When I'm not hosting this podcast, I am writing books, but it is really hard for me to write when I'm at home, so I like to find remote cabins in the middle of nowhere to just hang out and write. But I hate the idea of my house just sitting empty, doing nothing but collecting dust and definitely not collecting checks. And that's why I'm an Airbnb host. It's one of my all-time favorite side hustles. Other popular side hustles are awesome, too, don't get me wrong, but they often involve big startup costs. By hosting your space, you're monetizing what you already have access to. It It doesn't get easier than that. And if you're new to the side hustle game and you're anxious about getting started, don't worry, because you're not in this alone. Airbnb makes it super easy to host. I mean, if I could do it, you could do it. And your home might be worth a lot more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb. Com/airbnb. Host. Money rehabbers, you have money hidden in your house. Yeah, just hiding there in plain sight. Okay, so I don't mean you have gold bars hidden somewhere in walls, treasure map style, but you do have a money-making opportunity that you're just leaving on the table if you're hosting on Airbnb.

It's one of my all-time favorite side hustles. By hosting your space, you are monetizing what you already own. It doesn't get easier than that. For me, hosting on Airbnb has always been a no-brainer. When I first signed up, I remember thinking to myself, Soph, you pay a lot of money for your house. It is time that house return the favor. And to get real with you for a sec, I felt so much guilt before treating myself on vacation because traveling can be so expensive. But since hosting on Airbnb, I feel zero stress for treating myself to a much-needed vacation because having Airbnb guests stay at my house when I'm traveling helps offset the cost of my travel. So it's such a win-win. I mean, if I could do it, you could do it. And your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb. Com/host. Hey, guys. Are you ready for some money rehab?

Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, Gamestop.

And should I have a 401k?

Because then I- You don't do it?

No, I never- No.

Do you think the whole world revolves around you and your money? Well, it doesn't.

Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check.

I got an old-school check.

You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CN DC, and Bloomberg.

The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand, the Cole Lappin. It's time for one of my favorite segments that we do on Money Rehab, a listener intervention. Today, I'm talking to Money Rehabber Adam, who is totally a brother from another mother when it comes to financial advice. He wrote to me asking whether he's in good enough financial shape to spend $10,000 on tattoos. So I called him up so we could make the decision together. Adam, welcome to Money Rehab.

Thank you. I appreciate you having me. Big fan. That's how I start every day. But I'm very anti Dave Ramsey, and he's who I was brought up on, so I was trying to find something new.

So you broke up with Dave for Nicole Lappin?

Yes, I did.

So what is your question?

So my question is, I've been on the road to retirement. Since I turned 18, I've been big into- Whoa, whoa, whoa.

How old are you? 27. You're on the road to retirement right now?

Sorry, I shouldn't have phrased it like that. I just mean I started investing for my retirement at age 27. It's a long journey. We're all about the index and chill vibes. But I'm not saying I'm going to retire now. Sorry. I just mean I've been interested I've been investing for my retirement since I could open an account at Vanguard. That's great. I'm investing 26 % of my income into retirement. And the problem is, tattoos, as you know, are expensive if you want to get a good artist. I just don't know how much I should be able to spend on those. I have a problem with... I always feel guilty when I spend money. It's like, I just need to hear an expert opinion on how much is okay. And yeah, it's just hard for me because I know they're expensive and I want to get my legs and my back and my chest done and stuff, but I don't know if that will shoot me in the foot for my retirement and stuff. So that's the gist of it.

Well, 26 % of what you're making is awesome. You make $50,000 a year?

Yeah, that's another thing. Well, I'll have to read like, Boss Bitch or something, but my career stuff I'm not totally happy with. But yeah, right now, yeah, 50.

Well, making more money for sure will obviously make the saving feel not as painful. For easy math, what you're putting about 10 grand?

Yeah, 10 to 12, depending. Yeah.

And Where are you putting that?

So I have a 2060 target date fund at Vanguard. That's my Roth IRA. And then I have just a non-retirement account. Same thing, it's 2060. It's a VTT, S That's a ticker at Vanguard. But I have that. And then I put $50, and then my Roth, I max out every year. And then I have my 401(k) at work, which I contribute five, and they match 4 %.

And what about an emergency fund?

I have 43,000 in just a savings account, which is stupid, I think. That's another thing I'm like, I feel like that's too much money to have and not growing because obviously the interest rates on the holding money market, savings accounts are trash.

Well, first of all, don't talk about my new friend like that. You are not stupid. You're crushing it. You're doing so well. These are champagne or high class problems to have for a lot of people who haven't started any of this stuff or thought about it by '27. So I'm really proud of you, for starters. Do you know how many months 43 grand covers for your, I like to call it the Brown Rice and Beans Diet? This is basic stuff if, God forbid, you lost your job or it couldn't work.

I think so it's well over a year, probably close to a year and a half, I would say. To me, my vision of it is like a 20 % down payment on a house or something.

Yeah, but for that, where your other money is, is essentially liquid and you could get it out if you needed that for a down payment as well. So I'd love to see it doing something, being put to work in some way. I would say the first thing to do is to calculate how much a year of living expenses would cost you. Do you have any sub-savings accounts? No. I think these are really helpful for organization and also visualization. I know that sounds squishy and woo-woo, but if you name your savings account you're more likely to stick to them. So I would create a tattoo savings account within your bank. And so I would take whatever the difference is between how much a year is. And I think a year is fine. That's what I have. For me, my income is precarious. I obviously work for myself. And so being a W2 employee is a different story. You have a lot more consistency. But if you're a freelancer, if you're a model or a real estate agent or something like that, having more is better. What's your job?

I'm an operations analyst at an investment firm.

And that seems like a job that you could get at another firm relatively quickly. Yeah, for sure. So I think a year is generous, but this is one of those discussions that isn't rooted in economics. It's rooted in how you can sleep at night. And I get that. And that's as good a reason as any to have more in your more emergency fund than not. So I would sit down and calculate what that would be for a year, cut it off there, and then put the rest into a subsavings tattoo account. So I'm not sure how much is going to be in there just by doing that, but it sounds like you can get your second sleeve, right?

Yeah, I'm finishing my second sleeve right now. Oh.

Okay, so you have... So that's like 10 grand, you think?

Oh, for the rest of my sleeve? Yeah, I could tell you exactly So so far, she's 1,200 a day, and then I tip 20 %. So that's 1,440 a day. So we're going to do about three more sessions. So I'd say it's probably around 10, 8 to 10, depending on how quick it goes. But yeah.

I would say to pay for the rest of it there. And then look at about 5 % of what you're making. I mean, that's on the lower end of what a lot of people do for their extras. I break down a spending plan to the essential essentials, end game, and extras, where 70 % goes to the essentials and then 15 % to the end game. Here, you're putting more than that, and then 15 % to the extras because I really, really advocate doing nice things for yourself. This is why you work so hard. I am never going to tell people not to buy a latte. I'm never going to tell you not to get tattoos because you love tattoos. I mean, I can imagine other financial experts would not get the idea of tattoos. I have tattoos myself. They make me happy every time I see them. They look like jewelry. They are really valuable to me. They're really personal. They're meaningful. And I understand that. And those are the good things and why we work so hard. So just figuring out how to plan plan properly, it sounds like a super easy fix for you.

So taking about... I mean, 5 % is conservative. So 2,500 bucks would be 5 % of your income right So I would just set an automatic transfer from your paycheck into your new subsavings account. So before it hits your checking account, before it does anything else, it sounds like the rest of your savings is automatically transferred anyway? Yes. So you can either talk to the HR Department or set up through your bank where it comes from your paycheck into this particular sub-savings account. And I think you, when you're ready, can just take from that account and continue to tat yourself up.

That's awesome. Like I said, I get so much guilt for spending money and stuff. So it's really not that complicated, but I just kill myself over this stuff. It's like, Oh, I can't afford to do this or whatever because it just pains me. Okay, I'm spending 14. I just don't spend money like that in my other life. I'm a guitar player, and sometimes there will be expensive equipment, but it's never like, Oh, I'm doing a tattoo session, and it's 14 40, and then like, Oh, I got to go back in a month and do it again and again and again. So yeah, it's just intimidating. But like you said, it's something that I love and I enjoy a lot. So it makes sense to do that subsaving account, To me, that's perfect because I don't even have to think about it. That's my favorite type of thing with investing and saving is just, just set it and forget it type of thing.

I love a good set it and forget it. Totally. And it just safeguards yourself from yourself, and it sets it up without you having to stress over it monthly. Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money Rehab will be right back.

Money Rehabbers, you have money hidden in your house. Yeah, just hiding there in plain sight. Okay, so I don't mean you have gold bars hidden somewhere in walls, treasure map style, but you do have a money-making opportunity that you're just leaving on the table if you're not hosting on Airbnb. It's one of my all-time favorite side hustles. By hosting your space, you are monetizing what you already own. It doesn't get easier than that. For me, hosting on Airbnb has always been a no-brainer. When I first signed up, I remember thinking to myself, Self, you pay a lot of money for your house. It is time that house return the favor. And to get real with you for a sec, I felt so much guilt before treating myself on vacation because traveling can be so expensive. But since hosting on Airbnb, I feel zero stress for treating myself to a much-needed vacation because having Airbnb guests stay at my house when I'm traveling helps offset the cost of my travel. So it's such a win-win. I mean, if I could do it, you could do it. And your home might be worth more than you think.

Find out how much at airbnb. Com/host. Do you ever get FOMO, fear of missing out? Well, do you ever get FOMO-Tupita, fear of missing out on the perfect higher? If so, I have the antidote. It's LinkedIn jobs. Linkedin jobs helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else. Even those who aren't actively searching for a new job but might be open to the perfect role. In any given month, over 70 % of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites, and that adds up to a serious squad of awesome candidates. Linkedin has over a billion professionals on the platform, and these candidates are super qualified. So much so that 86 % of small businesses get a qualified candidate within just 24 hours. I work with LinkedIn jobs for all of my dream team needs, so they're hooking up money rehabbers at linkedin. Com/mnen. Go there and you can post your job for free. That's linkedin. Com/mnen, as in money Money News Network. To post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Now for some more money rehab.

It sounds like you are more in the world of I'm going to live forever and not spend on myself, which is maybe a better extreme to the opposite of folks who think they're going to die tomorrow and go balls to the wall spending. But I think that the best place to be with your finances is somewhere between I'm going to live forever and I'm going to die tomorrow because you can't take it with you, and you don't want to be the richest untatted dude in the graveyard. I hate to be morbid, but we're all walking each other home. So I think that spending on yourself is a mind fuck. All of money is a mind fuck, whether you have money, whether you don't have money. I think the biggest enemy to any of this stuff is in between your ears. And so it sounds like you've done a lot of work on your own finances, logistically and also with your mindset, which, by the way, I think matters more than anything else when it comes to financial management. I know diet experts who say, Think thin to be thin, and that's bullshit. You want to be thin or you want to get in shape, go to the gym, stop eating as much.

But I think with finances, the way you talk to yourself and the way you think about it is everything. It matters so so much. I think you're doing great. You're really, really all over all this stuff. I mean, for anyone, especially a 27-year-old who has a net worth of $135,500, to be exact, and you're saving 26 % of your income, you're doing great. Allow yourself to treat yourself because you've worked really hard for it. And some people shouldn't treat themselves because they're reckless in other parts of their finances. But you You are not. I mean, you, Adam, are very, very responsible and very all over this. And I just want you to feel motivated as you're continuing to save and invest that you can enjoy the fruits of all of your hard work.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, I definitely needed to hear that. That was part of the reason why I came on. I was like, Nicole thinks I'm doing a good job, then I'm doing it.

I do. I think you're crushing it. I think you're doing a great job. The other It's a suggestion when I was reading your question that I was going to have, but it sounds like your job might not allow for it. But honestly, unless you want to go to a specific person, and maybe it sounds like for this project, you do. But for future projects, hauling and doing a barter might be interesting. And I don't know if you have a big social following or if you play the guitar for a band and can promote, but it's just always something to keep in mind. You never know if you don't ask for discount or for some quid pro quo where you do something for the artist, let's say, and they give you a tattoo for free or they do a highly discounted rate or something like that. I just feel like Everybody can barter. It's not old school. It's still alive and well. And I wish I did it more when I was younger. And I'm always surprised when I try how much I get actually hooked up from a basic, Hey, what can we do for each other and help each other?

We both need these things.

Yeah, for sure. I actually, on my first leave, my artist was also a guitar player, and I was selling one of my guitars. He's like, Yo, I'll give you eight hours of tattoo time or whatever. If you give me that guitar. I was like, Yeah, we'll do that. So stuff like that happens. Yeah, you can do that. Obviously, with tattoo stuff, it can get dice. Obviously, you don't go in and be like... I feel like tattoo artists get very which they should, offended if people go in. An artist like a Bang Bang or something, if someone went in there, I can only spend $200, they're going to laugh at you. It's just the way it is. They are part of the service industry, and I think people should treat it that way with tips and all that stuff. But yes, I agree, especially there's random stuff. If you follow tattoo artist, my ex, she got tattooed and the The artist needed his house cleaned, and she just did that because that's what she did for her job at the time anyway. So it was just like she got free work done. So you never know.

Like you said, it's always worth checking out to see if you can hook each other up.

For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. When you're looking at that 15 % of your spending plan that's going to the extras, you can absolutely divide that lump sum into smaller percentages dedicated to your goals. For example, say that you're like Adam and you want to work towards something special, tattoos or something else. Make a sub savings account and contribute a recurring amount that falls within that 15% dedicated to the extras. Consider putting away one quarter of the money you're saving for extras, depending on how much that special something is going to cost you and when you have to have it.

And you will be tatted up from head to toe before you know.

I spend my MoneyRehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.

Our producers are Morgan Lavoy and Katherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fischer. Executive producers are Mangesh Hadeekader and Will Pearson.

Huge thanks to the OG MoneyRehab supervising producer, Michelle Lambs, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all. You spend my money, money, money.

You spend my money, money, spend my money, money, money.

You spend my money, money, money. You spend my money, money, money.