Build a Better Life

With Paula Pant

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#177: Ask Paula and Joe: Should I Buy a House or Catch Up on Retirement Savings?

Imagine that your job is extremely well-paying, but you don’t enjoy it.

You’d like to switch employers, even though this will probably require a paycut. But before you make the switch, you want to accomplish two goals: buy a home and catch up on retirement savings.

Should you pursue both goals? Or should you defer the home purchase, given the potential future paycut?

If you decide to pursue both goals, which one should come first?

This is one of the five questions that former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I answer in this week’s podcast episode.

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#176: Digital Minimalism – with Dr. Cal Newport

Cal Newport created a philosophy called digital minimalism, which is idea of reducing your digital life down to only the most important core essentials. Remove the apps from your phone, then slowly re-introduce only the ones that are the most useful and beneficial. Take control of your smartphone, rather than letting it control you.

Digital minimalism is a philosophy of technology use. This philosophy pulls from the concepts of minimalism, essentialism, the slow movement, and the 80/20 principle, applying these ideas towards your digital life.

Cal discusses the digital minimalist philosophy on today’s episode.

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#175: Three Percent is the New Four Percent – with Larry Swedroe, Retirement Planning Expert

Larry Swedroe is one of the most respected investment thinkers and writers of our time.

He’s published 8 books on investing, including one of the first books to explain the science of investing to a layperson audience. He recently wrote an ultra-comprehensive guide to retirement planning.

He joins us on the show today to discuss the nuances of investing and retirement planning.

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#174: Ask Paula – I’m 48 and Retiring Next Year. Should I Buy More Rentals?

Should a 48-year-old New Yorker who’s retiring next year buy more rental properties?

Should a Michigan-based first-time homebuyer use an FHA loan to buy a duplex for $135,000 that rents for $1,800 per month?

Should a 40-year-old music professor who owns a duplex transfer his property into an LLC?

Should a New Jersey condo owner sell her unit as For Sale by Owner?

And should a woman who’s anxious about owning her own rental properties dive into real estate crowdfunding deals instead?

I answer these five rental property questions in today’s podcast episode.

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#173: When a Child of Financial Chaos Stumbles into Adulthood – with Paulette Perhach

Paulette Perhach is a journalist who has been published in The New York Times, Slate, ELLE, Marie Claire, and Cosmo.

She catapulted to fame as an accidental personal finance writer after she published an article called The Story of an F-Off Fund.

This article tells the same narrative twice: in Scenario A, the protagonist in the story doesn’t have any emergency savings, and in Scenario B, she does. Paulette wrote this as a work of narrative fiction that vividly shows the power of an emergency fund, or as she rebrands it, an F-Off Fund.

This story went viral. More than a million people read it, it was translated into multiple languages, and it landed her a book deal and a major profile in the Seattle Times.

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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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#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 last time anyone conducted a large-scale study of American self-made millionaires was 25 years ago, and documented in the classic book The Millionaire Next Door. While that book is fantastic, it’s also 25 years old. Chris wanted to gather current data, to see what’s changed since then, and what’s remained the same.

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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?

Find out in this podcast episode. Enjoy!

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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 taken together, these tweaks can accumulate into a serious impact.

Improve your money management and get closer to financial independence with our free book, One Tweak a Week. You can download it here: https://affordanything.com/2019

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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 income?

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