Hey, kiddos. This is Motley Fool Answers. I'm Allison Southwick. And as always, I am joined by Robert

Brokamp and Dayana Yokem, personal finance experts here at the Motley Fool. We've received a lot of mail

from you, our darling listeners. So today we're going to try to get to as many as possible.

We're going to cover how much money you need to start investing,

the best ways to give money to someone you love or don't love, just anyone else.

And I'm going to get confused about IRA contribution.

So I'm very excited about that part.

And then, before we're done, we're going to make our first inductee into

the foolish haul of shame. These are very exciting times. They really are. All right, let's get

into our first question. This comes to us from Matt T. I'm looking at my asset allocation. Should I

consider my home and the equity in my home as an investment, or should I consider my investment

portfolio independently? You know, it's funny. When investment, or should I consider my investment portfolio independently?

You know, it's funny. When I first saw this question, my immediate reaction was like, no, your home is not an

investment. Your home is a place to live. And then, as I started thinking about it more, I'm like,

well, wait, how do financial planners account for homes in...

Hey, I think we have one here.

Oh, hey, Robert.

We just might, yes.

We just might have a financial planner here.

How do you account for homes?

I would say that your home is an asset, not necessarily as an investment.

So you buy an investment because of how much you think it'll appreciate in the future

...