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

Travel expert Andy Steves teaches us how to travel abroad affordably while having an authentic experience. Andy grew up traveling to Europe with his father, the travel guru, Rick Steves.  He worked college summers as a tour guide for his dad’s company and saw a gap in the market while spending a semester studying abroad in Rome.  In 2010 Andy set up his own travel company, Weekend Student Adventures Europe to take study abroad students on affordable intra-Europe three day weekends. For a lot of students, their semester abroad is the first time they have had to budget their money.  Dealing with a new currency makes this even harder as does the “foreignness” of a new place.  Young people perhaps outside the US for the first time might be too timid to venture off the well trodden tourist path and end up spending more money for a less authentic experience. By doing some research, which is half the fun of a trip for some of us, you can avoid the tourist traps and really experience a new place.  When looking for

Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Lift.do  discusses how his habit building app can help us build good habits be they financial or another realm of our lives. Tony has a long background in tech startups.  We was the head of engineering when the first version of Twitter was built and was involved in the site  Wesabe which was a precursor of Mint. Tony is now the CEO of Lift which is a habit building app and a support system for over 200,000 goals including saving money, improving diet, and meditation.  Tony likes to call it “a personal coach that lives on your phone.”  He was inspired by the level of support he saw as a guest at a Twelve Step meeting and thought if we could have that level of support for the smaller goals in life, we could make succeeding so much easier. Like a lot of apps, Lift is free so how will they eventually make money?  The plan is to charge a fee for higher levels of coaching involving one on one interaction with one of Lift’s experts. What are some of Tony’s success building habits?  Rathe

Forbes Magazine published a list of common money mistakes many of us make.   Which ones are you making? 1.  Not having a budget.  Chances are you have more than Matt’s three monthly expenses and unless you’re budgeting, you can’t keep track of them.  No need to be old fashioned and create a spread sheet. There are plenty of online tools available to make this a painless process. 2.  Avoid bank fees.  Bank fees are for suckers.  There are plenty of banks that don’t charge you for the privilege of housing your money while paying you crap interest. 3.  You have no emergency fund.  There are different definitions of what an emergency fund is.  For some it’s $1000 in a checking or savings account.  For others it’s a year’s worth of expenses invested.  For most of us, it’s somewhere in between and having any emergency fund is better than none. 4.  5.  Not taking full advantage of matching 401K funds and not contributing from your first pay check.  What if your employer doesn’t match?  It’s still worthwhile to c

Your future self will you for establishing an emergency fund now. It’s important to set aside emergency savings can help you get in case your home needs an urgent repair or something more serious like unemployment. We will help you figure out how much you need and how to get an emergency fund started. Having an emergency fund is one of the most important things you can do. It’s part of adulting. Your savings should be able to cover your major expenses for three to six months. What is an Emergency Fund? An emergency fund is a pool of liquid money set aside for unforeseen expenses like a medical expense or a car repair. Having an emergency fund can be the difference between a small bump in your financial life and complete disaster in your entire life. Having a robust emergency fund gives you peace of mind. No one wants to live one paycheck away from not being able to pay the rent or one car breakdown away from not being able to get to work. It also gives you some freedom. If you decide to leave a relation

In honor of Memorial Day, we interview our listener Johnny who is a member of the Air Force, working in the finance office. Members of the Armed Forces have their own set of challenges when it comes to their finances.  Many recruits are fresh out of high school and learning to manage their finances is just one of the new arenas they find themselves in. As a new recruit, most of the day to day living expenses are covered, housing, meals, and health care so a lot of their income is disposable and they make the same mistakes a lot of young people make when they suddenly find themselves with some money.  Buying expensive cars, fancy gadgets, nice (well earned) vacations dinner out when they tire of eating the same thing on a ten day rotation.  The military does provide some personal finance classes but they’re voluntary. The military does provide investment options.  There is the TSP which is similar to a 401K program and subject to the same caps as the civilian sector.  Military personnel are also given a pen

 Meet Dan, Matt’s financially savvy brother to discuss what he’s doing right, wrong, and what he could do better. Are money smarts genetic? We learn early on the difference between Matt and Dan.  As children, Dan asked for stocks for Christmas while Matt asked for XBox games.  Their Mom told me they still do that actually.  Dan also took personal finance classes while in high school, again underscoring the importance of teaching PF in school. Dan started college majoring in finance but changed to management information systems after one semester.  He graduated with $45,000 in student debt and bought a house soon after. He did not take Matt’s advice to “live a little” but put 10% down while maintaining a cushion of about $10,000.  Half of that is in Betterment and the other half is slowly being moved from savings to Betterment.  Dan has a private  IRA and a pension through his job. Dan has no credit card debt and owes $4,000 on his car. Dan has some changes that are coming up to his situation.  When he bo

Why not turn doing what you love into a way to make a bit of money on the side?  We share ideas on how to make money with your hobbies. The difference between a hobby and a job is that a job has aspects you don’t enjoy. A hobby is doing only the things you like to do. Can you make money watching TV? Kind of sad if you consider TV a hobby but none the less, you can turn it into cash. You can use sites like Swagbucks or Bing Rewards to play videos while you’re doing something else, cooking or working. You may have to occasionally click on the screen but it’s not terribly distracting or time-consuming. You can even use something like Bing Rewards Bot to automate the system. Matt’s brother Dan makes anywhere from $40-70 a month this way. How Stuff Works lists ten hobbies that can pay off. Several of them like dog walking, organizing, and coaching a sport have little to no start up costs. If you love to take photos, upload them to a site like i-Stock. Someone looking for a photo of a beach for example, will pa

It’s interesting to hear someone else’s personal finance story, and we are lucky enough to have listeners willing to share this financial life. Today we are joined by one such listener. Join us for this financial life with Robbie. Robbie is getting married in a few weeks. His fiancé is in graduate school. He has no debt aside from $44,000 in student loans. The student loan payment is $165 a month, but Robbie usually pays $250. The interest rate on the loan is about 6%. Robbie has no car payment, rent is $765, and groceries run $400-500 a month. Robbie puts some money each month into his Betterment account. Those are the facts. How is Robbie doing? Pretty well actually. He’s a long time listener and has learned a lot from LMM. Andrew suggests that he invest three months of living expenses into Betterment to serve as an emergency fund. The rest of the extra money will be better spent paying off the student loans. Once Robbie’s fiancé finishes graduate school and starts working, they plan to live on one sal

J David Stein of Money For the Rest of Us visits for our ongoing Better Know A Millionaire series. David went to work as an institutional investment advisor at the age of 30 after spending years in corporate finance. David retired at 40, already a millionaire. David tells us that most millionaires, as in The Millionaire Next Door, live a frugal lifestyle. And the best way to become a millionaire in the United States is to start and own your own business. David lives in Idaho and drives a used BMW with a cracked windshield. What does a retired millionaire do to bring money in? The bulk of David’s income now comes from investing. He is more cautious now than he was when he was still working. He reiterates some ideas we have discussed in the past. Keep your fees low and be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. David’s greatest pleasure now that he’s retired is travel. He travels as he lives, frugally. Taking advantage of sites like Airbnb for cheap and comfortable accommodations.

It's easy to dismiss mindfulness as some kind of woo-woo new age nonsense, but it's not all navel-gazing and chakras. But when we are mindful of the things that are important to us, including money, we can greatly improve our lives. Full Article Here Show Notes Investable: Research and evaluate rental properties. Tool Box: All the best stuff to manage your money. Lift App: An easy way to make a good practice a habit. Calm.com: A guided meditation site. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No one should spend too much time thinking about or managing their finances.  Learn some tricks to make it easier. If you’ve been with us for any length of time, you know that we emphasize the importance of monitoring your finances. But there is such a thing as too much. We’ll teach you how to pay attention to your finances without becoming too obsessive. Full Article Here Show Notes MasteringMint.com: Our book that will allow you to manage your finances without driving yourself to distraction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Epstein became a millionaire by the age of thirty. Michael will tell us how he did it and how you can too. He started his first company, e-Dimensional, a software company that designed glasses to make off-the-shelf video games 3-D while still in college. Within the first year, the company reached one million dollars in sales.   Michael made a lot of sacrifices to ensure the success of his business. He ran the company while attending college and working full time. Michael sold the company in 2013 and didn’t retire to Cabo but started his consulting business, Get On Line With Me. Full Article Here Show Notes eDimensional.com: Michael’s first company devoted to realistic gaming experiences. GetOnlineWithMe.com: Michael’s current online consulting business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Which of your financial obligations should you meet first, loans, investing, credit cards?  Learn where to best allocate your money.   Full Article Here Show Notes Betterment: Automated investing. Lending Club: A peer-to-peer lending company. Money Chimp: Tax brackets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can you find the extra money for the things you can’t live without? We’ll show you places to find a little something extra. In his book, I Will Teach You to be Rich Remit Sethi discusses that it’s not the $5 you spend daily at Starbucks that is keeping you broke. It’s not the small expenses you spend every day, it’s the big expenditures you make too often. But how do you separate the two? You have to prioritize your spending. You love coffee, can’t live without it. So buy the coffee. You work from home so don’t need a big wardrobe. Do don’t spend a lot on clothes. Boom! There’s your coffee money and then some. Make more money. Ok, you don’t love coffee. You love foreign travel to exotic locales. Saving $5 a day on coffee isn’t going to get you two weeks in Bali (it helps though). You have to make more money if your indulgences are more expensive. So you work longer hours, you work a second job. You can still travel but if your tastes are high end, it will be easier to make more money to pay for them th

Introducing the LMM’s Wealth Wheel.  Do we debate the age-old question, what matters more, size or the motion of the ocean?   Full Article Here   Show Notes The LMM Wealth Wheel: Learn about the four parts of the Wealth Wheel. LearnVest.com: The 50/20/30 rule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We could all use more money, and one of the best ways to get more money is to ask for a raise. But it’s a little more complicated than marching into the boss’s office and demanding one. Asking for a raise is a strategic decision, and can be deployed in many different ways. You just need to pick the right one! Today we’ll show you how the best way to ask for a raise without getting yelled out of your boss’ office. about what you’re asking them. Full Article Here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you play Monopoly with your family when you were a kid? If you did, you probably learned some valuable financial lessons, even if you tipped the board when you lost. Personal finance isn’t a game, but there are lessons to be learned from the game of Monopoly. Full Article Here Show Notes DiceMaestro.com: A site dedicated to classic games. SmartPassiveIncome.com: A guide to generating passive income online. 8 Personal Finance Lessons I Learned From Monopoly: An article by a friend of the show, Jim Wang on his former website, Bargineering.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn lessons from millionaire Laurie Itkin in our “Better Know a Millionaire” show. Laurie explains how she became a millionaire before the age of 40.  This is the first episode of our ongoing series, “Better Know a Millionaire.” (Obviously, a total ripoff of Colbert’s Better Know a District…or homage — that’s better). Show Notes Omission Pale Ale Gluten Free Beer by Widmer Brothers: Andrew claims that it was pretty good, so I’ll take him at his word. Traditional Medicinals Organic Lemon Echinacea Throat Coat Herbal Tea: Wow! That’s a mouthful, but it’s the tea I started drinking when I feel a sore throat developing. Really tastes good without sugar, which is great. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s Mother’s Day.  Matt and Andrew interview their mom’s to find out what financial lessons they’ve learned. This is a very personal episode for us at Listen Money Matters. Both Andrew and I sat down, face to face, with our moms and talked to them about their past experiences with money. I know for me, it was a very endearing event as I’m sure it was for Andrew. We found out a lot about what made our moms so good with money. I want to keep this short because it’s Mother’s Day and you should be spending time with your mom or a mom that you know and respect, no matter who it is. Listen to the episode below and let us know what you thought of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matters of personal finance are intimidating for many Americans and it’s no mystery why. There are so many aspects of personal finance. Emergency funds, mutual funds, estate planning, retirement accounts, life insurance, tax planning. And that’s just the beginning. Full Article Here Show Notes SeekingAlpha.com: A crowdsourced platform that focuses on sharing top investment ideas. Betterment: A DIY investing tool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices