How do you like that confidence?!

It’s true though – I am (thrilled to be on the) So Money podcast again!

And I was a little nervous, not gonna lie… it’s been a hot minute since I was last on a show, but that quickly faded as Farnoosh and I got going because it’s like reuniting with family. I was one of her first guests when her podcast first launched, and now here we are over 10 years later just picking up the convo where we left it!

It’s fun to read the summary of that first episode too compared to this new one:

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“I’m very excited to introduce today’s guest. He is one of the most influential financial bloggers of our time and the founder of 2 personal finance websites eliteedgemoney.com and RockstarFinance.com. He also coaches people interested in blogging and launching an online business. His name is J. Money.

Like many of us, J. struggled with money and made some poor choices early on. So what did he do? He decided to blog about. In 2008 he started his personal finance blog, eliteedgemoney.com, to track his spending and keep himself accountable. And that worked! Since then, he’s built his net worth to over half a million dollars… by doing what he loves!

Three takeaways from our interview:

1. Why home ownership is not for everyone (J$ <– Still believe this!)
2. How Craigslist helps J. develop better money habits…and MAKE money WEEKLY.
3. Awesome tips on reducing your phone bill … (Farnoosh: and I just got mine and due to data overages, my bill was an extra $100 this month. I’m seriously considering switching plans. This is absurd.)

Our favorite quote from today’s interview: “I’m challenging myself every week to get rid of more stuff.””

You can check out the show here: So Money, Ep. 43: J. Money, Financial Blogger

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And then here is the write-up on the show that just went live!

“For as long as I’ve known him — which is now more than fifteen years — he’s had the same signature look: a sharp mohawk and an even sharper perspective on money.

Today on So Money, we welcome back one of the original voices of the personal finance internet: J. Money, the longtime blogger behind Elite Edge Money and the founder of Rockstar Finance, a platform that helped shape the early personal finance blogging community. When this podcast first launched more than a decade ago, J. Money was one of my earliest guests – back when sharing your net worth online was considered radical and the idea of building a career from a blog about money was still pretty new.

In this conversation, we catch up on what’s changed – and what hasn’t. The mohawk is still there, thankfully. But J.’s life looks very different these days. He’s stepped away from blogging full-time, sold his site to The Motley Fool and later bought it back, and now spends much of his time running something called a “Free Closet,” giving away thousands of clothing items every week to people in need in his community.

We talk about the early days of the money-blogging world – when transparency about debt, savings, and net worth helped motivate an entire generation to take control of their finances. We also talk about what happens when you actually reach financial independence. Does money stop mattering? What motivates you next?

J. shares why the blogging magic eventually faded for him, how social media changed the tone of personal finance conversations, the surprising lessons he’s learned from working closely with unhoused communities, and why he believes the real power of money is simply the freedom not to think about it anymore.

*******

So fun to reflect and take in all that’s changed in this time… You do a lot of things in 10 years! New jobs, projects, moves, births, deaths, more gray hairs, NEEDING READING GLASSES FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YOUR LIFE! (I swear – I did nothing different and then one day BAM – everything’s blurry in front of me. How??!)

If there was a quote to be tacked onto this episode like the first one, it would have been this:

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. – Earl Nightingale

A good reminder to get going on something that’s important to you

Thanks for having me on again Farnoosh, and I will see you in another 10 years, God willing!

You can listen to this latest episode here:

So Money, Episode 1,957: J. Money, Founder: Elite Edge Money

[This post, I Am So Money, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Happy Friday! Who’s looking forward to an awesome weekend!?

Today I’m gonna share something a little embarrassing… It’s the final report card from my graduating year at high school. Check this out:

As you can see, Math was my worst subject. 29 out of 100… I’ve never scored lower than 29% on anything in my entire life! This class was the rock bottom of my formal education.

But, before you label me a complete idiot, you should know a few things about Australian high school vs. American high school:

• Australia has wicked high standards for curriculum. For example, this high school Math class “1S PES” included Applied Calculus – stuff most Americans usually don’t get taught until later in college. No wonder I sucked at it, I was only 17!
• The grading system is wacky down under. For example, I received the highest Art Design score in the whole school (and still only got 87%). In the US, many schools give the highest person 100%, then grade the entire class based on a curve.
• In the USA you must pass every class to graduate from high school. For AUS they go based on weighted averages. You can suck really bad in 1 subject and make it up by overachieving in others. This is how I passed high school.

Anyway, no matter which way you look at it, I was labelled “bad at Math.” All my teachers, my peers, and my grades told me that I would never be a numbers expert. I received merits in every other subject.

This report card is from 18 years ago. Today, I have a job writing about finances, of which some stuff has a heavy math focus. How can a guy who barely scraped through high school get a job writing about numbers? How can a guy like that become financially independent and be able retire early in life?

Here are a few things I’ve realized about math and personal finance. I hope these insights encourage others who may have been (or currently are) a similar type of student as me.

1. You don’t have to be good at math to be good with money

Many people think becoming a millionaire is complicated and you have to have advanced knowledge in investing, economics and complex math. This simply isn’t true.

Kicking ass in personal finance is a simple and repeatable process, no matter your level of education. It’s based on proven principles and habits…

• Work as hard and smart as you can
• Earn as much money as you can
• Spend less than you earn
• Save and invest the difference
• Repeat this for many years

After high school I jumped straight into the workforce while my ‘smart’ friends went to college. I always felt bad about this, like they were getting smarter and smarter, and I had given up on education. I hate to admit it, but I let my high school report card define who I was for a long time. Big mistake.

Then somewhere around my late 20’s, I looked around and realized I had more money than most other people my age. I realized that my growing wealth wasn’t because of my academics, or lack thereof… It was due to my subtle daily habits and following the basic money principles.

You can be the smartest math genius in the world and still be flat broke later in life. And you can be a high school dropout and become financially independent in your 30s. Don’t ever let bad math grades convince you that you’re bad at money or will never be wealthy! If you’re not convinced, just read The Millionaire Next Door and learn what most true wealthy people are like. :)

2. Formal education vs. self education

School while you’re young is important. Your mind is a sponge, you have unlimited spare time, and education is packaged nicely into 1 hour classroom learning sessions.

Learning as an adult is much harder. And inconvenient! It requires self motivation, discipline, and time to acquire knowledge. Many young kids think that when college is over, the learning stops. This isn’t the case at all!

The reason I’m better at math today and can comprehend finance stuff is because I slowly built up knowledge over time. Books, podcasts, blogs, independent courses and asking good questions all contributed to my education. And, I’ve still got a loooong way to go!

If I could go back in time and give advice to my high school self, it would be:

• Just because you’re not great at something today, it doesn’t mean you will never be good at it. Learning never stops.
• If you didn’t learn something in school, or from your parents at home, that’s OK. There are a ton of places you can pick up knowledge and learn as an adult.
• In school, a report card tells you how well you’re doing. In personal finance, your net worth is your report card. It is the single best tool that tells you if you’re on the right track, or need to study harder! Your school report card goes away in your 20’s. Your net worth report card never goes away.

3. There’s a calculator for that!

My grandpa once sat me down and said, “Joel, if you ever don’t know how to do something in life, that’s OK. Because there’s someone else out there who knows how to do it – and you can always hire them to do it for you.” 

As a kid I was self-conscious about my education (still am a bit I guess). But Grandpa helped me realize that it’s OK not knowing everything. As long as I know where or how to find the information when I need it, I’ll be fine.

• Don’t know how mortgages work? That’s what mortgage brokers are for! They do it all day, every day.
• Not good at spreadsheets or calculating formulas? There are a TON of free resources online where people have created stuff and simplified it down for beginners.
• Can’t calculate your effective tax rate based on your AGI or determine how much capital gains harvesting is best for your 2020 filing? Don’t stress! There are calculators to help you with all that stuff. CPAs, tax professionals, and random enthusiasts can point you in the right direction. It’s OK that you don’t know.

Giving up on improving your finances because “math is too confusing” is like slashing your other 3 tires because you have 1 flat. Just call in an expert for help and get back on the road :)

Have an awesome weekend, all! Stay safe out there!

– Joel

PS: I was a guest this week on a fun podcast called Friends on FIRE! We chat about habits, happiness, and hard work :) Check the show out here, or wherever you regularly get your podcasts from. Cheers to the hosts Maggie and Mike for having me!

[This post, You Don’t Have to Be Good at Math to Be Good at Personal Finance, was first published by 5am Joel on Elite Edge Money]

Oh man, this is a hard one for me to write today…

I don’t know exactly how to do it, so let me just come out and say it:

I’m quitting our M.O.N.E.Y. podcast :(

(Or as I like to put it – “retiring” from the podcast :))

There are many reasons for this which we’ll get to in a moment, but first I wanna say two quick things:

#1. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who listens to it!!!!

I cannot express the love and gratitude I have for y’all – many of whom I don’t even know and who came from Paula’s tribe, but I can’t thank you enough and just want you to know that I’m beyond appreciative for all the support and encouragement since our launch. It’s one thing to stop a project that’s failed miserably, but a whole other when things are going strong and everyone’s so encouraging. So please – know that deep down I love and appreciate every  one of you who have supported us this year, and know that it’s been a helluva awesome experience!

#2. The show will go on – so don’t go anywhere :)

Paula is VERY much still as excited – if not more so – to continue on with the show (after all – one less entrepreneur in the mix means more control and freedom, haha…) and she plans to continue running it as-is, just minus one bumbling cohort trying to even out her smarts ;)

You’ll still be able to find the show at themoneyshow.co, as well as on iTunes and Stitcher and all that good stuff, and it will still be focused on reaching financial independence through entrepreneurship/hustling/ investing/killing off debt, and everything else we’ve been talking about throughout the year.

If you’ve been a fan of the show, PLEASE keep checking it out and give M.O.N.E.Y. 2.0 a shot! Paula’s working really hard behind the scenes, and already lined up some great new guests and ideas for it, some of which I was holding her back on. And it won’t be the last time you hear from me either (quite literally) as I have already promised to come back as a special guest as a condition of me leaving the show ;) Which, btw, she’s been more than understanding and incredible about – which says a lot about her as a person and businesswoman. So please – give it a shot with her as the new captain and hopefully you’ll still like it just as much!

Okay… So why retire now? When everything’s going well?

If you have some time, you can listen to our full show on it which we just released today –> Jay’s last show – but the short answer is that my heart just isn’t into it anymore :( And I also started getting super anxious and pulled away from projects – and personal time – I DO very much care for (like this blog!).

The one thing I told myself going into this was that I had to be really excited and passionate about it as it takes so much time and energy to do (way more than I thought – wow! I give you podcasters mad cred!), so once that started slipping away I knew I had to do something about it. I LOVE what the show’s about and the awesome community we’ve built around it (the best part!), but at the end of the day the cons started outweighing the pros and I eventually had to make sure that *I* was taken care of first :(

In fact, I joked with Paula that it was very much like breaking up with a long-term girlfriend, only one that everyone likes and then hates you for breaking up with her! Haha…

It’s easy to break up with someone that people hate and talk about behind your back, but a whole other when they thought you two were perfect together and were going to marry ;) So in that regard I kinda wish it would have failed only to make the decision easier, but of course I’m thrilled that people are enjoying it so much and cannot believe we just crossed 200,000 downloads last week!! Crazy! And I’m gonna miss you so much Paula!!

So, new territory I’m crossing here for sure, but hopefully one that I made the right decision on and will look back later feeling glad I did so… Though Paula will have to bring me on once she crosses a MILLION listeners and see just how I feel about it then, haha…

Actually, we go over it on the show, but one thing that really helps me with decisions like this is trying to envision the *perfect outcome* with a project, and then seeing if I still feel the same way about it afterwards.

For example, if M.O.N.E.Y. did hit millions of listeners and was making tons of money, would I have wished I stayed aboard? And if so, does it mean I should then keep with it and just work on overcoming these issues in order to eventually reach that major goal? Well, of course you know what the answer is to all this or else you wouldn’t be reading this right now ;), but if it had changed things I would have certainly stuck around and figured out how to make it work. This podcast has always been a passion project of mine over a business one, so when that core fails it’s hard to overcome…

Good Quitting vs Bad Quitting

Throughout this process of figuring out what the right move was here, I made a list of pros and cons which later turned into “good reasons” to quit something and “bad reasons” to quit something,” you know – since we like to turn all our life’s events into lessons as bloggers :)

I also thought it may help some of you going through tough decisions as well, since we can easily second guess ourselves and get so stuck in our own heads.

So below are the lists, along with some personal examples of how it affected my decision w/ the M.O.N.E.Y. show here. And again, this is something we get wayyy more into on my last episode too if you want to feel the emotions behind it which to me makes it the best one yet! Or at least our rawest!

Hope it helps…

Good reasons to quit/retire:

PS: Just for good times, here were some of my favorite shows we did… I’m gonna miss you Paula!

• Episode #21: Making Money as a Voiceover Actor, with Carrie Olsen
• Episode #20: From Debt to Financial Independence, with J.D. Roth
• Episode #16: From Side Hustling to Growing a Million Dollar Company
• Episode #8: Why Jay Wants You to Track Your Net Worth
• Episode #7: Mad Fientist Reveals the Science of Financial Independence
• Episode #4: The Ultimate Beginner Guide to Real Estate Investing

[This post, Good Reasons to Quit Something vs Bad Reasons to Quit Something (And Why I’m Retiring from Podcasting), was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Okay guys, got a fun one for you today :)

I don’t even know what to make of it all to be honest with you, but I loved reading every second of this and thought you guys might too.

It’s an email shot over by a listener of our new podcast – M.O.N.E.Y. – and I find it all kinds of fascinating. Probably because it never ceases to amaze me just how different our lifestyles can be, yet still revolve around the almighty dollar whether we want it to or not! And Melanie here has been experimenting with it quite a bit lately, haha…

Please to enjoy – the most interesting email I’ve ever received!

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Story for J. Money, a man who appreciates working less when it’s possible & going with your feeling instead of all of the facts.

*************

J, you talk about having been a workaholic and finally making peace with chilling the f*ck out.

That is ME!!

Some background: I used to be a youthful anti-money anarchist. That mentality lead me to the notion that I needed to drop out of the money system. My plan to drop out of the system revolved around saving $$ (for the first time) so that my husband & I could live in the woods “for free”. < — my vague youthful thinking.

So when I was 26 (waitress) and my husband was 22 (grocery story worker) I came up with a plan for us. In the end we saved $24,000 in 18 months at our $hitty jobs. Saving money was a huge eye opener that money isn’t evil, I’m still me regardless of what the numbers say. It actually made me LOVE money but I couldn’t break the mental dogma so we kept with my original plan.

We bought land in another state and lived in a 150 sqft tiny house with no plumbing for 1 year. During that time I was working at the best restaurant in the tourist town 15 minutes from our land. I was a major workaholic. I kept pushing myself to work more and often worked 50-70 high volume hours a week. I think a major reason why I worked so much was to avoid the new lifestyle that I signed up for.

Here’s a video I made of our tiny house right when we first moved into it:

My husband has never been anti money and didn’t like living without plumbing. So when I completely burned out from overworking I looked at him and said, “Can we sell the tiny house and land?” He said YES! In that moment I knew I needed to wipe the slate clean on the anarchist bull$hit I was holding onto and the insane “clean eating” standards I’d been obsessed with for 15 years.

It was pretty much me saying YES to the life I want instead of the life I thought was “right.”

So I quit my job, we put the tiny house on the market and moved back to Dallas. For the next 18 months we live almost jobless and on less that $10,000 a year. For 18 months we dumpster dived stuff and sold it on ebay (mostly clothes). For 9 months solid we ate trash, dumpstering 99.9% of everything we ate so we wouldn’t have to pay for food. PLUS it completely chilled me out with distorted identity around being “vegan” or “paleo” or “clean eating”.

We had almost no expenses except our cheap apartment and gas $. We had no bed time, no morning alarms, no restrictions, no stress. It was amazing, I’d never had so little while feeling so free.

When being the dumpster diver became my identity I had to walk away from that too. At this same time I recovered from all of the pinned up stress and was ready to really make some money again. We changed our eBay business overnight and started making a real living wage without having to dumpster dive anymore. We buy stuff now but we’re making much better $$$.

There’s not really a conclusion to this story. I’m just writing to say that I feel ya when you talk about re-calibrating your values.

*************

She was right that I appreciate a good story! And that I’m all about going with your emotions even if they tend to fluctuate over time (which of course they will as we’re constantly evolving as people).

This is the stuff that separates Paula and I a lot on the show – where she’s the more analytical/ business type person and I’m the “do what feels good” type of guy. No one right way of doing things, but either can lead you to that ideal lifestyle, and even better if you can balance the two!

So thank you so much for the story, Melanie! Can’t say I woke up thinking I’d see that gem in my inbox, haha… Love the passion, and even more so that you changed it up when you realized it wasn’t working for you guys anymore. That’s hard to do – especially if you’ve been broadcasting it all over. For anyone wanting to follow Melanie’s journey, you can catch her on her blog @ anarchistkitchen.wordpress.com.

And for those interested in rocking an eBay biz as she alluded to, check out our recent episode with Jay and Ryanne where they tell us how they make $100k/year flipping items and renting out their AirBnB on our podcast. Again – so cool how many different ways there are to make a living!

——–
PS: Speaking of our show, thank you guys SO MUCH for all the support over the past two months! We recently crossed over 100,000 downloads and are learning a ton in the process… Both from our guests on the show, but also the uniquely different medium that is podcasting. Can’t say I’m used to it yet, but it’s definitely been interesting :) If you like talking about money as much as you do earning it, might be something to look into yourself! (Or to discuss any topic, for that matter).

[This post, “I Used to Be an Anti-Money Anarchist”, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Guys! Our new podcast has finally launched!! Will you check it out and let us know what you think pleeeeease?? And if you love it leave us a review? We’re so SO excited to bring it to you!

iTunes Page –> M.O.N.E.Y.

HUGE thanks to my co-host Paula Pant and our sound engineer, Steve Stewart, for pushing me/us to get this thing done and into reality after all these months. I had no idea how different the world of podcasting was (I actually don’t listen to them – *gasp*) and if it weren’t for those guys I’d probably still be trying to figure out how to connect my mic correctly, haha… You might notice how different I sound compared to Paula in the first few episodes until we fixed it ;)

But, we’re live now, baby, and ready to talk money! Literally! And it’s soooo much fun and easier over written word too, although much harder to edit… You’re gonna know exactly how I think and talk after listening to these as it’s all raw and uncensored. Our iTunes page looks like a rap album with all those EXPLICIT labels! Haha…

But hey, that’s real life right? No fancying it up and pretending to be something we’re not… We just get on the mic and do our thing! And hopefully you don’t catch us drinking beer get a lot out of it :)

So What’s This Show About? Besides M.O.N.E.Y.?

Well, pretty much the exact stuff we talk about here only amped w/ Paula on our side who brings a massive amount of energy and experience to the show to compliment yours truly. Not only does she run her own real estate empire and can technically retire anytime she wants (yeah passive’ish income!), but she’s an amazing hustler and entrepreneur too who’s completely transparent with how much she makes and shares how others can do it too.

In other words, she’s a financial beast. Only prettier.

So a lot of building wealth talk, investing tips, how to cut expenses, budgeting better, reaching financial freedom, entrepreneurship, and pretty much crafting a kick-ass lifestyle for yourself. The whole point of money at the end of the day, right?

We also be bring on a handful of guests doing some incredible things as well (retiring early, paying off their houses, traveling the world, making thousand of dollars hustling and more).

Oh, we’ve also started doing “Ask Us Anything” episodes too where people can *ahem* ask us anything and we’ll answer their questions on the show :) Anything from money to personal life to blogging to entrepreneurship, whatev. And I guess now podcasting – hah!

If you want to submit questions yourself, give us a shout and we’ll answer them in the next round.

Show Schedule & Episodes Released So Far

As of today we’ve got 6 full episodes you can listen to at any time, and over the next two weeks we’ll be dropping another episode every two (work) days until we’ve got 11 or 12 out the door and we’ll then move to once-a-week shows. That way none of us gets tired of listening to each other ;)

Here are the shows live right now, along with show notes if you can’t listen yet:

1. The Story of M.O.N.E.Y. – Having Heart & Hustle
2. Don’t Feel Guilty – Buy a Coke Zero and Pay Someone to Mow Your Lawn
3. The Habits We Rock to Kick Ass and Grow Wealth
4. The Ultimate Beginner Guide to Real Estate Investing
5. How Kids Affect Your Hustle (and it’s Okay!)
6. How to Transition from Hustler to Entrepreneur

We Hope You Like It!!!

It’s been a blast so far and already feels more natural than when we started a handful of months ago… We really hope you learn a lot and have fun along with us :)

You can find the official site for the show here: TheMoneyShow.co (no “m” at the end), and also on iTunes, Stitcher, Android, and RSS. We also have an email list if you’d like to be notified each time a new episode drops – you can sign up here for that.

Thank you for all your support and helping us get to this point! Neither of us would have launched this without our awesome communities behind the scenes, and now we get to go on another adventure with y’all.

See you on the air! :)

UPDATE: GUYS!!! Thank you so much for listening and sharing and just being overall BAD ASS! M.O.N.E.Y. is currently #5 in (all) of iTunes right now under “Business” – Incredible! We’ll eventually fall off, but it feels good soaking it in for now! Haha… All beers on me next time we see each other :)

*****
PS: If you like what you hear, will you subscribe to our show on iTunes? This helps give us a shot into “new and noteworthy” so we can reach an even larger audience all around. Thank you!!

[This post, Introducing Our New Podcast: M.O.N.E.Y., was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Hey guys!

Just a quick shout that our new podcast – M.O.N.E.Y. – is launching next Monday, Feb 1st! It only took us 10 months! Haha… I’ve partnered up with one of my favorite personal finance bloggers (and entrepreneurs!) Paula Pant from AffordAnything.com, and we really think we have a good show for you. Or at least one that will hopefully entertain you :)

[UPDATE: It’s now live!! TheMoneyShow.co/itunes :)]

We thought we’d be a good mix together with our completely different lifestyles (married/settled/kids/not financially free/hates home ownership vs world traveler/master real estate investor and technically doesn’t have to work anymore if she doesn’t want to!), but at the end of the day we both know how important managing your money is. And especially on your OWN terms.

So that’s what the whole show is about! Financial freedom, crafting your ideal lifestyle, entrepreneurship, and of course interviews with some pretty incredible people doing some pretty incredible stuff. All packed with our tips and tricks to what’s gotten us all here.

You can sign up here to be notified once it’s live and to get future episode alerts, or you can check out our new website that will be featuring everything as well: TheMoneyShow.co

We hope you like it! We have no idea what we’re doing!! :)

(Back tomorrow with your regularly scheduled posts…)

******
PS: It’ll be a weekly podcast, but the first two weeks we’ll be releasing a batch of 10 or 11 episodes to get the party started… Let us know what you think!

[This post, Our Podcast is Launching Next Week!, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]