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 o...
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Your Brain Is Your Most Important Asset, with Dr. Majid Fotuhi, MD, PhD
<p>#689: Most people think forgetting a name means their brain is failing. </p> <p>Dr. Majid Fotuhi, a neurologist who taught at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, sees thousands of patients convinced they have Alzheimer's – only to discover they're dealing with poor sleep or stress.</p> <p>Dr. Fotuhi joins us to break down the difference between cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer's disease. He explains why chronic stress physically shrinks your hippocampus — the thumb-sized memory center in your brain — and how twelve weeks of lifestyle changes reversed cognitive decline in 84 percent of his patients.</p> <p>We talk about the five hidden...
Q&A: I'm Burned Out But Not Quite Ready to Retire
<p>#688: Anonymous: "Anonymous Sheryl" is 38, mortgage-free and exhausted after 15 years of teaching. She’s torn between pushing a few more years toward FIRE or switching to relief teaching now for better work-life balance. How do you trade speed to FIRE for sustainability without blowing up the plan?<br></p> <p>Anonymous : "Anonymous Ray" hired a bank portfolio manager but isn’t sure how to judge the results after just a few years. With mixed performance, dividend-heavy funds and higher fees, when is it fair to evaluate a manager — and would a simple index ETF outperform?</p> <p>Nathan: Nathan’s 14-year-ol...
First Friday: The Retirement Rules That Changed While You Weren't Looking
<p>#687: Your tax refund might be $300 to $1,000 bigger this year, and that's just the beginning of what's changing with your money.</p> <p>The Tax Foundation estimates most Americans will see significantly larger refunds thanks to seven major tax cuts. The child tax credit increased by $200. The standard deduction jumped by $750 for individuals or $1,500 for couples. The state and local tax deduction cap now sits at $40,000. Seniors get an extra $6,000 deduction, and deductions for auto loan interest, tips, and overtime work all increased.</p> <p>Retirement accounts saw major changes too. Catch-up contributions for high earners now must go into...
Q&A: Are AI Stocks About to Crater?
<p>#686: Rachel: Rachel is new to investing and has noticed the stock market being dominated by AI companies. She wants to make sure her portfolio is balanced without overexposing herself.Should she rethink her index fund strategy to protect against a potential AI bubble?<br></p> <p>Sarah: Sarah just turned 65, owns her home outright, and has been relying on credit cards since losing her job last year. She’s weighing whether to claim Social Security now, pay off debt, remodel her home, or convert her traditional IRA to a Roth.How should she prioritize these major financial moves while ba...
10 Rules for Building a Portfolio That Actually Works for Your Life, with Cullen Roche
<p>#685: You're not an investor. You're a saver.</p> <p>That's the first of 10 principles Cullen Roche shares in this conversation about building what he calls "the perfect portfolio." </p> <p>Roche, the founder and chief investment officer of Discipline Funds, argues that when you buy stocks on the secondary market, you're not actually funding companies or making investments in the traditional economic sense. You're just swapping your cash for someone else's stock position – reallocating your savings.</p> <p>This reframe matters because it changes your entire approach. Instead of trying to beat the market, you focus on the boring, pr...
Why You Should “T-Bill and Chill” Instead of Using a Savings Account, with Cullen Roche
<p>#684: Most people search for the perfect portfolio — the one allocation that works in every market, at every age, for every goal. This interview starts by explaining why that portfolio does not exist.</p> <p>We talk with Cullen Roche, founder and chief investment officer of Discipline Funds, about why copying someone else’s portfolio can backfire, and why portfolio design works better when it starts with your own constraints instead of rules of thumb.</p> <p>We walk through real portfolio models. The conversation begins with the classic 60-40 portfolio. You hear where it came from, how it held up d...
How to Teach Kids About Money, with Dr. Stephen Day
<p>#683: Candy now — or a toy later? You slide play money across the table and let your kid choose.</p> <p>That moment kicks off this episode, where Dr. Stephen Day joins us to talk about building a “mini economy” at home. </p> <p>Dr. Day is the director of the Center for Economic Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. He also holds a PhD in social studies and economics curriculum and instruction. His work looks at how kids form money habits long before they deal with real paychecks, budgets, or credit cards.</p> <p>We break down how a mini economy...
52 Tiny Improvements in 2026 [GREATEST HITS]
<p>#682: Grab the FREE handbook: affordanything.com/financialgoals</p> <p><br></p> <p>For 76 years, the British cycling team lost — every season, without exception. Then they changed how they approached improvement, focusing on tiny gains instead of dramatic overhauls.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In today's episode, we unpack how they became champions – and apply those same tactics to our financial life. </p> <p><br></p> <p>This episode originally aired in January 2025. It was our most popular episode of the year on Spotify. </p> <p><br></p> <p>You hear how the British cycling team used “aggregation of marginal gains”...
How NOT to Invest, with Barry Ritholtz
<p>#681: Barry Ritholtz's mom sold real estate. Those dinner table conversations about mortgages helped him spot the 2008 crash before most of Wall Street did.</p> <p>Now he runs Ritholtz Wealth Management and joins us to explain why we're often our own worst investment enemy.</p> <p>He breaks investing mistakes into three categories: bad ideas, bad numbers, and bad behavior.</p> <p>Here's what stood out. Research shows just 2 percent of stocks create all the market's value. The other 98 percent? Pretty much worthless. Barry says 90 percent of everything is garbage — from science fiction to investment advice.</p> <p>Even ex...
Q&A: I Want to Retire Early Without Selling My Stocks in a Crash
<p>#680: Mia: Mia and her husband are planning early retirement and want to draw down their taxable brokerage accounts for the next decade. She’s considering a securities-backed line of credit to defer taxes during market downturns.</p> <p>Can a securities-backed line of credit smooth taxes in early retirement, or are there hidden risks?</p> <p>Jean: Jean, a freelance creator, wants to take a self-made sabbatical in three years and fund it without stress. She’s unsure whether to keep her savings in a high-yield account, a brokerage account, or split between the two.</p> <p>How should she...
