Written By Paula Pant
👋 Hey there! FYI, this post is part of our First Principles series.
About the series…
When most people talk about money management, they discuss tactics. Occasionally, you’ll encounter someone who elevates the discussion to strategy, rather than simply scattershot tactics.
But what’s missing from both conversations — both tactics and strategy — is a […]
By Paula Pant
Behavioral researcher Vanessa Van Edwards, who runs the research lab Science of People, breaks down the psychological secrets behind feeling and looking more confident, competent and charismatic.
She explains how to apply these techniques to critical conversations around money, whether you’re negotiating your salary, buying a home or car, or arguing with your spouse about your household spending.
People who are liked tend to earn more money and enjoy more opportunities, Van Edwards says.
There are practical, quantifiable financial benefits to working on the soft skills of warmth, likeability and charisma.
In this episode, we cover:
• The distinction between encoding and decoding – and why it matters
• How subtle shifts in your body language can make a big impact in your ability to connect with others
• The key “warm” words to say whenever you’re opening a conversation, whether you’re talking to a boss, colleague, client, or neighbor
• How to handle your hands, especially if you find yourself awkwardly standing around at a networking event
• The “sound cues” and vocal inflections that can either boost your perceived competence – or that can subtly discredit your message
• The visual cues that make people notice you and want to conduct business with you
Enjoy!
By Paula Pant
Sara wants to leave her job to spend time with her children, and she needs help in calculating her FIRE number. But is this possible?
Joe is buying his first house hack and would like to understand if the FHA loan or the doctor loan would be better for him.
Kat received a windfall and is wondering if she should invest it in stocks, real estate, or a combination of both.
Aisha is moving to the US and wants to start investing ASAP – how should she approach her goal to reach FIRE?
Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these questions in today’s episode.
Enjoy!
P.S. Got a question? Leave it here.
By Paula Pant
Maybe you’re envious of your friend who bought Bitcoin in 2015 and held until it hit 7-figures.
Maybe you’re anxious about rapidly rising home prices.
Maybe you regret that you didn’t buy a rental property five years ago, because – at the time – you felt like prices had already risen so much (from 2012 to 2017) that you just couldn’t justify paying 2017’s pricetag.
Our lives, finances and careers invoke many strong feelings. In today’s episode, Mollie West Duffy, the co-author of Big Feelings, shares strategies for not letting our feelings hijack our choices.
Mollie and her co-author, Liz Fosslien, run an Instagram channel about emotional management with half a million followers. Fosslien is an economist and behavioral scientist whose work has been featured by The Economist, Freakonomics and NPR. Duffy is an organizational and leadership development expert who’s written for Harvard Business Review.
They tackle relatable workplace issues like perfectionism, productivity guilt and Zoom fatigue, among much more.
Enjoy!
Written By Paula Pant
Hi there!
This post is an illustrated, pared-down version of my recent “Inflation, Explained” podcast episode.
It was created as a simple, easy-to-digest guide to help you understand the current inflationary environment in the US.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
What is inflation?
Simple definition: […]
By Paula Pant
Anonymous and her spouse are both in the military and about to reach retirement. They have an expensive whole life insurance policy, costing $550 per month, and wonder if they should switch to term life insurance.
Ionnie just rolled over her Roth IRA and would like to understand how to withdraw her contributions without getting penalized
Matt wants to optimize his portfolio and wants to know if he should invest along the Efficient Frontier – despite the fact that the asset allocation it recommends is absolutely bonkers; it’s wild and risky and tilted like nothing he’s ever seen before.
Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these three questions in today’s episode.
Enjoy!
P.S. Also – we’re launching a book club!! Each month, we’ll read and discuss a book written by an Afford Anything podcast guest, starting with Morgan Housel, James Clear, Ken Honda, and Dr. Susan David.
By Paula Pant
Welcome to our First Friday bonus episode.
Once a month, Afford Anything presents a special feature called Invest Anywhere, in which we teach our audience how to invest in real estate from thousands of miles away.
We kickoff today’s episode by discussing current market conditions. Yesterday the Fed raised interest rates by another 50 basis points, which means mortgages are more expensive than they’ve been in years. Additionally, jittery investors worried about an impending recession led the stock market to its worst day of the calendar year so far.
How should we interpret the current market conditions? Is this a good time to buy an investment property? We cover this in the first 20 minutes of today’s episode.
Next, we discuss 5 challenges associated with investing in long-distance real estate investing: (1) fear, (2) accountability, (3) traction, (4) stress, and (5) relationships.
We elaborate on each challenge and offer solutions.
Finally, we discuss 4 benefits to investing out-of-state: (1) competitive ability, (2) diversification, (3) returns, and (4) repeatability. We elaborate on four types of diversification: economic, strategy, business cycle, and asset based.
Enjoy!
By Paula Pant
Anonymous is 25. She has a job offer that comes with a substantial raise. Hooray!
Buuut … there’s a problem. If she accepts this job offer, her new employer won’t allow her to contribute as much money to her company retirement accounts.
How should she think about the trade-off between increasing income and funding her retirement?
Meanwhile, Dan from California is retiring soon and wants to know what he and his wife should do with the loan they took out against their 401(k).
Finally, an anonymous caller who goes by “Daughter” has a whole life policy that only costs her less than $50 per month. Since her policy is so cheap, should she keep it?
By Paula Pant
Today’s episode is sheer retirement nerd bliss.
We talk to the creator of the 4 percent retirement safe withdrawal rule, Bill Bengen.
If you’re new to retirement planning, you might not yet grasp the gravity of this. Let’s cut to the chase: the 4 percent rule is one of the most revolutionary, groundbreaking insights in the field of retirement research in the past 30 years.
To understand why, let’s climb in our time machines and return to 1994.
Back then, many financial advisors were telling their clients that they could safely withdraw 7 percent of their retirement portfolio each year.
After all, the simplistic logic went, the stock market has historically yielded between 7 to 9 percent returns, so that type of withdrawal rate shouldn’t dwindle the principle … right? ⠀
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Bill Bengen, an MIT graduate and former rocket scientist, decided to build a better model. He looked at the performance of investment portfolios across 30-year time horizons, beginning in 1926.
Under the assumption that the portfolio is invested 50 percent in an S&P 500 Index and 50 percent in intermediate-term bonds, in a tax deferred account, he found that retirees could only withdraw 4.2 percent of their portfolio in the first year of retirement, and that amount adjusted for inflation each subsequent year.
He called this the “safe withdrawal rate” that gave people a reasonable chance of not outliving their money, based on historic performance.
He published the results in the Journal of Financial Planning and caused a stir. This was revolutionary. It upended the assumptions that dominated the field at the time.
And it remains a cornerstone of retirement planning to this day.
We talk to Bill Bengen about his discovery – and his latest research – in today’s episode.
By Paula Pant
Meghan’s mom is 64 years old and suffering under a toxic boss. It’s tough to switch jobs at her age. How should she think through the next steps?
Ellen has a 20-year-old son with physical and developmental disabilities. Her other child, age 21, will need to look after him for the rest of their lives. How should she handle their inheritance?
Joe wants to start working part-time in four years, and fully retire four years after that. He worries he’s investing too aggressively for his retirement date.
In today’s episode, former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these tough situations.
Enjoy!
