RPF0432-Gwen_Fiery_Millennial_Interview
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00:00:31.000 | Gwen, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:00:34.000 | Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:00:35.000 | So, we're up here in Gainesville, Florida, at Camp Mustache Southeast 2017.
00:00:43.000 | So it's providing me with an awesome opportunity to get together with other people who are pursuing financial independence,
00:00:49.000 | some of whom have websites, some of whom don't, etc.
00:00:52.000 | So tell us a little bit about your story, especially as it relates to money and financial independence.
00:00:56.000 | So, my name is Gwen, and I run the website Fire Millennials.
00:01:00.000 | And I started my journey back in high school, actually, when my parents sat me down and told me that I was not getting any help for college.
00:01:10.000 | And so I needed to figure out how I was going to pay for it myself.
00:01:13.000 | When did they do that? Did they, like, spring it on you on your high school graduation, or was this something that...
00:01:17.000 | No, thankfully they did it at the end of my sophomore year of high school.
00:01:21.000 | So I had two years to come up with everything, and they gave me a deal.
00:01:24.000 | They said, "We pay for two years of community college. You can live at home, pretty cheap, or you can go and do a four-year university by yourself."
00:01:33.000 | And unfortunately, our relationship frayed over time, and staying with them was no longer an option.
00:01:38.000 | I ended up briefly homeless for a little bit.
00:01:41.000 | And so I had to figure out how to pay for college myself.
00:01:45.000 | So I worked really hard at academics and extracurriculars and sports, and just had a very robust resume, as it were, and had good grades.
00:01:59.000 | So I submitted for a lot of scholarships and got a few, but they wouldn't help everything.
00:02:10.000 | And I didn't want to get loans because I was broke and I didn't want to be in debt.
00:02:14.000 | So I joined the military and was in it for six years, and they helped pay for some of it.
00:02:20.000 | What age? Right at 18?
00:02:22.000 | Right at 18, yeah.
00:02:23.000 | The summer after I graduated, before I went my freshman year.
00:02:27.000 | And then I got a call right after I signed my name on the dotted line that said,
00:02:32.000 | "Hey, we've got a full-ride scholarship with your name on it. If you want it, somebody else turned theirs down."
00:02:36.000 | Really? From a school that you had...
00:02:38.000 | From the school that I went to.
00:02:39.000 | Ah, right after you had enlisted.
00:02:40.000 | Right after I enlisted.
00:02:42.000 | So it was kind of like, "Ugh."
00:02:44.000 | At the same time, they paid for all of my school.
00:02:46.000 | Right, right.
00:02:47.000 | So that was a great way to get out of college debt-free.
00:02:50.000 | So you served six years in the military.
00:02:52.000 | Six years in the military.
00:02:53.000 | Which branch?
00:02:54.000 | The Air National Guard.
00:02:55.000 | What did you do?
00:02:56.000 | I was in IT, which actually kick-started the rest of my career because I was like, "Eh, this IT stuff is pretty easy."
00:03:02.000 | So when I got back from training, I was like, "Huh, I'm going to do this on the civilian side and make lots of money, and it's going to be awesome."
00:03:08.000 | Learning how to load mortar shells into a mortar doesn't necessarily translate over to the civilian world, but certainly IT skills can.
00:03:16.000 | Yes, and that's exactly what I was thinking of when I signed up.
00:03:19.000 | I was like, "Well, I could do this, but there's not really any direct translation but IT. That's really useful now."
00:03:26.000 | So I went through college, graduated debt-free.
00:03:29.000 | Because of the military grants.
00:03:32.000 | Because of the scholarship and the military grants.
00:03:35.000 | And while I was in college, I ran across Mr. Money Mustache's blog somehow.
00:03:40.000 | Just hanging around the internet one day.
00:03:42.000 | And I was like, "Wow, that's really amazing. I don't have to work anymore. Whoa, this is great."
00:03:48.000 | I love being in college.
00:03:49.000 | If I could just be in college all the time, I would totally do it.
00:03:52.000 | You get to take naps in the afternoon.
00:03:54.000 | You get to learn stuff.
00:03:56.000 | And especially I had an internship, and I learned what it was like to be working in an office environment.
00:04:01.000 | It was like, "This sucks. I don't want to do this for the rest of my life."
00:04:04.000 | "How are people going to survive this? This is terrible."
00:04:07.000 | So when I got my job right out of college, I started saving pretty much immediately.
00:04:13.000 | And got involved in the personal finance, financial independence world.
00:04:18.000 | And just kind of blossomed from there.
00:04:21.000 | So that's been how many years now since you graduated?
00:04:23.000 | I graduated at the end of 2013.
00:04:25.000 | Okay, so three years now in the work world.
00:04:27.000 | Three years, yeah.
00:04:28.000 | And you're pursuing kind of a mustachioed, extreme savings type of approach to financial independence?
00:04:34.000 | Yeah, so my average savings rate is about 42%.
00:04:37.000 | Awesome. That's fantastic.
00:04:39.000 | So I've just been squirreling away as much as I possibly can.
00:04:44.000 | And this is the time to do it.
00:04:45.000 | I'm young and single, and I don't have very many expenses.
00:04:48.000 | So it's super easy.
00:04:51.000 | You just set everything and forget it.
00:04:54.000 | So I maxed out my 401(k), my Roth IRA, and this year I'll add in my HSA.
00:04:59.000 | Congratulations.
00:05:00.000 | Thank you.
00:05:01.000 | So tell me what this looks like practically.
00:05:02.000 | Because obviously a lot of people, they get out of college and they immediately start spending more than what they're earning.
00:05:08.000 | So first, you're working in IT?
00:05:10.000 | Yeah, I work in IT.
00:05:11.000 | And do you disclose how much you're earning at this point in time?
00:05:13.000 | I do, yeah.
00:05:14.000 | How much?
00:05:15.000 | I started off at about $65,000.
00:05:16.000 | Now I'm up to about $76,000.
00:05:19.000 | Okay, so first, that right there.
00:05:22.000 | The median income in the United States, I don't have this year's numbers.
00:05:25.000 | The median household income where I was at was about $50,000.
00:05:29.000 | You saved me.
00:05:30.000 | You saved me with the right numbers.
00:05:31.000 | So you come out making $10,000 more than the median income.
00:05:34.000 | Which is like an average of two people's income, yeah.
00:05:36.000 | Right, which is fantastic.
00:05:38.000 | And that's due to choosing a career that is in high demand and where you actually need some skill and knowledge applied.
00:05:45.000 | Yep, yep.
00:05:46.000 | So congratulations.
00:05:47.000 | Thank you.
00:05:48.000 | Congratulations there.
00:05:49.000 | And when you got out of college and you have this idea to say, "I want to live inexpensively," what did you do?
00:05:53.000 | Where do you live?
00:05:54.000 | Do you have a car?
00:05:55.000 | Tell me about kind of what your lifestyle looks like at this point.
00:05:58.000 | So I gave myself three months to furnish a place because I had lived in a dorm for four years.
00:06:06.000 | So I didn't have a bed.
00:06:07.000 | I didn't have a dresser.
00:06:08.000 | I didn't have a kitchen table, you know, so I had to fund everything.
00:06:12.000 | So I set my 401(k) to just the match.
00:06:15.000 | I get roughly 6% to 10% match depending on how you calculate it.
00:06:20.000 | And so I set it--
00:06:21.000 | And by the way, I'm going to interrupt you.
00:06:22.000 | I don't remember we said where you're living.
00:06:24.000 | I live in a very low cost area in the Midwest.
00:06:27.000 | Okay, okay, very good.
00:06:28.000 | So--
00:06:29.000 | So you set your 401(k) to just the match.
00:06:31.000 | Set the 401(k) to just the match.
00:06:33.000 | And then I let myself spend whatever I needed to furnish my house.
00:06:37.000 | But I didn't go crazy.
00:06:38.000 | You know, I scoured state sales and Craigslist.
00:06:41.000 | And I tried to buy used as much as possible.
00:06:43.000 | And I got some great deals, Lazy Boy Couch for $150.
00:06:47.000 | Nice.
00:06:48.000 | Yeah, it was amazing.
00:06:49.000 | I love that couch.
00:06:51.000 | So then after three months, I jacked up my savings rate
00:06:56.000 | as much as possible to max out my 401(k).
00:06:59.000 | And I actually made a mistake because I calculated my match as my contribution.
00:07:04.000 | So at the end of the year, fair enough, sure enough,
00:07:06.000 | there was $18,000 in my account, but I had only contributed $13,000 of that.
00:07:11.000 | Ah, so you could have--
00:07:12.000 | Missed out on some of that space.
00:07:13.000 | Right, you could have put an extra five grand in.
00:07:15.000 | Yeah, so if you're thinking about doing this,
00:07:17.000 | then make sure you exclude the match from your calculations
00:07:19.000 | because that doesn't count towards your contribution.
00:07:21.000 | Right, so just for clarity, you can put up--
00:07:24.000 | is it this year, I guess $18,000 or is it $18,500?
00:07:26.000 | $18,000.
00:07:27.000 | $18,000 into your 401(k), but that's based upon your actual contribution.
00:07:32.000 | Your employer can put in whatever the match is on top of that.
00:07:36.000 | You're just limited to $18,000 in your 401(k).
00:07:40.000 | So I missed out on about $5,000 in tax.
00:07:43.000 | My audience is crying their eyes out.
00:07:45.000 | Oh, no, you missed it.
00:07:46.000 | I know, right?
00:07:47.000 | So terrible, $5,000, you poor thing.
00:07:50.000 | Exactly.
00:07:51.000 | Yeah, so going from that, spending whatever I wanted on house stuff
00:07:56.000 | and then cracking down, I was like, "Oh, wow, this is kind of hard to do."
00:08:01.000 | And I was living in a pretty cheap place.
00:08:05.000 | It was a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house for $950 a month.
00:08:09.000 | Renting the whole house?
00:08:10.000 | Renting the whole house, yep.
00:08:12.000 | And it was about 1,500 square feet, something like that.
00:08:15.000 | And I wasn't using all of it because, again, I didn't have very much stuff just starting out.
00:08:20.000 | So I got a roommate, and he paid half the rent,
00:08:24.000 | and so that brought my housing costs down even more.
00:08:27.000 | And I kept my car out of college, so I didn't immediately go and get a car
00:08:32.000 | because I'm adulting, I have a paycheck, I can do that.
00:08:34.000 | Adulting, that's the first time I've heard that.
00:08:36.000 | Oh, really?
00:08:37.000 | That's great.
00:08:38.000 | That's one of my least favorite phrases.
00:08:40.000 | Millennials use it a lot.
00:08:42.000 | It's like, "Oh, I paid my bills today. #adulting."
00:08:45.000 | I'm out of touch now.
00:08:46.000 | I am a millennial, but I guess I'm in a different phase of life, so that's new to me.
00:08:52.000 | Yeah, so I kept those two expenses really low,
00:08:56.000 | getting a roommate and keeping my same car that was paid off.
00:09:00.000 | So I feel like that's really what helped me at the beginning
00:09:03.000 | because I didn't have to worry about, "Oh, I have to pay $250 for my car payment today."
00:09:07.000 | But I could be putting that in my Roth IRA instead.
00:09:11.000 | So instead of paying other people, I paid myself first.
00:09:14.000 | Perfect.
00:09:15.000 | Yeah, so if you're paying $900 to rent a three-bedroom, one-bath house,
00:09:19.000 | that drops you down to $450 plus utilities.
00:09:21.000 | Yep.
00:09:22.000 | And then no car payment, basic insurance costs, basic other costs.
00:09:26.000 | Do you have any guess of what you spend at this point in time on a monthly basis?
00:09:30.000 | So in 2015, I spent about $39,000.
00:09:37.000 | In 2016, I spent $41,000.
00:09:39.000 | Okay.
00:09:40.000 | So where is the excess money?
00:09:43.000 | Are you spending it on travel or other things?
00:09:45.000 | Travel--well, my housing costs went up significantly when I moved for my new job.
00:09:50.000 | I went from paying $450 to paying $1057 a month plus utilities and everything.
00:09:58.000 | So a good chunk of that went towards higher housing costs.
00:10:02.000 | So are you planning to do the same thing, get a roommate, lower those costs,
00:10:05.000 | or are you comfortable at this point in time with your situation?
00:10:09.000 | I said I was comfortable because I moved very close to work.
00:10:13.000 | I was a mile and a half away.
00:10:15.000 | I could walk.
00:10:16.000 | I could ride my bike.
00:10:17.000 | That cut down on transportation costs, which was nice.
00:10:19.000 | But now that I look back on it, I was like, "That's kind of dumb."
00:10:23.000 | I really wanted to be close to work, and that was great,
00:10:26.000 | but it was a very expensive area of town.
00:10:28.000 | And I could have lived 15 minutes away and saved a couple hundred bucks a month
00:10:33.000 | by just living a little bit further away.
00:10:36.000 | So now I slightly regret the fact that I spent like $14,000 in rent last year.
00:10:41.000 | So I just moved for a new job a month and a half ago,
00:10:45.000 | and I'm going to buy some multifamily rental property,
00:10:49.000 | but I moved in two weeks, so I didn't have time to find a place to stay.
00:10:54.000 | So it was either go with a very expensive short-term lease,
00:10:57.000 | or I put out a call on Facebook.
00:11:01.000 | I said, "Hey, does anybody have any short-term housing options
00:11:03.000 | that I can use for a couple of months?"
00:11:06.000 | And a friend of mine--because I moved back to my old town--
00:11:09.000 | a friend of mine said, "Hey, I've got a giant empty basement
00:11:12.000 | and a really big mortgage payment.
00:11:15.000 | It would be great if you could help me out and move into my basement."
00:11:18.000 | And so I said, "Well, it would be great if you could help me out
00:11:20.000 | and let me live in your basement for cheap."
00:11:22.000 | And so both of us think that we got better into the deal.
00:11:25.000 | So now I live in a basement for $400 a month, all-inclusive.
00:11:29.000 | Great.
00:11:30.000 | And I get a garage, which is just amazing.
00:11:32.000 | In the Midwest is useful.
00:11:33.000 | In the winter, yes.
00:11:34.000 | No ice scraping.
00:11:35.000 | No ice scraping, no snow scraping.
00:11:37.000 | That's worth at least an extra $100 a month, right?
00:11:39.000 | Absolutely.
00:11:40.000 | Better lifestyle.
00:11:41.000 | Yes.
00:11:42.000 | So how old are you now at this point?
00:11:43.000 | I'm 26.
00:11:44.000 | You're 26.
00:11:45.000 | And I haven't looked at your blog.
00:11:46.000 | Do you disclose how much money you've saved?
00:11:48.000 | I do, yeah.
00:11:49.000 | How much money you've saved based upon this process at this point
00:11:52.000 | and then what your plans are from here?
00:11:53.000 | So in three years, I've increased my net worth $115,000 to $125,000.
00:11:58.000 | Congratulations.
00:11:59.000 | Thank you.
00:12:01.000 | And what's next from here?
00:12:03.000 | Next, after Camp Mosh Dash is over, I will be talking to a realtor
00:12:08.000 | and looking in my area for multifamily rental options.
00:12:12.000 | I want to get at least a triplex or preferably a quad.
00:12:16.000 | Quad.
00:12:17.000 | That way I can live in one unit and rent out the others
00:12:20.000 | and have other people pay from a mortgage
00:12:22.000 | so I don't even have a housing cost.
00:12:24.000 | And instead of even having housing costs, I'm getting paid to live there
00:12:27.000 | because people are paying me.
00:12:29.000 | So it's house hacking.
00:12:32.000 | So that's a great way to live very cheaply
00:12:34.000 | and get some extra semi-passive income coming in.
00:12:39.000 | So you're on this website, Fiery Millennials,
00:12:42.000 | and we millennials are quite the buzz.
00:12:47.000 | Not all the press is positive.
00:12:50.000 | Tell me about your work and what you're trying to accomplish
00:12:54.000 | in speaking to the millennial generation about money.
00:12:57.000 | Yeah, so there are a lot of big-name bloggers out there,
00:13:01.000 | and it turns out that most of them are older with families,
00:13:05.000 | and they're either really close to financial independence
00:13:08.000 | or they've been financially independent for a couple of years now.
00:13:11.000 | And it's just not very relevant to a lot of young people's situations.
00:13:16.000 | So I started this blog, and people reach out to me,
00:13:19.000 | and they're like, "Wow, you're going through the exact same stuff I am.
00:13:22.000 | This is useful information to know
00:13:24.000 | because you're going through it at the same time I am."
00:13:27.000 | So I like to inspire people that it's actually possible,
00:13:31.000 | that we can do this crazy thing and retire way before normal.
00:13:35.000 | Because you hear news articles, it's like, "Oh, millennials will never retire.
00:13:39.000 | Inflation's going to happen, and you're not going to be able to save
00:13:43.000 | because student debt is so high."
00:13:45.000 | But I want to prove that there are other options out there
00:13:48.000 | and that you don't have to work until you're 70, 75.
00:13:51.000 | Why do you want to retire?
00:13:53.000 | I hate working.
00:13:55.000 | Have you thought about getting a job that you don't hate?
00:13:59.000 | Well, that would require me to lower my standards of living,
00:14:02.000 | which I'm not willing to do.
00:14:04.000 | I did actually just so I got my new job,
00:14:06.000 | and I thoroughly enjoy this job way more
00:14:09.000 | than I did my last couple of positions.
00:14:11.000 | So I don't hate working quite so much anymore.
00:14:14.000 | But it's still not doing fun things.
00:14:17.000 | Growing up, I was heavily influenced by the Girl Scout organization,
00:14:22.000 | and I ended up getting a lot of mentoring
00:14:26.000 | and a lot of stability out of that life.
00:14:29.000 | So I want to mentor the next generation of girls coming up.
00:14:33.000 | But unfortunately, you can't really do that
00:14:36.000 | unless you're available to work all summer at a Girl Scout camp
00:14:40.000 | and get paid like $600, $700, $800 for the entire summer.
00:14:45.000 | So I want to be able to choose to do jobs that don't pay much
00:14:49.000 | but are really fulfilling and really useful to people
00:14:52.000 | or just really fun like being a ski instructor
00:14:54.000 | out at Breckenridge for the winter.
00:14:57.000 | Right, right.
00:14:59.000 | So a lot of--in the statement that you said, you said, "I hate working."
00:15:03.000 | This is probably a common theme among many in the millennial generation,
00:15:08.000 | and it drives other generations batty because they don't understand.
00:15:12.000 | So what do you mean when you say, "I hate working"?
00:15:15.000 | Why do you say that? What do you mean by that?
00:15:18.000 | So I hate getting up when it feels like -20 outside,
00:15:21.000 | and I have to get up, and it's dark, and it's cold.
00:15:25.000 | I just don't like getting up and being forced to do things
00:15:28.000 | that I don't really care about.
00:15:30.000 | There's politics involved.
00:15:32.000 | You have to play the game, and you have to climb the ladder,
00:15:35.000 | and you just have to deal with a bunch of stuff that is,
00:15:39.000 | in the long run, useless and won't matter.
00:15:42.000 | And I don't have time and energy to just have to care about all that stuff,
00:15:47.000 | so I don't want to care about it.
00:15:49.000 | So going to work and doing stuff that I don't really care about
00:15:53.000 | is just kind of draining after a while.
00:15:56.000 | -Are you lazy? -Yes.
00:15:59.000 | Straight-up answer. I'm working on it.
00:16:02.000 | It's one of my goals for 2017.
00:16:05.000 | For my goals post I put in there, yes, I am very lazy,
00:16:09.000 | and I'm working very hard to fix this.
00:16:12.000 | If I can procrastinate it, I will.
00:16:15.000 | I'll put it off until the end of time, anything I can do.
00:16:18.000 | But I'm working at doing it, recognizing, like,
00:16:21.000 | "Oh, I'll just check this thing on Facebook."
00:16:23.000 | No, put the phone down, put Facebook away.
00:16:26.000 | You have things to do right now. Get them done.
00:16:29.000 | Get it done, get it over with before it becomes a bigger problem.
00:16:32.000 | Like I wrote a post about how FI is like doing your dishes.
00:16:36.000 | The easier and quicker you do your dishes, the faster it goes.
00:16:40.000 | So right after a meal, you just rinse it off. Boom. Easy done.
00:16:44.000 | You clean it, maybe throw some soap and water on it.
00:16:47.000 | All my dishes are clean. If you ever come over to my house, I promise, they're all clean.
00:16:51.000 | But if you put it off, you just lay the plate next to the sink,
00:16:55.000 | and you say, "Oh, I'll get to it later."
00:16:58.000 | Then all the food becomes hard and crusty, and it's a lot more work,
00:17:01.000 | and then things grow on it, and it's gross, and it smells weird.
00:17:05.000 | Same thing with FI.
00:17:07.000 | The longer you put off starting to save for retirement, the harder it gets.
00:17:10.000 | Start off when we're young, it's a lot easier comparatively.
00:17:15.000 | So you have a goal of being financially independent as quickly as possible.
00:17:18.000 | And your primary motivation, it sounds to me, is so that you can, number one,
00:17:23.000 | have control over the little details of your life.
00:17:26.000 | You don't have to get up when it's cold and go out of your house when it's dark to go to a job.
00:17:30.000 | So you can--and I understand that.
00:17:34.000 | You can stay at home and get up and have a nice cup of coffee and look out at the snow
00:17:38.000 | instead of having to go out in it.
00:17:40.000 | And also because you want to do work that is more meaningful to you,
00:17:46.000 | that is more in line with your own goals.
00:17:48.000 | Is that an accurate summary?
00:17:50.000 | Absolutely. Nailed it.
00:17:51.000 | So you see your exit path as save enough money that you could live on
00:17:56.000 | so that you can switch to something else.
00:17:58.000 | Absolutely.
00:17:59.000 | So what's your target savings amount?
00:18:00.000 | I believe it is somewhere in the--right over half a million dollars.
00:18:04.000 | It's like $567,000 or something.
00:18:07.000 | It's kind of in flux.
00:18:09.000 | I don't know what my expenses are, like what my base expenses are.
00:18:14.000 | So I have an average of $40,000 a year, but will I actually spend that much more
00:18:18.000 | now that I'm house hacking and I'll have things going forward?
00:18:21.000 | So I don't quite know.
00:18:24.000 | So tell me--because your employer would very much like to engage you in a way that is deeper.
00:18:35.000 | Your employer wants you--it's hard for me to believe that you're lazy.
00:18:38.000 | I know you might--I think we all have things that we like to do that might be perceived that way.
00:18:43.000 | But if you spent six years working in the military, that means that you've had to undergo
00:18:47.000 | a significant amount of discipline that's imposed upon you by that system.
00:18:52.000 | If you've successfully graduated from college with a degree in IT,
00:18:57.000 | that means that you have imposed upon yourself self-discipline enough to study and to do your work.
00:19:03.000 | And if you have been able to go out into the working world and you're earning 75,000 bucks a year,
00:19:12.000 | you're not--I don't believe you're lazy.
00:19:15.000 | I work hard--I force myself to work a lot harder than I should.
00:19:20.000 | I should be working smarter, not harder.
00:19:23.000 | Why?
00:19:24.000 | Well, I put things off and it becomes harder and more difficult.
00:19:26.000 | But why do you think you should be working smarter, not harder?
00:19:28.000 | Well, it would be easier to do that.
00:19:29.000 | So by not being lazy, I could be lazy in the future.
00:19:32.000 | But you're not lazy.
00:19:34.000 | Here's the thing, you're not lazy.
00:19:37.000 | So if you were--here's how it--if you were--I don't know.
00:19:42.000 | If you were going and working as a ski instructor now,
00:19:45.000 | or if you were going and working as a summer camp counselor now,
00:19:49.000 | and you lived in your car, then I might possibly believe that you're lazy.
00:19:55.000 | But I don't believe that you're lazy.
00:19:57.000 | I think that you just haven't been able to connect yet the sense of meaning and purpose with your job.
00:20:03.000 | And the reason I'm pushing on this is because it annoys me deeply
00:20:07.000 | when people make generational stereotypes and characterizations of millennials as lazy.
00:20:12.000 | True.
00:20:13.000 | Certainly, I think that we as millennials, we have our own problems,
00:20:18.000 | just like every generation has its problems.
00:20:20.000 | There is, it seems to me, too high of a sense of entitledness.
00:20:26.000 | There is, it seems to me, too high of a sense of specialness
00:20:31.000 | when we're not all that special.
00:20:33.000 | We're people, just like billions of other people around the world.
00:20:36.000 | The world doesn't revolve around us.
00:20:38.000 | I think those are accurate characterizations that, of course, there are exceptions.
00:20:42.000 | But the one that annoys me is lazy,
00:20:45.000 | because I don't think most of the people that I know, most of the millennials that I know, are not lazy.
00:20:51.000 | My perspective on it is that millennials recognize that oftentimes our parents--
00:21:00.000 | and this is not personal to me, and I wouldn't put words in your mouth.
00:21:04.000 | I'm speaking generally from observation of my generation.
00:21:07.000 | Oftentimes, our parents have spent all this time working for--
00:21:11.000 | let's talk about money and retirement.
00:21:13.000 | Many of our parents have spent a lot of their time and their energy and their focus
00:21:17.000 | of planning for their retirement, planning for their career, work, work, work, work, work.
00:21:21.000 | Sure.
00:21:22.000 | Put aside the fun, put aside the things that are meaningful.
00:21:24.000 | We'll get to that in retirement.
00:21:26.000 | But the problem is that retirement is a pipe dream for the majority of the population.
00:21:29.000 | True.
00:21:30.000 | They don't have enough money.
00:21:31.000 | They're not going to save enough, and they're not going to have this golden retirement
00:21:35.000 | that you see on the Merrill Lynch ads of a silver-haired couple walking down the beach
00:21:39.000 | in Charleston, South Carolina, right in front of their beautiful coastal house
00:21:43.000 | that looks like it belongs on the cover of Coastal Living.
00:21:45.000 | Right.
00:21:46.000 | This is not going to happen.
00:21:47.000 | Now, I think our generation, we look at that and say, "Well, that was dumb.
00:21:53.000 | Why didn't you pursue a different plan?"
00:21:55.000 | Right.
00:21:56.000 | And so you're pursuing a different plan.
00:21:57.000 | But you're saying that based upon the math of, as Mr. Money Mustache would put it,
00:22:01.000 | the seeding, shockingly simple math behind early retirement,
00:22:04.000 | if you just save a high enough percentage of your income, you can accumulate half a million dollars.
00:22:08.000 | If you keep your expenses low, then that may enable you to live on the income
00:22:12.000 | and it will give you more flexibility.
00:22:14.000 | But I don't think you're lazy because the type of person you have to be
00:22:18.000 | to do that much work is not a lazy person.
00:22:20.000 | Yeah.
00:22:21.000 | I'm not afraid of doing hard work.
00:22:22.000 | I've done a lot of hard work.
00:22:23.000 | I don't shy away from it.
00:22:24.000 | I mean, buying rental properties is very much hard work.
00:22:28.000 | Absolutely.
00:22:29.000 | It's definitely not super passive income by any means, even though people term it as such.
00:22:34.000 | I don't know.
00:22:36.000 | I guess I see what else I do and I have the whole picture.
00:22:40.000 | I love taking naps after work.
00:22:42.000 | Sure.
00:22:43.000 | It's my weakness.
00:22:44.000 | But this is normal.
00:22:46.000 | I cook for that.
00:22:47.000 | Needing enough sleep is a normal thing.
00:22:50.000 | So I'll leave the question there.
00:22:52.000 | It's an interesting challenge.
00:22:55.000 | Obviously, we have to look at personal situations
00:22:57.000 | and you can't stereotype too much a generation.
00:23:00.000 | But I do observe that that's a stereotype.
00:23:02.000 | It's a real management challenge for managers because in the business world,
00:23:07.000 | people who are managing millennials are oftentimes left saying, "What do I do?"
00:23:13.000 | because millennials do not seem motivated by things that other generations were motivated by.
00:23:19.000 | For example, more money is, in general, less motivating to a millennial than is more autonomy.
00:23:26.000 | Right.
00:23:27.000 | Yeah.
00:23:28.000 | Or the thing that I've been recognizing with a lot of my friends is a sense of doing good for the world.
00:23:34.000 | Right.
00:23:35.000 | A lot of my friends don't want to work for the oil companies or whatever because of their impact on the earth
00:23:39.000 | and instead want to be in a position where they're doing good for the world.
00:23:45.000 | Even if that means working at a nonprofit for less money,
00:23:48.000 | they'll feel better about what they're doing day in and day out and working towards that sense of purpose.
00:23:53.000 | Right.
00:23:54.000 | Which, ironically enough, I get through my company.
00:23:56.000 | So that's why I'm very happy to work for them.
00:23:58.000 | Because it's involved in something that's more meaningful.
00:24:00.000 | Yes, because their mission statement isn't just making tons of cash.
00:24:04.000 | It's helping the people of the world.
00:24:07.000 | Sure.
00:24:08.000 | So that was going to be where I was going to go next because here we're recording this
00:24:11.000 | and tonight I'm giving a presentation to all of the attendees here at Camp Mustache.
00:24:15.000 | And my presentation is titled "Why Wait to be Financially Independent to Live Like You're Financially Independent?"
00:24:20.000 | And the point of it is essentially to say that there's a way where you can get the benefits of financial independence
00:24:30.000 | more quickly than just necessarily saying, "Let me wait until I save a million dollars."
00:24:35.000 | Right.
00:24:36.000 | So have you pursued, for example, the Girl Scouts of America needs IT personnel.
00:24:41.000 | Have you ever considered going and pursuing a job with the Girl Scouts of America and their IT department?
00:24:46.000 | I have looked into it, but I still have contacts in the Girl Scouts.
00:24:51.000 | And not to disparage their organization by any means, but the local council is not a great environment to be in.
00:25:01.000 | Even though their message is overall, "Do good for the girls."
00:25:05.000 | It's a little dicey sometimes.
00:25:09.000 | So tell me more about when millennials connect with you and your message.
00:25:15.000 | What are some of the emails that you get in terms of the meaning and the relevance of your message to the millennial situation?
00:25:21.000 | I get, it kind of is 25/75.
00:25:26.000 | So 25% of the messages that I get are, "Oh my gosh, you're another girl going for financial independence."
00:25:32.000 | It's so refreshing to hear a woman speaking about this because overwhelming majority is male.
00:25:38.000 | So I get a lot of female bloggers that want to connect and be like, "Yes, this is great. I'm so excited to hear your voice."
00:25:46.000 | And then the other 75% are, "Wow, this is really relevant and I'm so glad that you're writing because I'm going through this exact same thing."
00:25:54.000 | And I read your blog and I go, "Yes! This is what I've been thinking.
00:25:59.000 | Like why can't my friend save $100 a month for retirement? It's so simple."
00:26:03.000 | Right, right.
00:26:05.000 | So first of all, do you have any idea about any data on the distinction between male bloggers, female bloggers in the personal finance space or in general?
00:26:16.000 | Through my personal observation, it skews male but not overwhelmingly so I would say it's probably like 60/40 maybe.
00:26:25.000 | Maybe 65/35.
00:26:27.000 | Why do you think that is? What's your opinion?
00:26:30.000 | I have no idea actually. I don't know.
00:26:33.000 | Maybe because of the whole stereotype that men take care of the money and women take care of the home.
00:26:37.000 | I don't know. I generally don't know.
00:26:40.000 | Because there are studies that just came out that show that the overwhelming majority of millennial women have their finances in order and are saving well for retirement.
00:26:49.000 | Whereas the millennial men who aren't doing so well at saving are bringing the numbers down.
00:26:56.000 | So that's kind of ironic to me that there are so many male bloggers out there but yet overwhelmingly it's the females that pay more attention to finance.
00:27:04.000 | Especially when they're young like we are.
00:27:07.000 | Yeah.
00:27:09.000 | Where are you hoping to go from here?
00:27:11.000 | Well, I would like to start up buying some properties and getting that passive income coming in as I use my air quotes.
00:27:22.000 | And then I just want to settle in my new job and really explore how that's going and dive in deep and do a really good job for them before I head out.
00:27:34.000 | So I'm thinking sometime in the next three years I'll say I have enough, it's enough and that I'll be able to be financially independent and work on things that interest me more and inspire me more.
00:27:48.000 | Right.
00:27:49.000 | Alright, two last questions and then I'll have you tell about your blog.
00:27:53.000 | Worst financial mistake or decision that you've made in your life thus far?
00:27:58.000 | Probably the 401k honestly.
00:28:01.000 | Yeah, that first year missing out.
00:28:04.000 | Because I found financial independence so early I was able to read everybody's mistakes and avoid them and make my own mistakes.
00:28:13.000 | Right.
00:28:14.000 | So yeah, that's probably the one thing that I beat myself up over.
00:28:18.000 | Well, that's what you beat yourself up over.
00:28:21.000 | It's a great example of the value of education and standing on the shoulders of giants so that you can avoid the mistakes of other people.
00:28:27.000 | Oh, it's totally true.
00:28:28.000 | Yeah, I love that everybody's been writing about this stuff because I'm like, wow, I never would have thought that that would be a problem.
00:28:33.000 | Yeah.
00:28:34.000 | That's great.
00:28:35.000 | Best financial decision, investment, transaction, windfall that you've experienced thus far?
00:28:40.000 | Probably the last month of income that I got in December of 2016.
00:28:47.000 | Not only did I get a 10% raise for my new job, I got several moving allowances and a bonus.
00:28:54.000 | So my normal salary is like $5,000 a month and then -- just a little over that actually -- and then I got $20,000, just over $20,000 worth of income in one month.
00:29:07.000 | That's awesome.
00:29:08.000 | And I didn't go buy a new car.
00:29:10.000 | I didn't do anything with it.
00:29:12.000 | It's sitting in my bank account because it's for my down payment.
00:29:15.000 | Congratulations.
00:29:16.000 | So I'm pretty proud of having the discipline to say, oh, no, I don't need to go on the shopping spree and buy Armani clothes or whatever.
00:29:22.000 | It's like, no, I'm just hanging on to it.
00:29:24.000 | Good for you.
00:29:25.000 | That's fantastic.
00:29:26.000 | Tell all my listeners your website address, pitch what your content is, share any products or resources that you would like my listeners to be aware of, please.
00:29:36.000 | So my blog is www.fierymillennials.com.
00:29:40.000 | This is obviously a play on the FIRE, F-I-R-E, Financial Independence Retire Early community.
00:29:47.000 | Thank you for catching that.
00:29:48.000 | But also because people who meet me are just like blown away by my personality, which is also pretty fiery.
00:29:55.000 | Right.
00:29:56.000 | So that's a play on that as well.
00:29:58.000 | But it's Fiery Millennials spelled like the campfire, F-I-E-R-Y, millennials.com.
00:30:05.000 | I'm looking at my business card just to check.
00:30:07.000 | F-I-E-R-Y, yeah.
00:30:08.000 | Yes.
00:30:09.000 | Yeah.
00:30:10.000 | And you're primarily writing with a millennial target audience?
00:30:12.000 | Yep.
00:30:13.000 | Yep.
00:30:14.000 | Although some older people who are in the beginning stages of FI will also find it useful just for the general finance advice.
00:30:22.000 | One of the secret tools of teaching is oftentimes if you teach kids, you can teach parents or older people better.
00:30:31.000 | Yep.
00:30:32.000 | And they won't feel insulted by your kind of talk down to them.
00:30:34.000 | You just say, "Oh, I'm just teaching younger people."
00:30:36.000 | But all of a sudden now you can package your content in a way that it slides past people's filters and they learn something.
00:30:42.000 | Yes.
00:30:43.000 | So it's aimed generally at those just graduating college or just starting their first jobs.
00:30:48.000 | And as they face paying off their debt and figuring out, "Well, okay, I just paid off all my student loans.
00:30:54.000 | What do I do with this extra $600 a month now?"
00:30:57.000 | It's like some people go out and spend it all on board games or whatever.
00:31:00.000 | And then other people are like, "Oh, I should probably do something with this."
00:31:03.000 | And then they look and they're like, "What to do with extra money?"
00:31:06.000 | And they come to our realm.
00:31:09.000 | Right.
00:31:10.000 | That's awesome.
00:31:11.000 | Yeah.
00:31:12.000 | So I want to inspire people to think that, "Wow, maybe early retirement is actually possible for me."
00:31:16.000 | Awesome.
00:31:17.000 | Well, Gwen, thanks for coming on the show.
00:31:18.000 | We'll look forward to watching your journey as you pursue financial independence and a more meaningful work and life that will sow into the community that you care about.
00:31:29.000 | Yeah.
00:31:30.000 | Thanks so much for having me.
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