Welcome to the Bogleheads Chapter Series. This episode was hosted by the Bogleheads Starting Out Life Stage Chapter and recorded January 31st, 2024. It features blogger, The Mad Scientist discussing financial independence while becoming a recent parent and homeowner. Bogleheads are investors who follow John Bogle's philosophy for attaining financial independence.

This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice. For folks not familiar with your blog or podcast series, can you just give a brief intro about yourself? Sure. Yeah. I started The Mad Scientist back in 2012. Prior to that, I had always been really good with money and always interested in money and very frugal naturally in saving money.

When I got a good job, I didn't really know what I was going to do with it until I stumbled upon a blog called Get Rich Slowly and I was like, "Yeah, that's what I want to do." And then a few years into reading that, I then found Early Retirement Extreme and that just changed everything because I'm not big into possessions or material things.

So I didn't really know what I was going to do with the money I was saving for all those years. And then reading that just blew my mind because I was like, "Oh, retirement's not an age. It's just a math equation with your expenses and your income in that equation." So I was just all in on that idea.

I started The Mad Scientist because I'm also naturally a bit lazy, so I sort of needed external motivation to do the research that I knew I could do to get to FI quicker. But I knew that I would probably want to do it if it was just me doing it.

So I was like, "Well, I'll start a blog," and then having the need to put out content would force me to research the stuff that I thought would make me reach FI faster. And at the time, I thought that I was going to be some master investor. But pretty quickly into my research, I pretty much fell into the bobo head's way of doing things and realized, "Well, there's not really too much optimization I'm going to be doing on that front." So then that eventually led into sort of like tax optimization for early retirees and people pursuing early retirement.

And that's sort of what made my blog what it is today, I guess, the popularity in those early days with a lot of that tax optimization stuff specifically for five people. And at the same time, I also started a podcast because I wanted an excuse to talk to people who did what I wanted to do.

So just dumb luck, my very first guest was Mr. Money Mustache because he was a software developer like me, and I was like, "Well, I want to talk to a software developer who's done it." And that happened to be one of his first interviews that he ever did, and it was my very first interview.

But then obviously he exploded and then brought me up with them because when people would Google Mr. Money Mustache, my podcast would come up, and then that's sort of how that took off. And I started that back in 2012 as well. So all these things have been going for a while, but I'm not very prolific.

So there's still like less than 100 episodes, even though I've been doing it for 12 years. But yeah, I think that's probably a good summary for now. Okay. Thanks for that. And I mentioned this earlier, I think in terms of the quality of your stuff, folks would probably take quality over quantity any day.

So folks who aren't familiar with Brandon's blog or podcast, we highly encourage you to check it out. And I'll also add that Brandon's been a guest on other podcasts, so that it's not just him interviewing, sometimes the tables are turned, and it's not limited to personal finance. There's a lot of self-improvement in the space.

So James Clear, author of the very popular Atomic Habits, was one of your guests, which is pretty amazing, right? He's like a personal hero for a lot of folks. So fast forward now, Brandon, you've been FI for a long time, and some major life events very recently that Miriam touched on.

So why don't we start with parenting, how's that been? And on the blog, you mentioned that years ago, you never envisioned having a kid or even that you didn't want a kid. So can you talk a bit about the transition from not wanting a kid to having a kid and how FI was a part of that decision?

Yeah, it was a huge part of it, actually, because in my 30s, I was very focused on doing a lot of things that I had always wanted to do. I'd set out to do big goals, personal goals, and FI being one of them, and just lots of different fields, really, just things that I thought I'd always wanted to do.

So the thought of having kids, especially when I was still working, was just like, how could that, I don't know how I would juggle all that. So it seems, looking back, it was just a selfish thing back then. But it wasn't just that, because I just never saw myself as having kids.

So it was like, why would I give away all this free time that I really need to do all these things I really want to do, when I don't even really want the end result? So it was only since we started having nieces and nephews and started becoming a big part of their lives and seeing them grow up that I was like, "Whoa, kids are actually really fun and they're crazy." And yeah, I started coming around to the idea.

And my wife was always more into it than I was. And then as we started getting older, she really settled on the fact that, yeah, she definitely wanted to be a parent. And so after FI, I was like, "Okay, this is actually doable now, because I do have time to do all this stuff that I'm wanting to do." But then I could also, yeah, potentially not have as much free time and still be able to cope with it.

And then only over the past maybe two or three years, once, thanks to FI, I was able to accomplish a lot of the things that were on that list of things that I was really wanting to accomplish, but not only was I okay with the idea, but I really wanted to do it and to have kids because, yeah, I felt like I'd done all the things I wanted to do, and then I sort of wanted to start living vicariously through a little person and sharing all these things with them.

So, yeah, it's been a really great change, and I'm glad we did it the way we did it, because I think I would have been super stressed out had we had a kid 10 years ago, whereas now it's just like, yeah, just absolutely loving it even more than I would have expected.

And yeah, FI plays a huge part in that. I don't know how working parents do it, or single working parents, it just blows my mind. We're exhausted enough, and our time is consumed enough without having full-time jobs to worry about as well. So, yeah, it's been a complete 180 in the best possible way, and yeah, couldn't be more happy with the decision to go ahead and do it.

Excellent. So, I'm sure you prepared a lot. I know that folks say it's impossible to fully prepare for parenting, so can you share some of the surprises, both good and bad, and some of the things that preparing made so much easier, and then what would it have been hard to prepare for no matter what?

Yeah, so my normal way of having a spreadsheet for everything and preparing and running all the different scenarios and numbers, I didn't do that with this, because I really had no idea what to expect. So, I've sort of been winging it and just hoping my wife knows better than I do in the cases where I don't really know what I'm doing, because it was like a week before our son was due, and I was like, I read books on everything, and I haven't read one parenting book.

I feel so underprepared, and she's like, you'll be fine, we'll just do it, and it'll be great. And so far, so far it has. I think I did read one parenting book since then, I can't even remember if I learned anything. But yeah, it's been weird in the sense that, yeah, my normal method of just overanalyzing and overpreparing hasn't been the case for this.

I would say we spend less as parents, which was maybe a surprise, since going out to eat is often more hassle than it's worth these days and things like that, and trips are exhausting. So when you get done with one trip, you're not immediately planning the second one like I was when we were single, and not single, but childless in our 20s and 30s, and just planning the next trip as soon as we landed.

So yeah, it's a little bit more exhausting, which is why home ownership, I guess, is feeling so great right now, because we have a really nice home to go back to, and we're loving it, and definitely nesting more than we were at any other point in our lives. So yeah, I'd say that's maybe the biggest surprise, because you hear how expensive kids are.

And yeah, I've found the opposite so far. Well, yeah, we don't have to pay for daycare, which I think is the primary cost for a lot of working parents. But yeah, everything else has been, I would say, we're spending less these days, because we're just homebodies and doing things in our local neighborhood, because it's much easier to throw them into a stroller and walk around somewhere than it is to do anything more major than that.

That's so interesting, because I was wondering, let's say a lot of bogleheads are naturally frugal. You mentioned you're a natural saver. But then I was wondering if having a kid, suddenly there's this inherent change, like you want what's best for your kids, and is there some instinct to shower the kid with every possible thing?

And do we equate expensive with best, and is there a shift in the FI mindset or the frugal mindset once you have kids? There is a little bit, but I know stuff doesn't bring happiness, something I've learned throughout my entire life. So we don't shower him with anything really, but that's because we also have crazy grandparents that don't stop showering him with stuff, no matter how much we ask them to stop.

So we haven't bought him anything. But it has shifted my mindset as far as having a really nice, safe place to live. I'm not a car guy. I hate cars. We have a Honda Jazz that's a 2012 Honda Jazz that I bought for three grand, and it's been great since we bought it.

But we're going to need a bigger car, and I think I'll probably spend more than I normally do, which is $3,000 to $5,000 on some used car, because I think I'll just buy a newer one with more safety features, and whether or not that actually matters, that's one way that I feel like I've changed in my mindset, where it's like, "Okay, well, we have the money I can spend to get a newer car that has a higher safety rating, and that'll make me feel better when I'm driving it." But besides that, those are the only two things.

It's like, yeah, a nice place to live and have him grow up, and then yeah, just a safer car. But no, no desire to buy him fancy clothes or all these toys or big things for the front yard or anything like that, so far, anyway. It's great to hear kids do not have to be super expensive.

I think that challenges a lot of the societal mindset. So it's a good segue into this other huge life event. You were, a long time ago, a homeowner, and in a lot of your blogs and podcasts, you talk about renting, and sometimes there's a strong argument against buying, which is counterculture, at least in America, a lot of people are encouraged to buy.

So can you share how you went from renting to buying, and if you can recap for folks who aren't familiar with the case against buying? Sure. Yeah. So we owned a house, we bought a house back in 2004, 2005. We were right out of college, didn't have any money.

I think we had a 95% mortgage, and we borrowed some money off of my wife's parents, or my girlfriend at the time, not wife, for some of the down payment and things like that. So we were totally unprepared for a house at that stage, but we got super lucky.

We did it up a little bit. So I guess it was a live-in flip before I knew that that was a thing, but we did it up while we lived there. And then we sold it in 2007, right as the whole financial world was collapsing. So we ended up making 50% on that house in two and a half years.

So that was a big thing for us when we were in our early 20s. So that was a good learning experience. We did a lot of maintenance and things, and did the fixing up ourselves. Then we bought another house in Vermont in 2011, I believe, and we only stayed there until 2014.

We took a little bit of a loss on that. We thought we would make money because the whole financial real estate market and everything collapsed, and we figured we were buying on a good price, but still went down a little bit by the time we sold. But that was when I was super frugal, super into FI, and I was just like every penny was just going to my savings investment because I wanted to hit FI as soon as possible.

So as I was saying to Miriam before we started the chat here, I don't think I should have been a homeowner until now, to be honest, because I was so hyper-focused on FI that any unexpected expense just stressed me out completely. So having a home that has loads of unexpected expenses was not probably good.

So this is the actual first time I'm enjoying being a homeowner. So we just bought a house last year, and I love it. I still am not good at maintenance and things. So luckily Jill, my wife, takes care of that. So I can't handle when unexpected things happen and I need to deal with them.

Like I said before, I like planning, and I like having some sort of structure and stuff. So if something comes out of left field, then I'm like, "I just can't do anything." So luckily Jill doesn't mind calling plumbers and things if we need something fixed. So I'm not handy at all, and I have no desire to learn those skills, to be honest.

Maybe someday I will, but there's a lot of other things I'd much rather be working on. So I'm not a great homeowner, but I'm enjoying this time way more than the other two times. And yeah, renting was great. Renting allowed us to live in Edinburgh for a lot cheaper than we would have had we tried to buy.

We got to experience lots of different parts of Edinburgh as renters. We saved a lot of money on our travels because we would just move out of our rental and then travel for three months. So travel wasn't an additional expense. It was just another form of living expenses, which usually was a lot lower than living in Edinburgh because we were in Southeast Asia or something.

So yeah, I think renting's a fantastic option. In Scotland, it's great because they're not all furnished rentals, but there's a lot of furnished rentals. So we haven't owned furniture since we sold our Vermont house in 2014. So yeah, all of our assets are pretty much invested, so those have just all been growing and we're only now accumulating stuff in the house.

So I think, yeah, I think renting is still a great option for a lot of different people and it certainly was for us, but I am happy to have splurged and that's what I consider it. It's not, it's like a splurge. This is me using the savings I built up to have a splurge on something that I'm really enjoying and we are really enjoying it, so it's been great.

So should folks who are considering buying reframe this idea of a house as an investment versus, I mean, the classic line is rent is throwing money away versus building equity. Are there things people should rethink about that? Yeah, absolutely. Rent is not throwing money away. You're getting shelter. That's like saying food is throwing money away because you just eventually flush it all down the toilet at some point and it's like, well, no, you're getting nutrients and things that you need to live and that's what housing is.

You need shelter to stay warm and safe and yeah, be able to sleep at night comfortably. So it's not throwing money away. That's the, that drives me crazy when I see that on, on the internet places. I'm like, yeah, it's no more throwing money away than buying food. So I'm sorry, I forget the first part of your question cause I was so, so the, the kind of trade-off analysis people think they should be building equity and think they minimize the value of rent or yeah, the cost of maintaining, yeah, and which Corey, you'll know this more than I will cause you're obviously more, you have more experience in real estate, but yeah, the cost of maintaining it and then the opportunity costs of the capital that you have locked up in that now, since I have a house now, I've been keeping track of the spreadsheet just cause I really want people to understand that.

So hopefully in 10 years, I'll be able to write a post where I'm like, yeah, this house has been great. And yeah, it looks like I've made a lot of money cause it went from X to Y, but really if that money had been where it was before, which is in the markets, I would have this much money.

I would have actually cost myself probably, you know, multiple six figures for this decision. So yeah, the opportunity cost of having that capital deployed in something that's not productive in the sense that it's not making money or growing or compounding it, it is giving it's productive in the sense that it's giving you shelter, but yeah, I think renting is an amazing option and yeah, like you look into the, the like average returns of real estate over the last a hundred years or whatever, and it's fairly above inflation and yeah, you could get, you could get lucky if you buy into a hot market or you could obviously increase your return by doing work on the house and extend, extending it or improving it.

So you can do that. And then if you do enjoy that kind of work, then that's maybe a good use of your time and effort. But, but yeah, real estate in general, isn't an amazing investment, especially if you're living in it, that you're not getting any rent from it.

But it's a fantastic splurge if you're like me and you're in your forties now and you have a new son and you just want to settle down and have nice things at home cause you're too tired to go anywhere else then it's fantastic. Excellent. So, and how about for the, the more qualitative stuff, whether buying or renting, how's the community, a lot of Bogleheads who retire or whether FI people talk about, you know, using the social structure from their work or meaning, do you know your neighbors?

Do you know other parents of toddlers? How's that been? Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's a perfect example of why this has been such a good decision for us. Yeah. We're in this nice little village. There's like a leisure center right up the road with the pool and play soft play and all this stuff.

And we know all our neighbors where we didn't know anyone in Edinburgh. Jill knows all the other moms at the mom groups who she goes to and she's constantly meeting up at the park with people and yeah, so that's, that's a huge part of why we're so happy with our decision.

And yeah, we can walk to his future primary school and we're getting to know all his classmates already and they're only like one. So it's it's fantastic in that sense. And yeah, and like we were renting in this village before and we were quite happily renting because we're like, that'll allow us to take our time with buying and it's great for now.

We know we want to live in this village, but we're happy just renting. And then the owner said she wanted to come back in like three months. So we were pretty much kicked to the curb. So rent renting, there's that risk. And when we were young and we were in Edinburgh, we, we didn't care.

We're like, fine. We'll find another place in Edinburgh. Well, it doesn't matter. But now with a kid, obviously we want to maintain our place in the community here or there. I'm in the States right now, but maintain our, you know, friendships there. And yeah, obviously owning allows you to, to lock that in really.

Grow some roots. So I was considering saving this question for the end, but I feel like I want to transition to an update on your spending. So I'll ask you this question now, you know, how you ask your podcast guests, what's the one piece of advice you'd give to those pursuing FI?

I'll ask you, what's the one piece of advice you'd give to folks considering parenting? And similarly, the main piece of advice you'd give to homebuyers. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, considering parenting yeah, I guess just no, you'll never be ready and you'll never feel ready even when you're in the midst of it, I think.

I always thought, yeah, I wasn't ready and I needed to wait until I was ready, I guess. But yeah, you're never fully prepared. So yeah, just take the plunge and you'll figure it out as you go. And really all they care about is time and love. So I don't think you need to worry about like all the fancy stuff and getting all the gear.

Yeah. I, yeah, I would just say, yeah, you'll never fully be ready. So just take the plunge if you think that's something you want to do. And for homeowners, yeah, it's really, that's tough because I would say try it out first. Like I think renting in the place where you want to buy is a great option if it's not a huge hassle.

Like in Scotland, we rented a three bed, two bed bath house that was fully furnished in the same village we wanted to live in. And then we fell in love with it and then we knew we wanted to live there. So I think that is a good option. And like with Airbnbs, like it could be a month and still not be an expensive month, I guess, compared to a long-term rental.

But that's the beauty of Airbnbs is you can really try it out, which is something that we're doing on this side of the Atlantic for potentially maybe having a mountain house somewhere here in the next 10 years or something. But rather than put that off for 10 years, we're doing Airbnbs and trying it out and hopefully if we do find somewhere we really love, then we'll know that's where we want to go.

And if we don't, we'll just keep doing Airbnbs and testing. So yeah, I think that's a really good option to make sure you want to be there for the long-term before you take that plunge. And then the numbers do matter for real estate. So if I was still on the journey to FI, then I would be running comparative numbers between renting and buying like crazy.

But for this purchase, this was the first one that it was a splurge and it was a lifestyle decision, not a financial decision. Excellent. Great to hear. Yeah, it reminds me of a few things. One is last we spoke with the Bogleheads, you suggested for people considering FI that they also try out things before they retire.

So it's kind of similar to how you're describing home buying before you do it. And then when you mentioned all kids care about is time and love, it reminded me of something your mom said in the Raising Money Smart Kids podcast that you did, which I recommend to folks if they haven't heard it yet.

She said, you don't have to shower or show love with things, you can show it with time. So I thought that was really beautiful. That's funny. She's right next door and the amount of stuff she's bought my son on this trip is unbelievable. So I'm going to have to play that for her because she's out of control.

That's funny. Yeah. Some things are so much easier said than not done. So big update. You've had Ramit on the podcast twice at least, and we've spoken about how he's somewhat of an anti-mustachian or we can think of him that way to a certain extent. And you mentioned you were working on spending more.

And I'm excited for us to talk about it because it definitely resonates with a lot of bogal heads who can't help but save and accumulate these huge nest eggs. But it's also, I want to hear about it from you holistically because there's this mindset that people think frugal people are denying themselves of happiness or experiences, which may be the case, but for a lot of people, they buy whatever they want, they experience whatever they want, but their needs and wants are so simple, they're not denying themselves of anything.

So how do you navigate that spectrum? Yeah, it's been a really interesting transition because I'm so naturally frugal, but I'm also good enough at math to know that if I don't start spending more than the portfolio will get pretty much out of control with hitting that exponential curve with the compounding.

So it's been a really interesting journey, I guess, and Ramit's been a huge part of it. Ramit, and then a book, Die With Zero, which I don't agree with all of that's in there, but he makes a lot of good points about there's certain phases in your life. So going back to my ski mountain house example, yeah, I could just save and save and save for the next 10, 15 years and buy the perfect mountain house, but I'll be in my late 50s then and maybe I won't want to ski as much as I do now and maybe my son will be too cool to hang out with me and he won't want to ski, you know what I mean?

So rather than do that, like, yeah, I can focus because I like planning for the future. That's fun, I like looking forward to something, but I don't want to delay fun until the future like I did when I was saving for FI, where I was like, okay, yeah, I'll be happy when I reach FI.

So it's like a nice balance where it's like, okay, yeah, still sort of planning for this very future, but I'm also living that now in a smaller way. So tomorrow we're flying to Boston and we're going to have a ski weekend with friends up at Stowe and we're going to be looking around at mountain towns in Vermont because we used to live in Vermont and it's like, well, maybe we can maybe have a mountain house there.

Maybe that's where we'll spend winters for the next few years or whatever. So it's balancing that. So I agree. I don't feel like I'm restricting myself or depriving myself of happiness, but I also can see Ramit's side of it where he thinks I'm not pushing myself enough to even try things because it is really still hard.

To give you an example, we were planning to do a month ski trip this time and then a few family things happened. So we're not going to do the full month, so we're actually just going to do a week in Vermont and I booked a really splurgy house for the weekend because I have friends coming up and we're meeting them and it's a fraction of what I had planned to spend for this whole month.

So the money doesn't matter in that sense, but man, it was hard to pull the trigger and it's been hard to think about what I'm spending for two nights in a place where I'm always looking for the best deal. So I can see Ramit's side of it too, where I'm naturally frugal and I could have an okay weekend with friends or I could have an amazing weekend with friends and financially it doesn't really matter because I'm not crazy and I'm not going to go and start getting a private jet or something and I'm not going to blow through my whole savings because it would be impossible for my brain to do that.

So financially it doesn't matter, but it's sort of just letting go a little bit. I feel like I've made a lot of progress in the sense that I don't stress about little transactions as much and I do spend freely because I realize I'm a middle-class guy and my most extravagant middle-class life in my head isn't going to be that much money.

So I can live the most extravagant, buy as many burritos when I'm out as I can because it's a $10 or $15 burrito, it doesn't matter. It's not like I'm going out and getting a case of caviar and country clubs or anything because that's a whole other world and I don't particularly want to be in that world.

I'm happy with all my friends are middle-class, my family's middle-class and it's what I'm comfortable in and it's like, yes, I could maybe spend and start spending like I'm in the upper echelons of society, but I don't have the desire to do that. So it's allowed me to just live the most extravagant middle-class life, which has been super fun because it's like, yeah, I'm out and I'm getting a fancy coffee and then I'm getting a pastry and then I'll get lunch and then most of the time I'm at home so I'm not spending any money.

So it really hasn't moved the needle too much. So I can see it from both sides. So I agree that as a naturally frugal person, I don't feel like I'm really depriving myself of a lot of things, but I can also see it from Ramit's side of things and be like, there's a lot more other really interesting experiences you could have if you just push yourself a little bit.

Excellent. So great to hear. Very curious since you've been on this journey for a bit, what has moved the needle? You're famously passionate about your coffee and so your example of splurging on the house and having a bunch of friends over, can you talk about the proportionate joy or not from these sort of outsize expenses, but very interested in, I'm sure a lot of Bogleheads and others would be curious.

What warrants the spending, even if, what have you experimented on and what's been worth, I don't want to say overspending because it's worth it if you're spending, but what has moved the needle? Quality, definitely, which quality is hard to find. That's what I was trying to ask Ramit at some point, I was like, how do you judge quality versus just like brand name, social status?

But to give you an example, like my coffee grinder, which I use every morning, it's just so beautifully made and everything about it, just sliding the drawer and pressing the button. It's just the quality that brings me joy every morning just to use it and see it and interact with it.

So that's something that's really moved the needle, just buying things that I know I'm going to really enjoy, like obviously a computer, which I'm on all the time, and I love music, so I bought a good sound system for our living room so I can listen to music when we're not watching a movie or something.

Things like that, that I know I'm going to get a lot of use out of and enjoy out of have been great. And yeah, that's the surprising thing, I was never into stuff before, but now I'm loving stuff because if you have a few really nice things that you get joy out of every day, it's fantastic.

And yeah, I've been pretty good, I have experimented, there's been some duds. I think the Apple Watch, I'm an Apple ecosystem kind of guy, so every time I get an Apple product, it makes all my other ones better. So I had no need for the watch, but I was like, it should make everything else better, but so far it hasn't.

It was good for skiing and keeping track of my runs and stuff, but besides that, that's been a sort of a dud. But really, I think just being so frugal and overanalyzing every purchase all my entire life, I know pretty much what I want and what would be good and what wouldn't be.

So that's why I don't fear that getting out of control either, because it's not like I'm having an infinite set of stuff I want to buy, I have a very small set and I enjoy researching to find the best one. So yeah, I think quality, quality has been good, but again, it's harder to differentiate quality from just brand name appeal, I guess sometimes, but that's where I guess reviews come in and stuff, but yeah.

Okay. It makes perfect sense. Something you also mentioned you wanted to increase spending on or we're exploring is charitable giving. And so I'm wondering, definitely want to hear more about that, but now that you've had a kid, does that affect your lens on charitable giving? Do you want to give more to your heirs or family?

That's a very difficult one. Yeah. And that's something that I have on my to-do list to go over over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to sort of project out all of my accounts because you sent me that book by Mike Piper, More Than Enough, which is fantastic and it's completely changed how I view all of my different accounts.

So I want to sort of see where those are all going to go. If I keep adding money to them, if I don't, if I start taking out, if I leave them as is and things like that, and then that's going to affect everything because that's still such a difficult question because I don't know how I'm going to handle that with my son, which also goes back to why I'm doing what I'm doing now, buying a nice house in a nice village.

It's like, yes, I could leave him a big chunk of money, but I don't want to do that. But I don't want to not leave him a bunch of money if I have it. So I'd rather spend the money to give him a better life as we grow up together than just be super frugal, have an okay life in an okay village or whatever, and then just leave him a big check when I die, which I don't think that's good either.

So yeah, it's tough. But more than enough that you gave me so kindly a month or two back, that's really helped in that sense. So yeah, I have a bunch of notes from that book that I'm going to go over and I'm going to start planning that out whenever I get the chance.

But yeah, so for charitable giving, it's still tough for me just because I do just feel like I'm gripping my money with like bunch of fists. So my goal was to give more every year. So I've been doing that the last few years, so I just make sure I give more this year than I did last year and hopefully as I keep doing that, I'll get more comfortable with it.

But yeah, it's been good in the sense where it's like, if anyone, any friends have a personal project or something important to them, like for instance, I just gave to the National Forestry Foundation, the tree email you sent me and things like that, it's like, that's really nice because then it's just like a no brainer.

It's like, okay, I definitely want to give more. So anytime a friend comes with a running a marathon or anything, it's like, okay, definitely no brainer. So that's been nice, but yeah, it's still not natural for me. But hopefully once I run through this exercise and sort of see where all these accounts are going, then that'll free me up a little bit more to know what I'm doing.

But yeah, currently the only goal is to give more than I did last year. Okay. That sounds like a great approach. Very systematic. So you mentioned die with zero. One of the premises of that, and I might oversimplify it, but he talks about if you die with any money left over, that was time wasted earning it.

And he says, of course you can give to charities and family during your life and often giving earlier than before you die is more helpful to the recipient. You mentioned you didn't agree with all of it. Were there any key takeaways that you remember or strongly disagreed with? Well, yeah, the key takeaways were definitely just like there's a season for everything.

And that's one of my only regrets with saving for FI. I don't regret much because we did do a lot. We traveled a lot and we did a lot of fun stuff in our twenties and thirties and I didn't feel like I was too big of a scrooge when it came to any sort of spending.

My wife may tell you differently, but yeah, one of my only regrets is like missing a few bachelor parties because we lived in Scotland. So it was like, I wasn't going to fly to the States, pay to fly to the States and then a month later fly back for the wedding, so I would always just pick the wedding.

But I can't get those times back when I'm a 20-year-old idiot getting drunk with my idiot friends because we're older now. And I don't think any of us would want to do that, but I missed out on a lot of those kind of memories just because I was like, I'm not going to fly back to the States twice in a month.

So that's really my only like FI regret. So in the book, he talks a lot about that. He's like, yeah, you could save up a bunch of money like I did and then go on a vacation every week like we could now. But you know, I'm 42 and we have a son and I don't want to go on vacation every week.

It would have been better maybe to spend that money to go on a vacation with all my best friends when we were 21 or something, you know what I mean? So it's sort of thinking about things, which has been really helpful because now that prompted us to do these sorts of trips and do the Airbnbs in the mountains rather than just don't ski for our entire forties and then hope that we have the perfect mountain house to then ski all the time.

And it's like, well, maybe I'll throw my back out when I'm 50 and then I won't want to ski as much and things like that. So that's been really important. The Dying With Sierra thing, I think that's more just like a good provocative title. So I'm in no hurry to try to calculate how much I should spend now so that I can get down to zero by the time I reach 90 or whatever.

So yeah, that wasn't, I didn't take that away from the book, but yeah, it was really good for just refocusing my mind and being like, okay, yeah, you could buy 10 of these things if you save for the next 10 years, but maybe you're going to enjoy that one thing now and that's more, that's a better decision overall.

And he also talks about, I forget what he calls it, but the memory dividend or something. It's like, yeah, I could, like I said, I could save up for the next 10 years and have this epic winter at the best mountain resort. But if I do these 10 little trips, then these little memory dividends of all those 10 trips are just like things that I can just think back on and love as much as previous memories.

And that's value. There's value in that. So those are some of the big takeaways, but it was really good for someone like me, naturally frugal, but is that a point where you don't really have to be anymore? Cool. Yeah. It's always fun when we're permeable to these different ideas.

I think there's so much that just reinforces who we are already. It's like what you said about Ramit versus Mr. Money Mustache, there's this echo chamber aspect to Mr. Money Mustache, whereas Ramit has all these challenging views that challenge kind of our default settings. So zooming out a bit, I forget which podcast it was, but you mentioned you attended a self-improvement conference or something like that.

I'd love to hear more about that and if you remember any conceptual takeaways from it. And then a second part of this question is so much of the self-help or self-development stuff gets this candy-like euphoric feeling for us. It's just like we're basking in this candy-like information that feels really good to consume.

Was there something that affected you to act on things you may have taken away from it? Yeah. I'm wondering if that was maybe somebody I talked to because I'm trying to think if I ever went to any sort of self-help things. I know Alan Donegan, I interviewed, he was really big into Tony Robbins and stuff.

Me personally, I like reading books and I get that same sort of candy-like experience where you're like, "Wow, yeah, I can do this and change everything." The in-person things I've never really been into. I don't know, it's just not my thing. I just wonder how much people take away and actually do after feeling good and like, "Yeah, I can take on the world and walk over the hot coals," and all that sort of stuff.

It's like, "Yeah, but then you're just going to go back to your normal life." I get more out of just reading books and taking a few things away. Like we mentioned James Clear, Atomic Habits was really, really impactful for me pursuing some of my personal goals. That may have been Alan Donegan who I interviewed too, who had done that.

It's not really my thing, I think. I think I get enough out of books to then hopefully act on some of the stuff I read other times, but yeah, it's hard to get past my laziness sometimes. Got it. I remember you got a lot out of reading Ultra Learning last time you recommended that.

Yeah, that was good. Yeah, that was just because I needed some sort of structure to achieve or to try to work on a very difficult goal that I had a mental block that I just thought I could never do because I wanted to do it so badly. I just thought I could never do it, but yeah, I read Ultra Learning and it allowed me to take something creative and something that you feel like you have to pluck it out of thin air.

It gave me structure and made my math brain happy, so it allowed me to apply my math brain to an arts and party side of my brain that I don't feel is just strong. That was very helpful, but I would say Atomic Habits was more impactful and still is, to be honest, just getting more things done that I want to do and overriding that natural laziness.

Yeah. Amazing book. So practical. So full of actionable insights. I saw someone reading it on the train last night and I was just happy that it wasn't a flash in the pan kind of popular book for a short period of time. So Ultra Learning, you also mentioned helped you kind of focus on your music and fulfilling that lifelong dream of putting out your album.

So any updates on the music front? Are you considering another album? I know you mentioned you played live. That must have been tremendous. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah, that was literally a childhood dream come true. So the whole point of wanting to write an album was so I could play my own songs live.

And yeah, I did that, which was fantastic. So hopefully going to do a lot more of that over the next year and yeah, I want to write one more album. So I just the joy of having a home is that I was able to build the studio of my dreams as well.

So I haven't got into it yet because we just finished it and then came to the States. So yeah, that's the that is the goal for by the end of 2025. And then I think that'll finally be that itch scratched and in the meantime, I want to play as much live as I can and get get my brother to play with me because he's a he's a really he's a professional percussionist to get him on drums and that is the that's the last tick tick on that childhood dream of mine is to play play my own songs with my brother on drums.

So I need to do that at some point but yeah, no, that's been a dream come true. And yeah, it's been still my proudest accomplishment even even though like, yeah, nobody else cares, but I just know how hard it was to do it and all the self-doubt I had to break through to actually accomplish it.

So I want to prove to myself I can do it again just by doing one more one more album by the end of 2025. But yeah, so that's that is the that is the main focus for this year besides obviously taking care of my son. So yeah, it's a lot to juggle.

Well, we'll stay tuned. We look forward to that. That duet. I don't know if you'd call it a duet. So I'll ask a question out of left field and then we don't want to keep you too long. You have a flight tomorrow. You've already been traveling different time zones.

So the out of left field question for me, my experience of the past everyone says like time goes so quickly, but the pace of the passage of time continually fascinates me like no matter how you would expect were desensitized to it, right? Like January just went by in a in a in a blink.

Is it something you think about like, I don't know, aging or or is it no big deal? Like how do you how do you make sense out of the accelerated passage, the accelerated pace of the passage of time? Yeah. Yeah, just scary. It's just Yeah, just turned 42 a couple days ago, and I still feel 20.

So I don't know where this couple of decades went. But I was talking to my uncle, who's almost 60 now and he's like, Yeah, I still feel 22. It's just the natural thing. So I noticed the time slows down when we do more interesting things. So that pushes me to still do interesting things.

So because now that I have a really comfortable home that I'm making amazing with my home studio and my coffee grinder and all these, you know, things that I'm kidding it out with. There is a big draw to just stay home. But I do find that as you're in that home routine, time fast passes a lot quicker.

So that does push me to do trips like this that I'm on and little side trips here and there to, you know, it's easy to pop over to mainland Europe and make a lot of really good memories and just a long weekend and things like that. So it does push me to do that because I feel like that slows time down a little bit for me.

But I'm also quite content, you know, watching my son grow up and be like, wow, he's so big already and yeah, we're having a lot of fun but it is going quick and he's just getting so big and I'm sort of okay with it. Like I feel like, yeah, I'm getting older now.

So I think it comes with the territory, just the years start flipping by, which isn't great. But yeah, I don't know if there's much you can do about it. But yeah, the only thing that I've found that counteracted is to change it up and get out of the routine and make a few really interesting memories.

Excellent. Sound advice. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming back. Always love speaking with you. I'll just check in with Miriam really quickly if there are questions in the chat or via the RSVP function that we want to pose to Brandon. Okay. First question is, what is the name of your coffee grinder?

Oh, Wilfa Uniform. So it's, I live in the UK, I believe you can get in the States, but Wilfa, W-I-L-F-A, and then it's Uniform. And I got the silver one, I think the black one comes with a scale on top, which I don't think is very useful. So it's just a stainless steel, just looks cool.

Well, what is so special about this coffee grinder? It's great. It feels good. Everything just feels well-made and pressing the button's fun and pulling out the tray just feels like nice and nicely engineered. I don't know. It's great. It just feels good to use and the coffee grinds is delicious and what a way to start a morning.

Exactly. Yeah. And I do pour over coffee. So it's not good for espresso. I don't think it's fine enough for espresso, but I do pour over V60, like a clever dripper, whatever, mostly just pour over stuff. And it's perfect for that. You can really dial it in. It's got consistent grind size and the burr grinder.

So it's a really good quality grind and yeah, the coffee is delicious and a great part of my day. I love it. Does it double as a kid's toy? It will. It will. At some point it will. Wait till he puts his Legos in it and grinds them up.

I have a question. You were mentioning about giving away your wealth before you die. And that is often talked about in the forum as one way to give to your children over time, especially when they're younger, you know, in their twenties and thirties when they could really use the money, you know, to buy a house or to get themselves together rather than waiting until you pass away in your 60s, 70s, 80s.

The man who started the Vogelheads and the Vanguard Diehards is a man named Taylor Larimore. He is turned a hundred last week. He's a hundred years old. The guy doesn't even use a cane. He doesn't even walk with a cane, let alone a walker and a wheelchair. He also has done that.

He has said many times that he can see with his children that what do I need? What does he need the money for in the future? He's been giving it away to his children over time rather than, you know, wait until the, you know, the end. On the other hand, for example, my husband and myself, we do not have long-term care insurance, meaning we do not have long-term care insurance that will help us if we have dementia or when we get old and we need lots of nursing aid help, Medicare does not pay for that.

Medicaid may pay for some, a little bit. Who pays for it? We do. So that is why we are saving our money more towards the end, because when we are 80 years old, 90 years old, the medical expenses can get very, very, it can be, you know, out the roof.

So that is one reason to keep, I would say to keep, you know, to keep things and being frugal like you are is good, has its good points, and you want to use your money now for your memories and for those special occasions that you will never regret using the money for.

You know, those very special occasions. But on the other hand, you do have to think about the future and what will you do when you are older? You are not going to want the burden of your medical care on your son. So you have to stop. >> Yeah, no, that is a great point.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Like well, currently, we are both British citizens, so we do have a bit of a bigger safety net than I would have had I not become a British citizen, I think. So there is a little bit to that. But no, I completely agree. And yeah, when I said more, when I said like spending and investing and giving it away till now, it is more like, yeah, like having a nice house that then could be sold if something, you know what I mean?

Like buying a nice house, and yeah, I still have not figured out how to go about it. But I think you are absolutely right. There is no way I would be able to sleep if I was giving it all away, even with the safety net of having the NHS in the UK and some more free care options.

But yeah, I think that is a great point. And also the memories, you know, many times my husband and I would not do things because of the expense. We would not go to certain family vacations with the rest of the family because it was too expensive. We did not want to take the time off from work or whatever.

Well, looking back on it, we should have gone. We missed a lot. And then family members pass away. You are not with them. And looking back also with my kids, I have a lot of kids, the family vacations we took were just the high points of their life and my life.

And the memories, the pictures, took lots of pictures and videos of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, hiking in Yellowstone National Park, you know, going out on, just doing little things that really do not cost a lot of money, even with a lot of people camping. They love it. They love the camping.

Yeah. Those, you know, don't give up that. I would just say, you know, suggest not to give up those opportunities, even if it may cost you in particular, you know, airfare back and forth to the U.S. or to Europe. It's funny you say that, because I just saw my uncle and he had mentioned he was thinking about doing a big family reunion at the beach in June.

And we had just got off this long nine and a half hour flight. And the thought of doing that all again with the even older, more rambunctious little guy in just a few months, I was like, oh, man, I can't even think about it. And then, yeah, obviously the cost as well.

But then luckily I was like, yeah, let's just do it because, yeah, you're exactly right. It's like we're not, we don't know how long we have with, you know, that extended family and all that sort of thing. So I didn't say yes, but yeah, at first I was a bit overwhelmed with just the thought of it.

But yeah, no, that's great advice. Jeff Bezos talks about regret minimization. That sounds like. What is that? What is regret minimization? So his example is he worked at a hedge fund, he was doing really well, but he had this idea because he saw the internet growth rates and he said he could start a bookstore on the internet.

And he spoke with his boss at the hedge fund who said, why do you want to leave such a great job? And he said, if I look back when I'm 80 and I didn't take this chance, I will regret it. And if it fails now, he can always go back to work.

So he categorized that as regret minimization and he took the plunge and started Amazon in his garage. Worked out pretty good. Are you going to open it up for questions? Yeah, let's do that. Did you say we had a few questions from the RSVP and then, Brandon, if you need to jump, I know we just hit the hour mark and I can get a little respectful of your rest.

OK. So the questions from the RSVP actually involve finance in the FIRE movement. And one of them was, what, if any place, do alternative investments play in your portfolio? Now, he doesn't say when, whether it's before you actually retired or after you retired, but in particular, annuities, I-bonds, real estate type mutual funds, gold and silver.

Or are you, as I recall, you were basically the three funder once you retired. I don't know what you were. I don't remember what you were before you retired. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Just total stock market, total international stock market, a little bit of bonds, and that's it. So for me, they don't play any role.

I, especially at this stage, like I just buy things for life. I don't ever intend to sell, especially now that I realized how amazing margin loans are for things like I have an IBKR account, Interactive Brokers, and was able to just buy my house against my portfolio, which was amazing.

So yeah, I don't really even consider selling anything in the near term anyway. So when I buy something, I just want it to be happy with it for life. So I'm happy with those. Recently, it was right when they thought inflation was going to be higher for longer. And I had some money to invest in, I sold a 401k and my Roth, I believe, I forget.

Anyway, I bought TLT, long-term treasuries, because I was like, the risk reward was pretty skewed at that stage. So yeah, if like interest rates went up 25 basis points, you would lose, I don't know, 3% or 4%, but if they went down 25 basis points, you'd make, I don't know, 7% or 8% or something, something like that.

It was just an asymmetric bet. So I was like, well, I need some more bonds, and then I can sell those next recession or whatever. So I did buy some TLT, and it's done great since then, it was lucky timing, and it wasn't higher for longer, maybe. So yeah, that's it.

So really, yeah, it's Vanguard, total stock market, total international stock market, and then total bond market, and then with a little bit of TLT thrown in, a little bit of Apple that I bought, I don't even remember when, 2014 or something. It was back when they were like, Apple stock price, they have more cash on hand than the stock price thing the company's worth.

So I just had a little bit of money sitting around, so I put some into Apple at that stage, and then I have a little bit of Google in my Roth from, again, a while ago that I just thought I'd buy some Google because I was a tech guy.

So yeah, so that, but those are annoying because even if they're winners, then you can't sell, especially if they're in a taxable account, because you don't want to pay a bunch of tax on them. So I got all these little, those just a few individual stocks in my portfolio, but yeah, simple.

So I don't have any of that stuff that you listed out as the alternative. And again, I would just have no conviction to hold it for 30 years if I didn't, yeah, I just don't feel like I would be into it, so I just don't buy it. All right.

Brandon, another question, since you live out of the United States, are you still investing in Vanguard? How is it when you are not living in the U.S. and investing with Vanguard, I know we've had Bogleheads who have posted on the forum that it is difficult with the U.S. banking system to have investments like that.

You can have them, but you cannot trade in them or something. Yeah, no, it's confusing, and I'm not probably the best person to talk to about it because my business is technically based in Florida, so my solo 401k can then use it and things like that. And this is my parents' house in Florida, and so I use that as my mailing address for everything and where my business is based and where, so yeah, I'm probably not the best person to ask just because, one, I don't know if I'm doing it right.

And two, yeah, not everyone would have the same sort of setup. So for me, yeah, everything's still acting as normal, and my business is still putting money into the solo 401k, and it's still getting invested whenever I invest it. So yeah, I'm not sure if that would apply to everyone or not.

Right. I understand. Okay. Gauri? That's it for me. Brandon, again, thank you so much. So before we go, we can turn it to the live audience if folks want to raise their hand. Okay, it's removed. So I'm not seeing any hands. Brandon, anything you want to highlight from the blog or podcast that you want to turn people's attention to or?

No, no, I haven't been doing much recently. I hope to pick it up again once I get back to Scotland just to start going through some stuff. And yeah, I have lots of ideas to talk about regarding the spending stuff because yeah, I feel like I have made such significant progress.

So yeah, if you're listening to this, you can go to medfinantist.com/advice and you can enter your email address there and you'll get all the advice from my podcast guests where I asked them what's one piece of advice you'd give to somebody on the path to financial independence. So I put that onto a PDF.

But anyway, the point is you get on the email list, which there's like 100,000 people on there. I don't know anybody and I've barely even messaged people to be honest, because I don't do that much content. But if you're on that list, then you'll get those posts when I eventually do them, which I'm hoping once I get back to Scotland, I can actually sit down and start writing out some of the stuff.

Because like I said, I do feel like I've made a lot of good progress and all the changes I've made with my spending have been positive. So I think it is something worth looking into for naturally frugal people like me. So yeah, you could just go to medfinantist.com/advice and just get on the email list there.

Sounds good. Lady Geek has her hand up. Yeah. Just want to... I know Brandon, you're running out of gas there, but there were two questions from the chat was for you. There were also a couple other questions, but myself and several members were answering the chat on our own.

Oh, nice. So sorry. At a high level, what withdrawal rate have you been able to maintain and do you have income coming in? Yeah. So yeah. So income coming in. So withdrawal rate zero since I left. So that's the ironic part. I've worked so hard to save all this up.

And then the application, like some of the software that I wrote prior to leaving my job then took off. And so I haven't had to withdraw, which is why I'm sort of focusing more on the spending side now, because I realized that all of my projections and all the math that I did prior to FI is sort of out the window if I'm not withdrawing from the portfolio.

So it made me rethink of what I'm going to be doing with all those things. So income could go to zero tomorrow, which I'm obviously prepared for, because I haven't exceeded... Our spending hasn't ever exceeded what the portfolio could generate at a safe withdrawal rate. But it just hasn't.

I haven't had to tap into it yet. So I usually start anything I'm talking about with that caveat, because it does change how I view spending and withdrawal and investments. And I'm willing to take a little bit more, I guess, more risk in my investments because I do have that income as a backup.

Okay, one easy question, will you continue with your podcast? Yes, but probably not in the same format. I took, I don't even know if anyone noticed last year, because I only usually release maybe, I don't know, a handful of episodes a year anyway. And last year, I didn't do any new interviews.

I had a couple of podcast takeovers and I had a couple other things that I did a few best of episodes and things, but I decided to take a whole year off of interviews. And that's mainly because I feel like I've talked to everyone I wanted to talk to, and I've learned everything I wanted to learn.

And that's why Remit was my last interview, because I feel like that was a whole thing, that was a whole aspect that I haven't really even thought about, but I really needed to address was that like spending and learning how to spend. So I was really excited to talk to him, but then I don't want to just interview the same people and talk about the same things.

I feel like I've covered a lot of the things that I wanted to cover. The one I may change the format of it, so it will continue in some aspect, but I don't think it'll be me interviewing people about how they achieve financial independence. I think maybe it'll be talking more with people after they've achieved five to find out the interesting things they're doing with their freedom and their money, is that to me right now is more interesting.

I think the mechanics of five have been covered by me and many others at Ozium at this stage, so it just doesn't interest me to get another person on to talk about the same things I've covered. But the stuff afterwards where you're like actually utilizing it to live in a cool, interesting life or do interesting things, that does appeal to me, so I think I'm going to try to figure out a way to do that.

Okay, one more question and a comment, and I think you're out of gas. Can you talk more about your income from software and is it passive? Your software income? Yeah, it is. Yes. So the main source of the software income is an application I wrote actually probably maybe two years before even the Mad Fientes started, so maybe 2010.

It's a credit card search tool for people who are really interested in travel rewards. So back in the day, I was like it's very confusing in the States where Chase points transfer to Delta at this ratio, but then Amex points transfer to Delta at this other ratio. But then you have also Delta cards, and I was like I just want to get the card that's going to give me the most Delta points, and I don't care if it's a Chase Ultimate Rewards card, I don't care if it's an Amex Membership Rewards card.

So anyway, so I built this search tool that stores all of those transfer ratios and stores all the cards so that you can go in and be like okay, I want a no annual fee card, I want to earn Delta miles, and I want no foreign transaction fees, and you can click all these buttons and then it will give you the best cards in reverse order of like the biggest sign-up bonuses.

So I wrote that prior to even starting The Mad Bientist, but now it is a nearly passive application. I work with an intermediary company, so I don't work directly with the banks, I work with a company that works with the banks, so I don't even have to maintain the relationships with the banks, and they have a database with all the cards, and I have an API.

I just access their API, my application just accesses their API, so it sucks in all the updated card data automatically, and every so often I'll need to change something manually or I'll need to add a new card or something like that, but it's less than, yeah, it's less than 40 hours in a year, not even, like I can, yeah, I would say here and there, like maybe responding to an email.

So it is relatively passive, but I hate the word, I hate the term passive income because it's not, it's front-loaded work, front-loaded work with no guarantee of any sort of payoff, and that's what it was, because for years it just sat there languishing because it was like a chicken and egg problem, you can't get a relationship with the credit card companies until you're generating lots of conversions, but you can't generate a lot of conversions without getting paid for them because how are you going to, you're just going to spend a bunch of money to generate conversions that don't pay you, so it was just like a chicken and egg problem, so it sat there for probably, I don't know, six to eight years doing nothing, and then it just started taking off, yeah, probably six, seven years ago.

Okay, thanks. Okay, just one comment that what you mentioned earlier on, it resonated with me because I do that as well, that is spend money on quality products, not, I gave an example of food, like things with high fructose corn syrup and whatever else they put in that stuff, I ignore because I can afford to buy the real stuff, and it makes a huge difference in my lifestyle, eating good food, but also by quality, like you do computers, I build computers, and I buy the stuff that I want, I say it's not a want, it's not a need, it's a want, and I want good stuff, also buy like good tools, don't ever buy cheap tools, really, like client tools, you know, that kind of stuff, not the knockoffs that you see overseas, so I just say that resonated with me, because people say when you have enough, they talk about going on cruises and trips, those are like thousands of dollars, guys, wake up, if you spend another five or 10 bucks in the supermarket, your quality of life goes up just as well, if even more, so spend another five or 10 bucks instead of thousands, and it'll make a huge difference, so I couldn't agree more, and that brings up a great point, so something Ramit said to me during our conversation, which I never got into, only probably over the last three weeks, he said, why spend less when you could spend more, and I was like, that makes no sense, that doesn't compute with my frugal, natural, frugal brain, it makes no sense, but it was only recently with food that it made sense, and I always just bought the cheapest rice, 'cause I was like, it's rice, who cares, what's the difference, it doesn't make any difference, it's just rice, but then I was like, all right, why spend less when I could spend more, I'm gonna buy the fanciest rice, and man, it's so good, it's so much better, and then I found a big bulk bag of 10 kilogram bulk bag on Amazon, so it's actually not even that much more expensive when you buy it like that, but it's the first time I understood why spend less when you can spend more, so now with food, it's always, I'm trying the most expensive thing, and then I'll work my way down to see where the benefit actually cuts off, but that was the first time that made sense, and that's when I interviewed him October of 2022, maybe, so that's the first time it's actually sunk in, it made sense that phrase, 'cause up until then, it didn't compute.

- Came to fruition, who would have imagined that rice would be a gateway drug? - Yeah. - Yeah. - So good, though. - It's not just ingredients, also, what you do is I go to the top level name brand, but look at the quality, the grains, the size, the color, and even look at the olive oil, I'm a maniac with olive oil, yeah, I could talk all day about olive oil.

- Yeah, okay, so we're resonating here, I'm an engineer, yeah, I'm resonating here, but yeah, that's-- - She's an engineer, she counts the grains of rice and she puts them in different piles. - But yeah, I don't look at the price, I look at uniprice, and then I look at how much served, all right, so I'm going off, I'm done.

- Rice per grain of rice, actually, I have another expression that is buying cheap costs more or going cheap costs more in the long run. - Especially for tools and things like that, yeah, absolutely. - Yeah, well, for me, for example, I'm a homeowner in Florida, and we have lots of beautiful tropical trees, well, they grow all year round and they need pruning.

So pruning my homestead here, such as it is, is about $4,000, $4,500 every time I prune the trees, and that is a lot of money for trees, but you have to do it, you cannot put it aside, because if you do it, then the next time you prune, it's gonna be 5,000 or 6,000, and also the county and the local government will be after you to prune those trees, and now the insurance companies drive around and say, well, we're gonna cut your insurance off if you don't prune those trees, they're on your roof.

So you have to do it, it's part of homeownership. So I went with a less expensive tree company, a certified arborist, but a less expensive company than I usually use. So this time it was $4,000, in the end I spent 5,000, the men were great, however, he had them booked for one day only, so they were here for 11 hours, by the time they were done, they were so exhausted, they were making mistakes, cutting off limbs they should not have, cutting them in the wrong spot, and in addition, I felt so, they work so hard, I gave them double the tip I normally do, and then their equipment, because it had been raining earlier, sunk into the soil, so then when they left I had large holes, which will stay there forever unless I have them filled with sod put over it, by the time it was done I paid well over $5,000.

Yeah, I used to cheap out on things that were important to me, like musical instruments and stuff, like synthesizers, I love synthesizers, and I'd buy the cheapest version, but then I realized you buy the nicest version, because one, you're going to get so much joy using a really nicely engineered piece of equipment, but then you could sell it, it'll hold its value more, so you could sell it later and it's actually not as expensive as the cheaper version because you could maybe even make money from it, let alone spend money on it, whereas the cheap version it's just going to be thrown in the landfill in two years.

But what you said is you get the joy of using it, it's like the joy of having something, you know, just a nice thing that you can, a nice coffee mug even, you know, that just feels nice, or a nice piece of clothing, a nice, you know, a dress or a jacket that you wear that just feels nice on and the material is so nice, it's the joy of owning it as part of, you know, spending money on something pleasurable in life.

Excellent. On that note, Brandon, thanks again.