The Best Interest - Complex Personal Finance Made Easy

While the idea of living in a meritocracy is desirable, as it rewards those who do better, is it prevalent in today’s society?

With 25% of American households making less than $30,000 a year, do billionaires really offer 200,000 times the merit than them? At what age do we start to blame the poor kid, a victim of bad luck his entire life, for his poor circumstances? Is anyone really self-made? Or does everything unfold by mere chance?

I invite Sam Dogen, The Financial Samurai, to discuss the role merit plays in the real world and how you can position yourself to achieve success.

Mentions:

Jeff Bezos and the Meritocracy Kings: https://bestinterest.blog/meritocracy/ Learn About The Financial Samurai: https://www.financialsamurai.com/about/

How to Survive the War on Merit: https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-to-survive-the-war-on-merit/

Buy This, Not That on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Wz1G3L

More of The Best Interest:

Check out the Best Interest Blog at bestinterest.blog

Contact me at [email protected]

The Best Interest Podcast is a personal podcast meant for educational and entertainment. It should not be taken as financial advice, and is not prescriptive of your financial situation.

Paula Pant writes, podcasts, and speaks on financial independence, money management, and financial literacy. As the host of the Afford Anything Podcast, Paula has racked up more than 30 million downloads, ranking the show among the Top 50 Business Podcasts on Apple Podcasts. In this episode we learn how Paula realized she could travel the world on a limited income and eventually go on to financial independence through Afford Anything. If you’re looking for some growth mindset inspiration that will help you broaden your perspective, this is the episode for you!

Key Takeaways:

How to move on (and grow) after financial mistakes.

Why we need reminders and safety measures.

How to afford anything with the power of priorities.

How Paula traveled the world and never got a job again.

What cap rate you should be looking for in a rental property.

Why you should start 10X thinking, rather than penny pinching.

Mentions:

🌐 Afford Anything: https://affordanything.com/

👉🏼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulapant/

🎙️ Afford Anything Podcast: https://affordanything.com/podcast/

📚 Are We In The Best Stock Market Period...Ever? https://bestinterest.blog/the-best-stock-market-period-ever/

📚 Should You Keep Investing At All-Time Highs? https://bestinterest.blog/investing-at-all-time-highs/

📚 The Incredible Power of 10X Thinking https://affordanything.com/any-benefit/

More of The Best Interest:

Check out the Best Interest Blog at bestinterest.blog

Contact me at [email protected]

The Best Interest Podcast is a personal podcast meant for educational and entertainment. It should not be taken as financial advice, and is not prescriptive of your financial situation.

How can a windy lake teach us about long-term investing?

And I answer listener questions about my first investment, about bonds, and about the "flat earth" conspiracy. How fun!

Today, Jesse shares some financial lessons from humble beginnings. There’s much to learn from his first entrepreneurial endeavor: a baseball concession stand. Then, Andrew Giancola joins the pod to share his “Hero’s Journey,” from a bottom point where he found himself unable to afford a fill-up of gasoline. Andrew has thoughts about peoples’ biggest problem with money, about opportunity costs we all face, and whether you should rent or buy your next home. Thanks for joining us today on The Best Interest.

Key Takeaways and Timestamps:

(0:00:44) - Jesse shares a story from his early financial life about starting a concession stand business as a kid to earn money to buy a computer game.

(0:09:31) - Jesse shares about his first job cleaning bathrooms and cabins at a state park for minimum wage.

(0:13:30) - Brief ad break.

(0:14:32) - Andrew Giancola, host of The Personal Finance Podcast, joins the show.

(0:15:23) - Andrew shares his “Hero Story” of living paycheck to paycheck after college and having an "a-ha" moment when he couldn't afford to fill up his gas tank.

(0:18:25) - Andrew reflects that changing his money mindset and psychology was the biggest factor in learning to manage his money properly.

(0:19:45) - Andrew discusses working one-on-one with clients, focusing on identifying their biggest problems and goals around money.

(0:21:40) - Andrew shares a story about starting a side business selling Christmas trees and learning entrepreneurial lessons from it.

(0:23:20) - Trying new ventures, seeing what works, and not being afraid to abandon things that aren't working.

(0:24:43) - The importance of evaluating opportunity costs in building wealth.

(0:28:14) - Tactics for evaluating non-monetary opportunity costs like time with family.

(0:28:50) - Brief ad break.

(0:29:04) -The first $100k is the hardest to accumulate because it relies more on savings rate versus investment returns. Once you hit $100k, compound interest accelerates wealth building.

(0:33:08) - The importance of calculating total cost of homeownership before deciding whether to buy or rent.

(0:35:05) - While homeownership can make sense, a house shouldn't be viewed primarily as an investment.

Mentions:

The Millionaire Next Door:

https://amzn.to/3FKFfme

More of Andrew:

🌐 Website: https://mastermoney.co/

🎙️ Podcast: https://mastermoney.co/podcast/

More of The Best Interest:

Check out the Best Interest Blog at bestinterest.blog

Contact me at [email protected]

The Best Interest Podcast is a personal podcast meant for educational and entertainment. It should not be taken as financial advice, and is not prescriptive of your financial situation.

So what did Warren Buffett mean by silver tongued demagogues and slaying dragons? Jesse sits down with Rob Bradley, a fellow Berkshire Hathaway shareholder and CFP in Rochester, NY, to discuss the wealth of knowledge behind Berkshire Hathaway’s latest annual letter to shareholders.

Buffett is widely regarded as one of the greatest investors of all time and his investing style has been studied and emulated by many investors over the years. Rob breaks down how Berkshire Hathaway has outperformed the S&P, invested in Apple as an indispensable consumer product, and poised itself to take advantage of domestic businesses based on their intrinsic value.

Quotes:

"Charlie and I are not stock pickers. We are business pickers."

"When you are told that all repurchases are harmful to shareholders or to the country or particularly beneficial to CEOs. You are listening to either an economic illiterate or a silver tongued demagogue, characters that are not mutually exclusive."

"Successful investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the effort, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in 1 month by getting 9 women pregnant.”

“Bitcoin was probably rat poison squared.”

"Interest rates are to financial instruments as gravity is to matter."

Mentions:

Becky Quick, of CNBC will review questions that shareholders have submitted by e-mail and select those she believes will have the widest interest. Questions can be submitted to Becky at [email protected].

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2022ltr.pdf

More of The Best Interest:

Check out the Best Interest Blog at bestinterest.blog

Contact me at [email protected]

The Best Interest Podcast is a personal podcast meant for educational and entertainment. It should not be taken as financial advice, and is not prescriptive of your financial situation.