The LA Kings holiday pack is back. The perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life. A three-game pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket. Buy today and you'll receive an additional game for free. Don't miss out. Visit lakings.com/holiday today. One major theme of radical personal finance is financial independence and financial freedom.

And I try to talk about that with a lot of unique variations and permutations. But I tell you what, you can't beat just plain old traditional work a job, save a bunch of money, and then stick it to the man and retire, right? You can do that. And today I'm thrilled to bring back on the show my friend Brandon, the mad scientist.

Guess what? He hit his financial independence date recently. And today we're going to find out what it's really like and even better. It's not just Brandon, but we're going to get the real story from his wife, Jill, who's also on the show today. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host. Thank you so much for being with me. This is the show where each and every day we try to provide you some useful nuggets of knowledge, insight, ideas, maybe, things that are going to help you to build a lifestyle of financial freedom for yourself.

That is the core theme. And today it's going to be good because we're going to talk with somebody who fired, as we say in the financial independence community, and we're going to talk about what's great and frankly, what's not. I was able to catch up with Brandon at the FinCon 2015 conference recently in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Had a good time talking with him. And this one is really fun because we talk with Brandon and with Jill. Many of you find in your relationships with your spouses that there is a unique dynamic. Oftentimes one of you is more focused on the money than the other. And a major question that I get here on the show is, "Joshua, how can I work with my spouse and get on the same page?" And today you're going to be able to hear that.

And I think this is a really, really cool story. Brandon, if you're not familiar with him, is the author and really just genius behind the website, madfientist.com. Fientist like scientist, but with an F for financial independence. So, madfientist.com. And he does a lot of unique work there on that website.

He shares his own story, and he's really made it into a tremendous resource for those of you who are employees and who are saving money using things like the qualified accounts that are available to you at work, putting money in your 401(k), et cetera. And he's a big proponent of this type of system for early financial independence to help you develop a much more efficient plan toward financial independence by minimizing taxes.

He's also just got a really cool story of getting inspired, getting focused, saving money, cutting his expenses, and proving that it's possible to build financial independence while working a traditional job in a relatively short period of time. And now he and his wife, as you'll hear in a moment, they have the ability at an early age to spend a lot of time traveling the world and living their dreams out.

But what I also appreciate is that Brandon's been vulnerable about some of the things that aren't so great about financial independence. And you're going to hear those things in the context of today's interview. Before I get to that, though, I wanted to share with you messages from our two sponsors for today's show.

Sponsor of the day number one is Jay Fleischman, host of the Student Loan Show and a student loan and bankruptcy attorney. Let me make this simple. If you have student loans, if you owe any kind of money on a student loan, you need to call Jay and talk to him about it.

Now, what you should probably do first is listen to the two interviews that I've done with him on Radical Personal Finance. And the first one was episode 258, the episode that immediately precedes this one. So it's there right in your feed. Or episode 214. So go back in the feed or find it on the website.

Episode 214. Both of those shows were interviews with Jay. And I have learned more from Jay about student loans than, well, than I could have imagined. And he is a real, real source of knowledge. And because he's a source of knowledge, he may be able to help you find some opportunities to develop a more efficient plan through the payment of your student loans.

There's no promises, but it's worth checking. And after you listen to those two shows, you'll see how and why he might be able to do that. Especially if you are in any sort of default or you're struggling to make your payments on your student loans, definitely call Jay in those circumstances.

Or if you're in any kind of adversarial situation, call Jay. Basically, if you have student loans, call Jay. It's as simple as that. Also consider subscribing to his show. If you're interested in a very deep dive show on student loans, look for the Student Loan Show in iTunes or at studentloanshow.com.

Jay offers a special consulting package for members of this listening audience, and he will do an analysis of your loans for you. And again, I couldn't say it more clearly. If you have loans, do this consulting package. You'll find all the details of that at studentloanshow.com/radical, studentloanshow.com/radical. Special $25 discount on his initial introductory package of consulting services, on an email consultation for listeners of Radical Personal Finance.

Normal price, there is 75 bucks for an email consultation on federal student loans. And for listeners of this show, a special $25 discount during the term of his sponsorship. So go to studentloanshow.com/radical. And if you're facing any kind of bankruptcy situation, things like that, reach out to Jay as well.

He is able to help you on the attorney side as well. Sponsor of the day number two today is also Patrick Snow, an individual. He is also a consultant. Patrick Snow is the publishing doctor. He's my personal publishing coach. He's helping me through the very difficult process of getting this book out of my head and onto paper.

And he can help you do the same thing. He can guide you through the process of publishing a book. Best way to get an introduction to Patrick is go back and listen to episode 252 of the show. You'll hear a little bit about who he is and why I've brought him on as a sponsor of the show, and how publishing a book can serve you and can become one important component of your overall marketing plan for yourself as an individual and for your business.

Ask yourself this question. If you go to apply for a job and on your resume it says, for example, Joshua Sheets, author of the book on XYZ, and that book is applicable to that job, don't you think you might stand out from the stack? Don't you think that might help you to affirm – help you to stand out and make sure that you're not going to lose your job in the coming recessions?

I think it'd make a big difference. And if you're a professional or a business owner, don't you think your customers might like to do business with the person who wrote the book on the topic? Well, it's not easy to write a book, but Patrick has some tools and some techniques and some templates that make it easier, and he can guide you through the process.

So listen to episode 252 and also go to thepublishingdoctor.com, thepublishingdoctor.com, and that's where you will find all of the information about Patrick and his services. If you'd like to get in touch with him, check the cell phone address that'll be linked in the show notes. It's 206-310-1200, 206-310-1200, and again, that'll be in the show notes.

And shoot him a text. Let him know your name and what area code you're in, and he'd be happy to offer you a 30-60 minute complimentary consultation to find out about your book project to see if he can help or not. That's it for sponsors. Let's get to the interview with Brandon and Jill, recorded live in the halls of FinCon 2015 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

So Brandon and Jill, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. Thank you very much for having us. This is a fun – Jill, I'm glad that you're here with us. Your husband, we've had his perspective, but I want to get your perspective, and we're going to talk a lot about that today.

But this is a reprised performance for the show. The last time you were on the show, you were working hard towards financial independence, and at this point in time, you hit the day, you declared yourself free, and you hit the road, right? I did, yeah. I hit my number.

And yeah, my wife is from Scottish, as you'll soon hear from her accent. So yeah, we decided to move back. So I told my work, I said, "Hey, I'm moving to Scotland." And then they asked if I'd stay on remotely. So actually, I'm still working. So I'm not early retired, but yeah, I hit the number.

And now I actually worked my way into a job that I really feel like it's going to be hard to quit, which is a great position to be in, but not something I expected. I've mentioned that on the show. I don't remember how it came up, but I was saying, yeah, even Brandon, he couldn't quit his job when it came down to it.

It's tough, man. Yeah. And it's amazing just because you probably wouldn't have guessed that that would be the case. Did you have any indication that, "Well, my company loves me, and they're just going to offer me this job while I travel around the world and jet set around?" Did you have any indications of that before the fact?

I've had three jobs in my career, and both times prior to this, I left the job due to moving across the ocean. And each time I was asked to stay on remotely. So I thought it was a possibility, but I didn't suggest it. So it was actually, it was a little surprising because the current employer I work for is pretty old school.

So when they, the first word out of my boss's mouth was, "Do you want to stay on remotely?" So that surprised me, but I thought there was a chance that could happen. So do you recommend this as a strategy for people that are pursuing financial independence? Just save $1,000 so that you're not just out on the street immediately and then go and quit and see if they'll let you work remotely?

I wrote a post on this called "The Power of Quitting." And I really, the most raises I've ever received, the best term increases that I've received has all been a result of quitting. So I think focusing on that on your journey to financial independence is really the way to go.

I wrote another post called "The Happiness Through Subtraction," and it talks about how I was really tunnel vision for like two or three years, really just focusing on the final number. And I didn't realize how good my life was getting because I had all this new power along the way.

So then when I actually hit the number, it was like sort of a letdown. I was like, well, you know, I didn't feel any different. And I hadn't been focusing on my happiness really. I had just been tunnel vision to this number. And I realized that, you know, that's not the way to do it.

You should, you know, as your balances grow, you're really putting yourself into a position that you can do and demand whatever you want. And when you put your bosses into a position that's either you agree to this or you have to go through the whole hiring process again and you have to find somebody else that doesn't have all the knowledge that you've built up over the years, then it's not a very attractive proposition.

So I highly recommend that during your journey to financial independence, you try to make your life and your work life in particular so good that by the time you get there, you may not even quit after all, which is a good position to be in. It's definitely something I've observed and I don't think of many articles that I've read on it.

And I think we need many more from financial bloggers and other people. Probably the best would be Jim Collins writes about it, having your freedom fund or your FU money. But it doesn't take that much to build a little bit of independence. A few thousand dollars might even be enough and enough job skills to get another job.

And it's and so I would love to see more people starting with that. I'm not financially independent, able to live exclusively on income from my investments yet, but I feel pretty darn independent just from having a little bit of a cushion and being able to work in another direction.

Absolutely. You mentioned Jim Collins and his first FU money was only $5,000 because he wanted to go to Europe for a bit. And he said to his boss, I want to go to Europe for a couple of months. And he said no. And then he had 5,000 in the bank so he could live off of that.

And he's like, well, I'm going anyway. And then his boss was forced with that same decision of hiring somebody new or just letting him go. And they just let him go and he had his job when he got back. So Jill, how long has this been since you guys kind of hit the date and then have been traveling?

How long you guys been on the road? Well, we probably last summer. I think we I quit my job and we started traveling around the States, first of all, for a couple of months, seeing friends and family. And then we were back over in Scotland for about the end of last year.

And then we did a big trip to Thailand and kind of surrounding countries for a couple of months and then came back. And I've been a bit more settled in Scotland since then, working and Brandon's been kind of doing his thing and back over in the States. So and you're in the dental optometry.

I thought it was a medical thing. So in the optometry. So talk about this job, this this ability. Is it you feel it's relatively easy for you to find a job when you need one? You just had all kinds of connections in Scotland. How could you do this? Well, yeah, it's it's fairly easy in Scotland.

There's usually work going to kind of cover vacations and things like that. So if you can pick up enough of that kind of work, then you can definitely work full time doing that. And it's a bit more flexible. I do have two permanent days that I'm doing just now as well.

So that's the main thing that's tying us down at the moment if we want to travel. So next year, I might be trying Brandon's technique of going to them and saying, you know, I want more time off than the actual vacation that I have and see see what happens, see if they'll let me.

I'm thrilled that you're both here today because, Brandon, you've mentioned on the on the show that your growth and your interest in finance on your on your show to on your show and your and your site, your growth and interest in financial independence. And at one point, Jill, you wrote at least one post on the blog.

Yeah, just one. And I think this is a fascinating discussion to talk about how to work together as a couple toward a common goal when you don't necessarily share that. So what's been your perspective on financial independence as your husband has become more interested over time? Well, it's completely changed.

When we first met, I would say we were opposites when it came to money. I was your kind of typical consumer. You know, I like buying things makes me happy. I work hard, so I deserve to treat myself. And so that was what I did. And Brandon obviously didn't think that way.

But we've just always kept our finances separate. So for a long time, for years, it just it wasn't an issue. We were just doing our own thing with our money. And we didn't really argue about it. But recently, I've had a major sort of rethinking of the whole thing, which started with just a conversation that we had where Brandon had said to me, you know, let's let's sit down and talk about what would your perfect life look like, which is kind of a difficult thing.

I think it was a difficult thing to figure out because you just imagine what you're doing is what you're going to do forever. So we kind of figured out what are the things that are the most important to us and how can we build a life around that rather than build up, you know, our life built around work.

And once we discussed that, and I realized that was a possibility, that was just a huge turning point for me. And I instantly lost the urge to buy things and spend money that just stopped being important because I had this much bigger goal. So what did you write down when you were going through that process as far as what is your perfect life?

So we both agreed that friends and family really important, travel. They were the main ones. And then kind of maybe doing some voluntary work and for Brandon, like music and creating things. So we kind of listed those and then said, well, how would we how do we kind of incorporate that into this life that we want to build?

So yeah, ideally, and we're not quite there yet. But what we'd like to do is spend probably about half the year in Scotland, and then spend a few months in the States and then a few months traveling as well. And just have a nice balance because it's hard for us because all my friends and family are in one country and for Brandon, it's another country.

So yeah, we'd like to split our time between those two places. So and that's kind of impossible when you're working full time. So so when you got a vision of, hey, this is actually what we want. We want some time with the people that we care about. We want the flexibility to travel to new and interesting places.

Then all of a sudden, whatever it was that you were spending money on just didn't seem like such a good deal. Yeah. And it was a huge surprise for me because we've dated for 13 years. Well, we dated 10 years before getting married. And now we've been married for about three.

And like Jill said, it's just always been separate. Money wasn't ever a discussion. We just put the same amount of money into the joint account that paid all the bills. And then we did whatever we want with the other thing. Right. So then she just one night she just said, I wrote something on my computer.

Take a look. And I was like, oh, my God, what does this? She never just write something or just says something like that. Weird. And I wrote I just read this incredible letter of like her epiphany, I guess, and was so surprised by it. And then after like months of trying to convince her that I could publish it on the blog, I tweaked it a bit and made it more like a blog post and stuff, but put it on.

And yeah, it's just it was a huge surprise. But it's definitely made life a lot easier for working towards things together now, which is good. And have you ever reflected, Jill, on why you never thought of financial freedom, travel, that type of thing as a possibility? I don't know.

I suppose I was just stuck in the mindset that most people are that your life is kind of predetermined. You know, you go to college, you get a job and you work that job for however many years and you retire. So I just never imagined doing anything sort of unconventional.

And when Brandon first got into all this stuff and started telling me about it, his kind of motivation was, well, I don't want to have to work for someone else. I would like to be able to work for myself and do the things I'm passionate about. But I would say to him, well, I like my job and I don't really have anything else I want to do.

So I did. That didn't motivate me at all. So we had to find the thing that was going to motivate me. And when we talked about the whole perfect life plan, that was a huge motivation for me. So yeah, I think for people that are maybe not on board, if somebody has a spouse that just doesn't get it, everybody's motivation is going to be different.

So I think it's just sitting down and figuring out what that thing is that, like I said, makes everything else not important anymore. So. So go ahead. Oh, sorry. And around the same time, you know, I had started my blog. So this was post blog that she had come to this conclusion.

And I think like we had met up with like Jim Collins, who we already talked about. And, you know, I've chatted with a lot of people like Mr. Money Mustache and had been interviewed by you. And I think since we didn't really talk about it a lot in the house, I wouldn't say, you know, about money and things like that.

I think that helped to her, her hearing different perspectives, not just mine, because the last thing you want is your husband to tell you what to do about money or something like that. So we just never discussed it. And had we had I tried, it wouldn't have been very successful.

But I think I think that helped to. So any husbands out there, don't don't try to change your wife with your own words, maybe just like, I don't know, pointer into some other good sites or something like that. Well, also, the first website that he showed me was early retirement.

And that just completely that I was like, that does not sound like a good plan to me. So I really got into reading Mr. Money Mustache kind of was an easier one for me to get on board with. And there's a few other blogs that helped as well. So, yeah, I think all of that once Brandon got more involved with that and I was reading other people's blogs as well and reading his, it just all kind of started to make a bit more sense.

Jacob doomed himself with his how I live on seven thousand dollars a year and living in an RV. And no matter how many posts or how many times he said after that, you don't have to live in an RV and you can spend more money no matter how many times he was doomed, because that is the article that so many people and it seems to have almost an either or response.

So like, Brandon, when you read that article, you said, wow, this is awesome. I was so excited to do it, too. I read that kind of stuff and I'm like, oh, this is this is so cool. I could live in an RV and I could live on nothing. And what an awesome lifestyle.

And you send it to your wife and she's like, I'm terrible. My wife would say, I don't want to live in an RV. Yeah, honey, you don't get it. Yeah. So that was that was a bad call on my part, but I was so excited. I was just like telling everybody I was like, right.

I didn't know you could do this. So yeah. So Jacob was the one that introduced me. So and I really enjoyed your podcast with him. That was that was so cool. So well done on that. So you've been on the road for a year. You've you've been enjoying this flexible lifestyle.

What has been just better and more awesome than you ever guessed it would be over the last year? Well, we've yeah, we've settled down since. Well, you I had to come back and get my UK visa. So I've been traveling a bit more than Jill. But Jill's been settled in Scotland now since March.

And then I got back to Scotland in July or June or something somewhere around there. So we just now settled into Edinburgh, which is now that I hit my number and have all this extra money coming in, we're like, well, let's live in the center center of Edinburgh, Edinburgh rather than, you know, somewhere out in the sticks.

And since I'm working from home, it's like it'll it's better for me. So that's been a lot of fun. That's something I wouldn't have wanted to do, you know, on the in the accumulation stage. And it's probably not something I would do after I quit my job. But I'm here in this like pretty cool limbo, where I'm still having a full income that I didn't really expect to have.

So we're sort of doing that. And like, so recently, it's just been, it feels to me like it's been a spending rampage. But my habits and our financial habits, and we know what they're so ingrained by now, for me, at least, I'm getting there. And she's getting there. And we really do know what type of spending makes us happy and what doesn't because that that came obviously over the years of trying to cut back everything that didn't make you happy.

So we actually we didn't actually move the needle too much. But it feels like we can just spend on anything we want. So that's that for me, that's been the the coolest thing that's happened in the last year. And after focusing on money for my entire life, like I've always always been obsessed with money.

Now, I just don't care. Which is which is really nice feeling. And that's another reason I'm not in a rush to just pull the plug on my job, especially while Jill's still working, because it you know, there's only so much I can do on my own. I'm not going to be like, Alright, honey, I'm going to Thailand.

I'll see you in a couple months. Unless that's okay. I remember that one of my early definitions of wealth was just simply being able to buy a second glass of wine without looking at the price tag. Because you go you know, where I live in West Palm Beach, Florida, if you buy a glass of wine, I mean, 13 bucks and I just don't like spending necessarily 13 bucks on a glass of wine.

And yeah, it's enjoyable, but okay, you have one and then another and man, that's that's a good amount of money. And what's funny is, I think we all probably have that little those little things for us. Now, obviously, I can just buy another glass of wine if I want another one.

But it's also one thing just recognize, hey, I've got so much extra money, that buying this next glass of wine isn't actually affecting any of my other goals. And there are plenty of ways to talk about that. I can imagine somebody listening to says, I don't want your life if I can't buy a second glass of wine.

You don't have to think about it that way. You can go out and do it once or twice a month, and it doesn't matter. But for many people, if you actually total the numbers, those little habits become big. And so once you start identifying them, it's like the fat person who became skinny and recognizes that this food or this type of thing, it's fun, but this is the gateway into me getting fat again.

And you recognize how careful they are because they don't want to be want to be fat. Right. And the other interesting thing that's happened, and this is only something we've really come to realize and talk about over the last like month or so. We did a quite a lot of traveling.

We did a big trip two and a half months to Thailand. But then every month we were going somewhere else since we were back in Europe again, it's quite easy to get around. And we were just doing a trip like once every month or two. And we realized that we then took three months off before this trip to the States.

And we realized that we had been traveling so much that it lost a lot of the enjoyment and you lost the anticipation, you lost getting excited for it and planning it. It was just another part of life. So even though we're spending, in my opinion, it feels wildly, we're learning more about how to perfect balance of spending.

And now we're dialing back, not because we have to, but because it actually makes it more fun. There's fun in not having everything you want all the time, so you can look forward to it. And so, yeah, that's been an interesting realization that we just recently talked about. Actually, we're like, "Oh, we're really excited for this trip." And it's like, "Yeah, we must have been traveling way too much earlier in the year because we were just like, "Oh, pack up the suitcase.

We're going somewhere else again." And it just lost a lot of the specialness. Yeah, exactly. So what's been the biggest surprise of something you thought would be just awesome about being financially independent, you were super focused on and looking back now after a year plus, you just say, "Wow, that really wasn't as fulfilling as I thought it would be." Hitting that number.

Like I said, I was so focused on that number. And then, in hindsight, an extra dollar on a computer screen doesn't make you instantly happy. But yeah, it was just that there was just no joy. It wasn't like crossing a finish line after a marathon or anything. It didn't feel anything like that.

It was just another meaningless number on the screen. Because when you're looking at these numbers, you can't really conceptualize what's actually there. It's just like this weird little game and the number keeps ticking up and that's about it. So yeah, it was just the lack of changing anything. And since I hadn't been focusing on my happiness up until then, you weren't happy, I wasn't happy.

We were just not treating ourselves good. But since then, we've really done a lot better. Yeah, there's been a huge difference. I noticed that Brandon's just so much happier, more relaxed, like you said before, not stressing about spending money on things that are valuable to us, like spending time with friends and traveling and things like that.

If we had gone out to dinner with a group of friends, and they're on the other side of the tables drinking bottles of wine, and I'm up there with my water, and then we split the bill at the end, that would ruin my week. I would lose friends over that.

So it's just nice not to do that anymore and not obsess completely about money all the time, which is definitely not healthy. In hindsight, do you think that if you'd identified that while you were on the path to financial independence, that you could have simply changed that perspective and behavior?

Or do you think that would have somehow hurt your achievement of your goal? It would have. I don't know. What do you think? I don't think it would have made a huge difference because like you said, we don't go crazy spending a ton of money anyway. It might have taken you a little bit longer to get there, but it probably would have made the journey a bit more fun.

Yeah. I just didn't realize it was happening, honestly. You could tell that I was getting depressed, really. That's pretty much what it was for that couple year period. It was just not good. I'd get talked into going skiing with some friends or something, and I'd spend $70, and I'd be on the mountain, and I'd just be miserable.

So I was like, "Well, why spend 70 bucks to be miserable? I can go home and get some work done or do something productive and not spend any money." And he would say that to me. "Why are we spending all this money to go out and not have fun?

We could just sit in the house and not have fun." I was like, "Or we could try and have fun." So yeah, it wasn't a good period. And it's only after the fact that I could see it more clearly. But whether I could have done something to change it at the time, I don't know.

I was just so focused. It just consumed my whole life because obviously I was writing about stuff on the blog, and that was a new thing for me. And yeah, I just was so focused on it. So I don't know if I would have known that was what was happening, but in hindsight, it was definitely obvious.

What about choosing to have a blow money category in your budget? Because in my mind, that's the answer. And feel free to disagree. But I think there are two things that I think are important for having a healthy psyche and a healthy relationship with money. I think number one, it's important to always be giving money away.

Because even though we think that impacts our results, what it does is it changes our character. And the joy of giving money and time away just to me is one of the heights of joy. And in giving money away, it causes us to often feel more gratitude for the money that we do have.

And the second thing, I think having some wiggle room, some money that we spend frivolously. Because then it's almost like if you study the psychology of the dieters and the diet programs, lately, especially now, it's very popular, we'll have a cheat day. Because the idea is, well, I'm never going to eat anything that tastes good.

What Jack LaLanne used to say, if it tastes good, spit it out. We reach this pressure builds up and it's almost like the top blows. And so if there's no release valve on the pressure, the top blows and you eat 18 pizzas and you eat four cartons of ice cream, and you just continue on into depression for three months, just going crazy.

And I know for me, I've found even in my own life with the ups and downs with regard to finance, that swing, that pendulum has been the biggest character flaw. One of the bigger character flaws that I have, this incredible intensity to go all the way on or all the way off.

And that's been reflected in my financial life where I'm either not spending a dime or I'm spending everything. It's been reflected in how my eating, I'm either on a diet and not eating anything good or just scarfing down. That's the biggest character flaw. And I'm learning as I grow to moderate that with saying, have a little bit of a pressure relief valve, have an ability and set aside, Hey, this is going to be some money that we're going to spend frivolously.

And it's not going to hurt the rest of our budget because it's in proportion. I think that, yeah, no, I think you're exactly right. And I, whether I would have been able to do that because I'm such a math guy and like when, when just setting aside any little bit of money I know would have, you know, would have put, put that target a little further out.

So I don't know whether I could have done that, but I think that would have absolutely helped matters. And now that we're in this state where I just feel like I'm spending completely freely, I know how important it is to not be like I was. So I think, I think that's a great, great advice.

And I wish I had followed that. Where were you two years ago? You talk, that was two years ago. I was working with financial planning clients, but I wasn't doing the podcast. When was our last one? That was, that was like number nine. Actually, you know what? That was July of, that was July of 2013.

So we're going to say, where are you at? Could have used that advice. The other aspect that it makes me think of, and I believe it's important to talk about because your experience is similar to my experience with achieving goals. In the past, almost every goal that I achieved was a letdown because I would find, and I remember a couple specifically, when I was a kid, I had wanted to buy one of these RC cars, radio controlled cars.

And I remember getting it. And as soon as I got it, it was like, Oh, a week later, I was just done with it. I was totally bored with it. I remember even when a transformative experience in my life was paying off all my college debt while I was in college.

I worked, worked, worked, worked, worked. And then I hit the goal and it was a letdown. And I even remember financial income goals. I've set income goals. And I think the most money ever made in a month is I made $30,000 one month. And I would think, Oh man, I made $30,000.

It's so fun. And I just remember it being not all that great. And I've come to believe that the setting of the goals is incredibly important, but the actual achievement of the goals is not so important. What is important, what I look back on is the character formation. So what I'm really proud of with all those things is who I became on the path to the goal.

And we don't often set this out, but if you study society and you study people, you find it's universal. People hit a goal, the next milestone, and then they get depressed because what's the next goal. So in my mind, what's important is number one, don't ever hit one goal and not have further goals beyond that.

Always make sure that if you're getting close to a goal, be setting beyond. And number two, make sure that we're paying attention to who we're becoming on the path. And it may not be quite so much of a letdown. I absolutely agree. Yeah, absolutely. I'm in the middle of writing a big post about all the different things that happen on this path, at least to me and to others I've talked to, that are just as worth focusing on as the end goal.

And then that way, you don't feel like you're just getting it. Because I talked to a lot of people and a lot of people get into a rut, especially in maybe five, 10 years out for them. And they're just not having any joy like I wasn't just because they're just working so hard towards it.

And this way, they can sort of focus on more intermediate goals. And then yeah, then what they follow the main goal up with, I don't know, I'm still trying to figure that out. What's what's next? It's like, hmm. Yeah, so it's check out my stages of financial freedom. I haven't done much on it on the site.

But what I sat down was I said, we need to design instead of just talking about, you know, financial independence as this one thing, we need stages. And so we'll talk later off the air, and I need to do more shows on it and talk about that. But I designed stages of financial independence.

And one of them is having enough money to maintain your lifestyle at, you know, the current level based upon investments. But then there's, you know, there are more beyond that. So check that out. It can be contribution, because even when you look at it, the most difficult thing, and even in financial planning clients, one of the most under talked about areas is what do you do once you have more money than covers your necessary expenses, then covers all your dreams and covers everything else?

What do you do? And that is really, really tough. And you need to be thinking about that in advance, because the character that forms in the person who becomes financially independent, is the character that's going to continue to the fact that there's always going to be way more money than they ever need.

So you're not going to change what happens in your character, you're not all of a sudden going to be spending, spending, spending, spending, because you've become someone different. And so you've got a plan for once I'm down the road, then then what do I do? I'm glad you're writing the post about it, because it's a neglected issue in this financial independence.

Yeah, no, I agree. And I've been working actually quite a long time on it. So hopefully, I'll eventually be happy enough with it to put it out there. But I'll let you know when I do. Absolutely. So let's talk tactically, because one of the things I've many times sent people to your site, you've done such a great job of identifying some tactics of financial independence, that are effective, especially for people who are employees, and have available to them various tax qualified accounts within their employment situation.

Let's start with your sharing with the audience a little bit about your strategy surrounding using 401k accounts and using those accounts for financial independence. Sure. Yeah, that was one of the main reasons I started the site. Actually, I knew that I could probably get there a lot quicker if I really put in some time to research things and read boring tax documents and things like that.

But I didn't, I knew I wouldn't do it unless I had some external motivation to do it. And that's why I started the site. So yeah, I taxed tax advantage accounts, they always appeal to me, obviously, because you're saving tax up front. That's like, you know, I wanted to be able to utilize all of those.

But then for someone retiring early, it's like, well, do you want to lock up a good chunk of your money until 59 and a half or later? Is that worth it? So started doing some research. And there's really there's a there's actually a way that you can, there's a couple ways actually, you can get your money out early without being penalized.

The first is 72 t distributions. That's not the route that I'm planning on going because you have to continue them indefinitely at the same amount. And I don't want to be forced to take money out of any of my accounts, I'd rather leave it as much in there to grow tax free as I can, and then worry about checking it out later.

So the strategy that I plan to use is a Roth conversion ladder. So you, you know, you take your 401k, and you roll it into your traditional IRA, after you leave your job, and then it's sitting there in your traditional IRA growing tax free. And then once you quit your job, you can, well, you can do it earlier.

But once you quit your job, your income will drop. So you'll be in a much lower tax bracket. And then you can start just rolling it from your traditional to your Roth every year, the rollover is taxed. But since you're going to be not working, you could be you know, you could contribute, you can roll over like 10 grand plus tax free.

And you can roll over more than that. And you know, the 10% bracket or the 15% bracket even. And once it's in the Roth, it just has to stay there for five years. And then after five years, you could just take it out whenever you want. So that's, it's a great way to get all those great tax advantaged benefits of the 401k and traditional IRA.

But then still get the money out early. So you just have to have enough in your, you know, taxable account that you could withdraw for five years to wait until that first year's withdrawal can be withdrawn. But first year's rollover can be withdrawn, excuse me. But yeah, it's an excellent way.

And it's really, it really changed my path. I was maxing out my retirement accounts anyway, I when I started, I just assumed, well, I hope I live after live past 59 and a half. So I still have to save for 59 and a half plus. So I just treated it as like two separate things.

I was like, I'll save for pre retirement age and post retirement age. But then once I discovered the Roth IRA conversion ladder, then I was like, wow, okay, so this is all just my normal retirement account money. And it doesn't matter because it's, I'll just slowly roll that over, over time.

And since early retirees have a lot of time after they leave their job, until they reach standard retirement age, you could potentially roll the entire thing over, pay little to no tax at all, just do it gradually. So that's, that's why you don't probably hear about that as often because most people work until they're whatever 65.

So they're not gonna, they're not gonna be doing anything like that anyway. So also, because that strategy works best, if your expenses are abnormally low compared to the general society, your expenses are $8,000 a month, it's different than if your expenses are two or $3,000 a month, right? Yeah, you'd have a much bigger rollover and a much bigger tax it.

So yeah, exactly. Exactly. Have you started actually doing that? Or now that you're still working, you're just still funding? I'm still working. Yeah, no, I'm still working. It's, uh, yeah, it's still bump pumping. I'm front loading that. So every at the beginning of every year, I just pump my entire paycheck into my 401.

Why I have a 403b because I work for a university, but just pump all that in there. And then yeah, max out every retirement account again, and just going to keep doing that until I finally pull the plug. And, and then yeah, I'll immediately start start the rollover process.

Even if you know, even if I have enough taxable accounts to last me for a long time, it's I'd much rather have all that money in a Roth than a traditional so right. Also, then you've done an excellent job of popularizing the health savings account. I know that's also been, you've written resources on that, that many people have benefited from.

Walk us through the health savings account strategy. So yeah, the, the HSA was another, another thing I was researching to see if I could, you know, utilize it and get to financial independence quicker. The HSA is great because it's, it's like a triple tax advantage. So you, the money's free going in tax free going in, if you deposit it through a payroll.

So if it goes directly in through payroll, that money actually skips FICA taxes. So that's another 7.65% that you're saving, which is one of the only ways I know of that you can get rid of, not do anything with a FICA tax. So it's tax free going in even more tax free than anything else, because like I said, you can possibly get out of FICA tax, tax free growth, just like all the IRAs and 401ks.

And then it's tax free coming out for health expenses. So since we're all hopefully going to get really old, eventually we're going to maybe have a lot of health expenses later down the road. So the fact that that's tax free coming out, that means that money is completely tax free.

Now, if you don't use it, hopefully you'll be healthy and you'll never use it. And it's unlikely, but if you don't use it for health expenses, once you hit 65, it's that 65? Yeah. Yeah. It's 65. 65. Yeah. IRA is 59 and a half. And then the HSA has to be after 65.

So after 65, it turns into a traditional IRA pretty much. So you'll be taxed on withdrawing it just as you would, but you won't be penalized. So at worst, it's a traditional IRA. But like I said, if you're skipping out on FICA tax, it's even better than a traditional IRA.

So my thought was, okay, so I'm maxing out all of my other retirement accounts. So there's really no retirement account space. I'm sorry. I've lost my voice this week and my voice has been breaking like crazy and I have another podcast to do after this one. So it's not looking good.

So yeah, so I had no more tax advantage accounts I could utilize. So I had an appendectomy. I had appendicitis and so I spent up to my deductible. And I was like, well, I could take this out and use it to pay for it tax free, or I could actually leave it in there to grow for the next whatever, 40 years.

And as long as I keep the receipt, and in my case, I'll take a digital copy of the receipt because it could disintegrate by then. But as long as I keep the receipt, that means I can take $2,000, I think my deductible was $2,500. So that means I can take $2,500 out of my HSA tax free at any time.

And that could help fund maybe that gap between the traditional and the Roth or whatever I want to use it for. So yeah, I wrote a post called the ultimate retirement account. And that's what I believe is the ultimate retirement account. All the tax advantages associated with it. Yeah, it's a great option.

And it's especially a great option because on the scale, with the amount of money that you guys spend, it actually works. And again, back to scale. The reason why these strategies are one of the big reasons why these strategies are not often discussed is if you're spending $10,000 a month, woohoo, I've got my $2,000 receipt.

Yeah, that big deal. That's a couple days of expenses. But if you're spending $2,000 a month, and you've got these expenses accumulated over a couple of decades, then there's a couple of years of tax free withdrawals when you need them. And that's what's amazing. The tax code is such a cobbled together piece of patchwork.

You got 74,000 pages of stuff put together, mainly written by lobbyists, the politicians don't understand and don't get it. And it's entirely in many cases incoherent. So you can find these little strategies and implement them. Now, I'm interested, Jill, you're working in Scotland. So you're earning income under the Scottish system.

You're working in the United States earning income under the US American system. How are you finding the paperwork to be as far as you know, filing taxes and figuring out accounts, retirement accounts, things like that. We are still looking into that pretty heavily. There are new Scottish version of the mad scientist blog ready.

There could be. It's easy for Jill because she's working in the UK earning pounds and living in the UK. So she's just doing what normal, normal UK sorry, I'm not going through the preview. I promise this is day three of a conference and I'm tapped out. So yeah, she's it's easy for her.

So she's just doing what normal Scottish people do for taxes whenever she's she's like a sort of a self-employed optometrist, I guess. So she's doing all the self-employed things. For me, it's trickier. I work for an American company. I get paid via I have a salary and I get paid directly into my US bank account.

And that money never makes it across the ocean. So right this year is easy because I'm in the country for less than 183 days. So I'm just paying US taxes as I did before we left the States. There's nothing changed next year. That's going to be a little trickier.

I'm not sure what I'm going to have to do. I'm thinking I'm going to need to pay UK taxes and then I'll probably do the foreign earned income exclusion so that I don't have to pay US taxes. I still have to look into it though. So I'm upset for this year and I'm not sure how long I'll keep working.

So I was like, I'm not going to do unnecessary research. I got enough to research anyway. So I'm not going to do that until next year. And then so yeah, you may have a Scottish post on Mad Findest that I can send you to next time. But yeah, up until now, I'm not sure.

So I hope I figure as long as I'm paying tax to somebody, I should be good. And then yeah, I'll have to see what I need to do for the UK government next year. Yeah. Well, keep doing what you're doing. And I know you're doing this guinea pig series where you're kind of playing with your little optimization strategies.

And I encourage people to go over and read Mad Scientist and check out your articles. In many ways, they've become a real source of information on the internet that is really, really useful. A couple of last questions and we'll wrap up. Jill, I'm curious about the employment situation. So you've got this unique thing where you can sub in for optometrists.

Do you feel like that's also available in the United States or other countries for people or is that unique to Scotland? I have no idea. It's not something I was aware of when I was living over here. So I don't know if it would be that easy for American optometrists to do.

But locuming in the UK is a big thing where you can just register with a central kind of database and then they'll send you anyone who's needing cover. They send you the dates available and you can kind of pick and choose which ones you want to do. So it's definitely easy in the UK.

I don't know what it's like in other countries if it's possible. I'm sure it must be though. If anyone in the US knows, please comment on this podcast article, please. Because I would love to know. Because yeah, if we ever come back to America. It's something we've talked about.

And like I said, I wasn't aware of it when we lived here before. So I didn't think it was a possibility, but it very well could be. So it's just one of the solutions I want people to be aware of. Because in traditional financial planning, the challenge is everything goes from fully working to fully retired.

Realistically, if you have a savings rate above 10%, which many people feel fortunate to get to that. Many financial planners are like, "Wow, they're finally saving 10% of their income." You can go fully working and then you can go into a changing phase and part-time work, whether that's being a migrant worker and picking citrus or whatever the equivalent is in your industry.

But just part-time work can bridge that gap for a period of years and can lead to a really great lifestyle where you are working, but it's not quite so overwhelming. Yeah. So that's actually built into our plan. If we do the six months in Scotland and then traveling the other half of the year, they're in the States or other places, then I would plan to keep working when I'm in Scotland, because I do like my job.

So I'd like to keep doing it, but I don't necessarily want to have to do it full time all the time. Awesome. Last question. You guys have been doing traveling. I want to talk about the costs of traveling and also both the actual cash outlay and some of the experiments of your travel hacking challenges.

So how much did you spend over the last year on your traveling adventures? Yeah, much less than we spent living in Vermont, I think. I wrote a post after we returned from our two and a half months in Southeast Asia. So I don't know if you should judge by that, because that is one of the cheapest places in the world.

Well, there's no reason not to know that and use that. My wife and I, we ain't going to Europe right now. I don't want to spend the money there, but I'll consider going to South America or Southeast Asia. There's no reason why you have to go to Paris and spend all your money when you can also have a great time in Thailand.

Exactly. No, and that's part of the plan as well. So like Thailand was one of our top destinations, but so is Tokyo. So the whole plan was like, there's so many places we want to go and see. Let's start with the cheaper ones. And then once we are confident that the portfolio is growing faster than we expected and all that sort of stuff, then we can start throwing in some of these other destinations.

But the actual cost of travel is very low because we are like, I'm obsessed with travel hacking and it's just, you know, I love that sort of stuff. That's obviously why I do that with the tax code as well. But yeah, I love that sort of stuff. So like most of like the way we got to America this time, I found some mistake fares because I follow all the travel blogs.

So we got really cheap flights, all the hotels we've been in except for this one, because it's a business expense for the conference. I used hotel points for. So really, if you slow down your travel, if you're not going for a week, like every normal working person does with their five days off of work, if you slow it down and maybe get a long term rental or house sitting or things like that, travel really is not that expensive.

Because usually where you're going, it's a lot cheaper than where you are currently. So yeah, that we actually don't really spend that much at all. But we we travel at some ridiculous luxury, which is insane. So yeah, we the way we got back from Southeast Asia, I used 30,000 American airline miles, and we took a week doing it because you can have a 24 hour stopover.

And so we went from Bangkok to Sri Lanka, to Qatar, to Jordan, to Israel, all in business class, because it was only 7000 miles more in business class than it was in coach. And we we had so much flying, we had we got fed all week for free. And it was just ridiculous.

And we had we only carried backpacks. So we were just carry on luggage only. So we were checking into our Qatar business class flight, which is like the best, she's the best business class in the world. And I actually had one of their employees come up to me at the gate and like, Sir, you're in business class.

Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, he's like, and you didn't check any luggage. I'm like, No, no, this is all we had. And like, we'd slept in the airport that night, actually, because we didn't, we didn't feel like going out. And it was just like a total. And then we got on and we had $300 champagne on the flight.

And it was just a ridiculous, ridiculous, especially after spending two and a half months in Southeast Asia, like just travelers. It was awesome. Basically, the way I think about it, the world is out like the world of employment is the most expensive place that exists on earth. Because when you have to, when you have to work at a job, everything is expensive for you.

Not only do you have to live near the job, not only do you have to live in the city where the job is, not only do you have all the normal expenses of the job that I talk about constantly on this show, but even things like travel. If you don't have a job, you can see the deal come up.

Hey, here's a mistake fair and it leaves on the seventh of May. Yeah, let's do it. And you don't have to, you can move fast. You don't have to call the boss and say, Hey, can I go? You can fly on the Wednesday instead of the Friday and the Sunday.

You can take the you can be flexible and you can change instead of going to Thailand, you choose this other country because that was where the fees were. Basically, the entire world is out in a conspiracy to screw people that work. Absolutely. Completely. And even though we're still working, we got to take advantage of it.

Like the flight we got was out of Warsaw, Poland, and that was just so much cheaper than anything else. And we're like, well, we'll just go to Warsaw for a few days. So we got to see Warsaw and then we flew over to here. So, and yeah, it's stacked against the working man and women, but it's when you have time and flexibility and you have a sense of adventure and, you know, that enhances the trip and you hardly spend any money.

So yeah, that's awesome. Guys, thank you so much for coming on madfientist.com. Any other sites? You have the podcast, Madfientist podcast, and you still don't know how many people are listening to. No, I'm too cheap to pay for analytics on my podcast. So I'm going to tell on Brandon, just as a, as a, just a funny encouragement, podcasters and bloggers are obsessed with their stats, but he is a real, true financial independence.

There's a $5 plan with a hosting company, a $7 plan with a hosting company, but the $7 plan gives you stats on how many people do listen to your show. And the $5 doesn't, and he's too cheap to get the $7 plan. So you probably have one of the biggest financial independence podcasts on the internet and you don't even look at the stats.

I have no idea. Well, I figured if I did something with that data, if I did something productive with it, then yeah, I'll pay the extra $2 a month. But just to look at it and not know what to do with that information, it wasn't worth it. So yeah.

At this point, it's probably becoming part of your persona. It's like Patrick Schulte says, I don't have a cell phone. It's like, there is no reason in the world why you can't or shouldn't have a cell phone, but this is part of your brand now. So now you got to not have a cell phone.

Guys, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. I hope you found some cool takeaways from that interview. I know I love talking to Brandon and seeing him and I'm thrilled about the journey that he and Jill are on. A couple things I just want to point out to you.

And the biggest of them would be this. Recognize the fact that even though Brandon is now financially independent, he's still working. And recognize the fact that you don't necessarily have to be a millionaire to do something like he did. That's why I spend so much time on jobs and careers that I think an initial stage of financial independence should be find work that's suitable for you.

Find work that is appropriate to your skills and knowledge and abilities and talents and gifts. If you love it, cool. If you don't love it, well, find something to love about it. Fall in love with the way that you do it. Fall in love with the impact that it can have.

Work is work. And I don't buy this idea that you're just always going to find work that you're passionate about. And I don't think that you should always do work on things that are fun. But I do think that we can find meaning in work. And that can be expressed in a variety of ways.

You can certainly at least find work that is suitable to you. And then when you find that, you might be able to negotiate an appropriate working situation. Get a little bit of money in the bank so you're not just going to be dragged around by your nose by your employer and then see if you can work something out.

And then while you're saving your way to the million bucks or half a million or two million bucks that you need to declare yourself fully financially independent, while you're on the way to that direction, go ahead and enjoy a lifestyle of freedom along the way. It's possible. I've done it.

That you've heard it over the last year and what four months of this show. You've heard every single step of the way as I've been following that plan. And as I tell you, do what I say and also do what I do. And I'm going to tell you the real path of financial independence all during the course of this show.

Thank you so much for listening today. Go check out Brandon's work at mad scientist.com. Thank you for supporting the show. Those of you who support the show. I thank each and every one of you. You make a huge difference to my ability to do this for you each and every day.

You all are called the patrons and there are about 260 ish of you who support the show and who allow me to pay the bills and keep doing this. If you would like to support the show, please go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. Radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron. Get the perfect gift for the wine lover in your life at wineenthusiast.com.

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