Moneysplained

Hey, are you sick of all those sports metaphors in investing? Me too! Well I'm gonna call an audible and try to explain various types of investing through fashion. My guests are Zachary Gering, CFP® of Sontag Advisory and Daniel Tersigni of Wealthsimple. We go deep on index funds, socially responsible investing, and how your 401(k) is costing you $40,000 in fees. Disclaimer: Moneysplained is for entertainment and education purposes only and should not be considered investing advice.

In today's episode: retirement. How to save, how to plan, and what those 401(k), Roth IRA, 403(b)s are all about. Plus, a secret community of millionaires who are retiring decades early. I talk to Nicole Peterkin, a certified financial planner in Boston and Johnathan Mendonsa and Brad Barrett of the ChooseFI podcast about their early retirement philosophy known as the FIRE movement.

The life of a freelancer is not always glamorous. As a freelancer, you are both the boss and the employee and the accounting department and HR. Because this is podcast is about money, we're going to focus on the accounting department part. In this episode we'll talk about the difference between an S-Corp and an LLC, how to file taxes as a freelancers, how to track down 1099s, what you can actually write-off your taxes, and a very exciting New York City law that protects freelancers from being stiffed.

So you got a job, that's super great, congrats! You're about to get hit with a truckload of paperwork and have to make decisions that will have a major impact on your financial life. In this episode we'll take a deep dive into that W-4 form that most employees have to fill out, plus we'll take a microscope to a pay stub to learn what all those pesky deductions are. We'll also look at how to sign up for your employer's retirement plan and why you should. And for those of you evaluating job offers from less conventional companies, we'll look at stock options and why you should proceed with caution.

Welcome to episode two of Moneysplained. We're talking banks, fees, and credit card offers. This is a beast of an episode. From avoiding bank fees to evaluating three separate real-life credit card offers, there's a lot to cover. I've got Kim Palmer from NerdWallet, which is an excellent website for doing comparison shopping for checking accounts, credit cards, online brokers, and loans.

This episode is all about being a smarter consumer and Kim will walk us through how to avoid confusing offers from credit card companies. Remember, they WANT you to rack up debt. They only make money when you rack up debt.

All those fancy travel rewards points are just the carrot on the stick. If you're super strategic and can manage your credit card payments so you're never carrying a balance, points can be awesome, and in a later episode I'll detail how I spend seven nights in Italy relying completely on travel rewards points. I've been late a few times on my monthly payments but am generally good at paying off the balance each month.

If you're spending beyond your means, aka you definitely couldn't have paid cash, you might not be a great candidate to sign up for a credit card. And if you're in serious credit card debt, we're going to talk about getting help and repairing your credit and credit score in the next episode. First we have to learn how to be discerning consumers.

This is episode one of season one of Moneysplained and we've got the entire world of money to cover. Later episodes will have clear themes like Episode 2 on Credit Cards and your credit score or episode 5 on the finances of freelancing or my favorite episode so far, How to Invest $1000. Instead of giving you a lifeless history lesson on money I thought I'd start out with a bunch of finance terms I hear all the time in the financial media but am not confident I actually know anything about. I'm making this podcast for you my listeners of course, but this is my financial education, as much as it is yours. Interest rates, credit unions, and bonds, that's where we'll start. And if none of those interest you, stick around for later episodes. I promise there's something here for you.

The information in this show is for education purposes only. I hope it is helpful but should not be taken as accounting or investment advice, for that, seek help from a licensed professional.

Do you ever feel like there's this secret language of money you can't speak? Or that financial security is only understood and enjoyed by those who come from money, or work as bankers, brokers, analysts, and accountants? Moneysplained is a personal finance podcast that breaks down those barriers and fills in the education gaps for people afraid of admitting what they don't know about money.