RPF0416-Bill_Interview_Camp_Mustache
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00:02:04.120 | I recently returned from Camp Mustache Southeast 2017 where I spoke.
00:02:11.520 | You heard that on episode 413 of the show.
00:02:13.840 | I did a bunch of interviews while I was there.
00:02:16.120 | And today I'm going to share with you the audio of one of the most interesting interviews
00:02:20.680 | that I did while I was there, an interview with a man named Bill who achieved financial
00:02:26.760 | independence his own way.
00:02:34.520 | I keep forgetting to start my mic.
00:02:48.520 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:02:49.960 | A show dedicated to providing you with the stories and examples of other people who lived
00:02:57.320 | rich and meaningful lives now while also concurrently working their own plans for financial freedom
00:03:03.080 | in 10 years or less.
00:03:04.760 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:03:06.560 | Today it's inspiration hour on Radical Personal Finance.
00:03:17.040 | Over the coming weeks I'll be bringing you a bunch of interviews.
00:03:20.400 | I did interviews with all kinds of people.
00:03:22.200 | I did an interview with Mr. Money Mustache, with this Bill, with all kinds of interesting
00:03:26.760 | people, several couples of people who've had interesting stories, some younger people who
00:03:31.440 | are pursuing financial independence, some older people pursuing financial independence.
00:03:34.720 | I think all these interviews have things to offer.
00:03:36.920 | So there are a total of about nine of them in the can that I'll be releasing to you in
00:03:40.200 | coming weeks.
00:03:41.200 | But today I'm going to leave you or start you off with what may have been my favorite.
00:03:46.280 | Let's do this interview with a man named Bill who achieved financial independence.
00:03:50.080 | You're going to hear the whole story.
00:03:52.120 | Now let's just start with the story.
00:03:56.200 | Bill welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:03:57.960 | Thanks for having me.
00:03:58.960 | So we're here at a very, what's the right adjective to use, a very select group of people
00:04:07.760 | here at Camp Mustache Southeast 2017.
00:04:10.800 | And when we were going around doing introductions last night you introduced yourself.
00:04:14.520 | You said, "I'm just the old guy.
00:04:16.160 | I've done this for years and I feel good and validated when I hear young people doing the
00:04:21.520 | same thing."
00:04:22.520 | So of course that immediately piqued my interest and I want to make sure that I got you on
00:04:25.960 | the microphone and hear a little bit of your story.
00:04:28.080 | So tell us a little bit about your story, especially as it relates to money and financial
00:04:32.240 | independence.
00:04:33.240 | I think I should start with my mom.
00:04:36.720 | So when I was at a young age, my mom introduced me to the idea of financial independence.
00:04:42.160 | So I'm currently 48.
00:04:43.360 | So this was back in the 70s when I first heard this concept of having financial independence
00:04:50.640 | and understanding what it meant.
00:04:51.960 | At what age?
00:04:52.960 | I'd say I was probably seven.
00:04:55.020 | Was she financially independent?
00:04:56.400 | She was on her way to financial independence.
00:04:58.760 | Was she like a Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robinson, like your money or your life back in that
00:05:04.560 | age?
00:05:05.560 | No, definitely not.
00:05:11.360 | So I was always understanding the concept of having enough money and it wasn't dissimilar
00:05:16.780 | to Jim Collins' idea, JL Collins of the FU money, of having enough money that there was
00:05:23.000 | nothing that was going to rock the boat too badly to allow me to keep going on the track.
00:05:27.520 | So even at a very young age, I was making money and saving money and I never had a problem
00:05:32.360 | saving.
00:05:33.360 | So definitely the key to my financial independence, which happened probably in my late 30s, was
00:05:40.560 | an extreme saving rate and all equity investments when I did have money to invest.
00:05:46.640 | So a lot of the things that are being sort of pushed now are things that I naturally
00:05:50.160 | came to long before there were blogs, et cetera.
00:05:53.560 | And a combination of, as JD Roth says, patience and an all equity investment portfolio back
00:06:02.600 | when things were extremely cheap and staying the course has gotten me certainly to the
00:06:06.720 | point I am now in combination with a much greater than 50% annual savings rate.
00:06:12.840 | So with your mom at least planting the idea in your head, back in the early days, your
00:06:18.000 | late teens, early 20s, what did that look like?
00:06:20.640 | Did you follow through at that time or did you have a...
00:06:23.200 | Yes.
00:06:24.200 | So at that time, I mean the first job I was really making money was when I was 10.
00:06:30.040 | I had a paper route in my town in New Hampshire and I kept collecting more and more customers
00:06:36.040 | and I was subcontracting that out and saving 75%.
00:06:41.600 | And the money that I did spend, I bought things that helped me do the paper route better or
00:06:45.420 | helped me enjoy doing it more, like having a radio on my bicycle.
00:06:49.920 | So her lead, rather than forcing me to do it, she led by example.
00:06:56.400 | And I saw the comfort that she had compared to some of my other friends who were less
00:07:02.680 | mustachians since here we are at Camp Mustache.
00:07:05.000 | Got to pay homage to the brand.
00:07:07.760 | So their parents had cool new cars, which we never had, or they had fancy clothes or
00:07:12.440 | cool new sneakers or a bicycle that had shock absorbers on it.
00:07:15.640 | And we didn't have any of that stuff, but when things happened like the water heater
00:07:18.640 | failing or whatever, there was not even a ripple that went through our lives because
00:07:23.200 | she had been taking care of all that.
00:07:25.840 | So I saw that and it made it a lot easier to follow in her footsteps because I saw that
00:07:30.720 | it made sense.
00:07:31.720 | It just was the way it was.
00:07:34.000 | Did you go to college?
00:07:35.000 | I did.
00:07:36.000 | I went to Boston College.
00:07:37.000 | I graduated in 1990.
00:07:38.120 | And what type of work did you do getting out?
00:07:40.440 | I was immediately recruited by a joint venture Japanese-American management consulting firm.
00:07:47.780 | And I worked there for six months before I realized, about two months into it, that I
00:07:53.640 | couldn't stand it.
00:07:55.820 | But it got me back to Japan, which is where I had gone for my junior year abroad.
00:07:59.560 | And it got me a visa.
00:08:02.680 | And luckily, through a connection I had made by talking to strangers, which is something
00:08:06.880 | I've been doing my whole life, again, cued by my mom to not be afraid of strangers, but
00:08:11.360 | to glean them for information or to ask them for it and glean it from them, was that I
00:08:18.000 | found somebody who I ended up bumping into at the Japanese embassy in Boston who gave
00:08:21.920 | me a multiple re-entry visa, which allowed me to, say, take this job and shove it to
00:08:26.720 | that first management consulting firm.
00:08:29.640 | And I didn't have to then leave because I didn't have a sponsorship.
00:08:33.760 | So that was really the first step, because then I could start taking on work, things
00:08:38.000 | that I enjoyed doing in Japan, and not worry about having to do things in order to stay.
00:08:43.280 | So then I had a variety of really cool jobs in Japan that made really good money, because,
00:08:48.440 | again, I was just naturally frugal and banking tons, and being able to do whatever I wanted.
00:08:55.360 | I still had to pursue money, but I was working for myself as opposed to being tied to, like
00:09:00.880 | most expats there, tied to an English teaching gig or a multinational corporation that's
00:09:06.280 | funded their stay while they work for Goldman Sachs, for example.
00:09:10.240 | Were you in Japan as just kind of for the adventure of it?
00:09:13.240 | Yeah.
00:09:14.240 | So I was getting a liberal arts education, had no clue what to do.
00:09:18.560 | I doubled in English and sociology.
00:09:21.520 | And my brother, who is a mentor, had already gone ahead, he's five years older, he spoke
00:09:26.440 | fluent Mandarin.
00:09:28.400 | And he said, "If you really don't know what you want to do or where you're going to go,
00:09:33.040 | learn a language."
00:09:34.040 | Everything, he said, "You're smart.
00:09:35.960 | People are, they'll hire you because you're a blank slate, and they can train you to do
00:09:40.280 | what they want, but they can't teach you how to learn how to speak Japanese, for example."
00:09:45.240 | And so his advice was, "Are you interested in anywhere in Asia?
00:09:49.640 | Because I think it's going to go somewhere."
00:09:52.000 | And he's my big brother, and I said, "Sure."
00:09:54.160 | And I wanted to go to Korea, but my college wouldn't allow me to go there, so I defaulted
00:09:58.880 | to Japan.
00:10:00.480 | And it was good advice.
00:10:02.080 | I learned Japanese pretty quickly and well, and was recruited by that company entirely
00:10:07.420 | based on my decent grades and my fluent Japanese.
00:10:11.040 | Do you have any guess or knowledge or remembrance of your savings rate during those early years
00:10:16.680 | in your career?
00:10:18.160 | I would say my savings rate in my first year in Japan was probably upwards of 60%.
00:10:25.200 | Did it climb from there?
00:10:26.200 | Go down?
00:10:27.200 | Yes, it climbed from there.
00:10:28.600 | And the other big difference is that now that I've achieved financial independence, I was
00:10:33.520 | talking to another, one of the conference attendees today, my lifestyle has not changed
00:10:38.640 | very much.
00:10:39.880 | So many people, as they make more money, they expand into as much money as they make.
00:10:45.880 | I lead a very similar lifestyle, maybe not as frugal as I was as a 20-year-old in Japan,
00:10:52.280 | but it's not really that different than it was 15 years ago when it was, I was dating
00:11:00.080 | my wife and living in San Francisco and having fun.
00:11:03.720 | I didn't have a fancy car then, I don't now.
00:11:07.160 | I didn't have tons of stuff then.
00:11:10.560 | I actually had this T-shirt 15 years ago.
00:11:13.160 | That's impressive.
00:11:14.160 | And these shorts a decade ago and these shoes that I got from my neighbor.
00:11:18.160 | So that's just sort of built into the way I am.
00:11:21.680 | Again, I think partially from my mother and partially from wanting to achieve financial
00:11:27.160 | independence, not necessarily through making tons of money, but through making my money
00:11:31.540 | go further.
00:11:32.540 | Let me make sure I describe for the audience.
00:11:35.080 | Bill has a very bushy beard.
00:11:36.480 | He looks unkempt and bedraggled.
00:11:38.480 | His T-shirt has holes in it.
00:11:43.040 | I get lots of free food at the homeless shelter.
00:11:47.280 | The T-shirt is very nice.
00:11:48.520 | The shorts are unstained.
00:11:49.520 | The shoes look very fancy and expensive and up to date.
00:11:52.480 | And he has a neatly trimmed goatee and is an upstanding looking gentleman.
00:11:59.400 | So you reached a point in time at which you said, "Okay, I'm financially independent."
00:12:04.600 | And that age was?
00:12:07.320 | It's an interesting question actually because in retrospect, I realized that I was financially
00:12:12.680 | independent around 37 to 38.
00:12:18.520 | And I continued to work hard and worry a lot about money, even though I had a lot.
00:12:22.920 | And I just didn't grasp the power that I had financially.
00:12:27.840 | And because I was alone, I've always worked alone and had a hard time sort of connecting
00:12:34.080 | with other people on a more intimate level, like we would be talking about finances.
00:12:38.120 | I never really knew where I stood.
00:12:41.200 | So in retrospect, I think I was financially independent easily by the time I was about
00:12:46.000 | 38.
00:12:47.000 | But I didn't retire by literally moving away from where I was living and working and kind
00:12:51.440 | of leaving my business behind until six years ago when I was 42.
00:12:56.280 | So between then and now is when I really identified myself as retired.
00:13:01.560 | I live in Portland, Maine.
00:13:04.200 | When I meet new people and they say, "What do you do?"
00:13:05.960 | I say, "I don't."
00:13:09.840 | And they are intrigued usually and they want to know more.
00:13:16.440 | So I have a premonition that you might be the elusive retiree that I have often been
00:13:24.840 | searching for, excuse me, the elusive early retiree that I've often been searching for,
00:13:31.680 | somebody who actually retired.
00:13:33.960 | So I'm going to find out, are you actually retired?
00:13:38.080 | I am actually retired.
00:13:40.800 | So I take lots of naps.
00:13:42.800 | I do what I want every day.
00:13:45.040 | And although some of the things I do are things that other people do for work and get paid
00:13:49.760 | to do, no one can hire me.
00:13:52.520 | No one can tell me what to do.
00:13:54.880 | And I don't make decisions based on how much money it's going to make me.
00:13:58.600 | That's my definition of retirement.
00:14:01.120 | And in addition to that, you don't have a blog, you don't have a website.
00:14:04.720 | You're not trying to tell people they should be financially independent or sell financially
00:14:07.800 | independent.
00:14:08.800 | You're here for fun because it's a gathering of like-minded people and it's in Gainesville,
00:14:14.840 | Florida, not Portland, Maine, during the middle of the winter.
00:14:16.960 | You got it.
00:14:18.640 | Absolutely.
00:14:19.640 | Okay, so this is intriguing to me because you're a rare species.
00:14:23.120 | I have this theory that nobody ever actually retires.
00:14:25.320 | Now, of course, I know that's not true.
00:14:27.360 | Some people do.
00:14:28.900 | But the number of people that actually retire versus the number of people that think they
00:14:31.960 | want to retire or the number of people that talk about retirement or the number of people
00:14:35.640 | who leave a job, I find it to be very, very low.
00:14:38.360 | Now, I'm enjoying the moment, but I have met other people who've done this and I've met
00:14:44.800 | other people who write about it.
00:14:47.400 | But I want to explore what you've gained from this path of early retirement.
00:14:54.760 | Did you hate your work?
00:14:56.040 | No, I didn't hate my work because I chose it.
00:14:58.880 | So unlike a lot of people who I speak to who were on the path or even passed and have passed
00:15:05.040 | into financial independence, I, from after that job back in 1991, I've been doing all
00:15:11.280 | sorts of really cool things that made money and that I chose to do.
00:15:15.640 | So I've been self-employed since 1991.
00:15:19.400 | So no, I never hated my work.
00:15:22.400 | I just didn't like the idea that I had to make decisions based on how much money it
00:15:26.720 | would make.
00:15:27.920 | So the analogy I like to tell people is that I hated, for example, always looking at the
00:15:34.640 | menu and being distracted by the prices.
00:15:37.100 | So I didn't know if I really wanted the chicken or if I was just ordering the chicken because
00:15:41.640 | it was the cheapest thing on the menu.
00:15:43.600 | So it was the idea that I could choose to do what I wanted to do and then secondarily
00:15:51.880 | make sure that it was something that was lucrative.
00:15:55.180 | And there were plenty of times when I was younger where there were jobs that were really
00:15:57.800 | interesting to me that didn't pay as well and I didn't take.
00:16:02.920 | And I think it's important to make that distinction between, as I said, now where I might do things
00:16:08.540 | that make money, but I'm not making that decision on a daily basis as to what's going to pay
00:16:12.960 | the most.
00:16:14.240 | So again, with kudos to mustachianism, Mr. Money Mustache talks about acting like everything's
00:16:21.800 | free and I similarly look at acting like everything doesn't pay.
00:16:28.580 | So instead of, "Oh, that's going to pay more per hour," or "That's going to make me more
00:16:32.880 | money in the long term," if it was all volunteer work or it was all free, what would I actually
00:16:40.060 | choose to do?
00:16:41.520 | And that's not dissimilar to really deciding whether I want the cheap salad or the expensive
00:16:47.000 | filet mignon.
00:16:48.000 | What am I in the mood for today?
00:16:52.000 | How has that changed your experience of life?
00:16:58.080 | It's changed it in a positive way because it's given me a great deal of time to reflect
00:17:05.680 | on everything and anything.
00:17:07.380 | I think a lot of people, there are multiple reasons why people work.
00:17:11.400 | We all like to look at the money side of it, but there are also the benefits, the social
00:17:15.960 | benefits of work.
00:17:16.960 | I mean, a lot of people love to go to work because they love meeting the people that
00:17:19.540 | they either work for or with.
00:17:22.460 | Or the distraction that work gives you from thinking about everything a little too much
00:17:27.260 | or having to make decisions about what you're really doing with the rest of your life.
00:17:30.940 | And then on the negative side, I think that sometimes I made choices before I was financially
00:17:39.500 | independent that didn't get me closer to happiness or didn't get me closer to having a sense
00:17:46.820 | of fulfillment or a sense of accomplishment.
00:17:50.580 | And now that I have financial independence, I can think about looking at the other side
00:17:55.860 | of the menu, but looking at it from the perspective of, is this going to gain me a great new friendship?
00:18:01.260 | Is this going to be an experience that I'm going to look back on?
00:18:04.180 | I'm a big fan of talking about deathbeds, but rather than in a morbid way, I think,
00:18:13.880 | what am I going to think about on my deathbed?
00:18:16.140 | Am I going to wish I made 20 more grand on that deal?
00:18:19.500 | Or am I going to be happy that I followed that dream or that I was a kid on a train
00:18:26.460 | in Europe and I didn't get off at my stop and instead kept talking the girl across from
00:18:30.540 | me?
00:18:31.820 | I try to now embrace that.
00:18:34.580 | And to the degree that I actually do talk to other people about this, I try to motivate
00:18:41.260 | them to think about things that way.
00:18:44.940 | The longer perspective of what they're going to look back on their lives and think that
00:18:48.300 | they accomplished and what brought them joy and happiness, because it's all finite.
00:18:52.700 | What types of work/job/businesses did you do from 1991 up through six years ago?
00:19:01.460 | I was the management consultant guy, right?
00:19:04.180 | And that was just...
00:19:05.180 | So it's like McKinsey type stuff.
00:19:07.060 | Yeah, it was helping American small businesses enter the Japanese market.
00:19:14.140 | Basically it was technical production, semiconductors and switches and stuff like that.
00:19:22.140 | Then I quit and went on this wild spree of doing all these things that were a blast.
00:19:28.140 | For example, I was an FM DJ.
00:19:30.820 | So not a DJ like modern idea of spinning discs at the party.
00:19:35.220 | I was actually the disc jockey at a radio station.
00:19:37.740 | It was called KBNA FM Banana.
00:19:41.020 | And I worked there for a while playing music.
00:19:44.140 | Let's hear your radio voice.
00:19:45.140 | Come on, come on.
00:19:46.140 | This is Willie M on KBNA.
00:19:48.500 | There we go.
00:19:51.220 | That was my name.
00:19:52.700 | I got some great gigs because my girlfriend at the time was the cover girl for Shiseido
00:19:58.460 | Cosmetics.
00:19:59.460 | So high level.
00:20:01.260 | And I got to go to shoots and got offered modeling jobs.
00:20:07.060 | Those of you listening can't see me, I'm an average looking guy.
00:20:11.300 | I'm not a model and I'm five, eight and a half on a good day.
00:20:14.500 | But in Japan, luckily I'm exactly Japanese height and I fit into Japanese men's clothes
00:20:20.700 | perfectly.
00:20:21.700 | I'm 173 centimeters, I think.
00:20:23.240 | So I got these great jobs because I was also an avid motorcyclist, being the face of Suzuki
00:20:30.180 | for about a year and a half.
00:20:32.700 | So I got some really good gigs, modeling bikes, essentially riding bikes and having pictures
00:20:38.540 | taken of me looking off into the sunset, looking against the newest Suzuki.
00:20:43.600 | So that was a blast.
00:20:44.980 | And then the final big job I had in Japan was working with an advertising executive
00:20:49.540 | who owned a large company there and needed somebody who would tell him the truth.
00:20:55.740 | Japan is filled with, as you can imagine, people who are following this sort of the
00:20:59.740 | status quo and there's a lot of concern about your level compared to your boss and you don't
00:21:06.060 | make waves.
00:21:07.060 | He paid me to say, "That's crap."
00:21:10.380 | Or I wouldn't do it that way.
00:21:12.580 | So I got paid a whole bunch to just-
00:21:14.580 | Be an opinionated jerk.
00:21:15.580 | Be an opinionated jerk and not wear a suit to work like everybody else.
00:21:20.180 | And that was a lot of fun.
00:21:22.420 | Then I came back to the United States and essentially started my small tech consulting
00:21:26.820 | business in San Francisco by buying and selling Mac books.
00:21:32.100 | At the time they were called Power Books and I was finding them in the newspaper before
00:21:35.420 | the internet.
00:21:36.940 | And the people at, basically I was looking for one for myself.
00:21:41.020 | And then in the next two weeks I saw two more that were even cheaper than the one I got
00:21:44.300 | myself and realized that those prices were under market and I started trading in Power
00:21:50.580 | Books.
00:21:51.660 | And that basically made its way into a business of doing end user tech support for highly
00:21:58.220 | affluent people in San Francisco.
00:22:02.220 | And along the way many of those people who needed somebody who was discreet and responsible
00:22:15.100 | and could find the answers to sometimes unknown questions.
00:22:20.100 | I started to get a lot of other jobs.
00:22:22.780 | So in many cases I became sort of a fixer.
00:22:26.060 | So my job sort of segwayed from being a tech support guy to just being a resourceful individual
00:22:32.820 | in those people's lives.
00:22:34.820 | There's a lot of money in San Francisco and when people who have a lot can find someone
00:22:40.320 | they trust, since I always charge the same rate for my time, because that's what I think
00:22:44.980 | an hour of my time was worth, regardless of how many literally billions of dollars some
00:22:49.620 | of my clients had to some of the people who were making the same money I was, I was fair.
00:22:57.260 | And I loved having sort of a different job every day.
00:23:01.980 | But eventually I moved out of San Francisco and retired to Maine.
00:23:10.340 | Since you retired, have you continued to earn, have you earned any money doing similar types
00:23:15.180 | of things?
00:23:16.180 | Yep.
00:23:17.180 | So your retirement was a very intentional decision, as you just described.
00:23:21.500 | I'm not going to decide based on money.
00:23:24.420 | I'm going to ignore the money, pretend it's all volunteer and I'm just going to go with
00:23:28.340 | that.
00:23:29.340 | But since then, there have been opportunities that have been fun that have brought in additional
00:23:32.860 | sources of...
00:23:33.860 | Yes.
00:23:34.860 | So there are clients in San Francisco who were despondent that I left.
00:23:38.620 | So occasionally when somebody gets in touch with me with something cool, or it's one of
00:23:42.300 | my clients who I had, in some cases, over 15 year relationships with, I wanted to continue
00:23:48.860 | to work with them.
00:23:51.180 | So I would say yes to particular people and no, I'm retired to others.
00:23:55.780 | And then within Maine, there's a great deal of opportunity.
00:23:58.800 | So I've taken on the job of being a property manager.
00:24:03.840 | So I have some investment property, which is again, following in my mother's footsteps.
00:24:07.860 | She was a property owner and I was sort of a property manager as a young boy pushing
00:24:12.180 | the lawnmower and fixing broken panes of glass.
00:24:17.580 | And then there are volunteer opportunities that have made me none, but I actually suspect
00:24:22.460 | that they may turn into money-making opportunities without even trying.
00:24:28.660 | There's a lot of sort of kind of office space where I've said absolutely not, and then it
00:24:34.420 | turns into even more money had I said yes.
00:24:39.260 | And now I'm trying to follow the lead of again, Mr. Money Mustache with ramping up my charitable
00:24:48.020 | donations or even considering starting some sort of a scholarship or something fun to
00:24:55.380 | help cool people do cool things.
00:24:57.460 | Because that's going to serve me selfishly, because ultimately I think a lot of giving
00:25:00.820 | is actually kind of greedy because it'll make me feel good and somebody else wins.
00:25:05.820 | So that's win-win.
00:25:07.300 | And it'll also keep me mentally stimulated to help other people.
00:25:15.740 | I'm thinking...
00:25:16.740 | I can see the smoke.
00:25:18.740 | It's not something I recommend or that I do frequently.
00:25:22.980 | As I think, what's so interesting to me about your story is in some ways you are the elusive
00:25:30.620 | early retiree, but yet you prove my theory, which is that people don't retire.
00:25:35.940 | And the reason I say that is I think for you, you had to reach that point where you said,
00:25:39.180 | "I have enough money.
00:25:40.180 | I'm going to make this intentional decision."
00:25:42.380 | But I can imagine that perhaps if you were around other people earlier, you could have
00:25:46.500 | made that same decision earlier.
00:25:49.300 | And I'm convinced that...
00:25:51.660 | I don't know what the number, but something like $100,000 in the bank is certainly not
00:25:57.340 | enough money to live on for the rest of your life, but it's enough of a cushion that it
00:26:01.860 | gives you a margin between just about anything that somebody who had that much of a cushion
00:26:07.620 | of...
00:26:08.620 | To use Jim Collins' words, "F you, money."
00:26:11.380 | Somebody with that much of a cushion could make a similar decision.
00:26:14.620 | As long as they're not substituting, say, lying around on the couch and gaming constantly.
00:26:20.700 | Of course, then they're...
00:26:21.700 | Who knows?
00:26:22.700 | They make a lot of money as a game expert, which people do now.
00:26:26.020 | That's what's so remarkable.
00:26:27.660 | So we face this tremendous challenge of how to articulate the concept of financial independence
00:26:37.780 | while recognizing that financial independence is one, it's a sliding scale, it's a moving
00:26:45.020 | stages of growth, stages of achievement.
00:26:47.900 | And it's also...
00:26:49.620 | It's not going to change all that much, because I am confident that if we'd been talking 20
00:26:54.100 | years ago, you would have been just as chilled out, you would have been just as an interesting
00:26:58.580 | person, you would have had all these interesting things that you were working on.
00:27:02.100 | And so the difference between you as a worker and you as an early retiree, I'm not convinced
00:27:07.300 | it's all that great.
00:27:08.460 | I think for you, it was something where you just said, "I'm gonna consciously choose never
00:27:13.940 | to think about the finances."
00:27:16.100 | But in terms of how I perceive you, I think you were probably a similar guy.
00:27:20.380 | I was similar, but I had a great deal more anxiety about it.
00:27:23.300 | Okay.
00:27:24.300 | So I would say that's the big difference.
00:27:26.820 | I agree with you.
00:27:27.900 | I think I spent a lot of time worrying about things that in retrospect would have happened
00:27:35.220 | fine.
00:27:36.220 | And I had a lot of people who were in your position, they were usually a lot older than
00:27:39.700 | you are, but they would say, "Oh, you're gonna be fine."
00:27:44.180 | And I'd say, "How do you know that?
00:27:45.740 | I've gotta pay rent and I'm not making enough money."
00:27:49.660 | And they would just look at me and say, "No, no, you're fine."
00:27:54.940 | And I didn't listen, 'cause I couldn't see what they were seeing.
00:27:59.420 | So I suspect that some of those older people, they were typically men, sort of father figures
00:28:05.200 | who told me that, would probably say the same thing you're saying.
00:28:08.220 | "Yeah, that's the same kid I met when he was 22.
00:28:11.740 | Hasn't changed a whole lot."
00:28:12.740 | You're right.
00:28:13.740 | For me, it feels hugely different.
00:28:15.580 | And as I spend more time retired, I realize not that I wasted time in between, but that
00:28:21.340 | I had to go through that.
00:28:23.180 | I had to go through those feelings in order to enjoy where I am now.
00:28:28.220 | And that I couldn't have retired, even if I suddenly had had as much money as I do now,
00:28:34.140 | I would have been just as afraid, felt just as nuts about money as I did.
00:28:40.240 | So I wasn't as chill then as I am now, but I suspect you are right, that the core way
00:28:50.480 | I am and the person who I am has not changed drastically.
00:28:55.180 | And that I could have done it much, much sooner and been wherever I'll be in 10 years now,
00:29:01.920 | had I started 10 years ago.
00:29:04.280 | Your mother sounds like an amazing woman.
00:29:06.120 | Yeah, she is.
00:29:08.320 | Do you have children?
00:29:09.320 | I have a daughter.
00:29:10.320 | How old?
00:29:11.320 | 11.
00:29:12.320 | Tell me what you've done.
00:29:15.120 | And I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I'm pretty safe on safe ground
00:29:18.920 | here, that you deeply value what your mother sewed into you and that you're seeking to
00:29:24.440 | pass on that legacy to your daughter.
00:29:27.400 | Tell me what you're doing with your daughter, what you've done at an early age, what you're
00:29:31.320 | doing now and what you're planning to do to pass on your mother's legacy through you to
00:29:37.280 | your daughter.
00:29:38.280 | At first, I worried much more about the answer to that question than I am now.
00:29:44.400 | I realize increasingly that being who I am, so it's that lesson we just talked about,
00:29:51.640 | it's going to happen by itself.
00:29:54.520 | I am who I am.
00:29:56.520 | I don't try to be a mustachian, since we're going to keep going back to that theme.
00:30:03.400 | I just am.
00:30:05.120 | So like it or not, my daughter is seeing that, and that is the biggest lesson.
00:30:12.000 | Certainly you can try very hard to teach your children things, but they learn most from
00:30:16.460 | what you're not actively teaching.
00:30:19.560 | And I think the active things that I've done, in order to give some meat to the answer,
00:30:26.720 | my daughter doesn't have a lot of the stuff that other kids have currently.
00:30:32.560 | She doesn't have an allowance, even though a lot of her peers have allowances.
00:30:37.520 | And over the years, she has seen me not buying the newest, spiffiest, coolest thing.
00:30:46.600 | She's actually has made comments about the fact that every single picture of us in the
00:30:52.960 | summer, I'm wearing the same shirts.
00:30:56.640 | She's like, "It's kind of neat.
00:30:57.840 | You're just wearing the same shirt over, like you're just getting older.
00:31:01.280 | Look at the gray hair coming in.
00:31:02.680 | Same shirt, same shirt, same shirt."
00:31:05.140 | And I think that is a lesson that she's getting, is the fact that I'm not buying all this stuff,
00:31:10.160 | and I seem to be pretty happy.
00:31:12.880 | And then there are just some lessons when she actually asks things like renting versus
00:31:18.160 | buying.
00:31:19.160 | We're walking around, she sees for sale signs and wants to know what that concept is.
00:31:22.520 | And I explained to her what I think is right about renting versus buying, and having the
00:31:27.000 | power of money work for you, and leasing, because I'm also this car guy, so I give a
00:31:33.520 | lot of people advice about cars, and making things, repairing things rather than replacing
00:31:39.040 | them.
00:31:40.040 | These are all lessons that I actively teach as well as passively do by example, set by
00:31:47.840 | example, I guess.
00:31:48.840 | So you are semi-famous under a pseudonym for the topic of cars, and your knowledge of and
00:31:57.640 | experience with vehicles, especially how to get a good deal.
00:32:02.200 | How did you acquire your skills with being able to drive well for cheap?
00:32:09.600 | So that also was a job that I skipped mentioning in Tokyo.
00:32:13.200 | So I've been a motorcyclist my whole life, and in Tokyo I was buying and selling motorcycles
00:32:18.160 | as well.
00:32:19.160 | Because of my language skill and my long-term being able to stay there without an official
00:32:27.120 | job, I learned the official paths to getting a vehicle licensed for a foreigner.
00:32:36.600 | So I could buy motorcycles cheaply and get them licensed, et cetera, and sell them to
00:32:41.540 | foreigners who were usually there for a short period of time, all licensed.
00:32:44.680 | They didn't have to go wait in line, deal with the DMV, et cetera.
00:32:47.640 | So this idea of buying and selling vehicles started actually back in Tokyo.
00:32:51.360 | You were a fixer then.
00:32:52.920 | I was making things easier for people who wanted to exchange money for hassle and time.
00:33:01.500 | And most of them were actually very wealthy people who were there for short periods of
00:33:04.720 | time for their one-year stint with an investment bank, but they wanted a cool motorcycle to
00:33:09.440 | just run around town in.
00:33:10.960 | So that was where I got into the idea of buying and selling vehicles and seeing how easy it
00:33:18.400 | was and what the spread was between them, and that a lot of it had to do with paperwork.
00:33:23.920 | And then my own motorcycle experience, I've had, I think I'm on my 29th personal motorcycle.
00:33:30.680 | That's fantastic.
00:33:31.680 | Because I'm always looking for the right bike.
00:33:33.820 | What type of bike is it right now?
00:33:34.820 | I currently have a Suzuki DL650 V-Strom.
00:33:38.000 | Nice.
00:33:39.000 | Kind of dual sport.
00:33:40.000 | Dual sport 650cc bike.
00:33:45.600 | And I started to be interested in fixing the vehicles when I had to.
00:33:55.520 | When I was more worried about money, I started to learn to fix actual problems with motorcycles.
00:34:02.760 | And then when I finally got my first car, it was one that I was going to own for a while
00:34:07.900 | in San Francisco.
00:34:08.900 | There were some things that went wrong with it, and I started to realize that I could
00:34:13.880 | treat it like anything else.
00:34:15.360 | I mean, if you get multiple quotes for a hole in your roof or for braces or for whatever,
00:34:20.760 | you could go to multiple car shops and ask what the price was to get something fixed
00:34:26.960 | and start to glean information by asking questions and what the parts were and could I bring
00:34:31.360 | parts to you and have you fix it?
00:34:32.600 | I just want to pay for your labor.
00:34:34.800 | And then I started to realize that it wasn't rocket science and I could possibly do it
00:34:38.280 | myself.
00:34:39.600 | So fast forward to moving to Maine where I had a great deal of time and I finally had
00:34:43.940 | my own garage.
00:34:46.560 | And I'm just talking about my little one car garage in my house, not some fancy garage
00:34:49.800 | with a lift or anything.
00:34:52.000 | I started to use the power of the internet and my own two hands and have, I think, the
00:34:57.120 | most important thing, which was zero fear.
00:34:59.720 | I figured at any point if I really messed something up, I could call AAA and have them
00:35:04.160 | tow it to the garage and they'd fix it.
00:35:06.720 | So why should I pay some mechanic to screw it up when I could screw it up for free?
00:35:11.000 | And especially the fact that you didn't have to be at a job on Monday morning with a working
00:35:14.600 | car so you have time and you didn't really have to be anywhere.
00:35:18.080 | So that's a key thing because I, I, um, I'll just keep going in a moment, but I've faced
00:35:23.080 | this myself.
00:35:24.080 | I see how simple it is to fix things oftentimes, but I also recognize how many of those projects
00:35:31.080 | go long.
00:35:32.320 | And if you don't have the flexibility of time, it's been the challenge for me.
00:35:35.160 | I'm not financially independent under the terms of, well, I can just do whatever.
00:35:38.560 | I have family members who are, and when I observed them, one of them is just world class
00:35:43.480 | at fixing everything.
00:35:44.960 | But it's also because they have the time to do the research, order the parts, wait four
00:35:49.560 | days for them to arrive, et cetera.
00:35:51.640 | And so time makes a huge difference in having that time where I'm right in that middle where,
00:35:56.920 | okay, I could make changes, but I'm still in that.
00:36:00.640 | I still have some of those pressures of my business and my job that cut into things.
00:36:06.040 | And you, and you're, you know, I understand the value of convenience.
00:36:09.320 | I mean, that's exactly what you're talking about or not being able to do that because
00:36:14.080 | you have other responsibilities or other things you'd like to do.
00:36:16.960 | I luckily am in this position that I finally got myself into where I do have the time and
00:36:22.520 | the inclination.
00:36:23.520 | There are certain things that, um, for example, I have an accountant, not unlike Mr. Money
00:36:28.640 | Mustache, uh, I, I could insource that.
00:36:32.360 | Like I've been sourced most things in my life because I like to learn stuff, but I, I am
00:36:37.640 | not interested.
00:36:38.640 | I'm, I'm willing to pay somebody else to do that when it comes to fixing cars.
00:36:42.920 | Um, I actually like it.
00:36:44.440 | I like the sense of accomplishment.
00:36:46.440 | Um, it's, it's a huge high to, to fix something yourself.
00:36:51.040 | And you know, I'm probably, uh, not that much more mechanically inclined than other people
00:36:58.040 | are.
00:36:59.040 | I, I, you know, I went to prep school, I went to a fancy college, I went to go work in the
00:37:03.720 | working world.
00:37:04.720 | You know, I didn't have grease under my fingernails until much later in life, but I figured out
00:37:10.280 | that I really like it and, um, and that it's very satisfying to kind of do that work to
00:37:16.400 | actually like manual work, especially when it is so, um, binary.
00:37:22.920 | I mean you fix it and it works or you don't and it doesn't.
00:37:26.080 | I find it satisfying as well.
00:37:27.200 | I like to do work that because so much of my work is mental, um, where you can't physically
00:37:32.280 | see the outcome of it.
00:37:33.840 | Uh, I find it also satisfying to do things that result in a physical tangible result,
00:37:39.200 | fixing the car, improving it and also the process because the process is relatively
00:37:43.440 | straightforward in many ways, a linear process.
00:37:46.980 | If you understand where you're going from point a through, you know, point Z of the
00:37:50.360 | instructions or the process, um, you know, you can put on something nice to listen to,
00:37:55.000 | a great podcast, great radio, great music, whatever.
00:37:58.040 | Um, you can have a beer while you work.
00:37:59.840 | You can just slow down and enjoy the process and it can be very, uh, for me, I, I, I share
00:38:05.960 | that same enjoyment of it, but then if you've got to have it done by a certain time and
00:38:11.080 | it doesn't work and the part doesn't fit, you know, my camper van, I bought my camper
00:38:15.360 | van and the generator wasn't working and so I fixed it twice and it still wasn't working
00:38:20.440 | and I was like, I've got to get this thing working.
00:38:22.080 | So finally I admitted defeat and took it to the shop and they fixed it and got it working.
00:38:26.320 | But uh, but I, I, I agree.
00:38:29.080 | So that's one of your secrets is, is your fix of cars.
00:38:31.880 | Yep.
00:38:32.880 | So I fixed them.
00:38:33.880 | Uh, and when I don't know how to fix it, I'm certainly happy to involve a professional.
00:38:38.200 | That's fine.
00:38:39.200 | And it has, uh, also allowed me in many ways to sort of spread the word actually.
00:38:46.160 | Um, cause a lot of times I end up selling these cars to friends or friends of friends,
00:38:51.960 | et cetera, um, for cost or very close to it because I'm not really in it to make money.
00:38:58.720 | It's more that I, uh, not dissimilar again to, to Mr. Money Mustache.
00:39:03.480 | I see it as, um, as a form of environmentalism.
00:39:06.960 | Um, actually someone here on the trip asked, you know, should I get rid of my, uh, Toyota
00:39:13.080 | Tundra truck and buy a Prius?
00:39:15.840 | And he's an older guy.
00:39:17.420 | He drives less than 5,000 miles a year and he really loves that truck and has 150,000
00:39:23.500 | miles on it.
00:39:24.780 | And I said, absolutely not.
00:39:26.540 | Uh, sure.
00:39:27.540 | The, um, the easy answer would be, oh yeah, you should have a Prius.
00:39:30.660 | It's going to get two to three times the gas mileage of your truck.
00:39:33.580 | But what about the environmental impact of him buying a whole nother vehicle?
00:39:37.300 | Then what happens to his truck?
00:39:38.300 | Someone else is going to be driving it.
00:39:40.020 | And I'm sure people who are listening are going to make all sorts of arguments against
00:39:43.380 | it.
00:39:44.380 | But at the end of the day, what I told him is the lowest hanging fruit is just drive
00:39:47.140 | less.
00:39:48.140 | If you drive your car half as much as you do now, you've just doubled the time that
00:39:54.300 | you have that vehicle per gallon.
00:39:56.660 | Uh, and he said, yeah, I guess I don't have to drive to the gym every day.
00:40:01.660 | And I said, yeah, you don't, of course you don't.
00:40:03.180 | And I didn't, you know, and I said, Hey, I'm not Mr. Money Mustache.
00:40:05.620 | Cause he was kind of scared.
00:40:06.740 | I know you're not going to like this truck.
00:40:08.380 | I said, no, I'm not going to beat you over the head.
00:40:11.820 | I know you like that truck.
00:40:12.820 | I'm not going to tell you to get rid of it, but just drive it less.
00:40:16.260 | Maybe you can just walk around your neighborhood on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of walking
00:40:19.260 | on the treadmill at the gym.
00:40:20.700 | And there you've just massively reduced your footprint.
00:40:25.620 | And he was happy to hear that.
00:40:27.780 | You know, I, I was all for that.
00:40:30.740 | How much of a role does environmentalism play into your behavior, your decisions, your financial
00:40:36.260 | outlook?
00:40:37.260 | I'd say it's very large.
00:40:40.960 | Sometimes too large.
00:40:41.960 | I think there are times when for me, I worry too much and focus too hard on the environmental
00:40:53.780 | impact instead of the very small difference.
00:40:58.120 | It would be if I didn't worry about it.
00:41:01.420 | The case in point would be a water fight at my daughter's birthday party.
00:41:08.780 | And I'm thinking the whole time about how much water are we using?
00:41:12.220 | And then I try to think, well, it's, you know, it's splashing on the ground and, you know,
00:41:16.460 | water's a closed system on our planet and that's okay.
00:41:19.500 | But I still kind of get uptight about it.
00:41:22.040 | And I also find myself occasionally still getting sort of upset when I see people wasting
00:41:29.920 | fuel, for example.
00:41:31.960 | A big thing in Maine is to idle your vehicle.
00:41:34.280 | It's very cold.
00:41:35.280 | People will get out of their car and leave it.
00:41:36.820 | But they often will forget.
00:41:38.780 | I'll see a car in my neighbor's driveway idling for an hour while they go inside and they
00:41:43.180 | were just going in to get something and then they get distracted.
00:41:46.460 | And I realize I can't save the world that way.
00:41:51.340 | And it's a gallon of gas.
00:41:53.780 | And yes, we all need to think about the tiny things we can do, but it's not worth getting
00:42:01.220 | steamed up about, you know, to sort of make the joke.
00:42:06.260 | I'm always thinking about it.
00:42:08.300 | And interestingly enough, a little side story is that my daughter, who I never purposefully
00:42:15.620 | teach environmentalism to, got very upset the other day when she drew a bath for herself.
00:42:22.380 | She turned on the water.
00:42:24.000 | She went into her room to change.
00:42:26.180 | She came back and I hear her wailing from upstairs and I run upstairs thinking something
00:42:30.860 | terrible has happened.
00:42:31.860 | And she's really crying.
00:42:32.860 | And, you know, 11-year-olds don't cry that much anymore.
00:42:35.600 | You know, something's bugging her.
00:42:37.140 | What is it?
00:42:38.140 | She said, "I forgot to put the plug in and all the water I've been, it's been on for
00:42:42.900 | like five minutes and that water level hasn't gotten any higher and I wasted all that hot
00:42:47.140 | water."
00:42:48.140 | And she was really upset and I had to pat her back and calm her down and say, "It's okay.
00:42:52.660 | You know, people make mistakes.
00:42:54.180 | In the big picture, this is fine."
00:42:56.560 | And part of me was like, "Wow, I'm really screwing my kid up with like being that uptight
00:43:01.060 | about something like that."
00:43:02.060 | And then I think, "Well, no, it's good."
00:43:05.020 | Her reaction was a little strong, but she does understand that every drop counts.
00:43:10.460 | So she is kind of thinking like me.
00:43:12.220 | And sometimes I feel that that's a burden and sometimes I feel that that's a blessing.
00:43:17.020 | It's a gift.
00:43:18.020 | When you think of environmentalism, do you think of that as, like for you, what does
00:43:24.660 | environmentalism mean?
00:43:27.500 | For me, I think about it as a way for me to lessen my use of stuff.
00:43:38.960 | So it's, I don't really think about the calculations of carbon footprints, how many tons of carbon
00:43:46.740 | oxide am I emitting per mile in a particular vehicle, et cetera.
00:43:50.420 | I think about it more in terms of what am I consuming?
00:43:55.020 | What's being used in sort of my name?
00:43:58.020 | So again, back to the car thing, I'm always trying to convince people actually to keep
00:44:03.220 | the car they have and fix it.
00:44:06.020 | Even though maybe another car is more fuel efficient, the most efficient thing is for
00:44:10.700 | them to keep it.
00:44:11.700 | A lot of my neighbors, when they're remodeling their houses and they remodel them "green"
00:44:16.780 | and it's LEED compliant, et cetera, I think, "Well, what about all the crap you just ripped
00:44:21.820 | out of your kitchen?
00:44:22.820 | You just ripped out all these nice old Formica countertops that were working perfectly.
00:44:27.700 | They just didn't look cool."
00:44:29.300 | And the appliances that were avocado green or perhaps even as simple as white, you've
00:44:35.460 | just sent them all elsewhere.
00:44:36.860 | And unless you made a very strong effort to recycle those by selling them to somebody
00:44:40.140 | else on Craigslist or reusing them in your basement or something like that, you just
00:44:44.860 | made a huge impact on our town dump.
00:44:47.740 | And that's not a way.
00:44:49.060 | That's just not your yard.
00:44:50.740 | So when people are throwing things away, so I'm constantly trying to reduce the amount
00:44:56.140 | of stuff that I'm consuming or that by nature of consuming, I'm excreting.
00:45:04.020 | How do you figure out what's enough?
00:45:06.260 | How do you figure out where the line is?
00:45:08.380 | So it's very, very difficult.
00:45:11.400 | And that actually brings me back to money, which was how do you figure out what is enough?
00:45:15.660 | I think a lot of people are going to have that question.
00:45:17.260 | I don't have the answer.
00:45:18.760 | But that's a big question for your listeners who are interested in financial independence,
00:45:22.740 | a big thing to ask.
00:45:24.740 | How much is enough?
00:45:25.980 | Because had I had the insight that you came to so quickly, because you're smarter than
00:45:31.260 | I am, was I had enough a long time ago and I just didn't realize it.
00:45:36.220 | So in terms of how much is enough with sort of the environmental slant, I'd like to think
00:45:41.740 | more like anything is better than nothing.
00:45:45.460 | So if I let it mellow and only flush it down when it's brown, I've just saved a whole bunch
00:45:53.840 | more water than the guy in the next house who flushes every time he pees.
00:45:57.580 | That's a good thing.
00:45:58.700 | I don't really have to get caught up in the I didn't save enough or I used too much.
00:46:04.140 | If there's an opportunity for me to use less easily, then I should.
00:46:08.860 | Again it's that low-hanging fruit of the guy who I just say, "Just drive your car less.
00:46:13.300 | You don't need to go get a Prius."
00:46:14.860 | Buying something else isn't going to solve this problem.
00:46:17.180 | If you're really worried about the environmental impact of your truck, just drive it less.
00:46:23.180 | You still need it.
00:46:24.180 | You use it from time to time.
00:46:25.180 | That's fine.
00:46:26.180 | Drive it less.
00:46:27.180 | So for me, it's not so much that there's a line for what is enough.
00:46:30.380 | If it's better than what I would have done without thinking, then I've already accomplished
00:46:36.540 | something.
00:46:37.540 | And that bar is set in a place where it's really easy to access so I can feel good about
00:46:42.100 | it instead of getting caught up in like I used to about how many gallons are being used
00:46:47.260 | and just looking at everything around me as being the whole world's going to hell.
00:46:54.100 | It could be and perhaps ignorance is bliss in this case, but I do have to consider my
00:46:59.420 | mental health as well.
00:47:02.100 | That's my question.
00:47:03.660 | And I've often wondered, and I have some ideas in terms of how it can be done better.
00:47:11.580 | Have you redesigned your house to use any other than just using less?
00:47:16.140 | Have you changed any of the technology of your house so that things are reused or recycled
00:47:21.460 | intentionally internally in the house or on the property?
00:47:25.500 | Some of the water that's the wastewater in my house gets reused just to a very small
00:47:30.060 | degree because I didn't want to have to go through a bunch of compliance issues with
00:47:34.060 | the city.
00:47:35.140 | I did install things, for example, a wood stove insert.
00:47:38.820 | So about 80% of my heat now is from wood from a state that's 90% wooded.
00:47:45.420 | When my furnace broke, I replaced it with a much more efficient unit rather than the
00:47:49.740 | same thing that was there.
00:47:51.060 | But I waited until it broke.
00:47:52.640 | I would not if that old furnace was still working, I probably would still be using it.
00:47:58.180 | So I haven't made massive changes to the output.
00:48:02.620 | Although I would say by far we have the smallest amount of garbage that leaves our house.
00:48:09.300 | We recycle extensively.
00:48:12.060 | We compost.
00:48:13.780 | And I actually purchase things with packaging in mind.
00:48:20.380 | And just the simple stuff.
00:48:21.660 | I never, ever forget my reusable bags.
00:48:24.920 | It's really that little, but all those plastic bags add up.
00:48:31.220 | And I reuse a lot of my garbage.
00:48:34.540 | For example, my garage where I'm working on cars and projects and stuff is filled with
00:48:40.500 | old yogurt containers for storing screws and the top of a milk jug cut off as a scoop.
00:48:47.980 | I look at these things and try to use them at least once again.
00:48:52.500 | Almost partially, that's partially frugal because I don't want to go buy that special
00:48:57.460 | thing when I could just make it.
00:48:59.120 | And then the second one is because it's just there.
00:49:00.820 | I'm in the recycling bins right there in the garage and I know I'm about to drain some
00:49:04.220 | gas from an old snow blower.
00:49:05.900 | So gee, that's a good plastic cup to put it in.
00:49:08.580 | And then gee, that drained gas is kind of crappy, but my Honda Odyssey gas tank has
00:49:14.820 | 20 gallons of fresh gas in it.
00:49:16.820 | Half a gallon of crappy gas is not going to hurt it and it's going to get used efficiently.
00:49:21.740 | Because how else am I going to dispose of that in an environmentally conscious way?
00:49:26.100 | So I make those steps, but I certainly don't have a composting toilet.
00:49:32.360 | My house is just on a regular street with everybody else's and I haven't made massive
00:49:38.820 | changes and all the changes have been either for my own comfort, like the wood stove, which
00:49:45.340 | I love, or because something broke and then it needed to be replaced.
00:49:51.460 | So I have this theory about environmentalism, is just simply that environmentalists sell
00:49:58.220 | their movement the wrong way.
00:50:00.500 | And I say they because I don't have a problem with the word environmentalist applied to
00:50:07.860 | a person.
00:50:08.860 | Like you're a person, if you want to say you're an environmentalist, fine.
00:50:13.220 | It's become such a militant term in so many ways that it's got some baggage.
00:50:18.860 | I like to call myself a conservationist.
00:50:21.460 | To me there's a slight difference there.
00:50:23.300 | And the difference that I see is a difference of hierarchy and superiority.
00:50:26.860 | It's a philosophical difference where it seems to me that many environmentalists, I know
00:50:31.660 | nothing about your personal philosophy, but many environmentalists look at the world and
00:50:35.060 | say the best thing that could happen would be to wipe all humans off the planet.
00:50:38.860 | Because the world is God, the actual physical creation, the world, the natural environment
00:50:45.780 | is God and we're a blight upon it.
00:50:48.380 | So I don't believe that philosophy, I don't resonate upon it.
00:50:52.900 | I say that the world is here for me.
00:50:56.040 | But it's also here for me to care for and to be a steward of.
00:50:59.260 | And so to me I think that fits better under the word conservationist.
00:51:02.860 | So I personally like that word conservationist.
00:51:05.400 | But kind of environmentalism as I see it sells the problem of deprivation instead of the
00:51:12.540 | solution of abundance.
00:51:13.820 | And I see two parallel tracks where it happens in terms of money and finance and also in
00:51:19.860 | terms of environmental impact.
00:51:21.900 | That people often sell money and finance as deprivation.
00:51:25.860 | Well you should save more because that's the right thing to do.
00:51:29.540 | Well again to pay homage to our friend Mr. Money Mustache, we're here with him at this
00:51:34.520 | conference branded for him.
00:51:36.220 | And one of the things that I believe he does better than anybody else in the world is he
00:51:40.460 | paints financial stewardship, good financial decisions, not as deprivation but as the ultimate
00:51:47.540 | luxury.
00:51:48.860 | And that's what this early retiree movement is about.
00:51:51.380 | It paints it as the ultimate luxury.
00:51:53.480 | And so if you don't go through that, I've talked to people all the time, like listen,
00:51:58.180 | if you just save 75% of your income you'll be in a position to where you'll be financially
00:52:02.740 | independent seven years.
00:52:03.740 | And they look and they view 75% of income as just this horrible deprivation.
00:52:09.260 | Instead of saying, "Oh, I'll be financially independent, look how great it is."
00:52:12.540 | So frugality I don't see is any end in and of itself.
00:52:16.420 | It's a process.
00:52:18.080 | It's something that gains you something that you want better.
00:52:22.460 | In the same way environmentalism, my issue a lot of times with environmentalism, is that
00:52:26.900 | it is focused on like, "No you can't.
00:52:31.320 | No you can't drive.
00:52:32.500 | No you can't fly.
00:52:33.620 | No you can't live in a house.
00:52:34.940 | You must live in a yurt in the woods and go barefoot and poop in a bucket."
00:52:38.420 | Like hold on a second, why don't we apply and say, "How can we make so that we can have
00:52:44.100 | everything that we want for our own human needs and comfort and luxury and make the
00:52:50.980 | environment around us better?
00:52:53.140 | Why can't we turn it into a surplus and live richly with it?"
00:52:57.220 | And so when I look at it, the thing I say about like water, is that if the water gets
00:53:01.380 | wasted for example, if the water just kind of gets flushed down the pipe, goes in with
00:53:05.260 | the sewage, I can't stand, I personally can't stand that concept.
00:53:09.220 | I hate, my house right now is just a standard apartment.
00:53:12.180 | And so the water goes right down in the sewer with all of the feces.
00:53:15.580 | And that is so frustrating to me because that is the dumbest thing to do, to take drinking
00:53:19.700 | water and pollute it with feces, when it could be repurposed and used in so many ways.
00:53:25.740 | And so that annoys me because it doesn't follow that principle of conservation.
00:53:30.520 | But I don't want to not take a bath every day.
00:53:32.780 | I don't want to take a bath once a week because, "Oh, I can only take a bath once a week."
00:53:36.020 | I want to take a rich, hot, luxurious bath every day.
00:53:39.500 | But for you in Portland, I'd be thinking, "But how can I make sure that I'm using the
00:53:43.180 | waste heat from my wood stove to heat the boiler and it's just always hot and it's wasted
00:53:47.340 | heat otherwise.
00:53:48.460 | So now we're using the heat multiple times in order to provide this luxury.
00:53:53.340 | Then we're going to take the water, we're going to run it through a gray water system,
00:53:56.300 | we're going to use it twice, then we're going to flush it out into a reed bed."
00:53:59.340 | Well, it doesn't work in the winter, but you can come up with a version that does.
00:54:02.540 | Like how do we flush it out into a reed bed?
00:54:04.480 | So then I'm using that to reeds to filter the water.
00:54:08.100 | Then at the end of the reed bed, I'm going to pass the water down into my garden so it's
00:54:11.020 | used there.
00:54:12.020 | And I'm going to put that at the top of my property so it can be used multiple times
00:54:16.260 | as it flows down through my property.
00:54:18.380 | Then I'm going to take the reeds, I'm going to take those, use those as mulch, and I'm
00:54:21.540 | going to use that as a process of taking those nutrients that were grown from there and take
00:54:25.620 | it down and use it on the property.
00:54:27.260 | And so the problem with it is that that's just good thinking.
00:54:31.140 | That's saying, "How can I get everything I want?
00:54:33.340 | How can I have the luxury?
00:54:34.680 | How can I have this?
00:54:35.820 | But how can I do it in a way that recognizes my responsibility of stewardship and conservation
00:54:42.300 | while also recognizing that I don't serve this goal out here?"
00:54:47.700 | And that's actually one of my big issues.
00:54:49.460 | I was glad, I was going to ask you, I was glad that you didn't define environmentalism
00:54:56.340 | in terms of carbon.
00:54:57.340 | This is one of my biggest issues with people who think environmentalism, they think carbon.
00:55:02.620 | Because then it's all about going down.
00:55:05.180 | Instead of saying, "Well, how can we create a system that not only fills our needs, but
00:55:11.140 | also not just doesn't produce carbon, why don't you create a system that actively pulls
00:55:15.920 | carbon out of the atmosphere?"
00:55:17.620 | And that is so simple in some ways to do, and there's so many people who are doing much,
00:55:22.180 | so much progress there, but instead everyone just wants to guilt everyone and say, "No,
00:55:26.420 | you can't drive, you can't fly."
00:55:28.180 | That's silly.
00:55:29.180 | We could design and we could completely transform literally the planet.
00:55:33.780 | I've seen it done in small test cases.
00:55:36.180 | I'm convinced it's going to happen in the coming decades.
00:55:38.720 | You can transform the planet and you can green the planet in such a way that you can fly
00:55:43.480 | every day in your luxury private jet and still have a carbon negative environment.
00:55:49.460 | But it's the wrong thinking.
00:55:51.140 | With no deprivation.
00:55:52.140 | Right, with no deprivation.
00:55:53.940 | So when you attack somebody's jet and you say, "No, you can't drive," or, "You can't
00:55:57.340 | do that," the point about that, it's not to say that there's not a principle there.
00:56:01.420 | Yes, you need to be careful of it, but by focusing on the positive, you create something
00:56:06.580 | that sells.
00:56:07.580 | Correct.
00:56:08.580 | Just like Mr. Money Mustache has done.
00:56:10.940 | Yeah, I definitely agree with the idea of we have huge brains.
00:56:18.020 | Why not use that to solve the problem?
00:56:21.700 | Instead of either guilt, it's the carrot stick kind of analogy.
00:56:25.860 | So I agree with you that there is, you used a term just as you were talking about, it's
00:56:33.380 | better thinking.
00:56:36.220 | It's not always the easiest path, but it's better thinking and there is a huge incentive,
00:56:43.460 | which is a really nice long hot shower.
00:56:45.980 | Right.
00:56:46.980 | Yeah, which can be done in your climate with wasted heat.
00:56:50.580 | Things that would otherwise just be lost and it wasn't recycled.
00:56:53.620 | And then it becomes about the goal and the challenge of saying, "How many times can I
00:56:57.460 | use this?"
00:56:58.460 | I'll give you, recycling programs drive me nuts.
00:57:02.580 | Recycling, however, as in that you're reusing, I think that's fantastic.
00:57:07.220 | If recycling programs, as in the blue truck pulled up, was the end of the waste stream,
00:57:14.260 | I would be in favor.
00:57:16.180 | But it's not for most people.
00:57:17.740 | It's the very first thing.
00:57:18.860 | Correct.
00:57:19.860 | And that's what to me is frustrating, is because it's inefficient.
00:57:23.060 | Make the blue truck.
00:57:24.060 | I will grant that the blue truck might be valuable, but try to put the blue truck at
00:57:29.620 | the end of the waste stream, not at the beginning.
00:57:32.280 | See how many times you can use the milk jug.
00:57:34.460 | See how many times you can use that.
00:57:36.220 | And let's teach people a little bit of an idea about that instead of creating this artificial
00:57:43.580 | sense of being a do-gooder that, "Oh, I put all my stuff in the blue bin."
00:57:47.900 | I get it entirely.
00:57:52.540 | Where that's great is there's a school in Portland, Maine called Breakwater School,
00:57:59.220 | and they have just opened a tinkering lab.
00:58:02.780 | And just like when I was a kid at the Arts and Science Center in Nashua, New Hampshire,
00:58:09.540 | it was filled with "garbage."
00:58:11.900 | It was all these bins and things that people were throwing away that people were giving
00:58:17.460 | to kids to play with and to make things out of, whether it was art or little projects
00:58:22.640 | or kind of Rube Goldberg machines.
00:58:25.020 | And they're doing the same thing.
00:58:27.020 | There's a lot of scrap that's going to use, and that's direct reuse/recycling, because
00:58:33.180 | it's my plastic quart yogurt cup going to mix paints in, rather than buying little paint
00:58:42.780 | stirring things that they sell at Home Depot.
00:58:46.720 | It's actually better than the one that you're going to get.
00:58:49.880 | So reusing that stuff for a completely different purpose and then giving the children the opportunity
00:58:54.640 | to look at it as something other than a yogurt cup.
00:58:58.140 | What else could it be?
00:58:59.820 | Creative thinking.
00:59:01.300 | Last question.
00:59:02.300 | I'm ready.
00:59:03.580 | Why Portland, Maine?
00:59:05.620 | Yeah.
00:59:06.620 | J.D.
00:59:07.620 | Roth in the background.
00:59:10.620 | J.D.
00:59:11.620 | Roth from the other Portland.
00:59:13.620 | Yeah, exactly.
00:59:14.620 | I'm from Portland, Oregon.
00:59:18.340 | It's actually very easy.
00:59:21.480 | In no particular order.
00:59:23.400 | My wife's family is in Portland, Maine, so we had been visiting and were both familiar
00:59:28.840 | with it.
00:59:31.140 | My daughter was starting kindergarten, and the public schools in San Francisco at the
00:59:35.560 | time were very, very bad.
00:59:39.440 | And we made a very strong effort to get into a school that we felt she'd be comfortable
00:59:44.460 | in.
00:59:45.460 | And we were denied our first seven choices, went back into the system, were denied the
00:59:51.800 | next seven choices.
00:59:54.560 | And that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
00:59:57.580 | And then, of course, the third one was that I was saving money for a down payment for
01:00:03.160 | a house in San Francisco, which is pretty much a million dollars.
01:00:09.000 | Without that payment, I was able to buy a house in Portland, Maine.
01:00:14.200 | So given the opportunity of doing the right thing for my daughter to have a better environment
01:00:18.800 | to grow up in and go to school in, the second one of having a familial support and finally
01:00:23.520 | having Grammy around, and then the third of being able to take naps whenever I want.
01:00:32.200 | It's a pretty easy decision.
01:00:35.200 | Something like a snowy day that does something for the napping makes it even better.
01:00:38.760 | It also happens to be an incredibly gorgeous location.
01:00:41.160 | Yeah, absolutely.
01:00:42.160 | Maine is so beautiful.
01:00:43.160 | Portland is doing everything in a great way right now.
01:00:47.320 | And everyone wants to come visit.
01:00:49.760 | And I can put them up because I have room.
01:00:52.400 | So all of you listeners-
01:00:53.400 | And you didn't have to spend a million dollars.
01:00:54.400 | Sorry, I didn't have to spend.
01:00:55.400 | You all come to Portland, Maine.
01:00:58.000 | Bill, is there anywhere that you want to direct people to or any final closing thoughts that
01:01:02.640 | you'd like to just share with my audience as we go?
01:01:04.400 | Any closing words of advice or wisdom?
01:01:05.840 | There's nowhere in particular I want to direct people to.
01:01:07.760 | I don't want to push any traffic anywhere.
01:01:09.640 | People will find their own path that way.
01:01:11.320 | I would like to tell people, as I did here last night, you actually hit the nail on the
01:01:19.400 | head.
01:01:20.400 | You have to figure out what enough is and then maybe take a leap.
01:01:26.960 | The big one is, are you going to lie on your deathbed and think, "I should have made more.
01:01:32.360 | I should have stayed in my job for another year to make another $20,000 when I retire.
01:01:38.880 | I should have..."
01:01:39.880 | No, they generally say, "I should have gone to my friend's wedding.
01:01:43.840 | I should have done these fun things."
01:01:46.200 | I made the mistake of waiting much longer than I should have to retire.
01:01:51.400 | I had much more money at retirement that I really needed.
01:01:56.160 | That cost me several years of my life.
01:01:58.200 | I'm not regretting it, but it would be nice if somebody else could hear these words since
01:02:02.840 | that's the great thing that humans can do is tell our stories to others and have them
01:02:06.080 | learn.
01:02:08.520 | Consider jumping ship earlier rather than later.
01:02:12.160 | I'm certainly going to be a parent who does not push my kid to make more money or get
01:02:17.760 | a better education.
01:02:18.760 | I really want her to find what's going to make her happy.
01:02:22.500 | If you're not happy, you can do something about it.
01:02:26.240 | It is your choice.
01:02:29.440 | Financial independence or just plain old being rich doesn't change that at all.
01:02:34.700 | You're still you and you've still got your things going on.
01:02:37.800 | You can change them right now even if you're broke.
01:02:41.120 | Thank you for sharing your story with us.
01:02:42.900 | We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
01:02:44.520 | You on the shoulders of your mom and now we on your shoulders.
01:02:48.360 | Yeah, just slightly higher.
01:02:49.920 | A little bit.
01:02:50.920 | Thank you, Bill.
01:02:52.480 | There is one thing that I want you to know that happened after the interview.
01:02:56.720 | The next day I was sitting and talking with Bill and we were just talking a little bit
01:02:59.800 | more about his story after we finished the interview.
01:03:05.080 | He shared something with me that didn't come up in the context of the interview but it's
01:03:08.560 | very common.
01:03:09.560 | Obviously, it's great that he achieved financial independence.
01:03:13.320 | The next day as he was talking, he said, "You know, I really struggled when I first became
01:03:19.040 | financially independent."
01:03:20.240 | When he first declared that financial independence, he said he struggled with depression for about
01:03:25.800 | two years total before he finally was able to work out his new lifestyle.
01:03:31.840 | I mention that because number one, it's an important detail but it's also a common theme
01:03:36.360 | that I have seen among many people who have pursued financial independence and who have
01:03:42.000 | built it is once they achieve it, that transition can often be difficult.
01:03:49.040 | Now this shouldn't be surprising because we know this from the research that's done on
01:03:52.800 | traditional retirees.
01:03:54.580 | Many people who retire at traditional retirement age of 65 tend to find themselves feeling
01:04:00.480 | depressed, losing some of their sense of meaning and purpose of their lives.
01:04:06.760 | It's not a terminal condition.
01:04:08.040 | You can replace that and you can find a new sense of meaning and purpose but it's something
01:04:12.120 | that you need to be aware of.
01:04:13.960 | It's very likely to happen.
01:04:16.500 | Now my summary of how to handle it is very simple.
01:04:20.040 | If you're retiring from something alone, you're probably going to face significant emotional
01:04:29.840 | and mental problems when you first start retirement.
01:04:33.500 | If you're just retiring to get away from a job you hate or out of a business that you
01:04:36.880 | can't stand, you're probably going to have problems.
01:04:42.160 | If you're retiring from something, you're going to have problems.
01:04:48.260 | But the people that I have seen that have had the most successful retirements are those
01:04:52.680 | who are retiring to something.
01:04:56.520 | If you're retiring to something, you're likely to have an extremely successful retirement.
01:05:03.560 | The person who trades in a job that, hey, it's working fine but they'd love to be able
01:05:06.960 | to devote that 40 hours to something that's more important to them that may not be income
01:05:12.120 | producing, that person's ready to go.
01:05:15.640 | You should have tested that, the lifestyle, partly before retiring.
01:05:20.680 | Slower transitions are usually a better move.
01:05:24.440 | But the key is, are you retiring from something or you're retiring to something?
01:05:31.920 | It's too important of a point for you to miss.
01:05:37.100 | Don't miss it.
01:05:38.100 | Think about it carefully.
01:05:39.100 | And with that, that's the end of the show today.
01:05:41.880 | I want to thank Bill for coming on and sharing his experience.
01:05:45.260 | Take inspiration from him.
01:05:47.840 | Fixer.
01:05:48.840 | Maybe some of you don't know what that is.
01:05:51.720 | Fixer just means somebody who just fixes stuff for people.
01:05:54.240 | If you've got a problem, how do you get it done?
01:05:56.760 | That to me sounds like such a fun job.
01:05:58.640 | And to think that somebody could build a career doing that should be inspirational to many
01:06:02.500 | of you.
01:06:03.500 | And it's something that you can do on your own terms.
01:06:05.720 | I don't know how you do it.
01:06:06.720 | I think you have to have a unique set of skills.
01:06:08.440 | But maybe you should put fixer on your career aspiration.
01:06:13.240 | That's it for today's show.
01:06:14.240 | As we go, a quick reminder, I'm focusing very hard on finishing this demographic survey
01:06:19.840 | that I'm doing.
01:06:20.840 | So next question, demographic survey.
01:06:22.640 | If you could please take a moment and do that, you could do it right on your phone or at
01:06:25.400 | your computer, wherever you're listening to me.
01:06:26.880 | Just go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/survey.
01:06:29.680 | Just tell me, are you a man, are you a woman, how old you are, what color you are, et cetera.
01:06:32.960 | That'd be super helpful.
01:06:33.960 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/survey.
01:06:34.960 | Also, thank you to those of you who support the show as patrons.
01:06:39.720 | The patron program is very important.
01:06:41.720 | It allows me to not focus first and foremost on advertisers, but to focus first and foremost
01:06:46.880 | on serving you, the listening audience, who finds value and engages in a voluntary transaction
01:06:51.680 | to tell me that.
01:06:53.320 | If you'd like to support the show, go to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
01:06:57.360 | Also that gets you access to Q&A calls, just like you'll hear tomorrow.
01:07:01.480 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron.
01:07:03.120 | And with that, I'm out of here until tomorrow.
01:07:16.720 | When you're in winter's favorite town, the snow-covered mountains surround you.
01:07:24.680 | A historic main street charms you.
01:07:30.800 | And every day brings a new adventure.
01:07:36.560 | Welcome to Park City, Utah, naturally winter's favorite town.
01:07:42.760 | Join the experience at VisitParkCity.com.