HeyJaredThe Financial Mirror
Take control of your financial future. This personal finance podcast provides actionable strategies and insights to help you make smart money moves. Learn how to budget, save, invest, reduce debt, and optimize your finances from the inside out.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 7, 2026
Latest episodes
Ep. 307 | Roth vs. Traditional 401(k): Which Would I Choose? (opens the original)
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Should you contribute to a Roth 401(k) or a Traditional 401(k)? In this episode of The Financial Mirror, we're moving past the simple idea that Roth must be better because qualified withdrawals can generally be tax-free. The more important question is: When in your financial life do you want to pay the tax? We'll look at how that answer can change for three very different people: an early-career worker paying a relatively low marginal tax rate, a household in its peak earning years, and a mid-ca
Ep. 306 | You Can Afford the Car Payment. That’s the Problem (opens the original)
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A car payment can be completely affordable and still be the wrong financial tradeoff. In this episode of The Financial Mirror , we look beyond the usual question of whether a monthly car payment fits the budget and ask what that payment does to the financial position your household is trying to build. Using a $750 monthly payment as an example, we compare two households with the same income but very different required expenses. Then we look at what happens when life changes: income drops, childc
Ep. 305 | Why I Think Married Couples Should Combine Their Finances (opens the original)
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Should married couples combine their finances, or can separate finances work just as well? In this episode of The Financial Mirror, I make the case for combining finances, but not because married couples need to spend the same way or put every dollar into one bank account. The bigger issue is whether two people who are building one life are also operating from one coordinated financial plan. We'll look at why successfully splitting the bills isn't necessarily the same as making financial progres
Ep. 304 | Would You Rather Have $100,000 Invested or No Mortgage? (opens the original)
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Would you rather have $100,000 invested or a completely paid-off mortgage? At first, the answer might seem obvious. If your investments can earn a higher return than the interest rate on your mortgage, investing the money should leave you wealthier over time. But that only answers one part of the question. In this episode of The Financial Mirror, we compare two otherwise similar households. Household #1 has $100,000 invested and still owes $100,000 on the mortgage. Household #2 uses that same $1
Ep. 303 | The 3 - 6 Month Emergency Fund Rule Has a Blind Spot (opens the original)
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How much should you really have in an emergency fund? The traditional 3 - 6 month emergency fund rule is a useful starting point, but it may not reflect your household's actual financial risk. In this episode of The Financial Mirror, I introduce the Emergency Fund Stress Test, a different way to determine how much emergency savings your household may actually need. Two households can spend exactly the same amount every month and still have very different levels of financial risk. That's the blin
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