This is Motley Fool Answers. I'm Alison Southwick, and I'm joined, as always, by Robert Brokamp,

personal finance expert here at the Motleful.

Personal finance expert here at the Motley Fool.

And, of course, he's also the advisor on the Motley Fool's Rule, your retirement newsletter.

It's awesome.

Thank you, Alison, for that bit of happiness.

I would have said that if you weren't sitting here.

Really?

Yeah.

That's nice.

So today we're going to take a look at financial rules of thumb, those awesome little

shortcuts that help us make our financial decisions, like how much should I have

in an emergency fund? How much do I need to retire? And how much should I spend on a car or a house?

We'll talk about the rules and the exceptions to the rules. We're also going to answer your

question about shorting stocks and help you score this Valentine's Day with a few pick-up lines that are so money.

All that and more on this week's episode of Molly Fool Answers.

Time for a little answers answers.

And this week's question comes from Grant.

He writes, I love the podcast.

I listen every week. Which coincidentally is exactly the frequency we recommend you listen to our podcast. So good job, Grant. He wants to know. I have a question about selling short. I get the basic. It goes down. I make money. Could you dig a little deeper and give me a more technical explanation of how it works? How can I be selling something I don't technically own? Is it ever a good

idea for a beginner investor to mess with selling short? Or should I leave it to the pros?

Well, hello, Grant, and thank you for listening again this week. When you sell something

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