  Quick IRA Re-Cap  We could do a year of shows devoted to all things IRA and there would still be questions. They are confusing so here is a bit of a refresher on the basics.  IRA stands for an individual retirement account. It’s a tax-advantaged investment vehicle to save for retirement. There are several kinds, including SIMPLE, SEP, Traditional, and Roth. The last two are the ones we will be talking about today and the two that are most commonly used. Traditional IRA A traditional IRA lets you invest pre-tax income into an account that will grow tax-deferred. The money is not taxed until you withdraw it. You can withdraw funds after age 59.5. Putting money into a Traditional IRA lowers the amoun