431 | Evolution of FI | Mad Fientist

24:38Spend your money as you see fit. Like for me, it's abhorrent to spend money on fancy cars. Like that's just not my thing, right? But I get that there are people that want to buy a fancy car because they value it just like you value coffee, just like I value whatever it is, right? And that's fine. I think probably both of us eight years ago would not have said in our heart of hearts that that was fine. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but right. And like, I think that's really great that it has moved on a little bit. Yeah, no, definitely. But yeah, I think there's still room to go to. I know just me personally, like I know I'm still too frugal.

25:13Then I need to be in many ways and it's still a big struggle. So yeah, so anything that I say about fire in general is usually just me reflecting on my own personal situation because I'm not too in the scene these days. So I don't know what everyone else is doing. But yeah, I feel me personally, and I feel like I'm still a fire guy, is that even though I have progressed as far as relaxing a bit with my spending and being less frugal, I still feel like there's a lot of ways to go. And yeah, it's definitely something I'm still working on. Yeah, I think we're all working on some or many aspects of our own internal state.

25:53And yeah, I mean, I got to be honest, like, there are still times when I'll go to a restaurant, and the old me will kick in, which is you look at the menu, and you look at the top, the most expensive 20 % of things, and you throw it out immediately. And I know we both do that to some degree, but I think that has started to loosen for me. And you actually had a big part in this, which was on one of your early appearances here, it might've been the first time you were on the show, but maybe it was the second where, and I know this has changed and I do want to talk about your now free spending ways or more free spending ways, but you guys like tried to loosen up and you only wound up spending like two, three or$4 ,000 more in a year.

26:35This was years ago, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. But yet it added significantly to your quality of life. Huge, huge add to the quality of life. And that's still the case. So right now I'm trying to force myself to effectively double our spend. And I get nowhere close to it, nowhere close. But it does free me up when I'm making day-to-day decisions. And that's invaluable as well. So like, for instance, we were just having coffee in a cafe that we like. And I saw this little glass tea thing. and I was like I've been meaning to get into drinking loose leaf tea but all the contraptions are always such a pain to use because I wanted to up my tea game because my coffee I'll enjoy my coffee in the morning so much but I can only have like two cups of coffee before I get you know too much caffeine so I'm like but if I could have some really good tea then like I have more enjoyable morning beverages to consume and yeah I saw this like glass thing that was made for brewing loose leaf tea and it looked really well designed and I was like oh that could be really good and yeah it was expensive.

27:34It was like 15 pounds. But for a single mug, that's expensive to me. But I was like, well, I need to up my spending anyway. So don't worry about it. I'll just buy it. And if I don't like it, no big deal. It's 15 pounds. And I've got closer to my spending goal. And I love it. My morning tea is now almost as enjoyable as my morning coffee. So I've exponentially increased the enjoyable mornings of my life. And I have those for years to come. I could just have even more enjoyable mornings. And it was a 15 pound expense that I probably wouldn't have made had I not set that goal of like trying to double our spending.

28:07So things like that are just have been really good. And that going back to what you mentioned before that first interview where I said that coming to that realization that it didn't increase our spending, but like, yeah, two to$4 ,000 back then was huge because it just freed me up to enjoy like being out and about and being like, yeah, I'm going to get a coffee and I'm going to get lunch. And it's not going to matter that much because I'm not out that much. So like, yeah, it didn't really affect the bottom line that much, but it really made all of my days more enjoyable because it's like, oh, I'm out.

28:37Yeah, I'm going to get a to-go coffee and now I'm going to walk around and enjoy this coffee while I see the city or whatever. So yeah, it's very surprising. And I think it just goes back to the fact that, yeah, the big things are all covered. So these little ones really don't move the needle that much and don't require you to be so hyper-focused on them. and when you do relax a little bit, the enjoyment is really, really high for me, at least personally. Yeah, I love that. And that kind of echoes what I've seen in my own life is, yeah, like the big thing. So for me, the big three were always housing, car, and then food.

29:10But I think food, while it is certainly part of that big three, I'm going to put that to the side for a minute and just kind of say what you were saying before, which is once you have those big structural expenses set, you don't have to stress over the lattes or the mug in your case or whatever it may be. Especially when you're looking at, like in your case, okay, that was what, 18 US dollars, something like that, 17 to 20 US dollars. And you're going to have that for many, many years. And it's going to make every time you have tea better. Every person in the world would spend $17 on that. And that's the thing.

29:46I always used to shun stuff. One, because we move a lot. And And the reason we started to accumulate stuff in this place is because we thought this was going to be our last rental before we buy. So we're like, well, if we have to move it once, it doesn't matter because the next move we make, it'll just be somewhere we buy and then it'll just live there. So this is the first time in a long time that I've allowed myself to just like buy a bunch of stuff that I had been wanting to buy for years. And it's been amazing. I've loved it. I loved all the stuff because it's not like I'm just going out and just buying stuff I didn't think I needed or didn't know I needed or didn't know I wanted.

30:18It's not like I'm just going out shopping. It's like all these things have just been on a list of things to buy that I've been building over the years. And now I've finally just got the chance to buy them. And they're great because, yeah, it's like I get to enjoy them every single day and I've bought high quality stuff. So hopefully the last few years and yeah, I've never been a stuff guy, but now I'm totally a stuff guy because it's like I got this nice coffee mug that I love using. Like every time I use it, I'm just like, this is amazing. It was a gift from Jill. And yeah, like my coffee grinder, it's like I get the perfectly ground beans that then just makes my morning.

30:49so much better with the coffee that I make and all these musical instruments around me like they're so high quality that I love looking at them and every time I use them it's just like a joy so I'm totally on board the stuff train now and I love it and and yeah now I've run out of stuff so like last year I was able to get closer to my goal of doubling our spending because I was buying some stuff but now it's like I bought everything I wanted and yeah I haven't just like disintegrated into a consumer that just goes and spends every penny he has. It's like, okay, I have all the things I want. And if a new one comes around like that tea mug that I just saw, I'll buy it.

31:25But if not, I'm good. And not only am I good, I'm like, my days are so much better because I have all these amazing tools that I've been wanting to buy for years. Yeah, I want to kind of double back to the beginning. I want to ask about that doubling the spending. But at the beginning, obviously, I think for most people who get into the financial independence movement, it's frugality. There is some aspect of that because that's the low hanging fruit. And then kind of gets into maybe what Pete, Mr. Money Mustache said recently, which is the skill of spending. And I think both you and I really resonate with that.

31:58But now you're talking, okay, doubling spending. Well, I'm curious, how did you come up with doubling first off? But second, like when you have the structural expenses and that's a big portion of your of your current spending to actually double, are you talking about doubling your total life spending or just the amount that's - Total annual spending. Okay. So that's really like triple or quadrupling your discretionary spending. Yeah, exactly. Which I can't, like I hate waste. So it's been a challenge. So I've never succeeded. So this started a couple of years ago when I realized we weren't spending what the portfolio generates at like 3.5%.

32:37So like a super conservative withdrawal rate. We weren't spending that amount despite the fact that we had more income coming in. So we weren't even needing to spend it out of the portfolio. We had income coming in with Jill Working and some of my old software that I wrote pre-Mad Scientist that was generating money and Mad Scientist generating money. So I was like, okay, we really should be relaxing a little bit and not being so hyper-focused on spending. So the first thing I did was I stopped itemizing my monthly tracking because I was realizing that was affecting what I spent on. For instance, if I'd already spent a lot in restaurants and then I was going to go out to eat again, that made me want to not spend as much on that meal because I knew at the end of the month, my restaurant's budget would be over what it should be and things.

33:22So I was like, forget it. I'm not going to track individual things. I'm going to track every month just to see how much I'm spending total, but I'm not going to itemize it or any sort of categorize it. So that was helpful at first. But then I was like, okay, so now I need to make it the goal of spending what the portfolio could generate. So assuming that we were just drawing out of the portfolio, I was like, that's a good thing to set as my goal. Because then if we hit it and we love it, and then all the other income goes away, we could still maintain that lifestyle. You know what I mean? Okay.

33:54So this is like saying that income went down to zero in essence, and then just taking what your portfolio net worth was multiplying by 3.5%. Is that roughly? Okay. That's it. Exactly. So I was like, we have to at least spend that. Then that way, like I said, if all other stuff goes to zero, we could still maintain that spending and we wouldn't have to adjust our lifestyles. So before our son arrived, we actually traveled a lot for 2021 because one, we were pent up in 2020 and I hadn't seen my family. So 2021 was a lot of travel and it was so much fun because yeah like we were you know not worrying about finding the best deal for a hotel and we weren't connecting through four cities to get to our destination because like i was like i have to spend this money anyways and then we tried like um we tried business class we spent a little bit extra for premium economy to try that so we're doing a lot of experiments in that sense and that was fine so we we got closer to hitting that spend target then last Last year, like I said, we moved into this place and I bought a bunch of stuff and we still didn't hit the spend targets.

34:57We were even further away because I didn't need that much stuff. But again, it pushed me to not be like, well, I could get by with this thing. It was like, no, get the thing that you've wanted for three years and just get it even though you have a thing that sort of could work. And I was so happy that we did that too, because it was like, all right, now I have all this great stuff that's actually really, really nice to use. And I enjoy it every single day, rather than just having this thing that makes do. But now 2023, it's like, we're not traveling because we have an eight month old. We have all the stuff that either of us could think we'd want even for the baby.

35:29And so now two months into the year, like I've been tracking it on mints on my phone just to keep me more into it. And March started and I hadn't even spent what was left over from January. So I'm already like two months behind the spending. So for this year, the goal is to spend it potentially on these bigger trips and like have it maybe rather than just rent a two-bedroom Airbnb maybe rent a four-bedroom Airbnb my family can come and visit for a weekend and friends can come and visit and things like that so maybe it will get spent but whatever I don't spend I'm going to give away to charity because that's also something I'm trying to get better at because I'm still just like gripping these dollars with like what's the saying when it's like you're gripping so hard white knuckle yeah white knuckle yeah exactly I still feel like that but it's like I don't need to be like that anymore so I'm trying to so I'm saying that I if I don't spend it on us then give the rest of away so that's going to be a big challenge too because I know I'm not going to spend it all on us because I can't like I said I'm not going to buy a bunch of stuff that I don't need or yeah be inefficient and wasteful with money but yeah gonna give the rest of charity which is going to be a big challenge too because it's going to be like well you're not going to manage your that money as well as I am and like giving that trust to somebody else is going to be tough, but it's something I want to do.

36:44So yeah, it's been an interesting experiment and it's been all positives, I would say, just because like I said, it just gets me less concerned with these day-to-day decisions. It's like, I know I need to spend it anyway, so just spend it. Yeah, I like that. How there's a good outcome here no matter what, right? Because at the end, the money is going to go to charity. And I'm sure knowing you, you're going to find a very positive and effective charities. So I have no doubt about that. Don't let that overwhelm you, though, which could easily happen. But I think along the journey, it's as you're kind of describing is even if you don't hit these, I don't know that you could hit these spending targets, because like we're saying, you have to essentially quadruple your discretionary spending, which would be really, really, really difficult, like even going out of your way to spend that much.

37:32But I think it's more the mindset now of that, okay, I don't have to grip white knuckled every dollar or pound note or whatever it is. And I can now look for ways that this money can enhance my life. And I think that's kind of cool in the sense I know on that recent podcast, you talked about coffee and how into it you were and like you were struggling to, okay, I'm already getting the beans imported from the four corners of Scotland and I'm doing this and doing that. But then for me, to his great credit, had this suggestion of, okay, what if you found the best barista in Edinburgh and had them come to your house and give you a lesson for a couple hours?

38:13That's probably something you wouldn't have thought of, but as ridiculous as it sounds, almost like that tea cup that you bought, that is something that you can spend more than you would have normally felt comfortable on. And obviously that'll be many multiples to have somebody come into your house. And that'll be the gift that keeps on giving because then you have those skills forever and you cut that learning curve of Brandon, how many hours would you spend on YouTube hunting down knowing you and maybe still being uncomfortable as opposed to, wow, I have the best person in Scotland come to my house and do this.

38:44Yeah, exactly. So it's that it's trying to be pushed in ways that I didn't, I wouldn't have even thought of that, but it's something I'm definitely going to do. We were in the coffee shop yesterday and I'm going to approach those baristas in there because we had a great pour over coffee and that's what I make mostly and I'm really friendly with them. So next time I go in, that's what I'm going to say. I'm going to be like, hey, can I pay you, you know, whatever, 50 pounds to sit back here with you and just go through everything you do with pour over just to see where my method is off and different.

39:13And then I'll try to get, yeah, hopefully brew one that's just as good as yours. And then I can take that home with me. And like you said, I'll have that forever and that knowledge. So I'm looking for things like that. Like, yeah, I'm going to do a cook school. There's a really good restaurant that we love going to. And they have a cook school once, I think in the spring, they're going to kick that off again. So I'm definitely going to do that. And yeah, it's just trying to find these things that I wouldn't have even considered in the past because I would have been like, well, I'll just learn it on YouTube or whatever.

39:40But it is going to move the needle in a huge way. And then I'm going to have these skills that are going to make all my future meals and coffee is even better, which is going to make every day even better. But yeah, it takes Ramit, somebody who is a provocateur and is super funny. And that's why I needed to get him on the show, because I was like, I need you to give me the boots to actually make some changes and start thinking about this stuff differently. Yeah. And I think Ramit and certainly I are aligned on probably 98 % of things. But yeah, he likes to go out of his way, like I said, to kind of needle needle the fire movement.

40:13And I get it because there is that caricature of that ultra, ultra frugal person who is living a bad life to a large degree. That's how I see it from the outside looking in and just kind of wishing away X number of years to get to that point of fi. And I know we've talked about this many times of that's not how this works. And I think you probably are the best example of like, you don't just magically feel like a different or better person when that spreadsheet or when you log into Mint or personal capital or whatever, and you see a number and you realize I'm at five, like your life doesn't magic.

40:49It's not like a zero or one thing. You really have to work at life to a like, I don't know how else to say that, but like you need to work at what, what do you want your life to look like on a daily, weekly, yearly decade type basis, right? Oh, big time. Yeah. And you change. Like I'm a drastically different person than when I first did by. Obviously with a kid, I have way different priorities than I did back then. And I've, like I said, I ticked off a lot of the stuff I wanted to do back then with traveling and things like that. So yeah, I think it's a constant experiment and we're really bad at knowing what it is that we actually do want to do.

41:25And it's not only once you try it that you figure out, like I said, with the traveling full-time and things like that, I was like, Oh, I'm just tired. I don't want to see these things. I'd rather just like chill out and get healthy and go to the gym. and when you're on the road, that's tougher. So yeah, constant experimenting. And that's what this is for me. Like I definitely have not hit the goal of increasing the spending, but it has pushed me in the right direction. And yeah, this year's even going to be more of a challenge to push even further, but yeah, it's been great so far. And again, these are great problems to have.

41:55Like I realize how ridiculous is talking about stuff like this sometimes, but, but it is definitely a real problem with fire people because yeah, it's a real problem with me and a lot of people I know. Yeah. And I mean, ridiculous, yes and no, right? I don't think it's ridiculous. I think the essence of what we're saying is true for everybody, which is it is an evolution. You are going to change as a person. You have to be aware of that. I know of nobody that is the same person a decade later, not less, two or three decades later. So you're going to change. You have to be aware. These are all the skills that people in the financial independence movement, I think are really good at, right?

42:35It's like kind of surveying the world and saying, okay, there are rules. And this comes down to the micro stuff of the tax optimizations that you became so famous for and understanding the rules of the game. I think that actually opens our mind in a sense. This is how I look at it, at least. It's like, we understand there are rules and sure you could just be a rule abider and follow the letter, but you have to see that things are constantly evolving and you need to stay ahead of that and be constantly willing and nimble enough to change. And that's very true on the micro level of our money and the nuts and bolts.

43:11But then on the real importance of the macro level, your life is going to change. What you want from life is going to change. The circumstances of life are going to change no matter what. That's just the practical reality. And you have to be open-minded enough to realize that. Yeah, definitely. And I've been reading Die With Zero because a lot of people recommended it after my interview with Ramit and it's really good. And he just focuses on you're trying to maximize fulfillment and happiness, not money. And I think where I got into issues and where a lot of fire people, I think, who are similar to me maybe get into issues is like they're just they're optimizing for money.

43:49And it's hard to make that switch when you're so used to optimizing for money to then switch to optimizing for fulfillment and happiness. But really, that's the whole name of the game. So that's definitely what I'm focusing on currently and also struggling with as a frugal, naturally frugal person who has focused on numbers for so long. Yeah, it's hard. I think that Die With Zero book has been a real changing point for me as well. It's funny because when you said, instead of getting a two-bedroom Airbnb, get a four or five bedroom house, I actually thought immediately of Daiwa Zero. And that's interesting that you've been reading that too, is, hey, I have these prime spending years.

44:29I have this finite amount of time from, okay, now, like I said, in our early 40s, in our cases, to just look at a time. Okay, I want to climb Mount Fuji. I want to do something. Am I going to climb Mount Fuji at 80? No, I'm not. Am I going to do it at 75? No, probably not. 70, very unlikely. 65, yeah, maybe. So, okay, from 43 to 65, I've got to do that. That's short because it's always one more year, one more year. Oh, I'll do it next year. Well, those are running short. Or, hey, those people that used to be so important in my life who I haven't seen in 12 years or 17 years or whatever it may be.

45:08Okay. Figure out how many more 17 year cycles you have in your life. And you realize you're probably going to see them once or twice if you're lucky. So how do you go out of your way, obviously not family, but some type of friends from the past. Like, could you go out of your way and rent a 10 bedroom house in, I don't even know, it's somewhere simple, like the Outer Banks of North Carolina and say, hey, I'd love to invite your family down, totally free. We're renting the house. Let me know if you can come. That's exactly it. So that's all from Die With Zero. And also, yeah, my discussions with Ramit where, yeah, he's like your prime spending years are 40 to 60 and things like that.

45:43And that was exactly it it was like um it was actually from my thoughts about skiing because my ultimate quote-unquote retirement dream is to have a place in the mountain somewhere that i can yeah and with my son and go skiing all the time and sort of have this like local community with all this fun outdoor activities so this has been like you know i always thought we'll get through elementary school here in scotland and then we'll move to the states and that'll we'll live out that life. But you know, that's 10 years away and I'll be in my fifties and the die with zero stuff was really impactful because he's like, there's seasons for life and all these things.

46:17And, and yeah, the, the skiing is going to be a lot more fun now that I'm 41 than it is going to be when I'm 51. So yeah, I could put off and I could save up and I could, you know, buy this ideal mountain house when we decide to move back to the States and after my son's out of elementary school, but I've missed 10 key years that I could have been enjoying this outdoor lifestyle that I wasn't. So that's exactly where that decision came from. It's like, okay, I'm not hitting the spending goal with just day-to-day spending, but I could take some of that money and instead of buying an Airbnb, renting an Airbnb for a week for the two of us or the three of us now, I could instead rent an Airbnb for a month that's maybe four bedrooms and then invite It's family and friends that I want to spend more time with that I can't and then have a really fun winter doing those things that I envisage doing when we own our mountain house.

47:11But yeah, doing it now and not waiting when I'm maybe going to be too old to actually enjoy the skiing as much as I would now. So that's exactly it, Brad. That's the exact thinking that went behind all of that decision. And that's what we're planning for this winter, actually. So I think we're going to rent an Airbnb for a month in Stowe. I'm going to get an Epic Pass, which will then let me ski anywhere else around the country. So I think we're going to meet up and do like a West Coast ski trip with some friends. But also we're going to be based in Stowe and have hopefully a lot of family and friends come up to visit and ski with us this winter, which I'm super excited about.

47:47And actually on my other laptop is the Epic Pass is just loaded up, getting ready to be bought. So it's actually in motion. And Jill's already gave the thumbs up. so so we're good to go that is awesome that is so cool so stow in vermont yeah yeah cool i used to go to stradden mountain when i was growing up but i've never been yeah no uh so we over the last three years actually right before covid and then last year we did two big ski trips in the purpose of the ski trip was to find a mountain town to quote unquote retire to and um i have a big mad find his post coming out about it maybe this year but maybe next winter depending on how how it goes um you know me you're the only person that has a post two years in advance that's amazing that'll be like my one post of the year so yeah one podcast and one post exactly that's it so yeah it takes a lot of a lot of motivation to get these out but yeah it's coming out sometime but it's all for that it was trying to find these mountain destinations and yeah we although we loved being out west the current conclusion is like yeah we could buy a mountain house out west but we could buy an even nicer one in vermont for half the price and then have all this money to spend to take west coast trips but it's also closer to my family it's closer to jill's family everyone that comes is going to have less jet lag they're going to not have to deal with altitude sickness and all these other things that seem like it could be a way better decision so that we're going to test this winter so we're used to skiing in vermont because we used to live in Vermont.

49:20But it'll be interesting to live in Stowe or near Stowe and try it out as we would if we were going to buy a place for that reason. So yeah, it's again, another experiment, but one that I'm really excited about. Yeah, that sounds amazing. And you might actually find similar to your travel that, hey, we love travel, but maybe this one month a year is actually good enough. Exactly. Which is super cool in the sense that, like you're saying, we don't have to wait until where X number of years or after Jill stops working and we moved back to the States or whatever the excuses to large. And I don't mean excuse in the negative sense, but like the life circumstance.

49:58And it's like, okay, we can start doing this right now. Get all the benefit from it when we're still young and able and we want to do this. And you might say at the end of that month, oh, wow, I skied 27 in the last 30 days. Like that's fantastic. Let's go somewhere else now, which is neat in the sense that it's like a mini experiment. You get to try it out. There's no downside other than the rental, which who cares, right? To your point. And you're going to have all your family and friends up there. It's going to be amazing. And it might be 98 % of the benefit of having a second house or a ski house without all the freaking costs of that thing all year long, you know?

50:35Exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah, no, precisely. And that's, I imagine that's what we will find. We'll be like, yeah, a month was up plenty of time. And this was even better because we were able to tailor the house exactly to our needs. So if we know that three families are going to be there at any one time, we could get a four bedroom house or five bedroom house. And, and yeah, you get the flexibility of, and then maybe next year nobody's going to be able to join us. So we'll get one with a steam room or a sauna or a jacuzzi or something just for the two of us. And it's way more flexible and it's not putting it off because I was so close to just putting it off until, yeah, that just planning and planning and planning until that we find the perfect town and we find the perfect house and we buy it.

51:12But yeah, we could be in our 50s and not really into skiing or maybe want to be somewhere warm then because we'll be older. So who knows? It was actually Ramit's stuff that pushed me to that point. He had sent me his I Will Teach You Be Rich journal and I was going through that. And I think one of the prompts was like, well, okay, yeah, you have this ideal life that you laid out in these previous pages. But how could you just do that now? And I was like, oh, yeah, I could just do an Airbnb for a month and get all that benefit. And yeah, if we love it and we felt like we needed more time, then we could do an Airbnb for two months.

51:44And not have to pay for the house the other 10 months, right? Exactly, right. So how can I get more benefit from this, more options, both now and every subsequent year and not have this anchor of a second house hanging around our necks? Exactly. Yeah. So it was game changing and I'm just super excited about the plan and I will write about it eventually because yeah, it's going to be this massive retire to the mountains post that I have planned. But yeah, super excited. Nice. So January 2025, we'll all keep an eye out for the fact. No promises. Don't put pressure on me. Oh, man. So yeah, I mean, I think we've done a pretty good job of, even though we're talking about our scenarios kind of on the other side of FI, what hopefully has come through mostly here is the mindset.

52:30And I think that mindset can take hold from day one of FI, which I think maybe both of us, you to a slightly more degree, but I was right there with you, didn't have the healthiest mindset when we first found FI. And I wanted to kind of double back to that as a way to wrap up the episode here is I still think, and I will hold to this forever, that really when people are getting started with FI, the simplest way to get started. Now, I always say the very first thing you need to do is get everything down on a sheet of paper or Excel or Google Sheets or whatever. You need to just be honest with yourself.

53:08Where are you today? But once you get past that, the first kind of action step, I think for most people, it is going to be cutting of some sorts, cutting something out. It doesn't have to rise to the level of deprivation. And I think that's very unhealthy. And I think we both come to that conclusion and are trying to shout that from the rooftops. But I think if we're honest with ourselves, there is a large part of the beginning steps of FI when most people are either at a point of zero where they're saving nothing every month, or they're going into the red every month, and therefore they need to do something quick.

53:44And a lot of that means getting some aspect of your spending under control based on, okay, what do I actually value? Am I using this? Am I just spending this money mindlessly because I've always done it? And again, I will go to my grave saying like, that is really important. So people can make fun of us all we want for being fire people. I reject that wholly. I think it's ridiculous because you need to take action to make your life better. Clearly, the spending is the low hanging fruit. Of course, you want to raise your income. Of course, you want to get more skills and grow that gap between what you're earning and what you're spending.

54:18And I think that's critical. But I mean, would you agree, Brandon, that like even we can look on the other side of and say, oh, maybe we went a little too far. but I still think there's great value in that as the beginning stages. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you have to do that at first. And yeah, this is talking from having done that for the last 20 years. And this is the other side of it where I'm like, okay, I need to think about actually using the money. Not how can I cut to remove things that I don't need, but yeah, how can I spend to enhance things that I do want to need? So it's the complete opposite side of the coin.

54:53And yeah, I completely agree that the first step is to take stock of your life and sort of think like, okay, well, where's this money going? That's not really providing that fulfillment or happiness. But on the flip side, it's also important, I think, to not wait until five to start adding these things in that you do want, because that's what I did. I was like, okay, I'm just going to cut everything I don't need. Yeah, really good at that. And then once I hit five, then I can start figuring out what I do need and want and where to spend. And I think that's the mistake I made. And yeah, first step, cut everything and try to figure out, like really take a look at your life and be like, okay, that's not providing value.

55:26So I can cut that out, cut that out. But then it's like, okay, what do I see my post-fi life looking like? And how can I live as much of that now? Again, with my example of the Airbnb, it's like, okay, yeah, I'm not in a life position to buy that mountain house yet, but I can try it. I can test it by doing Airbnb. be. So I think being able to do that before you hit FI and like figuring those things out is going to be really important too, because again, you don't know what you want and you don't know what you're really going to enjoy until you try it. You don't want to just put off living life until FI only to find that then you don't know how to live life because you haven't practiced at it.

56:02So both sides are equally important. But yeah, the first step I think is take the low hanging fruit and figure out what you can cut and then invest that money so that you have a lot more options throughout your entire life. Yeah. And to me that even though it seems so obvious right now, this wasn't obvious five, 10, 15 years ago at the beginning, the outset of the fire movement, right? It wasn't obvious at all because it was all about how do we get there as quickly as possible? I think so many people, and you see this now with Coastify and people talking about, okay, what if I change this up? What if I got to a point where I saved enough that that money is growing in the background and I'm just going to earn enough to cover my current annual spending and I'm just coasting on in.

56:47I'm using that as an example because I don't care, frankly, if somebody who's listening to this subscribes to that or any other of these flavors. What matters is at the end of the day, this is simple mathematically, right? We know how you get to five. We know whether we talk about a 4 % rule, a 3.5%, as you said, or a big earn at 3.2, whatever. We can argue about that. But in essence, you need to grow that gap of money that you're saving. And that money is going to be invested for most of us, low cost index funds, some type of real estate, whatever it is. Again, there's no dogma here, but that money is going to grow and it's going to get to a point where that portfolio can spit off enough money to cover your expenses.

57:28Okay, that's fine. But like we're saying, and this is the real critical part is don't wish away those years. A human lifespan is 80, 90, maybe plus years if we're lucky. So, okay, we're talking 90 years. Brandon, I mean, for most people, Phi is going to take 15 to 20, right? So, I mean, you're talking 20 % of someone's lifetime. To imagine wishing that away just to hyper drive yourself, okay, I got there in 12 years instead of 15, but those 12 years were terrible. That doesn't compute at all. No, and that was the big takeaway from the die with zero stuff too is it's like yes i could save the money that i'm going to spend on the stow trip and then i can have a three-month stow trip by the time i'm 55 because i would have invested that money but i'm going to get a lot more overall fulfillment from that trip now than i will having three of those in 2035 or whatever so that's something to keep in mind too because my only i don't i have very few regrets on how i pursued five luckily we were able to use points and miles to travel.

58:32Like we went to 50 countries. We saw the world when we were young and childless. And I'm so grateful for that. And I really didn't have any regrets other than a few like things that I can't do now, like a few missed bachelor parties with my buddies when I was a, you know, an idiot, 25 year old. And it was just like too expensive to fly back to the States to do that because I was going to fly back to the States for the wedding a month later. So I was like, I'm not going to fly back for the bachelor party, but it's like, they have stories that I'm not part of. And they come up even now when we're in our 40s.

59:03So a few of those missed events that I can't do now, because one, I wouldn't want to drink like an idiot like we would have back in when we were 25. So it's things like that. So it's keeping that in mind too. And I think that's why the message in Die With Zero about that is really important that I didn't think of when I was in the savings mode. It's like, okay, yeah, yeah, I could save this money and I could have three trips around the world when I'm 40, but actually when I'm 22 without kids and, you know, meeting up with friends who are also traveling the world, like that's going to be a lot more valuable.

59:36And that's the other thing that he says with in the Dive with Sierra book, you're also getting a memory dividend. So yes, you could save the money and have three trips, but that one trip is going to provide this memory dividend for, you know, 20 years that is also valuable. And yeah, you're going to have this connection with your friends that you wouldn't have if you saved up the money just to have three trips later. So yeah, long way of saying like, it's not all about money, which in my mind, it was all about money. And that was my core focus. Whereas it's a bit more complicated than that. It certainly is.

1:00:09And yeah, don't wish your life away over it just being about money. Those memory dividends, they're so critical. And yeah, I'm thinking back to like my, I guess, right when I graduated college, and I went backpacking around Europe with my brother. And like, I still remember that trip so vividly. It was just an amazing experience. And like, I didn't have the money at that point. I was getting ready to get started with the job. And obviously, I kind of saved probably 80 % to 95 % of my income thereafter. So I mean, that was an absolute no brain. I wish looking back that we spent more than whatever it was, three or four weeks in Europe.

1:00:42But I still remember whenever I talk about Bruges, Belgium, which is one of my favorite places on earth, like the hostel we were staying at and the bar that was attached to it and all the amazing Belgian beer. I can picture it. I can picture the windmills. It just just such a cool, cool thing looking back on. And I think, I think a lot of us can get caught up in the money and hopefully what we've got across over this episode is, yeah, the money is important, but it's actually important to provide you the freedom and flexibility to build the life you want, not just to look at as numbers on a screen of, of how wealthy I am.

1:01:20Like that serves you nothing. Absolutely. And again, it's all easier said than done. So yeah, just try things out and figure out what is important to you because it's going to be way different than what's important to me and brad and everyone else out there yeah and yeah don't beat yourself up over over past decisions and just try to experiment and evolve i think that's what we're all doing so brandon as always my friend good to see you congratulations on the on the new uh addition to the family thank you and obviously people know where to find you madfiantist.com the financial independence podcast but you could just search for madfiantist in any podcast player anywhere else uh your hanging out online these days i'm assuming maybe maybe twitter late at night yeah too much time on twitter still it just keeps dragging you back in it's terrible but um yeah no that's it and yeah the more more importantly mattfintist.com slash album because yeah the music stuff's more um um yeah super excited about this time so yeah follow me on spotify there and make me look cooler on spotify since there's follower accounts and stuff and maybe that'll help me book a tour or something at some point and do it all live.

1:02:24But yeah, no, that's everywhere. Yeah. Matt Fientist. I'm the only Matt Fientist out there. All right. I want to say publicly, when you have that first major performance, I'm going to fly in no matter where it is. So yeah, I'm going to follow you on Spotify right now. I can't wait to listen to the new single. And I was not blowing smoke. I really, really enjoyed the music last time I listened to it. So I'm excited. Well, the new single has a 10 second plus long scream from me that is completely unedited. so I booked an hour in a studio in Glasgow and it was the last take and I saw the waveform on the screen afterwards and I was like that looks absolutely perfect like just really controlled and yeah it's one of my greatest accomplishments so yeah the new single has a 10 second long scream that I've been practicing since I was maybe a teenager alright alright well that sounds even more reason to go listen to it so madfinances.com slash album there you go alright Brandon thanks again buddy alright buddy thanks for having me Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community.

1:03:23If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first, subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player and just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to chooseify.com slash subscribe. And it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there. And I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsource personal finance show.

1:04:03And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have Chooseify local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to chooseify.com slash local and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world. and if you're just getting started with FI or you have a family member or a friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Choose a FI episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community and even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence, what are we doing here, why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life And then Choose a Vi created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free.

1:04:53Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.