Radical Personal Finance

I read a lot of financial advice from many different perspectices. I also frequently am asked about financial advice. "Is this a good idea?" "What do you think about this investment idea?"

Over the years, I have noticed that I have developed a filter that many people don't have: I view all financial advice through a filtering lens of scale.

When I hear advice, I don't immediately accept is a blanket statement; rather, I think, "what type of household profile would this be appropriate for?"

When I talk to someone who's asking for financial advice, I try to ascertain where they are in their financial journey so I can give them the most appropriate advice.

Having this filter helps me to give advice that matters. It also helps me to coach myself more effectively by identifying where I am in my own journey so that I can focus on the things that are most appropriate for me.

In today's show I share with you many examples, including:

• Buying large commercial real estate can be a great investment. But is it right for you? Should you be buying low-dollar mobile homes instead?
• Investing in low-dollar real estate can be great. But is it right for you? Should you be buying larger commercial projects instead?
• Investing in stocks of publicly traded companies can be a great plan. But is it right for you? Should you be investing in the tools of your trade or business so that you can be more effective at work?
• Investing in the tools of your trade or business can be a great idea. But is it right for you? Has it reached the point of diminishing returns and now you'd be better served by investing in the stocks of publicly traded companies to get you closer to your financial goals?
• Etc.

Enjoy the show!

Joshua

I like the change of the calendar year. It's a convenient time to sit down and take an inventory of where things are and assess the plans for where things are going.

2014 was an awesome year. It was certainly one of the more challenging times of my life and was filled with change of all types. But it was awesome.

2015 will be transformative. This year, I'll be heavily focused on stepping up my game and making everything I do to be world class.

I have plenty of goals. But for me, the end result of achieving a goal is less important than who I become on the way.

Also, since there's no way for me to achieve a lofty goal without developing as a person, I tend to focus less on the goal or outcome and more on the plan of what I need to learn and who I need to become.

In today's show I share with you some of my areas of focus for 2015 and some of the plans I have for my personal development.

Here are three of my areas of focus for the coming year coupled with some of my action plans for development as an example with resources:

1. I am a world-class business owner.
   • In order to be a world-class business owner, I need to sharpen and hone my personal productivity skills.
     • Nozbe
       • Action: Complete their 10-part skills course and program training videos.
     • Evernote
       • Action: Work through Brett Kelly's Evernote Essentials Book again
     • Gleeo Time Tracker and Alarm Every 15 Minutes
       • Action: Add a careful review of my time usage to my weekly review. Look for items to delegate.
     • Rescue Time
       • Action: Check to see if it has been improved and if it will serve my needs.
   • In order to be a world-class business owner, I need to strenthen my habits in these areas:
     • Work from a list of prioritized importance.
     • Plan each day's work in advance.
     • Complete my weekly reviews, without exception.
     • Complete my comprehensive monthly reviews, without exception.
   • In order to be a world-class business owner, I need to establish new skills and a new comfort level with outsourcing and team building. I also need to focus on automation and systematization.
     • Chris Ducker
       • Read Virtual Freedom and implement/test ideas
       • Read his blog archives and implement/test ideas
       • Listen to his podcast archives and implement/test ideas
     • Sam Carpenter
       • Read Work the System again and implement/test ideas
       • Read his blog archives and implement/test ideas
     • Ari Meisel
       • Read Less Doing and implement/test ideas
       • Read his blog archives and implement/test ideas
       • Listen to his podcast archives and implement/test ideas
     • Tim Ferris
       • Read Four Hour Workweek, Four Hour Body, and Four Hour Chef again and implement/test ideas
       • Read his blog archives and implement/test ideas
       • Listen to his podcast archives and implement/test ideas
   • In order to be world-class business owner, I need to build new skills with Wordpress on my site and other aspects of internet business.
     • Wordpress
       • Look for Wordpress training and complete
     • Membership software
       • Look for membership software training and complete
     • Aweber
       • Look for Aweber training and complete
       • Look for email marketing training and complete
     • Screencasts and video production
       • Look for screencast solution and create presentations
2. I am a world-class podcast host.
3. Radical Personal Finance is a world-class financial education resource.
4. etc... (listen to the show!)

Enjoy!

Joshua

As we begin a new year, I think it's fitting to start with a discussion of financial independence!

My desire for all of you is that you may experience financial independence as you define it and that you may establish a workable plan this year toward its achievement.

Tim Stobbs is right in the middle of his financial independence plan. After stumbling across the idea of early retirement/financial independence, he was awakened to the possibility that an ordinary person could achieve it.

He set out a plan and started following it. He's now ahead of schedule!

Along the way, he wrote a book to teach others how to accomplish the same goal.

Topics include:

• Tim's personal plan
• Details on how to use Canadian retirement accounts to maximum effect
• Flexible work schedules and alternative working arrangements
• How financial independence (even partial) can lead to the easier achievement of other goals
• How having savings impacts the ability to get better jobs

Enjoy the interview!

Joshua

Links:

• Tim's site: Canadian Dream: Free at 45
• Tim's book: Free at 45

My guest today is Paul Merriman. I was introduced to Paul by a couple of listeners who requested I bring him on the show. I'm glad they did!

Paul is an experienced financial advisor. But, he did that as a retirement hobby rather than as a wealth-building strategy.

To build his wealth, Paul took over, built, and then sold a manufacturing company. After retiring in 1982, he proceeded to build Merriman, a Seattle-based investment advisory firm.

He grew the firm from nothing to $1.6B of assets under management and then sold it and retired to run his financial education site: www.paulmerriman.com.

Topics on this interview include:

• The role of goals and affirmations on Paul's journey
• What it was like to build an advisory firm in the 1980s
• What Paul's retirement schedule looks like

Enjoy the show!

Joshua

Links:

• PaulMerriman.com
• Paul's Podcast
• "Six Decisions Every Investor Must Make" - Paul's Article on Marketwatch
• "10 numbers that can change your life"
• "Who should retirement investors trust?"
• "6 steps to the ultimate retirement portfolio"
• "Retirement savers: Fine-tune your asset asllocation"
• "30 reasons to fall in love with index funds"
• "Do you have enough money to retire?"

Today, I bring you an interview with a dynamo: Eva from TeensGotCents.com.

I met Eva in New Orleans at the FinCon conference. She was attending with her mother and I was incredibly impressed with her.

Eva writes about about personal finance for a teen audience. She began at the age of 15 and she shares her own journey and also gives advice for other young people.

In the interview, we weave two themes:

1. Eva's advice for teens
2. Eva's own experience/example as a financial blogger

Both of these themes are valuable. Frankly, I'm a bit jealous of Eva's early start in writing about the topics of personal finance. I wish I'd had the foresight to begin at her age.

Listen carefully to the story of her site and consider how you can help your children--or yourself--to start something similar. It's a really neat story.

Other topics include:

• Budgeting basics for teens
• The envelope system
• The value of attending professional conferences--especially for young people
• How to teach teens to get jobs

Enjoy!

Joshua

Links:

• Eva's blog: Teens Got Cents
• Spoken Word Performance #1: I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate
• Spoken Word Performance #2: Why I Hate School But Love Education

Personal finance touches every aspect of life by definition. Every aspect of our life involves finance in some way.

As we make the decisions of life, we're constantly faced with cost and opportunity cost:

• Is it wise of me to allocate this $100 to a memorable evening's entertainment with my family or to set it aside toward a larger vacation fund?
• Should I use some extra money to upgrade the look and style of my wardrobe or purchase some extra books or classes to advance my knowledge?
• Am I better served by investing my money into ownership of publicly traded securities through my 401(k) account or will I get a higher return on my investment by improving the insulation of my house and upgrading my windows to an energy efficient version.

These are ultimately the decisions we face. Culturally, we usually separate these areas of life into different decisions. But we shouldn't. Each of them (and many thousands of additional options) impacts the other.

We're far better off if we view our life as a web of integrated decisions and we should be able to flow seamlessly among our different options.

My guest today does just that.

Jeff and his wife are raising a young family and are working toward financial independence together. Their personal interest in sustainability and green living has naturaly integrated with their financial planning. DIY activities and home improvement have had benefits in both areas.

Enjoy today's show!

Joshua

Links:

• Sustainable Life Blog

My guest today is Dr. Vern Poythress. Dr. Poythress is a mathematician and a theologian. Most important for this discussion, he and his wife, Diane, are parents to two children, both boys.

Dr. Poythress authored an article entitled "How I Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men," in which he outlined his family's approach to establishing a formal rite of passage for his sons to become men at 12 or 13 years old.

His formal test and qualifications for them included religious training, knowledge, and behavior, specific acts of service to others, and specific areas of wisdom needed in an adult life.

Much of this conversation is built on the Judeo-Christian tradition and Dr. Poythress outlines much of his curriculum from a religious perspective.

It's key to recognize, however, that most cultures have a rite of passage for young men and women; these ceremonies vary and many are cultural, not religious. For example, toward the end of the interview we discuss the tradition of the debutante ball, a "coming-out" party for young women.

If this concept interests you, consider designing your own curriculum based on your family's vision and values. Certainly, anything you intentionally design will be better than the negative rites of passage we currently promulgate in our culture.

Enjoy!

Joshua

Links:

• Dr. Poythress's website
• Dr. Poythress's bibliography
• "How I Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men

My guest today is Ben Falk. Ben is a really incredible permaculture designer with a comprehensive focus.

Ben runs a planning firm called Whole Systems Design. Through this firm, he "identifies, designs, and develops human habitats - landscape and infrastructure systems - that yield perennial abundance and enduring value. These are adaptive, resilient and secure places in a future of peak oil, climate instability, and deepening economic insolvency."

They also "plan, develop, and manage land-based wealth preservation and security projects for those with the forethought to invest an abundance of present day resources to reduce their familly's vulnerability to future food, energy and other supply-chain disturbances, as well as peak-oil, climatic, economic and other events."

The interview covers a variety of topics, including:

• Ben's path from architecture to comprehensive design.
• How to approach personal lifestyle design from a systems mindset.
• How to prioritize needs and investment.
• How he heats his house, heats his water, cooks his food, and dries his clothes in Vermont with a very small amount of wood.
• How he grows 80 to 90% of his food intake.

My favorite quote from the interview: "Don't fight something that's wrong. Make a new system that makes the old system obsolete."

Enjoy!

Joshua

Links:

• Whole Systems Design
• The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach by Ben Falk

On Fridays, I answer your questions! I decided I didn't want to handle any of the in-depth, math-related questions today so I chose these three questions to handle.

• 1:41 - What can I do to prepare for being the executor of someone's estate?
• 16:49 - How can I reconcile the idea of being a specialist in my field with the advantages of being a generalist?
• 48:09 - What can I do to ensure a smoothe transition to a single-income household?

I hope you enjoy the show!

Joshua

Links:

• NOLO: The Executor's Guide for Settling a Loved One's Estate or Trust

Today, we welcome Jim Rawles, Founder and Editor of SurvivalBlog.com back on the show to discuss improving your lifestyle and personal resilience by moving.

We talk about optimizing your lifestyle within the United States by carefully selecting your location as well as the pros and cons of international expatriation.

Topics include:

• Ideas for playing the "State Line Jumping Game" (living in a no-income-tax state and shopping next door in no-sales-tax state).
• Brief mention of the "Five Flags Theory." In essence, the idea is that you can arrange your affairs over five different countries:
  • Flag 1: Business Base-These are places where you make your money. They must be different from your personal fiscal domicile, the place where you legally reside.
  • Flag 2: Passport & Citizenship-These should be from a country unconcerned about offshore citizens and what they do outside its borders.
  • Flag 3: Domicile-This should be a tax haven with good communications. A place where wealthy, productive people can be creative, live, relax, prosper and enjoy themselves. Such a place should not be threatened by war or revolution and preferably should enjoy good levels of banking secrecy.
  • Flag 4: Asset Repository-This should be a place from which assets, securities and business affairs can be managed anonymously by proxy.
  • Flag 5: Playgrounds-These are places where you would actually physically spend your time.
• Jim's idea for "The American Redoubt"
• The Free State Project and Free State Wyoming
• Estimate your own tax savings with SaveTaxesByMoving.com
• Considerations for international expatriation:
  • taxation, language skills, friendly to foreigners, strength of the economy, crime rate, climate and lifestyle, gun laws, homeschooling laws. etc/
• Discussion of Finland, the Philippines, Swizerland, New Zealand, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uraguay
• For more information check out the Sovereign Society and International Living
• For a Second Passport opportunity, consider St. Kitts and Nevitts
• Check out Jim's novel: Expatriates

Enjoy!

Joshua