Celebrating EPISODE 400 with 5 Golden Rules of Money

**Nicole Lapin** (0:00)
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Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:35)
Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player.

**Morgan Lavoie** (0:41)
Charge for wasting our time.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:01)
The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. The Cole Lapin.

**Nicole Lapin** (1:07)
This is a super special day, because today marks the 400th episode of Money Rehab.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:14)
400 episodes, can you believe it?

**Nicole Lapin** (1:17)
If I think back to when I recorded the pilot for this show in my car in the pouring rain, true story, I can hardly believe it myself. But the proof is in the montage, so let's do it. Over the last 399 episodes, we have covered a lot of ground. We've nailed some money basics.
Now we're going to make your, dun-dun-dun-dun, drum roll, please.
Budget. I know it sounds like a bad word. You probably hate this word. I hated this word before. That's why I like to call it a spending plan because it doesn't feel as scary.
And leveled up to varsity status topics.
At the start of the pandemic, every person on Twitter was DMing me about hot stocks. They were like, Nicole, should I buy Zoom? What are your thoughts on Peloton? Netflix is killing it right now with everyone stuck at home watching it. Should I buy their stock? To all of those folks who said it was their first time getting into investing, I said hell to the no. No investing in individual stocks. And I repeated the title of this episode to them. Index funds and chill. We've heard from some inspiring change makers.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:37)
I mean, when I saw that check for a million dollars, I was like, holy shit.

**Nicole Lapin** (2:42)
And financial insiders. And how many people have you helped through bankruptcy?

**Morgan Lavoie** (2:49)
Oh, you know what, a wild guess would be about 7,000.

**Nicole Lapin** (2:53)
And my personal favorite, we've had interventions with amazing listeners.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:58)
I've been struggling with debt for like over 10 years. So like, that's all I've known as being a grownup.
So now I'm just like, what do I do now? Like, you know, I'm saving and I'm starting to put more money in like my 401k.

**Nicole Lapin** (3:11)
And after 400 episodes coming to you daily, it's time for us to take a break. And I'll be honest, because it's the only way I know how to be.
I'm not sure when we're coming back, but here's what I can tell you. Whether Money Rehab comes back as you know and love it, or I come back with something a little shinier and new, I'll be using this time to workshop. So the next thing that hits your ears is bigger and better than ever before. But make no mistake, even though Money Rehab is taking a little break, I am not. I'm still going to be decoding the most important financial headlines for you and answering your questions on all my other platforms. So if you haven't yet, please subscribe to my site on Bulletin, which I've linked in the show notes, and follow me on the gram and Nicole Lapin. My DMs are always open for your questions. Because here's the thing, just because Money Rehab is hitting a little pause doesn't mean the financial world will do the same. Money never sleeps, baby. Even if you're not starting your day with Money Rehab, you should still carve out a little time to rehab your finances every day. To make this easier, I'll distill the most important tips you've heard on the show thus far.
Number one, start an emergency fund. I don't know if I need to explain why emergency funds are important after the last three years of pandemic madness and layoffs galore, but just in case, here's the deal. If God forbid something happens to you or you lose your job, you're gonna find that even though you don't have any income, you still have expenses, and you can't pay for your groceries with an asset. And by asset, I mean something that you own outright that you could sell if you needed to bring in extra money, like a car, a house, or a boat. Although a house could be worth cold hard cash if you sold it, it's just not cash now, is it? When you check out at the grocery store, the cashier asks you credit or debit. You can't say house or boat, right? You'd need to sell that house for cash, which isn't a feasible way to get cash fast. So you need some money squirreled away. A doomsday fund, a treasure chest, an oh shit fund, a break in case of emergency fund. Whatever you wanna call it, you need one. Number two, glow up your credit score. Your credit score is super important. Think of it like the grade you get on your financial report card. And maybe your report card wasn't all that important once you got out of school, but in the money world, your financial transcript is very important. If you're not acing your credit report, you're gonna pay a higher interest rate on your credit card. When you're buying a home, it will screw you with your mortgage and closing costs, and it can be the deciding factor in whether or not you get a mortgage at all. Plus, if you need to take out a loan for something important, banks will look at your credit score to approve you or not. It's basically supposed to tell people who are looking at it like a lender just how trustworthy you are and how likely you are to pay them back. But you are in luck. Unlike a transcript with your final end of your grades, there's no final credit report. You can always change your credit score if you put in the work. Number three.