How this Couple Achieved FIRE in Their 30s (Average Income)

26:13Also like you own this nice house and like what? And also now you have mentioned that you want to move to Canada. Like this is, and this is where we're like, let's talk about it because we're super into this thing called fire. And there's all these great books we read and these podcasts and it's like crickets. No one wants to talk to us about this. No one is excited about like, oh, how can I start a side hustle? And how can I like quit my job in a few years because I'm like around this time, a lot of our friends like start starting families and getting pregnant too. One reason we were like really excited about coming on this show is we got so much out of like the podcast community and just hearing other people's stories that we're like, yeah, we could share our story.

26:56At least Scott and Mindy will talk to us. The attempts to hostilize for me were not taken warmly by all friends and family during my similar phase of my journey as well. So I know the feeling there. So luckily we had a podcast that we started nine years ago. I get to talk about this all the time. That was my outlet. Yeah. What I like is those same people are now like, you quit your jobs. How did you do it? Well, do you remember how I wanted to talk to you about it in the past and you didn't want to hear it? Yeah. When we did quit our jobs, there was a lot of skepticism around that. So I guess I'll share like real quick.

27:27We were doing, yeah, real estate. We bought another house, bought another like small, like fixer upper, Airbnb did. It's a long-term rental now. So Airbnb, our basement. So at this point we have like four or five houses, bought a triplex, which is where what we live in now. Did you live in all of the properties or were any one any of them purchased as rentals outright? They were all purchased as rentals. Although we every time we've bought a place, it's with like multiple exit strategies in mind. Like, would I ever personally be okay living here if that is what we needed to do? Could you Airbnb it?

28:02Could you long term rent it? Could you sell it again in the future? So And they're geographically close. So we have actually lived in these all of these homes at one time or another based on, you know, who's moving in, who's moving out. You know, what can we do to maximize? That's true. We actually have lived in all of them at this point. Yeah. So how many properties are we talking about here? It was three single families and a triplex. And then we've since then sold one of the single families. So now we live in one of the units of the triplex and have two other single families. that one is a short-term rental because it's like right on a river near a university and it's like wonderful for fishing and for like people visiting their kids who are in college.

28:45So it just does really well as an Airbnb and the other is a long-term rental. And we transitioned most of them to long-term and we just found it easier day to day. We found that the financial outcome wasn't that different. Yeah. Oh, so the monthly to you after paying all that short-term rental stuff is essentially the same, but the hassle and headache is a lot more with a short-term rental. Yeah. We find that to be true. I mean, when you factor in cleaning fees and customer service emergencies, right? When the pipes freeze on Christmas Eve at an Airbnb, that's a funny story, but these are the kinds of things that, especially when you decide to move internationally, you can't have a lot of that emergency scenarios happening when you're living in another country.

29:34Yeah. And it's a funny story now. It wasn't a funny story at the time. Oh, no. Walk us through this transition point. Let's actually hear what happened here. So you've worked in these jobs. You've done great habits for a long time. You've built up a substantial net worth. I'm gathering kind of like a lean fire number, excluding your real estate and your side business has been accomplished. Is that, is that right? And this is like 2018 or 2019. So yeah, baby's born in 2016. Then we're like really pushing on fire up until 2019. He quits first. So Sam quit his job first. It was just like a good time to transition out of his job because of some other things that were happening at the business at the time.

30:16I also had like just become the executive director at this nonprofit and like felt some responsibility to like give an enormous amount of notice and like be part of the transition and finding a new director. And like, I still like love and work with a lot of these people. So I was like, I, I was like, I need to give it another year. So when he quit in 2019, the net worth was around 800 ,000. And that's a mix of property appreciation and investments. And I was 35 at that, at that time. So. And friends gave him a really hard time for quitting because he had like a pretty good job when neither of us ever had super high salaries like I think you were at your job for like a decade and your salary probably ranged from like what I I never got above 65 yeah well with bonuses maybe like 80 or 90 I think there was one year around 70 but I think that's about as good as it got with the bonuses yeah yeah so that job was like okay there's not a lot of like you're not going to suddenly have a super high salary like you might as well someone's got to quit and like do like cooking and cleaning and like being home with our toddler more.

31:23So that immediately helped. How much were you making at this time, Carolyn? Like low six figures. Like, like, I think I got hired into the job at the nonprofit and it's, it's like public, a public health nonprofit. So like, you know, no one goes into public health for the money. So I think like 80 something when I was hired. And then by the time I became the executive director, it was like me, like 115, which for public health felt extravagant. Like that's the most I've ever made. Okay. So you were making like 180-ish when Sam quit. What was your net worth or how close to FI were you when he left?

31:59So by the time he quit, yeah, net worth was about 800 ,000. And we knew that like he could do this canoe work in the summer. He left on really amicable terms with his job and ended up doing like making videos for him. videography just sort of switched from technology to marketing in some strange way. But yeah, there was the side hustles just, just increased. I mean, the canoe business, you know, we hired more of our friends, videography, renting out the vehicle, you know, just, just continuing to hustle on that end. And, and it was, it was great. It kind of, it became my full-time job, the side hustles.

32:37And I honestly think as far as earnings, I mean, we were doing okay, even without my full time job. Yeah, the side hustles probably replaced your full time income. And that was the point where when he quit, friends and family gave us a really hard time because they were like, he had a really good job. And like, does he seriously think he's going to be this like Airbnb entrepreneur? Like, that's probably like a fad, like they could shut down tomorrow and all your income is completely dependent on this one company. And that's when we were like, yeah, but this is short term, the idea is that we've amassed so much in investments and real estate income that he won't need it much longer.

33:18And then we will just like live off of our investments and real estate income. And that's when we like lost them. They were like, that doesn't sound real, but we also have no follow up questions. Thinking back to the time when I was an employee, right? Like I like at this before I joined bigger pockets or became a CEO, it seems impossible to earn this like additional income or like run these side hustles successfully. But then like once, you know, as years go by and at BiggerPockets is different because I was, I was so like, it was such a startup vibe at that point. You're like, Oh, let's try this.

33:49Let's try this. Let's try this. And you over time though, you get so comfortable with the ideas of like, Oh, there's an opportunity to make money. There's an opportunity to make money. There's an opportunity to make money. How much, where's the risk reward. It's almost like lower risk as you train your brain over time to be like, yeah, if I wanted to, I could make much more than I could as an employee with this combination of side hustles. And yet that sounds so preposterous to somebody who's very specialized skillset that's been working at one thing for their entire career. It doesn't seem possible or practical or reasonable in there.

34:18And it sounds like that's what you went through and that those discussions, you got that. What are you talking about? That's absolutely crazy. Total mindset change. And we couldn't have done it without just the constant conversation and like communication about changing that mindset. It really is. Working at a full-time company is a habit forming thing. And it's just getting out of those habits of just a nine to five routine and thinking outside the box that we needed every bit of our spare time to just think through it and talk about it. And like, I think maybe it's like Paula Pant has a really good way of describing like disconnecting like the working for money correlation and like just having a total mindset shift with this like passive income and this idea that like your time spent working on something and the returns don't need to be like a linear correlation.

35:07You can create these like passive income streams. So at this time, our obsession is like, oh, I forget who coined this. It was either like the mad scientist or Mr. Money Mustache, but like building a wealth machine, like a money machine. Like at this time, we're like, I have it in my head that we're building this giant like machine of like passive income streams, real estate, investments. And that it's this like I'm picturing like how was moving castle at a certain point? It will be built enough that we'll both step back. So that's what you did in 2020. Yeah. So that's what we did. So in 2019, he stepped back and then I kept working a little longer.

35:46And this is around the time that we start fantasizing about like, well, what are we going to do when we quit? It was just like, I don't know, like, like have a margarita and spend more time with our baby and like, like start to like enjoy each other's company again. So that's when we were like, we should just move somewhere. Where should we move? And we start looking at like Dubrovnik and like Costa Rica. Oh, I got obsessed with this like commune in Costa Rica. and sent it to a friend of mine who was like, that is a cult. That helped the family discussion around this being normal, right? Yeah.

36:18So then, yeah, we're getting deeper and deeper in this weirdo hole of like in everyone's minds. That's a cult and you're already in a cult. Yeah, I can only do one cult at a time. But the geo arbitrage thing is also something that was floating in our minds. And the idea of moving out of the country didn't seem so bizarre. Having listened to all the podcasts about that kind of thing. Yeah. So we were like, OK, we could move like somewhere if it's more like climate resilient came up in our heads. Like so we're looking at like all these towns we could live in. And then it occurred to us, well, if we're going to move anyway, let's move to a place that by living there, you could get dual citizenship.

36:56That's when like the Canada idea came up where we're like, there's so many cool towns in Canada. Let's just pick one. And we can drive there. So it's not a huge, huge deal for our moving back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. And then if you go to Canada, you could get dual citizenship and they have free health care. And that's around the time that I wrote to y 'all back in like 2000. Oh, I forget. 21 or 2020. Yeah. No, it would have been before I quit. So I think I wrote to you all in 2019 and was like, hey, there's all these episodes on like health care. Our two biggest expenses post fire, because we're like months from quitting our jobs, are about to be health care and preschool.

37:33Those are like massive expenses. And, you know, Canada does both for free. So like, how come I've never heard anywhere in the fire community people strategically moving to Canada? And I think Scott wrote back and was like, well, because that sounds complicated. And do you actually want to live in Canada? When someone says I'm going to move to Canada, my first thought is, oh, look at all those balmy, warm beaches Canada has. Like, I'm very sensitive to super, super cold and Canada can get a little chilly. And that's why we're back in the States. I'm looking at this email now. I forgot about it.

38:11Yeah. A couple of items pop into my mind. This is 2019. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through the citizenship process for Canada with the primary motivation being free health care and preschool. Do you have other reasons for moving to Canada or are those the primary concerns? And then two, how do you plan to occupy your time? I didn't see entrepreneurship or other pursuits listed. I don't think that was in the email. I didn't have this discussion. Yes, your questions were like, oh, those are actually really good questions. How are we going to occupy our time in Canada while attempting to get citizenship?

38:38Deviling snow. Yeah. And then six years later on Friday, October 17th, I get a follow up from you guys. That was awesome. That was so great. Thank you. Well, because I think at the time in 2019, I was like, oh, my God, Scott wrote back, Scott wrote back. And then I was like, oh, I don't think he really thinks the Canada idea is like a slam dunk. And then I was like, oh, I actually feel really embarrassed because I don't have a good answer to how we're going to occupy our time other than not what we're doing right now, which now there's so much more content in the FIRE community about like, you're retiring into the life you want, not out of a life you don't want.

39:14but at the time we were just like it just has to be not this like I don't care I don't even care what town we're living in in Canada it just has to be not my current life and you know interesting interestingly enough I mean that question what are you going to do to occupy your time really got us spinning and for me I said you know what I got a bachelor's degree in religious studies I've always really admired that work maybe I could switch from technology to theology someday and that is exactly what I did. Once I was in Canada and a resident there, oh my gosh, the education is top notch and so inexpensive.

39:50I just got an Ivy League level theology education and a degree while I was in Canada. So just, yeah, that answered that question. Education. Hopefully our son, who will be a citizen, can experience an inexpensive education too. So there's benefits, I mean, to that. And it took like a year after quitting your job to decide that. He took a whole year of just like, I'm just going to like be a dad and I'm going to get my health back in order and I'm going to enjoy being with my wife. And then all of that space to like think made him realize I miss theology. I love reading and writing about theology.

40:31I'm going to go back and get a master's at McGill, which is like one of the best schools in Canada. And he got to go there for like basically free. One thing I want to call out here is at that time, we did not have the enhanced premium tax credits for Obamacare. Obamacare was in place, so there was subsidies you could get for health care, but that was not in place. And so what I want to point out here is, I'm going to share my screen for a second. I've been modeling around with this because I'm a huge nerd on ACA. So I've got this whole retirement optimizer calculator that I'm building here. And one of the problems that you were much more in tune with than I was when I asked that question back to you was, you know, from a health care perspective is this is a really real problem.

41:13The health care premiums start high in America right now, but they go higher. Obamacare allows insurance plans to in it depends on your state. But in North Carolina, this is particularly true to charge more for age, up to three times more for older people versus younger people, as that is one of the number one correlates to health to claims. And so your health insurance premium unsubsidized might go from like 16 ,000 age 45. And I'd have to go back and do this for a 35 year old to map to your situation. But it will go up to like 34 ,000 more than doubling by the time you reach 64 and, you know, or shortly before you're eligible for Medicare.

41:52care. Was this part of your analysis? Were you aware of this like sliding scale of like how much healthcare was going to increase in costs for you when you asked me that question into this candidate? Or was it just, were you just looking at the sticker price for the current number and making your decision based on that? I think we were just looking at the sticker price for the current number, the sticker price for preschool were like our two big things. And then just knowing that like, we just love the idea of having dual citizenship. So we hadn't gone that far into it. I think that would have pushed us even further into that camp.

42:21That move you made, despite my questions, which I think probably were like, that seems like a lot of trouble to go to at that point in time, seems to really have ensured your situation forever in there. It seems like an absolutely brilliant and wonderful move you've made. Thank you. Yeah, it was an enormous amount of work. It was expensive. I mean, to go through the process and the paperwork and the time that it took. And so convoluted. So I think we can share in case this is like interesting for folks. So this is around like 2019 I'm like about to quit and we're getting all of this like paperwork in order for applying for Canadian permanent residency the specific program we did which I think is like uniquely of interest to fire people is called the express entry federal skilled worker program the reason it's like particularly good for fire is you can move to Canada as a permanent resident with like you're a permanent resident upon entry once you're accepted without having to have a job or education lined up.

43:22If you're about to quit your job anyway, you just need to physically be in Canada and you have access to it's like having a green card here, I guess, essentially. What does federal skilled worker mean? Does that mean you're a federal worker in America going to Canada or you're a federal worker in Canada? That's it's a kind of a weird title. You're not a federal worker in either place. It's a federal program to attract skilled workers. Oh, OK. So the idea and this is like why a lot of I think fire people would be eligible. It's I feel like some parts of this are actually a little bit like messed up.

43:57But it's a points system where if you have a high education, you're relatively young, you have a good career history, you're basically showing that you're a very desirable person that will likely contribute to the economy of Canada. They will fast track you becoming a permanent resident. And then you don't have to have a job to show up because they're assuming you seem like the kind of person who's going to be able to get a job when you get here. And you have to prove that you speak either English or French. You have to prove before you show up that you have enough money in the bank to support yourself for at least a few months, like presumably while you're looking for a job in Canada.

44:37And a bunch of other things like there was so much paperwork. We had to drive to Alabama to take an English test to prove that we speak English. We had to drive to South Carolina to get fingerprinted. And we had to drive to Raleigh to get a chest x-ray. Yeah, we had to drive to Raleigh to get TB test chest x-rays. I guess to like prove that we're not just trying to sneak into Canada with TB. It was like months. But we had time. We had the time to do it. That was the beauty of fire. You said it was expensive. What kind of money are we talking about here? Gosh, I can't remember the exact amounts, but like you have to pay for the English test.

45:12You have to pay for the TB test. You have to pay. These can't be more than like hundreds of dollars, though, what you just said, right? Like, oh, no, I think like in the like, like all said and done with like all of the different like fees that you're paying to Canada, like in the like, like less than 10 ,000. Less than 10 ,000. Less than your one year of health insurance premiums in America. Yeah, I think daycare at the time was like$15 ,000 a year. And then, you know, you're renting again. You're living in Canada, so you're renting, right? We didn't buy a property up there. We were renting. So that, you know, that, of course, I mean, we're in the middle of Montreal renting.

45:48So the lifestyle was expensive. It's not like moving to another country where the lifestyle expense is so much less. Canada is comparable to the U.S. Caveat, and this feels like a huge, like, duh in retrospect. They are able to offer these amazing amenities and these amazing things to their citizens because they do charge more in taxes. So we thought, but we're paying. We don't have jobs in Canada. Our money's in the U.S. So we won't have to be paying a lot of taxes there. Turns out you do have to pay Canadian taxes. And it's what you've already paid in the U.S., but what you would additionally pay.

46:28addition on top of that, like what they would have charged you. So you're not double paying, but you are paying the difference between what you should be paying there. So we have had to pay a fair amount. Like there's been the past few years where we owed almost nothing in the US, but still had to pay a few thousand to Canada. But it's still way less than what we got from like our son broke his leg and went to the emergency room and was like in a wheelchair for like six months and we didn't pay a penny. It was worth it. Yeah, it was. So Canada has a progressive track tax system as well. So I imagine that you're not realizing much income as a kind of very prototypical early retiree household, right?

47:10So, so this is, these are not much in the way of taxes. It's, you said several thousand dollars. Oh yeah. Maybe like, like$3 ,000, not a lot. Yeah. How do Canadians feel about like this, this move? Like, do you ever, does this ever come up when, when you're talking about, Hey, what we're doing here and our folks, Is there any pushback about, hey, you're coming in here and not paying into our system, but getting all these benefits? Like, is that ever come up as a discussion point? We have a lot of Canadian friends who are all, they're extremely nice people. No, because we are paying additional taxes by being there.

47:40And I think we kept a lot of our neighborhood restaurants afloat. Yeah, we certainly kept the breweries in business and in the Montreal downtown area. Yeah, we spent a ton. We were in fact, like we because we had these like this money coming in from the US and then we're spending all of it in Canada. We did have a couple of friends who were like, OK, like, cool. Like, thanks for like pumping money into this economy. I think it depends like who you talk to, but nobody begrudged us of it. Like, especially when we mentioned the health insurance, every single one of our friends in Canada is like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe what you have to go through for health insurance in the U.S.

48:22We can't even picture that. Like, of course you want to come here. And I will say that, you know, once once we we started talking to them, they said, well, I've always heard about Americans moving to Canada, but now we finally met one. So that was that was a nice conversation. How much time do you have to spend in Canada to satisfy your residency requirements? Because I, you know, I joked about their balmy beaches, but it can get a little chilly up there. And you don't you know, you said it was super cold. Can you come back and forth frequently? So this program we talked about, it's like fast tracking you to become a permanent resident.

48:56Once you're a permanent resident, you have to spend a minimum of 1095 days physically in Canada before you're eligible to apply for citizenship. Once you're a citizen, you don't ever have to come back if you don't want to. Like you could be gone for a decade. They're not going to revoke your citizenship once you have that Canadian passport. So we are like, close. We moved back to North Carolina before hitting the 1095 days. So just means we get to travel to Canada this summer. And yeah, we're spending the whole summer in like Prince Edward Island area to to top off that thousand and ninety five days.

49:35And then that's when we qualify for citizenship. And then we don't like have to keep coming back and forth. OK, and that thousand and ninety five days is just three years within a five year window. Yep. Three years within a five year window. Within a five year. OK, that is good to know. Going back to education and health care real quick. What are you doing for your son for education right now? And what are you doing for health care now that you're back in the States? He's nine now. So he's just like in a free public school and he loves that. He loves our community. He loves his school. Like if he didn't, like I would have to figure out like how to pay for a private school that he loved or like figure out how to homeschool him.

50:14But like, thankfully, he is happy there. And for health insurance, we were on the marketplace. And I think that like after the subsidies we were paying like around, we got like the cheapest possible plan, like 400 a month. Now he gets health insurance through work. And for us to be on his plan was going to cost like way more than what we currently get with the subsidies. So right now my son and I are still on a marketplace plan. It's currently at the moment still around like, I think it's gone up to like 500 a month. So his is free through work. And I am kind of just like closing my eyes and like waiting to see what's about to happen with how much it's about to go up.

50:56It's about to go up probably a lot. And maybe we'll switch to his, which is going to, it's going to at least double or triple. Will your household be over that cliff, the FPL cliff, the Federal Polly Land cliff based on this? Or because I think my thing is that the premium, it's only the enhanced premium tax credits for above that kind of 82. I guess it's like 70 or$80 ,000 for your household in North Carolina to be over that cliff. And you'll still be eligible for the rest of the subsidies because you'll be under that. Is that right for you guys? It depends. So with like, like real estate income, like a lot of like, a lot of that gets like reduced because we've done like a ton of renovations over the past couple of years.

51:34So that income has been pretty low on our taxes. he's making like in the 50s at his job and then I'm also working part-time so we're going to be like right on the line that's incredible how this cliff effect and how it creates unbelievable incentives I actually just this morning listened to the episode that came out today with I think her name was Regina yes and just this morning was like oh no I need to start researching this more I don't know how it's going to affect us yet and what that cliff is going to look like. I'd like to just say two quick things. First of all, well, I don't know if you want to say this, where we are now in the net worth, because the fire police might say, well, we had to go back to our jobs.

52:14You know, your net worth must have decreased. Oh, yeah. So for that to be, I think that's relevant. By the time I quit in 2020, the net worth was around like 1.1 million and I was 33. And we thought like, oh, we can be crazy frugal. Like that's plenty. and I think now I heard you in a recent I don't know how recent the episode was but you said like 1.8 like 2.5 is kind of the range people think of these days back then I was looking at like Mr. Money Mustache level frugality as the goal so now like coincidentally our net worth just hit 1.8 so I guess the fire police could say like well no you're only just you only just now made it so So he could quit.

52:55I could quit. Then our income would be like zero. Like we could then like move back to camp. Like there's a lot of things we could do. Like, you know, we've, you know, like would be happy living in our RV down by the river. Like we have a lot of choices if like things go haywire. So do you call what you're doing right now retirement? I think you refer to it as an optional post retirement career, which in theology is actually super, like a lot Second career people. He works with a lot of second career people. He's just 40 years younger than most of them, like semi-retired priests. And I'm like, yeah, working with my friend and it's a startup, so it might work out.

53:37It might not. I think that people miss that this is the point. I'd call what you guys are doing retirement. That's what I call it, audit. And the fact that you found something that pays as well doesn't invalidate that. And I think that that's what really makes people's heads explode, Is there like, that's not retirement. He's working a full-time job. She's doing part-time work. Well, he also skied for six years in between and got a theology degree, we know, while raising a young son. That's retirement. That's what that word means to me, at the very least. And I certainly won't go on the rest of my life not earning another dollar in an early retirement.

54:13That's not the plan there. It is absolutely the removal of the requirement to earn dollars. And then, yeah, guess what? Money nerds will take more if that aligns with the interests that we want to do in a general sense. I think that's the confusion of fire and that term retirement is that people have a really hard time attaching that word to what you guys are doing. But I think is which I think is actually fairly common among many people in the fire community. From my perspective in theology, there's something deeply liberative and you might even say spiritual about fire. When you can remove yourself from the constraints of money and you can get out of that situation, it will free you to do the things that, you know, in the faith that we're called to do.

54:56So I think it's really important to say that this not only is a great strategy for early retirement, but what it allows you to do is to just get out of the trap, focus on the things that really matter to you. And in my case, that's, you know, that's the Christian faith. It's helping other people. And I think that's just been just really wonderful. And I'm so grateful to people like you for helping us along the way. To the internet retirement police that are listening to this episode, you can email Sam and Carolyn at tellsomebodyelseatwedontcare.com. Yeah, like if we wanted to, we could both quit right now and go back to that beach in Ockermall and like keep eating tacos and like drinking Dos Equis.

55:40But like, we feel very fulfilled. Like we live near his parents. Our siblings are nearby. All of our nieces and nephews are nearby, which is super important to us to like be a big presence as aunts and uncles. Our kid's an only child. So for him to grow up in your family is really important. Like, gosh, it does feel like we're retirees. Yeah. Thanks for reminding us about that. Yeah, that's partly why we wanted to come on the show because we were like, wait, did we mess up? Like we forgot to do a Roth conversion ladder and we like, I don't feel like we're like mismanaging. Oh yeah, you messed up.

56:14Sorry. No, we're just going to erase all of this episode now because you didn't do a Roth conversion ladder. I have done zero Roth conversion ladders at this point in time. I've done 072Ts. I still work. I could be FI. My husband calls himself FI. He calls himself wife FI because I still work and then we don't have to withdraw anything from our retirement accounts. What do I say? Personal finance is personal. So if your retirement in air quotes to satisfy the internet retirement police who really need to get a life, if your retirement includes work, great. That's you're still retired because you can choose to work or choose to not work.

56:52And this is how you choose to spend your time. And I think it's awesome. Yeah, I love it. Like, I'll just just to like, just brag on him. Like, we've been married for I don't know, we've been together like almost 20 years. And I've never been like more proud of him. Like, he just the work he does, like, like consoling people who are grieving and like checking in with people who don't have enough food to eat and like looking out for kids who are in families who are going through something really hard. Like he's doing amazing work. And I don't know, like, I've just never been more proud of him. And you're in public health during a really hard time.

57:29So kudos to you. So I think like he's living his best life. And I've never been more in love with him that his version of what retirement looks like is like serving the community at a local church. I just, oh, my God, that's so sweet. Like, yeah, like, you know, we did the margaritas on the beach. And that he's like, this is how I want to spend my life. It's just amazing. saying. I'm just, I don't know. I just won the husband lottery. Wow. Okay. Goodness gracious. All right. It's a boots time. We take another break here. We'll be back in a minute after this. When I evaluate debt funds, I look for things like first position loans, personal guarantees, deep experience by the fund operator, low fund leverage, fast liquidity, and consistent returns.

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1:01:16All right, thanks for dealing with us, but we are out in the boat and we're back now to talk more Canadian fire. Did you guys significantly draw down on your core financial portfolio during this early retirement period? Or was there enough income coming from rental properties or other sources in a general sense to really obviate the need to sell much of your kind of core equities, the core positions in your portfolio? Yeah, that's a good question. We didn't really get into the details of our like decumulation. I guess long story short the first year like 2020 to 2021 we were just like living off of like post tax like brokerage accounts and then the rental income and then we were gonna start doing some more like complicated drawdowns from investments but we ended up selling one of the houses because like it had just appreciated so much but had also kind of started to become a headache to manage for a variety of reasons.

1:02:15To rent, it was not the 1 % rule ideal. It was not the ideal situation. It was like the house was so nice that you could only rent it to like really rude, fancy people. So we sold that house and then have basically been living off the proceeds of the sale of that house. And then those are now like running out. And that's the point where I was like, I forgot to do the Roth conversion ladder because that's when this would be coming in. I meant to start that five years ago. There's almost like a like a like if you could go back, you would have taken this tax tax free capital gain, use that low income year to do a bunch of Roth conversions and then started withdrawing from from that point.

1:02:56And that opportunity was missed to a certain degree. But it clearly did not blow up your your whole plan here. Yeah, it's fine. We had a lot of like really low income years and we should have done the Roth conversions in those years. Now that he is working and I'm working part time, We're actually about to meet with, is it Tangerine or Nectarine? The financial. Nectarine. It sounds like that's a great, like, like, like, that's almost like a great plug for financial planning. Like if there was a financial planner that knew what was going on here and you'd, you'd had that relationship that it sounds like that could have like, like you, it actually made it several tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollar difference over a long period of time.

1:03:35So yeah, better late than never to get like a good plan in order. You know, we have I'm I'm 38 and he's 42. So if all goes well, you know, we've got another like 50 or 60 years. So, you know, we need to like get a good plan in place. I love it. I think that's a great place to wrap up the journey here. You guys sound like you're doing so phenomenally well. Thank you guys so much for reaching out all those years ago and then following up six years later. And thank you because we couldn't have done it without fire. And that's why I emailed again, because it was this like episode where you were like, oh, people are like fire is dead and like fire doesn't work anymore.

1:04:13And why should you even pursue fire? And you sounded kind of sad about it. And I was like, I got to reach out and say, Scott and Mindy, thank you so much. Like the fire community, all of this information changed our lives. We went from being like middle class trap, like miserable parents with a baby to like he's just doing this amazing work now. And that's why I wrote again to you guys just to be like, FYI, things turned out great. And it's thanks to you. Thank you so much. And whoever's listening, I've gotten a number of emails like this over the years. And I try to respond to every single email.

1:04:47I probably missed a few over them over the years there. But if I've ever responded and, you know, it's just such a joy to hear a follow up a few years later in there or to hear if something's not going well. And if there's an issue there that none of this is financial or legal advice. It's all entertainment purposes only or questions that I pose typically. But it's just so great to hear back from that. So please email me at Scott at BiggerPocketsMoney.com. That's my new email address. I'm Scott at BiggerPocketsMoney.com. If we've ever conversed, I'd love to hear an update out there. And thank you so much, Sam and Carolyn, for doing that here.

1:05:18And for any listeners who are on the fence about coming on the show, it was so much fun. And it forced us to get all of our current finances in order and write down our story, which was something we'd been meaning to do. So like huge plug for coming on the show if you're thinking about it. All right, Sam and Carolyn, thank you so much for your time today. This was a really fun story. I heard a lot of aspects of my own mirrored in yours and a lot of aspects of other people's FI journey mirrored in yours. And I'm so thankful that you had time to come on the show and share with us. Is there any place people can find you online?

1:05:52We're not actually super online, but I would say if you wanna find us anywhere, come support the economy in Western North Carolina. It was hit really hard by Hurricane Helene, but it is open for business now. Come shop, you know, Western North Carolina local businesses. But no, we're not like really online. We don't have a blog. Get in a canoe and go find a brewery. That sounds like a lot of fun, really. I'll connect with you so you can be my brewery guide. Okay, thank you again so much. And we will talk to you soon. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That was Sam and Carolyn. And that was a really fun story.

1:06:27Scott, I have never heard of anybody going to Canada for dual citizenship as a way to hedge against our healthcare costs here in America. But as you and I have been covering, healthcare costs in America are going up. The Senate has decided not to extend the additional tax credits that people in the fire community were taking advantage of. So this is going to be a real concern for a lot of people. I really enjoyed this story. I love their FI journey. It's reminiscent of so many other people's FI journeys. Spend less than you earn, invest intelligently, and look towards the future. I'm so amazed that they did it, right?

1:07:07Like they emailed me and I can tell from my email. I was like, I don't know about moving to Canada. That's pretty hardcore commitment to FIRA. But it worked for them. They've lived their best life for the last six years. And I hope a lot more people do those things. I think it's still too much for me to consider doing. I'm a homebody and like being here in Colorado. I like my routine and where I'm at in my community. And so I don't think I'm going to be doing that. And I'd rather, you know, I decided, you know, and I had the privilege of having the job at BiggerPockets to build wealth that would allow me to just do that here.

1:07:40But I think it's going to be an option that will open more people's eyes to the power of geographic arbitrage. I also want to call out that the mindset is so huge in this scenario. Again, I can relate to this so much as an employee starting out of my career. And then later on when I was earning higher income at my CEO job, it's very scary to contemplate doing these other things to earn additional income or even sometimes basic household maintenance or, you know, playing around with the systems in your property or those types of things. it can be a little hard to conceive of if you are a reasonably well-compensated employee who's been at it for a long time.

1:08:16That's your specialty. That's what you're good at. And it's hard to imagine other ways to make money. But even if you just do it a little bit on the side on a part-time basis, and you finally hit one thing that earns a little bit of income that's reasonably material to your situation, I think that flips the script for your brain for the rest of your life, potentially, that makes a lot of these things more accessible. And that's why I'm such a big believer and such a big proponent of these side hustles of trying to get that entrepreneurial itch scratched alongside your core journey to fire, where you are going through all the best practices from a tax advantage account perspective, because I think it will open your mindset and it'll make you feel able to do what Sam and Carolyn did here on their journeys much, much earlier in life.

1:08:59And even if it doesn't get you retired at 32 or retired at 33, it will still get you so much more as a person who is understanding your financial situation, who is working towards this goal. I would encourage people who are like, oh, they did it when they were so young. That's not relevant to me. Listen to the rest of the story because the story has so many lessons that you can teach. And it's so similar to so many other stories that I've heard. One last thing I got to call out here because we just didn't talk about it enough is when they aligned on the vision for their life and aligned around the goal of FIRE.

1:09:34I think that's something that is so powerful is to just have some kind of artifact, something written down that says, here's what we want in life that describes it. There's a template for this at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash resources if you want to use ours, but it can be a piece of paper. It can be a Word document. Just type that out with your significant other in a setting where you're both proactive, happy and excited. And I think that will just be such a powerful, simple exercise to align on goals like FIRE or some variation of it that accompanies building wealth and living the best life that you want to live in the next couple of years.

1:10:15I think it's so overlooked. And that was so powerful. That was, I think, a huge catalyst for their journey that we didn't discuss deeply enough. Yeah, Scott, your goal setting document is fantastic. Carl and I are still working on it because it takes a lot of thought. We know what we want. But actually articulating it can take a little bit more than just, you know, oh, this is how I want my life to live. And we're on the same page. And I think it's a really powerful document, even if you're, you know, especially if you're not on the same page. Get yourselves aligned together. Because having somebody, having a partner on this journey makes it so much easier than having an adversary on this journey.

1:10:52That's, again, just free to download. You don't have to give us your email address or anything. We would welcome you to give us your email address if you want to get an update every week from us. but that's at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash resources. You can just download that either in a PDF or as a Google Doc. Oh, hey, Scott, if our listeners would like to improve their financial situation, that document is part of the 31-Day DIY Financial Challenge. So Scott and I put together 31 days of free emails that we send to you every single day, giving you a task to work on your finances so that you can get a better handle on your finances and elevate them to the next level.

1:11:33And you can sign up for that email challenge at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash 31 days. Mindy's being very generous here with this. Biggerpocketsmoney.com slash 31 days, the number three, the number one days. Mindy put this together. This is a really incredible resource and plan here. I have not completed all of the steps in the 31 day challenge personally. So I look forward to actually getting my personal finances in safe here, like I host a podcast on personal financial responsibility as part of this challenge myself. So thank you for putting this together, Mindy. I'm looking forward to it personally here.

1:12:07And if you're listening to this later down the road, you can still go to biggerpocketsmoney.com slash 31 days and sign up and it'll automatically start. All right, Scott, should we get out of here? Let's do it. That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen saying cheers, dears.