How to Money

“The quality of your life pretty much exists outside of the realm of money.” That’s a quote from today’s guest and we’re going to spend a good amount of time talking about everything BUT money! Personal finance and handling your money effectively is important of course, but don’t confuse the means to the end, with the end itself. Money is simply a tool, and like the adage about dying with ‘the most toys,’ it’s easy to see how taking the approach of maximizing your wealth accumulation would leave you wanting. Vicki Robin is all about helping folks change their relationship to money. She unknowingly sparked the FIRE movement back in 1992 with her co-author Joe Domniguez when they released the book Your Money or Your Life. We discuss of number of topics in this episode including: 

• How money is a tool, but not the only one
• Consciousness in spending can lower consumption
• Community relationships are essential for support
• Aging can bring new opportunities and perspectives
• Consumer culture often breaks community bonds
• Financial independence should include a sense of service
• The ‘backpressure’ cause by the fear of death
• And much more!

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Vicki: read her latest writings over on Substack, Coming of Aging. And the book that started it all, Your Money or Your Life.
• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New year, new outlook, and a fresh strategy for your wallet. Welcome to 2026!

In this episode, we’re setting the table for the year ahead. After the unique challenges and "did that really just happen?" moments of 2025, it’s time to stop reacting and start orchestrating your own financial future. We’re stripping away the jargon to talk about what actually matters: building wealth slowly, steadily, and with a craft-beer-level appreciation for the process. To give you a taste of what we’re diving into:

• The Money Gears: We’re walking through the specific steps to take your finances from "survival mode" to "total optionality." From why exactly you need $3,045 in the bank to the moment you can finally start crushing some Money Gear 7 goals.
• Frugality vs. Deprivation: Why "living small" is actually the secret to living large, and how to make the shift from having to save to wanting to save.
• The K-Shaped Reality: We discuss why the "average" economy doesn't exist and how a bare bones budget is going to help keep you afloat.
• Our own personal goals for the year, and more!

Whether you’re looking to get your time back, ditch the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, or finally understand where your money is actually going, this episode is your roadmap for the new year.

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

During this episode we enjoyed an If Only To Be Thoughtless Once More by Burial! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Think back to the last time you lost power at your place. I’m sure it was an inconvenience- it was likely annoying to find yourself walking into a room and reflexively reaching for the light switch, even though the power was out. But the real problem with an outage are the downstream effects it has: food in the fridge spoils, traffic is a nightmare if the stoplights are out, folks even die due to extreme heat or cold. We’re less worried about a power outage and more worried about the mayhem that ensues. And in a similar way we’re less worried about silly credit scores and more worried about the negative impact that a crappy score can have on much of your personal finances. Listen as we discuss our stance on taking out loans, the high cost of neglecting your credit, and steps that you can immediately take in order to mitigate the knock-on effects of crappy credit.

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

During this episode we enjoyed a Grapefruit Radler by Halfway Crooks Beer! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Time is easily our most precious resource, but rarely do we pay much attention to what it is that we’re going to spend our minutes and hours, which inevitably turn into weeks and years. And if you completely fail to do this, you end up as the proverbial careerist, looking back at the wasted decades, wishing you would’ve done something differently. And our guest today, Ben Miller, actually did shake things up- he traded a position on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs for a fulfilling life out in Colorado. He chose meaning over money, and he’s on a quest to help others to discover what a fulfilling life is for them with the app he’s developed: ChroniFI. We discuss nerdy board games, what caused Ben to make the pivot out west, finding work/life balance as an entrepreneur, why earning a ton of money is only one half of the equation, how to figure out what to spend your money on, determining whether to spend on ‘convenience’, and plenty more!

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• ChroniFi - See how your current purchases impact your future retirement! Ben's app links your time and your money, boiling it down to the steps you need to take in order to achieve financial freedom. And be sure to use our ChroniFi.com/HowToMoney link to get 25% off!
• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

During this episode we enjoyed a Apri-Guav Tastee by The Veil! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’re kicking off the week by answering your listener questions! And if you have a question that you’d like for us to answer on the show, we’d love for you to submit your own via HowToMoney.com/ask , send us your voice memo. Regardless of how random or bizarre you might think it is, we want to hear it!

1 - Home sale: should I sell my house to an iBuyer?

2 - Life insurance: is my work provided life insurance enough or should I go ahead and get an affordable policy while I’m young?

3 - Retirement: my 401k has a ‘true-up’ feature but does investing just once, at the end of the year, stymie compounding returns?

4 - Investment property: does it make sense to build a brand new house and then rent it out as an investment property?

5 - Pod talk: how can I grow my podcast- how did y’all grow your podcast audience?!

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

During this episode we enjoyed a Chubby Unicorn by Common Space! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A big thanks to our friend Joe Saul-Sehy for inviting us to join an episode of Stacking Benjamins – we had a blast, and we think you'll enjoy this convo as well!

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It's the most wonderful time of the year in the basement, and we're kicking off the holiday season with our biggest, most packed episode yet.

Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Neighbor Doug welcome Joel Larsgaard and Matt Altmix from the How to Money podcast for a year-end celebration of everything that mattered in money during 2025. Think of this as the holiday parade of personal finance episodes. There's a lot happening, it's all connected, and you'll want to stick around for the whole thing.

First up, Joel and Matt join the crew for their Top 5 Lessons from the Events of 2025. From AI's real impact on everyday work to market surprises nobody saw coming, this segment unpacks the money moments that actually changed how we think about our finances. These aren't just headlines rehashed. They're the insights that'll help you make smarter moves in 2026.

Then the show shifts to a fascinating trend everyone's noticing but nobody's quite figured out yet. Why is everyone suddenly betting on everything? Prediction markets are exploding, retail investors are taking bigger risks, and the line between investing and gambling feels blurrier than ever. Joe, OG, Joel, and Matt dig into what's driving this shift, whether it's brilliant or reckless, and how to think about risk when it seems like the whole world just discovered the casino.

But wait, there's more. Nick from Alaska calls in with a real-world budgeting challenge that proves even the most prepared Stackers face seasonal money surprises. His situation sparks the kind of practical, helpful conversation this show does best.

And because this is a holiday kickoff episode, we're wrapping with big news about the Stacking Benjamins Vault, the new tool designed to help you organize and protect your most important financial documents without the headache.

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Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sherlock Holmes is a literary character we’re all familiar with who has the uncanny ability to solve any mystery he comes across. And one of the things that sets the British detective apart from others is his use of inductive reasoning to solve his cases. He begins with observations which then propel him in his search for the truth. Deductive reasoning, on the other hand, begins with a hypothesis and then uses the facts in order to confirm a theory. And so as we’re trying to figure out how wealthy we need to be, we think that taking the Holmsian approach is most helpful. Rather than picking a nice round number out of thin air like $1 million, we’re doing some observing and we’re asking some questions! Because regardless of how much money you already have set aside for retirement, you could be missing the mark if you’re only reading the headline numbers reported by the ‘experts’. Today’s episode should help you to realize you probably don’t need as much money as you think, you’ll gain a healthier view of work vs retirement, and we’ll go over some practical calculations to help you decide how much money you’ll *literally* need.

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

During this episode we enjoyed a Double Clutch Nitro Oatmeal Stout by Gruner Brothers- thanks for donating this one to the show Katie! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Traveling for free sounds like a lofty goal for most folks. Sure if you’re single or if you’re a DINK couple- but there’s no way you can pull that off with an entire family in tow! Well, it’s actually easier than you think and our guest, Lyn Mettler, is here to explain how. Lyn is a long-time travel journalist who has been featured on the Today Show and US News & World Report. And she practices what she preaches as she and her family travel and fly, for free, about six times every single year! We cover her simple approach, what three credit cards to focus on in order to give you the most bang for your buck, a smart approach to the Southwest Companion Pass, getting into Disney on the cheap, how to use points to erase travel expenses, and plenty more travel tips on today’s episode.

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Lyn: You can learn every detail there is to know about scoring free airfare over at Lyn's site Families Fly Free. And check out her podcast while you're at it!
• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

During this episode we enjoyed a Che Si Dice by Halfway Crooks! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let’s kick off the week with some fresh listener questions we have lined up for you! And don't just stand on the sidelines- if you have a question you’d like us to answer, toss your voice memo our way. It only takes about 90 seconds to record and you can find a step by step guide over at HowToMoney.com/ask . Regardless of how random or bizarre you might think it is, we want to hear it!

1 - Caring for parents: how do I financially prepare to take care of my parents as they enter their later years?

2 - Partial retirement: would contributing to a Roth or traditional IRA allow me to pay less taxes and retire earlier?

3 - Charitable giving: can I use a donor advised fund to strategically give to my local church, even if they don’t accept electronic payments?

4 - Extra mortgage payments: should I stop making extra payments on our house and instead invest those dollars?

5 - Old 401k: what should I do with my old 401k after accepting a new job?

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!

During this episode we enjoyed a Polotmavý by von Trapp Brewing! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Time for a Friday Flight- our little sampling of the week’s best financial news and what it means for your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we boil them down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead with your money. In this episode we explain some relevant and helpful stories like:

• Deceptive dollar stores
• When it pays to go cheap
• Warrior dividends
• Less great target date funds
• Moderate millionaires
• The wealth effect
• Underperforming financial advisors
• Time to update those beneficiaries
• Wanna be real estate moguls
• Frustrated flippers
• Don’t gamble
• Robinhood pushing prop bets
• Betting your credit card balance
• Debit card cashback

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

• Credit card perks: Check out our favorite credit cards that we use to maximize rewards and optimize our spending.
• Other money nerds: Find a thriving community of fellow money nerds by joining the HTM Facebook group!
• Newsletter: Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
• Money Gears: knowing what to do with your money is crucial to your personal finance journey.
• MG7: and maybe you’re well on your way to financial independence but you’re looking for some financial reassurance, that’s when heading over to HowToMoney.com/Advisor and getting matched with a highly vetted financial advisor makes sense.

And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.