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Travel expert Andy Steves teaches us how to travel abroad affordably while having an authentic experience. Andy grew up traveling to Europe with his father, the travel guru, Rick Steves.  He worked college summers as a tour guide for his dad’s company and saw a gap in the market while spending a semester studying abroad in Rome.  In 2010 Andy set up his own travel company, Weekend Student Adventures Europe to take study abroad students on affordable intra-Europe three day weekends. For a lot of students, their semester abroad is the first time they have had to budget their money.  Dealing with a new currency makes this even harder as does the “foreignness” of a new place.  Young people perhaps outside the US for the first time might be too timid to venture off the well trodden tourist path and end up spending more money for a less authentic experience. By doing some research, which is half the fun of a trip for some of us, you can avoid the tourist traps and really experience a new place.  When looking for a restaurant, don’t go to the place on the main strip with menus in every language.  Walk a few streets over and find the place the locals go.  The food will be better, cheaper, and the experience more memorable.  The same applies to bars and clubs.  Every city has an American ex-pat bar but why did you spend $1000 on airfare to spend the evening drinking with the same people you can drink with back home? We all have romantic dreams of Parisian cafes and Roman trattorias but we don’t all have the budget.  There are so many beautiful places in Central and Eastern Europe that are much more affordable.  You can have a three course dinner in Krakow for 5-6 Euros which is $8.  You can spend an afternoon in a thermal spa in Budapest for 4 900 forints which is about $22. As Andy’s dad taught me, “Travel is a force for peace.”  It makes you a better person and gives you  the ability to make the world a better place. Show Notes WSA Europe:  Andy’s site providing affordable weekend travel. Mint:   LMM’s favorite budgeting site. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Lift.do  discusses how his habit building app can help us build good habits be they financial or another realm of our lives. Tony has a long background in tech startups.  We was the head of engineering when the first version of Twitter was built and was involved in the site  Wesabe which was a precursor of Mint. Tony is now the CEO of Lift which is a habit building app and a support system for over 200,000 goals including saving money, improving diet, and meditation.  Tony likes to call it “a personal coach that lives on your phone.”  He was inspired by the level of support he saw as a guest at a Twelve Step meeting and thought if we could have that level of support for the smaller goals in life, we could make succeeding so much easier. Like a lot of apps, Lift is free so how will they eventually make money?  The plan is to charge a fee for higher levels of coaching involving one on one interaction with one of Lift’s experts. What are some of Tony’s success building habits?  Rather than looking at a to do list,he actually blocks out time to accomplish the list.  This adds a level of accountability to an easily ignored list.  Tony likes to keep it simple.  You don’t need an elaborate scheme cooked up by a bunch of un-touchables living in their parent’s basement to ask a girl out.  You need, a job, clean clothes, and the ability to look her in the eye.  That’s it, the old K.I.S.S. method works whether you are scoping chicks or saving money. What’s Tony up to next?  Lift is adding a Q&A function. The community is one of the friendliest and most helpful on the internet.  We encourage you to join Lift to find some support for your goals, ever how big or small they may be! Show Notes Lift:  The habit building app co-founded by Tony. How to Meditate with Lift: Start meditating everyday with Lift. The Quantified Diet Project: The diet project that Matt and Tony talk about at the beginning of the episode. Tony’s Twitter: Connect with Tony here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forbes Magazine published a list of common money mistakes many of us make.   Which ones are you making? 1.  Not having a budget.  Chances are you have more than Matt’s three monthly expenses and unless you’re budgeting, you can’t keep track of them.  No need to be old fashioned and create a spread sheet. There are plenty of online tools available to make this a painless process. 2.  Avoid bank fees.  Bank fees are for suckers.  There are plenty of banks that don’t charge you for the privilege of housing your money while paying you crap interest. 3.  You have no emergency fund.  There are different definitions of what an emergency fund is.  For some it’s $1000 in a checking or savings account.  For others it’s a year’s worth of expenses invested.  For most of us, it’s somewhere in between and having any emergency fund is better than none. 4.  5.  Not taking full advantage of matching 401K funds and not contributing from your first pay check.  What if your employer doesn’t match?  It’s still worthwhile to contribute because it takes money from your check before you can miss it and if you can contribute enough to drop you down a tax bracket. 6.  Not knowing how much you should save for retirement.  If you don’t know this, listen to our episode on the 4% rule. 7. Not choosing the best student loan repayment plan.  There are several options depending on the type of loans you have, your income, and the field and sector you work in. 8. 9. 10.  The next three address estate planning, disability and life insurance.  Perhaps not something a lot of you are thinking about just now, but become more important the older we get and if we start a family. 11.  Using an investment adviser as you financial planner.  LMM is going to make the editorial decision to tell you that you don’t need either of these.  No one will ever care more about your money than you and these guys rarely beat the average.  So save your money, listen to us and learn to do this yourself. 12. Only considering the upside when choosing investments and choosing those investments based on ratings or headlines.  Yes you could absolutely pick a stock, get a lucky hit and retire at 25.  You could also lose your ass.  Do your research, don’t choose based on media hype, that’s what the media does.  Today’s Tesla could be tomorrow’s Edsel. We know our listeners are savvy and getting savvier but take an overview of your situation and see if you are making any of these mistakes. Show Notes Betterment: On-line investment tool. Mint: On-line budgeting tool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your future self will you for establishing an emergency fund now. It’s important to set aside emergency savings can help you get in case your home needs an urgent repair or something more serious like unemployment. We will help you figure out how much you need and how to get an emergency fund started. Having an emergency fund is one of the most important things you can do. It’s part of adulting. Your savings should be able to cover your major expenses for three to six months. What is an Emergency Fund? An emergency fund is a pool of liquid money set aside for unforeseen expenses like a medical expense or a car repair. Having an emergency fund can be the difference between a small bump in your financial life and complete disaster in your entire life. Having a robust emergency fund gives you peace of mind. No one wants to live one paycheck away from not being able to pay the rent or one car breakdown away from not being able to get to work. It also gives you some freedom. If you decide to leave a relationship or your job becomes so unbearable that you have to leave before finding another or you want to go back to school or start your own business, having an emergency fund gives you the freedom to do those things. Keeping that money separate from the money you use to pay bills can help curb frivolous spending. Sometimes when you see a big number in your checking account you get a little cocky and a little more reckless. Keeping the money separate can help you avoid temptation. What is an Emergency? You should only dip into your emergency fund for a real emergency; to keep yourself afloat between jobs, for a car repair, a medical expense, or a home repair. You cannot use your emergency fund for things like a vacation, a shopping spree or to upgrade your perfectly good cell phone or laptop. An emergency is not an expected expense, like buying Christmas presents, that you didn’t budget for a few months ahead of time. That’s what a sinking fund is for. How Much Should You Save? Ideally, your emergency fund should be 3-6 months of expenses. That sounds like a lot and it is but keep in mind, that number can be your bare-bones expenses. If you were to lose your job your spending would be (at least it should be) different than it is when you have money consistently coming in. The number you use to calculate your three to six months would include expenses like rent, utilities, car payments, etc. It does not have to include dinners out, entertainment, and clothing expenses or saving for retirement. Even still, 3-6 months of basic expenses will still add up to thousands of dollars for most of us so it can be daunting to save up that much. But you don’t have to accumulate it all at once. Set a reasonable time frame to get to the six-month number. Don’t give yourself too much time though. Growing your emergency fund should be a priority. Let’s say your ultimate goal is $12,000. That means your bare-bones expenses are $2,000 a month. If you saved $400 a month, it would take 2.5 years to reach that number. That’s a reasonable timeline as long as you are saving that $400 every month. Remember though, this is a priority. If you can throw an extra $100 a month in there, do it. Or you can use any “extra” money you get, a bonus, a raise, monetary gifts, to help you reach your number faster. Feeding Your Emergency Fund Feel like you’re all tapped out and have no extra money to put towards your emergency fund right now? No fear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In honor of Memorial Day, we interview our listener Johnny who is a member of the Air Force, working in the finance office. Members of the Armed Forces have their own set of challenges when it comes to their finances.  Many recruits are fresh out of high school and learning to manage their finances is just one of the new arenas they find themselves in. As a new recruit, most of the day to day living expenses are covered, housing, meals, and health care so a lot of their income is disposable and they make the same mistakes a lot of young people make when they suddenly find themselves with some money.  Buying expensive cars, fancy gadgets, nice (well earned) vacations dinner out when they tire of eating the same thing on a ten day rotation.  The military does provide some personal finance classes but they’re voluntary. The military does provide investment options.  There is the TSP which is similar to a 401K program and subject to the same caps as the civilian sector.  Military personnel are also given a pension.  After twenty years of active duty, they receive 50% of their base pay.  Some states don’t tax retirement income so this is something for members to consider when deciding where to live after  retiring. The GI Bill is another program available to members.  It helps to pay for college and provides a stipend to help cover living expenses. For deployed members there are some added financial benefits that are location driven including hostile fire pay, combat tax exclusion, and family separation pay. Johnny’s final advice to his fellow military members is to know your benefits and if you have a question, ask someone. Thank you to Johnny and the millions like him for serving our country. Show Notes TSP: The military’s Thrift Savings Plan GI Bill: The military’s college payment plan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 Meet Dan, Matt’s financially savvy brother to discuss what he’s doing right, wrong, and what he could do better. Are money smarts genetic? We learn early on the difference between Matt and Dan.  As children, Dan asked for stocks for Christmas while Matt asked for XBox games.  Their Mom told me they still do that actually.  Dan also took personal finance classes while in high school, again underscoring the importance of teaching PF in school. Dan started college majoring in finance but changed to management information systems after one semester.  He graduated with $45,000 in student debt and bought a house soon after. He did not take Matt’s advice to “live a little” but put 10% down while maintaining a cushion of about $10,000.  Half of that is in Betterment and the other half is slowly being moved from savings to Betterment.  Dan has a private  IRA and a pension through his job. Dan has no credit card debt and owes $4,000 on his car. Dan has some changes that are coming up to his situation.  When he bought his house he was given a five year tax abatement.  When the five years is up, the mortgage payments will increase.  He is also eligible for a program that will partially forgive his student loans after he has worked for a public institution for ten years, he’s five years in. How can Dan do better?  Turns out, Dan is doing pretty damn well.  His portfolio is diversified and he’s interested in his financial situation.  He should pay off the car loan within a few months to free up $300 a month that could be better spent in Betterment.  He may also start researching 3-4 individual companies that he’s interested in and can invest in.  He should also make better snack choices. Show Notes Betterment:  An on-line investing tool. Mint:  LMM’s favorite budgeting tool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why not turn doing what you love into a way to make a bit of money on the side?  We share ideas on how to make money with your hobbies. The difference between a hobby and a job is that a job has aspects you don’t enjoy. A hobby is doing only the things you like to do. Can you make money watching TV? Kind of sad if you consider TV a hobby but none the less, you can turn it into cash. You can use sites like Swagbucks or Bing Rewards to play videos while you’re doing something else, cooking or working. You may have to occasionally click on the screen but it’s not terribly distracting or time-consuming. You can even use something like Bing Rewards Bot to automate the system. Matt’s brother Dan makes anywhere from $40-70 a month this way. How Stuff Works lists ten hobbies that can pay off. Several of them like dog walking, organizing, and coaching a sport have little to no start up costs. If you love to take photos, upload them to a site like i-Stock. Someone looking for a photo of a beach for example, will pay to use your shot. Ask yourself what you’re good at and find a way to turn that into a job. Think carefully though. Cooking a big meal on a Sunday afternoon with a glass of wine is fun and relaxing. Slaving away in a restaurant kitchen for crap wages is less fun and could ruin the enjoyment of your hobby. Show Notes SwagBucks.com: An on-line rewards program. Bing: Earn credits toward gift certificates while on-line. PogoCheats.com: A bot to help automate earning Bing Rewards. Reddit Beer Money: A sub-reddit devoted to discussing ways to make money online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s interesting to hear someone else’s personal finance story, and we are lucky enough to have listeners willing to share this financial life. Today we are joined by one such listener. Join us for this financial life with Robbie. Robbie is getting married in a few weeks. His fiancé is in graduate school. He has no debt aside from $44,000 in student loans. The student loan payment is $165 a month, but Robbie usually pays $250. The interest rate on the loan is about 6%. Robbie has no car payment, rent is $765, and groceries run $400-500 a month. Robbie puts some money each month into his Betterment account. Those are the facts. How is Robbie doing? Pretty well actually. He’s a long time listener and has learned a lot from LMM. Andrew suggests that he invest three months of living expenses into Betterment to serve as an emergency fund. The rest of the extra money will be better spent paying off the student loans. Once Robbie’s fiancé finishes graduate school and starts working, they plan to live on one salary and use the other to pay off the loans. If they can buckle down and do this for a year or two, they will put themselves ahead of the game. Robbie has low expenses, paid cash for his car, and has a plan to attack the student debt in a relatively short amount of time. Another thing he should consider is filing his taxes individually instead of as a couple once he’s married. Two incomes combined have a higher tax rate. Best of luck to Robbie on his new marriage! Keep us posted on the student loan progress. Show Notes The federal student loan repayment program. Betterment: On-line investment tool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

J David Stein of Money For the Rest of Us visits for our ongoing Better Know A Millionaire series. David went to work as an institutional investment advisor at the age of 30 after spending years in corporate finance. David retired at 40, already a millionaire. David tells us that most millionaires, as in The Millionaire Next Door, live a frugal lifestyle. And the best way to become a millionaire in the United States is to start and own your own business. David lives in Idaho and drives a used BMW with a cracked windshield. What does a retired millionaire do to bring money in? The bulk of David’s income now comes from investing. He is more cautious now than he was when he was still working. He reiterates some ideas we have discussed in the past. Keep your fees low and be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. David’s greatest pleasure now that he’s retired is travel. He travels as he lives, frugally. Taking advantage of sites like Airbnb for cheap and comfortable accommodations. David has found that travel has teaches us to “be amazed at how many ways there are in the world to live.” Another lesson that David reinforces for us is that the best mind’s best ideas did not out perform the market. The average person can match or beat the best money managers out there and without the fees. But I think David’s greatest wisdom is that living frugally and investing wisely so that we can retire at the young age he was able to are worth the trade off for complete freedom. We all want to be David when we grow up. Show Notes JDavidStein.com: David’s personal finance blog. SilenceLikeThunder.com: David’s site devoted to his personal writings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's easy to dismiss mindfulness as some kind of woo-woo new age nonsense, but it's not all navel-gazing and chakras. But when we are mindful of the things that are important to us, including money, we can greatly improve our lives.Full Article HereShow NotesInvestable: Research and evaluate rental properties.Tool Box: All the best stuff to manage your money.Lift App: An easy way to make a good practice a habit.Calm.com: A guided meditation site. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices