So Money with Farnoosh Torabi

My guest today is a woman with similar drive and ambition to the So Money Millennials you've already heard from earlier this week. Today's guest is Raya Schwartz, and she is just 25 and has already opened up her own waxing boutique in Tampa, FL!She became an esthetician at 18 in New Mexico, and when she turned 20 got a job at a waxing salon. She made a good salary of over $60k per year, but was unhappy with the way the owners treated the employees. So, she decided go out on her own and start a small spray tan business. In her first year she was able to match her salary from her previous salon!She then moved to Tampa and opened the successful Flirt Wax Bar. Her goal is to be financially and physically free to travel and spend time with her family – and she is well on her way.For more information, visit www.somoneypodcast.com. Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My So Money Millennial today wasn’t a top student or star athlete, but Kristina Ellis, 28, managed to earn half a million dollars in college scholarships by the time she graduated high school in 2005.  . The most recent graduating class finished college with an average $35,000 in student loans – the highest on record.  And of course we’ve heard of students saddled with six figures in student loans. It’s a crisis.For Kristina, after her mother sat her down in the 9th grade and told her she wouldn’t be able to financially support her daughter once she graduated high school, she became empowered to find a way to afford her own future without skipping college or going into massive debt.Instead, she immediately began researching the best ways to qualify for top scholarships. She spearheaded community service missions, coached and grew her gymnastics team and even managed to get crowned Miss Indiana Teen USA. From there Kristina cast a very wide application net and managed to earn $500,000 spread across 20 scholarships, including the Coca-Cola and Gates Millennium Scholar awards.Kristina now shares her strategies to help others win scholarships and graduate from college debt-free in her book, Confessions of a Scholarship Winner, which has ranked in the Top 20 among all books on Barnes and Noble and in the Top 40 on all of Amazon, as well as topping the charts in Amazon's College & University category.For more information visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you think of retiring early…you might think 55..50…Mr. Money Mustache retired when he was 30 – which WAS the youngest age I’d heard of retiring at…until I got an email from my guest today Travis Hornsby. He is 25 years old and claims that he is retired! My first reaction was – WHAT? And then I laughed…and then I thought I really need to talk to him.A little more about Travis: Up until this year he was working as a bond trader at Vanguard. He had passed the CFA exams, and was on track to become a Portfolio Manager, but he realized that he wasn't fulfilled…reminds me of a tony robbins saying that success without fulfillment is FAILURE. Travis had always been a big saver since college, so he decided to take the plunge and start saving two-thirds of his income and live like a pauper with the goal to retire at 25, which he has just achieved. As of right now he is enjoying his retirement by traveling the world. He’s already been all over Europe, and plans to travel to South America and Asia next. Today he’s coming to us all the way from Poland!He has started the website millennialmoola.com to share his advice and help others save and live more. He also has a brand new book called 25 IS THE NEW 65, where he shares his story of how he retired early and shows other millennials how they can do it too.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Ask Farnoosh on So Money podcast, I answer your questions about how to go about firing your financial advisor, online resources to check your resume, the best ways to calculate how much you're saving, and more.  For more information visit www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Ask Farnoosh I answer your biggest questions about renegotiating a job offer, the best financial resources for a So Money fan that's looking for intermediate level literature, what other types of savings accounts you can use if you're planning to retire before 55, how to save for a downpayment on a house, how to grow a business while facing some debt, playing catchup with retirement savings and more.  For more information check out www.somoneypodcast.com.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca Jarvis is the ABC news chief business and economics correspondent and creator, host and managing editor of “Real Biz with Rebecca Jarvis.” She reports for all ABC news programs and platforms… and conducted wide ranging interviews with the biggest names in business, including General Motors’ CEO Mary Barra, mega investor Warren Buffett, Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Rebecca and I first met about six years ago at CBS News. And she’s one of the hardest working people in the industry.In the following interview I put her on the spot and asked her about something she failed to put in her bio… tsk-tsk. Rebecca’s got some fantastic insights to share about her financial journey and the lessons learned as a kid growing up in the Midwest…the big money mistake she made and the impact it had on not only her finances, but her parents’ finances, as well…and how she turned a 6-month trial job into a major 3 year contract.For more information visit www.somoneypodcast.comLearn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So Money singletons, this episode’s for you.  If you’re looking for love and you like technology…our guest today is marrying the two with his new dating app called Hinge. You might have heard of it. I have to be honest, I’m really behind the times when it comes to matchmaking apps. When I was dating years ago, there was Match.com and it was still a little weird to say you met your boyfriend or wife ONLINE. People would make up all sorts of lies…and say “oh and we met at Barnes and Nobles or at a party…when really, you met at 2am online in your pajamas courtesy of match.com.Now the online dating industry is an estimated 2 billion dollar market with popular matchmaking apps like Tinder, Coffee Meets Bagels, Bumble, The League…and a relative new player in the field – Hinge. Our guest today is the founder and CEO of Hinge Justin Mcleod.Hinge is a relationship app that helps people meet through friends.  Unlike apps that show you random people in your area, Hinge shows only people in your social circles. Basically think of Hinge as a good friend who’s trying to set you up with all of their single friends and over time, they start to prioritize matches based on your preferences and tastes.A graduate of Colgate University, Justin took a job in management consulting and then went on to attend Harvard Business School. He always has had a real passion for connecting people and decided to follow it years later when he founded Hinge in February 2011.  Shortly thereafter in February 2013, the app was launched and the rest is history.According to an article released this year, Hinge has made over 8 million matches by late October of last year and boasts 35,500 dates per week and 1,500 relationships happen due to the app. Hinge is currently live in dozens of cities including London, Toronto, Sydney and Mumbai.  Just last year the app’s active user base grew 5x!Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I’m sharing a real rags to riches story. Several years ago my guest J. Massey encountered a series of life-altering events – his pregnant wife had a serious illness, he was in an accident that left him with a punctured lung that prevented him from being able to work, and their family home was foreclosed upon. J. quickly realized that he needed to make changes to be able to survive. So he immersed himself into intensive real estate investor training.He has since become a very, very successful real estate investor and has amassed an impressive portfolio of over 300 units of residential and commercial properties as well as private notes and mortgages.Today, in addition to his extensive real estate work, J. runs a training series that is available for others to learn how to turn their financial lives around, gives speeches and has authored the book Cash Flow Diary: 10 Steps to Creating Wealth in Any Economy.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kids grow fast, which means a whole new set of clothes every few months, which means constantly having to spend money on items your kids will use and then outgrow before you can blink an eye. So how can you keep your kids clothed without throwing money out the window? Thankfully, my guest today, Shannon Wilburn, has an answer: consignment sales.It started in 1997, when Shannon and her friend, both young moms in Tulsa, OK, had the idea to hold a small kids clothes sale in Shannon’s living room with 17 consigners. They sold $2000 in merchandise and each walked away with $150. From there the business, which they named Just Between Friends, grew, and within a few years they were holding multiple day sales in an expo-center in Tulsa and helping other moms start their own sales. In 2004, Shannon franchised the company and now Just Between Friends sales are held all over the country. Some of them even gross over a million dollars each!Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In my Ask Farnoosh episodes I received a number of questions from  you about financial advisors. How do I know I’m ready to work with one? How much do they cost? Is it worth it?I also receive a number of questions about the growing market of “robo advisers” or online advisors that offer more affordable financial planning. You don’t get to meet with an advisor one-on-one but you receive a virtual plan that addresses your goals…And many people are participating. ..Still many are not sure if this is right for them.That’s why I’ve invited today’s guest…co-founder and CEO of Betterment, Jon Stein.  Betterment launched in 2008 and is, as the company says, “a smarter automated investing service that provides optimized investment returns for individual, IRA, Roth IRA & rollover 401(k) accounts… Through diversification, automated rebalancing, better behavior, and lower fees, Betterment customers can expect 4.30% higher returns than a typical DIY investor.” The company also practices automation and passive investing. It’s free to sign up and as your account  balance grows, so does your monthly fee…But it is significantly cheaper than a traditional account fee.Back to Jon, he comes from a background in financial services…and is a graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia Business School.  In addition to holding Series 7, 24 and 63, he is a CFA charterholder.Learn more about Farnoosh's upcoming literary workshop Book to Brand. Early bird registration is now open! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.