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

This week the guys get nerdy about the numbers and chat about how to calculate cash on cash return to see if a property will be a smart investment.  Is This a Good Investment?  If you’ve been talking about buying a rental property with friends and family, there was probably someone who told you some horror story about owning rental property. Before letting them scare you out of it, do the math. It’s important not to make an emotional decision when buying a rental property. Instead look at the numbers and have systems in place to protect you. Some of us are just not numbers people (including myself). Although real estate investment math isn’t calculus, there are a lot of calculations involved. Don’t worry; we’re here to help. Cash On Cash Return The cash on cash return is a simple way of measuring the performance of a potential investment property that is quick and easy. It can be a good starting point for quickly filtering potential investment properties. Cash-on-cash return = annual pretax cash flow / t

Owning a rental property can be a great player in your overall investment strategy and an excellent way to build wealth. It typically isn't affected in the same way as the stock market so that it can provide diversification in your portfolio. However, it's important to understand the risks of the real estate market. Andrew just started investing in rental properties earlier this year soon today's episodes he will give us a broad overview of why real estate can be a great investment and what he has learned from his experience. We understand investing in real estate isn't for everyone, but it is an awesome way to build wealth. We are going to tell you why. View Episode Show Notes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you are looking to move to Denver or Denmark, there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration before moving to a new city.  When you are moving to a new city, everything is new and exciting, but it can also be a little scary. Preparing will help you get past that insecurity the unfamiliarity of a new city can bring. And overspending is almost always a result of under planning.  One of our awesome listeners has been thinking of making a move to a new city and asked us for some tips on how he can prepare. Thomas has been planning a move to Denver and will share some tips and resources he in today’s episode.  Financial Prerequisites  Before you move to a new city, you want to have your finances in order. Get your debt situation under control and work on your credit score. If you are planning on renting, landlords look at that very seriously when considering a tenant.  Make sure you have a job when you get there. If you’re moving because of a job, get a relocation bonus. ASK FOR IT! You’d be

If someone told you they were starting a franchise, what would be the first thing that came to mind – Mc Donalds, Chick-Fil-A, 7 Eleven? When you start to look into the world of franchises, you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find. These days they come in all different shapes, sizes and niches.  Today the guys chat with Laura Novak, owner of Little Nest Portraits Franchise, about starting a franchise. She talks to us about how her franchisees work, why she decided to go franchise and what systems she has put in place to make them successful. Why Franchise Laura started out as a photographer when she was only 23 years old and grew her passion into a successful small business of her own. As the years went on, she wanted to spend more time with her family and was ready to build a business that was bigger than her. For most entrepreneurs, it’s hard to let go control of their business. After being approached by someone about opening another Little Nest location, Laura started to think about starting a franchise.

It’s hard to know how to prioritize your financial goals. Personal finance is personal, so there isn’t one answer for everyone. It’s important to understand how to prioritize your financial goals and help you figure out what to focus on first.  Should you start an emergency fund or save for retirement? Pay off debt or start investing? Everyone will give you different advice, and it can get confusing.  Know What You Want  You can’t do anything meaningful until you decide on some goals for the short term (this month), medium term (next 3-6 months) and long-term (1-2 years). What stage are you at in life and where do you want to be?  Your financial goals can be buying a new home, saving for college, starting a family or creating an emergency fund.  When you take this step, it’s important to think about both your short-term and long-term goals.  Perhaps you want to plan a family vacation to Europe within the next five years. Or, you may wish to have enough of a buffer in your finances so that you and your signif

Becoming an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. Running and growing a business can be challenging – that’s why about 90 percent of all new businesses fail.  Since the odds are stacked against you, it takes hard work and perseverance to achieve success.  Whether you have a business or looking to start a one, it’s important to listen to your peers and mentors. Some lessons you will have to learn on your own but some small business tips you can learn from others.  Collectively, Thomas and Andrew have ten years of experience under their belt running small businesses. Today they will share their most valuable lessons and small business tips.  Don’t quit your day job.  When you are just starting out, bringing in a consistent profit month after month can be challenging and stressful. You don’t want to be the position where you’ll do anything for a quick buck.  You want to focus on building something that will make you $2000 passively everything month down the road and not worry about making $100 to survive t

Your paycheck gets deposited, groceries purchased, bills paid, and then you’re broke again until the next payday.  That is the story for almost half of American households, and the vicious cycle is hard to break. It won’t be easy, but you can stop living paycheck to paycheck.  An NYU study found that about 70 million Americans live in “wealthy hand-to-mouth” households. These are families that own assets like homes, retirement accounts, college funds and cars but yet still live paycheck to paycheck. They spend almost every dollar of their annual income to keep up their lifestyle and pay all the bills.  Why is it happening?  If you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck, you need to find the root of the problem. It is probably very simple – you are spending more than you earn. You may not throw your money away on extravagant things, but you are still living above your means.  It’s time to consider making some lifestyle changes. Start by making a list of necessary and optional expenses see where you can save.

This episode was inspired by a tweet we received from one of our listeners Alexa who asked, How many side hustles are too many? She has been working on a few things that she loves and was questioning if she should just focus on one and ditch the rest for now.  Both Andrew and Thomas have struggled with focusing on one project from time to time. When trying to build a business you have a lot on your plate. Staying focused can be tough with a constant stream tasks and new ideas demanding your attention.  In this episode, the guys talk about why focus is so important. They share how they get focused and deal with working on too many projects at once.  To answer Alexas’ question, it really depends on what the goals are for these side hustles. If they are just fun activities that make you happy and keep you busy, then you can have as many as you want.  However, if you are trying to grow something that you would like to eventually turn into a money generating business you need to focus on one thing. That is only yo

We love to answer questions from our listeners, and sometimes we make a whole episode around it. Today we answer five questions about drinking on the job, Lending Club, borrowing from family, green mutual funds, having fun, buying a first home,  Bonus Question:  I have noticed that you tend to be drinking beer on each of the podcasts, let me just first say, fuck I’m jealous.I would like to know what kind of job I can get that will let me drink beer in the morning (without the whole judgey this guy is probably an alcoholic vibe). If you do respond to this email, please don’t use my name as my current job frowns on asking questions like these.  This question is great. You have to work for yourself or work for some hipster-ass startup that has beer on tap all the time. But even then they’ll probably give you the stink eye if you’re drinking it at 8 a.m.  Question One:  Do you feel Lending Club is still a prudent investment given the recent scandal issues they’ve run into? Will it have long-term impacts on the bu

Becoming a new parent is a wonderful life experience, but it also comes with a ton of work, sleepless nights and some financial stress.  Today the guys talk to Kim Palmer, mother of two and author of Smart Mom, Rich Mom about how to build wealth while raising a family and preparing financially for parenthood. New Expenses There are many new expenses that come along with a new family member. According to Kim, on average a new child will cost $11,000 in their first year which doesn’t even include childcare but well get to that. It just goes up after that costing you about $250,000 by the time they are 18 years old. Besides the basics like diapers and baby food which can cost upwards of $75 per week, you’ll want your new bundle of joy to have the best and most safe baby gear. Some of those big-ticket items like cribs and strollers and cost hundreds. You can buy gently used clothing, but car seats and crib are being recalled all the time so avoid buying those second hand. Most families have to make the decis

Happy 4th of July! While you are watching fireworks, remember how much hard work and dedication it took the founders of the United States to declare independence. It takes the same effort and dedication when it comes to financial independence. These are the best habits for independence.  Finding financial independence takes a lot of hard work too. Today the guys talk about building habits for independence and what mindset you need to become more freedom financially.  What Retirement Should Be  Andrew was recently having a conversation with his father about retirement. He said even when he has enough money to retire, the thought of having a finite amount of money and slowly burning it down its a pretty scary.  The Concept of retirement is changing. Thomas read a book called The Happiness Equation, which talks about where the idea of retirement came from. In the 1880’s the German started making it mandatory for people over 65 to retirement to free up jobs for younger people. Back then the average lifespan was 6

Season two of Listen Money Matters has officially reached 100 episodes. Thomas and Andrew have learned so much from each other and from the excellent guests we’ve had on the show. Today the guys discuss the top 10 things they have learned in 100 episodes this season. Andrew’s Lessons Having routine changes everything. Andrew learned the power of habit and made better use of his time. Having a routine has done wonders for his productivity and has actively and consciously built himself a daily routine so he can achieve more throughout that day. #gettingshitdone. Allison’s real estate investment strategy rocks. This episode caused a significant mindset shift for Andrew on how he approached wealth building. Allison inspired and opened his eyes to how easy it is to get into real estate investing. She was an excellent example of a typical family creating passive income through hard work and time. Real estate investing isn’t that hard. On a similar vain, this episode further educated Andrew on how the whole proc

Growing your wealth is not just about keeping up with your budget and investing some money in the stock market. To achieve financial independence, you need to have a solid plan, and that starts with better decision making.  Today on the show the guys talk to Douglas McCormick- Army veteran, entrepreneur, and author of Family Inc. He teaches us about managing your family finances like a business and how to use business principles to maximize your wealth.  Many Americans of all ages struggle with finances. Douglas wrote Family Inc to provide everyone a straightforward and holistic way to manage their money and build wealth for their future. He wants to empower people to strive for financial independence and give them the education to make the right decisions.  Appoint a CFO:  Like any business, someone needs to be in charge of what is going on financially. Although the whole family will make decisions together, there should be one person who will be in charge of making sure all the money is managed correctly. T

Ever wonder how to people make money selling wholesale on Amazon? Andrew trawled Quora and found someone to teach us how to do it.  Eddie Lichstein has been in the e-commerce business for 13 years selling wholesale on Amazon. He has always been a car nut and runs a site, TH Motorsports, which is the Amazon of car parts. He also runs Rejoiner, a site to help e-commerce business owners improve sales. Eddie has been very generous answering questions on Quora and he came here today to answer our questions. America Was Built On Small Business Small business makes up 99.7% of US employer firms. America has always been a country that fosters small business. And right now, certain sectors like e-commerce, are like the Wild West. In 20 or 30 years, people will look back with amazement at how easy it is to make money right now. So why aren’t more of us starting small businesses? Because we get caught up in the details; how do I incorporate? I’ll need an accountant, a lawyer. I’m just a regular person, I can’t deal w

When it comes to real estate, breakaway success is found at scale, and Fundrise’s goal is to scratch that itch. Does the Fundrise platform stand up to the hype? That’s what I was determined to find out.  I’ve always been a do-it-yourself investor – especially when it comes to real estate.  My wife and I own three rental properties, and the condo that we live in is the result of a successful fix and flip over two years.  It goes without saying that real estate is both an essential part of our wealth building strategy and something that we’re particularly interested in. It’s a strategy that is, above all, focused on long-term growth.  Over the past one and a half years we’ve interviewed Ben Miller the CEO, twice. First, when Fundrise just started and was only available to accredited investors and a second time after they opened up their platform to normal people – we invested soon after. They’ve since scaled massively, paid me a ton of dividends and relaunched their entire platform as “Fundrise 2.0“. So, I tho

Emotions have no place in investing. You rely on cold, hard data to make investing decisions. Today we’ll talk about ways to take the emotion out of buying stocks with the founder of Simply Wall Street.  We interview Al Bentley, wind-surfer, CEO and co-founder of Simply Wall Street, an Australian startup that helps people make better investing decisions by turning complex data into easily understood infographics. Buy and Hold Wins Again Confirming yet again the advice that LMM has been giving you from the start, Simply Wall Street does not advocate picking individual stocks but rather the buy and hold strategy. But because there are people who buy individual stocks, Simply Wall Street wants to give them the best information available in a way that is easy to understand so that they can take the emotion out of buying stocks and make right decisions. The site does get incredibly detailed on individual stocks even looking at things like CEO compensation, but when you visit, you’ll notice that one piece of in

We get a lot of listener questions, and sometimes we get the same question several times. When that happens, we know a five questions episode is in order! Today we bring you give questions on profit sharing, tradelines, 403Bs, 401ks, and paying off debt.  Question One:  Can you guys explain the difference between a regular 401k vs. profit sharing 401k? What’s the difference between the two and can you withdraw from both early?  Profit Sharing is solely employer-funded. You’re not putting money from your paycheck into it like you would a 401k. It is your employer making contributions towards your retirement.  Contributions are usually based on the percentage of salary – higher salary = higher profit sharing. As for withdrawal, the plan administrator has a lot of decision making power in determining pre-withdrawal requirements.  For a 401k, the employee is the primary contributor to account. Some employers will match contributions, but not a requirement. Even if they match in given year, an employer can suspend

There are many ways to make money on Amazon, and retail arbitrage is one of them. I know, it sounds pretty badass. We’ll teach you how it’s done.  We have Jessica and Cliff from The Selling Family on the show to talk about their experience using FBA to create a successful lifestyle business. They started in 2010 and now make 300K in sales a year bringing in 100K in profits. What is FBA? FBA or Fulfillment by Amazon allows anyone to sell goods on the Amazon platform and store inventory in their fulfillment centers. Simply put, you buy items you want to sell, and Amazon will list them, store them and ship them to your customers. They also handle most customer service inquires, refunds and returns. Interestingly, more than 40% of Amazon’s total sales come from third-party sellers. Amazon is the go-to place to buy anything from vitamins to dog tu-tus. It’s trusted name with a highly trafficked marketplace (understatement) which makes it a perfect place for your products to gain visibility to millions of buye

Tax-loss harvesting is a term you’ve probably heard but don’t know what it means. It may seem obscure, but it’s a good weapon to have in your investing arsenal. So just what the f**k is tax-loss harvesting?  Dan Egan, the Director of Behavioral Finance at Betterment is joining us to talk about Tax Loss Harvesting. We discuss what it is, how it works and what sort of benefits it provides you as a long-term investor. Tax-loss harvesting is the selling of securities at a loss to offset a capital gains tax liability. What is Tax-Loss Harvesting? Losing money on an investment stinks but there is a way to soften the blow a little; tax-loss harvesting. TLH means you sell an investment that has lost money. By harvesting investment losses, you can offset taxes on short-term gains and income. You replace the investment that was sold with a similar one to keep your asset allocation the same. Okay, that’s a little confusing for us lay people. Keep reading. Here’s an example of how it works. You bought $100 worth of A

While weddings are a wonderful way to celebrate the love between two people, it can come with a hefty price tag. But it doesn’t have to. You can have the wedding you want without going broke. I did. Here’s how beautiful party without blowing your wedding budget.  It is important to bear in mind during the whole process that a wedding and marriage are two separate things. What is crucial on your wedding day is you, the one you love, a marriage officiant and your wedding license – everything else is extra.  Your wedding will last a few hours, but your marriage is for a lifetime.  With that said, who doesn’t want to have a party and share that special day with all the people they care about? There is a lot of planning and money that comes along with it, and it can quickly become out of control.  Who is Paying?  Your wedding is probably the priciest party you’ll ever throw in your life. As of 2015, the average wedding in the U.S. ran about $32,000. Of course, it depends on where you live and what kind of wedding