I love sharing FIRE case studies to inspire you. They prove the dream really is achievable for normal people with no extraordinary financial skills. They also unmask the dream to show how the reality of financial independence and early retirement differ from your idealized vision. The truth is everyone hits potholes, makes mistakes, and questions if it’s worth all the hard work. Our guest, Chris Mamula, is no different. He candidly shares his FIRE story in this interview – warts,...

The cost of college is ridiculous. You can give your child a top quality education or s/he can have a home free-and-clear plus retirement fully funded instead. That trade-off doesn’t make any financial sense. Sure, I’m a huge fan of education. I believe in the importance of the college experience as a valuable launch-pad into adulthood, but the cost of college shouldn’t be so outrageously high that you’re literally making a decision between higher education versus a debt free home plus...

The business entrepreneur path to financial freedom has many advantages over real estate and paper assets. * You can grow your wealth faster in business than any other asset class. * You can achieve personal freedom, the real goal of financial freedom, long before you’re actually rich because your passive income is not connected to equity. It’s driven by business systems instead. * You get personal benefits besides just financial wealth including purpose, community, contribution, and a...

How will you define yourself after you retire? Who are you without your career? The unfortunate truth is most people attach their self-definition to their professional life. This results in unexpected emotional difficulty when you achieve financial independence or retire early. You’re not alone in this mistake. I did the exact same thing. It’s a common problem. I incorrectly believed retiring early meant living the “pro-leisure circuit” with endless vacations and eternal bliss – no...

Your spouse can make or break you financially. That’s no surprise, given how money is one of the leading causes of divorce. But there is much more to the relationship and money question than just divorce or marital bliss. Unless you plan on being single forever, this is an issue that should concern you. It’s important to know how to talk about money with your spouse, and it’s equally important to be on the same financial page. Just think about all the important financial goals you share...

Everyone wants to know how to get rich, but few ever get there. The answer is surprisingly simple, but most people seem to have a passion for making things needlessly complicated. The first step to achieving financial success is you need a rock solid financial foundation. Otherwise, you could have all the money in the world, but no clue on how you should manage it. A poor financial foundation will cause you to get lost in debt, going through the motions in life without a clear goal, or...

Wealth is math. That’s bad news for math phobics, but it’s great news for the rest of us because it means there are rules and science behind how wealth building works. It isn’t random luck. In Episode 19 of the Financial Mentor podcast we’ll explore the most essential math principle to wealth building – the expected value formula. This essential principle eludes most people because we inherently think in terms of probabilities – the likelihood of something occurring. It could be an...

Success is about people first. If it was just about how-to’s then we would all be thin, rich, and happy because all the knowledge you need to attain anything you want in life already exists. You just have to learn it and implement it. But it doesn’t work that way. You aren’t a perfect, rational computer. You don’t just process information, make plans, and produce results in a logical, perfect way because you are an emotional human being. Your emotions and beliefs are a filter that either...

You’ve heard it repeated so many times that you no longer question if it is true. In fact, the career success literature is so overwhelmingly dominated with this dangerous myth that almost nobody disagrees with it. The only problem is, it’s not true! What is it, you ask? It’s called “the passion hypothesis”. The premise is you should do what you love and the money will follow. If you want to succeed then you should follow your passion. It’s one of those artifacts of conventional wisdom...

It’s hard to know how to choose a financial advisor. There is so much value at stake; yet, how can you tell the experts from the charlatans? Who can you trust? How do you really know? After all, you are busy with kids, a career, and life. You want to be able to trust someone to make sure your financial planning is on track, but it’s a den of thieves out there. Adding confusion to concern are all the sound-alike titles such as brokers, registered investment advisors, certified financial...

Sure, you want early financial independence. But how do you achieve it? What are the necessary action steps to reach the goal, and how can you expect your life to change afterward? Surprisingly, it doesn’t work like most people think. In this latest addition to our podcast series featuring early financial independence success stories (see previous episodes with Darrow Kirkpatrick and/or Doug Nordman), Luke Landes shares how he achieved freedom from day-to-day financial worries at such an...

The “New Retirement” is gathering momentum and catching major media attention. Are you on board? In fact, no less than AARP has gotten behind the initiative with a new book titled Life Reimagined by Richard Leider. More and more people are realizing the life-changing message the New Retirement delivers. It is much bigger than just financial planning. It explores the intersection between finance and fulfillment showing you how to blend them together into a life well-lived. You will...

As I sat with 3,000 fellow entrepreneurs waiting for the next speaker to enter the stage, the beauty of Portland’s antique theater intrigued me. Wrought iron railings, ornate tapestries, brass fixtures, and gold inset wood designs set the mood for Tess Vigeland from NPR’s “MarketPlace Money” (9 million weekly listeners) to take the stage. After thunderous applause, her bold statement stunned me… Everything you need to know about financial planning is just 6 stories, and everything else...

Do you believe retirement starts at age 65? Do you think retirement is about playing endless rounds of golf, reading novels, and drinking a Mai Tai while lounging in a hammock on a tropical beach? I have news for you. The retirement game has completely changed. The old rules are so 1990. You need to understand the new retirement so you can plan accordingly. Future retirees are living longer and enjoying greater health much later in life. This reality has changed everything about retirement...

What is the easiest, most certain way to achieve anything? Daily habits. Any goal you want in life (including financial freedom) is reachable through a few key habits and a little bit of time. It’s really quite simple. Habits compound your daily actions into automatic wealth just like regular savings compounds daily deposits into wealth. It is the identical principle applied to two different resources in your life – money and time. Does it take effort? Yes – we’re not about get-rich-quick...

Retirement calculators are powerful tools when used properly. But retirement calculators can be weapons of mass deception when used incorrectly. In episode #10 of the Financial Mentor podcast, Darrow Kirkpatrick and I reveal the tricks and traps to using retirement calculators right. This topic is much bigger than just retirement planning. This is about planning your wealth and engineering your way to financial freedom using retirement calculators as a handy tool to make the math...

It baffles the brightest financial minds… How do you convert a volatile portfolio into a stable, automatic income stream? After all, your investment portfolio goes up and down like a roller coaster, but your retirement spending requires a reliable income that you will never outlive. How can you make these two contradictory situations work together? Traditional financial planning provides an oversimplified answer in the 4% Rule, but the latest research into safe withdrawal rates has...

The financial advice business is riddled with conflicts of interest, hidden fees, and financial incentives that can cost you dearly if you don’t know how to protect yourself. This is not some crazy conspiracy theory. It is just the way the business works. It is baked in the cake. In a nutshell, you represent a pile of money to investment sales companies. The bigger the pile you have (net worth), the more attractive you are as a client. They are trying to make money off your money, and you...

Living a wealthy life is about much more than money. Surprisingly, many key principles including risk management, simplicity, and delayed gratification apply equally to personal success as they do to financial success. In this 7th episode of the Financial Mentor podcast Jonathan Clements reveals universal truths about money and happiness developed over his 17 years as a featured columnist for the Wall Street Journal (and more recently with Citi Personal Wealth Management for 5 years). He...

Habits are the easiest, most secure way to achieve any goal – including wealth. Whether you want to learn how to invest smarter, grow your net worth, lose weight, or get in great shape – habits are the key. In this 6th podcast with Scott H. Young we reveal all the tricks and tips to changing your habits and proactively designing your life to achieve any outcome you desire – including wealth. You might think a subject like habits has no place in a podcast designed to help you invest smarter...

Your budget is the foundation of your wealth plan. In fact, it’s so important it’s the cornerstone. But most people don’t understand budgeting done right. If you  think budgets are about sacrifice and doing without then listen carefully because nothing could be further from the truth. In this 5th episode of the FinancialMentor podcast Jesse Mecham from “You Need A Budget” explains the key insights he has learned about how to make the budgeting process work for you. This may sound like a...

Early retirement is surprisingly simple. In this fourth session of the Financial Mentor podcast, Doug Nordman reveals in plain language how he did it – so you can too. What is particularly important to note about Doug’s ideas is how consistent they are with the other “early retirement success stories” in this podcast despite his unusual path to early retirement. In other words, while most financial success stories are about entrepreneurs and business owners who strike it big, Doug achieved...

If you want to build wealth there are three asset classes to work with – real estate, paper assets, and growing your own business. In this third session of the Financial Mentor Podcast, Jaime Tardy from EventualMillionaire.com shares unique insights into how to build wealth using specifically the business/entrepreneurial path. Jaime has interviewed more than 100 self-made millionaires who built their wealth by following the entrepreneurial path. The interviews taught her clear patterns that...