Build Financial Independence, Escape the 9-to-5, and Live Your Boldest Dreams
Jenny Blake used to have an enviable job.
As a Career Development manager at Google, she enjoyed the perks of a Silicon Valley life, plus the satisfaction of helping people everyday. She co-founded Google’s Career Guru Program, and helped countless Google employees find their right career “fit.”
But, ironically, Blake sensed that her own career wasn’t on the right track.
Chris, age 30, makes $200,000 per year and saves 50 percent of his income. What accounts should he use in order to maximize his tax benefits?
Dee, age 39, is getting tired of apartment living. She found a great neighborhood in which she’d like to own a home, and she’s saving for a 20 percent downpayment. But she’s nervous about the high cost of home maintenance. How can she deal with this?
Chelsea just moved into a new house with her husband. He purchased the house outright, in cash, and she wants to pay him so that she can share in the home’s ownership and equity. But she also has student loan and credit card debt. Should she make progress towards all three of these goals (build equity, pay off student loans, pay off credit cards) at the same time? Or should she prioritize one — and if so, which one?
When Laura Roeder was 22, she quit her job to become a full-time freelancer.
She earned $30,000 in her first year as a freelancer; $60,000 in her second year.
Ten years later — (Laura is now 32) — her company earns $4 million in annual revenue.
(Can I repeat that? Did I bury the lede? *Laura went from making $30,000 per year to owning 100% of a company that earns $4 million per year.* And she did this within a decade. Oh, and she also had a baby.)
(Like, whoa.)
Eating avocado toast. Yeah, I went there. đ
Imagine that you’re looking for a rental property. It’s a warm Saturday afternoon, and you decide to cruise through a few open houses in the area.
Your autonomously-driving electric vehicle pulls into the driveway. Your wifi-enabled contact lenses automatically register the property’s details: square footage, year of construction, sales history, tax assessment, price-to-rent ratio, average neighborhood occupancy rates, and multiple cap rate estimates.
As you walk through the property, your contact lenses display the digital history of every item — the furnace, dishwasher, windows — keeping you up-to-date with the full installation and service history of every home component.
Welcome to the future of real estate investing.
âHave you ever tried to stop-peeing midstream? Itâs like trying to put spray cheese back in the can. The damage has been done, and the only thing left to do is try to enjoy yourself.”
Thatâs a quote from a deleted chapter in a book written by (in my opinion) one of the funniest bloggers on the internet, Geraldine DeRuiter.
Geraldine is an âaccidentalâ travel writer. Nine years ago, she found herself laid-off from a copywriting job and decided, âscrew it, Iâm gonna travel.â Sheâs since visited around 30 countries, and her resulting travel blog, The Everywhereist, describes itself as âan award-winning cry for help.”
TIME Magazine calls it “consistently clever” and FORBES Magazine named it one of the Top 10 Lifestyle Websites for Women for three consecutive years.
Five years ago, Geraldine was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She jokes about her resulting brain surgery on her website â â[I get to] make cracks like, âI need this like I need another hole in my headâ â but in all seriousness, her tumor re-framed importance of travel (and living your dreams) in a new light.
This week, my buddy Joe Saul-Sehy joins me to answer another round of listener-submitted questions.
Our first question comes from Hillary:
She’s a recent college graduate in an entry level job. She’s saved up an emergency fund, but keeps depleting it as things pop up. She’s also going to law school in a year and a half, which means massive student loan debt.
She wants to know: does she have to put her financial planning on hold during this time? Is there anything else she can do now to set her up for crushing debt in the future?
Credit: Brandon Soder
Jen Sincero says she used to be a “grouchy broke person.”
In her early 40’s, Jen lived in a converted garage, buried in credit card debt and scrounging for spare change.
She was the type of person who’d join her friends at a restaurant for dinner, order nothing except tap water, and fill up on the complimentary bread basket. She used duct-tape to repair her shoes. Her “splurges” consisted of buying new windshield wipers.
Despite her struggles, Jen believed that pursuing wealth was icky. She’d internalized negative social attitudes towards money, such as:
This week, my friend and former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy joins me for another round of Q&A in our (newly!) biweekly segment called Ask Paula!
Kicking off today’s episode, Nicky asks:
I’m young and healthy. My car is old and not-worth-much. And my personal property isn’t exactly fancy-pants.
Do I *really* need health, auto and property insurance? Or can I drop these insurances and save the money?
Last January, I went to a party at a trailer park that featured a huge bonfire, a few llamas, and a member of Public Enemy.
(I realize that sounds like the setup to a joke. Welcome to my life.)
While I was there, I met a former competitive chess player named Steve Gossett. Steve is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker who creates Princess Rap Battle videos for a YouTube channel with more than 1 million subscribers.
But that’s not why I invited Steve onto the show.
I asked him to join me on the podcast to discuss the lessons that chess taught him about money, work and life.
On this fascinating episode, Steve and I discuss:
Spaghetti is a major part of my life.
I eat it, of course, as many people do. I also spill it all over my pants, despite the fact that Iâm 33 and shouldâve learned the rules of gravity by now.
But most importantly, I use spaghetti as a metaphor for my business. If Iâm not sure if something will work or not, but I want to experiment with an idea, I tell myself that Iâm just âthrowing spaghetti at the wall.â Maybe itâll stick; maybe it wonât. Either way, I have permission to try, permission to fail, and permission to get pasta stains all over my drywall.
This week, Iâm starting a new spaghetti-throwing-experiment on the podcast: Iâm going to broadcast âAsk Paulaâ episodes every-other-week, followed by interviews with guests every-other-week. This allows me to handle the awesome volume of questions that are flowing in (which I LOVE), while still enjoying intriguing conversations with fascinating people.
This every-other-week thing is just an experiment; Iâd love to hear what you think. Do you want more âAsk Paulaâ episodes? Or should I return that segment back to its original once-a-month placement? Or am I overthinking this and I should really just get on with the show notes for this weekâs episode?
Assuming youâre like, âOption C, Paula â get on with the show notes!,â here they are.
