501 | It ALL worked. ALL of it. | Connie

26:35Okay. That is absolutely brilliant. That's wonderful. And it was wonderful. So because I did that. So this is what I mean about you have to work everything in order to make it all work, right? You have to watch this and what are you doing over here? And this will play into this part. So with the Roth, it doesn't count on the FAFSA, but my kids are 18. I've made them start working at 14. No lie. Their birthday's in December, January 1st. I went and got their work permit. they weren't happy but they've been working since they were 14 but because i knew i wanted to do the roth for them and now they're both 18 so they have their roth money that's already in there and they add 50 a month and both girls are already coast fi just on that oh my god isn't it disgusting i mean it's wonderful and disgusting and i'm mad at my parents for not telling me well yeah but i mean that's the beautiful thing about second generation five right is now you know this and now they know it and every subsequent generation is going to be sent.

27:36And I know they don't understand the gift for that, Brad, but the part of that is as their life progresses and they want to raise a family or save money for a house or my older twin, when she graduates college, she wants to go to Japan for a year, which we're going on vacation this year, but she wants to go to Japan for a whole year and study. this gives them so many choices because she can then put her money towards that and still only put$50 a month away for the rest of her life and reach FI. You know what I mean? Reach Coast FI when she's 67, but she's going to be a teacher. So she's obviously going to be way ahead of the game.

28:18But you don't realize how if you just do little bits of each thing, it all ends up just amassing, just compounding and not just money, right? It amasses money, but it amasses and compounds into this beautiful life that I didn't get, but they already know they're getting. So they're planning accordingly, right? If they had student loans, if they had to take out student loans, there's no way she could at 22 or whatever it will be when she graduates, be able to go over to Japan for a year because she's like, I need a job right away. Yeah. I got to pay these things I got to pay these things back. And my kids are so, because we were debt-free people, right?

29:02And working that journey, my kids are averse to student loans. I didn't have to tell them, you're not taking student loan. They were like, I am not doing that. I'm not, they've heard it for so long. So while I'm learning, they were learning. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, like you said, the power of compounding both knowledge, but money very specifically, when you start saving significant amounts of money for them, even small amounts. Like you said, $50 a month at 14. Well, that's a real long runway of time to have that money compound. Yeah. And to be clear, I didn't put away$50 a month.

29:39They're doing that on their own. They're each set up for, they have Vanguard Roth accounts and every month that comes out for them. So whatever they earned on their W-2 is what Tim and I would put into their Roth. Gotcha. Yeah. And they're kids, so they never made the max. Of course. Right. I mean, it's earned that much money as 14 years. I have to say my kid, one of my kids does really well, spinning milkshakes. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for listening to choose a fi and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support choose a fi is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at choose a bi.com slash cards.

30:20I keep this page constantly updated. So it should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support. So, right. Another thing you had said was, you know, this word hacking, right? So the ACA, and I know you've worked closely with your CPA to do this kind of stuff. So that was for this year. That was for 2023. But because I was hacking the FAFSA, the side benefit was I was keeping my income low. So Tim's company was super generous to us and they paid our Cobra for 18 months. Oh, wow. I know. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. But then when I came out, I'm like, okay, I have to now figure out this health insurance thing.

31:01Yeah. And I went out, but by luck, I had kept my income low for the FAFSA. I think last year we paid$300 a month for a family of three for this great plan, but it was the HSA plan, right? Okay. So I was putting money away, putting money away. Well, this year, the girls turned 18. So they're receiving the Social Security money in their name until they graduate high school. And I thought, I'm not going to be able to put on them having to pay the heavy deductible at the beginning of this. So I switched plans. And I have had a great silver plan for the family of three. We pay$33 a month. right? $33 a month.

31:44I keep asking people, how much do you think I pay for health insurance? And they're like, oh,$1 ,600 a month or$800 a month. I'm like,$33 a month. And I couldn't believe it either, right? Especially since the business is paying my own business, paying the premiums. I was like, okay, well, 150, 300, whatever, that's still really good. And then when I got the rate and it was$33 a month with max subsidies for that, our deductible is$1. dollar, our co-pay zero, you know, had I not done those other things, this wouldn't be possible. So this year, because I wanted to do the Roth conversion and all these other things, I had to make sure if you make under, if we make under, I don't want to speak for everybody, but where I live for the family of three, if I make less than, I think it's$50 ,000 a year, they want to put the kids on Medicaid.

32:35So I have to purposely make more than 50, right? So nobody goes on Medicaid. but I don't want to make too much more because then I lose the max subsidy. Right. Yeah. This is that threading the needle that I've talked about with Sean Mulaney a few times. So there are cliffs, right? There's the cliff, but then yeah, you don't want to be too low because even though obviously then your tax liability would be essentially zero, like you said, I guess the kids would be put on Medicaid and I guess, right. Obviously everyone has their own pluses and minuses, but I think most people try to avoid that. And the first year they did want to put them on Medicaid, but all they did was, um, my, I used the insurance broker and all she said was just write them a letter, tell them what happened that your husband and passed and that you took a year off of work.

33:23All these things were true. Right. And that thank you, but we don't need to be on Medicaid. Gotcha. And so they took us off of that and put us on a regular plan and allowed me quote unquote, allowed me to pay the premium. Interesting. Okay. That's so strange. Yeah. But I was glad they allowed me to write the letter. So now you're doing Roth conversions while all the while trying to massage your income to not have it too low or too high, right? Exactly. It's a lot of work. Yeah, that's really interesting. Now, Roth conversions, so that would suggest that you have, I'm assuming, money in an IRA that you're doing these conversions from?

34:00Yeah, I have my own personal IRAs from being self-employed. But then when Tim passed, I got his rollover. And the rollover in RMDs later will be a lot and it'll cause me to go into a higher tax bracket. So what I'm doing now is trying to move some of that money because I'm earning so low. Right. Now's a good time for me to do some Roth conversion. I don't know that I'll do it all the way, but for right now. And the thing with the Roth conversion is where it sits on your 1040, it's counted as income above the line. I have a line. So here's my line. Here's my line for, it's so hard to say, that's taxable income, right?

34:48So I knew when I had talked to my CPA that I know I have the standard deduction. So when I do this Roth conversion, I don't want to go above the standard deduction tax-wise. He said, that's great. That's fine. And all that's well and dandy. But then I also did some charitable giving. So I was able to do that and not pay taxes on that, but it comes off of your taxes because of the way I gave it. It's still a donation on my tax form, but I didn't have to pay taxes on it. Oh, I think you had mentioned this via email. Did you donate appreciated stock? Is that why? Yeah, I donated stock. Okay. So let's slow down.

35:28I'm going to just put my CPAs hat on for two seconds and try to translate because this is really important. So we have two separate things that you just said in there. And mind you, I'm still learning. So my understanding may be like, I'm understanding, but it's off. Honey, you rocked it. You honestly, you rocked it. I just want to add a little extra flavor. So the Roth conversions for anybody who hasn't heard of this. So basically what you're doing is you are taking money that's in a pre-tax retirement account, like a traditional IRA. And what you're doing is you're converting it to a Roth IRA.

36:05Now you can convert any amount you want, any portion you want, and you get to select that. Now what happens there is it doesn't just magically get to turn from pre-tax to a post-tax account. You have to tell the government, hey, look, look, I'm doing this. And all of that, the amount of that conversion goes on your tax return as taxable income. Now that makes sense conceptually, right? Because originally it would have been a deduction to get into the traditional IRA. And this way it's just taking the character of a Roth IRA. The beautiful part, like Connie, you said is because of the smart people we have in the community who have figured this out, essentially because of the standard deduction and because your income is low and presumably you're making regular retirement account contributions, which are lowering your income further still, you actually might have some space where let's just say hypothetically, I'm making these numbers up, totally fabricated.

36:59Your taxable income after all your deductions, but prior to the standard was like$20 ,000, but the standard is 30. Again, I'm making this up. It's a fabricated number. That means you theoretically could convert in this hypothetical$10 ,000 to a Roth IRA, then your taxable income would be 30 minus that standard of 30, which would get you to zero. You'd pay$0 of income tax, but you'd be basically telling the government, hey, look, tax me on this 10 ,000 that I just converted, but oh, look, it doesn't actually cost me anything. So that's the beauty behind a Roth conversion when done properly like this.

37:37So Connie, that should line up with the reality. No, that was perfect. Yeah, that was perfect. All the while keeping myself under a certain limit for the ACA. Right, right, right, right, right. And again, I have the added benefit, at least for these first five months of the year while the girls are in school, their girls are getting social security money, right? So I have help with the house money, right? For the groceries and electricity and things like that. But the beauty of what you just said, so I caused a zero taxable event for myself, right? But then I did the charitable giving, which comes after that.

38:14Which lowers your taxable income still. Right. But that's after the standard deduction. Okay. But theoretically, you could have converted more than potentially because it's still a deduction, right? Yeah. It just depends on where it falls on your tax form. And my CPA was explaining to me, I couldn't say that I understood it completely. But here's the thing. This is the thing that's kicking me in the pants and I'm laughing the whole way because even after I did all that and I wasn't sure, I'm like, okay, well, let's convert this amount. I'm not sure it's going to work. And you kind of look at it with one eye.

38:51That's why I sent you the email like, holy cow, it really worked. It really worked. Because you're like, oh, it's like, is this going to hurt or is this going to work? So I did that and I did the charitable giving. and when I did the charitable giving, I actually got a really big fat tax refund and I never expected it to. I think I got$5 ,000 in a refund this year. Wow. Yeah. So right, probably that was, if I had to guess without looking at your return, child tax credits, which are refundable, which is awesome. I don't even know. I lost track. No, that's great. And the last word on this tax thing is, like you said, you donated appreciated stock.

39:28But where the beauty was in there, as your CPA, that's why you were advised to do it this way. So let's just say you had unrealized capital gains in that stock. So let's say you bought it for$2 ,000 and now it's worth 10 ,000 and you wanted to make a$10 ,000 donation, hypothetically. Now, most people would just give$10 ,000 in cash. Or maybe if you didn't know this, you would sell that stock for 10 ,000 and you'd make your$10 ,000 donation, but then, oh, wow, I actually just got taxed on an$8 ,000 long-term capital gain because I sold it, right? So when you sell the stock, it triggers that capital gain and you'd have to pay the tax on it.

40:11Now, you can actually just circumvent all that and just donate the actual stock. You never pay the capital gains tax on that, which is remarkable. And you get the full charitable contribution deduction of 10 ,000 of the fair market value. So Connie, that is like the most genius thing ever. I love that you did that. I didn't plan it. It just happened that way. But so the genius part wasn't the giving, right? Because I give just because I give. Of course, of course. And it's usually, it's my tithing. And then I gave an amount above that. But when I got the tax return and he said, hey, you're getting money back.

40:45I'm like, oh, that's cute. And then he showed me how much. I'm like, wait, what? So with that money, I'm going to Italy. So that's good. Okay, that'll work. That'll work. Again, I feel like a genius, but it was all sheer accident. I think you're being a little hard on yourself. You sound like me. You're self-deprecating. You obviously work this with your CPA. I tell you, my brain was full for November, December, because there's some things you had to do before the end of the year, right? Oh, yeah. And that was a scary couple of weeks. That was when I was looking with one eye. You definitely have to dot I's and cross T's.

41:23There's no doubt about that. So speaking of the trip to Italy, which has nothing to do with my travel rewards. So getting away from the no credit cards, right? I live to travel. That's the only reason I work is so that I can travel. Like after my husband passed, the girls and I went to Europe for six weeks. I'm like, look, I've been saving for years. I was going to go for a month by myself, but obviously I had to keep pushing it back, right? This weird, but Tim and I would vacation separately because he was a hunter. and so he would go on big hunts and I was somebody who liked to go overseas and do all these other things so it was my turn but I had been saving and I was going to do a month in Europe by myself but we had to keep pushing it off and COVID and the sicknesses and all this stuff so after Tim passed I just looked at the girls and said look I have this money sitting there it's for Europe we're going and one was like it's so long I don't want to go I'm like just get in a plane I can't leave you home you're 16 years old just pack your suitcase, get in the plane, let's go.

42:26So we did that. That being said, because I like to travel, I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to try this travel hacking thing. So I went on your website and I found a card, which I have to say, I had to do some manipulation and actually go to the Chase branch because I was debt free and had no credit history. I had to actually go to them and go, look, I want this for the travel rewards. And I actually had to do a little bit of, I think I had to write a letter just to get the travel card. Okay. Because I had a zero credit score. Oh, wow. Okay. That makes sense. It does make sense. Yeah. But so they gave it to me and then getting one was the hard part, right?

43:10Now I have two. That's so cool. So what I did was started using that for regular expenses and paying it off every month. And I still do that. but I was able to get through all of the rewards and everything, my ticket to Japan for free. And so we got nicer seats, right? I'm not sitting with my knees up to my chin. Yeah. So only one of my daughters wants to go to Japan. So she agreed to pay half her ticket so that we wouldn't have to fly coach. Okay. Yeah. So she wanted that. So we have nice seats and it was$2 ,800 for my ticket and I got it for free. So that was my big first travel hack. That was a good one.

43:53That's a darn good one. Good for you. So hopefully I can sleep a little bit on the plane to Japan. Yeah. Because the next choice was first class and I think they were 6 ,000 a seat to fly first class. Okay. Yeah. There'll be no laying down. And that obviously costs a lot of points. So yeah, you're going to love that trip. That's going to be incredible. Yeah. Are you going there this year? I'm not going this year. I'm hoping to go next year. I had plans to go this summer, but it just isn't going to work out, unfortunately. Well, I think you'll be all right in Bali. Yeah. Well, that's actually part of why.

44:26So I just, and I haven't talked about this on the podcast yet, but I just booked my flights to Bali. Oh, excellent. I wound up getting this incredible redemption and hopefully at some point soon, I'll get him on the podcast. But my friend Noah, who actually lives right here in Richmond, he's part of our Richmond local group. He is a travel rewards expert, a booking expert I've never seen before. He has been so incredibly helpful to me, just sending me email after email of like, oh, I found this other amazing thing. I'm like, I know this stuff reasonably well. And I don't know how on earth he knows everything he knows.

45:01So anyway, long story short is I'm flying, I always get the pronunciation wrong. It's Qatar Airways or Qatar Airways to Doha. And I'm getting the best business class seat in the world. They call them Q suites. Okay. Oh, I've seen those. I've seen them online. Nice. Yeah. Same. And it's like this incredible business class suite. It was like 70 ,000 points for like a 13 or 14 hour flight and like$8. $8. So I'm flying to Doha and then I got this pretty good redemption from Doha. Oh, you have to do an episode from the airline while you're on there. Look at how cool this is. Well, I'm on Q suites right now.

45:38But yeah, It just kind of reinvigorated me for travel rewards. I have to say, like, I've been a little lax the last couple of years in terms of earning and certainly redeeming, but earning really, especially. And like I said, just chatting with Noah, like, I'm going to try to bring him on the podcast a couple of times because I think he's awesome. I hope so. I want to hear him. He's awesome. I need his knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. You and me both. So I promise to make that happen. But yeah, it's just fun. I mean, kind of like, it's so interesting to find like, oh, wow, there's, I could fly through this airport and that airport.

46:08And I mentioned this in my newsletter. There's a website called Points Yeah. So it's a weird points, Y-E-A-H.com slash explorer. And this is actually a really cool one, I think, for everybody who has some flexibility because basically they just find like hundreds and hundreds of deals from all sorts of cities in the US that like, if you've ever said to yourself, hey, I've got all these points. I have some flexibility. I'd love to travel, but I just feel like I'm not going to get a good deal. Well, this points, yeah, Explorer has figured it out. It's just like, it's awesome. You know, I spent so much time and brain energy trying to do all these things.

46:50Travel points is another one. It's a lot like to figure it all out and to make sure it's working. I joined two groups, right? So I joined choose FI Pittsburgh. Shout out everybody. Hi everyone. and then I joined the Choose FI Pittsburgh travel people. I don't remember what it is on Facebook. We do have a travel group, a Choose FI travel group. Yeah, so it's the Pittsburgh one. And I've been to both their meetings. But when I sit and note, I'm fine in the Choose FI Pittsburgh one and I get it and we all talk and we're very purposeful about making friendships there. And it's great and support each other.

47:28It's the only group where you can say, hey, what are you doing with yourself? And people go, yeah, I'm retired at 30. And no one goes, what? We all understand. We're like, yes, you're doing nothing. Yeah, this is great. But with the Choose FI Pittsburgh travel group, when they start to talk, my mind starts to spin. Yeah. Right? It'd be hard. Well, it's because everybody's getting their own deals and they're pulling from here and they're doing this and look at what I did. And I'm like, oh, wait, this is all so new. I'm sure I'll get it just like I got this, but it's just going to take some time.

48:03Yeah, agreed. And that's what's cool about some of these tools that are coming online. And I obviously goes without saying I have no affiliation with any of them. But yeah, there's that point. Yeah. There's one called seats.aero, A-E-R-O. So seats.aero. And then there's point.me. And they all kind of, some of them are paid where they, it's like, I don't know, eight to 10 bucks a month, but they basically do all the searching for you and find routes that you otherwise wouldn't have found. So especially if you're looking for some kind of high value reward redemption, it might be worth signing up for one or more of those just for a short time.

48:38Yeah, I've heard on your show, the points.me before, and I want to look at that one. I did do some smaller manipulations where I got global entry through my Capital One card and just got my daughter global entry yesterday. And even though it wasn't the global entry benefit, I still was able to write it off as a travel benefit. Do you know what I mean? And I just used some points for that so that she could get that for free. That makes sense. Yeah. A couple little things like that. And then I just got back from California Sunday and I'm going to Punta Cana on Monday. Yeah. So I'm just getting into it and trying to figure all that out.

49:19That'll be my next. It all worked and I'm sunburned. Yeah. It all worked. And then you send a picture of yourself. You're a lobster. I'm a lobster. That's good. Oh, man. And it's funny that you mentioned, so right, the local groups, right, which are really important. So for everybody out there, choosify.com slash local. And that's where we have our list of local groups. And I know you mentioned Pittsburgh and what's wild, and I'd love to tell this story real quick. Oh, okay. Sure. So not only did I, one of my favorite all-time emails is your it all worked email, but I think one that I got a kick out of more than just about any was, so my daughter and I went to see Taylor Swift in Pittsburgh last year.

50:01And I had mentioned this a number of times on the podcast. And my daughter, which I've also mentioned a ton of times is she's a massive rollercoaster fan. So on our way back the next day, I think it was a Saturday, she said, Oh dad, by the way, there's this really great amusement park called Kennywood here in the Pittsburgh area. Kennywood. Yeah. Kennywood. She loved that place. So we stopped by just for a couple of hours because we had to drive five hours home that day. And when I got home that evening, I got this email that had the subject line, Kennywood. And I'm like, what on earth is going on here?

50:35It's strange timing. So yeah, what was wild was this was actually from you. And you said, Brad, were you at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh today by any chance? I think I saw you sitting by the Thunderbolt. If it was you, I'm going to kick myself for not calling your name. Keep riding, Connie. I died. I'm like, how on earth was I spotted at Kennywood today in Pittsburgh? It was fun. No, because my daughter and I were getting off the Thunderbolt, which is I think the oldest roller coaster that's still in Pittsburgh. The oldest one in Pittsburgh anyway, because there's another park north of us that has some pretty old ones too, but it's all wooden, but you have to ride it.

51:16You just have to ride it. It's a fantastic roller coaster. And I'm getting off and kind of looked over and saw this guy sitting on a bench. I'm like, gosh, that really looks like Brad. Pulled my daughter aside. I'm like, pulled your picture up on the internet. Thank heavens for Google. I'm like, is that that guy? Oh my gosh. She's like, go say hi. I'm like, I'm not going to say hi. That's embarrassing. Oh, that's too funny. It was good though. We were ships in the night. Indeed, indeed. But I'm glad we got a chance to catch up now. So yeah, obviously we went through a lot of the things and as I go through your email, we have touched on a lot of them, right?

51:53The opening the Roth IRAs for your daughters, which is incredible. Being able to give so generously and doing it, like you said, of course, and I did not want to imply in any way that you were giving for tax purposes. Nobody's doing that, I hope. It helps. It's nice, but it's not why I do it. Of course. And especially nowadays with, and this is a total aside, but important for the community to understand is with the massive standard deduction now, most people are not getting a tax benefit from either charitable donations or from their mortgage interest. Because very simply, if they were to itemize, which is the other way, which is add up all of those deductions that would count towards that, they're under that really generous standard deduction, which we now get.

52:39So let's be clear. I don't want to come up with a percentage, but it's very, very high. Most people are not getting any benefit for their mortgage interest, period, end of story. And obviously, when you make a charitable donation, you're doing it for the right reason, not because you're getting a tiny little fraction of it back on your income taxes. But that said, I think the real takeaway for income taxes with charitable is what you did, Connie, is donating appreciated stock. That is the key because we are investors in this community, right? We have appreciated stock and mutual and funds and such.

53:11That's the key here, right? Is you're a generous person. You're going to make charitable contributions. We had Jack and Rebecca on episode 483, which was one of the best of our whole run here. And that was a critical one. That was a good one. And I changed the way I looked at giving. That's awesome. Yeah. And yeah, I've been amazed at how many people have written me emails saying like, yeah, I took the 1 % pledge. I get this now. And it's just really cool. So anyway, I don't want to talk too much here, Connie, but yeah. It was great. And because I did the charitable giving this year and did it through stock, I actually wasn't able to use the standard deduction.

53:46I actually did itemize this year. Oh, interesting. Okay, cool. For 2023. Gotcha. That makes sense. So right, when you added up all the deductions that would go towards that, you were actually over standard, which is great. Yeah. And there were some health things in there, you know, doctor's visits and things. So it was a conglomeration of all of them. Yeah. Yeah. No, and that makes perfect sense. So where are you today? Like, where do we go from here? Yeah. So like I said, I'm working with the fee-only advice-only gentleman, and he just sent me my plan today. So I think my next step is to take a look at that and see if I didn't realize this is something I learned through him was that even though my AUM gentleman has me in fidelity, I didn't know that I could just repaper.

54:33I thought I was going to have to switch everything out and go to Vanguard or Charles Schwab or something like that. So I'm working with the advice only gentleman to help me repaper all that to make my plan. More simply, one of my hangups with the AUM gentleman was it's a complicated plan and I'm not a complicated plan. Yeah, right. Exactly. And because of that, it was blinding me. So when you say repaper, what do you mean by that? So I have to take it out from under his guidance, the AUM person's guidance and repaper it just so that it's only me. Basically, you're just taking his name off of it, but they'll have to move some things around and give me all new account numbers.

55:16Okay. So I just want to be clear. Is your AUM guy at Fidelity or he's not? Okay. Okay. So right. You need to basically get your assets out from under his umbrella. Right. And then you need to, I assume, do a... He's not at Fidelity, but I'm invested with Fidelity. Okay. I get it. So whatever firm he's with, he actually has you invested in Fidelity funds. That's right. Okay. So right. Oftentimes when you're with a financial advisor, they put you in their proprietary funds, in which case you generally can't move them or you can't move them without a fee to another brokerage. But with Fidelity funds, you definitely can.

55:55So right, you would do a brokerage to brokerage transfer. And this was another thing that Sean Mulaney talked about in one of our mailbag episodes. It was actually episode 447 and it was breaking up with your advisor. And he just gives very simple steps on how to do this. So this is really important. Because obviously you could get into a scenario, especially if this is in a regular brokerage account, if you sold everything and you had capital gains built in there, that would trigger capital gains. All those unrealized capital gains would become realized, and that would be taxable income that year.

56:30So that's why if they are in Fidelity funds, you could just move them to another brokerage, probably Fidelity most likely, because Fidelity is wonderful. Obviously, I'm not giving advice, but Fidelity is great. Sure. It's the easiest thing to do. And it would be the easiest. And then of course, it goes without saying that you could start unwinding some of those positions, especially if they are complicated, high fee funds. You wouldn't be paying the assets under management, the AUM fee anymore, but you still would be paying that expense ratio on those expensive funds. So you would want to unwind some of that, I would imagine, to put it more into a S &P 500 or total stock market fund, but you also don't want to do that all in one fell swoop.

57:10So there's a way to miscarriage that side of it as well. Yeah. And it helps to know that, one, I didn't know I could do that, just change the account numbers, right? To make things easier. I didn't know I could do that. And I'm sure I'm saying that very simplified, but I know there's more to it, but I thought I was going to have to fight with him, right? I thought I was going to have to like ask for help and he would probably give it to me because he is a really nice guy. He would probably help me. But again, the proprietary system that he has me in, I've asked several times to, to let's do this a different way.

57:46I want it simplified and he just hasn't done it. And it's been three years now. And I'm like, well, if you're not going to do it, I need to understand it above all else. But working with the new advice only guy, he was able to open my eyes to some things I have that I'm like, I don't even know why I'm in that. Anyway, so I don't want to get off track with that, but I'm excited. So that's my next thing with that. The other thing is the girls are graduating high school next month. And my oldest twin and I are going to Japan. And then after that, it's getting settled into college. And I don't know, my house is going to be empty at that point.

58:24Wow. Yeah. I'm going to see how it's going to echo. That's wild. Yeah. So lots of big changes. Yeah. A ton, a ton. I don't know precisely where you are in terms of, okay, I'm at FI, I'm almost there. I'm fat fight. I'm not sure precisely, but now that the girls are going off to college, do you see yourself, like you had said, you'd cut it down to four clients. And of course there's some FAFSA things there. So you're not going to change in the next four years, it sounds like, right? Well, so because they do a two-year look back, I really only have to worry about this year and then one more year about my income level for the FAFSA.

59:07But if we don't have to touch the 529 plan that I currently have for them. It's enough to fully fund them for the last two years. So really it's just the health insurance I have to look out for, right? But I also, through one of your episodes, am now learning about the solo 401k and I'm realizing, hey, I could actually like work a little bit more, earn some more money and throw it into the solo 401k at a higher rate than I am funding my simple plan, right? And that way I would keep the business income down. I could still just pay myself the way I've been paying myself because the house will be empty.

59:46I won't have to worry about all the added extra expense of food and electricity and all these things because my kids use a lot of that stuff. But I bought myself a bicycle rack for the back of my car. I'm going to start to ride my bicycle. So I have some plans for myself, but as far as the money side of it, I don't want to say, I think I know that I'm at five, I'm having a really hard time pulling the trigger to move away from my full-time work, right. From my business. I've had this business for 30 years, you know, so it's hard to, it's hard to let go. I did take the step and tell my biggest client, my favorite client that I'm planning on retiring the next two years, but he's 20 years younger than me.

1:00:30So his eyes were like, what? No way you can't, you know? And I'm like, no, we have to talk about you retiring in the next two years. So he's got a little one. Yeah. So I'm working on him because he needs to, he doesn't enjoy what he does. So anyway, yeah, I'm working on that. And I think if I waited a little bit, I would be fat fi, which sounds great, but I'm realizing how much I don't need to do. Meaning I don't, I don't, you know, it's the one year, but the more time, like all this traveling I'm doing this year, it's great, but I'm also finding it's very exhausting. And it's part of the number, right?

1:01:09It's part of the fine number. Like, do I need as much budgeted for traveling as I think I want? Right. Unless I'm going to stay at the four seasons, which I'm not opposed to, but you know what I mean? I'd rather slow travel than do these big one trips. right yeah and that's the interesting thing is i suspect once you get to fi you're going to realize i can travel more i can travel in a less exhausting manner and it's probably going to cost me less than a couple of these one-off trips right because you know just the way my weird accounting brain works is like you essentially well a you have a ton of flexibility with actually the flights right flights are the most expensive part right especially when you're talking like for a five or seven day trip.

1:01:55Whereas like, you know, quote unquote, like amortizing the cost of the flight over a two month trip. Oh no, you're right. It's nothing, right? Or again, with the flexibility or you go on that point GSI and like you find, oh wow, I can fly to Europe for 20 ,000 points one way, especially if I'm flexible, right? Like I can fly Air France to Paris really, really easily. And then just travel around Europe on Ryanair or EasyJet for$20 a flight or something. That's not amazing. Yeah. I'm going to have to check that out. Cause I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. And that's, what's so cool is like the game changes.

1:02:29And I think that's what you are alluding to in general is like, I mean, when your girls are out of the house, like your fine number is actually going to go down because your expenses are going to go down fairly dramatically. And that's not nothing, right? And like, that's a lot. You said for Every hundred dollars I cut, that's 30 ,000 off my fine number. I have twin 18 year olds. I'm cutting hundreds, if not thousands. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. A hundred bucks a month is 30 ,000 less than your fine number, which is just wild. Yeah. It's crazy. This is great though. I'm excited. I'm excited for you to go to Bali.

1:03:06I'm excited for you to start doing the five things that you should be doing because this is the whole point of it, right? None of it's about working yourself to death. None of it is about amassing money just to have money. That's when I talk to people about it. None of this is about just having a pile of money to have a pile of money because who cares? And even when the girls, this last year, right? After I read Die With Zero, that was another one. I told them like, look, we have one year until you move out of the house. If you want to do anything, this is the year of yes. like whatever you want to do.

1:03:44And then the one hit me with like, can I go to Japan? I'm like, yes. Okay. I didn't realize she was going to swing for the fences, but I'm glad to go. Otherwise I would never go to Japan. Yeah. Oh, the year of yes. No, honestly, anything they want to do, it's been yes. Do you want to go here? Yes. Let's go. That is absolutely beautiful. I love it. You have that counter. My counters, you know i'm down to double digits oh my god yeah yeah it's frightening right you're in thousands of days and i i have 90 maybe 120 if i'm lucky yeah and i yeah i've mentioned that before in the podcast it's this yeah this kind of running counter i have until the day my girls go to college and and yeah every day updated and it's not meant as like a morbid thing it's meant like a you know really really maximize it and yeah that year of yes that's really beautiful kind And I appreciate what you said now.

1:04:41And also before we had started in the recording, because I just published episode 488 and I talked about how kind of with doc G where I've been, yeah, maybe just doing a little bit too much and maybe experiencing some burnout and such. And you were just so kind and empathetic to say, Hey, do you, do you not want to record today? Do you want to maybe punt this to another time? And I said like, or at all, or at all, I've been looking forward to talking to you for so long that like, Like there's no, like, I love podcasts and this is amazing. Well, let me speak for everybody though. Cause if you don't take the trip, what are we doing?

1:05:17You know what I mean? What is any of this for? If you, if you, right, who've got us all in this circle, if you don't do like, how can you lead? How can you lead us into this beautiful life? If you don't take it yourself? I fully receive that Connie and I will, I will take it to heart. And I think the kids will send me some money. thank you and yeah i think i've taken this on too much as like uh like a mission and yeah to your point it's you have to lead by example and i think that's really important it is a mission but it's a mission for good and it's a mission for doing the right things for the right reasons so yeah well i appreciate that and kind of listen i am just so happy for you i i'm happy for me too It's been mind-blowing, but it's been a good mind-blowing.

1:06:07Yeah. And it's amazing to see the actions you've taken, how much you've done. It's really remarkable. So just a huge congrats to you and your girls. And enjoy the end of that year of yes. And onward and upward from here. I can't wait to follow your path. And please keep you knowing. Now I have to look at the travel stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I give you a whole lot more homework. I know. Thanks a lot. I think my brain isn't full enough. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. All right, Connie, thanks again. And until next time. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community.

1:06:41If 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.

1:07:20And 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 choosify.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. Chooseify episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community. And even though it's a couple of 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?

1:07:56What 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.

1:08:24Thank you.