Motley Fool Answers

By The Motley Fool

Education Business Investing

What's Motley Fool Answers about?

Saving, spending, planning — you've got money questions and we've got answers. Every week host Alison Southwick and personal finance expert Robert Brokamp challenge the conventional wisdom on life's biggest financial issues to reveal what you really need to know to make smart money moves. Send your questions to [email protected]

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LAST EPISODE

Introducing the new Motley ...

12.31.2021

We have a new address, and I'm not talking post cards! Going forward you can catch Bro and Alison every Tuesday as part of the new Motley Fool Money podcast. Here's a sneak peek of what you can expect from ...

Motley Fool Answers episodes:

12.31.2021 Introducing the new Motley Fool Money We have a new address, and I'm not talking post cards! Going forward you can catch Bro and Alison every Tuesday as part of the new Motley Fool Money podcast. Here's a sneak peek of what you can expect from ...
12.21.2021 So Long, and Thanks for All the STOCKS! It’s the last episode of Answers (but don’t worry, we’re just moving to Motley Fool Money every Tuesday). We’ll reminisce on our biggest lessons learned over the last seven years and answer your questions, some financial, some festive.
12.14.2021 Why So Sad, Portfolio? Motley Fool Analyst Bill Mann joins us to talk about why the market is up but your portfolio may be down. We’ll share some big news and battle our online shopping demons. Pretty please take our survey on what you ...
12.07.2021 Meet Ted Benna, the “Father of the 401(k)” Tens of millions of workers contribute to 401(k)s, thanks to a benefits consultant who got creative with a 1978 law. That consultant, Ted Benna, joins us to talk about how he came up with the idea, how he got Uncle ...
11.30.2021 An Interview With Michael Kitces The financial planner’s financial planner talks Roths, asset location, and managing sequence of returns risk. He also tells the story of how he got into the financial advice biz, and offers some career-development and time-management advice.
11.16.2021 Inflation Conflagration! Also, Bitcoin Alison asks Bro 10 burning questions about inflation, including why it's so high, is it worse in the U.S., and what can be done about it — both nationally and in your portfolio. And Fool analyst Aaron Bush answers a ...
11.09.2021 Your Investing Lessons, Finding a Financial Planner, and Eye-Popping I Bonds Alison and friends share some investing lessons from listeners, Bro interviews Sheryl Garrett, founder of the Garrett Planning Network, about finding the right fee-only planner for your circumstances, and we answer a listener question about I bonds and their current ...
11.02.2021 Crypto Scams, Finding Financial Harmony, and Selling Stocks Motley Fool Analyst Eric Bleeker joins us with his advice to avoid getting burned when investing in crypto. Bro interviews Bill Schultheis, author of The Coffeehouse Investor's Ground Rules: Save, Invest, and Plan for a Life of Wealth and Happiness. ...
10.26.2021 A Chat With Morningstar’s Christine Benz Morningstar’s Director of Personal Finance, who has twice been named to Barron’s list of "100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance," explains how she builds her model portfolios, how people should approach the long-term care conundrum, how to close the ...
10.19.2021 Facebook in Your Portfolio? Achtung Baby! We’ll argue the bear and bull case for investing in Facebook with the help of Jason Moser and his alter ego. Robert explores a more holistic approach to evaluating your expenses with the help of financial planner Matt Trogdon. We’ll ...
10.12.2021 Foolish Investing Lessons, Paying for College, and 401k Rollovers Foolish analysts share the stock that taught them their biggest investing lesson. Bro interviews saving for college expert Mark Kantrowitz about… well, saving for college. And we answer your questions about options for rolling over your old 401k.
10.05.2021 Thriving in a Time of Great Resignation Americans are quitting their jobs at record rates and we discuss how to thrive amidst this existential labor crisis. Bro explains the work to retirement ratio for saving enough and we’ll answer your question about building up cash in a ...
09.28.2021 Marshal All Your Resources for a Successful Retirement Wade Pfau is one of America’s top financial-planning experts and the author the recently published Retirement Planning Guidebook: Navigating the Important Decisions for Retirement Success. Bro talks with Wade about how to coordinate your portfolio, Social Security, home equity, insurance, ...
09.21.2021 A Bad Year for Chinese Stocks, Red Flags for Pyramid Schemes, and Asset Location Chinese stocks are down 14% so far this year, Motley Fool analyst Ben Ra joins us to explain why. The Ascent’s Brian Frey shares the buttery soft red flags of a pyramid scheme. And we answer Adam’s question on which ...
09.14.2021 Another Exceptional Year For Stocks The Motley Fool’s Chief Investing Officer shares his latest thinking on the market, get more out of your spending with Values Based Budgeting, and we answer Ken’s question on when to take Social Security.
09.07.2021 Why It’s Expensive to Be Poor, Gauging your Retirement Readiness, and The World’s Best Sister We’ll unpack how banking and managing your money can be much more expensive to do when you’re poor. Bro interviews Roger Young of T. Rowe Price about determining whether you’re saving enough for retirement. And we answer a question from ...
08.31.2021 Risky Retirement Business The National Retirement Risk Index measures how many Americans will be able to maintain their standard of living after retirement. Are you at risk? We'll find out today as Bro goes right to the source, with special guest Geoffrey Sanzenbacher ...
08.24.2021 Who’s Afraid of Hipster Antitrust? Alison explains hipster antitrust and wonders how we should feel as investors and consumers, Bro shares the five rules for the Roth five-year rules, listener David asks how to choose what to sell under the 4% Rule.
08.17.2021 From the Vault: How to Negotiate Anything Back to vault! In this episode, then-CFO of The Motley Fool (now Managing Director of Motley Fool Ventures), Ollen Douglass, joined us to share his advice for how to negotiate your bills (and more!). Alison was mean to a vegan ...
08.10.2021 From the Vault: 5 Ways Your Brain is Sabotaging Your Money In this episode from the vault, Morgan Housel joined us to talk about how to keep your emotions from sinking your wealth. We also discussed recent (lol, 2015!) allegations about Amazon’s toxic workplace culture.
08.03.2021 From the Vault: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bonds We’re visiting the Answers vault and dusting off this fan favorite episode featuring Steve Broido. The original man behind the glass joined us to talk about the basics of bonds, including bond funds and his particular fondness for municipal bonds.
07.27.2021 July Mailbag of Moser Motley Fool Senior Analyst Jason Moser joins us to answer your burning questions about STOCKS! Including dividend stocks, spicy stocks, stocks about to be acquired, and the completely-not-scientific-but-still-handy Gardner-Kretzmann Continuum (and more!)
07.20.2021 Travel Hack Your Way to a Cheaper Vacation ... ...And then send us a postcard! Dan Miller, founder of the Points With a Crew blog, joins us to talk about travel hacking and how you can cut vacation costs by maximizing your credit card points.
07.13.2021 Think You’re Too Smart to be Scammed? Think Again. Ron Lieber with the New York Times is back to talk about some of the most common scams in current circulation and why younger people are more susceptible to falling for them.
07.06.2021 Life Insurance for Fun and Profit Okay, we’re kidding about the fun part. But Joe Perna with Motley Fool Wealth Management joins us to talk about everything you’d want to know about life insurance including who needs it, how much, what kind, possible tax benefits, and ...
06.29.2021 June “But It’s a Dry Heat” Mailbag Jenn Thomas with Motley Fool Wealth Management joins us to answer your questions on how much you need to live that sweet FIRE life, building up (and where to stash) your emergency fund, whether tis nobler to invest or pay ...
06.22.2021 When and How to Get Financial Advice How can you find a professional who works on your terms, and at a reasonable price? Sean Gates of Motley Fool Wealth Management joins us to discus the choices.
06.15.2021 How to Choose the Right Broker or Robo-Advisor What differentiates one firm from another? Matt Frankel, who reviews discount brokers and robo-advisors for The Ascent (a Motley Fool company), breaks down the important criteria. And Alison digs into the research about how working from home affects productivity.
06.08.2021 The Delusions Of Crowds With William Bernstein Are we living in the End Times? Again? Are we falling for a financial bubble? Again? Author William Bernstein is here to expose the roots of human irrationality and the cost of mass mania. Plus, Alison teaches us the poetry ...
06.01.2021 6 Myths About the FIRE Movement Diania Merriam, founder of the EconoMe Conference and host of the Optimal Finance Daily podcast, debunks common misconceptions about the Financial Independence/Retire Early movement. And Alison blames everyone and their mortgage broker for skyrocketing home prices.
05.25.2021 May-be it’s the May Mailbag Episode! (It Is.) We just can’t get enough of Motley Fool contributor Dan Caplinger as he helps us answer your questions about SPACs, Variable Universal Life Insurance, maximizing accounts, hopes for Gen X, and more.
05.18.2021 Eight Ways to Rescue Your Retirement It’s not too late! Brian Feroldi joins us to lay out the steps you can take to supercharge your savings. Also, Alison explains why the environmental impact of Bitcoin isn't just a bunch of hot air.
05.11.2021 The 6 Habits of a Rule Breaker Investor The Motley Fool Co-Founder and Chief Rule Breaker, David Gardner, is back to share his 6 Habits of a Rule Breaker Investor and Bro reconsiders retiring after age 67 (wait, what?!).
05.04.2021 Six Traits of a Rule Breaker Stock Motley Fool Co-Founder and Chief Rule Breaker, David Gardner, joins us to share his investing philosophy and the traits he looks for in a Rule Breaking company.
04.27.2021 April Mailbag With a Couple of Goofballs Longtime Motley Fool analyst Tim Beyers joins us to discuss how much to invest in one stock, whether to invest a lump sum all at once, accounts for kids, and which types of options strategies are most Foolish.
04.20.2021 The State of Real Estate in the United States Matt Argersinger, senior advisor for Motley Fool Millionacres, joins us to talk about how Covid-19 has impacted residential and commercial real estate and offers his advice for homeowners and investors going forward.
04.13.2021 Get Ready to Live to 100… If the Robots Don’t Take Over First! The authors of The New Long Life: A Framework for Flourishing in a Changing World discuss how individuals, corporations, and governments should be preparing for increasing longevities, accelerating technological innovations, and the end of retirement as we know it. And ...
04.06.2021 The Deets on SPACs Bill Mann joins the show to explain the nuts and bolts of SPACs as we take Euphonium Industries public.
03.30.2021 March Mailbag Mayhem with Megan With the help of Motley Fool Wealth Financial Planner and tax expert, Megan Brinsfield, we’re answering your questions about finding or becoming a professional financial planner, using your stimulus check to jumpstart your kid’s retirement savings, and lots of tax ...
03.23.2021 J. Money Brings Sexy Back to Your Greenbacks The founder of Budgetsaresexy.com tells the tale of how he became a successful financial blogger (and millionaire), and also discusses his latest project, AllStarMoney.com. And Alison provides the ABCs of NFTs.
03.16.2021 There’s an App for That Whether you’re learning to budget, looking to geek out on your investment returns, or wondering if you’re on track to retire early, there’s an app, tool, or website for that. We’re joined by a couple money nerds at The Motley ...
03.09.2021 Protect Your Retirement Accounts From Uncle Sam Bro interviews tax expert Ed Slott about his latest book, “The New Retirement Savings Time Bomb.” Also, can using an app influence your financial behavior for the better?
03.02.2021 Climate Change and a Net Zero Economy If BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and The Motley Fool CIO Andy Cross agree that climate change is the most important trend to watch in investing, then it must be worth talking about. Motley Fool Analysts Alyce Lomax and John Rotonti ...
02.23.2021 February Chill Mailbag Motley Fool Analyst Emily Flippen joins us to tackle your questions including investing with your emergency fund, calculating your savings rate, when to rebalance outsized positions, and more.
02.16.2021 Morgan Housel on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness Morgan is back to discuss the most important lessons from his book, “The Psychology of Money” – and how they’ve informed the way he manages his family’s finances.
02.09.2021 Morgan Housel Explains It All Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, joins us to share his takeaways amidst the GameStop fracas, Bezos stepping down as Amazon CEO, and this seemingly never-ending party in the stock market.
02.02.2021 What Will College Really Cost? New York Times columnist Ron Lieber joins us to discuss his latest book, The Price You Pay for College. And Alison answers an old question with new research: Does money buy happiness?
01.26.2021 The Super Bowl of Mailbags Motley Fool analyst Ron Gross joins us to answer your questions about how many stocks you should own, what makes a 401(k) stink, what to do when your spouse wants you to sell all your stocks, and much more.
01.19.2021 What a Year! What Should You Do Now?! Motley Fool Chief Investment Officer Andy Cross joins us to look back at 2020, offer suggestions for newer investors, and provide his thoughts on comparisons of today’s market to the dot-com bubble.
01.12.2021 You Say You Want A Resolution? Bro pulled some strings and got both Megan Brinsfield and Sean Gates to join us and talk about what they're doing, what they're not doing, and what you should consider doing to improve your finances in the new year. Plus, ...

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