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BiggerPockets Money Podcast Archive
Every episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, from the beginning of time. Thank you for listening, and for coming to our website!
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Dear Me, You Have My Permission: A Letter to Every Overthinking Optimizer Out There
Somewhere out there, a person who has saved diligently for fifteen years, paid off their mortgage, and accumulated a net worth that would make most financial advisors weep with joy is sitting at their kitchen table agonizing over whether it is okay to buy the slightly nicer olive oil. This is the FI community in…
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Why You Need to Think About Decumulation Now (Even Though You’re Nowhere Near Retirement)
Here’s a question almost nobody asks when they’re starting their FIRE journey: how am I actually going to get this money out? Most people are so focused on getting money into their accounts that they don’t think about the getting-it-out part until they’re a year away from retirement. Then they panic-Google “how to withdraw from…
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Chapter Six: The Accumulation Phase and Your Investment Options (Or: Where Your Money Actually Goes to Work)
Saving money is necessary. Investing it is what actually gets you to FIRE. You can save $30,000 a year for twenty years and end up with $600,000 in cash. That sounds impressive until you realize that inflation has quietly eaten away at its purchasing power, and you’re still a decade or more away from Financial…
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Tax Loss Harvesting: How to Make Losing Money Work in Your Favor
Let’s be honest: very few people find joy in losing money. But what if losing money in one place could actually save you money somewhere else? That’s the peculiar magic of tax loss harvesting, a strategy that sounds like something a medieval wizard would do with a scythe and a spreadsheet, but is actually a…
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Sequence of Return Risk Isn’t Just a Retirement Problem
If you’ve spent any time in the Financial Independence community, you’ve probably heard about sequence of returns risk. It’s one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot, usually in the context of retirement withdrawals and why you shouldn’t retire into a market crash. The basic idea is simple: the order in which you…
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Chapter Five: Income Boosting Strategies (Or: How to Run Faster Toward the Finish Line)
Cutting expenses moves the finish line closer. Increasing income makes you run faster. The fastest FIRE journeys usually involve some combination of both, but income growth deserves special attention because it has far fewer hard limits. There’s only so much you can cut from a budget before quality of life starts to suffer. You need…
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Stop Waiting for the Perfect Moment: The Case Against Dollar Cost Averaging Into the Market
When you have a large sum of money ready to invest, conventional wisdom says to ease in slowly. The data says otherwise. Let’s say you’ve just sold a house, received an inheritance, or accumulated years of savings sitting in cash. You have $200,000 – maybe more – and you’re ready to put it to work…
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Everything You Need to Know About Roth Conversions
A Roth conversion is one of the few levers available to materially reduce lifetime taxes after high-earning years are behind you. Used thoughtfully, it is not just a tax tactic but a multi-year income engineering strategy. Used carelessly, it can trigger avoidable taxes, Medicare surcharges, and lost subsidies. For many households approaching financial independence, Roth…
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Chapter Four: Expense Reduction Strategies (Or: Where the Big Wins Actually Live)
If FIRE had a fast-forward button, it would be reducing expenses. Not because cutting expenses is glamorous. (It’s not.) Not because it’s fun to track every dollar. (Also not.) But because expense reduction works immediately, it’s available to almost everyone, and – as we covered in Chapter Three – it pulls double duty in a…