Welcome to BiggerPockets Money
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!
-
Chapter Seven: The Investment Order of Operations (Or: Stop Overthinking Where Your Money Should Go)
At some point, everyone pursuing FIRE asks the same question. I have money to invest. Where should it go first? Should it go into the 401(k)? The Roth IRA? A taxable brokerage account? Should I pay off my car loan first? What about that student loan at 4%? And wait, didn’t someone say something about…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Chapter Three: The Four Principles That Actually Matter
If FIRE had a secret formula, this would be it. No hacks. No shortcuts. No “weird tricks that financial advisors don’t want you to know about.” Just four principles that work together whether you like them or not. Achieving Financial Independence rests on lowering expenses, increasing income, investing wisely, and optimizing taxes. You don’t need…
-
Chapter Two: How Long Is This Going to Take?!?
This is the question everyone asks approximately five minutes after learning what FI is. How long is this going to take? The frustrating and honest answer is: it depends. The encouraging answer is: it depends far less on your income than most people think. (And way more on something you can actually control.) The single…
-
Chapter One: The Basic Math of Financial Independence
Before we get philosophical, motivational, or dangerously excited about quitting our jobs, we need to talk about math. Don’t worry. This is friendly math. No calculus. No surprise quizzes. Just enough numbers to explain how this whole Financial Independence thing actually works. The Core Concept (Which Is Shockingly Simple) At its core, Financial Independence is…
-
The Ultimate Guide to FI – Introduction
Scott and I have been talking about Financial Independence for going on 8 years now. We wanted to create a definitive guide to FI, and this is it. Not this post, but this series, which we are calling The Ultimate Guide to Financial Independence. We’re not reinventing the wheel here, we’re just gathering up this…