I am such a huge podcast nerd. Like, I’m the type of person that will save the best personal finance podcasts for my workouts and listen to those rather than music. Might sound ridiculous, right? This is a real-life conversation:
My wife: “What do you listen to when you work out?”
Me: “My personal finance podcasts”
Her: “You listen to personal finance podcasts? How can you get motivated to lift or run when you’re listening to that boring stuff?”
Me: “Because that stuff motivates me”
Her: “Ok Nerd.”
Honestly, I agree – I am a nerd. Most people love to listen to music when they workout and I understand that I am most definitely in the minority. I just think there is so much knowledge out there that when I only have a 10-minute commute to work, I don’t have many opportunities to listen to podcasts, so working out is my time.
Maybe you’re not like me and that’s fine, but you might have a longer commute, do a lot of chores where you can listen to them, or maybe you can just listen to podcasts while you work (I can’t do that – it takes away my focus from work). Regardless, rather than you wandering around the Apple Podcast app trying to find the best personal finance podcasts, I figured I’d try to save you the time and just give you my own personal recommendations!
I mean, if they’re good enough for a psycho like myself to workout to them, they must be pretty dang good!
1 – The Investing for Beginners Podcast
By far, the best podcast that I have ever listened to is the Investing for Beginners Podcast. I might sound biased because I am writing an article on the Investing for Beginners blog, but the only reason that I am writing the article is because I started with the Podcast.
I had reached a point in my life where I was sick of always having to play catchup with my expenses, just to never actually feel caught up. I felt like it was a constant cycle of just earning and then spending with barely saving any money. I made it a point to always max out my 401k match, which is absolutely imperative for all investors to do, but that was the extent of the investing that I did.
I took some time to read and research what to do to get ahead, once and for all, and the answer was investing. I always thought of investing as being some insanely complex science until I listened to the Investing for Beginners Podcast.
Andrew and Dave broke down the scarriers (scary barriers) of investing. I always thought of investing as gambling but that was nothing more than one of many myths that people say about investing. They made things simple and made them very easy to understand.
The personal finance series they did is a perfect place to start:
- IFB60: Personal Finance 101: Money Lessons to Our 5 Year Olds
- IFB61: Personal Finance 102: Building Assets in the Adult World
- IFB62: Personal Finance 103: Managing Personal Cash Flow
- IFB63: Personal Finance 104: Designing Your Investment Lifestyle
- IFB64: Personal Finance 105: Maximizing Passive Income
You can expect to learn all sorts of topics about investing, hear from some great guests on the show (such as my favorite, Braden Dennis), and even hear some great personal finance tips from yours truly.
I guarantee you will come out of the podcast with some new piece of knowledge, and maybe you’ll even learn to be a great stock picker like Andrew is in his eLetter!
I absolutely love Motley Fool Money, especially if you’re an active Investor. The reason that I love Motley Fool Money is because it’s a weekly podcast where they talk about some big news on major stocks in the past week. They’re never really pitching anything and they’re just giving their unbiased advice.
They also will end each podcast with some stocks on their watchlist which I absolutely love because it shows the importance of continuing to think about different companies that might become investment worthy, or maybe they are already.
Honestly, I really could have just said that I love the Motley Fool in general because I think that they have multiple great podcasts. A lot of them are very similar with different hosts but they all generally do the same thing – talking about stocks.
I recommend checking out any of the podcasts below to give them a whirl!
Ok Personal Finance Nerds – this one is TOTALLY for you. Bigger Pockets covers all sorts of topics from the stock market to real estate to getting out of debt, and they do a fantastic job doing so.
Personally, when it comes to true “personal finance”, I think of the basics – getting out of debt, spending less than you earn, becoming financially independent, etc. In that regard, I think that Bigger Pockets Money is the best. Now, I don’t have them ranked as #1 because I personally prefer the investing side of personal finance, but if you’re just getting started on your journey and want to learn the simple basics, you can’t go wrong with Bigger Pockets Money.
They put out weekly shows that always have a guest on to tell their story about financial independence. I love that there is always a very wide range of guests in regard to how they became financially independent, and they talk about all different topics and methods to get there.
One of my favorite recent episodes was with Tony J Robinson, where he talked about getting out of student debt quickly and how he is continuing to grow to Financial Independence (FI).
He is still very young and I could relate with his story because he talks about his past and his past decisions as just being stupid, as were some of mine. I won’t spoil all of the things that he says but his strategy was very eye-opening and motivating because he was able to accomplish major financial accomplishments in a very short period of time, and he didn’t do anything that anyone can’t do.
I opened up this post by talking about how one of the main reasons that I like to listen to personal finance podcasts when I workout because they’re super motivating, and Bigger Pockets Money is really one of those podcasts.
Their guests are always super informed and have these stories that just make me want to completely rework and optimize my life, and I feel like I end up busting through my workout as fast as humanly possible so I can go to my office and start to rework my budget and find a way to save more money and get to retirement even sooner.
I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but just give it a whirl. If you’re just getting started on your FI journey, start with Bigger Pockets Money. Knowledge is essential for reaching Financial Independence, but if you don’t have the motivation to change your life, you never will – that’s where they come in!
I really like the Dough Roller Podcast because a lot of the podcasts come from questions in their Facebook group so you know they’re actually real, legitimate questions that people are asking. I think that Rob does a great job at covering a variety of comments and he tends to do podcasts on topics that really never expire, if that makes sense.
When I first started listening to that podcast, it was in 2020 and I very quickly got addicted to the podcast. I then found myself going back through older episodes and those were just as entertaining and beneficial as all of the current episodes.
One thing that Rob does that I really love is he talks in-depth about a lot of the topics rather than just glazing over them. For instance, in the episode titled “How Much Dough Should You Spend in Retirement?” he really goes through some of the expenses that you should actually plan for and then covers a lot of the important plans to make sure you’re prepared. For instance, the 4% rule.
The one bad thing about the Dough Roller Podcast is that the episodes seemingly only come out monthly. I feel like that’s because Rob is at a place where he’s really doing this for nothing more than to educate people, which obviously is one of the real reasons I get sucked into the episodes because I think he’s just genuinely trying to teach listeners with no other agenda.
I highly recommend you check it out. If you’re anything like me and you thrive on these episodes for a sense of motivation and keeping you on track, I’m willing to bet that you get as addicted as I am!
5 – The Millennial Investing Podcast
The Millennial Investing Podcast is rounding out my top 5 list of the best personal finance podcasts! The reasons that I love this podcast are because:
1 – I am a millennial
2 – I invest
Kidding, but also serious. I love that this podcast takes a younger, newer approach on investing that seems to resonate a little bit more with me than some of the other investing podcasts that you might listen to.
My experience is that a lot of the investing podcasts that you will find typically focus on value investing, which is great, but I always like to make sure I have a well-rounded knowledge base so I can make sure that I am making the best investing decisions and not just falling into a value trap.
Robert Leonard, the host of the podcast, always has great guests on the podcast to share their opinions and talk about their expertise. For instance, he recently had on Kevin O’Leary, who many of you might be familiar with from Shark Tank, one of my favorite shows of all-time.
Millennial Investing is just one of a few great podcasts that are put on by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Chances are, you have probably heard of We Study Billionaires but they actually offer a few other great podcasts too:
Now, Millennial Investing is definitely my favorite, which is why that one made my list…I think the rest would be honorable mention ?
I really like this podcast because I think the guests are interesting (honestly 100% of the time) and Robert just does a great job at asking questions that would relate to his own investing life, therefore also pertaining to my investment philosophy as well.
Even if the topic is something that might not seem right up your alley, I would be willing to bet that by the end of the episode, you’re going to be happy that you listened to it.
Summary
If I were you, I would immediately go to your Podcast provider and just subscribe to all 5 of these shows! All of them are going to be able to provide you with some great knowledge and some extra motivation for you to reach your financial goals sooner.
I think that the world is moving towards different ways to consume information and from me, personally, that is podcasts. I always feel like my days are extremely busy and it’s hard for me to find time to carve out to read or research different investing and personal finance topics, so podcasts work great for me.
While I am doing other things that have to be done such as chores, working out, driving, or even just going on a walk to clear my head – listening to a podcast takes something from being a mindless exercise to one that is productive.
If you’re someone that’s completely new to podcasts and trying to find a place to start, any of the five that I mentioned above are going to be a great place, but I’d start from the top and work my way down.
This is by no means an all-inclusive list of the great podcasts that are out there because there are tons more, and that’s why I legitimately subscribe to like 20 others. Honestly, I constantly find myself subscribing to tons of podcasts and then unsubscribing because it becomes overwhelming.
Maybe I should take my own advice and just stick to these 5 for now! I think that might help me become a more focused stock picker than anything else.
