Adulting Is Easy: Making Personal Finance & Real Estate Easy

Since Brett bought his first house in 2022 and his first investment property in 2023, Lauren had to ask about investing in this current environment. Brett did this deal with his grandparents, and it was a great entry point for all of them! Interestingly, the deal is out of state for all of them. Brett breaks down his numbers of his first (primary) home, a townhome. Then, the two transition to breaking down the rental deal, and start by talking about working with family. His grandparents were doing a 1031 exchange of some land. They looked at 15 homes in one day before they bought a single-family home. Why would his grandparents want him in on their deal? He handles a lot of the paperwork. He’s taken on more of the mortgage and brought a personal line of credit to the deal. And there are estate planning benefits as well! A huge advantage is going through this

UPDATE: Brad did collect rent for Nov 1

About Brett:

Connect with Brett:

https://twitter.com/brett_holzhauer

Lauren opens by asking the obvious question, as she often does: what’s a mobile home? Rachel touches on the history of mobile homes and manufactured homes. They started as a home for rich people to take with them on their vacations! Now, they’re not moved very often in their lifetimes. They’re usually set on blocks, wheels removed, and hitches removed. Rachel points out that since 1976, HUD got involved and created some standards throughout the industry. Rachel shares how she became “Mobile Home Girl.” It started with wholesaling, which is what she’s doing (again) now. Lauren asks about how Rachel handles depreciating assets, financing, and insurance. She also rents out the homes and seller finances them as well, with lease options. Lauren straight up asks: what’s different about investing in

If you liked this episode, you’ll also like episode 117 real estate as a side hustle and finding your tribe online.

About Rachel:

Connect with Rachel:

https://adventuresinmobilehomes.com/

https://twitter.com/mobilehomegurl

Book Mentioned: Her story is in JL Collins new book Pathfinders

Bonds are like IOU’s issued by governments and companies. They usually come in denominations of $1,000 with different interest rates (coupons). As yields (rates) on bonds increase, existing bond prices decrease. David (Uncommon Yield) breaks all thismdown and more for Lauren. Then, they get into the importance of the 2-year and 10-year treasury rates, and what it means when the 2-year is higher than the 10-year (when the yield curve inverts). Why do bonds matter? They underpin the whole financial system. And David tells Lauren what is going on in the current market right now, and it’s actually pretty shocking. If you haven’t heard much

If you liked this episode, you may also like my past interview with David about credit cards for episode 102.

David a.k.a. UncommonYield, a financial educator and teacher at

Connect with David:

https://twitter.com/UncommonYield

In honor of both our 150th Adulting Is Easy podcast episode, our 4th podversary (which was Oct 29), AND Halloween we're replaying our most popular episode from 2022. Even if you listened to it last year, you may want to check it out again. Joe is a great STR operator and we're sure you'll get something great from this one, even on a second listen!

This week, Lauren interviews Joe about his rental business, which includes both long- and short-term rentals (STRs/Airbnbs). Joe makes a great case for having both in your portfolio for diversification purposes, and you can diversify even further if you learn to get direct bookings in addition to Airbnb and Vrbo. He uses a Facebook group to get more direct bookings. If you're wanting to learn more about all aspects of investing in STRs, this is for you!

About Joe:

Joe Mease is a 42-year-old, married, father of 2, living and operating out of Denver, CO. Over the past 20 years, he and his wife have built a portfolio of 9 long-term rentals and 3 short-term rentals. When not juggling property management, he enjoys spending time with his family, going out to eat, attending local festivals and events, and traveling.

Connect with Joe:

https://twitter.com/Fire5280

Sponsored by:

Jasmine Mortgage Team

https://www.jasminemortgageteam.com/

Where better to kick off this interview than talking about what investing is? Mark talks about the difference between investing and gambling or speculating. He also goes into the foundation that should be set before investing. So, your personal finances need to be in order first! It’s important to take into account your risk tolerance, goals, and time horizon(s). Sometimes, though, you don’t know what your risk tolerance really is until push comes to shove. Lauren tells her own risk tolerance story regarding the Covid stock market crash. Of course, Lauren has to ask about how Mark handles real estate, and he sort of doesn’t – he suggests housemoneymedia.com! She also questioned how to handle emotions when it comes to investing. Understanding what you’re investing in is important. They close the interview with a message to listeners who haven’t started investing yet, but have been learning and thinking about it for a long time. Is that you?

About Mark:

Mark Roussin, CPA, is owner of Roussin Financial, which is a company dedicated to not only educating but empowering investors to become their own Money Managers. They do this through 1 on 1 coaching, to which they have a 6-week Investing Accelerator course where participants work with Mark 1 on 1 to develop a customized Investing Plan, but they also have short-term workshops we do as well. You can find Mark on X and Instagram at @Dividend_Dollar and you can also follow along on YouTube at Mark Roussin, CPA where he publishes 2 videos per week and does 1 live show EVERY Thursday.

Connect with Mark:

https://twitter.com/Dividend_Dollar

https://www.instagram.com/dividend_dollar/

https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkRoussinCPA

Alan grew up with public school teachers as parents, so he saw wealth as a child, but he never had any. That’s why he wanted to have a million bucks by 30 – and write a book about it! He started this journey right after college, at the age of 21 or 22. Alan’s first step was to live off a small percent of what he was making. How did he save so much? He “hid” money from himself by having his HR department send a huge percent to a bank across town (remember, this was 20 years ago). Every January 1st, he would go see what was in there and use it as a down payment on a property. His first amount was $10,000, which he used to buy a

If you liked thisepisode, you’ll also like episode 85 with Tom Brickman the Frugal Gay about how he became FI and left his day job.

About Alan:

Buy Alan's Book:

https://www.amazon.com/Million-Bucks-30-Overcome-Millionaire/dp/0345499727?crid=UX1S4ZUZI1LR&keywords=a+million+bucks+by+30&qid=1696530552&sprefix=a+million+bucks+by+30%2Caps%2C92&sr=8-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=housemoney04-20&linkId=c44827cb66190babec99f3cf976586d9&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

https://twitter.com/RealEstateMaxi

https://www.instagram.com/realestatemaxi/

What started as a conversation about buying a vacation home led to the realization that they couldn’t even afford a vacation! This week, Lauren interviews the Debt Free Guys, David and John, about their journey of getting out of debt, which leads to a

If you liked this episode, you’ll also like episode 138 with Justin from the Price of Avocado Toast, where we talked a lot about blowing through a settlement, getting into debt, and crawling back out better and stronger on the other side.

About the Debt Free Guys:

David & John Auten-Schneider, the founders of Debt Free Guys® and the hosts of the Queer Money® podcast.

Connect with the Debt Free Guys:https://debtfreeguys.com/

https://twitter.com/DebtFreeGuys

Chris Campbell has 12 credit cards – more than even fit in his wallet! Lauren asked about the difference between rewards, cash back, and travel points. Chris is a big fan of travel rewards credit cards because you basically get a better return on your spending, more than you’d get with cash back, up to 3x times more! According to Chris, you can routinely get 6% back rather than the normal 1-1.5% cash back.

If you liked this episode, you’ll also like episode 102 about Credit Cards with Uncommon Yield.

About Chris:

Ward Wallet

ThePointsGuy.com

Lauren had to start by asking about his entrepreneurial journey to date, which is extensive even though he’s only 24. Andres’s drive may have simply continued when he quit baseball after taking it very seriously for 14 years. That’s when he was introduced to the world of sneaker sales. While still in college, he created a company flipping sneakers. It was a “very profitable 8 months” before the stores closed for Covid. Meanwhile, Andres was renting licenses for bots that sourced sneakers in a Discord community. At its peak, he was making about $14k profit per month with 9 employees, but Covid shut that down too. Andres then went and got a “real” adult job. This job still allows him to build on the side and fosters his entrepreneurial spirit. Lauren agrees with this approach: get into sales and bank that money early. It’s what she did. Add a financially savvy partner to the mix? Then, you’re really cooking with fire. Andres and his girlfriend are setting a strong foundation now. Interestingly, Andres credits some of his early struggles with his willingness to sacrifice now to set a foundation. Both Andres and Lauren agree that young people should live frugally longer than they do. And it’s so much easier if you instill those habits early on.

If you liked this episode, you’ll also like our bonus episode between episodes 110 and 111, which is a Twitter Space about sales. Also number 140, about building online businesses.

Also mentioned: Episode 130 with Suni and Episode 75 with Tracey.

About Andres Sanchez:

Connect with Andres:

https://twitter.com/_Andres_Sanch_

Jo has been in the short-term rental space for 8 years. He’s done both arbitrage (renting a unit from a landlord on a long-term basis and listing the unit as a short-term rental) and property management. Get this – Jo charges 20% of the NET INCOME for his PM services. The meat and potatoes of the conversation shifts to the “Airbnbust.” Jo goes into detail about his entrepreneurial ventures, including a dog resort, to guess what the future holds for the short-term rental space. He thinks it’s a bit of a trend that is slowing down, soon to plateau. But there are things hosts can do to prepare for this. Then, Lauren had to know more about the dog resort. Going through the hurdles associated with entrepreneurship will make you very resilient, and you’ll walk away from this conversation motivated to start if you haven’t already. And of course, short-term rental ownership means having properties you’re proud of and you can enjoy.

If you liked this episode, you will also like episode 128 about managing STRs from abroad and episode 141 about STR cleaners.

Sponsored by: https://touchstay.com/

About Jo:

Jo Chan and his team are property managers for short term rental at a handful condo hotels in Miami. They also clean/turnover properties for other hosts. As a licensed realtor, Jo also helps owners acquire and manage their dream vacation homes and when it’s time to move on he helps them sell to the next owner. 

Connect with Jo:

https://smartfindings.com/

https://joronapark.com/

https://mopwipe.com/