I Retired Early in My 40s WITHOUT Withdrawing from My Portfolio! | Life After FIRE

0:00From a FI aspect, I mean, really, it was just a matter of keeping in the 4 % rule. And if I could meet that 4 % rule with just my investment accounts alone, then I felt safe. Okay, I can leave work. I can just live off of what my real estate's bringing in. I have other side hustles too, just because no rest for the wicked, man. I just love doing things.

0:29Hi there, I'm Mindy Jensen. And I'm Carl Jensen. And this is the Mindy and Carl on Life After Vi show, where we talk about what happens after you reach financial independence. Why do we call this show Life After Fi? Because we're talking about and talking to people who are living their best life after reaching financial independence. And today we're speaking with Chris Luger from Heavy Metal Money. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you. I've met you a ton of times. I've heard a bit about your story at Camp Fi when you spoke.

1:00Was it last year or the year before? Yeah, it was last year at Camp Fi Rocky Mountain. Camp by Rocky Mountain. Let's get back into your money story. Just very briefly, I'd like to know how you reached financial independence. So what was your job? What was your savings rate? Let's talk all the nerd money things. Yeah, just really quickly. So I discovered all of this back in like 2015 when I got divorced. So when I got divorced, my wife at the time handled all the money discussions, all the money things. Like I didn't really even log into the accounts. I had no idea where the money was going or whatever.

1:41And I was working as an enterprise systems engineer for a software company. At that time, it was a locally based software company here in Minneapolis. And basically discovering this personal finance community and the financial independence community, I quickly learned that, hey, wow, when you're intentional with your money, you can retire in like 10 years. And that was just a super crazy concept for me. Like I had no idea people could do that. And so then because of that, I just, I started, you know, educating myself, reading tons of books, listening to tons of podcasts. And that led me to, like you mentioned, I worked my way up to paying off all my debt.

2:26I was able to save and invest nearly 70 % of my income for about seven years or so. And that really accelerated my path to financial independence. And around that same time, I also got involved in real estate. And so I started investing in real estate as well. And I bought my first property in 2017. And then I worked my way up to, I had 10 rental properties and that's when I decided to hang it up and leave corporate America. First of all, heavy metal money does not refer to the actual heavy metals. Those are like cadmium, mercury. That would be bad. Those are toxic. And I assume you didn't discover financial independence from Metallica or Megadeth, which is what heavy metal, heavy metal money is really a reference to.

3:14I'm curious, what was your entry point to financial independence? How did you discover this? So heavy metal money is kind of a, I took my two passions and kind of smashed them together. When I started learning and discovering back in like 2015, 2016, and I started Googling literally like how to budget. And I first discovered Mr. Money Mustache. I discovered Dave Ramsey. And I followed Dave Ramsey really closely like the first year or so. I mean, really just paying off all my debt and focusing on, you know, paying off my truck, paying off my house, that type of thing. So that's really how I discovered it was, you know, just really starting to Google how to budget, how to manage money for the very first time.

3:58And and then it was it was reading some of those other books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And then the ABCs of Real Estate Investing. And I started to realize, wow, money can be used a different way. You know, I've got one more follow up. You mentioned David Ramsey and Mr. Money Mustache. Those two have a little bit different viewpoint. I remember Mr. Money Mustache even wrote a post about Dave Ramsey, and it wasn't unkind, but it wasn't kind either. Where do you land between those two? That's a great question. I am definitely, I'm a student of everyone, right? I want to learn different points of view, different takes in all sorts of different areas and kind of formulate my own, I guess, my own plan, my own strategy.

4:49And so that's kind of like what I do. I think Dave Ramsey is great for those people that are just starting out on their money journey. It definitely helped me. But then I quickly realized, I'm like, well, I'm going to use credit cards. I'm going to leverage these points. So there's definitely some things that I don't really agree on. But I also agree on living super frugally. I like some of the things that Mr. Money Mustache talks about as well. So yeah, I just kind of make up my own rules based on everything that I learned. And it changes, right? It evolves along the way. So we're human. We can do that.

5:24We can change our mind. Yeah, I think that's a super great answer because both of those guys are right. Dave Ramsey has lots of good information. And so does Mr. Money Mustache. It just depends what your temperament is and some of the beliefs towards money. For example, we do not believe in paying off cheap that we have a mortgage that we could pay off, but we do not. And yeah, that's all I have to say about that. Chris, you said that you had 10 rentals at one point. How many do you still currently own? Yeah, right now I'm down to five. I have five residential properties. And that's because I'm involved in a much larger commercial project.

6:02So I needed to basically sell some of those properties to leverage the cash for this larger project. So I'm migrating away from residential properties to this larger new construction commercial project. I'm learning along the way. We've been talking about it since 2023. And there's been lots of delays, changes, scope creep. But it's fun. I'm learning along the way. It's super awesome. I'm excited. We break ground here June 1st. And yeah, I got the loan out for underwriting this week. And it's going to be a fun project for sure. Is this a solo project or do you have partners with you investing in this?

6:47Yep. So a friend of mine, we're partnered 50-50 in the project. So it was just too big for me to bite off on my own. I tried. I attempted. But I would need such a large cash position after talking to a few different lenders. And so, you know, I tried to leverage the equity I had in my existing portfolio. And, you know, a lot of the lenders, commercial lenders are like, well, because it's a non-owner occupied project, like I don't have, you know, I'm not going to be in the facility. There's just a lot of, I guess, limitations on what they'll use as far as my equity. So they wanted a larger cash position.

7:26So I went to my friend that he actually brought me the deal because he originally owned the land this is going to go on. And he's like, hey, do you want to do this? And I was like, sure, if you kind of help me, coach me along the way. I've never done it before. And after me trying to do it on my own, I just went back to my friend and said, hey, will you partner on this with me 50-50? And he's like, sure. So luckily, it's cool because I feel in a really good position because he's done this before. and he's really been kind of like a mentor for me as well. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. Do you have a partnership agreement in place?

8:00We do. Oh, thank you. They say never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. Like that's in court and this isn't actually court, but I was like, oh, I guess we could edit it out if you're like, no. No, we absolutely do. Yep. That makes my heart sing because everybody's all friendly at the beginning because you're gonna make so much money and everything's gonna go perfectly. And at the end, a lot of times friendships are challenged or even like kind of broken because you had different definitions or expectations than they did. And, you know, one of you wants to sell and one of you wants to keep it and neither one of you can afford to buy the other one out and yada, yada, yada.

8:37So I'm just very happy to hear that you have a partnership agreement in place. Let's go back to your residential real estate, the five units that you have. How much income does that generate in terms of your monthly or annual spending? I basically bring in from my existing rental properties about$6 ,000 a month. That's the disbursement for my management company. So I have a full-service management company that manages all my properties. I self-managed when I had like up to three. And I will tell you, it's just a lot of work. And once you get management in place, you really can scale. And it's a lot easier to scale and grow your rental portfolio.

9:18But yeah, so right now, I mean, now my expenses are relatively low. The notes that I have on my existing properties, one is paid off in full. And then the other ones, I do have notes on them. But again, they're all at like 4 % rate. And so, yeah, the rents I get, that's kind of what I'm using to live on. That was kind of my plan, right? Like when I left work, when I quote retired, I was going to use the income from my real estate to pay my bills. Okay, Chris. So you became financially independent. Was that based on your rental house portfolio or was that based on your investment portfolio or both?

10:01I would say both because I looked at two different things. I looked at what I had in my retirement accounts and my brokerage accounts, right? But I also looked at my overall net worth. And so definitely real estate helped me accelerate that net worth for sure. But I will say from a FI aspect, I mean, really, it was just a matter of keeping in the back of my mind the 4 % rule. and if I could meet that 4 % rule with just my investment accounts alone, then I felt safe in that, okay, I can leave work and I can just live off of what my real estate's bringing in. I have other side hustles too just because no rest for the wicked, man.

10:48I just love doing things. But yeah, so I think – did that answer your question? I kind of forgot. It did. I find people like you pretty interesting because in my experience, Since Mindy and I have been in this community for like 12 years now, and most people side on the side of real estate or investment. And I call people like you polyinvestorists. It's a hybrid model, Carl. It's a hybrid model. I use both. No judgment here. However you want to live your life, Chris, that's not up to me. So you mentioned real quick one follow-up. You mentioned the 4 % rule return for your investments. Do you follow a rule for real estate?

11:29Some people want to get the 1%. Do you do that, or is that out the window? That's out the window. I mean, the 1%, there's no way I could ever do that here. All my properties are here in Minneapolis, and yeah, you can't do it. Just curious, do you care to tell us what your net worth is when you retired versus what it is now? And I'd also be curious to know how you determined your spending. How did you know what amount you needed to retire with? When I started kind of thinking about what life's going to be like after I retire, I basically made my own spreadsheet that was my cost of living and retirement.

12:12And I had a couple of different columns. And I had one that was bare bones, minimum expenses, right? This is just like insurance, taxes, food, gas, like just no frills, man. Just like this is the minimum I need to live. Then I had another column that was like, okay, well, I'm going to go out to eat sometimes. I'm going to go to some concerts. I'm going to, you know, buy that collectible like Iron Maiden vinyl or whatever, you know? And so I'm going to do that. And so I started really tracking that for a while and I got super down. I mean, really nerdy. I had a bunch of nested, you know, nested rows in there.

12:53Like, you know, I mean, digging into every single utility and what I had spent over like every month over years and kind of building averages and that type of thing. And so I determined that I'm like, man, I have very little expenses, right? I have no mortgage. I'm a single guy. My, you know, my utilities are relatively low. And so, man, I can live literally off of like$2 ,500 a month. Like it's super cheap, kind of a guideline. Like it was like ballpark. Let's see like where I hit, but I knew I wasn't going to be drawing down on those accounts. I wasn't going to be drawing down on those accounts until, you know, 65 or something.

13:37So I kind of, I didn't really even, you know, I used it as kind of a target to hit. But then once I made the decision, I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to use those accounts for another 15 years. So I'll just worry about my rental income right now. AutoTrader is powered by auto intelligence, the hyper personalized way to buy a car. AutoTrader's tools sync with your exact budget and preferences to tailor the online car shopping experience totally to you. Budgeting lets you input your info to see listings in your price range. Search inventory helps zero in on your dream car. You can choose from new or pre-owned, the style of the car and features like engine size, color, all the way down to whether you want a trailer hitch.

14:21Go ahead and get picky. Don't worry about scrolling endlessly. AutoTrader, powered by auto intelligence, only shows you vehicles based on what you can afford and what you want. And pricing shows you which listings are the best deals. So you can feel like you're winning the negotiation without negotiating. You can even choose how to close the deal online, at the dealership, or a little bit of both. AutoTrader, powered by auto intelligence, makes the process of buying a car less of a process. Try it today. Visit autotrader.com to buy your perfect ride. Hey, business owners, we know you know the importance of maximizing every dollar.

14:56With the Delta SkyMiles Reserve Business American Express card, you can make your expenses work just as hard as you. From afternoon coffee runs to stocking office supplies and even team dinners, you can earn miles on all your business expenses. Plus, you can earn 125 ,000 bonus miles for a limited time through October 29th. The Delta SkyMiles Reserve Business Card. If you travel, you know. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Offer ends October 29th, 2025.

15:23Mutine. Adjective. Used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained. one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules, but behave as if they do not exist. Muteen, the new fragrance by Miu Miu, defined by you. For people who are listening who are like, there's no way you can live off of$2 ,500 a month. Yes, you really can. And you can live a nice life. You're just not living. What does Paula Pant say? You can afford anything. You can't afford everything.

16:05You're not doing everything, but you're making you're making decisions based on I spend approximately twenty five hundred a month and now you're making six thousand from your rental. So if you have, you know, that Iron Maiden vinyl come out and you're like, I need to spend more this month, you've got it covered because your income is generated. You're generating so much more income than you actually need. I did a quick math. Twenty five hundred a month is seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in investable net worth per the four percent rule. When you retired, what was your exact exact ish net worth number?

16:43Net worth number was like two point two. Okay. Stock market. I'm sorry. Yep. Stock market, I was at like 1.3. Okay. So a little bit over, but not grotesquely over. Oh, well, I guess you're almost at 1.5, which is 2X. So, okay. Did you have, what year did you retire? Last year, 2024. That's interesting. I don't know if you've been paying attention lately, but the stock market's a little squidgy. It is. Yeah. And I think that's the thing is, and I know a lot of people are, like, I went out to lunch with my uncle the other day and he was like, oh my gosh, I wish I would have sold this. And he's kind of in a panic, right?

17:23But I think that's one thing that you can hedge if you have real estate. Like I have income producing assets, right? So I can weather the volatility of the market because I have real estate. And even if the real estate market, if there's a little bit of a dip or values go down or whatever the case is, I'm still getting rents. People need a place to live. Again, that's the way I think. People need a place to live. I have these properties and I provide these quality properties where I'm getting pretty comparable rents for the area. So I know that I still have these income-producing assets, even if the market starts to be volatile and has these drops.

18:16And like I mentioned before, knowing that I'm not drawing on that right now, I have the runway. I have the time for that to come back and eventually, hopefully, make, again, additional gains. Do you have anything in a bond portfolio? What does your portfolio look like? It's still like a 60-40 right now. 60-40 bonds or 60-40 stocks real estate? 60-60 stocks. And 40, what's 40? Bonds, yep. Oh, bonds. Okay, so you did retire per the 4 % rule with the 60-40 bond portfolio. Now that's your equity or your, what is the right word for that? That's not your real estate. Like you just added up 100%. So that's just 100 % of your - My portfolio is 60-40.

19:00But what about your real estate? What percentage of your net worth is real estate? You know, almost half, like a little over half probably. Okay. Yeah, of that entire 2.5 or whatever. I mean, before, a few days ago, it was up to 2.7, which was like, wow. Yeah, we live in interesting times. I saw the, we actually don't have any bonds, but I saw the 10-year bonds like spiked like crazy, I think, last night around midnight or something like that. Chris, is that you selling bonds? I know yields are inverse and all that. So Chris, did you double your bonds like around midnight two days ago? No, I did not.

19:38Okay. It must've been the Chinese then. In all seriousness, I mean, these last few days, I've just really been kind of like eyes closed, ears closed, not really paying attention. I don't want to get wrapped up because, you know, I really, I start to, I would get emotionally like, it really starts to take a toll on you. Like, I mean, during COVID, like for instance, you know, the news can be, it can hurt you, man. Like it causes stress. It causes, I mean, I was like feeling really bad. I mean, I had to go to therapy. I mean, COVID, I thought the world was ending. Like all my friends were going to die.

20:16Like I didn't know what was going on. Right. I mean, I saw a video on TV of like refrigerated semi trucks with stacks of dead bodies. And you know what I mean? I was like, what's happening? And it was really scary. And so I got to start to limit what I take in. And so now I'm trying not to pay attention to the news. I don't want to see the doom and gloom that's out there. Yeah, the news is BS. That is a valuable life lesson right there. What's the biggest difference between what you thought retirement was going to be and what it's really like? Carl, that is a great question. I guess I knew I wasn't going to just flick a switch and things were going to be okay.

20:54I actually did go through some challenges. Like after about six months of being retired, you know, there's really no structure. And, you know, I have to build my own structure. But I thought, you know, I had all these things I wanted to accomplish and I had to run 100 miles an hour. I thought, OK, I'm going to, you know, leave leave my corporate job on a Friday and Monday. I'm going to hit the ground running and I'm going to make all the all this progress. right? Cause I had a lot of things I wanted to accomplish, right? There's a lot of things I want to do. You know, I want to keep building my, my blog and my brand, and I want to help educate people with financial literacy and, you know, you know, on savings, spending, investing and, and different ways to earn money and things like that.

21:41I'm going to continue to do that. But I also started a nonprofit a few years ago and I want to make a bigger impact with that nonprofit. There's just, there's a lot of things I wanted to do and it was challenging. Like I wasn't making the progress I thought I was going to be making. It was starting to be scary. And actually I started to, um, um, I actually was in Milwaukee. I was at a music festival in Milwaukee and I had like a panic attack and I didn't know what was happening. And I had to like get a plane. I had to fly home early and I was like, what's going on? What's happening to me? You know?

22:08And I, so like, and it was one of those things. And I will say a good, really good friend of mine in the five community, Kevin Sebesta, one of my, one of my really good friends that I've met probably three, four years ago, but him and I have gotten really close, really cool dude. And I remember I called him and I was just like, man, I don't know what's going on. And I love this analogy. He said, like, when you retire, when you leave work, it's going to take some time. And he goes, think of retirement of the, of think of it like a manual five-speed transmission. And I left work thinking that I was just all the way in fifth gear, right?

22:42I was going 100 miles an hour. It's like, that's not how it works. You have to ramp up to it. You have to like, okay, you're going to spend six months or a year in first gear. And then you're going to spend another six months and then you're going to go up to second gear, third gear. And then eventually after a few years, well, yeah, then you can be running in all cylinders. You're in fifth gear, ready to hum, right? And so I just love that analogy. And so that's one of the things where I didn't expect that to happen and it was scary. But again, this community has been great and connecting with people.

23:20Other people in the community has been really wonderful for me. And I think it's really helped me get through like the last six months for sure. Yeah, it's a it's a difficult transition. I like the manual transmission. And what I would say about myself real quick is I was I always operated in level six and I had the car redlined. And as soon as I stopped working, I just kept on working and kept it at that whole thing. So I would like to learn how to put the car in neutral and coast for a while. Like the same qualities that make us eligible for early retirement. We're pretty determined. We work hard.

23:56A lot of smart people in this community. Those qualities do not serve us in retirement much of the time. I would also like for you to learn to put the car in neutral. This may get a lot of, I may hear the, it's going to come out of the woodwork now because we, I, I kind of butt heads with a bunch of people in the personal finance community. I have a financial advisor and I pay fees. I pay assets under management, right? A percentage of my portfolio, but I feel confident. I feel more confident. I feel, um, I talk with him, I've been working with him for years. And what I like about it too, is that it's a more holistic conversation.

24:43We talk about more than just my portfolio. He analyzes, gives me, you know, talks about my real estate, talks about my kids, talks about my estate, talks about taxes, talks about, you know, everything. I mean, and he will also like when I worked, when I was working and I had a 401k with my employer, you know, I could have him help me look at the funds available in my 401k. And those are funds that he's not managing, but he's helping me based on my goals, based on where I'm trying to get to. And I think that there's so much value in that. Yeah. And so I remember there was, I kind of really got, I don't want to say bullied, but it was, it was a couple of years ago at some of these FI events and they were jokingly, they were like, well, you could be doing this on your own.

25:30Why are you paying someone and all this stuff? And jokingly, they're like, I'm going to take away your FI card because, you know, I'm paying someone. But you know what? I like the idea of having the confidence, not having to just rely and focus on it every day. I can have someone that I can talk to. And I talk to him all the time. I talk to him, you know, every couple of months. And, you know, he called me the other day talking about what's going on right now in the market. And so, I don't know, that's the way I feel. and I think there's nothing wrong with that if you can still hit your goals and it gives you peace of mind.

26:07And again, there are DIY investors that are doing it on their own and I think probably, you know, you guys are doing it on your own. I don't know, but I absolutely think you can do that. I just choose not to and I'm okay with it. So we had an episode with, just a couple of weeks ago with my friend Amy, who is also using a financial advisor and assets under management. And the comments were generally positive about that. I think the, the five community ebbs and flows in like what's acceptable. If you do have a problem with Chris using assets under management, financial planners, please email. We don't care at tell somebody else.com because it is Chris's money, not your money.