Afford Anything - Ask Paula - How Do I Hire an All-Star Rental Property Team?

Episode Date: August 28, 2017

#92: If you're interested in real estate investing, and if you've wondered how to assemble an all-star team, today's episode is for you. I'm hosting another edition of Ask Paula, in which I tackle three audience-submitted questions about building a team as a real estate investor. Salome from Cincinnati asks: Who are the people I'll need on my real estate team? How much will I spend in paying them? And how can I find them? Doug from Louisiana asks: I've saved $20,000 as the downpayment on a rental property. Should I use this money? Or should I look for a loan that can cover a larger chunk of the financing? Also, how should I look for a tenant? Should I handle this myself, or hire a property manager? Patricia from California asks: I live in Bay Area. I cannot buy a house here. I want to buy a rental property in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I've identified the specific property/neighborhood in which I want to invest. How can I start assembling a team from out-of-state? For a full list of resources from this episode, visit http://affordanything.com/episode92 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford absolutely everything you want all the time. Just kidding. You can afford anything, but not everything. Every decision that you make is a trade-off against something else. So if there's something that you really want, whether that's travel or an early retirement, or to send your kids to college, if there's something that drives you,

you can afford it even if you don't necessarily recognize that you can. It's just that you can't afford everything. So the question becomes, what decisions are we going to make, what's most important to us, And how do we align our day-to-day actions with those decisions? This is the Afford Anything podcast, which is dedicated to finding the answers to those questions. And today, I am taking questions that you, the listeners, have sent in.

Now, I recently did a real estate episode, and I don't like to do too many of those consecutively because this is, like, hashtag not a real estate show. And when I want to emphasize a point, I put a hashtag around it for some reason. But I've been getting a lot of real estate questions, and so, hey, that's what we're going to talk about today. And actually, I like these questions that I've been getting because they're kind of cool because they, well, as you'll hear, they lead into ways to think like an investor. So even for those of you who are listening who might not be interested in real estate, hopefully what you get out of this show, out of today's episode, are ways of thinking about a problem or ways of addressing or solving a problem. With that said, let's get started. Our first question is from Salomi, who lives in my hometown, Cincinnati. Hi, Paula. This is Salomi from Cincinnati. Love the podcast. Keep up the great work. My question is that my husband and I are evaluating rental income as a passive income stream. And we're wondering how heavily we should factor in the cost of having a good team to make that a successful choice. By that I mean, should we try to assemble a team from the get-go or kind of learn as we go? I'm assuming, quote, the team entails like a property management company, an accountant, a lawyer,

Is there anyone else that we need on a good team? And how do you find great options, just trial and error? Or do you use something like Angie's list? I appreciate your thoughts. Thanks. Bye. So what I'm actually hearing are three questions inside of that. I'm hearing, who do I need on my team? How do I factor for the cost of hiring them?

And how do I find them? So three questions inside of that. Let's take them one at a time. First, here are the people you'll need. And some of them cost money and some of them don't. First and foremost, you will need emotional support. You'll need support from your family and friends. And particularly a spouse or partner, if you are part of a couple, your spouse or partner absolutely has to be on board.

Because if they are against what you're doing or if you're fighting about it every step of the way, your life's going to suck. So I'm not a relationship expert, but Dr. Paula says make sure that your partner is cool with the fact that you're investing in real estate. estate and is like, you know, supportive and encouraging and that cheerleader in your corner. That's number one. In terms of actual people that you're going to hire and pay, you will need a real estate agent, a mortgage banker, an insurance agent, an attorney, a CPA. You'll want either a general contractor who directly hires and manages subcontractors or you'll want to develop a relationship with a generalist contractor, like a handyman of sorts. Plus, you'll then need relationships with your own relationships with specific subcontractors,

such as an electrician, a plumber, etc. You'll want somebody who handles lawn care and pest control. And since you're based in Ohio, snow removal, particularly if you have a multi-unit, if you have a single family home, that may not be an issue. In terms of finding of the property, you may or may not decide to form relationships with wholesalers and other people who can kind of help you look for properties. and in any event you'll need a property manager and for turnovers you'll want a house cleaner as well. So those are the people on your team.

That sounds like a really long list. When I sit here and rattle it off like that, it sounds like a lot. But you find these people slowly. So, okay, let's go to the second part of your question, which is how to factor for the cost of them. And after that, let me tackle a little bit more specifically how to find them. So first, here is how to estimate the cost of hiring these people. So first of all, when you analyze a property, run the numbers as though you're outsourcing everything. And the reason for that is that math should never be dependent on the identity of the individual performing a task.

Math, in other words, should be identity agnostic. So let math be math and do so by plugging in the fair market rate for every task that you're considering. This way, even if you choose to handle certain tasks yourself, like for example, if you choose to buy locally and manage your own properties yourself for a couple of years, you can replace yourself and the numbers stay the same. When I moved from Atlanta to Las Vegas, I actually living out of town, living out of state from my rentals was fantastic insofar as it forced me to absolutely treat it like a business. And I was already really treating it like a business, but there is nothing like living 2,000 miles away from me. your properties that really freaking forces you to run it like a business. And fortunately, I had always run the analyses as though I was outsourcing everything. So the returns on my property stayed the same. In other words, the validity of whether or not a particular property was a

good investment did not change. Okay, now, let's go back to that long list of people who are part of your team. Some of these people, you either don't pay or you don't pay directly. So obviously, emotional support from family and friends, that comes free. Your real estate agent, if you're the buyer, you're not going to pay or directly pay the real estate agent when you're on the buying side of the transaction. So that's cool. Your mortgage banker. Another example, this is someone he or she is someone who is critical, especially if you buy multiple properties, this person is absolutely critical. And yet, this is not somebody whom you pay directly. Their compensation gets included within the closing costs. And your insurance agent, again, you're not going to

directly write a check to this person. Their compensation is also baked in. By the way, in the show notes, which are going to be available at afford anything.com slash episode 92, I can leave the contact information for my insurance broker and either he can help you or he can refer you to somebody who can. So feel free to give him a shout. The many, many people who have asked for my contractor's information, no, I'm sorry. He's fully tasked by me and you're not getting my contractor. His time is limited and mine. But I am happy to pass along the name of my mortgage guy, my insurance agent,

to other people who have spare capacity. to take on other clients. Oh, if you're in the Atlanta area, I can pass you the name of my property manager as well. Okay, so anyway, back to your question. How do you estimate how much you pay these people? So some of these people, like the types of industries that I've just named, you do not pay directly. Others you do. Property managers, normally, I mean, it varies, of course, but for the purposes of analysis, I would make a ballpark estimate of about 10% of gross rents. If your property manager, many of them charge a finder's fee in addition to collecting an ongoing fee. So if they place a tenant, then they will often charge a finder's fee of between

half a month to one month's rent. For the purpose of doing an analysis, you can plug that into the equation, into the spreadsheet by increasing their compensation by 1%. So in other words, if you are working with a property management company that charges an ongoing fee of 10% of gross rent, plus they charge a finder's fee when they place a tenant of one month's rent, then in order to adjust for this within that spreadsheet, estimate that they're going to charge 11% in total. Functionally, what this does is it amortizes their finder's fee across the span of a year and allows you to then plug that into your spreadsheet when you are running the numbers on a So that's ballpark how much you can estimate for your property manager. Now, in terms of

how much you would pay contractors, this is where it gets a little tricky because for this, you need to estimate the cost of ongoing repairs and maintenance. Now, I'm not talking about upfront renovations that get it rent ready for the first tenant. I'm talking about ongoing repairs and maintenance, i.e. operating expenses throughout the life of your property. The general rule of thumb, and this is a very rough ballpark, but the rule of thumb is approximately 1% of the property value per year. So for every $100,000 worth of house, the general rule of thumb is to estimate about $1,000 per year or $83 per month. And that's for operational maintenance. So for example, gutter cleaning, snow removal, restaining the deck, tuning up the AC, just those just those,

general maintenance and minor repair type of activities. Now, you'll also have an expense that's known as CAPEX or major capital expenditures. This covers things like replacing the roof, replacing the windows, replacing the cabinets and countertops, all of those major renovations that need to happen. Again, not up front because that's calculated differently, but over the life of your ownership of the property, you will eventually, if you own a property long enough, you'll have to place the flooring and the siding and the windows and all of that. So your original question was, of course, how do you estimate the amount of money that you would be paying to the people on your team? And in order to know that, you're going to have to estimate cap X. So in order to do that,

in order to get the most accurate estimate, you'll need a spreadsheet. So in column A, list every major item within the property, all of its major components. Column B, list the total lifespan of each of those components and column C, you can then calculate its cost per year of each component. So for example, let's say that you have an asphalt shingle roof that, based on its size, costs $12,000 to replace and needs to be replaced every 24 years. That means your roof costs $500 per year, or $42 a month. So that would be in one row of that spreadsheet, right? And then in the next row, let's say you've got flooring, and your flooring costs $3,000 to replace,

and it needs to be replaced every 10 years. That means your flooring costs $300 a year or $30 a month. So if you do this with every major component within the house, you'll be able to estimate CAPEX expenses for that property. Now, bear in mind, this is over the long-term life of the property. Your short-term expenses, meaning your actual CAP-X outlays within the next two to 10 years, will, of course, depend on the age and condition of the property at the time. of purchase. But what you're doing in this step is you're calculating the long-term aggregate

cost of CAP-X. You're at least making an estimate of that. Now, I want to pause here and say that there's always a risk when we talk about generalized rules of thumb, but rules of thumb are developed because they're easy. And there are some investors who, as a general rule of thumb, will estimate that CAP-X will cost somewhere between 8 to 10% of gross rent. And I hesitate to say that because there are many problems with that rule of thumb. Just as there are a lot of problems with the previous rule of thumb I mentioned, 1% of the purchase price of the property as repairs and maintenance. Lots of, I mean, I think when you've stopped to think about it, some fairly obvious holes in that logic. What are the labor costs in your area? What are the material

cost in your area? What's the size or square footage of house that needs to be covered? What are the age and condition of the components? I mean, those are the actual factors that give you an actual price, But again, these rules of thumb exist so that people can take those quick shortcuts when you're doing just a first pass look at a property. Now let me zoom out for a second and make sort of a meta note about what we're doing here. We're estimating the total cost of repairs, maintenance, and CAPX rather than line itemizing out the cost of labor as compared with the cost of materials. So your original question was about the cost of the team. What is the cost of hiring contractors? What is the cost of all of these people who are on my team?

But when you are accepting contractor bids, many contractors you'll find will bid on the whole project, which includes labor and materials and demo and Holloway and permits. They'll bid on the whole job. So you'll want to run estimates not on isolating the labor per se, but on assessing all of the operating expenses. Because at the end of the day, that's what you really care about. You care about not what is a team cost, but what are the operating costs of the property? That's the real question.

That's really quite literally the million dollar question. And again, notice that once you've calculated the operating costs on a property, well, then you can very quickly calculate what the cap rate of that property is. And when you're evaluating a property, it all ties back to cap rate. That is the kernel of, is this property a good investment or not? What is the cap rate? So let me get to the third part of your question. So the three parts to your question, who is on the team?

How do I estimate the costs of these people on the team? And how do I find good people? How do I attract and hire and retain talent? Couple of tips here. So first of all, referrals. Talk to other investors, specifically talk to investors. pretty much all of the good people I found have come from referrals from other investors. And you get that from, I mean, you heard what I just said.

You know, I was like, hey, anybody on my team who has capacity to take on somebody new, I'll happily pass it along because, you know, that's how I met people. So once you get inside the world of real estate investing, once you start to meet other investors, knowing investors gives you an informational advantage. You know, really, it's kind of like any other hiring. Like, you know that expression? Like, you need to know people. What's the expression about?

Something about you need to know people in order to get a job. Or it's who you know. Same thing. I mean, it's who you know. So meet other investors in the particular area in which your property is located and then ask them who they use. Now, if and when you can't do this or if you're just new to working with a person, here's my second tip. Know what you're listening for.

So if a contractor or an agent or anybody gives you the type of advice or recommendations that he or she would give to an owner occupant, don't work with them. So here's what I mean. The people on your team, your contractor, your agents, they should recognize that what you want as an investor is not the same as what an owner occupant would want. and if they don't see that or if you find yourself having to constantly explain that, delete their number. So if a contractor, for example, upsells you or attempts to upsell you to like some low VOC organic paint and then beveled edging on the countertops and stuff that's like cute, then that contractor at a, I think, very fundamental level, does not understand that you are an environment. Even if you've said that many times, that contractor still doesn't understand that your thinking process is going to be different than that of an owner-occupant. Your decision-making process, your decision-making framework is going to be different.

Likewise, if you're working with a real estate agent and that agent tries to emotionally sell you on a property, like, oh, it's so cute, look at the brick fireplace, then that's an indicator that they don't get it because as an investor, I'm not looking for cute. I'm looking for returns. And by the way, another thing, if you're working with a real estate agent and they are constantly talking about appreciation, don't work with them. And that's for two reasons. Number one, they're assuming that they know what you want. They hear the word investor and they assume that that means that you're chasing appreciation, which if you listen to this podcast, and, you know, you know I have a very specific investing philosophy when it comes to rental property investing,

a big portion of which is to never ever invest in real estate for the sake of future market appreciation. You can assume that your property will keep pace with inflation, but nothing more. Any additional appreciation if it happens is icing on the cake. That is, unfortunately, perhaps a little unusual in the world of buy and hold real estate investing. but it is a core component of my philosophy. And because it is so unusual, a lot of people in the real estate world do not, I think, really understand that not all investors are looking for appreciation. So if you're working with an agent who's just talking about appreciation nonstop, then they don't really get what you're looking for. Oh, and the second reason that I would not work with an agent who's always talking about that is because

frankly, they don't have any skin in the game if the property or if the neighborhood does not appreciate. They'll sell you on the idea that it will. Oh, I really think this neighborhood is going to go up in the next five years. But you know what? They have no skin in the game if it doesn't. So I suppose what I'm really trying to say is that when you are evaluating people, the big turnoff, I think, regardless of whether you're trying to evaluate a contractor or an agent or whomever is the big turnoff are people who make assumptions about what you want or people who,

worse, try to tell you what you should want. I have had many conversations with previous contractors before I found the current one that I'm working with where I'd hand them a drawing of, you know, we're doing a complete kitchen like demo gut remodel. and I would hand them a drawing of what I wanted that kitchen to look like, where all of the cabinets would be placed. And they would criticize it not based on some important point that I had overlooked, you know, not based on some type of criteria that would be pertinent to an investor. No, but they would instead critique it for basically for not being fancy enough.

Like, oh, you're not putting in a cabinet over the refrigerator? Well, no, not for this particular, not for this property in this location. Oh, but it would look so much more polished. Well, I get that for a Class A property, but not for this one. So I had that conversation many, many times before, you know, eventually I realized, hey, these are people who they don't really get what I'm looking for, and I need to work with people who do. And again, that goes back to the importance of getting.

getting referrals specifically from other investors because what investors want is so different from what owner occupants want that you want to make sure that you are working with a team of people who have worked with investors in the past or who ideally only work with investors or predominantly work with investors because those are the ones who will get it. Okay. So that was a long answer to your question. This is funny. I started the podcast. podcast by being like, oh, you know, I don't want to talk about real estate too much. And then, like, I get super passionate once I start talking and just go on a roll. Hey, hey, we'll be back to the show in a second. But first, I want to give a shout out to Fresh Books. They have signed on as one of our main sponsors in 2017. And they have an awesome product. It's meant for freelancers, soulopreneurs, small business owners. If you have a side hustle or if you're self-employed and you need to send out invoices to your clients, yeah, it's necessary. You've got to send invoeners. invoices to get paid, but it's also annoying and it's time-consuming and nobody really likes doing it. It's just one of those costs of doing the job. Inter Fresh Books. They automate the invoicing system.

You type in some basic information and their system handles the rest. It automatically sends follow-ups to invoices that haven't gotten paid. It lets you know whether or not your client has even opened your invoice or not. Basically, they take the suckiness out of invoicing. Give them a try for free for 30 days at Fresh and. I'm freshbooks.com slash paula. That's freshbooks.com slash p a u. I want to give a shout out to Bluehost.

If you're interested in starting your own blog, check out Bluehost. They're a company that offers hosting, which is basically the term for the space on the internet where your blog lives. Absolutely fantastic if you are getting started as a blogger and you need hosting and a domain name. You can learn how to set up a Bluehost account

in five minutes or less by visiting afford anything.com slash start a blog where I've got a full set of detailed instructions, step-by-step guide, including screenshots of every step along the way, plus a YouTube video. Check that out, afford anything.com slash start a blog. Let's listen to our next question. This one comes from Doug. Hey, Paula, Doug from Louisiana here. I've been listening to your show for a couple months now, I'm probably going on a year. And I really love the show. We really enjoy all the information.

My question is about getting into a first-time rental property. My wife and I, we do have some savings, some of which is about $20,000 that we think we would want to put down for a rental property. Not here in Louisiana, but in a different region, different city. My question is, do we use that money first? or do we use that money or is it better to go to a credit union or a bank and get approved for a $20,000 loan to use to put down as a down payment? And then I'm always wondering about the first initial steps of getting a rental property. Obviously, secure the financing. What happens if we don't get approved?

Do we use that money? And then what about finding a tenant? Do we hire a property manager? Do we do it ourselves? I guess there's a lot of legwork involved. I'm just wondering how that process really works. What are those steps that you took? Maybe we could kind of emulate.

Thanks again for the information and really enjoy listening to the show. Hey, Doug, congratulations on saving that money. So first, I'm going to assume that this $20,000 is in addition to a personal emergency fund that you have. So that if you were to lose a job or have a medical emergency or something like that, I assume that you have a separate personal emergency. fund that could deal with that. Starting from that assumption, if this 20,000 is your entire rental property fund, that's awesome. I would not tie up the full amount in the down payment because you will, you will want extra padding, extra like an extra cash buffer so that you can make any upfront

repairs and maintenance that's necessary, maybe get somebody to clean the house before you take photos for the listing, the rental listing, and you'll want some padding so that you can pay the bills during a vacancy, you know, because it might take a month or two to find a tenant. You'll want to make sure that you have enough money to be able to pay the mortgage and pay for the maintenance during that time. So I would initially keep three months of mortgage payments on hand as a buffer initially. And eventually, you'll want your goal should be to at least three months of gross rental income. So, for example, if the property rents for $2,000 a month, you'll want to keep at least $6,000 per month around as a buffer. And the reason for that is because of a very, very broad rule of thumb that's known as the 50% rule.

Again, very generalized rule of thumb, a lot of holes that you can poke in it. But basically what this says is that as a ballpark estimate, the operating costs on a property will be about 50% of your gross rental. income. And so if you keep three months of gross rent around, then that, when looked at through the lens of the 50% rule of thumb, what that means is that you have six months worth of operating expenses. In fact, if you really wanted to like go super All-Star, you could save three months of gross rent plus six months of the P&I portion of the mortgage payment. If you really wanted to go All-Star, that would be like the epic emergency rental property emergency. fund to hold. But at least in the beginning, you know, I don't want to like overwhelm me with

emergency fund theory. At least in the beginning, I would recommend keeping a minimum of three months mortgage payments around plus a little bit extra for maintenance and cleaning and so forth, just to get you started. Now, as to your question about borrowing money for a down payment, many banks and credit unions will not loan money for a down payment. Now, there are, there are workarounds to this and you can get multiple mortgages, blah, blah, blah, but I don't really think that you need to go down that road. It seems to me that you could use at least between $12,000 to $15,000 that you already have in cash. It seems to me that you could use that for a down payment. And in the southeastern part of the nation, you know, I know you mentioned that you want to invest in a different city, but, you know, in many places around Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi and Georgia,

in many places in the southeastern U.S., you will find a lot of low-priced inventory. So 15,000 could be an epic, like 20, 25, 30% down payment on a lot of the properties that you can find in that region. Now, as far as finding a tenant, you mentioned that the property that you're interested in will be located in another city. So hiring a property manager will be the easiest path to finding a tenant because you're not going to be able to be able to. able to do showings in another city. So if you get a property manager, you can let them handle it. They're available on call at a moment's notice to do showings and answer questions and find a qualified tenant for you. Thank you so much for asking. I hope that helps. Congratulations again on saving that $20,000. That takes a lot of work and you should be really proud of yourself

for that. That's awesome. Most people don't do that. And as a result, you know, a lot of people just aren't able to take advantage of investing opportunities, and you're putting yourself in a position where you can. So that is absolutely to be commended. Thank you so much, Doug, and good luck. Okay, our final question comes from Patricia. Hi, Paula. My name is Patricia, and I live in the Bay Area. As you know, the prices here are terribly expensive. Fortunately, my rent is reasonable, but I can't afford to buy a house here.

So I was thinking of buying a rental property in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I've done my homework. I've looked at some properties from here. And I know more or less the kind of property and neighborhood that I like, that I'd be interested in investing in. Now, my question is, how do you go about finding a manager and contractors and just a general team that you need in order to, to manage the house for you when you're out of state and you don't have any contacts where you want to invest.

That's the part that's stumping me right now. Okay. I appreciate your answer. Thank you. Hey, today must be Louisiana Day on the podcast. So to answer your question, let me tell you what I did. I recently went through this myself. I decided to expand into the Birmingham, Alabama area. And so I think to answer your question, I'll just walk you through what I did. And hopefully there are some takeaways that you can glean from that. I have no ties to Birmingham, Alabama, or anywhere in Alabama. I have no family there, no friends there. I've never lived there.

As I was building the real estate course, I interviewed a man who invests in Montgomery, Alabama. He himself is in the military. At the time of the interview, he was stationed in Germany. Now he's stationed in South Korea. and so we talked about it at length. And that kind of initially got me interested in the Montgomery market. And so that was when I started looking at Alabama. And my friend Emma, who is also a rental property investor,

and she's been on a previous episode of this podcast, a link to it in the show notes, she was also interested in checking out Birmingham. So earlier this summer in June or July, we flew out there, Emma and I both did, and we spent two days in Birmingham and one day in Montgomery. Because we were there for such a short period of time, we had to be very prepared for the trip. So here's what we did in order to facilitate that.

First, before we flew out there, we emailed absolutely anyone and everyone that we knew who had any remote tie to those places because we did not have anything. We went on the Bigger Pockets forums and just looked for anyone who was tied to the Birmingham area and again just reached out to all of them and you know a lot of them were not necessarily doing what we wanted to do like one particular woman who we met with is heavily involved in tax liens which is just not what I do it's not my area of expertise and it's not where I want to go into so anyway my point of telling you that is that even though there were people in Birmingham who were doing different things in real estate than what Emma and I wanted to

do we still made a point to go meet with them because they are real estate investors in that area. And so, you know, we met her. We had had some drinks with her and just chatted with her and got to know more about the area. And it was by virtue of doing several rounds of this that we eventually found the name of a real estate agent who came highly recommended from some investors that we had talked to. My last day in Birmingham, Emma had already flown back home, that agent and I towards several properties. By this point, we had already narrowed down to like what neighborhood in Birmingham we wanted to be in. And this one particular property that we looked at had some significant structural

damage. You could see major cracks in the foundation. And so then I asked him, well, you know, who do you know? And because he's an agent who specializes in working with investors, he knew exactly which company to call that would be appropriate to a repair, a major repair like that. So in essence, I suppose what I'm saying is that you start wide. You start by just meeting absolutely anybody at all who has any tangential relationship with real estate in that area, in your case, that would be Baton Rouge. And in the beginning, because you are starting your networking, you're starting this relationship building from scratch, you don't have a strong filter. You're just, you're trying to cast a very wide net. And by virtue of doing so, you will meet one or two key people who introduce you to one or two other key people who then just keep referring you and keep introducing you on down the line.

I guess the short way of answering this question is you meet people through people. Now, in my case, I was in Birmingham for two days and I was able to make significant progress during that time. Now, largely that's because before flying out there, Emma and I, really, really Emma, I have to thank Emma for this, spent a lot of time just sending emails to people, reaching out to people, saying, hey, we're going to be in town for two days. Can we meet during that time? So we did the prep work in advance so that when we were there for those two days, it was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, meet, meet, meet, coffee, coffee, coffee. That's how we did it. And the really great, the excellent thing about being there was by the end of my time in Birmingham, I was able to identify the specific neighborhood that I wanted to invest in. The purpose of our trip, really, initially the purpose of our trip was to decide between Birmingham versus Montgomery. We ended up doing even better than that.

We not only chose Birmingham, but I also chose the specific neighborhood that I wanted to be in and found an agent that I wanted to work with. So the trip went in two days. Wow, that was much better. Two days in Birmingham, one in Montgomery. It went a lot better than I expected. All right, well, that is all for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend.

Also, head to iTunes or Stitcher or Overcast or podcast addict or whatever player you use, and hit subscribe and leave a review. And while you're there, upvote some of the other reviews that you find helpful. Coming up on the show in the next couple of weeks, we have an interview with David Stein, a former investment strategist and the host of the podcast Money for the rest of us. He and I are going to be discussing investing philosophies, particularly around market investing, stock and index fund investing. So you want to tune in for that. And then also we've got Pete McItis on the show. He is the host of a podcast called How to Be Awesome at Your Job, and he's going to talk about how to be awesome at your job.

We also, and I'm really excited about this one, we have Jen Granaman on the show. She is the author of a book called The Secret Lives of Introverts. This is a fascinating book and an excellent conversation on how introverts can succeed at work, at home, and at life. So all of that is coming up in future weeks. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast. I'll catch you next week. So before I record each show, I go through some warm-up.

in order to make sure that my enunciation and diction is solid. And, well, sometimes I end up kind of talking to myself and inventing some crazy stuff. Here's what I got this week. Costco can of clam jam. Costco can of clam jam. Costco can of clam jam. Costco can of clam jam. Peter Piper picked a...

What the f*** did Peter Piper pick?