Afford Anything

Tag: lifestyle design

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#382: Ask Paula: There’s No Such Thing as a FIRE Number

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.

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#381: How to Not Let Your Feelings Hijack Your Decisions, with Mollie West Duffy

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!

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#378: Ask Paula: Should I Take a Higher-Paying Job if I Can’t Save As Much for Retirement?

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?

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#371: What’s the Point of Happiness, Anyway?, with Dr. Bill Von Hippel

When our earliest ancestors noticed their immediate surroundings change – the trees began disappearing and their environment morphed into open savannah – they sensed they had a huge problem on their hands.

They were easy prey. They lacked adequate speed, strength and sharp sense of smell that would be useful for protection from predators.

But if they huddled together, they would be more protected. So like a school of fish or a herd of zebras, early humans began to band together as they roamed the dangerous and exposed plains.

But in any herd of zebras, a few slowpokes, the very young or old, the ill or injured, get eaten alive. This needed a solution.

Early humans improved their odds of survival by using handheld tools to kill predators from a distance, for example, by throwing rocks at lions in a coordinated defense.

Once they developed a coordinated, weapon-centric defense, they began using these same weapons offensively, in order to hunt.

They enjoyed the most successful hunts when they cooperated, communicated and coordinated, imagining future scenarios, strategizing and planning together. This required sharper cognition.

They traded brawn for brain.

And so an unprecedented cognitive revolution began, one that made humans the most remarkable species the world has ever seen.

In today’s episode, psychology professor Bill von Hippel explains the evolutionary science behind how we’re hardwired as humans.

We’re wired to be social, to connect, to communicate and cooperate.

We’re wired to want to learn and teach, to build a collective body of knowledge that stretches beyond what any single individual could ever learn in their lifetime.

We’re wired to feel surges of happiness that fade, so that we’re intrinsically motivated to keep repeating behaviors that lead to additional surges of happiness.

Once we understand the evolutionary science behind what makes us happy, Dr. von Hippel explains, we can apply this knowledge to making better decisions for our work, money and lives.

Bill von Hippel is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Michigan. He’s currently a psychology professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. He joins us to share his insights into the history and science of happiness.

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#367: The Roots of Procrastination, Inattention and Anxiety, with Dr. Ellen Vora, M.D.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many commentators have remarked that we’re living in an “epidemic of anxiety.”

More than 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety, and countless millions more notice themselves “acting out” against their responsibilities in smaller, self-sabotaging ways: procrastinating, lacking motivation, grappling with an inability to concentrate.

In today’s episode, Dr. Ellen Vora, M.D., discusses both the internal and environmental factors that can exacerbate anxiety. She talks about nutrition and sleep, as well as the fact that, frankly, your job just might suck.

She applies these ideas to tactics that allow us to better handle our finances, investments, careers and lives.

Dr. Ellen Vora holds a B.A. from Yale University and a medical degree from Columbia University. She’s a board-certified psychiatrist.

Enjoy this conversation, and share your comments and feedback with members of our community at affordanything.com/community.

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#363: Two Types of Intelligence, with Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks

In our 20’s and 30’s, we have high levels of fluid intelligence, or raw intellectual horsepower. We can ace tests, impress people with our memory and recall, and analyze facts, documents and data.

But in our 40’s and 50’s, we have higher levels of crystallized intelligence, which allows us to draw together novel insights from across domains.

Fluid intelligence allows us to analyze, or break apart.

Crystallized intelligence allows us to synthesize, or put together.

Each type of intelligence invites us to express different skills, to pivot our role at work – or perhaps even to change careers or industries altogether.

In today’s episode, Harvard professor Arthur Brooks discusses these two types of intelligence, and outlines how we can gracefully move from one strength to the next.

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#359: The Four Quadrants of A Successful Life, with Andrew Hallam

Money, relationships, health and purpose: life is running smoothly when all four of these elements are working together in tandem, like wheels on a car.

But how can we make spending and investing choices that facilitate stronger relationships, better health and a deeper sense of purpose?

Andrew Hallam, who became a millionaire on a teacher’s salary, shares researched-backed, evidence-based insights into how to find balance, drawing from the worlds of behavioral finance and stock market history.

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#353: The Secret to Perfect Timing, with Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink joins us to discuss an unusual theory:

(1) that our energy rises, falls, and then rises again;

(2) that this pattern plays out across our days (morning energy, afternoon slump, nighttime second wind);

(3) this also plays out across our lives, with serious implications for how we spend those “muddled middle” years of our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.

Enjoy!

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#351: The Six Myths of Productivity, with Geoff Woods

Geoff Woods, Vice President of The ONE Thing and host of The ONE Thing podcast, is an expert on ruthless prioritization, habit development, and goal setting.

The simple framework he presents allows you to focus deeply and commit to the actions you need to take if you want to take your productivity to the next level this year.

Enjoy!

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