Q&A: Should I Quit My Job to Be a Stay-at-Home Dad

Afford Anything | Make Smart Money Choices

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Entrepreneurship, Investing, Business

4.7 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#704: How do you make smart financial decisions when you’re balancing debt, investing, and big life changes … all at the same time? Today, Brigham and his wife, ages 25 and 23, wonder: can they buy a $500,000 home AND still support a stay-at-home parent? Next, JVR asks how to balance high-interest credit card debt, student loans, and a large cash reserve while planning for a future home purchase in the Bay Area. Then we’ll hear back from Elizabeth, from Episode 611 (from just under 1 year ago), with an update and a follow-up question on how to approach real estate investing over the next five years when she’s unsure where she’ll ultimately settle. We’ll cover all of that in today’s Q&A episode. Resources: Elizabeth's (formerly Anonymous) original call: https://affordanything.com/episode611 Share this episode with a friend, colleagues, and your mailman: https://affordanything.com/episode704 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Joe, have you ever heard that quote from John Lennon? Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
0:08.2	Sure. Was that John Lennon? That was John Lennon. How about that? We're going to talk about that in one of our answers today.
0:15.1	There is this distinction between financial planning and reality.
0:23.6	Expectations versus reality.
0:24.3	All right.
0:25.9	We're going to dig into that today.
0:28.3	We're also going to talk about debt payoff.
0:32.6	And we're going to get an update from someone who called a year ago.
0:37.8	We're going to find out what's happened since and answer an additional question.
0:38.5	Awesome.
0:44.1	Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything.
0:50.6	The show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing real estate and entrepreneurship.
0:53.1	Acronym fire with two eyes.
0:53.9	Double I fire. I'm your host paula pan i trained in
0:56.5	economic reporting at columbia and every other episode ish i answer questions that come from you
1:02.5	and i do so with my buddy the former financial planner joe salci hi what's up joe how are you
1:08.7	paula i'm great how? Well, I had a conversation
1:13.2	today that really bothered me. It was, this guy was trying to sell me a coffin, you know,
1:19.4	like for my funeral. I told him that's the last thing I'm going to need. Oh. And with that,
1:26.5	we will go to our first question, which comes from Brigham.
1:32.0	When I married my wife, I used my life savings to pay off her credit card and student loan debt.
1:37.1	Now she's a high earner with a college degree. I also earn a decent sum of money mashing her salary through an extra 10 hours of overtime per paycheck.
	...

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