Afford Anything

Author: Paula Pant

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#172: Ask Paula – Should I Buy a Nice Car or Save My Money?

Should a 25-year-old homeowner with healthy savings and no debt (other than his mortgage) upgrade his car? Should he make this choice if his current car is fine, and upgrading puts him into new debt?

Should a couple without access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan put their savings into a taxable account, or should they save for a downpayment on a rental property?

The market is fluctuating like mad; if someone has a lump-sum of cash, should they invest it now or should they slowly meter it in?

Should someone without an emergency fund enroll in an HSA-qualified health insurance plan? Or should they stick with a plan that has a smaller deductible?

How should a husband-and-wife team that’s self-employed and running a company together handle their health insurance?

Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I answer these five questions on today’s podcast. Enjoy!

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7 Expensive Rental Property Investing Mistakes to Avoid

My readers and podcast listeners regularly reach out to me to say that they’re afraid to invest in rental properties because they don’t want to put their life savings at risk on a deal. I get that – but, if you approach real estate investing the right way (with risk management in mind), then you can save yourself a lot of money and trouble, and reap the benefits. After 7 years of being a landlord, I wanted to share some of the common (and expensive!) mistakes I’ve seen other rental investors make, and how to avoid them. So if you’ve been considering rental property investing, this is a must-watch. Here’s what this video covers: Mistake[…]

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#171: The biggest study of everyday millionaires in 25 years – with Chris Hogan

Chris Hogan is a former football player and Georgetown alum who became the Vice President of a well-respected company. By all accounts, he seemed successful. Yet he felt there was something missing. He kept seeing families struggle with their personal finances, and he felt a calling to help. That’s when he met Dave Ramsey, who brought him into the Ramsey family to spread the word about smart money management and debt freedom. Chris has been a writer, speaker and influencer ever since. Chris organized a survey of 10,000 millionaires in the United States. The[…]

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#170: Ask Paula – When Should I NOT Use the One Percent Rule for a Rental Property?

When should you NOT use the one percent rule for rental property investing? In today’s episode, I encourage two callers to violate the One Percent Rule for real estate that they already own. WHAAATTTT? Why would I say that? Especially given that I’ve gained a bit of a reputation as The World’s Most Staunch Advocate of the One Percent Rule? (Long title, I know, but someone’s gotta wear it.) And if you’re not going to use the One Percent Rule, how should you make decisions about your real estate investments instead?[…]

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Well, 2018 was quite the year …

Here are a handful of lessons from 2018 (although many of these ideas originated during a lifetime preceding that). I’ve shared most, but not all, of these lessons on Instagram in the past year. 1: Your net worth is not your self worth. That’s true regardless of whether your net worth is low or high. Money is what we accumulate, but it’s not who we are. 2: It’s inefficient to worry about the small stuff (like how much you’re spending on avocado toast) if you’re not taking care of the big stuff (like how much you’re spending on your home, car and food, especially restaurants.) Don’t patch a few minor ceiling leaks if a huge section of your roof is[…]

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#169: One Tweak a Week in 2019 — Easy Improvements to Your Financial Life in 2019

Happy New Years! To kickoff 2019, we’ve created a free book called One Tweak a Week, outlining 26 easy, actionable ways that you can improve your financial life. Today’s podcast episode covers these 26 tweaks, so you can listen in audio format, in addition to reading the book. If you put these into action for the first six months of 2019, you’ll be in a stronger position in June than you started in January. Each tweak takes less than one hour (some are as quick as five minutes), and[…]

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#168: How to Optimize Your Time and Energy — with Mike Vardy, The Productivityist

You can do anything, but not everything … and definitely not everything at the same time. How can you optimize your time and energy? How do you choose what’s worthwhile and what’s a waste of time? How can you eliminate small decisions so that your mind is free to focus on the few choices that make a massive 10x impact? How can you spend less time struggling with your Inbox, and more time on long-term projects that can boost your[…]

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We did it!! We raised $21,978 for charity

A year and a half ago, I saw a speech that changed my life — and the lives of at least 600 other people in the developing world. I was at the World Domination Summit in Portland, where I’d later be speaking. I sat in the audience as Scott Harrison took the stage. Scott is a former nightclub promoter who, at age 28, had a crisis of conscience. His job was encouraging people to get drunk. He smoked two packs a day. He gambled. He felt like he wasn’t adding anything to the world. And he wasn’t sure if, or how, he could. “One day, I woke up and I realized I was the worst person I knew,” he wrote[…]

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#167: Ask Paula – Should I Pay Off Student Loans While in School?

Angelisa is a college senior with $30,000 in student loans. She has a part-time job, from which she’s saved $2,500. Should she keep saving money, or should she get a headstart on paying down her student loans while she’s in school? Mackenzie is also a college senior with some student loans. She recently received a settlement from a car accident. Should she invest this money? If so, how? Franchesca is 35 and is carrying $212,000 in debt, mostly student loans. Could she reach financial independence, even with a late start? Erica wants[…]

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Maybe you don’t need to figure out what’s wrong

A few months ago, I interviewed a behavioral economist named Dr. Stephen Wendel on my podcast. He suggested an idea that’s so crazy it might work. We were discussing the fact that people often stand in their own way; there’s a gap between intention and action. We know what we “should” do, but we don’t follow through. We procrastinate. We make excuses. We act against our own self-interests. We have an image of our ideal self, we have the reality of our current self, and it’s harder than expected to bridge that divide. Why? Most people try to figure out the problem. “Why can’t I stick to my goals?” But during our interview, Stephen turns this conventional wisdom on its[…]

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Afford Anything