Listen Money Matters - Free your inner financial badass. All the stuff you should know about personal finance.

It’s time for your questions.  We’ll cover brokerage accounts, car payments, and credit card fraud.  You know where to come for the answers. 1.  Why us Betterment over Vanguard S&P 500 for index funds? Betterment has a much lower minimum for investing.  To get into that Vanguard fund, the minimum is $10,000. 2.  Is it worthwhile to have more than one brokerage account?  It depends on your goals and how involved you want to be.  Betterment is the hands off option.  A good reason to have multiple accounts is SIPC protection.  Each account is guaranteed up to $500,000.  If you have more than that in an account, you could lose that amount.  Spreading the money out in $500,000 increments is safer. 3.  Why is Matt investing when he has a car loan he’s paying interest on?  Matt’s interest rate is 2% so he’s making more in investments.  As long as your interest rate is very low, keep the money invested. 4.  If I have fraud on my credit card and have to receive a new account number, does that negatively impact my credit score?  It doesn’t impact open or closed accounts or age of accounts.  It’s not the account being closed, just a number change.  If someone has fraudulently opened a card in your name, this will impact your score and takes forever to sort out.  Most cards are chipped now and are more secure.  Just call the credit card company and request the chipped version of your current card.  Chip and pin is still a distant dream for Americans but you can get a chip and signature card. 5.  What was the name of the fund that allows you to choose your proportion of stocks to bonds depending on your age and how much risk you want to take?  This is a Life Cycle Fund.  The fee is higher than other funds because it is much more actively managed.  Andrew wrote an article on investing and there is information about Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2050 Fund. Thanks for the questions guys, keep e-mailing them in. Show Notes St Martin Brune:  A medium bodied Belgium beer Betterment:  The hands off way to invest.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teaching personal finance is badly neglected in America.  Zela Wela is changing that. Nancy Phillips joins us to discuss teaching kids about money. Kids develop their beliefs about money at the same time as they develop them about everything else, during the formative years.  By age seven, their ideas are in place.  A good age to start is between two and three. Because the learning needs to start so early, parents are the ideal teachers.  Kids will observe and model the behavior of their parents.  A two year old won’t understand what a 401K is but they can understand choice and are capable of making them.  They also understand accumulation.  A big pile of strawberries is better than one strawberry.  It’s strawberries when you’re two but that lays the ground work for understanding a big pile of money is better than a little pile and how to grow the pile. Giving young children an allowance is a powerful teaching tool.  Zela Wela recommends the GISS method, give, invest, save, spend.  Part of the allowance is to give, part is invested, part is saved, and part is their’s to spend as they wish.  Zela Wela has a book that shows how to build four little banks for each portion of the money.  It’s fun for the kids and reinforces the behavior of saving in four distinct areas. Do you just give the kids an allowance or do they have to earn it?  Zela Wela advocates “mini allowances.”  Giving a small amount regularly and if they want more, that money can be earned through larger chores or creating income another way.  The regular amount means that kids are consistently managing money even if they don’t have a lot of time that week to earn money through chores or entrepreneurial activities. You don’t need to be a financial genius to teach your children about money.  Just make sure it’s something that is in the foreground of day to day life and your children will be well ahead of their peers. Show Notes Brew Dog Cocoa Psycho:  A stout brewed with coffee, chocolate and vanilla. Zela Wela Kids:  Personal finance for kids. Enter the promo code LMM and you’ll get 10% of your purchase! FamZoo: A money tracking system geared towards children. Betterment:  Set an example by investing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Lynn Schroeder is an entrepreneur with the #1 leather shop on Etsy. Learn how she turned her love of leather into a successful business selling on etsy. Today we go hell for leather with the founder of In Blue Handmade, an Etsy shop with eight employees and over 300 wholesalers.  If you’re unfamiliar, Etsy is a global online marketplace for handmade goods. Mary Lynn was failing at fabrics when her dad sent her a piece of leather and told her to give that a try.  She crafted some phone cases and journals, put them on her Etsy site, and they started flying out the door. But it didn’t come easy.  Mary Lynn was working on her own stuff during the day and working in a restaurant over night.  She can pinpoint the exact moment things took off, December 2, 2009.  She got a mention on Martha Stewart’s blog and woke up to eighty orders. Part of Mary Lynn’s success is down to not knowing.  Late 2008 was a terrible time to start a business but she didn’t realize that.  If she had, she probably wouldn’t have done it.  Sometimes being naive is an advantage, it means less fear and second-guessing. We know a lot of our listeners are DIYers and crafters.  Mary Lynn has advice for you.  Sign up for Etsy.  It’s a great platform with low start-up costs.  Also take your stuff to local craft fairs.  There is bound to be one near you and it gives you a lot of information on price points, what people like and don’t like, and if there is a market for what you have to offer. Remember last episode how we talked about finding your passion?  Mary Lynn is the living embodiment of that.  She tried, she failed, she kept trying and she succeeded in a big way at something she loved to do.  That’s what we want for all of you. Show Notes In Blue Handmade:  Mary Lynn’s Etsy shop. Betterment:  Start investing today.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finding your passion has become a hackneyed cliche but there is some merit in doing so, we just have to think of a less Oprah way of phrasing it. People say it as if it’s something easy to do.  What if you’re passionate about sitting around smoking weed all day?  How do you parlay that into income?  You don’t.  What it really means is to figure out what you like to do that can also generate income and do that to make money. It doesn’t have to make you a lot of money, not in the beginning, maybe not ever.  But being able to spend a part of your time doing something you really love to do is a big part of being happy in your life. Matt loves music and has even toured with his band.  But music super stardom wasn’t meant to be for him.  It doesn’t mean he can’t incorporate that love into other areas of his life.  For example, he created a music video for LMM and recently created one for a podcasting conference.   Maybe your passion won’t ever make you money. Or maybe you’re afraid that by turning it into a career, you might come to hate it.  Cooking a big meal for friends and family is fun.  Cooking in a Michelin starred restaurant is pressure. So you won’t be cashing the Jean Georges paycheck with the bountiful amount of zeros but seeing people you love enjoy your food is a reward too.  It doesn’t always have to be about the money. If you can’t name a passion, write down a few things you’re interested in.  And try them out.  Maybe you won’t like them all but you’re bound to find something that makes the time fly by.  The important thing is to keep searching when finding your passion.  A lot can happen in a life, especially nothing. Show Notes Betterment:  Start investing today. Mint:  Manage your money in a single glance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to start investing but a little nervous to get started?  We totally get it. Investing should be simple and easy and with Acorns you can get started with just some pocket change. Acorns is a great way to start investing and building wealth. We’re here to show how you how to get started investing without a lot of money, and then forget about it until you retire. What is Acorns? Each time you spend, Acorns rounds up to the nearest dollar and invests that amount for you.  So, if you spend $2.50 on a cup of coffee, Acorns will automatically invest $.50 for you. The pizza you just ordered that cost $15.05,  $.95 gets invested. All you need to do is download the Acorns app, connect it to your credit cards to get started. A lot of users are new to investing so the app provides a lot of guidance. There are also cool tools, that help you set and reach goals. By just entering your savings goals and what age you want to achieve them by and the app tells you how much you need to invest each month to get there. They also have found money partners program that rewards app users for shopping through certain retailers. When you making a purchase with one of their partners through the app or web portal, the retailer will send the rebate, cash back rewards, and loyalty programs cash into your account. What’s better than cash back? Cashback that is automatically invested. So, is pretty simple but let’s go a bit deeper. Advantages of Using the Acorns App They offer ETF’s, stock funds, and bond funds. The funds are chosen by a team of mathematicians and engineers who work in conjunction with Nobel Prize-winning economist Harry Markowitz. There are no commissions, the cost is $1 per month and a maximum of .5% a year on managed assets.  Once you reach $5000, the percentage drops to .25%.  There is no fee to add money or withdraw it from the account. Using Acorns is safe, your data is encrypted and they are working with “white hackers” to make sure that everything is private. You can maintain a high degree of control in Acorns but if you want to set it and forget it, you can choose auto roundups where each transaction will be rounded up. You can also have money auto deposited into the account via automatic transfer. Her are the top benefits of using the Acorns app: Fee exemptions The Acorns platform appeals to young people and those who do not have investment experience. It allows college students to register for Acorns for free for up to four years, so long as they sign up with a .edu email address. This makes it easy for students to focus on investing and building up wealth without worrying about account fees when they first start with Acorns. Cashback Investing your money little by little can really make a difference over time, especially when you have Acorns’ cash-back features to help you along. The app has more than 100 partner companies offering cash back on purchases you make with one of the payment methods associated with your Acorns account. These cash-back rewards will go into your investment account to help you move closer to your goals. Minimal upfront investment Some financial institutions require individuals to invest thousands of dollars just to open an account. With Acorns, you can start investing with just $5—and there’s no minimum amount required to open an account. This opens up investment opportunities to people who may not have otherwise had access to them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Health insurance is so complicated.  We deep dive into HSA plans so you can get the most out of your health care dollars. What is an HSA?  Simply put, it’s a health savings account that usually has an investment option and is tied to a high deductible plan.  The money goes in tax free, it grows, and when you withdraw it to spend on out of pocket health care, it remains tax free!  And it’s flexible. If you take it out to spend on non-health care purchases, it is taxed and there is a penalty but you do have that option.  And once you reach age 65, you can use it without penalty and at the prevailing tax rate which should be lower than it was during your prime earning years.  Not to be confused with an FSA (flexible spending account) which must be emptied by the end of the year or you lose the money. The numbers change year to year but currently, a single person can put $3300 into an HSA and a family can contribute $6550.  Our guests advise first funding the matching portion of your 401K, then fully funding the HSA, and finally going back to the 401K.  Your HSA is portable too, you can take it with you when you leave your job. If you’re self employed you can set up an HSA for yourself.  Just buy a plan that is HSA qualified and you can reap the rewards available to the rest of us wage slaves.  About 20% of the offerings on the HCE are HSA qualified so you’ll have several to choose from. Once you put money into the HSA, you can spend it on medical expenses for yourself, a spouse, or any tax dependents, for the rest of your life tax free.  You’ll generally receive a debit type card to spend the money with. Should you leave your job, get fired or laid off, you can use your HSA to pay for Cobra premiums and once you reach 65 you can use it to pay Medicare premiums. There are some unexpected benefits to this system aside from just the financial.  When your insurance covered everything but your $10 co-pay, you didn’t ask to many questions.  Now that it’s your money, you suddenly want to know the justification behind your doctor ordering you and MRI. You want the generic prescription at a fraction of the price rather than the name brand.  You might even start looking after your health a bit more carefully.  Insulin is expensive, maybe I should cut down on the carbs.  This has forced transparency is what has traditionally been a very murky world and sunlight benefits us all. Speak to your HR department and see if a high deductible plan with an attached HSA is available to you.  Take control of your health and your money. Show Notes Allagash Tripel:  an ale with a long, smooth finish. Ask MR HSA:  Todd’s site to answer all your HSA questions. Consumer Driven:  John helps break down the barriers for health care consumers. HSA Administrators: Awesome HSA side recommended by a listener that allows you to put your HSA contributions into Vanguard funds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  Jim Wang became a millionaire through his finance blog Bargaineering.  He sold the site and started Microblogger.  Let’s hang with an internet millionaire. Jim could easily have quit working when he sold his site but that’s not what millionaires do.  His life also didn’t change much when he became a millionaire, something that all of our millionaires have had in common, they avoided lifestyle inflation. Whether Jim had $10,000 or $1,000,000, he treated his money the same.  Invest it in the stock market and know that over forty years, it will grow.  Looking at your numbers day to day can lead to poor decisions.  Set it and forget it.  He slow dripped his money in and bought when others were selling in a panic.  Jim monitors the number about once a month just to make sure things are where they should be. Jim keeps up the Joneses but not in the way you would expect.  He found success at a young age so when he reads other success stories, it helps to keep the fire alive.  Comparing yourself to others can hurt you but it can help you to continue to achieve too. Thirty four is too young to give up any kind of work for life on the golf course. Success didn’t land in Jim’s lap.  He was working a forty or fifty hour week job when he started Bargaineering in 2004 and would work an additional thirty hours a week on the site.  He did this for four years.  Four years of eighty hour weeks is not the definition of success being handed to you. A lot of people who have side businesses continue their day job even after the side gig starts to pay well or even better than the day job.  Because they think the job is more stable.  But that’s such a misconception and it’s holding a lot of talented people back.  The fact is, you aren’t privy to your day jobs finances.  Things could seem to you to be going along great and one day you’re fired because the company filed for bankruptcy.  When it’s your own thing, you know exactly where things are financially. If you’re thinking of taking the leap from your day job to your own thing, check out Jim’s site.  The man has lived the journey. Show Notes Microblogger:  Jim’s guide to starting your own blogging business. $5 Meal Plan:  Simplify food planning with a weekly plan and shopping list e-mailed to you. Betterment:  So we can interview you for Better Know a Millionaire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Best selling author, world traveler, entrepreneur, Chris Guillebeau joins us to discuss his latest book The Happiness of Pursuit. Chris became an entrepreneur when he realized he was a terrible employee and never wanted to work for someone else.  He started his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity in 2008 and it grew into an empire.  He now travels the world speaking and teaching people how to start living their own unconventional lives. Chris attended community college before transferring to a four year school.  He graduated with no debt by financing his education through selling items on e-Bay.  Once he ran out of things to sell, he tried other small businesses, creating several small things rather than one large thing. It gave him enough money to avoid debt and do what he wanted to do and allowed him to sample a variety of things, seeing what worked and what didn’t along the way. Chris wrote an e-book on discount airfare in less than a week and it started selling.  This led to more books about travel and self employment.  The e-books led to his first published book, The $100 Startup which became a New York Times best seller. Chris now holds the annual World Domination Summit, a gathering of devotees to his living an unconventional lifestyle philosophy.  There are lectures, workshops, and vast opportunities for networking. Chris is about to embark on the tour for his latest which will be published September 9th.  You can find out if he is visiting your city here.  Go say hi and tell him LMM sent you! Show Notes Chris Guillebeau:  Chris’s website on the art of non-conformity. The Happiness of Pursuit:  Chris’s newest book documenting his travels to every country in the world and the art of the quest. Betterment:  Start investing today for your best tomorrow.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you dream of retiring early? We interview the expert in early retirement, Mr Money Mustache. We must learn his ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most people are more willing to talk about sex, politics, and religion than about money.  Why is personal finance such a taboo subject? Your parents probably gave you the “birds and the bees” talk but did they ever talk to you about money?  A lot of parents don’t and that seems to carry over into our adult lives.  That personal finance is so taboo is handicapping a lot of us when it comes to knowing how to manage our money. It’s not polite to flash money around and to brag about how much you make or spend but it shouldn’t be shameful to discuss the opposite problem, how little money you have or, more importantly, how little you know about money.  Imagine being illiterate and not asking for help learning to read.  What a disadvantage you would be at in every area of life.  Being financially illiterate is no less devastating and if no one knows, no one can help you. There’s more openess now because of the internet and the anonymity it affords us but for a lot of people, money matters can be such a shameful thing.  It’s hard to admit that you’re drowning in debt or that you can’t fully take care of your family.  It’s also hard not to feel judged.  Everyone wants to compare themselves and if you tell someone who is a banker that you’re a janitor, it takes a superhuman sense of self worth not to feel looked down on. It can work the other way too.  Maybe you’re rolling in it.  But you don’t tell people because you’re afraid they’ll hit you up for money or that they will feel judged and lacking.  Or maybe you think people will resent you. But not talking about money can mean you lose money.  Especially in the workplace.  If you don’t know what others in your industry and especially, what your colleagues are making, how do you know if you’re being fairly compensated?  You don’t and that’s what employers want. Some even go so far as to tell employees they are forbidden to disclose their salaries. This is not true, in fact it is illegal.  Now I don’t suggest you post a spread sheet of what everyone makes on the bathroom wall because they’ll find another reason to fire you.  But it’s important information that you have a right to know. Next time you’re out with friends or colleagues, gently bring the subject around to money.  If you’re honest about where you are and your short comings, others might be willing to share their stories too.  If you have something to teach, teach it.  If you have something to learn, be willing to learn it.  You can talk about your sex life at the next outing. Show Notes Maine Root Blueberry Soda:  A summer beverage for all you teetotalers out there. Betterment:  The fast way to start investing. LMM Toolbox:  Everything you need to manage your money in one place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices