Learn more about achieving financial independence in the military in The Military Money Manual: A Practical Guide to Financial Freedom. Now available on Kindle, Audible, and soon on Amazon. Always available on MilitaryMoneyManual.com

Jamie and Spencer break down how to build a plan, how to overcome winner's guilt, how to be generous with your windfall, and how to avoid windfall errors.

Doug Nordman from The Military Guide joins us today on the Military Money Manual Podcast. While he would never say it, Doug is a bit of a legend in the personal finance, FIRE, and military finance community. He retired 20 years ago in 2002 after a 20 year career in the Navy.

I stoppd by Doug's house in Hawaii to have a conversation with him about all kinds of great military FI topics.

Doug was an early beta-reader of The Military Money Manual: A Practical Guide to Financial Freedom available at shop.militarymoneymanual.com. This is the perfect book to get you started on your journey to financial independence.

If you want to learn how to set yourself up to purchase your first rental property, check out my book The Military Money Manual: A Practical Guide to Financial Freedom. Available now on Amazon, Kindle, Audible, and my website.

On today's episode Spencer and Jamie welcome Rich Carey from Rich On Money

• Website
• YouTube
• TikTok

Topics we address today:

• VA home loans for primary residences that you can turn into rental properties when you PCS
• The 1% rule for buying rental properties and then 50% rule. Your profit is not mortgage minus rent! You must include expenses as well.
• How to set yourself up financially to be in a position to get into real estate
• How Rich purchased dozens of homes remotely and 30 doors by the time he retired from the military
• The systems Rich built to automate his property management
• What Dave Ramsey and Rich Carey disagree on
• The downfalls of the VA loan in a seller's market (like February 2022)
• Why short term rentals like Airbnb aren't Rich's cup of tea
• If you can use a VA construction loan for a new home build
• Why Rich doesn't recommend LLC structures for most military landlords
• Why Rich doesn't recommend any books on real estate investment

This was a great episode! Jamie and I (Spencer) both learned a lot and we hope you will too.

Learn more about military travel hacking and how to make thousands of dollars off of annual fee waived credit cards in my Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course. "Leave in conjuction with official travel" or LICWO is a great deal to get a free or reduced cost flight to take leave when you go TDY or TAD. Circuitous travel is a good way to make a PCS a little less stressful and to potentially take a little vacation while you move on government orders.

Find out how to do both in this episode! Learn more in the LICWO and circuitous travel guide I published.

The Hilton Honors Military Program offers separating military servicemembers and their spouses up to 100,000 free Hilton points each to aid veterans and their spouses in searching for their next job or establishing their new life. These points can be used for a job hunt, interview, conference, or any other purpose to establish your foundation after the military. This is a separate and complementary program to the Amex Hilton Honors Aspire annual fee waiver program.

If you've been travel hacking for a long time, chances are you have accumuluated many annual fee waived cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Amex Platinum. If you're separating or retiring, what should you do with your credit cards when you leave the military?

If you're just getting started on your military travel hacking journey, check out the Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course. It's 100% free and only takes a few minutes a day to read through the material. I will send you an email every day for 5 days. Unsubscribe at any time, I promise to never send you any spam.

In this episode Spencer and Jamie talk about the Hilton Honors Military Program, how to use it, and how to earn the free 100k points.

We also discuss if you should close, downgrade, or keep your credit cards after you get your DD-214 and separate or retire from active duty. The answers may surprise you!

In this episode Spencer and Jamie breakdown

1. How to stop paying state income tax
2. Why you should do your own taxes
3. How to stop being afraid of taxes

We also cover military spouse taxes including the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act (MSRRA), which allows military spouses much more flexibility in which state they are taxed in.

This is extremely helpful if you need to PCS in the middle of a year. You can avoid paying and filing taxes in multiple states!

We also cover why you DON'T want a large refund when you file your tax return.

Other topics include:

• When it makes sense to hire a CPA
• What to do if you receive a Combat Zone Tax letter CP04 from the IRS
• How to avoid tax audits
• If you need to pay taxes on points and miles
• Should you keep mortgage or student loan debt around for the tax deduction (spoiler alert: no)
• Taxes on military career bonuses
• Taxes on side hustles or 2nd jobs
• Real world examples of taxes paid by military servicemembers

Resources mentioned in the podcast:

• Military Money Manual
• MilitaryOneSource MilTax
• The Military Money Manual Book

If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a 5 star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen! Thank you!

Learn everything there is to know about travel hacking the military in my Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course. Besides welcome bonuses, credit card referral links are the easiest and fastest way to earn thousands or even millions of credit card points, miles, and cash.

Spencer and Jamie break down the easiest way to earn lots of point and miles with your Chase and Amex cards.

Learn how to maximize your military annual fee waivers in my Ultimate Military Credit Cards course at https://militarymoneymanual.com/umc3 By upgrading Chase and Amex cards from lower tier cards to higher tier cards, you can earn valuable recurring annual benefits like airline fee credits, travel credits, and much more. For example, you could upgrade an American Express Hilton Honors Surpass card to a Amex Hilton Honors Aspire card even if you already have an Amex Hilton Honors Aspire card. Then you could double your free hotel/resort nights certificates annually and earn $500 of resort credit rather than just $250.

Could you achieve financial freedom while you serve in the military? Thousands of servicemembers already have! Check out The Military Money Manual: A Practical Guide to Financial Freedom to discover the exact investment strategies and personal finance tactics you can use to achieve financial independence while you serve. Availabe now at shop.militarymoneymanual.com

Want to learn how to achieve financial independence rapidly in the military? Check out the new book, The Military Money Manual, at shop.militarymoneymanual.com

Calculators we talk about in this episode include:

• https://calculator.ficalc.app/
• https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement
• https://firecalc.com/
• https://engaging-data.com/fire-calculator/
• https://engaging-data.com/will-money-last-retire-early/
• https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/
• https://www.madfientist.com/