RPF0259-Brandon_and_Jill_Interview
00:00:00.000 | The LA Kings holiday pack is back. The perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life. A three-game
00:00:05.040 | pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket. Buy today and you'll receive an additional
00:00:10.720 | game for free. Don't miss out. Visit lakings.com/holiday today. One major theme of radical
00:00:16.560 | personal finance is financial independence and financial freedom. And I try to talk about that
00:00:22.240 | with a lot of unique variations and permutations. But I tell you what, you can't beat just plain old
00:00:27.840 | traditional work a job, save a bunch of money, and then stick it to the man and retire, right?
00:00:35.040 | You can do that. And today I'm thrilled to bring back on the show my friend Brandon,
00:00:39.920 | the mad scientist. Guess what? He hit his financial independence date recently.
00:00:45.520 | And today we're going to find out what it's really like and even better. It's not just
00:00:50.400 | Brandon, but we're going to get the real story from his wife, Jill, who's also on the show today.
00:00:57.760 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host. Thank
00:01:17.520 | you so much for being with me. This is the show where each and every day we try to provide you
00:01:21.600 | some useful nuggets of knowledge, insight, ideas, maybe, things that are going to help you to build
00:01:28.320 | a lifestyle of financial freedom for yourself. That is the core theme. And today it's going to
00:01:33.600 | be good because we're going to talk with somebody who fired, as we say in the financial independence
00:01:38.880 | community, and we're going to talk about what's great and frankly, what's not.
00:01:45.840 | I was able to catch up with Brandon at the FinCon 2015 conference recently in Charlotte,
00:01:51.280 | North Carolina. Had a good time talking with him. And this one is really fun because we talk with
00:01:56.000 | Brandon and with Jill. Many of you find in your relationships with your spouses that there is a
00:02:02.160 | unique dynamic. Oftentimes one of you is more focused on the money than the other. And a major
00:02:06.880 | question that I get here on the show is, "Joshua, how can I work with my spouse and get on the same
00:02:10.960 | page?" And today you're going to be able to hear that. And I think this is a really, really cool
00:02:15.040 | story. Brandon, if you're not familiar with him, is the author and really just genius behind the
00:02:21.200 | website, madfientist.com. Fientist like scientist, but with an F for financial independence. So,
00:02:28.080 | madfientist.com. And he does a lot of unique work there on that website. He shares his own story,
00:02:33.680 | and he's really made it into a tremendous resource for those of you who are employees
00:02:39.280 | and who are saving money using things like the qualified accounts that are available to you at
00:02:44.400 | work, putting money in your 401(k), et cetera. And he's a big proponent of this type of system
00:02:49.280 | for early financial independence to help you develop a much more efficient plan toward
00:02:53.600 | financial independence by minimizing taxes. He's also just got a really cool story of
00:02:58.560 | getting inspired, getting focused, saving money, cutting his expenses, and proving that it's
00:03:03.280 | possible to build financial independence while working a traditional job in a relatively short
00:03:07.920 | period of time. And now he and his wife, as you'll hear in a moment, they have the ability
00:03:14.160 | at an early age to spend a lot of time traveling the world and living their dreams out.
00:03:18.320 | But what I also appreciate is that Brandon's been vulnerable about some of the things that
00:03:23.840 | aren't so great about financial independence. And you're going to hear those things in the
00:03:27.520 | context of today's interview. Before I get to that, though, I wanted to share with you
00:03:32.000 | messages from our two sponsors for today's show. Sponsor of the day number one is Jay Fleischman,
00:03:37.280 | host of the Student Loan Show and a student loan and bankruptcy attorney.
00:03:42.480 | Let me make this simple. If you have student loans, if you owe any kind of money on a student
00:03:47.840 | loan, you need to call Jay and talk to him about it. Now, what you should probably do first is
00:03:54.560 | listen to the two interviews that I've done with him on Radical Personal Finance. And the first
00:03:59.440 | one was episode 258, the episode that immediately precedes this one. So it's there right in your
00:04:04.960 | feed. Or episode 214. So go back in the feed or find it on the website. Episode 214. Both of those
00:04:12.240 | shows were interviews with Jay. And I have learned more from Jay about student loans than, well,
00:04:18.400 | than I could have imagined. And he is a real, real source of knowledge. And because he's a
00:04:24.960 | source of knowledge, he may be able to help you find some opportunities to develop a more efficient
00:04:31.840 | plan through the payment of your student loans. There's no promises, but it's worth checking. And
00:04:37.280 | after you listen to those two shows, you'll see how and why he might be able to do that. Especially
00:04:42.320 | if you are in any sort of default or you're struggling to make your payments on your student
00:04:47.520 | loans, definitely call Jay in those circumstances. Or if you're in any kind of adversarial situation,
00:04:53.760 | call Jay. Basically, if you have student loans, call Jay. It's as simple as that.
00:04:58.080 | Also consider subscribing to his show. If you're interested in a very deep dive show on student
00:05:03.120 | loans, look for the Student Loan Show in iTunes or at studentloanshow.com. Jay offers a special
00:05:08.160 | consulting package for members of this listening audience, and he will do an analysis of your loans
00:05:13.760 | for you. And again, I couldn't say it more clearly. If you have loans, do this consulting
00:05:19.440 | package. You'll find all the details of that at studentloanshow.com/radical, studentloanshow.com/radical.
00:05:26.960 | Special $25 discount on his initial introductory package of consulting services,
00:05:32.080 | on an email consultation for listeners of Radical Personal Finance. Normal price,
00:05:35.680 | there is 75 bucks for an email consultation on federal student loans. And for listeners of this
00:05:40.640 | show, a special $25 discount during the term of his sponsorship. So go to studentloanshow.com/radical.
00:05:46.640 | And if you're facing any kind of bankruptcy situation, things like that, reach out to Jay
00:05:50.240 | as well. He is able to help you on the attorney side as well. Sponsor of the day number two today
00:05:55.520 | is also Patrick Snow, an individual. He is also a consultant. Patrick Snow is the publishing doctor.
00:06:01.360 | He's my personal publishing coach. He's helping me through
00:06:04.320 | the very difficult process of getting this book out of my head and onto paper.
00:06:10.880 | And he can help you do the same thing. He can guide you through the process of publishing a book.
00:06:16.880 | Best way to get an introduction to Patrick is go back and listen to episode 252 of the show.
00:06:21.040 | You'll hear a little bit about who he is and why I've brought him on as a sponsor of the show,
00:06:25.200 | and how publishing a book can serve you and can become one important component of your
00:06:29.840 | overall marketing plan for yourself as an individual and for your business.
00:06:34.960 | Ask yourself this question. If you go to apply for a job and on your resume it says,
00:06:39.920 | for example, Joshua Sheets, author of the book on XYZ, and that book is applicable to that job,
00:06:47.680 | don't you think you might stand out from the stack? Don't you think that might help you to
00:06:52.640 | affirm – help you to stand out and make sure that you're not going to lose your job in the
00:06:58.960 | coming recessions? I think it'd make a big difference. And if you're a professional or
00:07:04.320 | a business owner, don't you think your customers might like to do business with the person who
00:07:09.040 | wrote the book on the topic? Well, it's not easy to write a book, but Patrick has some tools and
00:07:14.800 | some techniques and some templates that make it easier, and he can guide you through the process.
00:07:20.000 | So listen to episode 252 and also go to thepublishingdoctor.com, thepublishingdoctor.com,
00:07:26.080 | and that's where you will find all of the information about Patrick and his services.
00:07:29.840 | If you'd like to get in touch with him, check the cell phone address that'll be linked in the show
00:07:34.160 | notes. It's 206-310-1200, 206-310-1200, and again, that'll be in the show notes. And shoot him a
00:07:42.640 | text. Let him know your name and what area code you're in, and he'd be happy to offer you a 30-60
00:07:47.840 | minute complimentary consultation to find out about your book project to see if he can help or not.
00:07:53.920 | That's it for sponsors. Let's get to the interview with Brandon and Jill, recorded
00:07:58.720 | live in the halls of FinCon 2015 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:08:03.040 | So Brandon and Jill, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:08:07.360 | Thank you very much for having us.
00:08:08.640 | This is a fun – Jill, I'm glad that you're here with us. Your husband, we've had his perspective,
00:08:13.440 | but I want to get your perspective, and we're going to talk a lot about that today.
00:08:16.640 | But this is a reprised performance for the show. The last time you were on the show,
00:08:21.200 | you were working hard towards financial independence, and at this point in time,
00:08:25.280 | you hit the day, you declared yourself free, and you hit the road, right?
00:08:29.280 | I did, yeah. I hit my number. And yeah, my wife is from Scottish, as you'll soon hear from her
00:08:36.720 | accent. So yeah, we decided to move back. So I told my work, I said, "Hey, I'm moving to Scotland."
00:08:44.640 | And then they asked if I'd stay on remotely. So actually, I'm still working. So I'm not
00:08:50.960 | early retired, but yeah, I hit the number. And now I actually worked my way into a job that I
00:08:57.600 | really feel like it's going to be hard to quit, which is a great position to be in, but not
00:09:03.680 | something I expected. I've mentioned that on the show. I don't remember how it came up, but I was
00:09:08.960 | saying, yeah, even Brandon, he couldn't quit his job when it came down to it. It's tough, man. Yeah.
00:09:13.920 | And it's amazing just because you probably wouldn't have guessed that that would be the
00:09:19.440 | case. Did you have any indication that, "Well, my company loves me, and they're just going to
00:09:23.680 | offer me this job while I travel around the world and jet set around?" Did you have any
00:09:27.600 | indications of that before the fact? I've had three jobs in my career, and both times prior
00:09:34.320 | to this, I left the job due to moving across the ocean. And each time I was asked to stay on
00:09:41.920 | remotely. So I thought it was a possibility, but I didn't suggest it. So it was actually,
00:09:47.760 | it was a little surprising because the current employer I work for is pretty old school.
00:09:51.120 | So when they, the first word out of my boss's mouth was, "Do you want to stay on remotely?"
00:09:58.160 | So that surprised me, but I thought there was a chance that could happen.
00:10:02.000 | So do you recommend this as a strategy for people that are pursuing financial independence? Just
00:10:06.320 | save $1,000 so that you're not just out on the street immediately and then go and quit
00:10:11.440 | and see if they'll let you work remotely? I wrote a post on this called "The Power of
00:10:15.280 | Quitting." And I really, the most raises I've ever received, the best term increases that I've
00:10:23.280 | received has all been a result of quitting. So I think focusing on that on your journey
00:10:29.520 | to financial independence is really the way to go. I wrote another post called "The
00:10:34.720 | Happiness Through Subtraction," and it talks about how I was really tunnel vision for like
00:10:38.960 | two or three years, really just focusing on the final number. And I didn't realize how
00:10:44.720 | good my life was getting because I had all this new power along the way.
00:10:48.560 | So then when I actually hit the number, it was like sort of a letdown. I was like, well,
00:10:52.000 | you know, I didn't feel any different. And I hadn't been focusing on my happiness really.
00:10:55.520 | I had just been tunnel vision to this number. And I realized that, you know, that's not the
00:11:02.240 | way to do it. You should, you know, as your balances grow, you're really putting yourself
00:11:08.080 | into a position that you can do and demand whatever you want. And when you put your
00:11:13.360 | bosses into a position that's either you agree to this or you have to go through the whole
00:11:18.560 | hiring process again and you have to find somebody else that doesn't have all the knowledge that
00:11:22.560 | you've built up over the years, then it's not a very attractive proposition.
00:11:26.320 | So I highly recommend that during your journey to financial independence, you try to make your life
00:11:34.320 | and your work life in particular so good that by the time you get there, you may not even
00:11:38.720 | quit after all, which is a good position to be in.
00:11:42.480 | It's definitely something I've observed and I don't think of many articles that I've read on
00:11:47.440 | it. And I think we need many more from financial bloggers and other people. Probably the best
00:11:51.040 | would be Jim Collins writes about it, having your freedom fund or your FU money. But it doesn't
00:11:57.920 | take that much to build a little bit of independence. A few thousand dollars might even
00:12:03.200 | be enough and enough job skills to get another job. And it's and so I would love to see more
00:12:10.640 | people starting with that. I'm not financially independent, able to live exclusively on income
00:12:15.280 | from my investments yet, but I feel pretty darn independent just from having a little
00:12:20.720 | bit of a cushion and being able to work in another direction.
00:12:24.080 | Absolutely. You mentioned Jim Collins and his first FU money was only $5,000 because he wanted
00:12:29.920 | to go to Europe for a bit. And he said to his boss, I want to go to Europe for a couple of
00:12:34.400 | months. And he said no. And then he had 5,000 in the bank so he could live off of that. And
00:12:38.480 | he's like, well, I'm going anyway. And then his boss was forced with that same decision
00:12:44.000 | of hiring somebody new or just letting him go. And they just let him go and he had his
00:12:47.120 | job when he got back. So Jill, how long has this been since you guys kind of hit the date
00:12:52.800 | and then have been traveling? How long you guys been on the road?
00:12:54.960 | Well, we probably last summer. I think we I quit my job and we started traveling around
00:13:03.040 | the States, first of all, for a couple of months, seeing friends and family. And then
00:13:08.240 | we were back over in Scotland for about the end of last year. And then we did a big trip
00:13:13.040 | to Thailand and kind of surrounding countries for a couple of months and then came back.
00:13:18.000 | And I've been a bit more settled in Scotland since then, working and Brandon's been kind
00:13:23.520 | of doing his thing and back over in the States.
00:13:25.840 | So and you're in the dental optometry. I thought it was a medical thing. So in the optometry.
00:13:32.080 | So talk about this job, this this ability. Is it you feel it's relatively easy for you
00:13:37.040 | to find a job when you need one? You just had all kinds of connections in Scotland.
00:13:40.880 | How could you do this?
00:13:41.680 | Well, yeah, it's it's fairly easy in Scotland. There's usually work going to kind of cover
00:13:49.040 | vacations and things like that. So if you can pick up enough of that kind of work, then
00:13:53.040 | you can definitely work full time doing that. And it's a bit more flexible. I do have two
00:13:57.600 | permanent days that I'm doing just now as well. So that's the main thing that's tying
00:14:01.840 | us down at the moment if we want to travel. So next year, I might be trying Brandon's
00:14:06.800 | technique of going to them and saying, you know, I want more time off than the actual
00:14:11.040 | vacation that I have and see see what happens, see if they'll let me.
00:14:14.960 | I'm thrilled that you're both here today because, Brandon, you've mentioned on the
00:14:18.960 | on the show that your growth and your interest in finance on your on your show to on your
00:14:25.440 | show and your and your site, your growth and interest in financial independence. And at
00:14:28.960 | one point, Jill, you wrote at least one post on the blog.
00:14:31.920 | Yeah, just one.
00:14:33.120 | And I think this is a fascinating discussion to talk about how to work together as a couple
00:14:39.520 | toward a common goal when you don't necessarily share that. So what's been your perspective
00:14:46.080 | on financial independence as your husband has become more interested over time?
00:14:50.880 | Well, it's completely changed. When we first met, I would say we were opposites when it
00:14:55.040 | came to money. I was your kind of typical consumer. You know, I like buying things makes
00:15:00.720 | me happy. I work hard, so I deserve to treat myself. And so that was what I did. And Brandon
00:15:07.120 | obviously didn't think that way. But we've just always kept our finances separate. So
00:15:12.800 | for a long time, for years, it just it wasn't an issue. We were just doing our own thing
00:15:17.040 | with our money. And we didn't really argue about it. But recently, I've had a major sort
00:15:23.200 | of rethinking of the whole thing, which started with just a conversation that we had where
00:15:29.200 | Brandon had said to me, you know, let's let's sit down and talk about what would your perfect
00:15:33.200 | life look like, which is kind of a difficult thing. I think it was a difficult thing to
00:15:38.880 | figure out because you just imagine what you're doing is what you're going to do forever.
00:15:42.000 | So we kind of figured out what are the things that are the most important to us and how
00:15:48.240 | can we build a life around that rather than build up, you know, our life built around work. And
00:15:53.600 | once we discussed that, and I realized that was a possibility, that was just a huge turning
00:15:58.160 | point for me. And I instantly lost the urge to buy things and spend money that just stopped
00:16:04.400 | being important because I had this much bigger goal. So what did you write down when you
00:16:09.360 | were going through that process as far as what is your perfect life? So we both agreed
00:16:13.360 | that friends and family really important, travel. They were the main ones. And then
00:16:21.920 | kind of maybe doing some voluntary work and for Brandon, like music and creating things.
00:16:27.920 | So we kind of listed those and then said, well, how would we how do we kind of incorporate
00:16:32.240 | that into this life that we want to build? So yeah, ideally, and we're not quite there
00:16:37.280 | yet. But what we'd like to do is spend probably about half the year in Scotland, and then
00:16:41.600 | spend a few months in the States and then a few months traveling as well. And just have
00:16:45.760 | a nice balance because it's hard for us because all my friends and family are in one country
00:16:49.600 | and for Brandon, it's another country. So yeah, we'd like to split our time between
00:16:54.720 | those two places. So and that's kind of impossible when you're working full time.
00:16:59.360 | So so when you got a vision of, hey, this is actually what we want. We want some
00:17:03.920 | time with the people that we care about. We want the flexibility to travel to new and
00:17:10.080 | interesting places. Then all of a sudden, whatever it was that you were spending money
00:17:15.120 | on just didn't seem like such a good deal. Yeah.
00:17:17.760 | And it was a huge surprise for me because we've dated for 13 years. Well, we dated 10
00:17:23.440 | years before getting married. And now we've been married for about three. And like Jill
00:17:27.440 | said, it's just always been separate. Money wasn't ever a discussion. We just put the
00:17:31.440 | same amount of money into the joint account that paid all the bills. And then we did whatever
00:17:34.800 | we want with the other thing. Right. So then she just one night she just said, I wrote
00:17:40.240 | something on my computer. Take a look. And I was like, oh, my God, what does this? She
00:17:45.520 | never just write something or just says something like that. Weird. And I wrote I just read
00:17:51.280 | this incredible letter of like her epiphany, I guess, and was so surprised by it. And then
00:17:57.360 | after like months of trying to convince her that I could publish it on the blog, I tweaked
00:18:02.080 | it a bit and made it more like a blog post and stuff, but put it on. And yeah, it's just
00:18:07.200 | it was a huge surprise. But it's definitely made life a lot easier for working towards
00:18:13.600 | things together now, which is good. And have you ever reflected, Jill, on why you never
00:18:18.960 | thought of financial freedom, travel, that type of thing as a possibility? I don't know.
00:18:25.360 | I suppose I was just stuck in the mindset that most people are that your life is kind
00:18:29.840 | of predetermined. You know, you go to college, you get a job and you work that job for however
00:18:35.200 | many years and you retire. So I just never imagined doing anything sort of unconventional.
00:18:41.200 | And when Brandon first got into all this stuff and started telling me about it, his kind
00:18:47.040 | of motivation was, well, I don't want to have to work for someone else. I would like to
00:18:50.640 | be able to work for myself and do the things I'm passionate about. But I would say to him,
00:18:54.480 | well, I like my job and I don't really have anything else I want to do. So I did. That
00:18:58.240 | didn't motivate me at all. So we had to find the thing that was going to motivate me. And
00:19:03.760 | when we talked about the whole perfect life plan, that was a huge motivation for me. So
00:19:08.640 | yeah, I think for people that are maybe not on board, if somebody has a spouse that just
00:19:12.560 | doesn't get it, everybody's motivation is going to be different. So I think it's just
00:19:17.280 | sitting down and figuring out what that thing is that, like I said, makes everything else
00:19:21.680 | not important anymore. So. So go ahead. Oh, sorry. And around the same time, you know,
00:19:27.040 | I had started my blog. So this was post blog that she had come to this conclusion. And I think
00:19:32.000 | like we had met up with like Jim Collins, who we already talked about. And, you know,
00:19:35.760 | I've chatted with a lot of people like Mr. Money Mustache and had been interviewed by you. And I
00:19:40.160 | think since we didn't really talk about it a lot in the house, I wouldn't say, you know, about
00:19:45.600 | money and things like that. I think that helped to her, her hearing different perspectives,
00:19:50.880 | not just mine, because the last thing you want is your husband to tell you what to do about money
00:19:55.200 | or something like that. So we just never discussed it. And had we had I tried, it wouldn't have been
00:19:58.880 | very successful. But I think I think that helped to. So any husbands out there, don't don't try to
00:20:04.640 | change your wife with your own words, maybe just like, I don't know, pointer into some other
00:20:09.120 | good sites or something like that. Well, also, the first website that he showed me was early
00:20:15.360 | retirement. And that just completely that I was like, that does not sound like a good plan to me.
00:20:22.400 | So I really got into reading Mr. Money Mustache kind of was an easier one for me to get on board
00:20:28.640 | with. And there's a few other blogs that helped as well. So, yeah, I think all of that once
00:20:32.960 | Brandon got more involved with that and I was reading other people's blogs as well and reading
00:20:36.640 | his, it just all kind of started to make a bit more sense. Jacob doomed himself with his how I
00:20:43.520 | live on seven thousand dollars a year and living in an RV. And no matter how many posts or how many
00:20:48.480 | times he said after that, you don't have to live in an RV and you can spend more money no matter
00:20:53.520 | how many times he was doomed, because that is the article that so many people and it seems to have
00:20:59.360 | almost an either or response. So like, Brandon, when you read that article, you said, wow, this
00:21:04.960 | is awesome. I was so excited to do it, too. I read that kind of stuff and I'm like, oh, this is this
00:21:09.920 | is so cool. I could live in an RV and I could live on nothing. And what an awesome lifestyle.
00:21:14.160 | And you send it to your wife and she's like, I'm terrible. My wife would say,
00:21:19.040 | I don't want to live in an RV. Yeah, honey, you don't get it. Yeah. So that was that was a bad
00:21:24.800 | call on my part, but I was so excited. I was just like telling everybody I was like, right. I didn't
00:21:28.800 | know you could do this. So yeah. So Jacob was the one that introduced me. So and I really enjoyed
00:21:33.040 | your podcast with him. That was that was so cool. So well done on that. So you've been on the road
00:21:37.600 | for a year. You've you've been enjoying this flexible lifestyle. What has been just better
00:21:43.840 | and more awesome than you ever guessed it would be over the last year? Well, we've yeah, we've
00:21:48.640 | settled down since. Well, you I had to come back and get my UK visa. So I've been traveling a bit
00:21:55.360 | more than Jill. But Jill's been settled in Scotland now since March. And then I got back to Scotland
00:22:01.120 | in July or June or something somewhere around there. So we just now settled into Edinburgh,
00:22:07.040 | which is now that I hit my number and have all this extra money coming in, we're like, well,
00:22:11.840 | let's live in the center center of Edinburgh, Edinburgh rather than, you know, somewhere out
00:22:16.080 | in the sticks. And since I'm working from home, it's like it'll it's better for me. So that's been
00:22:19.840 | a lot of fun. That's something I wouldn't have wanted to do, you know, on the in the accumulation
00:22:25.280 | stage. And it's probably not something I would do after I quit my job. But I'm here in this like
00:22:31.280 | pretty cool limbo, where I'm still having a full income that I didn't really expect to have. So
00:22:36.240 | we're sort of doing that. And like, so recently, it's just been, it feels to me like it's been a
00:22:42.160 | spending rampage. But my habits and our financial habits, and we know what they're so ingrained by
00:22:50.080 | now, for me, at least, I'm getting there. And she's getting there. And we really do know what
00:22:57.680 | type of spending makes us happy and what doesn't because that that came obviously over the years
00:23:01.520 | of trying to cut back everything that didn't make you happy. So we actually we didn't actually move
00:23:06.080 | the needle too much. But it feels like we can just spend on anything we want. So that's that for me,
00:23:10.880 | that's been the the coolest thing that's happened in the last year. And after focusing on money for
00:23:16.640 | my entire life, like I've always always been obsessed with money. Now, I just don't care.
00:23:21.440 | Which is which is really nice feeling. And that's another reason I'm not in a rush to just pull the
00:23:26.640 | plug on my job, especially while Jill's still working, because it you know, there's only so
00:23:31.680 | much I can do on my own. I'm not going to be like, Alright, honey, I'm going to Thailand. I'll see
00:23:35.600 | you in a couple months. Unless that's okay. I remember that one of my early definitions of
00:23:44.640 | wealth was just simply being able to buy a second glass of wine without looking at the price tag.
00:23:49.920 | Because you go you know, where I live in West Palm Beach, Florida, if you buy a glass of wine,
00:23:52.960 | I mean, 13 bucks and I just don't like spending necessarily 13 bucks on a glass of wine. And yeah,
00:24:00.080 | it's enjoyable, but okay, you have one and then another and man, that's that's a good amount of
00:24:04.320 | money. And what's funny is, I think we all probably have that little those little things for us.
00:24:10.000 | Now, obviously, I can just buy another glass of wine if I want another one. But it's also one
00:24:16.240 | thing just recognize, hey, I've got so much extra money, that buying this next glass of wine isn't
00:24:21.680 | actually affecting any of my other goals. And there are plenty of ways to talk about that. I can
00:24:26.800 | imagine somebody listening to says, I don't want your life if I can't buy a second glass of wine.
00:24:31.680 | You don't have to think about it that way. You can go out and do it once or twice a month,
00:24:34.480 | and it doesn't matter. But for many people, if you actually total the numbers, those little
00:24:38.560 | habits become big. And so once you start identifying them, it's like the fat person
00:24:42.320 | who became skinny and recognizes that this food or this type of thing, it's fun, but this is the
00:24:47.520 | gateway into me getting fat again. And you recognize how careful they are because they
00:24:51.520 | don't want to be want to be fat. Right. And the other interesting thing that's happened,
00:24:55.360 | and this is only something we've really come to realize and talk about over the last like month
00:24:59.440 | or so. We did a quite a lot of traveling. We did a big trip two and a half months to Thailand.
00:25:04.480 | But then every month we were going somewhere else since we were back in Europe again,
00:25:07.360 | it's quite easy to get around. And we were just doing a trip like once every month or two.
00:25:11.760 | And we realized that we then took three months off before this trip to the States. And we realized
00:25:18.640 | that we had been traveling so much that it lost a lot of the enjoyment and you lost the anticipation,
00:25:23.920 | you lost getting excited for it and planning it. It was just another part of life. So even though
00:25:29.920 | we're spending, in my opinion, it feels wildly, we're learning more about how to
00:25:37.040 | perfect balance of spending. And now we're dialing back, not because we have to, but because
00:25:41.600 | it actually makes it more fun. There's fun in not having everything you want all the time,
00:25:48.000 | so you can look forward to it. And so, yeah, that's been an interesting realization that we
00:25:52.160 | just recently talked about. Actually, we're like, "Oh, we're really excited for this trip." And
00:25:55.920 | it's like, "Yeah, we must have been traveling way too much earlier in the year because we were just
00:25:59.600 | like, "Oh, pack up the suitcase. We're going somewhere else again." And it just lost a lot of
00:26:03.600 | the specialness. Yeah, exactly. So what's been the biggest surprise of something you thought would be
00:26:10.720 | just awesome about being financially independent, you were super focused on and looking back now
00:26:15.520 | after a year plus, you just say, "Wow, that really wasn't as fulfilling as I thought it would be."
00:26:20.320 | Hitting that number. Like I said, I was so focused on that number. And then,
00:26:24.400 | in hindsight, an extra dollar on a computer screen doesn't make you instantly happy. But yeah, it was
00:26:32.000 | just that there was just no joy. It wasn't like crossing a finish line after a marathon or
00:26:39.760 | anything. It didn't feel anything like that. It was just another meaningless number on the screen.
00:26:43.440 | Because when you're looking at these numbers, you can't really conceptualize what's actually
00:26:50.560 | there. It's just like this weird little game and the number keeps ticking up and that's about it.
00:26:56.240 | So yeah, it was just the lack of changing anything. And since I hadn't been focusing on my
00:27:04.080 | happiness up until then, you weren't happy, I wasn't happy. We were just not treating ourselves
00:27:12.240 | good. But since then, we've really done a lot better. Yeah, there's been a huge difference.
00:27:19.360 | I noticed that Brandon's just so much happier, more relaxed, like you said before, not
00:27:26.000 | stressing about spending money on things that are valuable to us, like spending time with friends
00:27:31.680 | and traveling and things like that. If we had gone out to dinner with a group of friends,
00:27:36.160 | and they're on the other side of the tables drinking bottles of wine, and I'm up there with
00:27:39.840 | my water, and then we split the bill at the end, that would ruin my week. I would lose friends over
00:27:47.920 | that. So it's just nice not to do that anymore and not obsess completely about money all the time,
00:27:54.080 | which is definitely not healthy. In hindsight, do you think that if you'd identified that while
00:27:59.520 | you were on the path to financial independence, that you could have simply changed that
00:28:04.240 | perspective and behavior? Or do you think that would have somehow hurt your achievement of your
00:28:10.720 | goal? It would have. I don't know. What do you think? I don't think it would have made a huge
00:28:16.720 | difference because like you said, we don't go crazy spending a ton of money anyway. It might
00:28:21.920 | have taken you a little bit longer to get there, but it probably would have made the journey a bit
00:28:25.760 | more fun. Yeah. I just didn't realize it was happening, honestly. You could tell that I was
00:28:31.120 | getting depressed, really. That's pretty much what it was for that couple year period. It was just
00:28:36.480 | not good. I'd get talked into going skiing with some friends or something, and I'd spend $70,
00:28:43.200 | and I'd be on the mountain, and I'd just be miserable. So I was like, "Well, why spend 70
00:28:48.080 | bucks to be miserable? I can go home and get some work done or do something productive and not spend
00:28:52.960 | any money." And he would say that to me. "Why are we spending all this money to go out and not have
00:28:56.080 | fun? We could just sit in the house and not have fun." I was like, "Or we could try and have fun."
00:29:00.400 | So yeah, it wasn't a good period. And it's only after the fact that I could see it more clearly.
00:29:08.000 | But whether I could have done something to change it at the time, I don't know. I was just so
00:29:12.960 | focused. It just consumed my whole life because obviously I was writing about stuff on the blog,
00:29:19.120 | and that was a new thing for me. And yeah, I just was so focused on it. So I don't know if I would
00:29:25.040 | have known that was what was happening, but in hindsight, it was definitely obvious.
00:29:30.240 | What about choosing to have a blow money category in your budget?
00:29:38.720 | Because in my mind, that's the answer. And feel free to disagree. But I think there are two things
00:29:43.200 | that I think are important for having a healthy psyche and a healthy relationship with money.
00:29:50.480 | I think number one, it's important to always be giving money away. Because even though we think
00:29:56.880 | that impacts our results, what it does is it changes our character. And the joy of giving
00:30:04.880 | money and time away just to me is one of the heights of joy. And in giving money away,
00:30:12.880 | it causes us to often feel more gratitude for the money that we do have. And the second thing,
00:30:18.480 | I think having some wiggle room, some money that we spend frivolously. Because then it's almost
00:30:24.560 | like if you study the psychology of the dieters and the diet programs, lately, especially now,
00:30:29.920 | it's very popular, we'll have a cheat day. Because the idea is, well, I'm never going to
00:30:34.080 | eat anything that tastes good. What Jack LaLanne used to say, if it tastes good, spit it out.
00:30:38.880 | We reach this pressure builds up and it's almost like the top blows. And so if there's no release
00:30:46.000 | valve on the pressure, the top blows and you eat 18 pizzas and you eat four cartons of ice cream,
00:30:51.600 | and you just continue on into depression for three months, just going crazy. And I know for me,
00:30:56.960 | I've found even in my own life with the ups and downs with regard to finance, that swing,
00:31:02.160 | that pendulum has been the biggest character flaw. One of the bigger character flaws that I have,
00:31:07.520 | this incredible intensity to go all the way on or all the way off. And that's been reflected in my
00:31:13.280 | financial life where I'm either not spending a dime or I'm spending everything. It's been reflected
00:31:18.400 | in how my eating, I'm either on a diet and not eating anything good or just scarfing down.
00:31:23.520 | That's the biggest character flaw. And I'm learning as I grow to moderate that with saying,
00:31:28.880 | have a little bit of a pressure relief valve, have an ability and set aside, Hey, this is going to be
00:31:33.520 | some money that we're going to spend frivolously. And it's not going to hurt the rest of our budget
00:31:38.480 | because it's in proportion. I think that, yeah, no, I think you're exactly right. And I, whether
00:31:42.960 | I would have been able to do that because I'm such a math guy and like when, when just setting
00:31:47.840 | aside any little bit of money I know would have, you know, would have put, put that target a little
00:31:54.080 | further out. So I don't know whether I could have done that, but I think that would have
00:31:57.760 | absolutely helped matters. And now that we're in this state where I just feel like I'm spending
00:32:03.680 | completely freely, I know how important it is to not be like I was. So I think, I think that's a
00:32:10.080 | great, great advice. And I wish I had followed that. Where were you two years ago? You talk,
00:32:16.000 | that was two years ago. I was working with financial planning clients, but I wasn't doing
00:32:19.680 | the podcast. When was our last one? That was, that was like number nine.
00:32:22.720 | Actually, you know what? That was July of, that was July of 2013.
00:32:27.120 | So we're going to say, where are you at? Could have used that advice.
00:32:30.960 | The other aspect that it makes me think of, and I believe it's important to talk about because
00:32:37.680 | your experience is similar to my experience with achieving goals. In the past, almost every goal
00:32:44.160 | that I achieved was a letdown because I would find, and I remember a couple specifically,
00:32:50.480 | when I was a kid, I had wanted to buy one of these RC cars, radio controlled cars. And I remember
00:32:55.520 | getting it. And as soon as I got it, it was like, Oh, a week later, I was just done with it. I was
00:32:59.840 | totally bored with it. I remember even when a transformative experience in my life was paying
00:33:05.200 | off all my college debt while I was in college. I worked, worked, worked, worked, worked. And
00:33:09.680 | then I hit the goal and it was a letdown. And I even remember financial income goals. I've
00:33:15.200 | set income goals. And I think the most money ever made in a month is I made $30,000 one month.
00:33:19.680 | And I would think, Oh man, I made $30,000. It's so fun. And I just remember it being
00:33:24.160 | not all that great. And I've come to believe that the setting of the goals is incredibly important,
00:33:32.560 | but the actual achievement of the goals is not so important. What is important,
00:33:36.640 | what I look back on is the character formation. So what I'm really proud of with all those things
00:33:41.920 | is who I became on the path to the goal. And we don't often set this out, but if you study
00:33:47.680 | society and you study people, you find it's universal. People hit a goal, the next milestone,
00:33:52.960 | and then they get depressed because what's the next goal. So in my mind, what's important is
00:33:57.200 | number one, don't ever hit one goal and not have further goals beyond that. Always make sure that
00:34:03.440 | if you're getting close to a goal, be setting beyond. And number two, make sure that we're
00:34:07.200 | paying attention to who we're becoming on the path. And it may not be quite so much of a letdown.
00:34:13.440 | I absolutely agree. Yeah, absolutely. I'm in the middle of writing a big post about
00:34:18.560 | all the different things that happen on this path, at least to me and to others I've talked to,
00:34:24.000 | that are just as worth focusing on as the end goal. And then that way, you don't feel like
00:34:29.920 | you're just getting it. Because I talked to a lot of people and a lot of people get into a rut,
00:34:33.520 | especially in maybe five, 10 years out for them. And they're just not having any joy like I wasn't
00:34:40.240 | just because they're just working so hard towards it. And this way, they can sort of focus on more
00:34:45.520 | intermediate goals. And then yeah, then what they follow the main goal up with, I don't know,
00:34:50.880 | I'm still trying to figure that out. What's what's next? It's like, hmm. Yeah, so it's
00:34:56.000 | check out my stages of financial freedom. I haven't done much on it on the site. But what I
00:35:00.160 | sat down was I said, we need to design instead of just talking about, you know, financial independence
00:35:05.600 | as this one thing, we need stages. And so we'll talk later off the air, and I need to do more
00:35:11.840 | shows on it and talk about that. But I designed stages of financial independence. And one of them
00:35:17.200 | is having enough money to maintain your lifestyle at, you know, the current level based upon
00:35:23.040 | investments. But then there's, you know, there are more beyond that. So check that out. It can be
00:35:27.120 | contribution, because even when you look at it, the most difficult thing, and even in financial
00:35:32.000 | planning clients, one of the most under talked about areas is what do you do once you have more
00:35:38.640 | money than covers your necessary expenses, then covers all your dreams and covers everything else?
00:35:44.320 | What do you do? And that is really, really tough. And you need to be thinking about that in advance,
00:35:49.600 | because the character that forms in the person who becomes financially independent, is the
00:35:55.040 | character that's going to continue to the fact that there's always going to be way more money than
00:36:00.080 | they ever need. So you're not going to change what happens in your character, you're not all of a
00:36:06.240 | sudden going to be spending, spending, spending, spending, because you've become someone different.
00:36:09.920 | And so you've got a plan for once I'm down the road, then then what do I do? I'm glad you're
00:36:15.680 | writing the post about it, because it's a neglected issue in this financial independence.
00:36:19.920 | Yeah, no, I agree. And I've been working actually quite a long time on it. So hopefully,
00:36:24.640 | I'll eventually be happy enough with it to put it out there. But I'll let you know when I do.
00:36:29.040 | Absolutely. So let's talk tactically, because one of the things I've many times sent people
00:36:33.520 | to your site, you've done such a great job of identifying some tactics of financial independence,
00:36:38.960 | that are effective, especially for people who are employees, and have available to them various tax
00:36:45.440 | qualified accounts within their employment situation. Let's start with your sharing with
00:36:51.760 | the audience a little bit about your strategy surrounding using 401k accounts and using those
00:36:57.600 | accounts for financial independence. Sure. Yeah, that was one of the main reasons I started the
00:37:01.760 | site. Actually, I knew that I could probably get there a lot quicker if I really put in some time
00:37:05.920 | to research things and read boring tax documents and things like that. But I didn't, I knew I
00:37:11.040 | wouldn't do it unless I had some external motivation to do it. And that's why I started the
00:37:16.000 | site. So yeah, I taxed tax advantage accounts, they always appeal to me, obviously, because
00:37:21.920 | you're saving tax up front. That's like, you know, I wanted to be able to utilize all of those. But
00:37:27.440 | then for someone retiring early, it's like, well, do you want to lock up a good chunk of your money
00:37:32.240 | until 59 and a half or later? Is that worth it? So started doing some research. And there's really
00:37:40.080 | there's a there's actually a way that you can, there's a couple ways actually, you can get your
00:37:44.000 | money out early without being penalized. The first is 72 t distributions. That's not the route that
00:37:51.280 | I'm planning on going because you have to continue them indefinitely at the same amount. And I don't
00:37:56.800 | want to be forced to take money out of any of my accounts, I'd rather leave it as much in there to
00:38:02.080 | grow tax free as I can, and then worry about checking it out later. So the strategy that I
00:38:06.720 | plan to use is a Roth conversion ladder. So you, you know, you take your 401k, and you roll it into
00:38:13.680 | your traditional IRA, after you leave your job, and then it's sitting there in your traditional
00:38:17.840 | IRA growing tax free. And then once you quit your job, you can, well, you can do it earlier. But
00:38:24.720 | once you quit your job, your income will drop. So you'll be in a much lower tax bracket. And then
00:38:30.560 | you can start just rolling it from your traditional to your Roth every year, the rollover is taxed.
00:38:36.560 | But since you're going to be not working, you could be you know, you could contribute, you can
00:38:41.840 | roll over like 10 grand plus tax free. And you can roll over more than that. And you know, the 10%
00:38:49.440 | bracket or the 15% bracket even. And once it's in the Roth, it just has to stay there for five
00:38:56.000 | years. And then after five years, you could just take it out whenever you want. So that's, it's a
00:39:01.600 | great way to get all those great tax advantaged benefits of the 401k and traditional IRA.
00:39:09.680 | But then still get the money out early. So you just have to have enough in your, you know,
00:39:15.040 | taxable account that you could withdraw for five years to wait until that first year's withdrawal
00:39:20.480 | can be withdrawn. But first year's rollover can be withdrawn, excuse me. But yeah, it's an excellent
00:39:27.040 | way. And it's really, it really changed my path. I was maxing out my retirement accounts anyway,
00:39:32.960 | I when I started, I just assumed, well, I hope I live after live past 59 and a half. So I still
00:39:39.040 | have to save for 59 and a half plus. So I just treated it as like two separate things. I was
00:39:45.840 | like, I'll save for pre retirement age and post retirement age. But then once I discovered the
00:39:52.560 | Roth IRA conversion ladder, then I was like, wow, okay, so this is all just my normal retirement
00:39:59.440 | account money. And it doesn't matter because it's, I'll just slowly roll that over, over time.
00:40:04.800 | And since early retirees have a lot of time after they leave their job, until they reach standard
00:40:12.000 | retirement age, you could potentially roll the entire thing over, pay little to no tax at all,
00:40:17.920 | just do it gradually. So that's, that's why you don't probably hear about that as often because
00:40:23.200 | most people work until they're whatever 65. So they're not gonna, they're not gonna be doing
00:40:27.520 | anything like that anyway. So also, because that strategy works best, if your expenses are
00:40:34.080 | abnormally low compared to the general society, your expenses are $8,000 a month, it's different
00:40:40.400 | than if your expenses are two or $3,000 a month, right? Yeah, you'd have a much bigger rollover
00:40:45.280 | and a much bigger tax it. So yeah, exactly. Exactly. Have you started actually doing that?
00:40:50.400 | Or now that you're still working, you're just still funding? I'm still working. Yeah,
00:40:53.200 | no, I'm still working. It's, uh, yeah, it's still bump pumping. I'm front loading that. So every
00:40:58.400 | at the beginning of every year, I just pump my entire paycheck into my 401. Why I have a 403b
00:41:03.680 | because I work for a university, but just pump all that in there. And then yeah, max out every
00:41:08.880 | retirement account again, and just going to keep doing that until I finally pull the plug. And,
00:41:14.000 | and then yeah, I'll immediately start start the rollover process. Even if you know, even if I have
00:41:19.040 | enough taxable accounts to last me for a long time, it's I'd much rather have all that money in
00:41:24.160 | a Roth than a traditional so right. Also, then you've done an excellent job of popularizing the
00:41:31.760 | health savings account. I know that's also been, you've written resources on that, that many people
00:41:36.960 | have benefited from. Walk us through the health savings account strategy. So yeah, the, the HSA
00:41:42.720 | was another, another thing I was researching to see if I could, you know, utilize it and get to
00:41:49.280 | financial independence quicker. The HSA is great because it's, it's like a triple tax advantage.
00:41:54.480 | So you, the money's free going in tax free going in, if you deposit it through a payroll. So if it
00:42:01.600 | goes directly in through payroll, that money actually skips FICA taxes. So that's another 7.65%
00:42:07.680 | that you're saving, which is one of the only ways I know of that you can get rid of, not do anything
00:42:13.040 | with a FICA tax. So it's tax free going in even more tax free than anything else, because like I
00:42:19.280 | said, you can possibly get out of FICA tax, tax free growth, just like all the IRAs and 401ks.
00:42:27.600 | And then it's tax free coming out for health expenses. So since we're all hopefully going to
00:42:34.560 | get really old, eventually we're going to maybe have a lot of health expenses later down the road.
00:42:39.440 | So the fact that that's tax free coming out, that means that money is completely tax free.
00:42:45.200 | Now, if you don't use it, hopefully you'll be healthy and you'll never use it. And it's
00:42:51.520 | unlikely, but if you don't use it for health expenses, once you hit 65, it's that 65? Yeah.
00:42:59.840 | Yeah. It's 65.
00:43:00.640 | 65. Yeah.
00:43:01.200 | IRA is 59 and a half. And then the HSA has to be after 65.
00:43:05.920 | So after 65, it turns into a traditional IRA pretty much. So you'll be taxed on
00:43:11.360 | withdrawing it just as you would, but you won't be penalized. So at worst, it's a traditional IRA.
00:43:18.960 | But like I said, if you're skipping out on FICA tax, it's even better than a traditional IRA.
00:43:26.160 | So my thought was, okay, so I'm maxing out all of my other retirement accounts. So there's really
00:43:34.800 | no retirement account space. I'm sorry. I've lost my voice this week and my voice has been
00:43:40.560 | breaking like crazy and I have another podcast to do after this one. So it's not looking good.
00:43:46.880 | So yeah, so I had no more tax advantage accounts I could utilize. So I had an appendectomy. I
00:43:54.640 | had appendicitis and so I spent up to my deductible. And I was like, well, I could take
00:44:02.720 | this out and use it to pay for it tax free, or I could actually leave it in there to grow for the
00:44:11.200 | next whatever, 40 years. And as long as I keep the receipt, and in my case, I'll take a digital copy
00:44:18.160 | of the receipt because it could disintegrate by then. But as long as I keep the receipt,
00:44:24.080 | that means I can take $2,000, I think my deductible was $2,500. So that means I can
00:44:28.480 | take $2,500 out of my HSA tax free at any time. And that could help fund maybe that gap between
00:44:38.880 | the traditional and the Roth or whatever I want to use it for. So yeah, I wrote a post called the
00:44:45.360 | ultimate retirement account. And that's what I believe is the ultimate retirement account.
00:44:49.440 | All the tax advantages associated with it. Yeah, it's a great option. And it's especially
00:44:54.560 | a great option because on the scale, with the amount of money that you guys spend,
00:44:59.520 | it actually works. And again, back to scale. The reason why these strategies are one of the big
00:45:04.640 | reasons why these strategies are not often discussed is if you're spending $10,000 a month,
00:45:09.360 | woohoo, I've got my $2,000 receipt. Yeah, that big deal. That's a couple days of expenses.
00:45:14.400 | But if you're spending $2,000 a month, and you've got these expenses accumulated over a couple of
00:45:20.560 | decades, then there's a couple of years of tax free withdrawals when you need them. And that's
00:45:26.080 | what's amazing. The tax code is such a cobbled together piece of patchwork. You got 74,000 pages
00:45:33.600 | of stuff put together, mainly written by lobbyists, the politicians don't understand and don't get it.
00:45:39.040 | And it's entirely in many cases incoherent. So you can find these little strategies and implement
00:45:46.800 | them. Now, I'm interested, Jill, you're working in Scotland. So you're earning income under the
00:45:52.560 | Scottish system. You're working in the United States earning income under the US American system.
00:45:58.080 | How are you finding the paperwork to be as far as you know, filing taxes and figuring out accounts,
00:46:05.040 | retirement accounts, things like that. We are still looking into that pretty heavily.
00:46:10.560 | There are new Scottish version of the mad scientist blog ready.
00:46:14.640 | There could be. It's easy for Jill because she's working in the UK earning pounds and living in the
00:46:20.560 | UK. So she's just doing what normal, normal UK sorry, I'm not going through the preview. I promise
00:46:27.120 | this is day three of a conference and I'm tapped out. So yeah, she's it's easy for her. So she's
00:46:32.800 | just doing what normal Scottish people do for taxes whenever she's she's like a sort of a
00:46:37.200 | self-employed optometrist, I guess. So she's doing all the self-employed things. For me,
00:46:41.600 | it's trickier. I work for an American company. I get paid via I have a salary and I get paid
00:46:49.120 | directly into my US bank account. And that money never makes it across the ocean. So right this
00:46:55.920 | year is easy because I'm in the country for less than 183 days. So I'm just paying US taxes as I
00:47:02.800 | did before we left the States. There's nothing changed next year. That's going to be a little
00:47:07.760 | trickier. I'm not sure what I'm going to have to do. I'm thinking I'm going to need to pay
00:47:11.440 | UK taxes and then I'll probably do the foreign earned income exclusion so that I don't have to
00:47:16.320 | pay US taxes. I still have to look into it though. So I'm upset for this year and I'm not sure how
00:47:22.480 | long I'll keep working. So I was like, I'm not going to do unnecessary research. I got enough
00:47:26.800 | to research anyway. So I'm not going to do that until next year. And then so yeah, you may have a
00:47:33.200 | Scottish post on Mad Findest that I can send you to next time. But yeah, up until now, I'm not sure.
00:47:39.600 | So I hope I figure as long as I'm paying tax to somebody, I should be good. And then yeah, I'll
00:47:46.240 | have to see what I need to do for the UK government next year. Yeah. Well, keep doing what you're
00:47:50.560 | doing. And I know you're doing this guinea pig series where you're kind of playing with your
00:47:55.200 | little optimization strategies. And I encourage people to go over and read Mad Scientist and
00:47:59.840 | check out your articles. In many ways, they've become a real source of information on the
00:48:04.640 | internet that is really, really useful. A couple of last questions and we'll wrap up. Jill, I'm
00:48:11.120 | curious about the employment situation. So you've got this unique thing where you can sub in for
00:48:19.680 | optometrists. Do you feel like that's also available in the United States or other countries
00:48:23.920 | for people or is that unique to Scotland? I have no idea. It's not something I was aware of when I
00:48:28.080 | was living over here. So I don't know if it would be that easy for American optometrists to do. But
00:48:34.400 | locuming in the UK is a big thing where you can just register with a central kind of database and
00:48:40.160 | then they'll send you anyone who's needing cover. They send you the dates available and you can kind
00:48:45.440 | of pick and choose which ones you want to do. So it's definitely easy in the UK. I don't know what
00:48:50.000 | it's like in other countries if it's possible. I'm sure it must be though. If anyone in the US
00:48:54.240 | knows, please comment on this podcast article, please. Because I would love to know. Because
00:48:59.840 | yeah, if we ever come back to America. It's something we've talked about. And like I said,
00:49:03.680 | I wasn't aware of it when we lived here before. So I didn't think it was a possibility, but
00:49:07.520 | it very well could be. So it's just one of the solutions I want people to be aware of. Because
00:49:12.160 | in traditional financial planning, the challenge is everything goes from fully working to fully
00:49:17.280 | retired. Realistically, if you have a savings rate above 10%, which many people feel fortunate to
00:49:26.800 | get to that. Many financial planners are like, "Wow, they're finally saving 10% of their income."
00:49:30.720 | You can go fully working and then you can go into a changing phase and part-time work,
00:49:36.880 | whether that's being a migrant worker and picking citrus or whatever the equivalent is in your
00:49:42.800 | industry. But just part-time work can bridge that gap for a period of years and can lead to a really
00:49:48.000 | great lifestyle where you are working, but it's not quite so overwhelming. Yeah. So that's actually
00:49:53.200 | built into our plan. If we do the six months in Scotland and then traveling the other half of the
00:50:02.160 | year, they're in the States or other places, then I would plan to keep working when I'm in Scotland,
00:50:07.600 | because I do like my job. So I'd like to keep doing it, but I don't necessarily want to have
00:50:11.520 | to do it full time all the time. Awesome. Last question. You guys have been doing traveling. I
00:50:16.400 | want to talk about the costs of traveling and also both the actual cash outlay and some of
00:50:22.000 | the experiments of your travel hacking challenges. So how much did you spend over the last year on
00:50:27.040 | your traveling adventures? Yeah, much less than we spent living in Vermont, I think. I wrote a post
00:50:32.880 | after we returned from our two and a half months in Southeast Asia. So I don't know if you should
00:50:40.880 | judge by that, because that is one of the cheapest places in the world. Well, there's no reason not
00:50:44.640 | to know that and use that. My wife and I, we ain't going to Europe right now. I don't want to spend
00:50:49.600 | the money there, but I'll consider going to South America or Southeast Asia. There's no reason why
00:50:55.200 | you have to go to Paris and spend all your money when you can also have a great time in Thailand.
00:51:00.320 | Exactly. No, and that's part of the plan as well. So like Thailand was one of our top destinations,
00:51:07.120 | but so is Tokyo. So the whole plan was like, there's so many places we want to go and see.
00:51:12.880 | Let's start with the cheaper ones. And then once we are confident that the portfolio is growing
00:51:20.240 | faster than we expected and all that sort of stuff, then we can start throwing in some of
00:51:23.760 | these other destinations. But the actual cost of travel is very low because we are like, I'm
00:51:29.360 | obsessed with travel hacking and it's just, you know, I love that sort of stuff. That's obviously
00:51:35.120 | why I do that with the tax code as well. But yeah, I love that sort of stuff. So like most of like
00:51:42.400 | the way we got to America this time, I found some mistake fares because I follow all the travel
00:51:47.040 | blogs. So we got really cheap flights, all the hotels we've been in except for this one, because
00:51:51.120 | it's a business expense for the conference. I used hotel points for. So really, if you slow down
00:51:59.280 | your travel, if you're not going for a week, like every normal working person does with their
00:52:05.680 | five days off of work, if you slow it down and maybe get a long term rental or house sitting
00:52:14.240 | or things like that, travel really is not that expensive. Because usually where you're going,
00:52:19.600 | it's a lot cheaper than where you are currently. So yeah, that we actually don't really spend that
00:52:25.520 | much at all. But we we travel at some ridiculous luxury, which is insane. So yeah, we the way we
00:52:32.560 | got back from Southeast Asia, I used 30,000 American airline miles, and we took a week
00:52:39.840 | doing it because you can have a 24 hour stopover. And so we went from Bangkok to Sri Lanka,
00:52:46.400 | to Qatar, to Jordan, to Israel, all in business class, because it was only 7000 miles more in
00:52:54.400 | business class than it was in coach. And we we had so much flying, we had we got fed all week for
00:53:00.160 | free. And it was just ridiculous. And we had we only carried backpacks. So we were just carry on
00:53:05.920 | luggage only. So we were checking into our Qatar business class flight, which is like the best,
00:53:11.440 | she's the best business class in the world. And I actually had one of their employees come up to me
00:53:18.640 | at the gate and like, Sir, you're in business class. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, he's like,
00:53:22.960 | and you didn't check any luggage. I'm like, No, no, this is all we had. And like, we'd slept in
00:53:26.720 | the airport that night, actually, because we didn't, we didn't feel like going out. And it
00:53:30.000 | was just like a total. And then we got on and we had $300 champagne on the flight. And it was just
00:53:35.760 | a ridiculous, ridiculous, especially after spending two and a half months in Southeast
00:53:39.120 | Asia, like just travelers. It was awesome. Basically, the way I think about it, the world
00:53:45.600 | is out like the world of employment is the most expensive place that exists on earth. Because
00:53:51.360 | when you have to, when you have to work at a job, everything is expensive for you. Not only do you
00:53:57.840 | have to live near the job, not only do you have to live in the city where the job is, not only do
00:54:01.920 | you have all the normal expenses of the job that I talk about constantly on this show, but even
00:54:06.000 | things like travel. If you don't have a job, you can see the deal come up. Hey, here's a mistake
00:54:11.760 | fair and it leaves on the seventh of May. Yeah, let's do it. And you don't have to, you can move
00:54:15.600 | fast. You don't have to call the boss and say, Hey, can I go? You can fly on the Wednesday instead
00:54:19.920 | of the Friday and the Sunday. You can take the you can be flexible and you can change instead
00:54:24.480 | of going to Thailand, you choose this other country because that was where the fees were.
00:54:27.920 | Basically, the entire world is out in a conspiracy to screw people that work.
00:54:33.200 | Absolutely. Completely. And even though we're still working, we got to take advantage of it.
00:54:37.520 | Like the flight we got was out of Warsaw, Poland, and that was just so much cheaper than anything
00:54:41.600 | else. And we're like, well, we'll just go to Warsaw for a few days. So we got to see Warsaw
00:54:45.360 | and then we flew over to here. So, and yeah, it's stacked against the working man and women, but
00:54:51.040 | it's when you have time and flexibility and you have a sense of adventure and, you know,
00:54:56.800 | that enhances the trip and you hardly spend any money. So yeah, that's awesome.
00:55:01.680 | Guys, thank you so much for coming on madfientist.com. Any other sites? You have the
00:55:05.600 | podcast, Madfientist podcast, and you still don't know how many people are listening to.
00:55:10.720 | No, I'm too cheap to pay for analytics on my podcast.
00:55:13.360 | So I'm going to tell on Brandon, just as a, as a, just a funny encouragement,
00:55:18.240 | podcasters and bloggers are obsessed with their stats, but he is a real,
00:55:22.080 | true financial independence. There's a $5 plan with a hosting company, a $7 plan with a hosting
00:55:27.120 | company, but the $7 plan gives you stats on how many people do listen to your show. And the
00:55:31.440 | $5 doesn't, and he's too cheap to get the $7 plan. So you probably have one of the biggest
00:55:36.640 | financial independence podcasts on the internet and you don't even look at the stats.
00:55:39.760 | I have no idea. Well, I figured if I did something with that data, if I did something
00:55:44.080 | productive with it, then yeah, I'll pay the extra $2 a month. But just to look at it and not know
00:55:48.560 | what to do with that information, it wasn't worth it. So yeah.
00:55:51.120 | At this point, it's probably becoming part of your persona. It's like Patrick Schulte
00:55:54.400 | says, I don't have a cell phone. It's like, there is no reason in the world why you can't
00:55:58.560 | or shouldn't have a cell phone, but this is part of your brand now. So now you got to not have a
00:56:01.680 | cell phone. Guys, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much.
00:56:05.040 | I hope you found some cool takeaways from that interview. I know I love talking to Brandon and
00:56:12.160 | seeing him and I'm thrilled about the journey that he and Jill are on. A couple things I just
00:56:18.080 | want to point out to you. And the biggest of them would be this. Recognize the fact that even though
00:56:26.320 | Brandon is now financially independent, he's still working. And recognize the fact that
00:56:32.000 | you don't necessarily have to be a millionaire to do something like he did.
00:56:36.640 | That's why I spend so much time on jobs and careers that I think an initial stage of financial
00:56:42.160 | independence should be find work that's suitable for you. Find work that is appropriate to your
00:56:49.280 | skills and knowledge and abilities and talents and gifts. If you love it, cool. If you don't
00:56:54.640 | love it, well, find something to love about it. Fall in love with the way that you do it.
00:56:59.600 | Fall in love with the impact that it can have. Work is work. And I don't buy this idea that
00:57:05.920 | you're just always going to find work that you're passionate about. And I don't think that
00:57:09.280 | you should always do work on things that are fun. But I do think that we can find meaning in work.
00:57:13.280 | And that can be expressed in a variety of ways. You can certainly at least find work that is
00:57:17.600 | suitable to you. And then when you find that, you might be able to negotiate an appropriate
00:57:22.560 | working situation. Get a little bit of money in the bank so you're not just going to be dragged
00:57:26.880 | around by your nose by your employer and then see if you can work something out. And then while
00:57:31.440 | you're saving your way to the million bucks or half a million or two million bucks that you need
00:57:36.080 | to declare yourself fully financially independent, while you're on the way to that direction,
00:57:41.360 | go ahead and enjoy a lifestyle of freedom along the way. It's possible. I've done it.
00:57:49.200 | That you've heard it over the last year and what four months of this show. You've heard every single
00:57:54.640 | step of the way as I've been following that plan. And as I tell you, do what I say and also do what
00:57:59.280 | I do. And I'm going to tell you the real path of financial independence all during the course
00:58:03.920 | of this show. Thank you so much for listening today. Go check out Brandon's work at mad
00:58:08.080 | scientist.com. Thank you for supporting the show. Those of you who support the show. I thank each
00:58:12.720 | and every one of you. You make a huge difference to my ability to do this for you each and every
00:58:17.360 | day. You all are called the patrons and there are about 260 ish of you who support the show and who
00:58:22.800 | allow me to pay the bills and keep doing this. If you would like to support the show, please go to
00:58:26.560 | radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. Radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.
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