432 | The Skill of Spending | Mr. Money Mustache

23:04So, yeah, opening things back up. I know the trendy term nowadays is first principles thinking. And I think that's what I've always done since I was a little kid, partly just because of not being clued into social norms to begin with. In that case, it helped me because you just think, well, why? Everyone else is doing this, but that just doesn't make sense. So what is the way that I would want to do it? Yeah. First principles thinking, you hear that a lot from the Silicon Valley crowd, right? So I guess you fit right in there with the California effect. But yeah, I love how you say the ultimate lesson then is to remind yourself that no, your current life is not normal.

23:38It's super weird and super specific, and you can completely change the damn thing in as many ways as you like, and you absolutely will adapt and be able to handle it. That's beautiful writing, Pete. And it's, that is exactly true. Like you can affect change on your own life. And I think so many people, like that's the damnedest part of this, right? It's like so many people think this is just my lot in life. I can't do anything. It's this powerlessness. I think the message, your message for so many years now, the message that we try here at Choose a Pi is you can affect change on your life. And once you see a little shred of it, man, you crave more.

24:16You crave more and more and more because it feels good. Yeah. And if you see people doing it in your friend group, it makes it easier to do it yourself. And the California effect is that many people are in a friend group where they're all set in their ways. They all have the same kind of car. They all have the long commute and the high spending. Everybody might be into wine, for example expensive wine in your friends group so you think that's normal but this is one of the joys of having these like fi community and meetups like we have with our groups of people is to try to help people meet more of this new type of like more open-minded and more willing to make change people then you see what your friends are doing your new friends and you're like wow this is very unique and that's this person is doing things a lot smarter than me and i'm going to copy some of those ideas.

25:04And I get to see that a lot now with a lot of these young, you know, these young fire whippersnappers, they're doing things a lot more efficiently than me. And then I get to think, oh, do I want to adopt this into my lifestyle? People are like so good at house hacking where they can live for free or so good at like Airbnb was a new thing for me. I never thought of using this platform, even though I read about it on the financial news, but now seeing friends who are experts at it and like they fund their entire lifestyle from like half of their house being rented out with just really good management.

25:33It's very nice new things to learn. And you're not going to learn that if you're stuck in a very change-resistant group of friends. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, we are in this FI community where there are lots of open-minded people. And I know you have cultivated an amazing community for yourself there in Longmont. But as you're describing that group of friends in California who they're getting the$150 bottle a wine on a Friday night and they're just spendy. What if that one person in the group had an awakening? How would you recommend that they move forward? There is some balance here of clearly not trying to proselytize and try to convert your friends unwillingly, but there's also a thought of, hey, maybe I can lead by example, potentially.

26:19I guess I'll cut this short and just say, Pete, what would you advise to that person who in this spendy group of friends, one of them weeks up and finds Mr. Money Mustache. What do they do? Yeah, well, it certainly has happened, you know, in the past on the internet. And it really depends on your personality type. I've always reveled in being different. So I enjoy, if I find a new idea, I'm just going to start doing it in front of my friends. And they'll be like, what's that weird guy? And then I'll enthuse about why I'm doing it. And then it's up to them if they want to adopt the behavior themselves or look into it more.

26:50Or maybe if they want to say, oh, yeah, you're just weird. We're not going to do that. You have to be comfortable with that. Like that's part of being a confident human being and it's good for you. And your friends will respect you for that unless you don't respect yourself. So, you know, if you want to have a new idea, just put it into use. And like you said, live by example, you don't have to push all your friends. Like, you know, you switch to the new smaller car. You don't have to be like, Hey guys, your Mercedes suck. You should have a car like me, you know, cause that's, they don't want to hear that and it's not going to help them.

27:16But if they just see you, that's good enough. And of course you can add new friends to the mix. You can go to some meetups and meet new people and start hanging out with them. I mean, with my group, my peer group here in Longmont, it has gradually changed to be less just random. The old peer group was sort of parents of the elementary school kids. We all met in the schoolyard and became a big hangout group. And then over the last 15, 17 years, my son's been alive. I've added new friends and the old friendships have sort of like drifted and reformed in different ways. So now I hang around with maybe more fire people and less neighborhood people just because I'm into this, you know, my own thing a bit more.

27:54And it's just more interesting. And there's no shame in that, right? Like you don't have to keep the exact same people that you hang out with every single day for the rest of your life. I just find it more engaging with the new crowd. Yeah, I totally hear you. And like we talked about before we hit record here, I just got back from the economy conference, which was absolutely incredible. And it was just to be surrounded by 400 plus five community members. It was just so invigorating. And I kind of forgot it's been so long. I mean, really, since pre-COVID, since I've been to any of these meetups and it just felt good.

28:29I mean, I left just absolutely enthused. And yeah, I mean, I think back in real life here, a lot of our social circle are exactly what you described, right? It's the friends from the elementary school or people we know up at the pool. And that's not to say these aren't nice people by any means, but there is just that fundamental difference. There is something about people in our FI community who, when they have this, when we have this in common, it just seems like we're all on some level. And I don't love the word optimized, but just we think about our lives in similar ways and we're all trying to get better.

29:02You never meet more interesting people than when you're at a FI meetup. It's just astonishing, right? How many different variety of interests there are. Right. Right. The fun part is the FIRE community, despite the name, is not really about money or financial independence. I think it's something else that draws these people together. In fact, we rarely even talk about money in person together. It's more like just people who are intellectually curious and interested in new ideas. So they'll typically be people who try new things and they listen to podcasts and read books. And they're less likely to be the people who just sit around watching sports every Friday and eating Cheetos and talking about the same stuff.

29:38It's more like, hey, did you hear about this new book? Or did you try this new health fitness thing or this new money thing sometimes? And I really like that. I love the flow of ideas. I don't like small talk. And funny part is, this is a recent podcast I went on as Paula Pants, Afford Anything podcast. It even applies in the dating world, I would say. So I'm going to do a little plug for this website because I want it to succeed. So there's a website called Fire Dating, which is just firedating.me. And it's kind of niche right now, like compared to the big ones, but it's free to use. And the people who meet each other on this platform find that they're more compatible than on a normal dating platform because it's, again, it's like people, they only hear about it from podcasts like this.

30:19So it's like intellectually curious, somewhat, you know, open-minded, maybe a bit well-educated and just not super stuck in the matrix of consumerism. And that's a really good place to start for like, if you're looking for a partner, because if you take that and combine like maybe some outdoorsy interests, which aren't always all that common And then if you also find them attractive, obviously you can't pretend that factor doesn't exist, but all that stuff together is a good start for like more likely to be a compatible relationship. So that, you know, whether it's a meetup or whether it's a dating situation, it's really nice to have peers that do have some compatible type of mind.

30:56Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. And not for nothing, but you think about what are in general terms, or at least you see the stats, what are one of the biggest causes of relationship and marital strife is money to a large degree. I mean, you see that if you're on the same page with money, obviously, it doesn't mean you're going to have a fantastic relationship by definition, not implying anything like that. But at least to get that stressor out of the way, that's got to count for something. Yeah, I agree. I've never been in a relationship where there was that train wreck of money situation, but I hear about it so much from other people.

31:29And I can't even imagine how people put up with it for a day, let alone years. So it is nice to have responsible use of your resources as a factor. Agreed. So yeah, everybody, if you're single out there in the FI community, definitely check that out. That sounds very cool. And Pete, you mentioned really like trying new things, new ideas. And I think an idea or certainly a book that's been kind of floating around the FI community recently is Die With Zero with Bill Perkins. Have you read that by any chance? Yeah. In fact, I believe there's a small mention of old Mr. Money Mustache in there about the same idea of making use of your time and resources while you're alive instead of saving up for some uncertain future that may never happen.

32:14Yeah, I like that. The concept, and I definitely want to get Bill Perkins on the podcast here. Obviously, I read the book and I thought it was fantastic. The conceptual framework changed my mind and my life. And I don't say that lightly, but then I've heard him on Peter Atiyah's podcast and all the hacks as well. And he just put it so brilliantly when you heard him actually on a podcast. And yeah, it's cool to think about, okay, we have this finite lifespan, obviously. Maybe if you're lucky, you get 80, 90, 100 years if you're really, really exceptionally. I hate to say lucky because obviously there's some impact that you have on that.

32:50But But how do you want to spend those years? And also, what's the intersection of spending money in terms of when can you get the best, as he calls it, net fulfillment out of this? And this is a real game changer. Yeah, it's a super, in fact, it's a really nice segue. So first of all, this is why when, like we talked about earlier, like the middle class lifestyle, you kind of want your fire pursuit, your pursuit of early retirement or financial independence to be, it has to be a win-win. You don't really want to sacrifice happiness in the now for happiness in the future. So you can definitely still cut your spending, but don't do it in a way that is kind of wrecking your life.

33:28You know, it's good to be frugal, but not cheap is another way to sum it up. But then the Bill Perkins book brings up another thing that I was going to bring up in this podcast, which is there's an opposite side of spending skill. First, there's the one we talked about, which is getting more for your money. And then there's the opposite of it, which is making sure you use the money you have once you have it. Because what happens is if you get good at frugality and then you become old like me, I'm 48 now, you end up with a lot of money because your habits get formed early and then you continue to be efficient and your money is probably going to end up being more plentiful than you expected.

34:05But then the habits that you built up, they may or may not be still serving you. Like sometimes you might realize, yeah, there's some situations where I probably could spend a little bit more money or be more generous now. And if I don't think about that now, I really am going to get really old and then have millions of dollars that I never spent and then possibly regret certain ways that I didn't benefit from my own money. So a funny story about this is like I was talking to a friend of mine who is more wealthy because he's made some really good investments in the past. So this guy has more than$10 million, let's just put it that way.

34:39And his lifestyle is probably like$40 ,000 or$50 ,000 total to run. And he's so efficient that he sometimes forgets how much money he has. And if you think about it, if you have$10 million and you're going to live off the 4 % rule, that's$400 ,000 a year that you can pretty much safely spend for the rest of your life. And you're never going to run out of the 10 million, especially this guy's a little bit older than me. So it becomes even more safe the older you get. So$400 ,000, he's living on 50 ,000. And then he still finds himself agonizing like, I don't know if I should have this nicer thing for my house or we'll agonize over small stuff because that's the habits that got us wealthy in the first place.

35:20And what we really should be doing is evaluating, hey, is this still a valid thing? And I caught myself doing this the other day too. I was in the grocery store and I normally shop at Costco, but I was in the normal grocery store and I needed something like, I always eat this fancy bread that's called Dave's bread. But those jackasses at King Soopers, they had it marked up to like$7.99 per loaf. And I'm sitting there like, that bread is supposed to be five bucks, not$8. I can't pay$8 for a loaf of bread. And I'm like looking through all the different bread options. Like, should I buy a different kind or should I just not get bread?

35:52And then finally I realized like, you idiot, like you're never going to wake up saying, damn, I just wish I had three more dollars in my investment accounts. So I bought the overpriced bread. And then I've been using that as a lesson of myself ever since because like, yes, some things are going to be a rip off, but part of the joy of having a surplus of money is that you don't have to worry about that. And instead, you should flip the switch and be like, thank goodness I can afford this and it doesn't affect me. And whether that's like paying, you might pay twice as much to get an airplane flight that is at a civilized time, like 1030 AM instead of the 630 AM flight.

36:25And I recently did this for my trip to Phoenix. I could have gone there for like$120 return if I was willing to get up for a 630 flight, but instead I paid twice as much so that I could sleep in to a reasonable hour and then go to the airport. And these are the things you really need to train yourself to do later in life is remind yourself to spend more. And there's some tricks. You could either get an accountability buddy who also is too cheap for their wealth and egg each other on with the spending. And then there's another technique where I was thinking of taking my net worth, my investments, and putting a really conservative 3 % rate on them.

37:01And then just having that money go into a checking account that I can never do anything with other than spend. Like I can't save it. So it's like setting a minimum spending rule for myself, which would encourage me to be more generous and more fun. And I'm like, oh, if there's like$5 ,000 in this account that I still haven't spent, then I would be more encouraged to give that away, which is what wealthy people should be doing with their money instead of just saving it just in case, just in case, just in case. And then you're 90 years old. Yeah, the just in case, that's the same, really the same mindset as like the one more year syndrome.

37:34It's that safety, really this desire for safety, but kind of missing what's the opportunity cost of this, right? Right. Like I only have two more years left in my forties, for example. And then I'm a 50 something guy. Like what should a 40 something year old guy who's never going to have money worries anymore, what should I enjoy while I'm still so young? And so that's been helping me to think about these things because like every day that I never get that time back and the money part, you know, as long as I don't run out of money in my lifetime, that part is not something I should be thinking about.

38:08Yeah, it is amazing how this all it just all intersects. And again, it comes back to that die with zero also in terms of, okay, are the things that you want to do? And I keep using this one example, like I'm dying to go back to Japan and climb Mount Fuji, which is very doable. It's not like climbing Everest or anything like that. But am I going to do that at 80? No, in all likelihood, not. Am I going to do that 75? Probably not. 70, again, probably not. I could. So I'm 43. I've got to do this sometime between probably 43 and 65. Okay. Well, that's still a lot of time, but it reorients. You can't just keep putting it off for another day.

38:48And I think it's very, very easy to do that. And I think I love some of those spending rules because this really is this like continuum. And I think you and I and people like us have have gotten so good at the skill of spending. And I think that becomes part of our identity, not in a bad way. Like, again, I think it's it's part of this fun game and it's served us so well. But you have to realize when it's outlived its usefulness. Yeah. And it helps to push yourself a little bit and get better at the spending. And you don't have to be super ridiculous. Like no matter how rich I am, I would never buy like$1 ,000 bottle of wine, for example, at a restaurant as one example, just because there's always going to be another use for that.

39:30Like you could make five children not die, for example, through health charities, for example. And it's okay to be a bit selfish, but there is a limit to my selfishness of what I'll spend on myself. However, right now it is too little, like it's too cheap. I'm a little bit too penny pinching when it comes to spending on myself. And I am trying to get a little bit better at that and have more fun. And yeah, what's been working for me so far is just pretending that it's somebody else's money, like putting some money in a checking account and just pretending like it's a corporate account paid for by Apple, for example, or some other infinite source of money, like, oh, someone else's money.

40:04So how would you spend it if it wasn't yours? And if you were encouraged to spend it and that really helps. Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah. As you described before, like, okay, I can put my 3%, which would be this super, super safe withdrawal rate, but still not an unreasonable amount where you're not saying it's 1%, right? Because that wouldn't actually affect change on how you spend. But I'm curious. So clearly, you could give away the remainder, which you described before. But I wonder if it would still lead to that optimizing mindset then, and it wouldn't actually impact your spending behavior if you would just say, all of this needs to go to a good cause for good reason.

40:42So I'm not going to spend this actually. Do you see yourself falling prey to that potentially? Yeah. I mean, I don't know about me because there's limits to my generosity. So I still value getting treats for myself. It's sort of like the end of, I wouldn't be quite like the guy at the end of Schindler's List where he's like, this pair of shoes could be two more lives and this belt that I bought could save another life. And it is nice to have a little bit of comparison. And if you are compulsively generous and you really would just live in a shack in exchange for giving all of your wealth to charities or whatever, then you might benefit from a bit more like spending, coaching, if it would make your life happier.

41:20You know, if you're actually living a less happy life, because everyone's different. So for me, I don't know, I think I could probably do more of both. I could spend more on myself and I could give more after spending on myself and still be doing more for both sides than I'm doing right now, where I tend, And if I don't watch it, I tend to just be in a hoarder and accumulator mode still. Yeah, it's easy to do that. And I love how you use the example of the flights, right? So because that's something that I've recently put into my own kind of spending rules. Because yeah, I'm in the same boat as you now, Pete, in terms of, all right, obviously I know time is finite.

41:54I probably have more resources than I could ever spend. So now it's how can we try to live the best life that we can while not falling prey to like these scripts that we have. That's how I conceptualize it. It's like, of course I have to find the cheapest flight. Like that's how it's always been. But now for me, it's unless something crazy happens, I can't envision ever taking a red eye flight ever again in my entire life. There's always another option. So that's one. The other one is I will not take a flight certainly before 7am and almost invariably not before 8am, but there's some wiggle room there because I know how my own brain, my crazy brain works.

42:32If I have a 6am flight, I'm essentially not going to sleep and worrying about missing the flight, et cetera. And that's going to make my life miserable. So I've set a rule. I just will not do that. But yeah, it's interesting when you start doing that kind of stuff and like the positive impact it can have. And like you said, yeah, that flight to Phoenix costs you double, but does it matter? Does it matter at all the couple hundred bucks? No, it doesn't. Yeah. And I think about experiences too. Like when I booked my hotel, I also could have gotten like a motel six or whatever perfectly functional but super crappy in a fine location and that would have been 80 but instead i got maybe like a 210 hotel just for me which i i really had to reassure myself like it's okay pete like this is nice you can enjoy it you're not going to regret it and it's not overly selfish and now so my hotel is like totally walkable to everything and it's got a beautiful pool and hot tub and i might might even entertain some guests while I'm there.

43:25And I might do some writing from the beautiful palm tree courtyard. And I'm going to have a nice experience. Three nights, I'm going to be savoring this. I'm going to be like this, because I hardly ever do this, like a solo luxury businessman trip. So I knew that you can either remember the beige paint and dirty comforters of the Motel 6, or you can remember this resort that you're staying in in Phoenix instead. And that's totally worth it, an extra$500 or whatever. and I get to have a lifetime memory that's positive. So I think Bill Perkins would be proud of that at least. Yeah, that's a good way to start.

44:00That's for damn sure. And yeah, it's neat to see this really spreading throughout our community. I know our mutual good friend, Carl Jensen, recently did this where I think he, and this is going to be at your headquarters, so you obviously know this intimately, but I think he paid$10 ,000 to have one of his favorite bands. I guess they're going to have a concert at the HQ, right? Yeah, I thought that was crazy too, but I am happy for him for letting go in that situation. And it may or may not be at our headquarters, depending on the crowd size, because we can only accommodate like 100 people and it'd be fun to have more people than that.

44:36But yeah, that was cool. I agree. Like totally the right philosophy that Carl is displaying and our mutual friend, the guy who is too efficient with the large savings is another one person that we know that I think is getting better at splashing out for meaningful stuff. And I probably shouldn't discuss this too much because, you know, everyone who's listening, who's at the beginning of the journey is going to be like, okay, enough rich people problems. It's not really relevant. But the good news is you do tend to end up in the situation if you put the stuff into action early in your life. Yeah, I hear you.

45:09But I think it, I really think it's important. And I know you think it's important as well. And like, we're not saying to not be smart and not to cultivate that skill of spending, especially at the beginning of your journey. And I know a lot of people like to say, oh, you don't have to deprive yourself at all. You don't have to cut. You just need to earn more money. And yeah, sure. That's cute to say, I suppose. But I think for really the majority of people who are living on that edge, who are living paycheck to paycheck, and they find you, they find our podcast, right? Which are really two of the biggest ways that people find the FI concept or FI movement.

45:48they're almost invariably going to have to cut at the beginning because that's the low-hanging fruit right and that's okay i don't have any problem saying that yeah i agree there's no shame in cutting it's skill it's sort of like saying um if you're trying to lose weight what should you do eat less sugar and like desserts and things that cause weight gain or should you start exercising more well the answer is not just to start exercising more a lot of people like take this opposite approach like i'm just going to run the treadmill for six hours a day and then i'm still going to like eat cakes and have big gulps and stuff and nothing happens to their body.

46:21And that's because the cutting is essential, like the management of the stuff that's doing you damage, which is an expensive lifestyle. And as you know, no matter how much you earn, you can always spend it all. Like that's why I started my blog actually, is I grew up in a low income situation, which has worked for minimum wage all through my childhood. And then I got a job that was like equivalent to$100 ,000 today, like straight off after graduation. and I was like, holy shit, this is amazing. Like I can save almost all my money now. And then I looked around at my coworkers and they're like, it's hard to make it these days.

46:54Like we're spending all our paychecks. And I was just shocked. Like how can you guys be spending the amount that we make in this job? Like that's insane. And then that wasn't even turns out like the highest paying job. There's jobs, many levels above that where people still - Right, that was amateur hour, right? So in other words, income was not the answer to these people because they were making a ton and they still had none to show for it. So that's why you need the skills in place. And then, of course, increasing your income is just going to help you get there faster. Right. It's an all of the above.

47:24But yeah, I think realistically for most people making those decisions for, hey, what have I mindlessly been spending money on? And you find ways to cut that. And I think we both know your life isn't going to be any worse in all likelihood. Like you're saying, spending time outside, spending time with friends, many of these things, they don't have to cost anything, essentially. And your life is going to be better. Like that's, that's the payoff is your life is going to be better, especially when you're not stressed about money all the time. So to me, we're not invalidating the, the, the five movement at all.

47:58I think it really is part of, of this whole life cycle of five, which I talked about this with Brandon, the med scientist recently, and we know he had Ramit Sethi on his podcast recently. And, and that's kind of part and parcel of this whole conversation is there comes a time where that shift happens. And I think that's okay. Like, I don't think that's the, oh, rich people with too many problems. Like you have to think about what is life satisfaction, right? I mean, Pete, you've, from my vantage point, you've built this amazing community and you've built a life around what you value. And I think it's, it's just, it's really a beautiful thing to behold.

48:35And that doesn't, that doesn't happen overnight. That's not just like a, I snap my fingers, the number on my screen tells me I'm at five and my life is good. Like this is something you have to work at. Yeah. And you know what the weird part is? So a lot of times if you just focus on, oh, maybe I should spend more because I have more money, it will lead you to the wrong things because quite often you already will be spending enough and deficiencies in your life will be somewhere else. So I've been thinking about this because I've had this super good fortune of having a growing surplus over the last 10 years.

49:06And then I always think, okay, you're allowed to buy more stuff, but not if it's just for the sake of buying it. If you had a bad day, what was really bad? Is it bad because I don't have an expensive car? No, it was probably bad because maybe I didn't do enough stuff socializing with friends that day, or maybe I didn't get my ass off the couch enough and accomplish the thing, the creative pursuits that do make me happy. So I always focus on all those things. And making purchases is just one of the options for myself. And of course, every purchase you make adds complexity to your life too. If I had a nicer car, suddenly I'm worrying about, do I have to cover that thing up?

49:41Do I have to keep it in my garage? I don't want it to get scraped up and burned by the sun and everything. Whereas having more time with my friends, you know, that does not make my life more complicated in a bad way. It makes it more engaging in a good way. So you always try to like do the full spectrum of deficiencies in your life, like health, relationships, make sure your sleep is amazing, make sure your food is amazing. A lot of times those things don't really cost anything. And then finally, if you can afford to spend more, you know, open your wallet to that too. But it's really not just the answer.

50:11And this is what my pretend battle with Ramit Sethi is, is like he likes to characterize the fire movement as like a bunch of cheap people. And, you know, everyone's constraining and nagging their spouses to take a shorter shower or whatever. And whereas I characterize him as saying, oh, just spend more money and then you'll be happy. That's a rich life, right? But we're both just playing a game. We don't really feel that way. We both truly understand each other's perspective. But the real thing is I just focus more on stuff that doesn't involve spending because that's what makes me happy. and I really love the life that I'm working on right now.

50:45And it's really not gonna get much more expensive because I've considered the things I wanted to buy and then I already bought them for the most part. Yeah, Pete, I think that is the perfect way to sum up and conclude this episode. This really is critical and I'm so glad you were able to carve some time out and have this conversation. I think hopefully this can be part one of more to come because this is really, it's all of these things, right? It is the skill of spending. It is when you get into this concept, you have to make changes, but man, we don't want to lose sight of just how important it is to carve out and build a life that you want to live into.

51:27And part of that, like you're saying, means spending money sometimes. It doesn't always mean spending money, but you don't want to preclude that. And I think a lot of us, We don't want to be like the opposite of like the 1980s, which was the he who dies with the most toys wins. We don't want it to be he who died in the fight community with the most money wins. That's not a valuable thing. So, yeah, thank you so very much for coming on. I really enjoyed this. Yeah, my pleasure. And I hope I get to come back in less than four years next time. Anytime, my friend. Seriously. So obviously people can find you essentially anywhere.

52:02Mr. Money Mustache. You said earlier in the episode, the new email series, do they just go to the homepage of Mr. Money Mustache? Yeah, you'll see a shortcut there. Or another good way to do it is if you're an Instagram person, just go to Mr. Money Mustache Instagram. Watch out for the fakes. Mine is the one that has the most followers, but the fakers look the same. But anyway, find my profile. And then I have one of those link tree things that's easy to click on and join the boot camp as well. Wonderful. Pete, thanks again. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community.

52:36If 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, 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 crowdsourced personal finance show.

53:15And 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?

53:51What 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. Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.