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By Paula Pant

#285: Ask Paula – How Can I Pay for Grad School?

Sam wants to use the funds in her Vanguard S&P 500 index funds for a downpayment on a house. She isn’t sure if she should keep her savings in the market. Should she move her money, and where?

Hailey purchased a duplex in March and is already looking to sell due to a hostile tenant during the purchase process. How can she shift her focus from her initial return on investment to a long-term outlook?

Zoe dreams of attending grad school, but her savings are locked away in retirement accounts. How can she save for grad school in the next two to three years?

Mohamed wants to monetize a new podcast with affiliate relationships, but the service providers he wants to promote don’t offer affiliate programs. Can he still make this work, and how?

I answer these listener questions in today’s episode. Enjoy!

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By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

PSA Thursday: Broadcasting Live from FinConX

Welcome back to PSA Thursday, a weekly-ish segment in which we talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the year that is 2020.

Paula Pant and Andy Hill broadcast from Dallas, where they’re part of a bare-bones skeleton production crew that’s hosting the 10th annual FinCon, a conference for a community of personal finance podcasters, YouTubers and bloggers.

On the evening before the event, they reflect on the importance of community, especially when it comes to learning about money management. Enjoy this behind-the-scenes glimpse.

Paula and Andy discuss:

  • Why FinCon is a great resource for discovering others in the personal finance space. For example, content creators who cover Canada, student loan debt, parenting, etc.
  • Why you shouldn’t hand your critical thinking over to someone else
  • The philosophy of Afford Anything, and why that and the community come first
  • Paula’s worldview on being an “expert” or a “guru” and how you can present yourself differently
  • Paula puts Andy in the hot seat: how does he see himself as a content creator?
  • Leading from behind

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By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#284: The Psychology of Money, with Morgan Housel

Do you wrestle with the idea of leaving your savings in an account earning next to nothing versus investing it in the stock market?

Do you use investment strategies that allow you to work with your nature, rather than against it?

Are you careful to seek investment advice from those who share your investment goals, or do you get caught up in the trends of day traders?

Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, joins us to discuss why investing is not the study of finance, but the study of how people behave with money. Morgan is an award-winning financial journalist, former columnist for the Wall Street Journal and The Motley Fool, and one of the foremost thinkers in the world of investing.

As a long-term investor who shares our buy-and-hold philosophy, Morgan has behavioral finance insights that can help us invest for financial independence with more clarity and a better understanding of ourselves.

We discuss how to develop self-awareness around biases, the importance of flexibility for long-term strategies, saving like a pessimist and investing like an optimist, becoming durable in the face of market adversity, the key difference between patience and stubbornness (and how it affects your mindset), expectation management, the importance of bonds and emergency funds, and a difficult lesson about tail risks that Morgan learned at age 17.

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By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

PSA Thursday: Teaching Technology to the Elderly

Welcome back to PSA Thursday, a weekly-ish segment in which we talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the year that is 2020.

Many of us have experienced disconnection from our loved ones this year, especially with older family members. It can be difficult to stay in touch when parents and grandparents aren’t technologically savvy. They might not know how to text, how to use their cell phone to place a call, or how to initiate a video call.

We hope that can change after you listen to this episode.

To help us learn how we can stay connected with the senior citizens in our lives, we brought on Bria Sullivan. She works for a company that owns more than 300 senior living care facilities, and her role is to provide materials to teach those seniors how to use technology — anything from making a Zoom call to setting up a Chromebook to sending a text message. For the past six years, Bria has also had a supplemental side hustle teaching seniors how to use technology.

Today, she shares her best tips on how we can do the same with the elders we love.

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By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#283: Ask Paula & Joe – Could the Stock Market Be Too Much of a Gamble?

Andrea’s parents have a seemingly salesly financial advisor. He tried to get them to purchase a second life insurance policy, among other potentially pushy moves. Are her parents better off without his advice?

Teresa can’t shake the feeling that the stock market is more of a gamble than an investment. Is there any advantage to holding funds for the long-run if the market drops and you lose your gains?

June is curious about the best college planning strategies for families who are working toward, or close to, financial independence. How can you help your children while securing your financial future?

Big Sister’s little sister rents a mobile home in an area she loves. The owner wants to sell, but her little sister might not obtain financing. Should Big Sister buy the property and sell it to her via seller financing?

Managing for Mom in Massachusetts has an investment strategy that he wants to run by us. Does it make sense to shift a 50/50 stocks and bonds portfolio to 100 percent stocks, and shift back to a 50/50 split after the market returns to pre-pandemic numbers?

My friend and former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy joins me to answer these questions. Enjoy!

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By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

PSA Thursday: The Affordable Care Act, with Tanja Hester

PSA Thursday is back! In case you’re a new listener, PSA Thursday is a weekly-ish segment in which we talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the middle of a pandemic.

With the uncertainty of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) looming before us, many are asking:

What will happen if the ACA is struck down by the Supreme Court? How can we plan for healthcare – now and in the future? How much will I need saved to cover healthcare in retirement? What can I do if I can’t afford the expensive premiums? 

As a community of entrepreneurs and early retirees, this is a major concern. 

To help us understand the healthcare landscape, we brought on Tanja Hester, author of Work Optional and the blog Our Next Life.

Tanja has extensive experience with the healthcare system. She has a history of pre-existing conditions dating back to childhood, and she has also navigated the marketplace post-retirement.

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By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#282: The Smart Way to Start a Side Hustle, with Alan Donegan

Has the economic uncertainty of 2020 caused you to think about creating your own stream of income? 

Has the turmoil of 2020 also caused you to feel so overwhelmed you’ve bought a plot of sand in which you bury your head on a daily basis? 

We get it. It’s normal to feel paralyzed by everything you need to do before you get your side hustle off the ground. But you don’t have to take the complicated route. There’s another way. 

Today’s guest, Alan Donegan, is the cofounder of PopUp Business School. It has helped over 7,000 people in six countries start their own companies. The best thing is, Alan teaches others how to quickly – and affordably – start businesses. There’s no fluff, just action. 

In this episode, Alan shares the simple advice and steps to take to give your side hustle a whirl. Within a month, you’ll know if your idea is viable or not, and all it takes is a few hours over the course of a week. 

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By Paula Pant

PSA Thursday – What’s in Store for the Rest of 2020?

After a brief hiatus, PSA Thursday is back! If you’re a new listener, PSA Thursday is a weekly-ish segment of the podcast in which we normally talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the middle of a pandemic.

However, for this episode, we’re taking a step back to 1) reflect on why this show exists, and 2) give you a sneak peek of future PSA Thursday episodes. 

We also break down why we interview the guests that we have on the show, and the important difference between telling someone what to think versus telling them how to think. 

Enjoy!

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By Erin @ Team Afford Anything

#281: The Art of Decision-Making, with Annie Duke

How many times have you made a decision – big or small – only to regret it later?

            “I wanted to fund my IRA this year, but that vacation was calling my name…I should have known better. Now I feel behind.”

            “I really wanted to take that out-of-state job, but I talked myself out of leaving my family and friends behind. Now I’m unhappy thinking about what could have been. How stupid of me.”

            “Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten all this ice cream, but it was too good to put away. What was I thinking?”

But…how could you have known?

We can’t make decisions with 100 percent certainty. Therefore, we can’t know how something will turn out.

Yet most of us get stuck in analysis paralysis, desperate to gather as much information as we possibly can before making a decision.

And when that decision doesn’t turn out as we hoped, our response is, “I should have known!”

How can we break this cycle? How can we accept that we don’t have total control over the outcomes of our decisions? How can we forgive ourselves, and others, for not getting it right?

Most of all: how can we improve our decision making skills to avoid this scenario in the first place?

That’s what today’s guest, Annie Duke, best-selling author of Thinking In Bets, is here to tell us.

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By Paula Pant

#280: Ask Paula – Could This NYC Couple Contribute Only $10,000 Per Year Towards Retirement?

Amy and her husband have $900,000 saved for retirement. They’re 40 years old and plan to retire at 65. Due to a job change + pay cut, they might only have $10,000 per year to save for the next 25 years. Will this be enough, given their yearly expenses of $144,000?

Janie wants to get a solar power system for her house, but isn’t sure how to pay for it. Should she borrow funds from her seven-month emergency fund, or use funds from a taxable brokerage account that were earmarked for retirement?

CJ and his wife netted $200,000 from the sale of their home. They aren’t sure when they’ll purchase their next home – their timeline could be as short as three years or as long as six years. Where should they keep the $200,000 to use towards a downpayment on their next home?

Brandon wants to retire in the next five to ten years. He contributes 20 percent to his Roth 401k. Since he can’t withdraw those contributions early, does it make more sense to contribute up to the match of his 401k and invest the rest in an IRA with the goal of doing a Roth conversion?

Anonymous “am I missing out?” wants to know: when is tax-loss harvesting worthwhile?

My friend and former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I answer these questions on today’s episode. Enjoy!

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