Afford Anything

Afford Anything

You can afford anything, but not everything. We make daily decisions about how to spend money, time, energy, focus and attention – and ultimately, our life. How do we make smarter decisions? How do we think from first principles? On the surface, Afford Anything seems like a podcast about money and investing. But under the hood, this is a show about how to think critically, recognize our behavioral blind spots, and make smarter choices. We’re into the psychology of money, and we love metacognition: thinking about how to think. In some episodes, we interview world-class experts: professors, researchers, scientists, authors. In other episodes, we answer your questions, talking through decision-making frameworks and mental models. Want to learn more? Download our free book, Escape, at http://affordanything.com/escape. Hosted by Paula Pant.

Episodes

November 28, 2025 63 mins
#664: Have any of these thoughts ever crossed your mind? If I had more willpower, I’d achieve my financial goals. I’m doomed to fail with money. Budgets suck. They only show me what I did wrong and make me feel horrible. If so, you’re not alone. It’s not that you lack willpower. It’s not that you’re doomed to fail with money. It’s not that you’re a horrible person for blowing your budget. It’s that you’re human. And humans...
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#663: We’re living through the first era in which an investor can ask a machine to read a decade of SEC filings in seconds. That sounds powerful, but also a little terrifying. Can we trust it? And how do we use it without falling for hallucinations or built-in optimism? In this episode, we dig into the practical, real-world ways AI can strengthen our investing process while avoiding its biggest pitfalls. If you’ve ever wondered ...
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#662: Most teams hire for skills. The best teams hire for wiring. What if the reason someone accelerates your organization, or quietly derails it, has more to do with their response time, processing style, or sense of mission than their résumé? This episode dives into the hidden patterns that shape how people work, make decisions, and handle pressure; the clues we often overlook, and the tiny tells that reveal who will thriv...
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#661: When your income drops, debt spikes, and a rental property starts bleeding cash, it can feel like your entire financial foundation is cracking beneath you. Veronica, our first caller, is navigating all of it at once, from a near-foreclosure to a luxury car payment that’s strangling her budget. Her question is simple but enormous, how do you rebuild when you’re overwhelmed and out of margin? Once we work through her path fo...
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#660: Caring for an aging parent can morph into a second full-time job, and even the most financially savvy adults get blindsided. Bank accounts freeze, home sales stall, and family savings disappear faster than anyone expects. In this episode, we dig into what really happens when you take over a parent’s financial life, from the first power of attorney to the final tax return. We explore the emotional and logistical realiti...
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#659: Imagine that you’re at the absolute peak of your career. You’re the CEO of a prominent advertising company at the age of 36, but you feel like you’re driving in the wrong lane. It’s wrong.Then you make a hard career pivot and it works out beautifully.My guests today know exactly what that’s like. We’re joined by James Patterson, the author who has sold more than 425 million copies of his books. He has co-authored books with P...
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#658: An unusual First Friday episode because we don't have a jobs report. However, we do know that in October, U.S. companies announced more job cuts in a single month than they have over any single month of the last 20 years. In other words, October was peak job cut month. By contrast, private payrolls, as reported by ADP, rose by 42,000 in October, so we have a little bit of conflicting data. Some pessimistic, some optimisti...
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#657: This week, Paula and Joe dig into a listener’s question about ETFs that track the stock trades of U.S. politicians — including the Democratic “NANC” fund and its Republican counterpart “KRUZ.” They explore whether this strategy is smart investing or just expensive entertainment. Then, they shift gears to home ownership headaches. Another listener asks how to control ballooning maintenance costs, and Paula shares her best a...
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#656: What would you do if someone in authority told you to do something that felt wrong? Most of us like to think we'd speak up, push back, stand our ground. But research tells a very different story. In fact, when Yale researchers conducted a famous experiment in the 1960s, they found that 65% of people would administer what they believed to be deadly electric shocks to another human being... simply because someone in a lab coat...
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#655: What would you do if, at the age of 23, you found yourself with $70,000 a year leftover after expenses? Would you pour everything into retirement and coast to financial independence, or stockpile a down payment before life gets pricier with kids, a mortgage, and maintenance costs? This week, we dive into that real-life dilemma and explore how to strike the perfect balance between freedom now and security later. Along the w...
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October 24, 2025 85 mins
#654: Fights about money are common, but they're rarely about math. They're about power, shame, vulnerability, and trust. And no amount of data or fancy spreadsheets is going to fix it. What you need is a better system for fairness, more open communication, and a shared ambition. In this candid conversation with Heather and Doug Bonaparte, we explore how two partners rebuilt confidence, handled their six-figure student loans, and ...
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#653: What happens when we actually check our predictions? In this episode we play clips from our 2023 conversation with Scott Trench from BiggerPockets and ask the uncomfortable question: were we right? Two years ago we made some big calls about the housing market. Mortgage rates had doubled. Prices hadn’t crashed. Inventory was vanishing. Everyone had a theory about what would happen next. Now we look back with data and receip...
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October 17, 2025 72 mins
#652: What if you did everything “right”, earned the degree, landed the six-figure job, and still felt broke? That’s exactly where Rose Han found herself. Fresh out of NYU with a finance degree and a Wall Street paycheck, she had a negative net worth, mounting stress, and a sinking feeling that traditional success wasn’t the path to freedom. In this conversation, Rose shares how she broke out of that cycle and built a seven-figur...
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#651: Many who reach CoastFI find themselves in a strange in-between: financially independent enough to stop saving, but not ready to fully retire. When you’re living off a taxable brokerage for decades, does the “never hold bonds in taxable” rule still apply? This episode explores how traditional asset location advice meets real-life spending. We unpack how to balance growth, taxes, and stability when your taxable account becom...
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October 10, 2025 73 mins
#650: Sarah Williamson is the kind of person who shapes the decisions that move trillions of dollars. She earned her MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and holds both the CFA and CAIA designations, two of the most demanding credentials in finance. In this episode, she helps us understand how investing really works, who the major players are, how capital flows through the system, and why the incentives driving invest...
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#649: Many first-time buyers feel like they’re watching the train pull out of the station. If you’ve saved for years but can’t afford a home nearby, should you stretch to buy further (maybe hours) away or invest that cash instead? In this episode, we dig into the psychology, math, and lifestyle tradeoffs behind the “buy now or wait” dilemma. Plus, we unpack total return, explain when umbrella insurance is worth it, and share what ...
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#648: The U.S. government is shutting down. Bitcoin just hit a record high. Inflation whispers are back. And Wall Street is buzzing with speculation. What does this all mean for your money, your portfolio, and your long-term financial freedom? On this First Friday episode, we unpack the economic headlines you can’t ignore — and help you separate signal from noise. In this episode, we cover: Government Shutdown: What happens w...
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September 30, 2025 61 mins
#647: What if you and your partner want to take a few months – or even a year – off work?  How do you handle health insurance once you leave your jobs?  And how do you make sure the time off isn’t wasted, but becomes a launchpad for what’s next? In this week’s Q&A, we dive into those questions.  We also cover three more listener questions: what to do with a leftover $125,000 in a 529 account, how one listener landed a fully rem...
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September 26, 2025 72 mins
#646: What if you didn’t have to choose between grinding full-time until retirement or quitting work altogether? By 40, Andy Hill and his wife had built a $500,000 portfolio and paid off their home. Instead of racing toward early retirement, they chose a third way: scaling back to part-time work, becoming equal partners in parenting, and reclaiming their time. In this episode, recorded live at FinCon, Andy shares his 10-step fram...
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#645: Mike (02:50): After 15 years of intentional living, Mike is 80 percent of the way to financial independence. Now he’s trying to help friends take control of their own financial future. But what happens when one spouse is eager to learn and invest, while the other isn’t interested? Michael (27:07): For two years, Michael has tracked his net worth monthly. So far, growth has been driven almost entirely by how much he saved. ...
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