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

For most people, their home is their most significant investment. As such, you not only want to protect your investment but increasing a property's value is important too. The right home improvements can do it.  Doubling your property’s value might be a little too ambitious for anyone who isn’t a professional real estate flipper or property developer, but some money spent in the right places will improve your property’s value. Full Article Here Show Notes Oak and Orchard :A sour from Epic Brewing. Hammertime Porter: A name Andrew and Matt made up in the absence of the actual name! Simple Wealth:A tool Andrew built to help compare rental properties.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The whole reason LMM started was to give as many people as we could reach free financial help. And in the past seven years, we’ve done that. We know because we get emails daily from people telling us that the show has helped them. We have dozens of shows and hundreds of articles that give free financial help to anyone who finds us. But not everyone can find us. There are millions of people who have no idea what a podcast even is. And because LMM is a podcast and a website, we are naturally limited to what we can do to help people. Most of what say and write is broad and general, meant to help the most people possible. For those with specific circumstances, it can be hard to translate our general advice into actionable advice. Some people are so lacking in personal finance education that even the material we create, especially for beginners is beyond them. And our content is only available in English which not everyone speaks or reads. Some people can absorb information through reading or listening, but not e

If you are interested in personal finance, you’ve probably heard the term timing the market. There is some debate about whether market timing is a good investment strategy or something impossible, or nearly impossible to do. You probably can't time the market. Unless you’re Warren Buffett which you are not. Even if you’re just a casual observer of economic news, you hear a lot of questions about what’s happening with the stock market or the housing market. These questions create a lot of speculation, but what should the average investor which most of us are, should be doing with our investments based on all of this speculation and crystal ball gazing? By not timing the market are we losing out on price movements that could net us significant market returns? If we’re on the brink of another Great Recession does the buy and hold strategy that LMM has been preaching from the beginning still stand? Should we stick to our index fund or should we all become day traders? It’s enough to make even the soberest long-t

If you run your own business, you go to great lengths to make sure that your business is a profitable one. Both Andrew and Matt run their own businesses. They regularly go over their accounting to see if the businesses are spending too much money and if they are, where? Do the profit margins need to be increased? How much money is being held in reserve in case of a period of lower cash flow? But how many of us do these things and ask these questions when it comes to our personal finances? We watch every penny going into and out of the business’s bank accounts but we’re much more cavalier about our personal bank accounts. It’s the weird dichotomy where we will sometimes say mean or rude things to friends or loved ones that we wouldn’t dream of saying to a stranger. Perhaps it’s because it’s easier to be objective about our business than our personal life. Ever how much you consider your business to be your baby, a part of you, it’s not you. Your life, which your personal finances are a big part of, is you. You

Some people who are hesitant to invest in the stock market are willing to invest in gold. Why? Gold is tangible, you can see it, hold it, and keep it right in your own house (or bunker). You can buy it from some guy in a late night infomercial. You can buy it with images of the fallen Twin Towers on it. Or an American eagle. You can’t say any of that about investing in the stock market! When you own stock, you don’t own a tangible thing. You have to deal with some slick stockbroker if you want to buy and sell it (you don’t). And stocks don’t come in a limited edition collector’s box. LMM hasn’t discussed gold very much in the past and like a lot of you, thought it was something only Doomsday preppers were interested in so not really relevant to us or our audience. But while doing research for the Golden Butterfly episode, we learned some legitimate reasons for investing in gold and none of them are related to the zombie apocalypse that is surely coming. Many of our listeners wanted to know more about it too,

We know that none of you likes to think about death, but it’s inevitable, and you have no idea when. For the majority of us, the most important thing in our life is the well being of our family. We work hard for them; we take care of them. But how can you do that when you’re no longer here? By establishing a trust fund and a will. Don’t wait; there’s no reason to. You can finish reading this, spend a few minutes and a few hundred dollars and make sure your family is taken care of. Because what else is there? Full Article Here Show Notes 18 Watt Session IPA: An IPA from SingleCut. Fruh Kolsch: A German-style beer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We love getting listener questions and we’ve had a lot recently so it’s time for 5 awesome questions from you. We’ll cover bond ETFs, the books we love, transitioning investments, long term investing, and retirement planning. Thanks, Everyone! We really appreciate your questions. After nearly seven years of episodes, we sometimes feel like we've covered everything but you all always throw something new at us. And if you're wondering about it, lots of other listeners are too. That's why we do these 5 questions episodes, so we can address your questions to a wider audience. Keep them coming! Show Notes Little Sal: A sour aged with blueberries. Fruh Kolsch:A fermented beer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fear and anxiety are two different things. Some of us fear investing because we don’t know how to invest and that’s understandable. Investing can be intimidating. It has a language all its own which seems foreign to beginners. There are plenty of people who have a vested interest in making it seem more complicated than it is. If you don’t think you can possibly understand how investing works and how to invest successfully, you are more willing to pay someone else to do it for you. And perhaps the reason we fear investing most, it’s our money on the line. If you get it completely wrong, you can lose money, a lot of it. People who are anxious about investing don’t necessarily fear it. They speak the language, they’ve educated themselves on how to invest well, and they understand that while you can lose money, over the long haul, you make money when you invest. The anxiety is tied to the things going on around us that we can’t control. A recession is coming and probably sooner rather than later. Many investors

Marie Kondo and her brand of decluttering and organizing are everywhere right now so we thought we’d hop on the bandwagon. And it’s not really much of a stretch. Our finances can become as cluttered and chaotic as our homes. But the consequences of disorganized finances can be much worse than those of a disorganized house (unless we’re talking Hoarders level of disorganized). When your finances are a mess, it can cost you money. Late fees, returned payment fees, deposits for utilities. Organizing your home and your finances have another thing in common. Neither is a one time job. If you let it go for too long, the job becomes completely overwhelming. But if you just do a few little things every so often, a big job just becomes a series of small tasks many of which can be taken care of in just a few minutes. Get ready to Marie Kondo your finances so they spark joy! Full Article Here Show Notes   Goose Island Bourbon Stout Oak Aged Stout Vanilla Dogfish Head Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm

If you’ve ever heard of using your whole life insurance policy (whole life as opposed to term life insurance) like a savings account to borrow against for personal use, then you’ve heard of the Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) - whether you realized it or not. The idea behind it advocates becoming your own bank by leveraging your whole life policy for easy access to cash while sidestepping high-interest payments from lenders in the form of loans. The main point of the IBC is that you lose money to creditors on the various loans you take out over your life. Things like:MortgagesCar loansCredit cardsCollege loansAll of the above examples will deplete your wealth over your lifetime in the form of interest payments. What the IBC advocates is by aggressively saving your money in whole life insurance, you could use that money to fund big-ticket items like a house or college tuition with your policy and not lose money to interest payments. It’s like an interest-free loan. In essence ~ Be your own bank. Full Article H

Did you know that almost half of Americans would not be able to come up with $400 to cover an emergency? And if ever there’s a genuine ‘need money now’ situation, it’s an emergency. If that isn’t shocking enough, 25% of those earning more than $100,000 are among that 47%. Sooner or later it happens to the best of us; you’re in a position where you need money now. If you are in a jam and need to come up with extra funds in the short-term, don’t stress out just yet. We’re here to help you make money today.It's scary to be in this position, and you might be tempted to do things that will make the problem even worse. Take a deep breath and read on. We are going to help you find the money you need. Full Article Here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show we have New York Times bestselling author and founder of I Will teach You To Be Rich Ramit Sethi on the show to talk about Mastering Psychology. If you follow all things personal finance, you know the name, Ramit Sethi. He wrote the best selling book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich and it was published at the worst point of the financial crisis in 2009. Ten years on, 98% of the advice in the book is still applicable. The recipe for getting rich doesn't really change very much over time. Now on the eve of its tenth anniversary of his first super successful book, comes a significant cover-to-cover revision. At the core of the revised book is Ramit’s shows you step-by-step how to beat banks and credit cards at the fee game, automate your savings and investments, negotiate a raise, manage student loans, and enjoy vacations and other things you love by practicing conscious spending. Full Article Here Show Notes 18 Watt Session: An IPA from Beer Smiths. Technicolor Splendor: A Double IPA You can

It's time for 5 questions about debt forgiveness, credit scores, and more Golden Butterfly. We got a ton of great questions lately, and the Golden Butterfly episode generated a lot of interest, so we wanted to dive a little deeper. We've been doing 5 questions episodes more regularly because we get so many great questions so keep sending them in! Full Article Here Show Notes Imperial Doughnut Break: Evil Twin Brewing. Canvas:Outer Range Brewing Company Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh to be young again or even just younger than you are now. Just think of all the things you would do differently. You wouldn't waste so much time dating losers, you would have taken better care of your health. So many mistakes. Youth is wasted on the young as the saying goes. But perhaps no mistakes sting quite so much as the money mistakes we made. Maybe you got into credit card debt, bought a house you couldn't really afford or lost a bundle on a bad investment. Or perhaps worse, waited so long to invest that you're scrambling to catch up so you can have enough money to retire. We all have the benefit of hindsight when it comes to the dumb things we did or did not do when we were younger. We can't change those mistakes but we can learn from them, correct them where we can, and not make them again. We have made a lot of money mistakes and we'll probably make more in the future. But looking back, this is the money advice we would give ourselves. Full Article Here Show Notes Grim Blended Mix:A Cultured Sour

A lot can happen over the decades. There will be recessions, bear markets, bull markets, political upheaval, possibly even depressions. What should we do with our money in each of these scenarios? Do we up-end our asset allocation every time some pundit is on CNBC screaming at us? Certainly not. One of the key components of our investment philosophy is to set it and forget it.  When you are constantly buying and selling based on the prevailing economic conditions, you’re practicing the exact opposite of set it and forget it investing. We need to create a portfolio that performs well in all conditions. Well, we don’t need to create this portfolio because someone has done it for us. And that someone is not just anyone. He happens to be Bridgewater Associates hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, one of history’s legendary investors. Ray Dalio created what is known as the All Weather Portfolio which contains the exact asset allocation you need to make money in any kind of economy. But Ray Dalio’s All Weather Portfolio

Rental properties can be a great source of passive income but there are a lot of variables. What do you need to know to make sure you buy the right rental properties? Well, doing is the best way to learn anything. We podcasted about rental properties and wrote about rental properties and built a tool to help you find and compare rental properties. Oh, and Andrew and Laura bought 3 rental properties in quick succession. Mistakes have been made and lessons have been learned. Is cash flow the most important determining factor? Do you need to pay a management property? That cuts into your profits after all. Once you have a set of criteria that a house must meet in order to be a good real estate investment, should you change it? If so, when and why? If a tree falls in your front yard in Georgia but you live in Hoboken and don’t hear it, did it really fall? A few years ago LMM went on something of a rental property tangent. We were excited and you all got excited too. But then some big things happened. LMM became

We love 5 questions episodes because they are based on questions our listeners want answers to. We’re going to cover questions related to Betterment’s Smart Saver Account, student loans, investing with Fidelity versus Vanguard, your house as a retirement fund, and incorporating a business. Full Article Here Show Notes Side Squeeze: Gun Hill Brewing Echos: Outer Range Brewing Company Keep Em Coming! Thanks to everyone who wrote in with questions. We choose questions that cover topics lots of people are writing in about so we can reach a lot of you in one place. If you have questions, hit us up at listenmoneymatters@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve all made New Year's resolutions and then a year later, failed to achieve them. What if instead of planning ahead for one year, we made a ten-year plan? Ten years is a long time. You have time to fail and learn and try again. If you want to achieve not just a few resolutions but a remarkable life, you need to embrace the idea of creating a ten-year plan. Full Article Here Show Notes Pillow Hat Little IPA Outer Range Shade it Black IPA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The American Dream. Most of us were brought up with the idea of the American dream and home ownership has been sold to us as a fundamental part of that dream. But what’s so great about owning a home? Is it a great investment? No, it isn’t, not if you’re planning to live in it yourself. An investment is something that makes you money. A house does not make you money, not even after you’ve paid off your mortgage because you still have to pay for things like repairs, maintenance, and property taxes. Ideally, your home does make money once you sell it but there is no guarantee of that as we’ll see when we look at Matt’s numbers. Full Article Here Show Notes Big Ass Money Stout: Evil Twin I Love You With My Stout: Evil Twin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A majority of economists polled by the Wall Street Journal think that a recession is in our future in 2020, 59% to be exact. Another 22% say 2021 making over 80% of economists think we’re between 1 and 2 years away from a recession. Ray Dalio, our hero and spirit animal, said in February 2018 that we were about two years away from a recession. So, according to him, we have one year left. It’s time to seriously prepare. We were about 2 years from a recession, 1 year ago. 2019 is either the year you must get your shit together.  There is no try. You saw what happened to the unprepared in 2008. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices