Afford Anything | Make Smart Money Choices

#702: Olivia is saving for a specific three-year goal and wants to know whether a money market fund is the right place to store that cash, or if a traditional savings account would be safer.

Robert is planning to retire early in the next few years and is trying to decide whether to prioritize building taxable investments or continuing to grow Roth accounts.

And finally, we’ll hear from a listener with nearly 30 years of experience in social work who wants to open an adult day center in a rural area where services for disabled adults are extremely limited—but isn’t sure whether to structure it as a nonprofit or a for-profit business.

We’ll tackle all of that on today’s episode. Enjoy!

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#701: Forget the idea that you need a magic number to retire.

Jamie Hopkins is a certified financial planner, professor of taxation at the American College of Financial Services, director of the New York Life Center for Retirement Income, and Top 40 Under 40 financial services professionals from InvestmentNews.

His take on retirement planning will make you rethink a few things.

We start with the "no magic number" concept. Hopkins explains that fixating on a savings target - whether it's $1 million or $10 million - misses the point.

What matters is what income you can generate relative to the lifestyle you want.

And that lifestyle shifts. Research shows retirees often spend more than 100 percent of their pre-retirement income in the first few years, then gradually spend less as they age.

From there, we get into sequence of returns risk, which Hopkins calls one of the biggest threats to any retirement plan.

A market downturn in the first few years of retirement can be nearly impossible to recover from, since you're withdrawing money while your portfolio is declining.

We also dig into the well-known "4 percent rule" - which Hopkins prefers to call a "4 percent finding" - and why it only holds up in certain historical contexts.

The conversation also covers the topics people tend to avoid. "Silver divorce" - the spike in divorces among people over 60 - is happening at higher rates than most people realize, and it can gut a retirement plan that was built around shared costs and two incomes.

We also discuss elder abuse, which Hopkins says is mostly committed by family members or trusted advisors, not strangers - and how AI-generated voice cloning is making financial scams harder to detect.

Finally, we end on what Hopkins considers the most important, and most overlooked, element of a good retirement: community.

He argues that retirement is actually an ideal time to intentionally rebuild your social circle, choose where you want to live, and figure out what you're retiring to - not just from.

Hopkins holds a JD, MBA, LLM, CFP, RICP, CLU, and ChFC.

Resources:

Jamie’s Book: Your Retirement Sketchbook: 125 Retirement Planning Lessons from Financial Experts

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#700: Today we’re tackling three different financial questions from our listeners.

First, we’ll hear from Melanie, who is deciding whether to pursue a promotion that would increase her salary by $30,000 but may add more stress, even though she’s already close to financial independence.

Next, Ami wants to learn how options trading works and is wondering how to find legitimate training without falling into expensive or questionable courses.

And later in the episode, we’ll revisit Ben who called in six years ago asking how to grow from four rental units to twenty. Today he owns sixteen units and is deciding how to scale from here.

We’ll tackle all of that on today’s episode #700!!!

Resources:

Interview with Rose Han: affordanything.com/episode652

Jeanne_Retired on TikTok (shared by Joe): https://www.tiktok.com/@jeanne_retired/video/7615363778938408223 Ben's original question on Episode 243: affordanything.com/episode243

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#699: You've probably heard that mindset matters. But what does that actually mean, and is there science behind it?

Nir Eyal, author of Beyond Belief, joins us to break down the research.

Eyal, who writes about the intersection between psychology and technology and taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business, opens with a counterintuitive claim:

Motivation has nothing to do with rewards, he says.

All motivation, he argues, stems from the desire to escape discomfort. That means money management, time management, and weight management are all really just pain management.

That reframe sets up a bigger argument about beliefs. Our brains can't process the roughly 11 million bits of information hitting them every second, so instead of seeing reality, we predict it - based on whatever we already believe. That's why two people can face the same circumstances and have completely different outcomes.

We dig into why visualization often backfires. Research by psychologist Gabrielle Oettingen found that people who pictured their ideal outcomes became less likely to do the work to achieve them. Athletes don't visualize trophies - they visualize obstacles. Eyal calls the productive version "mental contrasting": imagining what's in your way and planning how you'll handle it.

We also cover the difference between limiting beliefs and liberating ones, and walk through a four-question exercise called a "turnaround" - a technique from Byron Katie's inquiry-based stress reduction practice - that helps you examine a belief, test whether it's absolutely true, and consider alternative perspectives.

On the topic of quitting versus persisting, Eyal lays out three criteria: Did you hit your checkpoint? Are you still learning? Does persistence actually change anything? If all three answers are no, quitting makes sense.

We close on money prioritization. When the math can settle a financial question, run the numbers. When it can't, it becomes a values question - and Eyal defines values as "attributes of the person you want to become."

Resources:

Download the four question turnaround exercise developed by Byron Katie, for free, at https://affordanything.com/turnitaround

Book: Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results, by Nir Eyal

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#698: We explore financial decision-making at different stages of life:

A high-earning federal couple debates whether to pause retirement contributions to accelerate a $200,000 down payment.A part-time healthcare provider seeks clarity on balancing a 401k and a traditional IRA.And a longtime listener asks a more personal question: Is there anything we’re still figuring out ourselves?

We examine strategy, trade-offs, tax efficiency, housing decisions, and the long-term thinking that shapes financial outcomes.

(01:36) Hannah and her husband are in their mid-30s with two young children, and are hoping to upgrade to a larger “forever home” in several years while keeping their current home as a rental. They’re deciding whether to temporarily reduce retirement contributions to speed up down payment savings and how a possible cross-country relocation might affect those plans.

(37:15) Amelia is a part-time healthcare provider in New York who earns hourly income and wants to contribute to both her employer’s 401(k) and a traditional IRA. She’s trying to determine how much to contribute to the 401(k) from each paycheck while still maxing out her traditional IRA—keeping the overall approach simple and tax-efficient.

(56:12) Lesley praises Paula and Joe’s thoughtful responses to callers and wonders whether they ever seek advice from their audience. After recently undergoing brain surgery that prompted deeper reflection, the listener asks if there is anything in Paula and Joe’s financial, personal, or professional lives where they would value collective wisdom from their community.

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