Listen Money Matters - Free your inner financial badass. This is not your father's boring personal finance show.

Thomas has been a past guest but we don’t know much about his financial life.  Today we’ll see what he’s doing well and where he could improve. If you’re going to be a host on LMM, you have to come clean with the audience about your financial habits and mistakes.  We don’t judge and these shows prove that none of us are perfect and even financial podcasters have some lessons to learn. Currently Thomas has a net worth of about $30,000.  But it wasn’t always that way.  From October 2012 through March 2013, he got serious about paying off his student loans which totaled about $14,000. His site started making money, he was working part time and by the time he graduated in May 2013, he was debt free.  He was only twenty one. One of his tips is once money hits your account, transfer it straight to debt.  The longer it sits in your checking account, the more likely you are to spend it. The moment it comes in, it should go straight back out.  Like you never even had it. Thomas knew he wanted to make College Info Geek his full time career.  He was averaging $5000 a month via the site. It’s currently making between $4,900 and $8,500 a month.  And Thomas lives in Iowa where the cost of living is cheap. Thomas contributes $500 a month into Van Guard.  He has $16,000 in an IRA.  His goal, along with his girl friend Anna (hi Anna!) is to have $900,000 invested by age forty and live off 4% of that, or $36,000 a year. They each need to save $25,000 a year to reach that goal. Because Thomas runs a small business, there are tax implications.  He uses tax deferred investments to lower his taxable rate. Is Thomas making any mistakes?  Not in Part 1.  Stay tuned for Part 2 to find out. Show Notes Wild Devil Ale:  An India pale ale. The PF Missing Manual:  The book that Thomas read to learn investing. Van Guard:  Where Thomas and Andrew both invest.

Making and failing to fulfill the same old New Year’s resolutions?  LMM will teach you new ways to make sure this time they actually stick. Once the hangover subsides, we are all gung ho to really stick to our resolutions.  But by February (at the latest), we’re back in the same old habits.  Despair no more!  Meet the Impossible List! The impossible list is not so much a bucket list as an evolving, active guide for what you want to do with your life. You need to have goals, but you need to track them too.  And improve upon them.  So you ran a 5K, congrats!  Maybe now that evolves into doing a triathlon. You get some confidence on a small goal and use that momentum to spring board to a bigger, better goal.  Focus is important too. Write down a goal and then write down each day, what you did to work toward that goal. And take care not to scatter your focus.  Concentrate on what is important and don’t get distracted by shiny objects.  We don’t want you to be a savant, there’s a lot to be said for being well rounded, but save your real energy for what is important. At this point Andrew and Thomas started talking about the approaching zombie apocalypse.  WTF?  I’m still trying to figure it out. Getting back on track.  All your resolutions don’t have to be year long odysseys.  You can have monthly resolutions that are measurable.  Never underestimate the power of quick results. It takes a lot longer to save $10,000 in a year than it does to save $100 in a month.  And the quick payoff propels you forward. If there is a single piece of advice that will help foster your goals, it is get up early and go to bed early.  It is not a crime to go to bed at 10:00.  In NYC in particular, people love to brag about how they get so little sleep.  I always say, “That sucks.  I slept nine hours last night.  It was awesome.” You will be so much more productive if you rouse your ass out of bed before 7:00 am.  More time to exercise, pack your lunch, read, meditate, have sex.  All of those things will improve your day so much more than an extra hour of sleep. 2015 will pass as quickly as 2014 seemed to.  A year from now you can be where you are now or you can be where you want to be. Show Notes Wild Devil:  An India pale ale. Hitachino Nest Beer:  A fermented ale. The Power of Habit:  How to harness the power of habits. Photo Credit:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/nathaninsandiego/4869960263

Starting a new thing is exciting.  But some of us quickly lose our initial enthusiasm.  We’ll discuss how to see things through to the end. College is a good example of something you should finish once started.  Maybe you won’t use your particular degree, but it does show to an employer that you saw something through to completion. Remember the Warren Buffett quote, “Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.”  That is finishing something.  Leave the money in the market when it’s tanking, maybe even put more money in. What does make you stick with something?  Sometimes it’s the time and money you invested in it.  Sometimes it’s because there are already so many tombstones in your idea graveyard and you can’t stand the thought of adding another. Debt is an area where a lot of people give up.  You’re making progress and then disaster strikes, you have an emergency expense or maybe have to miss work due to an illness.  Suddenly overwhelmed, you give up.  You know what happens next.  The debt continues to grow and now you’re even further behind. It’s easy to keep moving forward when everything is going well.  You need a plan in place for when things go to shit.  So if you miss work and lose money, you might reach out to something like Ready For Zero to help you continue to pay down the debt. Having a way to relieve stress is important to helping you finish things.  When you’re overwhelmed, go for a run, read a book, listen to music.  Whatever it is you do to blow off steam.  Once you are in a calmer state, you can pick up your project again. There is always something to pull you from what you should be doing.  But the bigger that graveyard of failures gets, the more regrets you’ll have.  People rarely regret finishing something even if it doesn’t quite work out as they had hoped. Show Notes Garun Icelandic Stout:  Intensely rich with notes of chocolate and licorice. I Don’t Feel Like It:  Thomas’s video about getting over that mindset. Betterment:  The easy way to invest. Photo Credit:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/6695077859

Your morning routine can make or break your day. It can set you up for a good mood and good productivity or send you screaming back under the covers. Not all of us are morning people.  But you don’t have to be one in order to organize a routine that will set you up for a productive day. Thomas is a freak who starts his day at 5:50 and finishes thirteen habits practically before the sun comes up.  He wasn’t born that way which means any of us could do the same.  It’s a routine that has evolved over time. How does Thomas get up so early?  He has monetized sleeping in.  If he doesn’t get up, he stands to lose $30.  Not worth it. These don’t all have to be monumental habits.  It can be something as simple as taking your vitamins every morning.  Or just getting up fifteen minutes earlier so you can relax into your day rather than rushing around all flustered. They don’t have to number into the teens either.  Start small.  Wake up early and drink a cup of warm water with the juice of half a lemon in it.  Lemon water is crazy good for you and is a small, easy thing that will make a big difference. We have a series of podcasts and articles that list some great productivity apps.  There is nothing wrong with having a little help and prompting until the things you want to get done become habits. Remember, start small but keep at it.  Once you become a morning person with good habits, you will notice lots of positive changes in your life. Show Notes Buffer:  A social media scheduling tool. Dogfish Head World Wide Stout:  A dark, roasty ale. HabitRPG:  A super geeky way to help you build habits. Photo Credit:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/redheadeb/2861685318

Listen, Money Matters is back!  We have a new host, former guest Thomas Frank of College Info Geek.  We’re excited to kick of Season Two. We missed you! There have been some changes to LMM since our last episode but we are more committed than ever to being your one stop, go to resource for all things finance. If you’ve been a listener to the show for awhile, you’ll remember Thomas Frank from episodes about money mindfulness, how to choose the best cell phone plan, and our round table discussion dedicated to saving money on college. Thomas is a recent college graduate and has run the site College Info Geek, a blog, podcast, and youtube channel that teaches you to get the most out of college life.  Thomas has run the site for a little more than four years.  For the past two, it has been his full time job and he makes a good living from it. Thomas is just 23 years old and will bring a bit of a younger perspective to our show.  He is also ruthlessly efficient with his time and crazy productive which is something we think will bring value to our audience. Getting over “I don’t feel like it” has been what pushed Thomas forward.  The work doesn’t have to be perfect in the beginning, you just have to get it out there.  That is the hardest part, fine tuning can come later.  Building the habit is what matters. A goal for LMM in Season Two is to make this a community project.  We reached out to some listeners who will be contributing to the show and site in various ways.  If you would like to be involved, e-mail us at listenmoneymatters@gmail.com. We will be using Slack, a team chat site where we can all communicate in one place. We appealed to you for donations and we were overwhelmed and grateful.  Along with the donations were many e-mails encouraging us to continue with the show.  Once Andrew broke even, he gave the remaining donations to Donor’s Choose. It’s a site that helps teachers fund materials for their classes that the schools don’t have the money to provide. Some things we’ll be doing going forward include an investing book, animated videos, courses organized from our existing material, and what we really look forward to is matching members of our audience in a mentor/mentee relationship.  If you are interested in that, please e-mail us.  Also let us know what you want out of Season Two.  This is your show too. We’re so glad to be back.  Here’s to a new season and a new year. Show Notes Mint:  The easy way to budget. Betterment:  The smart way to invest. Slack:  An open communication system that brings your team together in one place.  

We took a little break to collect ourselves and reboot. Are you ready for Season 2? It begins January 5th!

Insurance can be confusing so we interview two experts, Todd Berkley and John Young to help us navigate Obamacare and  HSA’s. The affordable care act is a good thing for a lot of previously uninsured Americans but knowing which plan to choose can be tricky. HSA’s can be a great place to park tax free money but can also be confusing.  We get some expert help from our two guests. If you meet the income requirements to receive a subsidy, you must purchase your insurance through Healthcare.gov. If you are not eligible for a subsidy, you are free to purchase insurance on the open market. A web based entity can help if you are wading into the open market.  Todd and John highly recommend plans with an HSA. We discussed HSA’s in depth with Todd and John in Episode 171. They are a great tax shelter. Right now, the penalties for not having health insurance range from $95 to 1% of your income.  The penalties are levied against your tax return.  Next year the penalties are going to go up substantially. There are so many acronyms and strange terms in health insurance!  EPO, HSA, deductible, out of pocket, what do they all mean?   This site has a handy list that defines some common terms normal people aren’t familiar with. A catastrophic plan is available for people thirty and under.  It’s not great insurance but if you get hit by a bus, having it can keep you from going bankrupt.  Most of these plans are not HSA qualified though. Todd and John are hopeful that Millenials will change the way health insurance works.  There is too much double speak and obfuscation the way things stand.  This stuff doesn’t have to be so confusing and Millenials will stand up and demand that things are simplified. I know this stuff is confusing but medical expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country which is just shameful.  Make no mistake, you can go bankrupt even if you are insured but having insurance does decrease the odds of it happening to you. Show Notes Ask Mr HSA:  Todd’s site to help answer all your HSA questions. Betterment:  The simple way to invest.

We all have them.  Dinners out, the newest gadgets, clothes.  Our financial weak spot, our Achilles’ heel.  Find out what we can do to strengthen them. It might not be just a spending problem though.  Maybe you’re afraid to invest because it seems so intimidating.  Maybe you have the money to pay all of your bills but you aren’t organized and always pay late. Andrew is willing to take a leap that some people wouldn’t and it has gotten him in trouble in the past, failed business ventures, risky investments that didn’t pan out.  He also spends too much on food and booze. Matt spends too much on food and booze as well.  Books too but I share that addiction so I approve. He has fallen into a common trap.  He didn’t have a lot of cash for a long time.  Now that he does, he’s been a little undisciplined with his spending. It’s easy to justify over spending when you’re spending on experiences rather than things.  We preach this philosophy a lot because experiences bring more happiness than things.  But if you’re spending too much, it doesn’t matter philosophically what you’re spending on.  You still have to stop. Maybe your weak spot is asking for money whether that means asking for a raise, charging what you’re worth to clients, or asking someone who owes you money to finally pay it back. You might suspect your weak spot but not know how bad it is.  Check your Mint account.  You’ll see how much you’re spending on Seamless writ large.  Feels bad man. We want you to spend some time reflecting and identifying the weak spots.  Once you’re done navel gazing over the situation, you need to start making a change.  The formula is not complicated.  Stop spending money. Maybe your lack of planning costs you.  Booking a flight the week before a trip will almost always cost more than if it had been booked several weeks ahead.  You know when and where you want to go.  Just book the flight when you decide! Maybe lack of goals holds you back.  If you don’t have a goal, you don’t know what steps to take to achieve that goal. Sometimes you think you’ve patched your weak spot only to keep falling back into the same trap.  That’s ok, as long as the time it takes you to realize you’re doing it again gets shorter each time, you’re making progress. Show Notes War Horse Royal Kilt Inspector:  A Scottish ale. Mint:  The easy way to track your spending. Betterment:  The easy way to invest.

Buying a home is uncharted territory for many of us. Both Matt and Andrew have done it and will tell us what to expect before, during, and after you buy a home. Before Your mortgage payment shouldn’t be more than 30% of your take home salary.  Don’t buy a home with a person you are not married to.  Property is hard enough to untangle when you have some legal protections, it’s much worse when you don’t. The bank wants to see more than your down payment liquid in your checking account.  They want a buffer.  If you’re putting 20% down, you need more than 20% in your account. You will be paying property tax.  You will need home owner’s insurance.  You will have closing costs unless you negotiate for the seller to pay that.  You may need an appraisal and an inspection. During Being very optimistic, this process will take at least thirty days.  You will fax a rain forest worth of paper.  This will be the most paper work intensive under taking of your life. You will negotiate.  Don’t let yourself fall so in love with a place that it clouds your ability to negotiate.  When you’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, $5000 doesn’t seem like much, but it is. After You will have to pay moving costs.  You will have to pay utilities you didn’t even know were a thing like water and sewage.  You might need to renovate.  You might find a nasty surprise once you start renovating, mold, foundation cracks.  It all means more money than what you had planned on. Buying a house is a hassle and it may or may not be worth it.  Consider it carefully.  A home is not the guaranteed investment it once was. Show Notes Gunny Mac American Black Ale:  A smooth, full bodied black ale. Betterment:  The better way to invest. LMM Survey:  We ask for some demographic information to help get sponsors for the show.

 A  listener joins us for a financial check up in our This Financial Life episode.  Jeff Wilson finds out what he’s doing well and what he could do better. Jeff lives in the Midwest where he works for the Department of Natural Resources, it’s an outside job where he helps care for wild life sites.  He burns down stuff for a living! Jeff is 26, he has $24,000 in student loans.  He’s paid off about $12,000 so far.  His rent is $300 a month.  His loan payment is $400 a month.  He’s making about $1600 a month with some fluctuation. He has avoided credit card debt, a big plus.  But he’s paying the minimum on the loans.  Even still, they could be paid off in about six years.  His cost of living is very, very low and Jeff hopes to retire early. He has about $24,000 in cash saved, the same amount he has in loan debt.  It’s daunting though, to wipe out your savings in one fell swoop.  At the very least, Jeff has to get that money out of a crap interest savings account. This is the ideal time for Jeff to pay off those loans.  He has a low cost of living, no credit card debt, a good line of credit if there were an emergency.  Kill the loans! Jeff has an IRA with $10,000.  He also has a Betterment account.  The spanner in the works is that Jeff is laid off for three months of the year.  During that time he’s receiving unemployment but it’s not a lot. Jeff is doing well and he knows what he needs to do.  He just needs a little convincing.  He could potentially be retired at 40. All of our This Financial Life guests are savvy and doing pretty well and Jeff is no exception.  At just 26 years old, he’s already on the path to financial freedom. Show Notes Betterment:  Investing made better. Mint:  The better way to budget.

You know we at LMM want to help you any way we can to reduce your student loan debt.  David Klein joins us to discuss refinancing to save you money. CommonBond is a student loan lending platform that provides lower cost financing to graduate students and graduates.  They started out as a pilot program at one school and now they have expanded to over 109 programs. The federal government holds over 90% of student loans.  They set the same rate which inflates them for credit worthy borrowers.  When David went back to school in 2011, his rate was 8%.  He saw an opportunity and with his two partners started CommonBond. CommonBond works a bit like Lending Club.  Borrowers save money when they refinance, on average, $10,000 over the life of the loan and investors have access to a kind of investing that was largely closed to them in the past. What should you look at before deciding on grad school?  First, the median salary for the field you’ll be studying.  Then look at your loan options.  You want a low interest rate but also calculate what your monthly payment would be. CommonBond offers a hybrid loan, the first of it’s kind on a national scale.  It’s a fixed rate loan for the first five years and variable thereafter. There is a cap on the variable rate of 10.99%. CommonBond also offers forbearance for three months at a time, up to twelve months in cases of economic hardship.  They will also help you find a job within their community.  They also offer paid consulting work. There is no reason not to refinance other than the hassle.  CommonBond has streamlined the process to make it as quick and easy as possible. CommonBond has partnered with Pencils of Promise to help fund education for students who would otherwise not be able to afford it.  More Millenials doing good things in the world! What can you do if you’re having problems paying your loans?  Call your lender directly and inform them of your situation.  They should be able to help you out.  If they won’t, refinance with CommonBond because they will.   Show Notes CommonBond:  Refinance your graduate school loans. Betterment:  The easy way to invest.

  It’s the episode devoted to your questions.  Today we talk about the stack vs snowball methods of debt reduction, college wisdom, and Comcast ETF. 1.  What is your advice for an 18 year old with a part time job about to start college?  College Info Geek is a great resource for college kids.  Make as many connections as you can, join clubs, get to know your professors, join a fraternity.  Apply to every scholarship known to student kind.  We did an episode about that. 2.  If you have one student loan at 7.15% do you attack that first or pay across both loans? If you want the emotional win, pay the smaller one first and then use that payment towards the larger one.  Mathematically though it makes more sense to attack the loan with the higher interest rate. 3.  I have $50,000 in cash in a savings account earning .85% interest.  Leave it, move it to Betterment, or pay loans?  Oooh, I felt you all cringe.  I cringed too.  Someone jump him in.  You’re paying 7.15% on your loans, pay that off first!  Then invest.  Then close the savings account. 4.  I know the stack method is superior to snow ball but I have a small debt of $500.  Should I continue to stack or just pay it off?  For something that small, just pay it off and then throw the payment at the higher interest debt.  Unless your interest rate is very high on the other loan.  But since you just have two debts, getting rid of one would simplify things. 5.  I want to dump Comcast but they want to charge me $300 for early termination.  Should I just eat it?  If you have more than two months left, eat the fee.  If you can pay on a credit card, cancel the card and screw Comcast! They’re evil so fuck them. Show Notes Betterment:  The easy way to invest.  Sign up here and get up to six months free investing. War Horse Royal Kilt Inspector:  A dark hued ale. Flying Fish Red Fish:  A hoppy red ale. Betterment:  Sign up here and get up to six months free investing. Featured Image Photo Credit: “Question Box” by Raymond Bryson on Flickr

It was Leonardo Da Vinci who said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. He is right! Minimalist living isn’t a new trend, it has been with us for centuries. So why is it making a comeback these days? In 2005, Tim Kasser, a psychology professor at Illinois’ Knox College conducted a study on minimalism and its impact on happiness and wellbeing. The study found that despite factors such as geographical location, gender, and age, those who simplified their lives reported significantly higher levels of positive emotions and life satisfaction. So what exactly is minimalism? No, not that kind of minimalism, more like this… Minimalist living is all about owning less, having fewer distractions, and most importantly for Listen Money Matters fans, spending less. Less is more, according to minimalism. A cluttered life leads to a cluttered brain, and ultimately an unhappy life. Minimalism is mental framework about how you go about your daily life, avoiding the trappings of modern consumer culture. Although there’s nothing wrong with owning things, minimalists would (rightly) argue that we have gone overboard with our materialistic lifestyles, to the detriment of our mental health and wellbeing. Enough said, moving on. Minimalists believe that we give way too much meaning to things, to the detriment of our financial, emotional, and physical health. Are things like homes, cars, and video games important to you? If they are, great. But, if being a good person, family relationships, and physical health are more important, why do so many people forsake these for material wants? This is the mantra of the minimalist, and there is some truth to it. So how does one begin to live a minimalist lifestyle? Leading a simple life through minimalism doesn’t have to happen in one leap. You can take small steps until you get to a place that is comfortable for you. Here’s how to get started. Becoming minimalist One of the most challenging aspects of adopting a minimalist lifestyle is figuring out where to start. If you are excited about all the benefits that minimalism has to offer, you may be tempted to make several big changes right away. However, if you are not careful, a rapid transition can make you feel burnt out and cause you to lose momentum. Before you take any concrete steps to minimize, it is essential that you adjust your mindset. Minimalism is all about reducing stress and clutter in your life, and it’s much easier to begin this outward transition after you have adjusted your mindset to be more organized. When you embark on your pursuit of minimalism, prepare to take your time with the transition. A slow and steady approach will reduce the adjustment you must make to your new minimalist lifestyle. How to be a minimalist As you start your journalist, here are a few steps on how to be a minimalist: Take stock of your possessions Before you can make changes in your home, you need to understand exactly how much you own. Walk through your house or apartment and take a look at the items you have in different rooms. Make sure to take note of areas that you want to pay special attention to, such as overflowing dressers or cluttered bookshelves. It’s also a good idea to identify repeat items that you could easily downsize, such as multiple copies of the same book. Work through your emotional connections to stuff If you feel some anxiety when you think about getting rid of some of your possessions, you’re not alone. Most people have emotional connections to their possessions that can make letting go difficult.

Hal Elrod is a key note speaker and best selling author.  He joins us to discuss his latest book, The Miracle Morning.  This book may change your life! What is so miraculous about the morning? Plenty. If you want to improve your life, your morning is the place to start. Hal’s secret is that your level of personal development will match your level of success.  He began devoting an hour a day to personal development.  He researched the six most powerful methods of personal development and vowed to do all six each day. Why Morning? Mornings get such a bad rap. Everyone seems to want to stay in bed rather than get up and start the day. If this is you, you are giving up the best part of the day. Mornings are the most distraction free time you will get. If you get up early enough, you are probably the only one in the house who is stirring. No one is asking for breakfast or if you remembered to pay the car payment or where their other sock is. You have the whole house to yourself! If you go to the gym, it’s almost empty! You don’t have to wait around for the machine you want or get annoyed because some cretin didn’t re-rack their weights. If you drive or take public transit, there is less traffic and less people to crowd and annoy you on the bus or train. When you get to work, you can get things done without the phone ringing, e-mails coming in, co-workers bugging you. Unless you are staying in bed for sex, there is really no reason to keep laying there hitting the snooze button wasting your miracle morning. Morning is the best time to get things done because we are at our freshest. We’ve had at least some sleep, even if it was a bad night of sleep, it’s as rested as you are going to feel all day. The day also has a habit of getting away from us. You don’t work out in the morning and promise to do it after work. But then you remember you have a dentist appointment or agreed to meet a friend for dinner. The day is over and you never worked out. When we don’t do things in the morning, the rest of the day can get away from us and those things just never get done. In the morning, you don’t have the events of the day weighing you down. Sometimes we do have bad days and we just don’t have the energy or we are just in too bad a mood to care about doing things that will help our personal development. That is why morning. The Six Most Powerful Methods of Personal Development This are the things Hal starts his day with. All it takes is one hour. Silence Our world is loud. I lived for a time on 78th Street and Second Avenue. There were a row of bars across the street. Bars close late in New York City, not until 4:00 am. It wasn’t the bar patrons that was the problem, apart from the occasional “Whoooing” bro or drunk chick. It was when the bars when drag trash bags full of empty glass bottles to the curb. When you managed to fall back to sleep after that, the garbage trucks would pull up and toss them into the back, making another huge sleep destroying clatter. I used to lay in bed almost bawling from anger and frustration. There is something about certain noises or noise that is interrupting our sleep that triggers some kind of oddly disproportionate anger in us. The World Health Organization declared noise pollution a “modern plague” and there is overwhelming evidence that it is detrimental to physical and mental health. The antidote to the stress causes by the cacophony of life is to start your day with silence. This could be “formal” silence like meditation or just sitting quietly for a few minutes before turning on the radio or television. Silence reduces blood pressure. Silence can regenerate brain cells in the hippocampus, the part of the brain tasked with memory, learning and emotion.

   We have a listener guest today!  Zina Kumok joins us to share her financial life and find out what she is doing right and what she could be doing better. LMM met Zina at Fincon.  She vowed to pay her student loan debt off in three years and started a blog to document her progress. She did it too.  As of this month, she has paid off her entire loan balance.  She put any extra money, free lance money, birthday money, towards the debt. Like many of us, Zina had very little finance education.  Whatever she made, she spent.  At one point, she ate out three meals a day!  When she had to borrow money for a security deposit on an apartment, she realized she had nothing to show for the pretty good money she was making. Zina’s parents were fans of Dave Ramsey and that was her introduction to personal finance. Get Rich Slowly was another big influence as it was for a lot of us. Student loan debt was the only debt Zina had.  No credit card or mortgage debt.  She is engaged to be married and is planning on joining finances with her fiance soon.  Now that she has some breathing room, she can be less strict on her budgeting.  Her fiance is as money savvy as Zina and is also debt free. Both partners have an emergency fund but want to build it up to six months for of expenses.  They have a dog that may need surgery in the future.  Pet insurance may be something to consider for Zina. Zina started an  IRA while in college.  She now does matching in her 401K.  The money that no longer needs to go towards the loan will go towards the emergency fund and retirement.  The emergency fund is now stashed in the savings account but Zina realizes this needs to change. Zina uses Mint and an Excel spread sheet to budget.  New tech and old school.  The idea of buying a house is not really on her radar right now.  Her parents had three offers in four years when they tried to sell their house.  That would put anyone off. Good luck to Zina and her fiance on their wedding and combining their finances.  Zina hopes to start a podcast soon so check her site for updates. Show Notes Abbey Ale:  A golden, Belgian style ale. Flying Fish Hop Fish:  An English style IPA. Debt Free After Three:  Zina’s story of paying of her student loans in three years. Mint:  The easy way to budget. Betterment:  The easy way to invest.