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

[E] The Myths We Believed About Startups [GREATEST HITS]

December 26, 2025 • 45 mins

#675: Welcome to Greatest Hits Week – five days, five episodes from our vault, spelling out F-I-I-R-E. Today’s letter E stands for Entrepreneurship. This episode originally aired in September 2018, at a moment when startup culture was loud, venture capital was abundant, and entrepreneurship was often framed as something that involves outside investors and rapid growth. ____ In this episode, we rewind the clock to 2018. Remem...

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[R] Remember When Inflation Was High and Rates Were Rising? [GREATEST HITS]

December 25, 2025 • 77 mins

#674: Welcome to Greatest Hits Week – five days, five episodes from our vault, spelling out F-I-I-R-E. Today's letter R stands for Real Estate. This episode originally aired in May 2022, but the insights on long-distance investing remain just as relevant for anyone feeling priced out of their local market. We tackle the five biggest challenges of investing far from home – from fear of the unknown to managing contractors remotely ...

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[I] Why Young Investors Focus on the Wrong Things [GREATEST HITS]

December 24, 2025 • 47 mins

#673: Welcome to Greatest Hits Week – five days, five episodes from our vault, spelling out F-I-I-R-E. Today's second letter I stands for Investing. This episode originally aired in April 2022, but the framework remains one of the most practical guides we've shared for building wealth at any age. Nick Maggiulli joins us to reveal why most young investors obsess over the wrong metrics — and shares his Save-Invest Continuum that sh...

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[I] The Hidden Information That's Costing You Money [GREATEST HITS]

December 23, 2025 • 63 mins

#672: Welcome to Greatest Hits Week — five days, five episodes from our vault, spelling out F-I-I-R-E. Today's letter I stands for Increasing Your Income. This episode originally aired in August 2024, but the strategies are more essential than ever. Jeff Wetzler, Ed.D., reveals why the people around us withhold crucial information — and how asking better questions can transform your negotiations and net worth. __________ Y...

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[F] Why Your Brain Sabotages Your Money [GREATEST HITS]

December 22, 2025 • 45 mins

#671: Welcome to Greatest Hits Week — five days, five episodes from our vault, spelling out F-I-I-R-E. Today's letter F stands for Financial Psychology. And we're diving deep with a conversation that changed how thousands of our listeners think about money. This episode originally aired in November 2022, but the insights feel more relevant than ever. Dr. Daniel Crosby reveals why your brain is your portfolio's worst enemy — and w...

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Are Credit Card Rewards Really Worth It in 2026?

December 19, 2025 • 60 mins

#670: As we close out 2025, premium credit cards are more expensive and more complicated than ever. It’s fair to ask whether the points game is still worth the effort. We sit down with Chris Hutchins, host of All the Hacks, to talk about what’s changed in credit card rewards, and how to decide whether to stick with travel points, switch to cash back, or run a hybrid strategy that keeps your life simple. We dig into the “value...

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44 Years Old, $2 Million Saved – Why They're Still Hesitant to Downshift

December 16, 2025 • 55 mins

#669: Slade (01:43) - Slade, 44, and his wife plan to downshift careers in the next five to seven years while raising their 11-year-old daughter. They want to know how to reallocate their $685K brokerage account and plan withdrawals to make the transition financially smooth. David (21:50) - David has a high school senior and is deciding how to pay for college. Should he tap the $60K 529 plan now or the $200K 457(b) from his wife’s...

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Why Taking a Year Off Might Be Your Smartest Money Move, with David Bach

December 12, 2025 • 113 mins

#668: We’re joined in-studio by David Bach, bestselling author of The Automatic Millionaire and The Latte Factor. He’s updated his most popular book (over two million copies sold) and this is his last big launch as he heads into retirement. Together, we wrestle with a problem our listeners know well: what happens when you’ve built the habit of saving, investing, optimizing … and then feel weirdly unable to spend. We talk abo...

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Should You Ever Get a 50 Year Mortgage? — with Dr. Karsten Jeske

December 9, 2025 • 63 mins

#667: Home prices have outpaced wages for more than a decade, and first-time buyers are stretching further every year. Now a new idea is entering the conversation, the 50-year mortgage. It promises lower monthly payments, yet it reshapes everything from equity growth to long-term risk. In this episode we sit down with Karsten Jeske, PhD, CFA from Early Retirement Now, a former Federal Reserve economist known for forensic finan...

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First Friday: The Strange Economics of Feeling Poor While Spending More Description:

December 5, 2025 • 43 mins

#666: In this First Friday economic update, we explore the paradox defining our current economy: record-breaking retail numbers alongside plummeting consumer confidence. In this First Friday economic update, we explore the paradox defining our current economy: we're spending more than ever, while feeling worse about money than we have in years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics hasn't released jobs data for two consecutive months. ...

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Q&A: How Much Insurance Is Enough When You’re Protecting Your Wealth

December 2, 2025 • 54 mins

#665: If you’ve ever stared at an insurance quote and wondered, “Is this really worth it?”, you’re not alone. Liability and umbrella policies can feel like an expensive mystery, especially when your net worth is growing and your risks are shifting. In today’s episode, we dig into a listener’s dilemma about soaring liability and umbrella insurance costs, and we explore how to think clearly about protection, exposure, and the parts ...

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The Psychology of Sales, Discounts and Deals [GREATEST HITS]

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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Why AI Misleads Investors and How to Fix It

November 25, 2025 • 67 mins

#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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What If Everything We Know About Hiring Is Wrong?, with William Vanderbloemen

November 21, 2025 • 79 mins

#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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Q&A: She's Broke. He's Rich. And You're Asking About AI Stocks.

November 18, 2025 • 80 mins

#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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The Brutal Math of Caring for Aging Parents, with MarketWatch Columnist Beth Pinsker

November 14, 2025 • 62 mins

#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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James Patterson Shows Why Comfort Can Be a Trap

November 12, 2025 • 68 mins

#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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First Friday: When the Gov’t is Closed, Where Do We Find the Numbers?

November 7, 2025 • 37 mins

#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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Q&A: Can You Really Beat the Market by Copying Members of Congress?

November 4, 2025 • 59 mins

#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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Would You Shock a Stranger? What a 1960s Experiment Reveals About Your Money Decisions

October 31, 2025 • 88 mins

#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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Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}[E] The Myths We Believed About Startups [GREATEST HITS]

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}[R] Remember When Inflation Was High and Rates Were Rising? [GREATEST HITS]

[I] Why Young Investors Focus on the Wrong Things [GREATEST HITS]

[I] The Hidden Information That's Costing You Money [GREATEST HITS]

[F] Why Your Brain Sabotages Your Money [GREATEST HITS]

Are Credit Card Rewards Really Worth It in 2026?

44 Years Old, $2 Million Saved – Why They're Still Hesitant to Downshift

Why Taking a Year Off Might Be Your Smartest Money Move, with David Bach

Should You Ever Get a 50 Year Mortgage? — with Dr. Karsten Jeske

First Friday: The Strange Economics of Feeling Poor While Spending More Description:

Q&A: How Much Insurance Is Enough When You’re Protecting Your Wealth

The Psychology of Sales, Discounts and Deals [GREATEST HITS]

Why AI Misleads Investors and How to Fix It

What If Everything We Know About Hiring Is Wrong?, with William Vanderbloemen

Q&A: She's Broke. He's Rich. And You're Asking About AI Stocks.

The Brutal Math of Caring for Aging Parents, with MarketWatch Columnist Beth Pinsker

James Patterson Shows Why Comfort Can Be a Trap

First Friday: When the Gov’t is Closed, Where Do We Find the Numbers?

Q&A: Can You Really Beat the Market by Copying Members of Congress?

Would You Shock a Stranger? What a 1960s Experiment Reveals About Your Money Decisions

Popular Podcasts

[E] The Myths We Believed About Startups [GREATEST HITS]

[R] Remember When Inflation Was High and Rates Were Rising? [GREATEST HITS]