Hello everybody, it's Sam and Cindy from the Financial Samurai podcast. And in this episode, we want to do a catch up and talk about your trip to Japan, when things go wrong, what do we do, where you're at now. And also I do want to talk about what people expect to have to need in retirement versus actually what they have, because this conundrum is huge and the gap between what they have and what they expect to have and what they have at various ages has not really changed.

The gap has continued to remain really wide. So first of all, Cindy, how are you feeling about your trip to Japan? I haven't gone yet. It's just getting closer. I wrote a post a couple of months ago that we published earlier in the month, this month, about this big passport debacle that I had.

Just to summarize, my mom is trying to work through some estate issues with her late sister that I basically became project manager of because my mom didn't know what to do. And anyway, we planned a trip to go to Japan after my mom figured out that she wasn't able to go alone.

And after I booked my flights, I realized that I couldn't find my passport because I needed to give your passport number and all this stuff. And I was like, "Wait a minute, where did it go?" And I was looking for it. I searched the house and then I started to have a panic attack that I couldn't find it because I'd recently renewed it over the winter and it just didn't make any sense.

And then I started to have this sinking feeling that I accidentally could have thrown it away inside those priority mail envelopes that they typically come in. Why would you do that? Why would I do that because I've got too many things going on in my head and made a careless mistake?

Either that or maybe one of the many workers that was coming through our house over the winter may have seen it when I wasn't in the room. If they were poking around, we had a lot of people coming in and out doing some repairs. Maybe it got stolen. At the end of the day, I don't know what happened to it, but it was gone.

So I had to figure out a replacement plan. And passport applications and renewals have shot up after COVID kind of died down and people are ready to travel. They want to go abroad, get out there and have these adventures. And so the wait times, the processing time for passports is slow.

And I realized I couldn't get an appointment to get my passport replaced because when you lose it or it's stolen, basically you have to start all over as if you're getting one for the first time. So I was facing all these roadblocks, couldn't get an appointment, had to figure out what I could do.

In the end, I got it done, but it was one heck of a stressful experience. And how did you get it done though? Just give us like three steps. What did you do to get it in time to make it for this trip? Well, there weren't any available appointments in San Francisco for the next two months when I was looking and I needed to get it done ASAP.

The soonest appointment I found was in Marin County somewhere, but that appointment was still three weeks out from the date I needed to start getting my application in and that wasn't going to really work either. So I was calling around, talking to as many people as I could and I found out that the San Francisco main post office does take walk-in appointments.

But because of demand, they told me people start lining up as early as 5am, if not earlier, to get one of the few available walk-in appointment slots because they have already scheduled appointments at that location. So they're trying to have a few available walk-in slots that they can put in between all the scheduled ones.

And I don't know, so much was going on and I was like, "How am I going to do this?" There's the kids at home. The kids at home, you do your work in the morning. What was the easiest way to make this work with the least amount of disruption to our daily day-to-day routines and whatnot?

So I got an idea late one night. I was like, "You know what? TaskRabbit." And what is TaskRabbit? TaskRabbit is a company that people can join as freelancers to do all kinds of things to earn money themselves through gig work. And some examples are moving furniture for people, packing people's things, being a personal assistant, buying groceries, running errands, and waiting in line.

That sounds crazy to a lot of people, but in my situation, hey, I was fortunate to have the means to be able to hire someone to wait in line outside in the cold early in the morning when I'm normally not awake. I'm at home waiting to take care of the kids first thing.

I thought, "Hey, this could be a great idea." So I ended up hiring an experienced tasker who waits in line for all kinds of things for various people throughout San Francisco. And he was able to get there early enough to secure me a spot. I got there to meet him as soon as we got the kids taken care of in the morning and took his place in line, got my application in, and it got shipped off to DC that day.

And then my application was in the system. So I was able to get it processed in time before my trip, which is coming up this week. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you got the trip done. It looks like it cost $134 for two and a half hours. So that includes tip.

So about, I don't know, it sounds like it's like 40, $45 an hour plus tip. And in the end, it seemed like it was worth it because it bought you a position in line and it saved us money and we were able to get things done. So for those of you who are thinking, well, hmm, time is money.

Well, this is literally time is money and you got to weigh the cost of buying back some of your time and freedom. And for those who want to make money on the side, I've been talking about gig work and side hustles for ever. I myself gave over 500 Uber rides to try to figure out the system when it was a more profitable endeavor.

It is a way to earn side income money. If you need the side income money, there is literally an endless number of things you can do to make more money. To recap, Sydney, what would some pieces of advice be for you so that listeners don't go through what you went through?

Yeah. I mean, first of all, I felt like a complete idiot about the whole thing. You know, I, I first of all, shouldn't have booked my flights without checking first to see if I had my passport. It was just a very unusual situation where we had to rebook my mom's existing flights and figure out when my sister and I could both go to accompany her.

So we were all scrambling with little time. We weren't, you know, I wasn't thinking that clearly. I was in a rush. So definitely, if you know you need to travel internationally, get your passport in order well before you need to book your flights. And also utilize not only your local area to get passport appointments, but look beyond.

You know, initially I was only thinking about San Francisco and it wasn't until a friend of mine said, "Hey, you know, when I had to do my passport stuff, I went over to Marin. It's not that far and they always have appointments." And even though I couldn't get an appointment as quickly as I wanted, I did have an appointment there as my plan B.

So think outside the box, be aware that waiting times are long right now. They do change. And you can get all of the latest on the Department of State's website to figure out how their processing times are and all of the details that you need to get a renewal or to get a passport for the first time.

And there's another benefit and that is the Navy SEAL saying, "Full benefit." And what does full benefit mean? Well, bad things, unfortunate things happen all the time. And the idea is, it comes from the thought process that every challenge we face is a chance to get better or to grow as a person.

And not only that, the harder a challenge is, the more value it holds. So whatever you do in life, whether it is trying to start a family, finding a job, losing a job, competing in a recreational game or a sports tournament, whatever it is, you're going to face a lot of challenges.

Starting this podcast or starting Financial Samurai, there are a lot of challenges, a lot of naysayers or no can do's. And so when you see adversity, instead of saying, "Oh, you're killing me, adversity. What bad luck?" You say, "Ah, full benefit." What are some of the things we can learn from this unfortunate event?

I remember in college, it was a senior year, it was raining, storming at the College of William & Mary. I was in the computer lab at 10 p.m. I was finishing up my 20-page term paper, 20 pages, folks. And then the power vanished. And I said, "Oh my gosh, no." And then the power came back on.

And I was like, "Okay, did it save?" And it didn't save one bit. So what did I do? Did I quit? Did I go back and soak? Did I go drink a milkshake or get a beer? Nope. I just sat in that chair for, I think, the next three hours after I had already been there for three hours to write an even better term paper.

And I told myself, "This stinks, but I'm going to use this opportunity, full benefit, to get better and write a better paper." And that is what I did. What about you? Any other difficult times in your life where you thought, "Well, this stinks, but full benefit"? Yeah, I mean, all different sorts of things from, you know, family issues to getting into college to, you know, having to do a violin recital and forgetting my song on stage.

You know, whatever it is, at whatever age you are, however big or small it may seem, if it's intense to you in that moment, do your best to take a step back. Think about the bigger picture and the opportunities that the challenge will teach you and enable you to, and ways it'll enable you to get better.

Yeah, because if you're not making mistakes, if you're not failing, I don't know if you're really trying. Maybe you're just going through the motions and you wake up 20, 30 years later and wonder, what else? What happened? How come I'm not in a better position? So every single mistake, every single difficult time is a way to get better.

Now, I know I said in the beginning of this podcast, we were going to talk about retirement and how much you need and all that, but let's save that for another episode. I think it'll be really good to get into the details there because a lot of you were really interested in the post that I wrote and it kind of went semi-viral and went all over Flipboard and stuff like that.

So let's get into the details later. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please share, subscribe, review, and keep in touch on financialsamurai.com/news. Join 60,000 plus other newsletter readers so you'll never miss a thing. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye!