RPF0271-Mike_and_Lauren

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00:00:09.440 | Get your tickets now at lakings.com/promotions and create lasting memories with your little ones.

00:00:14.840 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, I bring you a story.

00:00:18.600 | This is an interview with Mike and Lauren, YouTube personalities and personal finance experts from Mikeandlauren.com.

00:00:26.360 | They have a very cool story and it's worth your attention because they are cutting loose from the workforce at the age of 30 without ever really making a ton of money.

00:00:38.040 | They didn't make a big business and sell it.

00:00:39.880 | They never made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

00:00:42.320 | Just a normal couple who have followed their plan and are retiring at the age of 30.

00:00:50.920 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

00:01:09.720 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.

00:01:11.400 | Thank you for being with me today.

00:01:12.960 | This is a fun one.

00:01:14.280 | This is an inspirational and an educational version of the show.

00:01:18.680 | Mike and Lauren do a really, really great job of sharing some of their ideas and some of their content on our YouTube channel.

00:01:25.760 | And I was able to connect with them at FinCon 2015.

00:01:29.120 | Get a few more details, which I can now bring to you.

00:01:32.280 | One of the things I do want to do is provide you with other ideas and opportunities.

00:01:44.160 | I've got this weird idea that the world is a big place and that the pie is as big as we make it and there's not really any competition.

00:01:52.960 | And sometimes different people resonate with different formats.

00:01:56.640 | So for example, those of you who listen to this show consistently, you guys resonate with a podcast format.

00:02:01.360 | There are people who just flat out are not going to take the time to sit and listen to a long format podcast.

00:02:07.600 | But they might listen to a short clip of a podcast.

00:02:10.480 | So there are podcasts that I think could do a good job there.

00:02:13.120 | Some people don't want to listen to audio.

00:02:14.560 | They just want to read because that's a much more efficient use of their time.

00:02:17.120 | So there are great blogs.

00:02:19.120 | There are great books.

00:02:20.000 | Some people like YouTube videos.

00:02:22.960 | And there's a real dearth of content online in the personal finance YouTube space.

00:02:28.240 | Hint, hint, hint.

00:02:29.440 | This is an opportunity for some of you who might be able to produce interesting and useful content there.

00:02:35.840 | I very much see the opportunity.

00:02:38.320 | I very much personally would like to capitalize on the opportunity.

00:02:42.000 | But it is beyond my core skill set.

00:02:44.400 | I've tried to figure out how do I do this because I see the opportunity and it's out there.

00:02:48.800 | So Mike and Lauren, however, are one of the people who are involved in the YouTube space and who are doing a good job of integrating the principles of personal finance, the principles of early retirement, the approach, and also doing it and sharing it with other people.

00:03:05.680 | They have a very cool story.

00:03:07.200 | Now, this interview was recorded in – what was it?

00:03:09.440 | August, so a few months ago now at FinCon 2015.

00:03:12.880 | But since that time, there's actually been some exciting changes in their life which I will announce at the end of the interview.

00:03:22.080 | It's worth staying tuned for some of the details that they have to share with us and quick updates since the time of recording.

00:03:30.400 | Before I play the interview for you, two sponsors for today's show.

00:03:33.440 | I want to share with you some information about them.

00:03:35.360 | Sponsor number one is Jay Fleischman, host of the Student Loan Show.

00:03:39.520 | Jay is a really great guy.

00:03:41.040 | He is a student loan attorney and a bankruptcy attorney and he is an expert at how you can pay less money on your student loans.

00:03:49.040 | That's kind of a big deal because anywhere we can cut expenses is important and Jay will help you pay less money on your student loans.

00:03:57.280 | The coolest thing for you, the listening audience, is he offers a consulting package where he will share with you and do a review of your student loans for you.

00:04:07.520 | To find out details on that, please go to studentloanshow.com/radical.

00:04:11.440 | If you have student loans, I strongly recommend that you check this out, studentloanshow.com/radical.

00:04:17.760 | If you are in any kind of adversarial relationship with regard to student loans, you're in default, you're behind, you missed payments, you're fighting with the student loan company,

00:04:25.920 | call Jay especially then.

00:04:27.920 | Instead of being able to save you bucks, he might be able to save you big bucks.

00:04:31.840 | He's a real expert in that space.

00:04:33.360 | Subscribe to Jay's show, the Student Loan Show, in iTunes.

00:04:36.320 | Sponsor number two is Paladin Registry.

00:04:39.360 | Paladin is our – what was the first sponsor that I launched with and it was the most requested – sponsor in the most requested space of how do I go about finding a financial advisor.

00:04:49.280 | Paladin is an excellent service where they go through and they vet financial advisors before the fact and present you with a customized tailored list so that you can reach out to a financial advisor,

00:05:00.720 | interview them to see if they will be able to serve you and work with you and give you some really great options that are pre-vetted for you.

00:05:08.400 | For details on that program, go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/paladin, radicalpersonalfinance.com/paladin.

00:05:15.600 | And now, here is the interview with Mike and Lauren.

00:05:19.920 | Mike and Lauren, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.

00:05:23.440 | Thank you for having us.

00:05:24.560 | We're excited to be here.

00:05:25.360 | So, we're going to talk today about financial independence and a little bit about your story.

00:05:30.160 | You guys are awesome YouTube creators and there's not many people in the YouTube financial independence space, right?

00:05:36.960 | There is not.

00:05:37.680 | No, there's five or six of us.

00:05:39.040 | Do you know anyone else who's actually doing it?

00:05:42.160 | Like who are some of the other channels that are actually talking about the subject?

00:05:46.320 | Yes, there's Letitia Stiles at Young Finances.

00:05:50.720 | What's your name?

00:05:52.240 | Lauren Bolling.

00:05:53.360 | Okay, yeah.

00:05:54.000 | Lauren and LB in the Money Tree.

00:05:56.240 | Yes.

00:05:58.000 | There's two or three others.

00:05:59.520 | I'm trying to think.

00:06:00.560 | Not off the top of my head, I can't think of anybody.

00:06:02.000 | Yes, there are quite a few.

00:06:03.040 | Awesome.

00:06:03.680 | So, let's talk with your story surrounding financial independence.

00:06:08.640 | When did you guys get turned on to this idea of saving your way to financial freedom?

00:06:13.360 | This was all Mike.

00:06:14.480 | Yeah, so it started when I was about 17 or 18.

00:06:19.280 | I was listening in the car with my dad to a Dave Ramsey show and he was telling the story of the young investor who started at 19 and stopped at age 26 and the other investor started at 26.

00:06:31.520 | And for the rest of his life, the younger investor ended up with more.

00:06:35.440 | That magic of compound interest for me was really eye-opening.

00:06:38.960 | And that was not our eye-opener financial independence necessarily, but just personal

00:06:42.560 | finance in general.

00:06:43.360 | It was a whole new world to me.

00:06:45.440 | I started reading every blog I could.

00:06:47.280 | I found J.D. Roth back in the day, Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme.

00:06:52.640 | Read up on that.

00:06:53.600 | And then it wasn't until a couple years ago that we really saw -- we had always saved

00:06:58.000 | about 50% of our income just naturally for real people, so that was just how it started.

00:07:03.840 | And then we were looking at the numbers and we realized, "Hey, if we just bump up our

00:07:06.560 | savings rate just a little bit, we could achieve financial independence at a very young age."

00:07:11.280 | And so we went for it and that's where we're at now.

00:07:13.840 | Lauren, you say it was all Mike.

00:07:15.840 | What was your philosophy around money?

00:07:17.360 | Well now, it was all Mike because I never would have found it on my own.

00:07:21.280 | But I've known Mike, we're high school sweethearts, so I've always kind of heard the ideas from

00:07:26.800 | him.

00:07:27.280 | And so I learned these things sort of with him.

00:07:30.240 | And so I like to say that I was usually a few steps behind him, that I would eventually

00:07:35.440 | get on board, but he kind of had to give me some time to warm up to the idea.

00:07:40.800 | So again, with the, "We could do this in a few years, let's just save 75% of our income."

00:07:46.800 | And I thought, "Really?

00:07:48.560 | We're going to do that?"

00:07:49.520 | And then, you know, after a few days I thought, "Okay, let's try it, see what happens.

00:07:53.200 | What is the worst that we could do?

00:07:54.480 | Save some extra money and then say, 'Eh, it's not really for us.'"

00:07:57.280 | Right, right.

00:07:59.280 | When, for you Mike, when was your eyes open to financial independence?

00:08:05.280 | Because there's a huge chasm between, "Oh, save 15%," Dave Ramsey, "Save 15% of your

00:08:10.320 | income for retirement and then go on down the baby steps," versus Jacob, early retirement

00:08:14.800 | extreme, save 75% of your income.

00:08:17.360 | How were your eyes opened?

00:08:18.400 | And it was Mr. Money Mustache that, yeah, because Jacob, you know, living on $7,000

00:08:22.800 | a year, I could honestly-

00:08:23.920 | Your wife loves to hear that idea.

00:08:25.360 | She did not.

00:08:26.160 | Those were one of the ideas that, that was one of the ideas she couldn't warm up to because

00:08:29.280 | I love the idea of living in an RV.

00:08:30.880 | I love the idea.

00:08:32.560 | In my head, we've never actually done it.

00:08:34.000 | So who knows if I would actually love that, but so maybe she's balancing us out.

00:08:38.560 | But when Mr. Money Mustache showed his budget and he's not, you know, living in, you know,

00:08:44.160 | scarcity, that was really an eye opener that he's living like we're living now.

00:08:48.640 | That's something we could do.

00:08:49.680 | Sounds exactly like my relationship with my wife.

00:08:52.080 | I would be, I'm all over the $7,000 a year in an RV and she's a little more practical

00:08:57.680 | than that.

00:08:58.480 | So in between there, there's the, you know, $25,000, $30,000 a year budget that's, you

00:09:02.640 | know, a little more reasonable.

00:09:03.680 | So explain your current plan of financial independence and articulate the details for

00:09:08.080 | those who aren't familiar with the concept.

00:09:09.920 | Okay.

00:09:10.320 | So for us, financial independence, because that word financial independence is pretty

00:09:14.880 | set in stone, but retirement kind of has, you know, a variable definition.

00:09:19.360 | For us, financial independence is when all of our basic living expenses are covered and

00:09:23.920 | maybe not necessarily all the luxury we'd want in our life, but we have a roof over

00:09:27.360 | our head, food on the table and, you know, doing the things that we want to do.

00:09:31.600 | And for us, that number is saving around $420,000.

00:09:35.040 | And with the 4% rule, that would give us around $17,000 a year, I think is $1,700 or something.

00:09:42.320 | And that is the budget that we set up.

00:09:44.240 | And so if we achieve that savings, then our basic living expenses would be covered.

00:09:50.080 | And then after that, any work that we take on, whether it be just for hobbies or, you

00:09:55.600 | know, just general, just work that would go to more luxury in our life.

00:10:00.160 | And so currently we are just about halfway to that point.

00:10:04.000 | So we started about a year and a half ago.

00:10:06.000 | We have a year and a half or two left.

00:10:08.160 | How old am I?

00:10:08.720 | I'm 28, right?

00:10:10.240 | So we're three years.

00:10:10.880 | Oh, we're way ahead.

00:10:11.440 | The goal is 30?

00:10:12.160 | You're going to do it by 30?

00:10:13.440 | By my 31st birthday.

00:10:14.640 | Awesome.

00:10:15.140 | So it would be at 30, yeah.

00:10:16.240 | Awesome.

00:10:16.720 | Yeah.

00:10:17.040 | So you actually live on $17,000 a year now?

00:10:22.400 | That's... so no.

00:10:24.960 | Yes and no.

00:10:25.920 | It's pretty close.

00:10:27.120 | We spend right now for our core expenses, almost just about that.

00:10:32.320 | We're really spending more like $20,000 or $25,000.

00:10:35.520 | But we have our YouTube channel that we're spending, you know, a few hundred dollars

00:10:39.120 | a month on.

00:10:39.520 | We're doing...

00:10:40.000 | We're traveling a lot.

00:10:41.120 | We know we're leaving for Norway as soon as we get back from FinCon.

00:10:43.760 | Awesome.

00:10:44.240 | Yeah.

00:10:44.720 | So the things that are important to us, we're still spending on and...

00:10:48.000 | We're finding ways to make up that extra money that we're spending.

00:10:53.280 | And our YouTube channel.

00:10:54.560 | Yes.

00:10:54.880 | YouTube is eventually growing into that.

00:10:57.440 | And then we, you know, let's sell some stuff on Craigslist because we need to make up for

00:11:00.960 | this gap.

00:11:01.520 | And we got some sponsorships recently, so that's helping that also.

00:11:05.280 | So we're not just kind of waiting or pushing back the timeline.

00:11:09.680 | There's a real tendency for me to want to stick to that real strict budget just for

00:11:14.480 | the people online.

00:11:15.440 | But I'm like, this is real life.

00:11:16.640 | Let's, you know, if it happens, it happens.

00:11:19.040 | Like, this is what we're going for.

00:11:20.800 | But we're not going to...

00:11:22.080 | We're going to Norway with eight of our friends.

00:11:23.600 | So we're not going to like miss out on that trip just so for our readers, it's like cut

00:11:26.880 | and dry, line in the sand, no more than $17,000 a year.

00:11:30.640 | But how do you actually do that living in Florida?

00:11:32.720 | Because you don't live in Mississippi.

00:11:33.920 | You live in Florida.

00:11:34.960 | Yeah.

00:11:35.600 | That's a pretty hardcore...

00:11:36.960 | Even $20,000 a year, do you own the house?

00:11:40.160 | And you're saying, well, we don't pay any rent.

00:11:41.760 | So that's how we do it?

00:11:42.480 | Like Money Mustache does?

00:11:43.920 | Well, we...

00:11:44.420 | No, we actually love creative housing situations.

00:11:47.920 | And for both transportation and housing, we've done really well creatively for our entire

00:11:53.280 | marriage, spending about half of the national average.

00:11:56.000 | For whatever reason, that's just what it's always ended up.

00:11:58.080 | When we were in New York City, we actually lived in New York City for three years.

00:12:00.800 | Wow.

00:12:01.200 | Yeah.

00:12:01.600 | And so the average rent in our area was, I think it was $3,000 a month for...

00:12:07.120 | We were midtown east and just searching on Craigslist and found a lady that was renting

00:12:13.360 | her studio apartment.

00:12:14.160 | So it was 296 square feet.

00:12:16.000 | So it wasn't anything huge, but we paid $1,400 a month.

00:12:19.120 | So we're literally half the average for that area.

00:12:21.760 | And we're happy with it.

00:12:22.480 | We loved it.

00:12:23.280 | It was great.

00:12:23.840 | I really miss it a lot.

00:12:24.880 | We were in an excellent area.

00:12:26.400 | And for our housing situation now, I actually work something out with work because I work

00:12:30.960 | for a church.

00:12:31.600 | And so there's a tiny house on the property at 600 square feet.

00:12:34.640 | And so that we have worked in at rent for 650, which in our area is about half of what

00:12:39.200 | national or half of the average rate for rents in our area.

00:12:42.880 | And for transportation, we've always just ended up making money on cars because I love

00:12:47.920 | finding deals.

00:12:48.880 | Right.

00:12:49.120 | So I will find a good deal on a car and then we'll drive it for a little while and then

00:12:53.760 | sell it for either what we paid or sometimes a profit.

00:12:56.000 | Wow.

00:12:56.480 | Yeah.

00:12:57.040 | Here's the comparison between New York City and Florida, though.

00:13:00.720 | My wife and I, when we married for our first year, we lived in a 234 square foot studio

00:13:06.480 | apartment.

00:13:06.880 | So we beat you.

00:13:07.280 | Excellent.

00:13:07.760 | You guys are wasteful spendthrift.

00:13:10.080 | What's wrong with you paying for the extra 30?

00:13:12.800 | I had a closet.

00:13:13.440 | We shouldn't have gone for the closet.

00:13:14.880 | Seriously.

00:13:15.440 | And a little studio in downtown West Palm Beach.

00:13:19.440 | And we paid $500 a month for that.

00:13:21.440 | So $500 versus $1,400 is a good comparison in New York City.

00:13:25.200 | But that is for two people in New York City rent.

00:13:28.240 | That's the way to do it.

00:13:29.360 | Right.

00:13:29.920 | How do you find deals like that?

00:13:31.920 | Craigslist.

00:13:32.480 | Honestly, I'd love to say it was it would be something more creative than that.

00:13:38.480 | But it's just about when we want something, we start looking at Craigslist and we're refreshing

00:13:44.400 | every 15 minutes to an hour.

00:13:46.400 | And when I know we wanted a Prius as our car, I set up notifications and you have to be

00:13:51.120 | the first person to call and you have to go immediately no matter what you're doing during

00:13:55.120 | the day.

00:13:55.360 | You have to drop it.

00:13:56.400 | And there's the same thing with the apartment.

00:13:57.600 | Lauren never saw it before we rented it.

00:13:59.040 | It went up.

00:13:59.600 | I called.

00:14:00.320 | We rented it.

00:14:01.040 | That was it.

00:14:01.520 | Wow.

00:14:02.880 | How do you set up notifications on Craigslist?

00:14:06.000 | We have an app.

00:14:06.640 | It's called Craigslist Pro or Craigslist Plus.

00:14:09.040 | And it'll send you text updates for your search queries or if something gets posted

00:14:12.960 | to a category.

00:14:14.080 | That's a useful tool because I've looked in the past to try to figure that out and I haven't

00:14:18.080 | been able to find that.

00:14:18.880 | So Craigslist Pro.

00:14:19.920 | Yeah, exactly.

00:14:20.640 | I think it's $2 in the App Store.

00:14:22.080 | So what do you actually do for work?

00:14:24.560 | I work for a church.

00:14:25.840 | And so it's kind of the Florida megachurch style.

00:14:28.560 | And so I do all the lighting, sound, and camera stuff.

00:14:31.760 | So I do production.

00:14:32.560 | And that's how we kind of got into the YouTube thing is I was familiar with cameras and things

00:14:36.720 | like that.

00:14:37.040 | I actually work for a jewelry store, which is what brought us to New York.

00:14:42.000 | I went to the Gemological Institute of America.

00:14:44.480 | So I am a gemologist, which is kind of random.

00:14:47.680 | And so I work for a really cool family-owned jewelry store at home.

00:14:50.880 | So the YouTube thing is one of the themes that I wanted to talk to you about.

00:14:56.080 | This seems to be, for those who watch YouTube, like the perfect thing.

00:15:00.480 | After all, all you need to do is just grab a camera, start filming your life with you

00:15:04.320 | walking around with your selfie stick, toss it on the Internet, and you make millions

00:15:07.760 | of dollars, right?

00:15:08.400 | After all, the Shaytards did it.

00:15:09.760 | Exactly.

00:15:10.240 | Instantly famous.

00:15:10.960 | What are the realities of building a business and earning money on a YouTube channel?

00:15:17.200 | The reality is it's a lot of work for not a lot of money.

00:15:21.520 | We currently spend about 100 hours a month on our two videos per week that we put out.

00:15:26.960 | And for advertising, last month we made $400.

00:15:32.080 | So that works out to about half minimum wage.

00:15:34.560 | You would definitely be better off delivering pizzas if you're getting into it for the money.

00:15:38.480 | However, once you have an audience built, then you can follow traditional blog methods

00:15:44.960 | of monetizing with digital products and sponsorships.

00:15:48.560 | And we've actually just had recent success with sponsorships with two national brands.

00:15:53.520 | And I think we can say in progressive insurance and H&R Block.

00:15:56.320 | And they paid us to make content for their websites.

00:15:59.600 | So that was really cool because that was a win-win-win.

00:16:01.440 | Our fans get extra content if they want it.

00:16:04.800 | The brand gets original content and we get paid.

00:16:07.040 | And for those, we were paid over $1,000 a video.

00:16:09.440 | So that's definitely something more lucrative once you have an audience established.

00:16:14.480 | This started as a hobby though, right?

00:16:15.840 | You posted videos of your honeymoon.

00:16:18.240 | Our backpacking trip.

00:16:19.280 | Yeah.

00:16:19.760 | And so it was just sort of a way for friends and family to follow our trip.

00:16:23.120 | It was, there was no intention of ever promoting it or having more people watch it.

00:16:28.320 | It was just so that we could say, "Hey, we went to Europe and this is what we did."

00:16:31.760 | Right.

00:16:32.080 | And the, uh...

00:16:34.480 | Crap, what was I going to say?

00:16:35.360 | I don't know.

00:16:37.600 | Hobby.

00:16:38.080 | Started as a hobby.

00:16:38.880 | Oh, yes.

00:16:39.120 | Thank you.

00:16:39.600 | Perfect.

00:16:40.160 | Yes.

00:16:40.400 | So we love making videos.

00:16:42.080 | It's a hobby that we have.

00:16:43.040 | And we would definitely make YouTube videos, even if there was no money involved.

00:16:46.480 | Albeit, we would not be making two videos a week.

00:16:48.080 | That's a lot of work.

00:16:49.360 | But if you don't love it, I definitely wouldn't recommend getting into it.

00:16:52.880 | There's easier ways to do it.

00:16:54.320 | So with regard to your financial independence plan, when you reach that, so what percentage

00:17:00.560 | of your income do you save now?

00:17:02.080 | We shoot for 75%.

00:17:03.840 | Realistically, we're looking in the 65 to 70%.

00:17:06.000 | Okay.

00:17:06.960 | And so you're targeting a couple, three more years.

00:17:09.360 | Do you have any idea of what you'll do at that point in time?

00:17:12.480 | That's the thing.

00:17:13.920 | Back to creative housing.

00:17:15.200 | Yes.

00:17:15.840 | Well, we get a lot of questions.

00:17:17.520 | Well, I don't want to retire early.

00:17:18.880 | I don't ever want to stop working.

00:17:20.640 | And we don't want to stop working.

00:17:22.320 | We just want to pick and choose what we do and when we want to do it.

00:17:25.600 | So we can do the things that we love and when we want to.

00:17:29.760 | And our plan right now, at least, after we achieve financial independence, is to live

00:17:34.640 | on a sailboat and do some sailing around the world, which comes back to that creative housing.

00:17:38.880 | What are we going to do when we only have $1,700 a month?

00:17:42.880 | Or I'm sorry, $1,400, $1,500 a month coming in.

00:17:45.760 | That's a realistic budget for sailing the world on a sailboat in a small space.

00:17:49.760 | If you talk to a financial advisor, any mainstream financial advisor, and also,

00:17:55.680 | even if you start posting in some early retirement forum, and you tell them,

00:18:00.080 | "All right, we're 30 years old and you're similar age," right, Lauren?

00:18:03.840 | I'm actually a year and a half younger.

00:18:05.200 | Okay, so a little younger.

00:18:06.000 | We're about 30.

00:18:07.200 | And our plan is to save $428,000.

00:18:10.400 | And we're going to live on under $2,000 a month for the rest of our life.

00:18:14.400 | The response will be, at the minimum, you're naive.

00:18:19.040 | Right.

00:18:19.280 | And at the more normal, you're stupid.

00:18:21.760 | Yep.

00:18:22.000 | What do you have to say to those critics?

00:18:24.160 | Well, what we have to say first is that we don't plan on living on just $1,400 a month or less.

00:18:29.920 | We plan on pursuing our hobbies.

00:18:32.240 | So right now, I'm really into woodworking, building things, making things.

00:18:36.400 | And we can't-- and our YouTube channel is a hobby.

00:18:39.120 | And inevitably, we're going to be making a lot more money than just our financial

00:18:45.360 | independence budget from our hobbies.

00:18:47.120 | And if we're not, we'll have to go back to work.

00:18:48.560 | That's what I love to say to those criticisms is, "What's the worst case scenario?"

00:18:52.480 | In your wildest dreams, our plan doesn't work out.

00:18:55.200 | What's the-- we go back to work like everybody else?

00:18:57.120 | Right, right.

00:18:58.000 | And we have half a million dollars in the bank?

00:18:59.520 | How is that a bad, worst case scenario?

00:19:02.080 | So I've always said this in the comments of our blog to that kind of criticism.

00:19:05.760 | If we're not millionaires by the time we're 40, then we did something wrong.

00:19:08.320 | Because we're going to be making money, and we're not going to need that $1,400 a month.

00:19:12.720 | That-- and that's just going to compound and build on itself.

00:19:15.360 | And money is not going to be an issue.

00:19:16.880 | I don't know how to-- there's just a gut feeling.

00:19:18.640 | I can tell, like--

00:19:19.600 | Right, right.

00:19:20.640 | It's not going to be a problem.

00:19:21.600 | Well, also, if you just consider-- and I think Jacob Lundfisker,

00:19:23.920 | early retirement extreme, always made this point very well,

00:19:26.400 | especially in his book, which has been a strong recommendation on this show.

00:19:29.920 | The type of person who's able to, number one, build financial independence for themselves,

00:19:36.240 | and number two, live a frugal lifestyle, is an extremely well-rounded person.

00:19:41.040 | Where if you wanted to get a job, you're not-- you don't have a resume that simply says,

00:19:46.400 | "Oh, I did this one job in this one career."

00:19:48.640 | You have a resume that says, "I have skills in dozens of areas."

00:19:51.760 | And you can take your pick of the housing market.

00:19:53.920 | And with your many skills, you are much more resilient,

00:19:57.600 | personally, to be able to find all kinds of new ways of earning money.

00:20:01.360 | Exactly.

00:20:01.760 | And much more adaptable to any situation.

00:20:04.640 | If we're having trouble finding work, we already have experience cutting back on our budget.

00:20:08.720 | So, exactly what you said.

00:20:11.040 | We're building skills in retirement or in financial independence that,

00:20:15.840 | if we should have to go back to work, we're building those skills to go back to work.

00:20:19.520 | There's somebody who's close to me in my life, and this person has an amazing story

00:20:23.600 | where they spent years working as a truck driver.

00:20:27.680 | And they got to their middle age, and as a truck driver, they didn't have much money,

00:20:32.960 | working for a large beverage company.

00:20:34.480 | But they said, "I'm done."

00:20:36.480 | And they quit.

00:20:37.360 | And they switched.

00:20:38.880 | And instead of working on truck driving, they started to build a real estate business.

00:20:44.080 | So, they were very handy.

00:20:45.680 | He was very handy with his hands and was able to work and work on houses.

00:20:49.280 | Well, he didn't have much money, but he bootstrapped his way into the first couple of houses,

00:20:54.160 | buying them for cash, never borrowed money on these properties,

00:20:56.720 | but finding the cheap properties, fixing them up, flipped a couple here and there,

00:21:00.480 | and fixed others up, kept some as rentals.

00:21:03.120 | Well, fast forward, they hit financial independence.

00:21:05.600 | Well, number one, in many ways, he was job independent from the beginning,

00:21:11.280 | because he just said, "That's it. I'm done."

00:21:13.040 | He filled in the income gaps with all of these crazy little things,

00:21:17.040 | making money on all these just weird things, finding a lawnmower here,

00:21:21.200 | and some guy, "Hey, I'll give you 20 bucks for the broken ticket home.

00:21:24.640 | Fix it. Flip it on Craigslist during the grass season for $180."

00:21:28.720 | You just make $100 here, a couple hundred dollars there,

00:21:31.600 | and it was due to his physical skills.

00:21:34.000 | I mean, it's like he makes money on everything,

00:21:36.240 | but he doesn't make a lot of money on anything.

00:21:38.400 | It's just a lot of little things with this diversity of skills.

00:21:41.360 | Fast forward, they're financially independent eight or nine years later

00:21:43.840 | with a number less than 10, but more than five rental houses that provide for them,

00:21:48.400 | and he still makes money on everything, just flipping things.

00:21:51.040 | And it's something that I believe in what you do and what you show on-

00:21:53.840 | You're describing our plan for financial independence right now.

00:21:56.160 | Because on your show, you're demonstrating even you've got this weird

00:21:59.200 | financial independence and DIY thing.

00:22:01.120 | Exactly.

00:22:01.440 | And you're building a diversity of skills that are applicable to,

00:22:06.880 | number one, the needs of life.

00:22:08.240 | "Hey, my wife needs a jewelry cabinet, so I'm going to make one."

00:22:10.960 | And also, those skills have value in the marketplace.

00:22:15.200 | "I'm going to make some custom pieces and sell a few custom pieces here and there."

00:22:18.960 | Exactly. For a friend, we built an Apple Watch charging station,

00:22:24.080 | and we were just flooded with emails asking for people to purchase them.

00:22:27.520 | And of course, we should build those and sell them.

00:22:29.520 | That makes the most sense.

00:22:30.960 | But it's not what I want to do with my time right now.

00:22:32.400 | We're happy with making videos.

00:22:33.680 | So exactly as you said, I don't know where the money is going to come from,

00:22:37.440 | but I know if we can cover our basic living expenses,

00:22:40.400 | the money is going to come for the luxury from other sources, just as you described.

00:22:44.160 | And if it doesn't, then our plan didn't work.

00:22:46.160 | I mean, at least we have food on our table and a shelter and a roof over our head.

00:22:49.360 | Exactly.

00:22:50.000 | How much do you think you could sell those watch stands for

00:22:52.960 | if you were going to put them on Etsy or whatever?

00:22:54.400 | Probably $200 or $300, I would think.

00:22:56.800 | That'd be my guess.

00:22:57.600 | And in my mind, this is one of the values.

00:23:01.040 | I encourage all of my listeners to start a blog, start a podcast, start a YouTube channel,

00:23:06.160 | do something to start to establish a presence.

00:23:09.200 | Because if you are just a skillful woodworker making cool stands,

00:23:14.800 | but you don't have an outlet for that, no one's going to find that.

00:23:18.800 | On the other hand, I don't know if you're a skillful woodworker

00:23:21.920 | or you're a mediocre woodworker, but if you're a woodworker and you have a platform,

00:23:26.480 | then you can make one watch stand as a project with a friend,

00:23:29.840 | and all of a sudden you've got a business.

00:23:31.120 | Exactly.

00:23:31.680 | We've made a video exactly about that, that with an audience, it's unfair.

00:23:36.400 | Like, because we're trying to teach this financial independence,

00:23:39.760 | like this is what we're doing.

00:23:41.120 | You could do it too, except that a big part of our plan is we have an audience

00:23:44.880 | to utilize and kind of leverage anything we want to do in the future.

00:23:48.160 | We'll inevitably make money with an audience.

00:23:50.240 | But anybody can do this.

00:23:51.840 | Everybody can't do it with a big YouTube channel,

00:23:54.720 | but anybody can do it if they start to learn and understand a little bit of marketing ideas.

00:23:59.440 | One of the backup backup backup backup plans, I keep lists of things.

00:24:02.960 | Okay, Joshua, if you go broke and you got to start over again, what are you going to do?

00:24:05.920 | Or if this business fails, what do you do?

00:24:07.520 | So I keep lists of these things.

00:24:09.360 | But one of the simple ones that I have is, believe it or not,

00:24:12.400 | I would enjoy raising chickens and selling free-range pastured poultry.

00:24:19.440 | So I've talked to other people who have done this,

00:24:22.160 | and it's one of these silly little things where you start very small

00:24:26.240 | and you sell your birds before you even get them simply through basically Facebook.

00:24:30.800 | And if you start little and you start advertising to people and you say,

00:24:33.600 | "Okay, I'm going to do 100 birds," and you go around all your friends,

00:24:36.240 | "Here's the plan. I'm going to do pastured poultry."

00:24:38.160 | You give them the price, blah, blah, blah.

00:24:40.000 | You can sell all your birds before you get them based upon marketing through Facebook.

00:24:44.880 | And then you sell them, you get referrals, more customers, and you build slowly.

00:24:48.400 | So anybody can do something today.

00:24:51.520 | The tools are so easy. It's not necessarily YouTube.

00:24:55.360 | Exactly. Yeah.

00:24:56.240 | And it's funny you say poultry because we had chickens ourselves.

00:24:59.760 | We had to give them to friends.

00:25:02.640 | We were having troubles with predators.

00:25:04.160 | But we want to start that up again.

00:25:05.200 | We want to have our own poultry and eggs.

00:25:07.360 | So very funny you say that.

00:25:09.760 | You mentioned that specifically because we've thought about that.

00:25:11.600 | Right, right.

00:25:12.560 | And this is how society in many ways used to be, right?

00:25:15.600 | You would market to your friends and neighbors,

00:25:17.760 | but in a local place with your sign, with your business.

00:25:21.840 | Everybody knew what little cottage business you had.

00:25:24.640 | Then we've gone into a system of employment where everybody just works at,

00:25:28.160 | "Okay, I do this job and I don't talk to people."

00:25:30.240 | But now there's almost a new phase.

00:25:32.080 | And as the job market continues to shrink,

00:25:34.640 | as companies continue to cut costs, many more people need something.

00:25:38.880 | And if you've got something built up that's a thousand bucks a month,

00:25:41.680 | and you know, "I could scale this up,"

00:25:43.600 | then in many ways you become or at least start to feel more confident.

00:25:46.960 | You either become invincible or you start to feel more confident

00:25:49.680 | because however much the church is paying you,

00:25:51.600 | you can start making Apple watch stands and sell them on Etsy

00:25:54.400 | and replace it in an instant if you wanted to.

00:25:56.320 | Exactly.

00:25:57.040 | And it's something that I wish we could do a better job of explaining that to our audience

00:26:03.120 | because what you just put into words is what kind of our channel is about.

00:26:06.640 | Yeah, you've got three minutes and 15 seconds.

00:26:08.080 | Exactly.

00:26:08.480 | We've got three minutes and 15 seconds.

00:26:10.000 | Exactly.

00:26:10.800 | So that's why our channel, we do not do a great job of building it as fast as possible

00:26:16.000 | because if we were going to build it as fast as possible,

00:26:17.520 | it wouldn't be named Mike and Lauren because what does that mean?

00:26:19.600 | It wouldn't be about finance, DIY, travel, and woodworking

00:26:23.040 | because you would pick one niche and stick with it.

00:26:25.440 | But the idea is that we're building all these skills and any one outlet,

00:26:29.760 | just as you described, could at any point replace our income.

00:26:32.240 | So the next one, which when people say you're naive,

00:26:37.680 | and I know you have some perspectives on it,

00:26:39.360 | so I'm interested in hearing honestly, kids, how do they impact financial independence?

00:26:44.720 | Well, it's actually interesting that you bring that up because I am pregnant right now.

00:26:48.160 | Congratulations.

00:26:49.040 | So we have a boy that we're expecting in March.

00:26:51.520 | So we're very excited about that.

00:26:52.880 | And we've decided that I'm not going back to work after that.

00:26:56.000 | So that kind of should be interesting.

00:26:58.880 | Yeah.

00:27:00.000 | So it's funny that just as, was it the same week or two days after we found out she was pregnant

00:27:06.400 | is when we started getting sponsorships for our channel.

00:27:08.240 | And it was kind of like, okay, this is a weird timing that,

00:27:11.760 | okay, this is going to be probably replacing her income.

00:27:14.400 | And if her being home, it's something she can do from home,

00:27:17.120 | we can replace her income, hopefully from our channel with digital products

00:27:21.360 | and sponsorships and that kind of thing.

00:27:23.120 | And now back to the, we're doing a bad job of building our channel.

00:27:27.120 | If we were just stuck to one thing, now it's going to be very baby related.

00:27:30.160 | So we have a whole new section of our channel and a whole new audience that will hopefully build.

00:27:35.440 | Are already saying how they're excited to see baby on a budget videos.

00:27:39.040 | And then that that will be for the people who are already subscribers and then bring in

00:27:43.200 | so many others and how we're specifically kind of going to combat that,

00:27:48.400 | that thing to our budget, the baby it's, it's getting creative about everything.

00:27:52.880 | So our house right now is 600 square feet, but there's a laundry room in the back.

00:27:55.920 | So instead of moving to a bigger house, we're going to convert that room for around $500 or

00:28:00.560 | so just put a drywall and and do that.

00:28:03.600 | And then, you know, the sailing thing once we retire or financial independence is,

00:28:08.960 | is going to be a very similar, you know, budget.

00:28:11.760 | Our budget is not going to increase in the traditional ways.

00:28:14.000 | You know, the figures $242,000, I think the average child is seven or 30% of that is housing.

00:28:19.360 | Well, we're very creative with our housing situation.

00:28:21.840 | 20% or 16% is transportation because everyone goes out and buys a new SUV.

00:28:26.320 | And so we just don't do that.

00:28:27.920 | And based on people we've talked to, we're expecting it to add a few hundred dollars

00:28:32.080 | a month to our budget.

00:28:32.720 | We're not that naive to think that, oh, everything's going to stay the same.

00:28:35.280 | But it's, we can apply everything we've done in our life up to this point to the baby and

00:28:41.120 | hopefully be creative with how we make money and how we save money.

00:28:44.320 | Just call my wife and talk to her.

00:28:46.800 | She is the wizard in this area.

00:28:48.960 | I think for two kids, one two-year-old and one three-month-old, I think she's bought,

00:28:54.240 | I think, two outfits total because they were things that she really loved and she wanted,

00:28:58.720 | she felt like she just wanted to buy an outfit.

00:29:00.720 | And that's what I've started reading is the asking for hand-me-downs because a lot of

00:29:05.920 | people think, oh, they're having a baby.

00:29:07.440 | They're going to want everything new.

00:29:09.040 | And of course, that's not us in general.

00:29:11.280 | So I've already started asking, oh, you have something?

00:29:13.680 | Can I get this?

00:29:14.320 | And so it's so great.

00:29:15.120 | We've already, I've started storing things that we've received for free.

00:29:19.440 | So I think that's really interesting.

00:29:20.480 | One of the secrets that she uses is, number one, we never say no to when somebody gets

00:29:26.000 | to give something because then when people are picky, what happens is people often stop

00:29:30.400 | offering you stuff.

00:29:31.120 | If you say yes, but you clarify that, okay, if I don't want this, I'll go ahead and dispose

00:29:36.560 | of it and move it down the stream for you.

00:29:38.640 | Then people are happy to give you things.

00:29:40.080 | And then once you get a reputation as a receiver, then people are willing to give you things.

00:29:44.000 | So the first, when we bought our house, which is on the market right now, thinking just

00:29:50.960 | to make sure I'm right, the entire time we lived there, we didn't buy a single piece

00:29:55.440 | of furniture.

00:29:56.400 | The entire thing was furnished with free furniture.

00:29:59.040 | Now, it wouldn't have been on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.

00:30:01.280 | And we had been planning to go ahead and, okay, we're going to go ahead and start buying

00:30:04.400 | some furniture.

00:30:05.120 | But we lived there for over two years, three years, and we didn't buy a stick of furniture.

00:30:12.640 | We haven't bought a single thing of baby clothes.

00:30:14.480 | We haven't bought a single, we never bought the swing, never bought anything.

00:30:18.240 | Because when you bring in together, number one, the blessings of a baby shower for those

00:30:22.080 | few things that are really nice that you need.

00:30:24.240 | And number two, everybody is trying to get rid of kid stuff.

00:30:27.200 | Because in our society, there's such a waste stream of kid stuff.

00:30:30.400 | Any parent knows that their house is just bursting at the seams and parents love it.

00:30:34.480 | And then the key is organization.

00:30:36.160 | So we have bins, she's got bins laid out, boys clothes, these months, girls clothes

00:30:41.680 | these months.

00:30:42.400 | And if you stay just a little bit ahead, you got to be thinking ahead, just like with everything

00:30:45.600 | in finance.

00:30:46.400 | If you think just a little bit ahead, you can be prepared.

00:30:48.480 | So we're going to move up the up sizes, put this batch away and bring on the next one.

00:30:53.120 | I can't tell you how happy we are to hear that because we also just like it, we've never

00:30:57.200 | paid for a piece of furniture in our entire marriage.

00:30:59.440 | And our plan is the same.

00:31:00.400 | We don't plan on paying anything for baby clothes.

00:31:02.960 | Just because as you said, there's this endless stream of everybody just...

00:31:06.640 | People wanting to get rid of things, so why not take them?

00:31:09.200 | And so that was our plan.

00:31:10.160 | And it's nice to hear that that might actually work out.

00:31:12.400 | Yeah, I've done some shows on it.

00:31:13.680 | But even we have, most people are not interested in frugality.

00:31:17.120 | But when people are, we have a few things like, for example, my wife is a genius at

00:31:20.560 | cloth diapers.

00:31:21.280 | We are very interested in that.

00:31:23.600 | All right, so we can give you the speech off the air.

00:31:26.400 | But you know, something as simple as cloth diapers, you take, it does require an upfront

00:31:32.880 | cost.

00:31:33.680 | But even that, the average cloth diaper...

00:31:36.240 | So here's something that I think the audience will also enjoy and also you'll personally

00:31:39.920 | enjoy.

00:31:40.420 | Have you researched the cloth diaper marketplace?

00:31:43.840 | Yes.

00:31:44.560 | It is stunning.

00:31:45.680 | I never would have guessed that the used diaper marketplace...

00:31:50.160 | And Lauren is shaking her head.

00:31:51.680 | It's amazing, right?

00:31:53.600 | I know.

00:31:54.480 | It's nuts.

00:31:55.920 | The used diaper marketplace.

00:31:57.920 | You never would have thought until you started looking into it.

00:32:02.160 | It's one of the strongest secondary markets I've ever seen in my life.

00:32:05.200 | The depreciation on cloth diapers is like 30%.

00:32:08.400 | It's amazing.

00:32:09.840 | It's nuts.

00:32:10.400 | So we started looking at this and it blew my mind that, you know, here you have, you

00:32:16.240 | know, cars depreciate just like that.

00:32:18.800 | And, you know, a couple of years of use on a car and you're at 40% of its original value,

00:32:22.880 | it seems like, especially some cars.

00:32:24.480 | Cloth diapers, a couple of years of putting baby poop in them every day.

00:32:28.080 | These things are still 70% of their value.

00:32:31.200 | Right.

00:32:31.860 | But she learned things.

00:32:33.860 | So she bought a couple and some people gave them as gifts.

00:32:37.300 | But then she went out and she went on FreeCycle and asked for diapers.

00:32:40.260 | And what happens is the elastic gets stretched out and they're bad.

00:32:43.380 | And so she would get all these diapers where the elastic was just stretched out, get some

00:32:47.060 | elastic and replace the elastic.

00:32:49.460 | So her cost, she's got probably almost 100 diapers, I would guess, of different sizes.

00:32:54.660 | Her average cost, I made her keep track of it just so she could tell me, it was like

00:32:58.180 | $3.10 a diaper or something like that.

00:33:00.980 | Which when you buy these things, $20 to $30 is new.

00:33:03.300 | But you take $3.10 a diaper, it makes all the difference in the world because you take

00:33:08.500 | away this $50 to $80 monthly expense that many parents face with disposable diapers and

00:33:13.700 | you replace it with the cost of water and the cost of detergent plus that upfront cost.

00:33:17.780 | And then knowing they have a remainder value, you can take this cost that for many parents

00:33:22.260 | is, I mean, hundreds, maybe over $1,000.

00:33:26.180 | And it turns in if you resell them, if you don't have more kids, you resell them and

00:33:30.740 | it's amazing.

00:33:31.300 | So there's always a way no matter what.

00:33:33.540 | But what happens is we're so trained as consumers to automatically think about, I need to go

00:33:37.860 | and buy that solution instead of looking for a creative solution.

00:33:41.220 | Exactly.

00:33:41.620 | I'm curious, how did you guys handle the birthing costs?

00:33:45.380 | Yeah, so we, that depends at different times.

00:33:48.500 | We chose, that was one area where we spent a lot of money.

00:33:53.220 | We chose to work with a midwife at a birth center.

00:33:56.980 | And so those are covered under insurance based upon the costs of the deductible or whatever

00:34:02.580 | the insurance plan was.

00:34:03.620 | And so with the first baby, I always had a high deductible health plan and that cost

00:34:08.260 | $5,000 with our son because that was my deductible.

00:34:11.860 | So we paid $5,000 and birthing centers are not cheap.

00:34:15.140 | But that was one area where I would personally, and I think most parents, you're not going

00:34:21.860 | to go cheap on the cost of your baby's birth.

00:34:24.740 | Money is not the deciding factor.

00:34:27.540 | The health and safety and happiness and experience of mom and baby is number one.

00:34:32.580 | But that doesn't mean that you can't plan carefully for the cost and prepare.

00:34:36.420 | And so what we spent a lot of time doing was working very hard to avoid the potential of

00:34:43.460 | having a C-section because there you go from essentially a $5,000 birthing cost to $35,000

00:34:48.900 | birthing costs under the US medical system.

00:34:51.060 | So there were all kinds of things that we did systematically to prepare for birth and

00:34:56.100 | to do everything we could to influence the possibility.

00:34:59.780 | There are medical emergencies in which case you can't avoid them.

00:35:04.500 | And obviously that's where it's nice to have health insurance and plan ahead for that

00:35:08.740 | with a cover.

00:35:09.460 | But you can do all kinds of things to prepare for that and that's how we handled that.

00:35:14.020 | Something we're interested in and still need to do our research.

00:35:16.500 | So unfortunately we can't talk too much in depth about it, but as an overseas birth,

00:35:20.500 | both to kind of shrink those costs a little bit, but also give our son the gift of dual

00:35:26.100 | citizenship.

00:35:26.660 | >> Right.

00:35:27.060 | >> Particularly, I mean we would love to have it.

00:35:28.580 | >> An anchor baby.

00:35:29.380 | >> Yeah, an anchor baby.

00:35:30.420 | Exactly.

00:35:30.920 | Exactly.

00:35:33.220 | We'd love to have it in the European Union, but that's really difficult to do.

00:35:35.700 | They're very strict about that.

00:35:37.060 | So we were looking at that as possibly in the South America or something like that.

00:35:42.740 | I was just curious if you had any.

00:35:44.100 | >> No, I don't have any insight on that.

00:35:46.100 | I know that Patrick Schulte from Bumfuzzle wrote about that on his, because they had

00:35:50.500 | come back from their boating trip and then they were pregnant with their older daughter

00:35:57.220 | and they went to Mexico.

00:35:58.020 | >> Mexico, yeah.

00:35:58.260 | >> And they wound up having a C-section delivery with both of their kids.

00:36:01.860 | But the total cost, just paying cash, was a few thousand dollars, if memory is right,

00:36:05.860 | three to four thousand dollars in Mexico.

00:36:08.100 | >> Yeah.

00:36:08.500 | >> So that could be something worth considering.

00:36:11.300 | I want to talk practically for a couple minutes about how you actually do YouTube and how

00:36:17.460 | do you integrate frugality with YouTube?

00:36:20.100 | Are you guys frugal with everything else, but with YouTube you go out and you buy the

00:36:23.540 | latest, greatest gear and you've got thousands and thousands of dollars of gear?

00:36:26.740 | Is this your weakness?

00:36:28.020 | >> We do have thousands of dollars of gear, but like everything, there's always deals

00:36:32.100 | to be had.

00:36:32.580 | The one thing that we did spend on was our camera, and that's the Canon 70D.

00:36:38.500 | And it's a DSLR and it's unique to every other camera, particularly DSLRs, because of the

00:36:43.220 | autofocus.

00:36:43.860 | So doing travel and stuff like that, we really wanted that.

00:36:47.700 | I would say we have around four thousand dollars in equipment, but it's not necessary.

00:36:52.500 | If it's something you're interested in, the cell phone that you have takes 1080p video,

00:36:58.500 | but the audio is not there.

00:36:59.940 | So we highly recommend doing some sort of external audio or even like a smart lav microphone

00:37:06.340 | to make sure you get good audio.

00:37:08.500 | And as a podcaster, I'm sure you understand the importance of good audio.

00:37:11.380 | And we would say that on YouTube, good audio is even more important than quality video.

00:37:16.100 | We actually did a video comparison about that.

00:37:18.180 | But so you can do it really well for $1,500 or less.

00:37:23.380 | You can do it pretty good for $500 or less.

00:37:26.100 | And then you can do it with the cell phone in your pocket if you're just getting started.

00:37:29.220 | And most people wouldn't know the difference, honestly.

00:37:31.220 | There's a YouTube video creators channel named DSLR Guide, and it's a young man in England,

00:37:37.300 | I believe.

00:37:38.100 | And what I admire about him is he demonstrates in his videos the impact of skill versus money.

00:37:44.820 | And he did a video demonstrating, he did the whole thing shot on a cell phone camera, and

00:37:49.940 | he showed the impact of skill with lighting to create a good looking product, sound and

00:37:57.220 | all of that just with a cell phone camera.

00:37:59.140 | And watching that, somebody with the latest, greatest equipment, but none of the skill

00:38:03.460 | could not duplicate that with a $70,000 camera.

00:38:06.580 | So as with many things, start with skill and practice skill first before buying gear.

00:38:10.900 | Yep.

00:38:11.620 | We would definitely invest, before investing in a camera, we invest in a good microphone

00:38:15.060 | and good lighting.

00:38:15.940 | And honestly, if you don't even want to invest in lighting, daylight is a wonderful source

00:38:19.220 | of light for video.

00:38:20.420 | How do you do the editing process?

00:38:21.540 | Do both of you work on it?

00:38:22.980 | Yeah, we both work on it.

00:38:24.580 | We use Adobe Premiere to do the editing.

00:38:27.060 | And usually what we'll do is I start on all the rough cuts and get it down to the three

00:38:33.220 | and a half minutes, three and a half to five minutes is what we aim for.

00:38:36.260 | And then Mike will come in after that and kind of bump everything down a little bit,

00:38:40.260 | add the music and do some graphics for it.

00:38:42.900 | Have people hired you to do other video productions for them?

00:38:45.940 | Yeah, that's recently.

00:38:47.460 | Other than sponsors?

00:38:48.820 | Um, actually, not really.

00:38:51.860 | Mike has done some at work, which is kind of how it started.

00:38:55.460 | But other than that, no, no, not really.

00:38:58.020 | So the reason I'm pointing this out is the sponsor stories are cool.

00:39:01.540 | And you shared in your presentation here that I mean, you made quite a bit of money on those

00:39:05.460 | deals, which is awesome.

00:39:06.500 | But again, skills.

00:39:09.060 | So if somebody is trying to build a video business as their sole source of income, that's

00:39:14.180 | a challenging business to start and to scale.

00:39:16.740 | But if you're building a hobby, making YouTube videos, you may not ever get a million subscribers,

00:39:22.660 | but your friends and your acquaintances, and as you share them on Facebook, will say,

00:39:26.340 | "Oh, so and so does video and they need some videos made for the company."

00:39:29.620 | And they'll say, "Can you do this?"

00:39:30.900 | And $1,000 here, $2,000 there revolutionizes the financial independence plan.

00:39:35.540 | Absolutely.

00:39:36.100 | And if there's three areas with the skills that we have now, we could absolutely get

00:39:40.100 | into doing custom promotional for companies.

00:39:43.380 | We could do real estate is a huge thing.

00:39:45.620 | The multi-million dollar houses, particularly in Florida, agents are looking for high quality

00:39:50.180 | video of that.

00:39:50.980 | And then the wedding business, if you tack the word wedding onto anything, it immediately

00:39:54.340 | becomes a $3,000 to $5,000 product.

00:39:56.340 | Did you have an expensive wedding?

00:39:58.820 | Did you have a frugal wedding?

00:40:00.020 | We were pretty frugal.

00:40:02.180 | My grandma did the cooking, and we're very lucky that the church that Mike works for,

00:40:06.660 | and that's how we met.

00:40:08.820 | We met at youth group at church, and so we've been there forever.

00:40:11.540 | It seats how many people?

00:40:13.540 | 1,200.

00:40:14.180 | And so we didn't have to scale anything back, and where we had the reception was kind of

00:40:19.700 | open.

00:40:20.020 | So we had a really big wedding, but it wasn't that expensive.

00:40:23.060 | You know how much we spent?

00:40:23.700 | I think it was under $10,000, wasn't it?

00:40:25.380 | It was.

00:40:25.620 | So it wasn't on the really frugal scale, but it wasn't $28,000 either.

00:40:29.060 | Do your friends get you?

00:40:30.820 | Yes.

00:40:31.780 | Surprisingly, yes.

00:40:33.140 | We're very lucky with the group of friends that we've had, that we've grown up with.

00:40:36.980 | Mike and I have had the same friends for 15 years.

00:40:39.700 | And so sometimes they'll give us a hard time, and sometimes it's a running joke.

00:40:43.060 | We're always at the butt of a joke, but they at least get it.

00:40:46.100 | Have any of them started to follow your path?

00:40:49.700 | Actually, we're seeing a lot of our younger friends very interested in what we're doing,

00:40:53.380 | which is really, really cool to see.

00:40:55.060 | Just wanting to sit down, and they want to set up their Vanguard accounts and get started.

00:40:59.220 | And so just being able to help them do that has been really, really cool.

00:41:03.140 | Yeah.

00:41:03.380 | Tell me about, and just a couple questions, and then we'll wrap up here.

00:41:07.380 | But with the sailing, are you sure that you're going to like that?

00:41:10.660 | No.

00:41:10.900 | No.

00:41:11.460 | We could hate it.

00:41:12.340 | How do you intend to test that?

00:41:13.780 | Well, that's where we're very lucky being in Florida.

00:41:16.820 | We live 10 minutes away from the water.

00:41:19.540 | And so we can kind of start it out by finding a good deal on a boat,

00:41:23.540 | going out, see if we like it there.

00:41:25.300 | And we can head down to the Caribbean if we feel comfortable at some point,

00:41:28.980 | and kind of test the waters and see how it goes.

00:41:32.340 | Yeah.

00:41:32.740 | We actually own a sailboat, believe it or not.

00:41:34.740 | It's a 16-foot Hobie Cat that we've never taken out.

00:41:37.300 | Well, Mike has once, but he hadn't taken any lessons,

00:41:40.580 | and it kind of pushed him back into the public beach.

00:41:42.340 | We ended up into the public beach at Siesta Key.

00:41:45.140 | My friend and I had to get out and walk it back down the beach,

00:41:47.780 | and the lifeguards were screaming at us on the megaphones, "Get off the beach."

00:41:50.740 | I don't know how to get off the beach.

00:41:53.060 | I have no idea how.

00:41:54.420 | I told him we need lessons, and then we'll go from there.

00:41:57.620 | Right.

00:41:57.860 | So that's an example of Hobie Cats can cost $2,000 or $3,000.

00:42:01.940 | I happened to find one that needed some repairs for $800.

00:42:05.060 | And so, yes, we've never taken it out, but at any point, we can sell it for a profit.

00:42:08.660 | And it's the same thing if we get a boat, I plan on restoring it.

00:42:11.780 | And if we don't like it, we'll sell it for a profit.

00:42:13.780 | And that's kind of the theme of everything we do,

00:42:15.860 | is find a way to do what you love doing and not lose money or make money doing it.

00:42:20.420 | The final theme that I wanted to explore for you a moment is back to marriage.

00:42:24.580 | The situation of one spouse starting to read Mr. Money Mustache or Early Retirement Extreme

00:42:32.260 | and getting all just fired up about, "Look, there's all these opportunities."

00:42:36.100 | And the other spouse is caught in, not caught, excuse me,

00:42:39.140 | is just simply in the normal lifestyle, not thinking about that.

00:42:43.060 | It's weird in our culture.

00:42:45.940 | And so this can often bring a little bit of tension in relationships

00:42:49.860 | where you get all fired up, "Look, look, let's do this."

00:42:52.340 | And many couples struggle with that.

00:42:54.180 | Lauren, do you have any thoughts on things that Mike did well in talking with you

00:42:58.500 | or things that he did poorly or how it often seems to be husbands

00:43:02.100 | that do this, although I'm sure it's wives,

00:43:04.820 | how a husband can effectively communicate with a wife to share a vision?

00:43:08.740 | This is something that we've discussed a lot.

00:43:10.180 | We've actually talked about making a video or even a series about it,

00:43:14.180 | about how to get your spouse on board.

00:43:15.780 | And I just, I think he always gave me the opportunity to,

00:43:20.180 | like I said, I often need to warm up to things and he never pushed me into it like,

00:43:23.780 | "Oh, we're starting this today."

00:43:25.220 | Or he would say, "Why don't you read some of these articles?"

00:43:27.940 | Or even he'd point me towards Mrs. Money Mustache's post,

00:43:30.820 | which was nice to see the woman's perspective and see what she had to say.

00:43:34.900 | And so I think that he just let me warm up to the idea versus,

00:43:39.300 | "This is what we're doing and I've got it planned and you don't have a say."

00:43:41.940 | Do you have any comments, Mike?

00:43:44.580 | Yeah.

00:43:45.080 | This is a really hard question to answer because you're talking about people

00:43:49.540 | who have had a relationship for, could be 10, 20 years,

00:43:53.140 | and then someone has their financial awakening.

00:43:55.620 | And what if they don't ever get on board?

00:43:58.260 | What if they're never warming up to that idea?

00:44:00.820 | And I don't have a great answer to that.

00:44:03.220 | And we get comments on our videos all the time.

00:44:05.940 | Well, how do I find a woman who,

00:44:07.540 | because a lot of times they can tell that I'm the one kind of leading the discussion.

00:44:13.140 | And I would say show before you tell.

00:44:18.020 | And it would be the only advice that I would have.

00:44:19.860 | That if you're going to adopt a frugal lifestyle,

00:44:24.020 | adopt it for your own if the other partner's not on board.

00:44:26.900 | And then show them that you're still happy, you're still surviving,

00:44:30.580 | you're still thriving with that lifestyle.

00:44:33.620 | And then hopefully they warm up to it.

00:44:34.900 | And if they don't, I don't know if there's a relationship counseling at that point.

00:44:39.540 | Because money is a big part of relationships.

00:44:41.380 | You can't really avoid it.

00:44:42.580 | It's, I wish I had better news, some bubbly answer to like,

00:44:46.900 | "Oh, it's all a bing, bong, boom, one, two, three, you do this."

00:44:48.900 | And then everybody's happy.

00:44:50.020 | Yeah, I would say show before you tell.

00:44:52.820 | Final words of advice.

00:44:55.460 | If somebody is listening and for the first time in their life,

00:44:57.780 | they're saying, "Wow, I never even knew that was possible."

00:45:00.980 | What advice would you give them to build a financial, to just start down this path?

00:45:06.740 | I would say first start reading, start doing research, and then just try it.

00:45:12.580 | Because again, what is the worst that can happen?

00:45:14.260 | You end up saving some money and you realize that that extreme way isn't quite for you.

00:45:19.860 | Then you can scale things back a bit.

00:45:23.700 | But just do it.

00:45:24.740 | If you're considering it, why not try it?

00:45:26.420 | And I would say question everything.

00:45:29.940 | And that's, we have potentially one of the ebooks that we want to write is

00:45:34.980 | question everything you know about money.

00:45:36.420 | Because it seems like everything we're taught is almost completely backwards.

00:45:40.100 | That car payments are a part of life.

00:45:43.140 | Well, they're not.

00:45:43.780 | A house is an investment.

00:45:45.940 | Sometimes, not always, you have to go out and buy the latest and greatest to be happy.

00:45:51.300 | Well, that's not true.

00:45:52.660 | And if you just at least allow yourself to question everything that you've been taught,

00:45:57.860 | then you can form your own opinion about it and maybe go in a different direction.

00:46:01.620 | And if you form your own opinion and it's in line with society and the culture of today,

00:46:06.340 | then great.

00:46:07.220 | But at least give yourself a shot at a different way of looking at things.

00:46:10.820 | If you question it and think about it, you can often reframe the decision.

00:46:15.060 | And a lot of people look at making a certain decision, making a frugal decision as,

00:46:19.620 | well, that's worse than the less frugal decision.

00:46:22.660 | But if you change your frame of reference a little bit,

00:46:25.940 | my wife and I, we have a $5,000 minivan.

00:46:28.100 | I don't know what it's worth now.

00:46:29.460 | But to me, I don't want a new minivan because we love to go to the beach.

00:46:34.900 | We've got two big dogs and we've got two kids.

00:46:37.220 | And I love, I want a van that's filled with love and just joy.

00:46:42.500 | So when we go to the beach, I don't want to be saying, "Oh, wash your feet up.

00:46:45.140 | No, dogs get down."

00:46:46.180 | It's like, no, I'd rather have fur all over the car and just be dirty and salty and wet.

00:46:52.180 | And okay, so the seat got wet.

00:46:53.860 | Big deal.

00:46:54.820 | I don't want to be fussing at my kids about the fact that the seat got wet.

00:46:58.340 | To me, it's a benefit to have that versus, "Oh, my car is not the fanciest."

00:47:04.340 | That's funny that you bring that up because we have our Prius,

00:47:07.780 | and it was dinged up when we got it.

00:47:09.940 | And the interior was well-loved and well-worn.

00:47:13.220 | And when we had goats, they decided that they wanted to start jumping on our Prius.

00:47:17.780 | So you'd look out in the yard and the goats would be on top of the car.

00:47:20.900 | But it was sort of a, "Oh, that's fine.

00:47:22.820 | It's already densed in it.

00:47:24.100 | It's okay."

00:47:24.580 | That's a big deal.

00:47:26.100 | That's awesome.

00:47:27.220 | And then also, when you create the joy, my wife and I, the best date we ever had was

00:47:32.820 | actually Valentine's Day one day.

00:47:34.260 | And for whatever reason, I don't remember why, I didn't want to spend much money, but I didn't.

00:47:40.180 | So I called her and I was on my way back from something.

00:47:44.740 | And I said, "Okay, get ready.

00:47:46.500 | We're going to go out for a date."

00:47:48.740 | So she got dressed up for a Valentine's Day date, and I didn't have any reservations or

00:47:52.340 | anything, so I wanted to have a picnic.

00:47:54.900 | So she got dressed up and we grabbed a couple of bicycles and tossed them in the car.

00:47:58.420 | And we went to the grocery store, and I think I gave us a limit of either $10 or $20.

00:48:01.780 | And I said, "Here's our budget for our date."

00:48:04.820 | And the whole fun was to go all around the store and try to figure out how could we get

00:48:09.140 | something fancy and fun with this very small budget.

00:48:12.500 | And then we took it to the beach and we put out a towel and just ate the food.

00:48:16.740 | That was the most memorable thing.

00:48:18.340 | Far more memorable than the $250 fancy dinner where everyone else was at with the stuffed

00:48:25.140 | out restaurant.

00:48:26.180 | So the frugal decision wasn't giving up anything.

00:48:30.100 | It was actually better when you reframed the decision.

00:48:33.700 | Exactly.

00:48:34.260 | Guys, keep doing what you're doing.

00:48:35.860 | I love that you're working on YouTube and it's another medium to reach many people.

00:48:40.260 | And some people, some weirdos might listen to my hour and a half shows, but many more

00:48:45.780 | people will listen to a three minute video and that can pique their interest.

00:48:49.300 | So tell everyone about your channel, website, all your properties, all the things you have

00:48:53.380 | to offer.

00:48:53.860 | Yes, you can find us at MikeAndLauren.com.

00:48:57.060 | If you want to go straight to YouTube, you can go MikeAndLauren.tv.

00:49:00.180 | That'll go straight to our YouTube channel.

00:49:01.620 | MikeAndLauren on Twitter, MikeAndLaurenTV on Facebook.

00:49:05.780 | And I do want to say that if any of your listeners are bloggers that are interested in getting

00:49:10.420 | involved in YouTube, please email us.

00:49:12.260 | We love helping.

00:49:13.060 | We want more financial information on YouTube because right now it is just a mess of scams

00:49:19.220 | and pyramid schemes.

00:49:20.580 | And you look up investing for beginners and literally nine out of the top 10 are all just

00:49:26.020 | selling some pyramid scheme product.

00:49:28.020 | And we want more content on YouTube that is financial related.

00:49:30.340 | So please email us and we'd love to help you out.

00:49:32.740 | The email is hello@MikeAndLauren.com.

00:49:35.940 | So I'll go ahead and just record this and I'll probably leave it in the interview for

00:49:40.820 | people to do.

00:49:41.620 | But let's talk about me with Radical Personal Finance.

00:49:44.260 | And you can give me some advice as being down there as far as what you would do.

00:49:51.060 | I've looked at, I couldn't have done YouTube in the past.

00:49:54.020 | I don't have any experience with video, any necessarily skill.

00:49:57.300 | And I couldn't have compressed the ideas and thoughts that I have into a short version.

00:50:02.820 | So I focused on audio, which was the missing piece that I saw in the marketplace.

00:50:07.380 | And that's how I built Radical Personal Finance.

00:50:09.700 | I feel at this point, though, that I could articulate my message and some thoughts and

00:50:14.900 | some ideas in a much shorter format.

00:50:17.460 | And I'd like to start reaching some more people in the video space.

00:50:21.540 | But the challenge is I already have such a high workload with my show.

00:50:27.300 | I do the show five days a week.

00:50:28.820 | I also am doing some writing.

00:50:31.860 | So writing a book, also writing for other publications.

00:50:36.180 | And I also have a family and I would like to do video as well.

00:50:39.940 | So the question I've faced is how do I do it?

00:50:42.740 | I also don't have any computer equipment capable of editing video.

00:50:47.140 | And I have cameras, I have mics, I have all of that stuff.

00:50:50.260 | But I don't have the editing equipment.

00:50:52.100 | I'm curious.

00:50:52.660 | So I've thought about how could I go ahead and start this and should I do this?

00:50:57.140 | And my thought has been I could just shoot raw video.

00:51:00.660 | And through planning, proper planning of the presentation, using some interesting visual

00:51:07.140 | aids with my actual presentation, just do kind of a one-shot thing, no cuts, things like that.

00:51:12.660 | Do you think that's possible and that would save me from having to do all the editing time?

00:51:17.700 | Or would you say you got to hire an editor?

00:51:19.700 | - Yeah, probably not.

00:51:20.500 | I would definitely edit.

00:51:21.860 | We even go as far as to edit the breaths out of our videos.

00:51:26.180 | If we take a pause or if there's just even a space in between our words, we'll cut that out.

00:51:31.620 | Because people on YouTube just kind of expect it.

00:51:36.100 | A lot of the videos you'll see from the top bloggers are just very fast-paced.

00:51:39.860 | - Right.

00:51:40.100 | - And there are financial videos on YouTube from like a lot of the big corporations have,

00:51:46.180 | like Bank of America and have long-form financial videos.

00:51:50.420 | And they seem to do well.

00:51:51.220 | So I guess I can't say from experience that long-form one take wouldn't work.

00:51:57.540 | Just in our experience, our own personal view time is three and a half minutes,

00:52:01.060 | no matter what length we make our video over time.

00:52:04.100 | So when we initially, our average retention rate is about 80% or higher per video

00:52:09.060 | to our initial subscribers.

00:52:10.420 | And then once it gets put in the suggestion engine and in search,

00:52:13.460 | people usually stick around for about three and a half minutes and that's it.

00:52:16.340 | And that's been confirmed by a few different channels.

00:52:18.900 | So I would say faster and hire the editor over trying to do it in one take.

00:52:25.140 | And that takes a little pressure off for you as well.

00:52:26.740 | - Do you think it's, is it the kind of thing that is it even worth pursuing,

00:52:31.860 | given that it's not going to be my primary focus, but I see it as more,

00:52:35.460 | well, this is a way to develop another platform, another arm to it.

00:52:39.700 | Is it worth doing or should I just stay exclusively focused on what I do best?

00:52:42.260 | - I think YouTube is where we're going, honestly.

00:52:44.660 | And I thought this back in 2013.

00:52:47.380 | And I'm glad that we got involved when we did,

00:52:50.100 | even though we were pretty late to the game.

00:52:52.020 | Most of the big channels now started around 2007, 2008.

00:52:54.980 | Just that's where all our friends are going.

00:52:59.860 | And the younger generation below us, we're behind that.

00:53:03.780 | They watch more YouTube than we do.

00:53:05.140 | I think it's really accessible to people.

00:53:08.020 | I like that there's a face behind the words.

00:53:10.580 | And I like the informality of it.

00:53:15.220 | And podcasting is similar, but you can be goofy on YouTube.

00:53:19.700 | I would definitely recommend it.

00:53:22.980 | And maybe one way you could start would be just filming your podcast

00:53:28.260 | and then doing clips from that.

00:53:30.420 | If you wanted to do the one take with almost no effort,

00:53:33.460 | that's what Dave Ramsey does actually on his channel.

00:53:35.540 | He'll take a call and then he'll just put one call on his YouTube channel.

00:53:40.100 | That'd be a great way to start, test the waters and see.

00:53:43.300 | - Yeah.

00:53:43.780 | Well, see, I had to solve the editing issue.

00:53:45.860 | And my library has big fancy Macs that I could go and use.

00:53:49.860 | But at this point, I just really questioned,

00:53:52.820 | is this the best use of my time to learn how to edit

00:53:54.980 | or do I just need to wait until I'm ready to go ahead and hire an editor

00:53:58.580 | to do it?

00:53:59.140 | And I haven't answered that question.

00:54:01.060 | - For me, and I don't...

00:54:02.340 | For me, it's all in the editing.

00:54:04.820 | Like our personalities come through through the editing process.

00:54:10.100 | - Right, I agree.

00:54:10.500 | - Because when we...

00:54:11.620 | If you were to watch our raw footage, it's 22 minutes long.

00:54:14.660 | And it's us going like this.

00:54:15.780 | No, I missed that.

00:54:16.580 | It's us going like this.

00:54:19.300 | And then you see the, it's us going like this part,

00:54:21.300 | back to back, cutting out our breath in between the next sentence.

00:54:24.820 | And so a lot of our, what you see on YouTube is from the editing process.

00:54:29.620 | So I don't think we would ever outsource.

00:54:31.700 | Maybe we would.

00:54:33.380 | I would outsource the editing process.

00:54:34.900 | I don't know if I would necessarily start there though.

00:54:36.820 | Just so you can get an idea of what it takes.

00:54:39.460 | And yes, the initial learning curve is pretty steep.

00:54:41.860 | I'm not gonna lie.

00:54:42.580 | You would have to put in some time to learning how to edit.

00:54:45.140 | But we can now edit a video in, you know, under an hour or so.

00:54:48.420 | - Right.

00:54:48.900 | - Yeah, it's not too bad.

00:54:49.940 | - Which it was a lot more than that to begin with.

00:54:52.020 | - Right.

00:54:52.660 | - Awesome.

00:54:54.100 | Last question.

00:54:54.740 | Do you have to get a Mac?

00:54:57.060 | - We were Mac people.

00:54:59.700 | So we're pretty biased.

00:55:01.620 | Although we have the, at work, we have the newest,

00:55:06.020 | fanciest Mac you can buy, the 12 core Mac Pro.

00:55:08.820 | - Right.

00:55:09.140 | - It still gets caught up in rendering.

00:55:11.300 | It can't, it's not.

00:55:12.340 | And I have seen Dave Dugdale at learning DSLR video,

00:55:17.060 | or it's just learning video now, is a big Windows guy.

00:55:19.460 | He's almost tempted me to make the switch over

00:55:22.260 | just to see what kind of performance is possible.

00:55:25.060 | Because you have that customization that you can do.

00:55:26.740 | - Right.

00:55:26.980 | - But as far as ease of use, if you have a Mac with Final Cut Pro,

00:55:30.580 | that's gonna be your easiest transition into video, I think.

00:55:33.860 | - Awesome.

00:55:34.980 | Cool.

00:55:35.220 | Thanks guys.

00:55:35.620 | - Thank you.

00:55:35.860 | - Thanks for having us.

00:55:36.660 | - Now, since the interview was recorded, I told you I would give you an update.

00:55:41.540 | Mike and Lauren have released some new information on their YouTube channel

00:55:45.060 | that I think you would be interested in.

00:55:46.900 | Number one, as they mentioned in the interview, they are expecting a baby.

00:55:50.980 | Very interestingly, they are planning on having their baby out of the country in Costa Rica.

00:55:56.180 | This is a form of medical tourism, which will lower the costs of having the baby,

00:56:00.100 | but also give the baby some unique options.

00:56:02.180 | Go and check out their YouTube channel for information on that.

00:56:05.220 | Also, interestingly, having the baby seems to have served as a catalyst in their life.

00:56:10.180 | And instead of sitting around and waiting for all of their plan to come to fruition,

00:56:15.540 | they are actually using this as a time to change.

00:56:19.860 | And they're using the foundation that they've built with their YouTube channel

00:56:24.020 | to actually jump a bit early.

00:56:25.700 | And instead of working on their plan of saving up just a certain dollar amount and then jumping,

00:56:30.500 | they've built enough of a platform with their YouTube audience

00:56:33.780 | that they are in the process of selling many of their things.

00:56:37.060 | They're gonna be moving to Costa Rica.

00:56:38.420 | They are buying a large motorhome.

00:56:40.740 | They'll be moving into that large motorhome,

00:56:42.740 | building a mobile wood shop to hook up and drag around the country behind that.

00:56:47.060 | And they're gonna be going on the road, touring the country,

00:56:50.340 | filming videos, doing DIY projects with their audience while they travel the country,

00:56:55.860 | bringing that content to their YouTube audience,

00:56:57.780 | and then making money from their YouTube plans, which funds their life.

00:57:01.780 | And I think that is awesome.

00:57:04.180 | Once they announced that, I wrote them an email and I said,

00:57:06.740 | "By the way, guys, I'm so glad that you are jumping ship."

00:57:09.380 | Because what happens is there's this kind of purist mentality,

00:57:12.740 | this idea that, "Well, I've got to tell everyone that

00:57:15.140 | they can build financial independence just by working at their job,

00:57:18.340 | and so therefore I can't quit."

00:57:19.780 | Hey, if you're in a position to quit and you've got a business that you can flip to,

00:57:23.620 | do that.

00:57:24.900 | That's gonna be a tremendously valuable thing for you.

00:57:29.220 | And I encourage all of you in my listening audience,

00:57:31.460 | recognize what's going on and recognize the themes.

00:57:35.780 | Go and watch their videos and then perhaps you'll be able to see these themes.

00:57:39.220 | Recognize the theme.

00:57:40.500 | The process is get control of finances, build assets.

00:57:44.420 | They're working towards that big lump sum number and along the way,

00:57:47.460 | an opportunity comes along.

00:57:48.980 | And that opportunity in their case is to build a business,

00:57:51.460 | doing something that they like to do,

00:57:53.540 | and that gives them the mobile freedom and the lifestyle.

00:57:56.500 | Using the skills that they have developed, starting by doing them for free,

00:58:00.980 | the skills, the equipment while they built it up,

00:58:03.140 | and now it will be their full-time deal.

00:58:06.340 | And they don't need millions of dollars to do it.

00:58:08.260 | They just need enough money to buy the RV,

00:58:11.140 | have enough money and savings to make the switch,

00:58:13.860 | and to get started.

00:58:14.660 | And that is the process of financial independence.

00:58:19.300 | So I hope that Mike and Lauren's story can be encouraging,

00:58:22.580 | inspirational, and educational for you.

00:58:25.060 | I think they do a really great job and I am thrilled that I was able to bring them on the show.

00:58:29.300 | Go check out their YouTube channel, MikeandLauren.com.

00:58:32.180 | We'll link you through to it.

00:58:33.540 | MikeandLauren.com, if you sign up on their email list,

00:58:36.180 | then they will share with you all the details of their net worth,

00:58:38.980 | and their spending, and their income, and all of that stuff as well.

00:58:41.860 | MikeandLauren.com is their stuff.

00:58:44.340 | So thank you all so much for being with me on today's show.

00:58:47.060 | I hope that you have enjoyed it.

00:58:48.980 | A bunch of exciting shows in the work here for December.

00:58:51.780 | I've been working on some of the outlines for the scripting of

00:58:55.060 | just some of the content and ideas I want to bring you,

00:58:57.860 | and there's going to be some good ones.

00:58:59.860 | So I'm going to bring you a show on budgeting,

00:59:01.860 | which I'm very excited about.

00:59:03.220 | Try to lay out the framework of budgeting,

00:59:05.540 | and how it's universally applicable to every area of your life.

00:59:08.420 | So check back for that in the future.

00:59:11.220 | Big thanks to those of you who support the show on Patreon.

00:59:14.100 | If you would like to support the show,

00:59:15.060 | go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.

00:59:19.860 | I will be making some adjustments to that

00:59:21.620 | campaign here at the end of 2015 as well,

00:59:25.620 | but I would value your support and your financial support there.

00:59:30.100 | So thank you all so much.

00:59:31.220 | Thanks for listening.

00:59:32.100 | I am out of here for today, publishing this show.

00:59:34.100 | It's early on Friday morning.

00:59:35.380 | I'm heading over to Tampa with my family.

00:59:36.660 | Got a business meeting over in Tampa with somebody,

00:59:39.380 | and then also spending the weekend over there with friends.

00:59:41.940 | And in fact, I should shoot Mike and Lauren out and see if they're around.

00:59:47.380 | One of the cool things about podcasting, you're connected with people.

00:59:50.580 | So thank you for listening.

00:59:51.620 | I will be back with you soon.

00:59:54.180 | [Music]

01:00:06.180 | [Music]

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