Money Curious

Our first guest of season 2, is Adam Craig, a real estate investor based out of Cleveland, OH. After earning a B.A. in finance from Kent State University, Adam began to peruse his passion for real estate investing. Since 2013, Adam has closed more than 70 deals and accumulated a rental portfolio topping 8 million dollars in residential and commercial real estate. 

In this episode, Adam shares his experiences utilizing the BRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat) strategy to expand his RE portfolio and lessons he's learned in his nine and a half years as an investor.

Have you ever been in massive amounts of debt and had no idea how to get out of it? Does that journey seem impossible? Baafi was in a similar situation coming out of school with $150,000 of debt! After school he was on a mission to pay this off so he could live his best life. Through that journey he learned more about himself and educate himself on financial literacy. After 3 long years, he was able to pay off ALL of his debt and start investing in the stock market. He has had so much success in building a six figure stock portfolio and becoming debt free, all while in his twenties, that now he is committed to helping others do the same thing through his platform @Blacktycoontalk. Get ready for some gems in this episode!

With less than 24 hours after graduating college, Chris Hanna began traveling the country counting cards as a professional blackjack player. Woah! Two years later, he worked 5 simultaneous gig-jobs to continue pursuing his dreams as an entrepreneur. Today, Chris brings all his experiences to financial coaching by helping UFC fighters and entrepreneurs manage their money to gain peace of mind, spend more time doing what they love, and build wealth with confidence. Join us in this episode to learn the difference between gambling vs investing and how to build 3 powerful financial habits to improve your life.

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Real Estate and Stocks are the some of the most common assets that people can choose to invest in. But which one is better? Or a better question is, which one is better for YOU? Well, look no further as we get into a showdown between the two big players of the finance game! They both have great attributes that make them lucrative investments for everyone, but they also come with their fair share of risk as well. Today we'll cover a few of those characteristics that come with each. If you ever want to invest, but not sure which one to get started with, here is a great place to start!

Join us in our last episode of 2021 as we share our biggest lessoned learned since discovering Financial Independence (FI). We cover misconceptions and new realizations that broke down those views and gave us the opportunity to kickstart our journeys. Here are the misconceptions we breakdown, and we hope can shatter these too:

• You need A LOT of money to retire early
• Rich and wealthy are the same thing
• All debt is bad debt
• You can only access your wealth/money at retirement
• The best way to save is to pinch every penny
• You can only get rich if you save your money and not risk it

Got a promotion? Raise? New job? Great! All of this comes with more opportunity, recognition, and validation that you're on the right track! But what else does this come with? Money. Hopefully with this new opportunity you're going to be getting a higher pay. Now the question is, what are you supposed to do with all of that money? Don't worry because we have just recently been through this. In this week's episode, we'll describe how we like to think about this new raise and how to approach our finances. We'll provide an easy framework that will help you get the most out of the extra money you have coming in, so you can watch your wealth grow!

Attention all money nerds! Here at Money Curious we like to learn from a variety of different sources, especially books. Set for Life is a book that the both of us have read and think that it's one of the best books out there for those trying to achieve financial independence. In today's episode, we're going to talk about some of the key takeaways that from Set for Life and how it has helped us so far in our financial independence journey. 

Notes: 

It's no secret that healthcare workers are a vital part of our society as a whole. They are extremely skilled and intelligent people who have to go through years of difficult schooling to get to where they want to be. However, during this time of developing their skills, who's teaching them about personal finance? That's where Ashley Van Veen comes in! She has figured out her own personal finances and made them a priority when she started he job. Going through her own personal finance journey she knew that she had to let more people know about these concepts, especially her fellow healthcare professionals. With this passion came her platform Bankable Facts where she educates her followers on everything finance. She is also a money coach for individuals in the healthcare industry helping them through their personal finance journey! You won't want to miss this one!

Let's have a shameless conversion about money! Join us as we speak on common money challenges women face and actionable steps they can take to prepare themselves financially with integrity and renewed determination. 

This week's guest, Nicholle Overkamp, MBA, ChFC®, is a personal finance expert and business coach for women. She’s the Founder & CEO of both Wilcox Financial Group and PowHERhouse Money Coaching. She has tackled the overwhelmingly male-dominated finance industry to share her money mastery skills that foster no-judgement environments where women can be open and shameless about their finances and habits. She knows that a critical factor in growing wealth is one’s mindset and sense of self-worth – it’s about setting boundaries, having discipline, and knowing you’re worth every dollar you invest in yourself, your future, and your life.

Have you ever wondered why your perspective on money is the way it is? Why is it that we all tend to make some decisions that seem to be automatic with our finances? Today we discuss how our relationship with money is directly correlated with our outer circumstances. Specifically with our family. Laura grew up being the oldest sibling of her family while Essien grew up as the youngest of his family. Learn in this week's Back to Basics episode how your approach to finances can be completely different just based on when you were born relative to the rest of your siblings. 

Have you ever thought of how much you can debt you can pay off in 2 years? What if you could pay down 6 FIGURES worth in that time? Joining us in this week's episode is Mel, also known as @fckdebt on Instagram, to share with us her debt-free journey where she and her husband were able to eliminate $127,868.99 in 2 years!

To become debt-free, Mel had to make several sacrifices such as moving in with her mother-in law, cutting back expenses, and grinding day in and day out to make massive headway in on 6 figures of debt. Tune in to learn how she is investing, saving, and staying the FCK out of debt.

Your 20s is a great time to find yourself and figure out who and what you want to be in your life. Developing the right habits at an early age can seriously set the trajectory for the rest of your life. Today's guest, Calvin Pringles (yes, like the chips), started off just like the rest of us: lost, not sure what to do or who to become. Then he stumbled onto real estate after talking with his future mentor and he was hooked. Now he's killing it as a full time real estate agent and investor out in Florida and he's only getting started! Calvin drops some major bombs on how he got started with his humble beginnings to where he is now and is excited about the future ahead of him. You won't want to miss this one!

Here at Money Curious, we’re big believers in the concept of house hacking. It’s one of the best financial decisions anyone can make. Tune into this week’s episode with Ikenna Okoye, where he talks in detail about how he was able to get 2 house hacks right out of college. In this episode we also talk about the importance of confidence, mentorship, and education, and why these play such a huge role in your financial decisions. Don’t miss this week’s episode!

So you've done it! You have started learning about personal finance, the FIRE community and excited to get started. But as you're going through this journey, how do you know you're on the right track? What exactly do you look at to make sure you can reach your personal finance goals? Tune into this week's episode where we talk about just that. Today we have a conversation about 3 financial metrics that we track every month that give us a clear picture of our overall financial health: Savings Rate, Credit Score, and Net Worth. We realized that optimizing these 3 areas will help the rest of our finances fall into place. You won't want to miss this one!

Join us this week as we have a great conversation with Kwadwo (Kojo) Banahene. He is an electrical engineer by day and an entrepreneur by night. Kojo started a company called Banahene Enterprises in order to help students prepare for the workforce. He also has a show that drops every Wednesday on Instagram called #MindYourBusiness where he interviews other entrepreneurs and small business owners across multiple different industries. Today we turn the tables on him and get to know him, his business, real estate investments, and so much more! You don't want to miss this conversation.

In this episode we welcome Andrés Bustamante, a real estate agent and investor in Austin, TX. While in college Andrés became a leasing agent at just 19 years old, which allowed him to pay for his tuition and living expenses all on his own. Andrés shares with us how he invested in his 3 properties utilizing a new construction strategy. Tune in to find out how he did this and more while house-hacking! But that's not all, Andrés also gives us insight into his mindset preparation and morning routine that helps him achieve productive and successful days.

Join us in this one-of-a-kind episode with Mindset Coach, Christina Spinazola. She is an entrepreneur impacting the lives of her clients all while also navigating the corporate world. We may not always think about our relationship between our minds and our money, but Christina provides great insight into some deeper level thinking we can all do to strength our thoughts for a more fulfilling life. Interested more in mindset coaching? 

Got student loans? How about a credit card balance? Wouldn't it be so great if you were rewarded to pay off your debt by learning all about financial literacy? That's where DebtGo comes in. DebtGo is an app that teaches you the language of money by turning challenging financial subjects into straight forward short videos that allows you to learn, earn, and win (money)! In this episode we dive deep into all things debt with founder and CEO Ernest Pereira. If you're interested in the best debt pay-down strategy, listen in as we and Ernest share our thoughts on this topic! 

Ever wonder how Airbnb Arbitrage works? Well, tune in to this week's episode to learn how Norman Hamilton from Comfy Living has grown a short term rental business using Airbnb. The Comfy Living team has scaled their business from 1 to 21 properties in just 4 years! Norman discusses with us the in's and out's of selecting a property and how he and his team began their amazing entrepreneurial journey. 

2 years! That's the time it took Alex Flores to exponentially grow his investments after graduating college. From grinding as a dishwasher to an engineer in the aerospace industry, Alex delivers on hard work, curiosity, and leveraging his money's power. If you don't feel motivated to set your financial foundation, you will after this episode. Today we talk to Alex who is an owner of two investment properties and is using 4 strategies to plan his next move.

Join co-host Essien as he shares his wealth-building journey through real estate! At just 24 years old, Essien used the power of house hacking to reduce his housing expense and started paying off his student loans. Now with his second property secured a year later, he’s building massive equity and developing his RE business. Curious to know how and why he did it? Tune in to find out how he stays motivated, and how he creates efficient and sustainable systems to keep his investments running smoothly.

Why plan for something that seems lightyears away? While retirement does seem far off, planning for it can never start too early! In this week's episode we discuss a step-by-step process to open a retirement account and provide an overview of the types of accounts available. Whether you're a W2 employee, an entrepreneur, or anyone in between, there is a retirement account for you. Take advantage of compound interest, employer matching contributions, and tax benefits to secure your financial future. There is no time to start like the present and any amount you can contribute will have massive effects!

Have you ever wanted to take a big risk in your life, but too afraid to make the jump? In this week's episode, we interview Adrien Salvador, who went into real estate full time after working as an engineer for only a year after graduating college! Even though he was burdened with student loan debt, he thought it was more risky to NOT start a business now, in his early twenties. In just a year after switching from W-2 earner to business owner, his company has done 7 deals during the COVID-19 pandemic. His perspective on 'risk' may change the way you think about the moves you're making in your own life. If you need motivation to take your next big step, then tune into this week's episode with Adrien Salvador.

Have you ever felt like you weren't doing enough? Have you ever felt that you're not getting to where you want to be fast enough? We sure have. In this week's episode we talk about how stressful making certain decisions can be, especially regarding finances. We explain why these feelings of impatience are actually normal and what you can do about them. It's ok to feel impatient about getting ahead, that just means you're a person with ambition and goals! Tune in to this week's episode to learn how you can take the right steps to gain more confidence in where you are in your financial journey!

Making money in this country can be difficult especially if you immigrated from another country. But John and his family wouldn't let that fact stop them. John's mother immigrated from Vietnam at an early age and got right to work. While making $30,000, she was able to build a sizable real estate portfolio, raise 3 kids, and sent one of them to college to get a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Oh, and did we mention that she doesn't even have a high school education? If you think that you can't make money in this country, tune into this week's episode of the Money Curious Podcast to learn how John's family took a 'no excuses' mindset to build generational wealth for themselves. 

Creating and maintaining healthy habits help you reach your goals and help you become the person you most want to be. Now let's take that and apply it to your financial life while you're a young adult. We have gathered a list of habits we've developed as a result of trial and error with our finances. In this episode we discuss 6 habits that have benefited us and can help you too. We also included a BONUS habit...Take a listen!

Financial literacy education is key to setting up for a successful future. Did your high school teach you this? 

Don't sweat the small stuff...instead take a look at where most of your money is going. These top 3 expenses account for approximately 63% of your household budget! Aren't you curious to learn how you can cut back? In this episode, we provide personal examples and actions we've taken to minimize these costs. 

Here are links to the books, articles, and sites mentioned in this episode: