What is your earliest memory of being happy? Do you remember that feeling being a kid on a warm summer night, the grass under your bare feet, and the freeing feeling of not having to go to school the next day? For me, being happy is being free like on those summer nights. We all want to be happy. It’s a full feeling. A feeling that connects us with others and deep into ourselves. Physiologically it’s pretty easy to understand – a chemical reaction happens in our brain, serotonin is released, and boom we feel great. Emotionally and spiritually it’s more complex. But how does money impact your happiness? Studies show that the correlation between your salary’s impact on your happiness up to $75,000, and then it peaks at $125,000. Meaning that people are increasingly happy until they make $125,000 and then they plateau. Join us for our discussion with Stacey Tisdale on Are You Happy?. Stacey Tisdale, a more than 20-year veteran TV broadcast financial journalist, and financial behavior expert, is one of the first women, and the first African-American to report from the New York Stock Exchange, in her role as a reporter/anchor for Dow Jones’ Emmy Award winning, Wall Street Journal Television.She then went on to become one of the first on-air reporters for CBS MarketWatch and business/personal finance correspondent for CBS News, The Early Show, CBS Evening News, and CBS Radio. Her latest book is The True Cost of Happiness: The Real Story Behind Managing Your Money Welcome to Mastering Your Money, Stacey Tisdale

In Raleigh-Durham NC area, people do the simple maneuver of converting your personal residence to a rental property. This maneuver brings with it many tax rules, mostly good when you know how they work

Many people are drowning in debt. They must deal with this debt issue in order to move forward in quest to find financial freedom or to be able to have the choice of working or not. Consumer debt including mortgages, auto loans, credit cards & student loans has increased to over $13.51 trillion dollars in the US. You have to make tough decisions about your spending and possibly your income. The most important step is to take action vs hoping your debt will go away. Taking action will forward to financial freedom and avoid you having to experience the pain of hitting rock bottom. You may have to file bankruptcy in order to have the chance at financial freedom. In order to avoid bankruptcy, you must control your spending.

There are approximately 35 million people who are millionaires in the world. As Robert J. Samuelson states so perfectly in The Washington Post, "That's about 5 percent of the U.S. adult population (241 million in 2014), or one in 20. Rarefied, yes; exclusive, no." Though the population numbers have gone up in the last year, they still prove a point. It's totally possible for you to become a millionaire. I will tell you that a lot of people will need more than a million dollar. Wealth is nothing more than a byproduct of success. The pursuit of success is dependent upon the desire to succeed and become wealthy. Wealth, therefore, is the carrot at the end of the stick. Take away that carrot and you remove the desire to succeed. Socialism not only takes away that carrot, it renders obsolete all of the necessary ingredients that make success possible: a hard work ethic, creativity, persistence, genius, good habits, overcoming fear and the courageous pursuit of dreams and goals. Success is therefore impossible in a Socialist society – why pursue success if the carrot at the end of the stick, wealth, is removed? America’s founding fathers knew this. While becoming a millionaire rarely occurs overnight, it's still an achievable dream if you work hard and use these habits: Todays show is about Millionare’s Frugal Habits is Markeith Gentry who is the WNCU’s Production Assistant and makes sure Mastering Your Money is available to our listeners. Welcome back to Mastering Your Money, Markeith Gentry

Part 2 of Do You Want To Retire Early? F.I.R.E. is an acronym. It stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. There's a growing movement of people who are practicing FIRE principles and retiring decades earlier than expected as a result. Smart, often middle-income earners are using a simple formula of high savings rates (50-70% of their incomes) + frugal living (minimalism) + low-cost stock index fund investing (Warren Buffett’s standard investment advice) in order to reach financial independence within short, usually around 10-year periods of time. For obvious reasons, FIRE is sometimes referred to as “the ultimate life hack.” This large and growing community has an ever-increasing cadre of 100+ high-traffic bloggers, most of whom chronicle their FIRE journeys and publish details of their methods, and report their actual personal financial information along the way. It’s a fascinating voyeuristic genre with an alluring punchline: retire early and pursue your true passions! There is more and more journalistic coverage of FIRE. Just search Google News for “early retirement” or “early financial independence” and you’ll find almost daily coverage of this fascinating phenomenon. Joining us for our discussion on Do You Want To Retire Early? is who is calling in from his Seattle Washington WA office . Paul Merriman is a nationally recognized authority on mutual funds, index investing, asset allocation and both buy-and-hold and active management strategies. Now retired from Merriman, the Seattle-based investment advisory firm he founded in 1983, he is dedicated to educating investors, young and old, through weekly articles at Marketwatch.com, and via complimentary eBooks, podcasts, articles, recommendations for mutual funds, ETFs, 401(k) plans and more, at Paulmerriman.com . He has 3 Complimentary Ebooks “First Time Investor: Grow And Protect Your Money,” “101 Investment Decision Guaranteed To Change Your Financial Future,” And “Get Smart Or Get Screwed: How To Select The Best And Get The Most From Your Financial Advisor.” WELCOME BACK TO MASTERING YOUR MONEY, PAUL MERRIMAN

Do You Want To Retire Early Part 1? F.I.R.E. is an acronym. It stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. There's a growing movement of people who are practicing FIRE principles and retiring decades earlier than expected as a result. Smart, often middle-income earners are using a simple formula of high savings rates (50-70% of their incomes) + frugal living (minimalism) + low-cost stock index fund investing (Warren Buffett’s standard investment advice) in order to reach financial independence within short, usually around 10-year periods of time. For obvious reasons, FIRE is sometimes referred to as “the ultimate life hack.” This large and growing community has an ever-increasing cadre of 100+ high-traffic bloggers, most of whom chronicle their FIRE journeys and publish details of their methods, and report their actual personal financial information along the way. It’s a fascinating voyeuristic genre with an alluring punchline: retire early and pursue your true passions! There is more and more journalistic coverage of FIRE. Just search Google News for “early retirement” or “early financial independence” and you’ll find almost daily coverage of this fascinating phenomenon. Joining us for our discussion on Do You Want To Retire Early? is who is calling in from his Seattle Washington WA office . Paul Merriman is a nationally recognized authority on mutual funds, index investing, asset allocation and both buy-and-hold and active management strategies. Now retired from Merriman, the Seattle-based investment advisory firm he founded in 1983, he is dedicated to educating investors, young and old, through weekly articles at Marketwatch.com, and via complimentary eBooks, podcasts, articles, recommendations for mutual funds, ETFs, 401(k) plans and more, at Paulmerriman.com . He has 3 Complimentary Ebooks “First Time Investor: Grow And Protect Your Money,” “101 Investment Decision Guaranteed To Change Your Financial Future,” And “Get Smart Or Get Screwed: How To Select The Best And Get The Most From Your Financial Advisor.” WELCOME BACK TO MASTERING YOUR MONEY, PAUL MERRIMAN

Humans are prone to the herd instinct. Investors are often no exception. When everyone is buying, investors typically buy; when everyone is selling, they sell. In 2009, during the worst of the recession, a group of investors put under contract an apartment that had been foreclosed on by the lender. It took the investors 6 months to find a lender who would finance the property. Today the property is by far one of the best investments of the group. The value has shot up dramatically and the property has become a cash cow. Are all the bargains gone in a high priced market? We don’t believe so, but finding them is certainly more challenging. Anytime can be a good time to buy. But if you go along the crowd and sit on the sidelines with them, you may miss out on the best deals. Joining us for our discussion on Starting In Commercial Real Estate Investing is Doug Marshall who is calling in from his Portland Oregon office. After nearly four decades in the commercial real estate business – including financing, property management, and as an investor, Doug Marshall decided to write a book and share his secrets. He founded Marshall Commercial Funding, Inc., a commercial mortgage brokerage firm located in Portland, Oregon in 2003. Marshall helps clients secure the best possible financing for their rental properties but is most proud when client’s return for help with their next financing request. For the last decade, Marshall has become an investor in eleven commercial real estate properties valued at over $50 million around the Portland, Oregon-area. An Oregon native, Marshall earned his MBA at the University of Oregon. His latest book is “Mastering The Art of Commercial Real Estate Investing ” Welcome to Mastering Your Money, is Doug Marshall.

At Mastering Your Money, we will gladly applaud people taking cost cutting strategies. Check Our Video Blog On Can You Become A Millionaire http://masteringyourmoney.com/