This Financial Samurai podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Danielson Legal, a boutique law firm helping technology companies with their intellectual property, corporate matters, technology law transactions, and litigation since 2008. Hello, everybody. It's Sam and Sidney from the Financial Samurai podcast. In this episode, I want to talk about the sad fact that 80% to 90% of the time we spend with our children is over by the time they turn 19, and especially it's over if they plan to go to college because they end up going to college, finding a job in a different city and living their lives.

To me, that sounds really, really sad, which is why in my newsletter, I talked about relocating to where they are because if at least if we're in the same time zone, the excuses of not visiting each other go down. Right now, my parents are visiting from Hawaii and my sister and niece are visiting from New York City and those are far away places, five to five and a half hour flights one way.

Therefore, it's hard to see each other. It really takes so much effort. So the idea of relocating to at least the same time zone, if not the same city, if not on the same street, if not in the same building, sounds like a good idea to me. But I'm wondering for you, Sidney, is this something that sounds crazy and absurd to you as one newsletter reader mentioned?

I don't think it sounds absurd. I think a lot depends on a parent's relationship with their child where both sides end up relocating to and if the parents have health issues at the time, there's so many different variables, but I don't think it's absurd. I don't think it's absurd at all.

I think just like if you have a jar of cookies in front of you, you're going to end up eating more of them. If you have a jar not in your house, you're not going to eat any cookies. You're going to eat fewer cookies. So the idea of being closer to where our kids are as adults, maybe, is that creepy in America or is that kind of like, hey, you just want to be close to the people you care about the most?

I think it depends on each family unit as well. I grew up in a small suburb in Virginia and when I went off to college, a lot of my classmates went to college in our town and when they graduated, they ended up finding jobs in the same town. So they ended up living their adult lives in the same place where they grew up and that was something that they were fine with or that's the path that they chose to take and that's great.

It wasn't the path that I wanted to take. I wanted to go on the complete opposite side of the country. I followed you. We grew roots in California and it's been great, but the relationship that I have with my parents is different than everybody else's and for us, it's worked out okay, but I think as parents, right now, we're really close with our children and we do have a dream of being closer to them when they're adults.

So every generation is different. Every family is different. I totally agree with that, but don't you think our relationships with our adult children will be closer if we actually see them more? Oh, of course. And so is it kind of a chicken or the egg? I don't really think so.

I think it's – if you want to not have that statistic regarding 80 to 90 percent of the time you spend with your children is over by the time they turn 19, then you've got to make an effort. You've got to be intentional just like if you want to achieve financial freedom sooner, then you've got to be intentional in trying to save more aggressively, work harder, have side jobs, read personal finance literature to figure it out.

You can't just wing it on your way to financial independence or multimillionaire status because nothing is really given to you. I think one other perspective perhaps is when your children are going to college and graduating and finding work, maybe following them to their first job is maybe not the best timing.

I think some parents may want their children to be a little more independent in the beginning initially so they don't have their parents too close to rely on. For example, they can't go to mom and dad on the weekend and say, "Hey, come on, mommy. Can you do my laundry?" Or mom, can you cook me food or whatever.

If there's a little bit more of a distance initially, then your adult kids can – Gain more independence. Gain more independence, get used to paying their own rent, going to the grocery store, filling up their car with gas, yada, yada, yada. Adulting. Yeah, doing the adulting and then moving closer after you feel, "OK, I'm confident our kids are not going to be coming back and moving back in at home." Right.

Yeah, letting them go, seeing if they fly. They might fall but they'll get back up and they'll try again. I know some people will be like, "Well, you guys sound – well, maybe I sound like a helicopter parent where you're just always hovering, watching their every move." To an external extent, that's true.

But if we – let's say they go to New York City. I love New York City for six months of the year. How sweet would it be to rent a condo or maybe buy a great place in New York City and live there? Let's say we're on the Upper West Side and they're working downtown.

It's like a 25-minute subway away. We don't have to see them but it would be nice to have the option to see them just like it would be nice for them to have the option to see us. Yeah, optionality is always great, isn't it? Yeah, what's wrong with optionality?

So when the reader said I was being absurd for thinking about moving closer to my children, I actually think it's absurd to only spend 10% of the time remaining for the rest of our lives. That seems absurd to me. Another interesting thing that reader brought up was, "Well, what are we going to do if one child goes to New York City and one child goes to Hawaii?" I was thinking to myself, "That would be amazing.

These are two of the favorite places in the world or at least in America, Hawaii during the winters, New York City during the spring and summer. What a life and what an opportunity to maybe invest in real estate and diversify the real estate portfolio as well and make these business expenses as well.

Why not? See readers in New York City, maybe host a meetup at a bookstore, do a talk, go to a conference and then go to Hawaii and have another meetup and work on my tan and do some serving. I mean, what an adventure. When we're retired, and it's not just us, I think most people who are retired have more flexibility to relocate.

Right, or just go on more longer trips. For example, one of my friends, her parents are coming to visit for an entire month. Maybe we don't end up living in the same zip code as our kids, but we could spend long trips nearby. A season. A season in Hawaii, a season in New York City, a season in San Francisco, a season in Amsterdam, a season in Paris.

Amazing. I mean, these are the things I guess not everybody can do if you don't have the money. But hopefully, if you are able to save and invest aggressively for a long time, you will be able to generate some passive income and accumulate a high enough net worth and generate enough social security and other retirement income so you have more freedom.

That's the whole point of financial independence. So based on the reader feedback, I am wondering if there is some type of mental block that some people just have where they cannot see beyond societal norms. They cannot draw beyond the lines. Do you believe people just have a harder time looking outside of societal norms?

Some people for sure. And why do you think that is? Is it genetics, nature, parental upbringing? What's going on here where people can't try to do something more unique or think more creatively? I think it's all of those things and more. We each grow up in a different environment.

We have different thought processes. We have different education, different cultures, different mindsets. Even within one family unit, you have so many different personalities, right? And we're all different people. We each have our own little realities and our own bubbles. Right. I hope the financial samurai story and other people's stories help motivate people to think a little bit differently.

I was never really that creative of a person growing up. But over time, I thought to myself, "Why not try this way? Why not do this? Keep on ideating, trying new things." Even if you fail, it's like, "Okay, who can come up with the most number of failures?" Because that just means you're that much closer to a solution.

The classic example I've given over and over again is regarding negotiating a severance. To me, quitting a job after you've dedicated years of your life to an organization is nonsensical to me. Because if you quit, you don't get a severance package, you don't get subsidized healthcare, you don't get these referrals.

It's a suboptimal financial move. But whether it's due to ignorance or fear of confrontation, people don't try to negotiate a severance. I've been speaking about this message since 2012 and I'll keep on speaking about this message to encourage people to fight for their rights as employees. Because you will see if you work long enough that eventually, you're going to not get promoted.

You're going to get discarded, you're going to get laid off. And you realize, "Wait a minute, maybe I'm just a number. I'll just get let go over text message, Slack, or email." That doesn't feel great and I want people to own their destiny to plan ahead and take action.

So, Cindy, I know you have a more conservative personality, less risk-taking personality. But I want to ask you, what are some "absurd things" that you thought about as a child or as a young adult that ended up coming true? Nothing super crazy comes to the top of my mind.

But one thing I could say is, I took my first trip out to San Francisco when I was middle school, early high school, sometime around then. And I fell in love with the city. I'd never seen anything like it before. And I grew up in a very non-diverse suburb that was completely landlocked.

And when I came out here, I was just amazed by the diversity of the people, the variety of things to do in the city, and that it was in the middle of the bay with the ocean so close. And I thought, "Wow, how incredible would it be to be able to live and work in a city like this and see the ocean every day?" And I kind of put it out of my mind and went to college, time went by, and then was really lucky that we already knew each other and that you had moved out here.

And I thought, "Why can't I move out to San Francisco?" I didn't even hesitate. I knew I wanted to come out here. I told my parents, "I'm going to be moving to San Francisco." And luckily, they didn't object at all. And I packed my bags, got on an airplane, had my one-way ticket, and I never looked back.

And it was a dream that I never really expected to come to fruition, but it did. And weren't you worried about the money at all? How were you going to pay the bills? How was I going to pay the bills? Well, I was already looking into job opportunities before I came out here.

I had money saved up. I wasn't the type that was wasting my money on unnecessary things, so I had enough to get started. And I found a job within a month, I think, or maybe even less of when I moved out here. And then the rest is history. No, that's great.

Manifesting what you want. You never know. Sometimes things could come true. What's wrong with thinking in extremes, having stretch goals, absurd dreams? Why not? Thinking is free. I remember when I was 23, I was thinking to myself, "Gosh, I hope I can get out of here by age 40, retire by 40, and just do my own thing because this Wall Street job is killing me." So 17, 18 years in the business, all right, that's enough.

But because I had this goal at a very young age, I was able to get out at 34 because I figured out the way out with the severance package. It was the number one catalyst to get me out of there. And so the more intentional you are about thinking about things that might not be normal, I think the greater your chance of you achieving that one thing.

And I will add to that also having a supportive partner or supportive family. We're lucky that we have a great friendship and that we share a lot of the same values, right? And I've been supportive of your idea since the beginning of changing your career path and becoming independent.

And you obviously supported me in countless ways, right? I came out here because you were here. If I didn't know you, it's much, much less likely that I would have had the courage to fly all the way out here and start a life on my own. I was able to do that because you gave me the foundation.

You were my support network. We worked it out together. Right. So having a partner makes a huge difference. Yeah. When I left at 34, I told Sydney, "If things work out for three years, you too can leave at 34." Well, I left two months before my 35th birthday, so by 35, and we'll go on this journey together.

So you stayed at the steady job. You provided subsidized healthcare. At that time, your employer was providing 100% subsidized healthcare, remember? And that put a lot of relief. It gave me a lot of relief. And I got to think about financial samurai, do some consulting, just try out all these different things.

And those three years when I didn't have the job for the first three years went by quick. And it was nice to have a solid supporting partner who had a day job and all the benefits of that, I didn't feel as stressed. Because if you decided, "Oh, I'm going to leave too right there," I'll be, "Oh, that'd be pretty risky." And this is honestly how I feel sometimes during bear markets, because we now haven't had a job in a while, eight years for you, 11 years for me.

And so when there's a downturn that happens, it's more stressful. Because I think about all the progress that I lost financially because we're losing all this money, just like in 2022. Yeah. I was just going to add, at least we've diversified a lot more than the last 10, 20 years.

Right. Compared to back in 2008. But you know, it's funny, in 2008, I was still very diversified, real estate, stocks, CDs, little bit of bonds. I mean, I still lost 35% of my net worth in about six months. This is in 2008, 2009. And that goes to show the magnitude of the decline back then and how dire things were.

Nothing really has come close to back then. And I never want to go back to back then. So it's just another reminder, folks, review your portfolio, look at your exposure, make sure the exposure is congruent with your risk tolerance. I know Empower, if you link up over $100,000 in investable assets, you can have a free discussion with a registered financial advisor who has seen many, many portfolios before at your age and with your situation.

So they can provide a good sounding board for you. You can sign up at financialsamurai.com/empower. Why not? I've done it before myself 10 years ago. It's good to get different perspectives. All of us have some sort of blind spot or some sort of portfolio "drift" where the percentage allocation is much greater than the intentional allocation.

At any rate, I want to encourage everyone who's been told they've been absurd or they've had absurd dreams or they're crazy to know that it's okay because sometimes your absurd dreams do come true. And when they do come true, you're going to be so glad you didn't accept the status quo.

Thank you everyone for listening. This episode of Financial Samurai is proudly sponsored by Danielson Legal. Danielson Legal is a boutique law firm that has been helping tech companies since 2008. They pride themselves on prompt attention to their clients' day-to-day legal needs, including intellectual property, corporate matters, technology law and transactions, and litigation with pricing designed to provide value to their clients.

You can find them on the web at www.DanielsonLegal.com. Thanks so much everyone for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review. It helps the podcast grow. Speak to you guys later. you