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 Twelve: Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them (Or: The Mistakes That Will Derail Your Plan)
The path to FIRE is exciting, empowering, and full of potential. It’s also full of traps. Some of these traps are obvious. Don’t rack up credit card debt at 22% interest. Don’t panic-sell everything when the market drops. Don’t assume you can retire on $500,000 while spending $100,000 a year. But most of the pitfalls…
-
Chapter Eleven: Life After FIRE (Or: Now What?)
Reaching Financial Independence is a financial milestone. Living it well is a life design problem. For years, maybe decades, your identity has likely been tied in some way to your work. Your schedule revolved around it. Your social circle formed around it. Your sense of progress, accomplishment, and even your sense of purpose may have…
-
Chapter Ten: Accessing Your Money in Early Retirement (Or: How to Get Your Cash Without the IRS Freaking Out)
There is a moment in every FIRE journey where the math works, the portfolio is ready, and a new question shows up. How do I actually get my money out? This is where many people hesitate. They’ve spent years maxing out retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs because that’s what all the financial advice told…
-
Chapter Nine: The Grind and Staying the Course (Or: The Part Nobody Warns You About)
There is a part of the FIRE journey that doesn’t get enough attention. It’s not the beginning, where everything feels new and exciting. You’ve just discovered FIRE, the math makes sense, and you’re fired up about optimizing your entire financial life. You’re reading every blog post, listening to every podcast, and telling anyone who will…
-
Chapter Eight: The Decumulation Phase and Your Portfolio (Or: The Part Where You Actually Have to Spend the Money)
Up to this point, everything has been about building. Saving. Investing. Optimizing. Growing. Watching your net worth climb. Celebrating milestones. Doing mental math about how many more years until you hit your number. At some point, the script flips. You stop asking “how do I accumulate more?” and start asking a very different question. How…
-
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…