How to Money

Time for our Friday Flight! These episodes are a sampling of the week’s financial news and the impact on your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we distill it down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to continue to make smart money moves. In this episode we cover some relevant and helpful stories like: last call for the $1,000 travel credit card welcome bonus, babysitters making bank, most folks are sour on stocks, passive index funds on top, the emotional difficulty of retiring, cultivate your core pursuit ASAP, financial nihilists living for today, appealing your property taxes, paying top dollar for vacation subscriptions, & frustrating phone repairs.

 

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. Have an awesome weekend!

 

Best friends out!

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The CDC definition of a parasite is: an organism that lives on or in a host and gets its food from or at the expense of its host. They’re not necessarily out there to completely destroy you- at least not immediately. Instead they want you to go on living your life, so that they can leach as much as they can while they get fat and happy, hopefully without you even noticing. And that’s exactly how we feel about crappy financial products except they’re not feasting on your blood, they’re feasting on your dollars. Their ability to thrive comes at your expense and it’s abundantly clear that these crappy financial products don’t have your best interest in mind. So today we’re going to run through a number of the worst culprits out there, why they’re the worst, and then what you can do in order to make sure that you avoid getting fleeced.

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Wrigley Fields Forever by Good Word 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!

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It’s time to get your financial butt in shape! Our guest today, Ericka Young, is the financial coach that she never had! As a newlywed couple, Ericka and her husband discovered that it’s actually pretty easy to become just like the average US household that now has over $150,000 in debt. It’s the norm and if you don’t have a plan to avoid debt, you will likely find yourself falling into that trap! But that’s not the path that Ericka continued along- she was determined to change her family tree, and now helps others who are seeking financial freedom in their lives. Ericka started her company, Tailor-Made Budgets where she creates custom plans for her clients that give them the tools and the knowledge to cut their stress levels by increasing their savings and decreasing their debt. We get to hear Ericka’s debt story, how she was able to leave a high paying engineering job, signs that someone might need a financial coach, what it looks like to face your financial reality, how she helps her clients think through making trade-offs, and why friends may not be enough of an accountability partner.

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Where I Want To Be Deciduous 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 our Friday Flight! These episodes are a sampling of the week’s financial news and the impact on your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we distill it down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to continue to make smart money moves. In this episode we cover some relevant and helpful stories like: CapitalOne bonuses, free at home Covid tests, too busy to budget, waiving home inspections in a cooling housing market, secondhand financial smarts due to spillover effects, expensive airport beers, price profiteering, economists don’t blame corporate greed for higher inflation, crappy car repair loans, declining used car prices, & ESG BS!

 

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. Have an awesome weekend!

 

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everyone loves a good comeback story- exceeept when it’s the villain who is making the comeback! That's basically how we feel about the mullet. We can all pretty much agree that mullets are the most villainous hairstyle. It had its heyday back in the 80s and is now back in full-business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back-force. Similarly, that’s how we feel about consumer debt. Credit card debt levels drastically dropped with the onset of Covid lockdowns and for a minute we thought this might be the start of a personal finance reawakening! But unfortunately that was the exception rather than the norm. In February, American consumers increased their borrowing by a record $42 billion as credit card usage was up 20% in Q1 alone according to the major credit card companies. This is bad news of course, but there are strategic ways to use debt to your advantage. The types of debt you sign up for, what you’re spending it on, your debt to income ratio, and resisting the ‘immediacy premium’ are all elements of debt that we discuss today.

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Moderne Dansk by Jester King! 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 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 - My fiance wants to get into house hacking. How can I feel more comfortable with this risky endeavor?

2 - How should my student loans impact how I invest in my Roth?

3 - Fee-based financial advisors vs fee-only financial advisors?

4 - Should I go with a Kai-Zen life insurance plan and consider borrowing against a permanent life insurance plan?

5 - How can I best utilize a DCFSA in order to pay for baby expenses?

 

During this episode we enjoyed a No Wooden Shoes by Good Word! 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.

It's time for a Friday Flight! These episodes are all about the week’s financial news and the impact on your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we distill it down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to continue to make smart money moves. In this episode we cover some relevant and helpful stories like: MCM furniture paying dividends, sweating to save some money, federal tax credits to help you install solar, scammers targeting utilities, UNstable coins, crypto crashing, Robinhood jacking up fees, Carvana sticking it to 2,500 employees, the shifting labor market, & buy now pay later companies leading millennials into billions of debt.

 

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. Have an awesome weekend!

 

Best friends out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Between wildfires, floods and other severe weather discrepancies taking place each year, thinking about the solutions to the issue of climate change is overwhelming. And even when people do their best to do their individual part, it can feel like a drop in the bucket, or like it’s simply not enough. But what action, of any size, has the potential to drive real, global change – influencing leaders and driving focus of the largest climate issue at hand? If we join our voices together, do we have the ability to make change across education, nonprofit, public and private sectors?

 

In this episode, we hear from Amanda McKenzie, CEO of Australia’s leading climate change communications organization Climate Council, and Derrick Emsley, Co-Founder and CEO of the sustainable clothing brand Tentree -- two individuals who have found their communities and stakeholders to be at the core of their success. Although they sit on different degrees of the climate conversation spectrum, both Amanda and Derrick believe that a combination of technology and effective communication has the potential of giving people privilege to use their voices – creating a ripple effect of positive changes on the planet.

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“Inconceivable!”. There are certain tasks in life that feel virtually impossible. One that comes to mind is painting your house- “I can’t do that, I’m not a professional painter!”. When in reality, that’s a project you actually could perform well. Or another one might be something like baking some biscuits- “I’m not some culinary magician who can whip together some homemade biscuits from scratch!”. When fact, that’s something 6th graders learn how to do in middle school. And the same thing is true for starting your own business- there seems to be this special aura surrounding small businesses that lead many to think that they don’t have what it takes. That it takes some special wizardry to run your own business. But we think that you do, in fact, have what it takes, that the pros outweigh the cons, and that the financial upside is worth leaving the “safety” of a W2 job. Listen as we cover the many reasons we believe starting a business is actually easier than you think.

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Let's Get Some F****** Fraanch Toast by Bhramari 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.

We’re talking today about how to avoid screwing up your kid’s relationship with money. As parents, our job is to raise amazing adults to one day replace us! And even if you don’t currently have kids, or maybe you know that you never will- today’s conversation will do a great job shedding some light on why you think and feel the way you do about your personal finances. Bobbi Rebell is a Certified Financial Planner, she’s host of the Money Tips for Financial Grownups podcast, and she’s also the author of “Launching Financial Grownups”. The book is a call to action for parents who want the best for their kids, but who are beginning to realize that their own pursuit of financial independence has to become a priority as well. We talk about parenting styles, the increasing trend of boomerang college students, ways that we can strategically help our kids with money, and personal finance conversations between parents and adult children as well.

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Farm Friends by New Image 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.