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

We all have them.  Dinners out, the newest gadgets, clothes.  Our financial weak spot, our Achilles’ heel.  Find out what we can do to strengthen them. It might not be just a spending problem though.  Maybe you’re afraid to invest because it seems so intimidating.  Maybe you have the money to pay all of your bills but you aren’t organized and always pay late. Andrew is willing to take a leap that some people wouldn’t and it has gotten him in trouble in the past, failed business ventures, risky investments that didn’t pan out.  He also spends too much on food and booze. Matt spends too much on food and booze as well.  Books too but I share that addiction so I approve. He has fallen into a common trap.  He didn’t have a lot of cash for a long time.  Now that he does, he’s been a little undisciplined with his spending. It’s easy to justify over spending when you’re spending on experiences rather than things.  We preach this philosophy a lot because experiences bring more happiness than things.  But if you’re

Buying a home is uncharted territory for many of us. Both Matt and Andrew have done it and will tell us what to expect before, during, and after you buy a home. Before Your mortgage payment shouldn’t be more than 30% of your take home salary.  Don’t buy a home with a person you are not married to.  Property is hard enough to untangle when you have some legal protections, it’s much worse when you don’t. The bank wants to see more than your down payment liquid in your checking account.  They want a buffer.  If you’re putting 20% down, you need more than 20% in your account. You will be paying property tax.  You will need home owner’s insurance.  You will have closing costs unless you negotiate for the seller to pay that.  You may need an appraisal and an inspection. During Being very optimistic, this process will take at least thirty days.  You will fax a rain forest worth of paper.  This will be the most paper work intensive under taking of your life. You will negotiate.  Don’t let yourself fall so in l

 A  listener joins us for a financial check up in our This Financial Life episode.  Jeff Wilson finds out what he’s doing well and what he could do better. Jeff lives in the Midwest where he works for the Department of Natural Resources, it’s an outside job where he helps care for wild life sites.  He burns down stuff for a living! Jeff is 26, he has $24,000 in student loans.  He’s paid off about $12,000 so far.  His rent is $300 a month.  His loan payment is $400 a month.  He’s making about $1600 a month with some fluctuation. He has avoided credit card debt, a big plus.  But he’s paying the minimum on the loans.  Even still, they could be paid off in about six years.  His cost of living is very, very low and Jeff hopes to retire early. He has about $24,000 in cash saved, the same amount he has in loan debt.  It’s daunting though, to wipe out your savings in one fell swoop.  At the very least, Jeff has to get that money out of a crap interest savings account. This is the ideal time for Jeff to pay off t

You know we at LMM want to help you any way we can to reduce your student loan debt.  David Klein joins us to discuss refinancing to save you money. CommonBond is a student loan lending platform that provides lower cost financing to graduate students and graduates.  They started out as a pilot program at one school and now they have expanded to over 109 programs. The federal government holds over 90% of student loans.  They set the same rate which inflates them for credit worthy borrowers.  When David went back to school in 2011, his rate was 8%.  He saw an opportunity and with his two partners started CommonBond. CommonBond works a bit like Lending Club.  Borrowers save money when they refinance, on average, $10,000 over the life of the loan and investors have access to a kind of investing that was largely closed to them in the past. What should you look at before deciding on grad school?  First, the median salary for the field you’ll be studying.  Then look at your loan options.  You want a low interest

  It’s the episode devoted to your questions.  Today we talk about the stack vs snowball methods of debt reduction, college wisdom, and Comcast ETF. 1.  What is your advice for an 18 year old with a part time job about to start college?  College Info Geek is a great resource for college kids.  Make as many connections as you can, join clubs, get to know your professors, join a fraternity.  Apply to every scholarship known to student kind.  We did an episode about that. 2.  If you have one student loan at 7.15% do you attack that first or pay across both loans? If you want the emotional win, pay the smaller one first and then use that payment towards the larger one.  Mathematically though it makes more sense to attack the loan with the higher interest rate. 3.  I have $50,000 in cash in a savings account earning .85% interest.  Leave it, move it to Betterment, or pay loans?  Oooh, I felt you all cringe.  I cringed too.  Someone jump him in.  You’re paying 7.15% on your loans, pay that off first!  Then inve

It was Leonardo Da Vinci who said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. He is right! Minimalist living isn’t a new trend, it has been with us for centuries. So why is it making a comeback these days? In 2005, Tim Kasser, a psychology professor at Illinois’ Knox College conducted a study on minimalism and its impact on happiness and wellbeing. The study found that despite factors such as geographical location, gender, and age, those who simplified their lives reported significantly higher levels of positive emotions and life satisfaction. So what exactly is minimalism? No, not that kind of minimalism, more like this… Minimalist living is all about owning less, having fewer distractions, and most importantly for Listen Money Matters fans, spending less. Less is more, according to minimalism. A cluttered life leads to a cluttered brain, and ultimately an unhappy life. Minimalism is mental framework about how you go about your daily life, avoiding the trappings of modern consumer culture. Althou

Hal Elrod is a keynote speaker and best selling author.  He joins us to discuss his latest book, The Miracle Morning.  This book may change your life! What is so miraculous about the morning? Plenty. If you want to improve your life, your morning is the place to start. Hal’s secret is that your level of personal development will match your level of success.  He began devoting an hour a day to personal development.  He researched the six most powerful methods of personal development and vowed to do all six each day. Why Morning? Mornings get such a bad rap. Everyone seems to want to stay in bed rather than get up and start the day. If this is you, you are giving up the best part of the day. Mornings are the most distraction free time you will get. If you get up early enough, you are probably the only one in the house who is stirring. No one is asking for breakfast or if you remembered to pay the car payment or where their other sock is. You have the whole house to yourself! If you go to the gym, it’s alm

   We have a listener guest today!  Zina Kumok joins us to share her financial life and find out what she is doing right and what she could be doing better. LMM met Zina at Fincon.  She vowed to pay her student loan debt off in three years and started a blog to document her progress. She did it too.  As of this month, she has paid off her entire loan balance.  She put any extra money, free lance money, birthday money, towards the debt. Like many of us, Zina had very little finance education.  Whatever she made, she spent.  At one point, she ate out three meals a day!  When she had to borrow money for a security deposit on an apartment, she realized she had nothing to show for the pretty good money she was making. Zina’s parents were fans of Dave Ramsey and that was her introduction to personal finance. Get Rich Slowly was another big influence as it was for a lot of us. Student loan debt was the only debt Zina had.  No credit card or mortgage debt.  She is engaged to be married and is planning on joinin

Matt Rothstein of Get Final will discuss a new kind of credit card for the 21st Century designed to be a consumer ally rather than a consumer predator. The card will go Beta soon with a wait list of over 30,000 people.  It’s a physical credit card that assigns a different number to each merchant, giving you more control over your account. And it’s chip and pin, at last!  There is still a magnetic stripe because not all retailers are set up for chip and pin yet. You can assign a dollar amount limit to each merchant.  So if your gym charges $100 a month, no more can be charged.  This way if there is a data breech, not only can the charge not exceed your limit, but it can’t be used at any other merchant.  The transaction would automatically decline. Because you are setting a dollar limit, this can also be a helpful budgeting tool. Final was founded due to data breaches the founders suffered.  They realized credit cards haven’t changed for decades and wanted to design a credit card for the internet age.  Ban

When you learn something new, you can’t wait to share it.  Money matters should be the same.  Spread your knowledge to the less financially savvy among us. It doesn’t just have to be something good you’ve learned.  Some bank or company screw you over?  Let everyone know that too so they can avoid the same fate. We encourage you to surround yourself with financial friends but you don’t have to ditch the friends who are bad with money.  You can be the financial friend that helps them improve their habits. Money is such a taboo subject though.  How do you bring it up?  Lead by bleeding first.  Tell your friends all the dumb mistakes you made and how you fixed them.  It will make them feel less judged when they share their mistakes. It doesn’t matter if you learn something by reading it from a bathroom wall or Stephen Hawking told it to you over cocktails.  The important thing is that you know it.  So if you learned from our podcast or another, a book, a blog, share your source of knowledge with those around

   Time for listener questions.  We’ll discuss refinancing, repairing damaged credit, and being a spendaholic.  We love answering your questions.  If you want to know, your fellow listeners are probably wondering too.  1.  How do I turn my spendaholic friends into the budgeting, investing machine LMM has turned me into?  First, tell them about the show!  You have to let each person realize they need help.  New Year’s resolutions are around the corner and money is a big one.  If they resolve to improve their finances, suggest some learning materials.  Podcasts, books, blogs that will help them learn.  If they suggest going out, offer up a cheap night.  A potluck, movie night at your place.  Remember, the host always gets to keep the leftover booze!  Inspire them, don’t lecture them.  2.  I have a secured credit card as I’m trying to rebuild my credit.  What’s another good card to help me repair the damage?  When Matt had bad credit, in the low 600’s, Discover gave him a credit card.  Set up an account on Credi

Ever feel that you’re just kind of stuck, just total complacency?  Grant Peelle made a documentary about people who felt that way and did something about it. Grant Peelle is a documentary filmmaker.  His film I’m Fine, Thanks documented the lives of people who got fed up with being in a rut and what they did to change it. Grant found himself feeling complacent.  Life wasn’t terrible, he didn’t hate his job.  But something was missing.  Life was routine, filled with consumption.  He longed to do a film. The idea for the film was hashed out in a weekend.  They raised private money before doing a Kick Starter campaign once some footage was filmed. The theme of the film is why do we trade our dreams for a scripted life?  Grant interviewed people who broke free from that and people who were still immersed in that life but working on breaking out. It doesn’t explain how, it explains why.  That’s the nature of the story Grant wanted to tell.  The biggest lesson from the film is that you’re not alone in your fea

In honor of Veteran’s Day we join other podcasts in giving voice to Veterans.  Matt’s friend Ryan Carlson joins us to share his story. Ryan joined the Air Force immediately after high school.  He was in college and then his entire base was activated after 9/11.  The base had jets in the air nearly 24/7 for almost a year. Ryan graduated in 2005, the same year his enlistment was up.  He entered the private sector and didn’t like it so re-enlisted for six more years.  He worked as an avionics technician until 2012 and then was commissioned as an officer. He spent time in Qatar and Iraq.  Ryan was considered a veteran even before going to Iraq because he served during 9/11 when the country was at war.  Ryan is currently a component maintenance flight officer in charge.  His job is to deliver ready to deploy jets to the pilots. He also sets up teams to work on disaster relief.  They worked on Hurricane Sandy.  He will also shortly begin training on preventing sexual assault in the military. Personal finance i

Identity theft can wreck your life and your credit.  Security expert Robert Siciliano joins us to discuss how to protect sensitive information. There are two main types of financial identity theft:  new account fraud and account take over. New account fraud is when someone gets your social security number and starts opening new lines of credit in your name, credit cards, even car loans.  You start getting calls from collection agencies wanting their money. Account takeover is the most common form of ID theft.  This is when someone hacks your bank account or gets your credit card number. New account fraud is easier to prevent.  Making sure your devices are protected from spyware and being careful where you give out personal information will go a long way in preventing it. Account takeover is harder to avoid.  Every time you hand over your credit card to pay for something, it can be stolen.  The best thing to do is to monitor your bank and credit card statements for unauthorized transactions. There are ne

Being charitable is important but when you’re minding your money it isn’t as simple as writing a big check.  But you don’t have to give money to contribute. A lot of people start to think about the best way to give around the holidays.  But with so many demands on your money this time of year, how can you best give back to your community and the world around you without going broke? When you’re a kid being charitable is set up for you.  Through the Boy or Girl Scouts, through your school, through your church if your parents dragged you.  And it didn’t cost you anything.  You did good deeds, donated your time, or collected things like clothes or food for others. When you’re an adult, it can fall by the way side.  Demands on your time and money mean that charity takes a back seat.  But there are small ways to help.  A lot of stores will give you the option to add some extra money onto your purchase for charity.  Pet Smart does this and it gets me every time.  Puppies and kitties! A lot of people get involve

We thought we would share all the things that teach us, help us, and make us more productive throughout the day.  The best of the best curated for you. Not all of these are money related and they are all new ones that we’ve discovered since we covered this topic in the early days of LMM. Podcasts APM Market Place:  A quick summary of the day’s financial markets and big stories. How To Start A Startup:  From Stanford University. Hard Core History:  Epic history podcast. Money for the Rest of Us:  From our past guest J David Stein! Ted Radio Hour:  Portable Ted Talks. Freakonomics:  All the money topics you never thought to ask about. Fizzle:  How to build your own side business. Smart Passive Income:  Pat Flynn’s podcast. Nerdist:  A podcast about things and stuff. Tim Ferris:  From The Four Hour author. Extra Pack of Peanuts:  Past guest Travis Sherry’s travel podcast. The College Info Geek Podcast:  From our frequent contributor Thomas Frank. Blogs and Books Brain Pickings:  Well curated arti

Minimalism can be defined many ways.  We’ll talk to Joel Zaslofsky about how to become a minimalist. He has embraced the lifestyle to learn why and how it has improved his life. What is a minimalist? Joel defines it as embracing what is important to you and stripping away the excess. He began down the path of minimalism five years ago when he and his wife were expecting their first child.  Prior to that, he was following the prescribed American path, college, wife, house, dog, kid. Having a child was the kick in the ass he needed. Joel wanted to be a good father and knew some of the extraneous things in his life needed to go in order to do that.  It’s not just stuff that needs to go. Toxic relationships need to be jettisoned too. Or just those that have become perfunctory. Joel started hard core and video games were the first thing to go. I’m not sure if I recommend this.  I’ve seen you pasty video game players walk into the sunlight and it’s scary for you and us too.  Tread carefully. Sugar was second an

Opportunity cost sounds ominous. Like you are really going to be missing out or possibly making a big mistake if you choose wrong. Without realizing it, we make minor decisions in our lifestyle choices that involve calculating opportunity cost.  Opportunity cost is basically considering what you can’t do as the result of each possible decision you make.  Don’t worry. We are here to teach you how to calculate opportunity cost and how it works so you always make the best decisions.  Our professor on the show today is Dan Egan from Betterment and he’s drinking beer brewed at Betterment! What is Opportunity Cost? Opportunity cost is what you give up when you choose between options. No matter what we choose, there is a next best choice that we give up or an opportunity forgone, that is the opportunity cost. We want to minimize our opportunity cost by choosing the option that benefits the most. Considering that almost every decision you make has a potentially beneficial alternative, you will never be able to eli

  It’s time for five listener questions.  Today we talk about life insurance, budgeting, and buying a home. 1.  What do you guys know about life insurance?  Not everyone needs it but if you have someone who depends on your financially, then you should have it. Term is the best option.  If you can get it through your employer, take it.  We did a deep dive on this subject in Episode 140. 2.  When accounting for expenses like travel, do you mark it when you decide to spend the money or once it’s actually spent? Mark it when you spend the money, so it you buy the plane ticket now but the trip is in January, it counts for November’s budget. 3.  You should buy when stocks are low.  Are you still feeding money into Betterment while the market is down?  Yes, absolutely.  Buy fear, things are never as bad as they seem.  As a new investor, stay the course.  I know it’s hard to not keep checking the numbers but just let it ride. 4.  What’s the smartest thing to do with a windfall?  Because that money will push you

You’re investing, great!  Now we can take it a step further and learn how to optimize your taxes while investing.  Larry Ludwig will explain the best tax efficient investing practices. The tax man gets enough of your hard earned bucks. Larry Ludwig from The Money Tree Investing Podcast will teach us how to optimize our investments for the biggest tax benefit. Larry recommends eight steps to maximize your tax savings: 1.  401k up to your employer’s match. 2.  Traditional IRA 3.  401k post match. 4.  Roth IRA 5.  529 Savings Account if you plan to send a child or yourself to college. 6.  US I Savings Bonds, low yield but a good place to keep some emergency cash. 7.  MLP and Muni Bonds for higher net worth, more sophisticated investors. 8.  Taxable and Non Taxable Accounts, depending on your goal, buying a house, getting ready to retire, create a balance between taxable and tax deferred investments. If you’re looking for the most simple option, funnel money into a Roth IRA.  If you are self employed,