502 | Making FI Fun Again | Roundup

25:39That's so cool. You're going. Yeah. It's funny. This is one of those interesting things where I think is like another kind of cool aspect of FI is like when you have time and you have flexibility and you have travel rewards points, you kind of can just let the trip take you where it will. Like I actually didn't plan on going to Singapore. I had no intention necessarily, but Ginger, I went up, I'm getting the business class flights on Singapore airlines on what is, or was, if not currently is the longest flight in the world. So it's Singapore direct to New York city. It's for the JFK. It's a 17 hour flight in Singapore business class.

26:22So I was super excited about that. And then I just, I said, okay, look, I can now plan my trip around this. So Alan and Katie actually want to go to Singapore. So we're going to just fly from Bali to Singapore and hang out in Singapore for four or five days. I'm jealous. I cannot wait to hear about it. Singapore has always seemed like such a great family, possibly destination too, because there's so much in like this small area. And so, yeah, I'll be curious to hear about your experience. yeah well i will definitely uh keep you updated yeah it's so wild that you bring up singapore because i have been weirdly like youtubing how much does it cost to live in singapore as one does as one does as one does yeah yeah yeah so i can't wait so yeah i will let you know i will let the whole community know for sure yeah yeah it should just be fun i mean i think i'm just looking forward to exploring and just doing all sorts of random stuff that you know we'll see where it takes me And I think that's kind of the fun of life of five, of travel rewards.

27:28And who knows if we'll change it up in the, I mean, we still have three plus months before, before we take off. So yeah, who the heck knows. 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 fi.com slash cards. I 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. Okay. So speaking of travel rewards, let's talk domestic. I want to share an email that I got that was a response to one of the things we talked about last time.

28:12So to catch everyone up, I've got my mini companion pass. and I was saying, okay, well, the problem with the companion pass is that you can only have one companion at a time. So for instance, I'm going with my friend in October on a trip, but I also want to book this trip in January with my son, but I can't book that one with him as my companion if I already have my friend listed as my companion. So I was saying like, how do I get around this? What do I do about this? And so Melissa wrote in and I never got back to Melissa. I'm so sorry, but I was really grateful for your email. And I'm going to go ahead and just read part of it here.

28:49So she said, you can book as many flights as you want under your name, and you don't have to add your companion until later. It's a second step that you don't have to take at all. You can still fly alone without a companion. As long as there's still a seat left on the flight, you can add your companion up to the last minute. So if you want to change your companion at some point, it won't matter because you're not booking your companion ticket until later. Example, I was flying to Miami with my husband and the next week was going to be flying to Boston with my sister. I had booked both my flights months in advance and had added my husband as the companion for the first trip.

29:24I still had the Boston trip booked, but no companion added for that one yet. When I got off my last flight from Miami, I called and changed my companion. So then she summed up like, don't wait to book your own ticket to lock in the price, add your companion later. So I thought that that was really smart and kind of something that I had come up with that I think also might be worth doing is booking. Because of course, the risk is there might not be another seat on the plane. And so if you wait till the last minute, you could get really stuck. So what I was thinking also is I might book the January trip with my current companion and then at the last minute change the companion because then that would hold the ticket.

30:10What do you think about that? I mean, it sounds plausible. I feel very ignorant every time we talk about the companion pass because I've never had it after all these years. So I don't know the intricacies. So as always, and we truly mean this, this is a crowdsourced personal finance show. So I'm sure there are many, many, many people saying, oh, come on, you two, you should know that. This is precisely how it works. So just send us an email, feedback at chooseofy.com, and we'll talk about it the next time we do this. But that sounds plausible. It does, because I know where you're going with it.

30:44It's like, okay, look, I'm reserving this. And then I just give it up. And then I just quickly swoop in. The one thing I do know that I can say definitively is Southwest customer service is really fantastic. So I suspect if you did that, you could just like call them. That's probably how I would do it and just be like, Hey, can I just do this? But there might be some little dotting I's and crossing T's that we don't know about. Yeah, I don't think so. I think it's going to work. That is exactly my plan is to call because I, one of my travel rewards fails is that, you know, you always hear the great thing about Southwest is that you can cancel and you can rebook and it's really easy.

31:21So you should look for a cheaper flight. So I tried this. There was like this big sale that came out and I thought, okay, if I just do it really quick, this is going to be great. So I did it, but then it turns out that that sale for some reason didn't work with the flight that I was hoping to book. Like I didn't read the fine print, like it was the correct dates, but oh, there was this exception, like you can't do this with your Phoenix flight. So panicked. I'm just like panic calling Southwest because I've already canceled the tickets and now to rebook would actually be more expensive. So I called them and they were awesome.

32:00And how often do you actually get to say that? But she was super helpful and she got me back my tickets. And so, yes. So my plan when I tried to change companions, I'm just going to call and have them both change my companion, which I think you have to do by a call and also just change the ticket situation. And I know you think it's plausible. I think this is a solid plan. Okay. All right. You heard it here first. To be continued because I'm going to try it. I love it. Okay. Well, that's a great part about the show. So come back, let us know. I love the plan. It sounds very reasonable and we will, we will say that's super cool.

32:37I know you've gotten some email questions or any of them about travel. You know, I do have a question that I want to go into right away. But just real quick, the two things I wanted to mention just to close out travel. So we always talk about obviously getting into travel rewards. This is one of what we've always termed as the pillars of FI because it's so much fun. I think that's what's so great about FI, Ginger, is FI is this amazing, fun superpower where you feel like you're living the same life as everybody else, but you're just winning. You're just getting wealthy because you know these ins and outs.

33:16You know the rules of the game. You know these fun little things. And I feel like travel rewards has always been at the top of that list for me because it just feels like winning. Okay, how can I take my smart financial habits, my smart credit card habits, paying them off on time and in full every month, and turn that into a couple of nearly free vacations every year? So I think the big thing is it obviously starts with smart credit card habits, and it starts with these credit card signup bonuses. And I very rarely do this where I talk about specific signup bonuses, but as of the date we're recording this, so July 17th, 2024, two of my absolute favorite credit cards, the Capital One Venture Rewards Card and the Chase Inc.

34:00Business Preferred Card, both have increased bonuses, like the best bonuses I've ever seen on these cards. So the Chase Inc. Business, obviously, if you have a small business, that's a small business card. that is the best bonus I've ever seen on that card. It's currently 120 ,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which is astonishing. There is an$8 ,000 minimum spend in the first three months, and there's a$95 annual fee. So all the normal stuff, but I mean, goodness, Ginger, with 120 ,000 Ultimate Rewards points, you can go a long way. So definitely want to mention those are both, as I understand it, those are both limited time offers.

34:37I don't know when they're going to end. They hopefully won't end before this airs in a handful of days. But for anybody who's interested, you can always find all of our travel rewards info at chooseofi.com slash travel. So that links up to all of our podcast episodes, going back to episode nine, which was the original travel rewards episode to my top recommended cards page, which I keep updated on really a regular daily basis, essentially, as things change. And yeah, using that page is literally the best way to support choose of I. It's essentially the only way to support Chooseify. So if you're going to open up a credit card and you want to see what my top recommend cards are, yeah, chooseify.com slash travel.

35:17So I have a question you might not know the answer to, but I bet a lot of people have this question after you mentioned that card. Are you eligible? Do you know for that bonus if you already have, say, the Sapphire card? So yes, because it is a small business card, it's a totally different product. That's a great question. there are rules in terms of getting another sapphire card. So whether that's sapphire preferred, sapphire reserve, or just getting another bonus. Let's say you had one of the sapphire cards in the last 48 months and got that bonus in the last 48 months, you can't get another one, but the ink business preferred and the sapphire are distinct.

35:55And as far as I know, as of today, there are no rules that preclude you from getting them. So if you have a sapphire and you have a small business and you want to open up an ink business preferred, you can. Interesting. So it sounds like you're saying, even if I got a bonus from a Sapphire card a month ago, I could still probably get the business? Yes. Ah. Yeah. Obviously it's up to Chase whether they approve you, yada, yada, yada, all those details. But yeah, there's nothing that I, no rules that I know of that would preclude you. So yeah, I am going to jump on that. I mean, that 120 ,000 bonus point offer is just, It's too good to pass up.

36:31So that is, yeah, the best offer I've ever seen. I think that has ever been on that card. So yeah, now is a good time. So, okay, I wanted to jump in with that to kind of end the travel reward section. But yeah, you mentioned emails. And I think this actually kind of ties into the, like back to basics and the FI being really like, as I see it, and I don't think we're like overt about this enough, Ginger, is that FI is the way for middle-class people to get wealthy. It just is like, that's how I think about it in my head. Like this is for, and middle-class is obviously a very broad spectrum, but like, that's how I think about it.

37:08Like, this is the way to get wealthy. It's to live a life of intentionality. It's to live below your means. It's to be frugal. It's to raise your income. It's to save and invest in low cost index funds. Like this is a superpower. This is the superpower. Like when you find this, it's as if the secrets of the universe have opened up to you. And I think one of the things that maybe we've kind of gone away from, and I mentioned this recently, is gone away from the frugality aspect. And I think maybe a little bit too far. And Tanner sent this email, and it's pretty long, but I'm going to read most of it here.

37:42So no one in particular, but I do want to chime in based on something from the podcast this week. You were talking about how maybe the pod and our community have gotten a bit too far into the die with zero mindset. And I have to agree. I believe frugality is the most fundamental piece of the five mindset. You can't start saving and investing money without having a buffer between what you make and what you spend. I agree that we shouldn't live like paupers, but I don't think anyone is really out there doing that aside from the extremes. The default in society is wasting gobs of money on eating out nice cars, fancy clothes, and people have to be actively steered away from that.

38:19I think by encouraging people early in their journeys to spend more freely kind of negates the whole point of this. That may work fine for the high earners, but for those of us earning closer to the median American wages, there's just no question that some sacrifice in spending will have to be made if you want a chance to retire early. You used to advocate that people starting out should cut their expenses ruthlessly and then start building them back up once people figure out what they really like to spend on. That's similar to what my family has done. At one point, we were only spending around$1 ,800 a month, but that number has crept up by about 1 ,000 as I've gotten raises.

38:55I know the podcast can only focus on newcomers and that you're trying to have a broad appeal, but for those deep into their fight journey, they don't need the encouragement. I believe the message should try and turn back to the frugal side of things for those just starting out. You have to get your spending in check before any of this other stuff matters. And goodness, Ginger, I think Tanner nailed it. Yeah. Makes me think about when we started this conversation talking about the old episodes. And I remember one that I really liked was the one about car costs. Yeah. And like thinking about what are those big expenses that you can think about in a different way and how much those can have a difference.

39:37And just as I was listening to you read that email, I was thinking, oh, like, what are those choices that I've been making in my life now? and one of them is being a one car family. And like what a difference, you know, that can make. Just gas, yes. Insurance, yes. Not having the cost of a car, yeah. What do you see as sort of, what are those frugal moves that you still make even though you're maybe in a different position than you were 10 years ago? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm going to answer that. But I wanna ask you first about the one car because I think a lot of people have aspirations of doing that, but they're just like, a little bit scared.

40:14They wonder if it's like, is it a bridge too far? Are there going to be times of frustration where you quote unquote need two cars? Like how have you and your husband found that? Yeah, there'll be times of frustration. Yeah. But I think ultimately like the payoff is so big in terms of kind of monthly and yearly expenses. And I mean, okay, here's something that happened last night. I offered to be the driver for an event that I was going to with my friends. And then when I got home from work, because I take the bike home, the car wasn't here. And my husband had just forgotten. And they were just gone.

40:51And I had to be super annoying and talk to a friend and said, Hey, I was going to drive everyone. But can you drive everyone? Right? Because there was no backup car. There was no way to get ahold of them, right? Like, that's not super great. But guess what? Like, my friend had a car, I can do it next time. You know, so stuff like that does happen. I know we've talked a little bit about winter has been a little bit rough sometimes. But if you really think about how many times it's been a problem, like how many times I had to take the bus because the bike was just completely undoable, or I had to work out how to get a ride from my husband, that was probably like six times.

41:31And so when you think about, well, would it be worth six times out of a year to have another car? I mean, no. You could even take an Uber and it would be fine because of what a small amount of times it's a problem for. So I think you just try it. And that was kind of our idea, too, of like, let's see if we can make this work for a year or two. And then we can change our minds if we want. But, you know, so far it's been really good. And I love the bike. So it's also kind of makes my life more fun. Yeah, that is so cool. And that ties into the email in the sense that, hey, maybe when it comes to FI, we do need to flex our frugality muscles a little more, right?

42:14Like it's easy to say like, oh, like these things that I've talked about, which is spend on what you value. And I think sometimes that gets more into the spend side as opposed to what that really means is don't waste money on frivolous garbage. It doesn't mean you should live a life deprivation. That is not the story. That has never been the story. But you shouldn't be hemorrhaging money on stupid nonsense. I think that's the unfortunate position most people find themselves in is no matter how much income they're earning, they can find a way to spend it all. Oh, so easily. That's the normal American life.

42:52And I think one of the things that we pride ourselves on here in the fight community is like, it's not your income that makes you wealthy. It's your net worth and ultimately your savings rate, right? Like you could be making$50 ,000 a year and be vastly wealthier than the executive at your company making a quarter of a million dollars a year because you're saving money because you're being intentional about life. And like, and yeah, like that might mean doing something a little uncomfortable. Like, like you're saying, what you described is the quintessential five mindset, right? Like, Hey, look, let's just try it.

43:24What's the absolute worst that happens? We hate this and we go out and buy another car. But if you'd never tried it, you guys would have never known that, all right, look, this is not that big of a sacrifice. And I think part of FI has always also been sometimes you have to give a little bit up in order to get so much more, which is saving money and buying back your life and your freedom, right? So like, I know I've talked about for years and this is not as consequential anymore because thanks to like Mint Mobile now on your cell phones, like you can essentially get unlimited data. But like back in the day when it was, again, going back to the beginning of Choose to Buy, like when it was just Republic Wireless and I was buying like one gigabyte of data a month, like I always said like, all right, look, I have a brand new smartphone.

44:12I, for all intents and purposes, have the same thing as everybody else, but I'm spending$15 a month as opposed to$100 a month that everybody else is spending times two adults in the household. That's$150 plus savings a month. But am I doing that and giving up nothing? No, that would be intellectually dishonest. What I'm giving up is little nothing. It means I can't stream Netflix when I'm not on Wi-Fi. It means I can't download podcasts when I'm not on Wi-Fi because those are really data intensive. So am I literally giving up nothing by definition? No, I'm giving up just those stupid things that if I was just a little more intentional, you mean, oh, wow, I get to save$85 per person,$170 per month, every month, forever.

45:01One calculation that we've always done, but I've actually never taken it to its logical conclusion, Ginger, is every $100 a month that you cut out of your monthly budget is$30 ,000 less that you need to reach FI. Okay. So for people new to the community who are hearing that, how that works is basically your FI number is 25 times your annual expenses. Okay. So if you take a hundred dollars a month and multiply it by 12 months, you have$1 ,200. Now multiply that by 25. Cause again, the FI number is 25 times the annual expenses. That's$30 ,000. All right. So Ginger in and of itself, that's mind blowing, right?

45:41So like you cut a hundred dollars out, you need$30 ,000 less. So like your car, a new car payment is four or five,$600 a month, plus all the maintenance, the gas, the insurance, right? So like we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars less you need to reach five, but let's even just talk about that a hundred dollars. The other side of the equation that we've never actually calculated is that money is just not going poof and vanishing, you're taking that extra hundred and investing it in low cost index funds. Right. So if you invest, I ran this on a nerd wallets compound interest calculator, and I basically said, all right, I'm contributing a hundred dollars a month for 40 years.

46:23Okay. I mean, that's pretty much an adult lifetime expecting an 8 % annual return. I compounded it monthly. It doesn't ultimately really matter if you do it daily, monthly, whatever. Ginger, $350 ,000. That means you'll have three. If you had done that for 40 years, like you and your husband, you don't have that second car. You're investing. Even if you were to say it's only $100, you have$350 ,000 more sitting in your net worth. How many people do you know at 60 who even have a net worth of$350 ,000? Virtually nobody. And that's just from making that one decision. That's astonishing. Crazy. Yeah.

46:57It's amazing. So that's the kind of math that I think really sinks in with people when they hear it. And to your point about all of the garbage that we buy, I think my biggest tip for that is declutter some part of your house because it's so painful to do that, to be like, oh, I spent money on this. Oh, like how many hours did I work for this thing that is trash and I don't want anymore? And that always is sort of a painful way, but it always inspires me to put more of a pause between my purchases. Like, is this going to be something that I'm pulling out of my closet in seven months that I'm annoyed that I'm now taking to the goodwill?

47:41You know? Well, that pause is so important. That, that harkens back way back to, I think our first interview ever, which I believe was episode 12 with Liz from Frugal Woods. And she talked about the 72 hour rule, which she implements, which is quite literally that pause, that space between stimulus and response, right? It's like, Hey, I want to buy this. What do we, most of us do, we go to Amazon, click, click, boom, it's bought, it shows up tomorrow. What if you took a 72 hour space, right? Like that makes a big difference. And just to kind of close the loop, you mentioned, uh, obviously we're talking about cars, right?

48:16So episode 22 way back in the day was the true cost of car ownership. So in that episode, Jonathan talks about the annual expenses. And I talk about more the long-term, that 30 or 40 year difference. And you're going to be amazed to hear what a difference it makes in your net worth to just drive old cars. And I think that's a cool illustration. And you asked me before, like, what's something I still do in my life? And cars are really, really the thing. And it's interesting because this is top of mind right now. So what's wild is my older daughter is getting her driver's license in about seven weeks.

48:58Ginger, it is so crazy. I can't believe she's that old. It's just, we're getting ready for college. She just got her first AP scores back in the mail. Oh my God. Not even in the mail. Electronically, I mean, things are going down here. So yeah, she's getting her license, her full license. So she's actually going on her driver's ed test this week as we speak, basically. And it's one of those things where, again, because a fi is a life of intentionality, and we really want her to have a car because, frankly, it makes our lives a lot easier. Yeah. In the sense that both Anna and Molly go to a lot of different places all the time.

49:39Anna goes to swimming in the morning. Anna goes to marching band during the summer. and then every day after school, like Molly has a ton of activities. If we now have a third potential driver, this makes our lives dramatically easier and less stressful. So it's one of those things where I actually, for the very first time, so this is a weird circuitous story, but so we're getting Anna a car and because she's saved a lot of money and gotten gifts over the years, she was actually able to purchase this. So I found a really great, it's a 2020 Hyundai Elantra and was only a little less than$13 ,000 for a 2020 car, which in this day and age, I was really, really happy with.

50:20Thing drives like a dream compared to like my 2013 Civic. And, you know, I actually realized like, A, I didn't want three cars at the time. So because Anna's not getting her license for two months, I wound up selling my Civic. So I got some offers from CarMax and Carvana and Carvana, for whatever reason, gave me like 25 % more than CarMax was willing to offer. And I was able to essentially net out this new 2020 Elantra for what I was able to sell my 2013 Civic, which frankly, as much as I love Honda, that was awesome. ginger. It was like a$2 ,000 net that we had to pay out of pocket or thereabouts,$2 ,500, something like that.

51:07My 2013 Civic just wasn't that great. I don't know if it was a lemon or whatever, but it just wasn't my favorite car. It wasn't like Golden Boy, the old 03 Civic, which I love that car. Anyway, for the first time in 21 years, almost to the day, I do not have a Honda Civic. It's pretty wild. Now, obviously, I guess the subtext of this is I need to go out and get a new car for myself or some type of new vehicle. And this is the big thing going on in my financial life now is, all right, what do I buy? Do I buy a new car? Do I buy a lightly used car? Do I buy an older car? There's a lot of considerations.

51:45But it's funny seeing this sub$13 ,000 Elantra that Anna got. I might just get the same darn thing, honestly. It's pretty great. So yeah, I think that's a long winded story. And I suspect there's, you know, there's more to it if I wanted to spend more time on it, but I don't value cars. I really don't, even to this day. It's like, I just have a hard time. Like part of me wants to buy the new Toyota Prius, which was like motor trends car of the year. There's like a plug and electric version of it. It's like$36 ,000 for this plug and electric version. And is that going to break the bank in terms of my net worth?

52:20Like, no, it's not even a blip, but I still, I just don't value cars that much. So I'm like, part of me, I'm having this internal struggle, Ginger. So I don't know, where do you come down on cars? Oh, I am so apathetic about cars and really - Obviously the one car, so I have a sense of where you come down. Your daughter's car is so much nicer than our one car and probably nicer than we'll ever have because I don't care. Like if it gets us from A to B great. Yeah. But I know, I know I'm on the extreme end in that way and that people love their cars, but like you said, it's just, it's about what you value.

52:57And I want to buy other things that car people think are stupid. I'm sure. So and you want to go to Singapore and bring your whole family. Exactly. Exactly. And yeah, I think that going back to Tanner's email is like, I think that is where like that die with zero mentality comes in. I think there's more of an intersection between frugality and the die with zero mentality of understanding that like there are seasons of life and spending more on certain things in certain seasons of life is very welcome and is important. And I don't know that I tie those things together as closely as I should. I think I don't as evidenced by the email.

53:36So I think what's really important. And again, because FI is this one way for middle-class people to get wealthy. I think we have to be realistic and say, there's a finite amount of money coming in, right? Like, I think we all intuitively understand that, but we don't say it that often, right? Like how many people you listen to some of these other podcasts and like, you know, my first million, which I love as a general kind of business podcast. But like, if you listen to that show, you would think everyone makes more than half a million dollars a year. That's just table stakes for life. And realistically, that's going to put you in the top 1 % of income in virtually every single state in America.

54:14And that's in America, right? So that obviously puts you in the top 10th of a percent in most countries, hundredth of a percent in most countries in the world. So realistically, most single people, most even couples, two people making$100 ,000, that's a$200 ,000 income. That I put you on the high side. And I think what people in our community are looking at is, all right, look, what is a lifestyle that's going to put me between a$50 ,000 income on a single person to 200 ,000? And that is a finite amount of money, right? And you have to be smart with how you spend it. You just have to be. And to think that you can just go and spend on everything, like Tanner said, it negates the FI concept.

54:55It negates everything. You have to be intentional. that doesn't mean you can't do things that you want to do. Like I've talked about these Taylor Swift concerts. I didn't even mention when we went to London, we saw Taylor Swift and it was incredible. We saw Olivia Rodrigo in Barcelona. And like, we spent a decent bit of money for those tickets and that was fine. It was wonderful. I'm so thrilled about that, but I drive an old car. And even though I have a decent, significant net worth, I'm probably going to buy a$13 ,000 car. And I'm not going to think that's deprivation. But then the next time that I want to go and buy concert tickets, I'm not going to bat an eyelash about that, Ginger, because that's the kind of decision making that I think is important.

55:36Okay, that is such a good place, I think, for us to end today. But before we do, Brad and I were talking a little bit before the show about how we really wanted to bring back voicemails more into the show. Like we want to hear from you guys and what are your wins and what are your questions. And we really want to hear more from you. So choosefi.com slash voicemail. Get in touch with us. Yeah, I love that, Ginger. And that can be on a host of things, right? So again, we're going to try to bring back a lot of these fun segments, right? Frugal Win of the Week, which we're going to actually do here in a second, travel rewards questions, just general questions that you might have that we can tackle or bring in some of our expert guests and friends who we can bring on to also answer those questions to any kind of feedback you have on the episode, right?

56:26Like a lot of these episodes, it doesn't just stop there. It's you have questions, you have follow-ups, we can talk about it. I think that's always been the lifeblood of Choose a Vi. And frankly, we've gone away from that over the last couple of years. And I want to bring it back. And this being a give and take of Ginger and I are just, we're just regular people. We're regular people following the path to Vi. And we're all kind of figuring this out ourselves. And that's one of really the beauties of the five community is this is the most intelligent community of people that I have ever seen. And this is not limited to our knowledge by any means.

57:01We undoubtedly just going back to the companion past, like we undoubtedly get things wrong. We have holes in our knowledge, like help us. That's what's so beautiful about this. If you have some kind of amazing life hacker, we talked about travel, like what are the things that you do with kids or just forget kids, Just talk about like some kind of fun little travel thing, that tip that you use to make traveling easier and make it more efficient, like anything in your life. This is the kind of stuff we want. So choose a vaticom slash voicemail. Okay. You said we have a frugal win of the week. Yeah.

57:32So, okay. I got a couple here that I'm going to read real quick. So Aaron wrote in, uh, I talked about one of the, uh, everlasting things in choose a vaticom is everything is negotiable. So I mentioned this in the newsletter and really the newsletter is as much a companion to this podcast as anything. It's as essential as the podcast. So chooseupby.com subscribe. If you're not getting the newsletter, just get on the newsletter. I send it out every Tuesday. I write this thing myself. It's quite good. Aaron said, your everything is negotiable highlight in this week's newsletter made me think of our recent 1 % better.

58:04Thanks to getting our finances on track, we had the ability to negotiate with cash during two recent home maintenance projects. Our roofer agreed to shave$600 off the total cost when we asked for a cash discount. A tree removal service cut$500 off the total price for paying in cash for the tree removal. Having enough cash is powerful and saved us$1 ,100 just this year alone. Wow. I mean, Ginger, that's awesome, right? Like, that's the power of having a net worth, of having money saved up, of being in the FI community. I love it. Okay. This one is from Sue, and she says, our 1 % better this week was that my partner fixed the condenser that powers our mini split heat pumps for$175 part and 40 minutes of his time versus the 1600 we were quoted by the company that originally installed it.

58:51And they said this was about 50-50 for parts and labor. Wow. So goodness, they spent$175 in a part and 40 minutes at a time and saved over$1 ,400. That's a pretty good ROI on 40 minutes of time. That's incredible thinking about like, oh, you just made$1 ,400 an hour there. Right? Yeah. Could you imagine replicating that? So yeah, that's what's cool about DIY projects and like understanding, hey, look, YouTube, you can answer essentially anything nowadays, right? So like, why not try? It goes back to your why not try on the cars. Why not try? What's the worst that happened? And I'm trying to think if I have any frugal wins of the week.

59:29I don't have anything great except I branched out a little bit with cooking. So again, going back to the, hey, I'm exploring old stuff that we used to talk about. We used to watch MasterChef Junior on TV. So Gordon Ramsay's MasterChef Junior. And I mentioned a long time ago that my daughter, Molly, was into cooking and she wanted to try cooking Gordon Ramsay's chicken breasts. And I was like, oh, I have frozen chicken breasts. Maybe I can try that and just see how it turns out as opposed to like just doing my generic. Like I'm now, because of my new health kick, I'm eating a lot more protein now.

1:00:07And I know we want to talk about exercise. We'll save that for the next roundup. But so I'm like, oh, instead of just doing the same old boring thing again, let me watch that video. So I literally just Googled Gordon Ramsay, MasterChef Jr. Chicken YouTube. I kid you not. That's it. Gordon Ramsay, MasterChef Jr. Chicken YouTube. It's like a 75 second video, Ginger. And it's so simple. He basically just puts in a couple of herbs, but he based the extra butter that he puts in over the chicken breast while it's cooking. And just that one little thing made the difference between like, okay, ho-hum, chicken breast too.

1:00:42Oh my goodness, this is one of the best things I've eaten in months. And I cooked it at home. It was awesome. So did I save any money? No, not necessarily. but it just, it felt like a win. It felt like getting a gourmet meal at home for maybe 30 seconds extra of work. Like it was awesome. So we'll call that a frugal win in spirit. Okay, well, this show is all about taking action. Yes? So everyone go take action and go check out the chicken recipe unless you're a vegetarian like me and then you'll want to try using tofu for that. Thank you so much for listening today. and again, reach out to us.

1:01:21We really want to include more listener voices. Yeah, so the best way, like Ginger said earlier, chooseofi.com slash voicemail, or if you want to send it an email, it's feedback at chooseofi.com. And yeah, we're really trying to make this vibrant and fun and bring you into these Roundup episodes. And Ginger, you and I are going to do a lot more of them. So this felt like a lot of fun. I'm glad we did this. All right, until next time, thanks for being part of the Choose of I community and thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community.

1:01:53If 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 crowdsourced personal finance show.

1:02:32And 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?

1:03:08What 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.