Over half of young Americans avoid looking at their money to cope with stress, and the CEO of Acorns says he was one of them. In his twenties, even a guaranteed 2.5% return felt too scary to touch, and it cost him a decade of growth.

Noah Kerner is CEO and chairman of Acorns, the automated saving and investing app whose customers have invested more than $33 billion, often starting with spare change.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why avoiding your money feels like relief, and what it quietly costs you
• How to make saving so small you can't talk yourself out of it
• Why so many people feel pessimistic about money despite a long bull market
• How the app you use can change what you do when markets drop
• Why the best investing strategy is usually the boring one
• How to tell patience from prediction when betting looks like investing
• How a founder copes when his body forces him to stop working

If you've been putting off looking at your accounts, or you're tempted by faster ways to grow your money, this conversation offers a calmer path forward.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

Note: Timestamps may vary slightly depending on dynamic ad placements.

(00:00) Over half of young people avoid their money

(02:39) How fear cost him a decade of investing

(04:44) Why money feels more taboo than sex

(11:12) Why saving 13 cents beats saving nothing

(13:54) Why people feel broke during a long bull market

(17:48) Same $10,000, different app, different behavior

(22:54) Why the best investing is boring

(28:49) Patience vs. prediction: how wealth really grows

(46:48) When his body forced him to stop working

(54:20) Living with the odds that most businesses fail

🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED

👉 AVOIDING YOUR MONEY COST HIM A DECADE. FIND OUT IF YOU'RE AN AVOIDER TOO: https://affordanything.com/fiire

👉 Noah Kerner: https://www.acorns.com/noah

👉 Acorns: https://www.acorns.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A bond fund that lost 38% feels like proof you should have bought individual bonds instead. But individual bonds would have lost value too; you just wouldn’t get a statement telling you so.

Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy joins Paula to answer three listener calls. The first comes from an executor deciding whether to move his late father’s $500,000 brokerage account to cash during probate (the court process of settling an estate). The second is from an investor whose bond fund lost 38% in six years, and the third is from a 401(k) plan manager of 23 years who pushes back on Joe’s take on target-date funds.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How an executor can protect an estate’s value without market timing
• Why splitting the money 50/50 between stocks and cash can work, if every heir agrees
• Why individual bonds lose value when rates spike too, even when no statement shows it
• How a bond advertising 6% can still lose you money if you overpay for it
• When a bond fund makes more sense than individual bonds, and vice versa
• Why short-term bonds can drag down a long-term portfolio
• Whether target-date funds are a smart default or a first step to outgrow

If you’re settling a parent’s estate, second-guessing your bonds, or wondering whether your 401(k) default is good enough, this episode gives you a way to weigh the tradeoffs instead of reaching for a one-size-fits-all rule.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

Note: Timestamps may vary slightly depending on dynamic ad placements.

(00:00) Why disability insurance costs so much

(09:10) An executor’s $500K dilemma: stay invested or cash out?

(11:41) Why Joe would move the estate to cash

(15:13) The 50/50 split both hosts can live with

(24:56) Her bond fund lost 38%. Now what?

(27:33) Why individual bonds wouldn’t have dodged the loss

(32:48) How a “6%” bond can still lose money

(35:20) Why Paula bought her first bonds at 5.2%

(53:54) A 401(k) plan manager defends target-date funds

(1:05:40) Why so many people ignore their own money

🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED

OUTGROWING YOUR TARGET-DATE FUND? HERE’S WHICH ACCOUNT EACH NEW FUND BELONGS IN 👉 https://affordanything.com/assetlocation

Free executor checklist from Stacking Benjamins 👉 https://stackingbenjamins.com/estate

Buy Treasury bonds directly from the government 👉 https://www.treasurydirect.gov

Share your worst investment mistake for a future episode 👉 https://affordanything.com/voicemail

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

#761: Roughly 3 million Americans who own private businesses — car dealerships, beer distributors, dental practices — are collectively worth more than ten times the entire Forbes 400. Most of them didn't start rich, and you've probably never heard of a single one.

Economists Owen Zidar (Princeton) and Eric Zwick (University of Chicago Booth School of Business) spent more than a decade linking anonymized tax records to the people who own America's private businesses. They share what they found in their new book, The Everywhere Millionaire.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why owning all of a small business can rival owning a sliver of a startup
• Which unglamorous industries quietly produce the most wealth
• How to decide whether to buy an existing business or start your own
• How retiring owners and seller financing (paying the owner back over time) open doors for buyers
• How to run cheap experiments so no single failure wipes you out
• When to double down on one business versus diversify
• What the data says about whether you need to be born rich

If you're weighing a steady paycheck against owning something yourself, this conversation shows who actually takes that path, what it demands, and how often it pays off.

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

Note: Timestamps may vary slightly depending on dynamic ad placements.

(02:20) Why 3 million business owners outweigh the Forbes 400

(06:13) The overlooked businesses behind America's quiet fortunes

(11:22) Why retiring owners could be your buying opportunity

(17:31) Own all of something small, not 2% of a unicorn

(21:36) Buy a business or start one?

(29:24) How to fail small without getting wiped out

(34:35) What yacht and private jet data revealed

(44:20) Most successful founders didn't grow up rich

(01:06:31) Double down or diversify once it works?

(01:18:51) Should you leave a high-paying job for this?

🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED

👉 Buy a retiring owner's business or build your own? Find the ownership path that fits your money and risk: https://affordanything.com/fiire

👉 The Everywhere Millionaire (book): https://link.amazon/B04y1xfaU

👉 The Everywhere Millionaire on Substack: https://everywheremillionaire.substack.com

👉 The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko: https://link.amazon/B01HtGgHg

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.