504 | Visualizing Your Domino Effect | Devon

25:21But I was going through this tracker and I went through, like I found it in June and I went all the way back to January and was just analyzing my entire year. And I found out that in the first six months of 2023, I had 5K in unnecessary spending. Like I, the way I had my expense tracker, I categorized it by like food, housing, electricity, and all that stuff. But then I had like an overarching category of necessary and unnecessary. And like in first couple of months, it all rested between somewhere in like 30 to 40 % of the spending that I was doing was unnecessary, like going out to eat or just random purchases on Amazon.

26:00And then that was kind of like my eyes opened. I was like, oh yeah, I'm doing good. I get paid to go to school. I have no student debt, but I'm also just hemorrhaging money as a college student unnecessarily. So that kind of made me like, not even like reel it in because I was just got more intentional about it. Like in the months following Finding Choose Fi, like I spent more time with my friends. I ate healthier foods. I went out more. Like it's just the money that I was spending was more intentional. And like following the summer, I'm down to like 20 % unnecessary spending. Like you have to have a little bit of fun.

26:34You can't just cut it to the bone, especially in college. Absolutely. And yeah, it's interesting because the word unnecessary makes it sound like it's totally frivolous. And clearly that's not what you're saying. It's just, you were trying to categorize in terms of, all right, what truly is necessary and then what's everything else that I'm spending. And you're kind of lumping it all together. And I think the single most important thing you said in there, which I really want everybody to dial in on, is you're being more intentional now. You're not depriving yourself. In fact, the opposite, it.

27:08Like you said, you're spending more time with friends. You're spending quality time. You're eating better. You're just being intentional. You're being healthier. And I think there's always some fear that somebody is going to shut a podcast off or just shut out the financial independence community because they heard about those fire people, right? Like how many times have you heard like people railing on those fire people who are just so cheap and they're not living like, no, no, no, that's not what we're doing here. We're living lives of intentionality. Right. And I mean, Devin just described that perfectly.

27:43It's how can you spend less and live more? That's the goal. And that is almost invariably what we see. So yeah, I mean, I'll get down off my soapbox, but Devin, that is like the perfect way to encapsulate financial independence, right? It's spend less, but live more. exactly i love to travel i love going to concerts that summer i want to say went to like over five concerts and like when i go to concerts it's worth it for me to like pay and get those good tickets because i love the experience of going to concerts i traveled i went camping with my friends like i was just what i spent my money on was intentional i just wasn't just well that'd be nice to have it would be like do i really want this right now is it like am i just getting this out of convenience.

28:25Am I buying this sandwich because I'm hungry or just because I'm bored, especially at work? They had a cafeteria and I was like, oh, I could just get a sandwich right now, but I don't need the sandwich right now. I'm not hungry. I have a lunchbox packed already. It's just being really intentional about what I wanted to spend my money on. I will always make time for my friends and always make time to travel and have new experiences. I love that. I absolutely love that. And yeah, we can fast forward almost to today. And I know you told me recently about a travel rewards win that you just recently had almost exactly what you just described.

28:57It's experiences. It's how can I get something and really enjoy it? And you're taking this incredible trip with you and your girlfriend. And it's also wrapped around a movie that you love and a concert experience, right? Yes. My birthday gift to myself when I turned 21 was my Amex gold card. That's what I got myself because it's the$250 fee. So I splurged. So I've just been racking up rewards points for a year. And this was my first time redeeming those rewards points. Me and my girlfriend are big fans of the movie La La Land. And she always wanted to go to one of the concerts in the park where it's like they play the movie and then they have a live symphony playing the entire music score.

29:40And she found out they're doing another one in September and told me about it. And I said, do you want to go? and she was like, well, yeah, but I don't have that much money right now. I'm like, let me see if I can find a travel rewards redemption. And I did find one. I saved us, I want to say each ticket was roughly like$330 from Minneapolis to LA. And I ended up spending, I want to say it was like 50 ,000 points. Wow. That's incredible. So I'm guessing, I think Minneapolis is a big Delta hub, right? It is. Yes. Was it a Delta redemption? Yep. Nice. That's what's so interesting. I think here's another little tip for anybody out there is always Google your airport name and then wiki.

30:22So in this case, I literally just Googled in the last five seconds after I had that guess, Minneapolis airport wiki. And any airport in the world has a Wikipedia page where you can scroll down to the airlines and destinations area. And it just gives you a sense of what airlines are flying out of your local airport or airports. And yeah, you see The Delta here makes up, I mean, it looks like they have dozens upon dozens of locations that they fly to direct from Minneapolis and actually Sun Country Airlines, which I'm not all that familiar with, actually. So anyway, that's just a kind of a cool way as a starting point for travel rewards is just go to that airlines and destination section of your airport's Wikipedia page.

31:02So yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty impressive to find a, that's a saver level ticket on Delta, which those are, those are not easy to come by period, not less when you have to line it up for a trip. So bravo, Devin. Good job. Thank you. And when I went to Vegas, this is one thing I'm super mad about Vegas is that I looked online when I was planning on buying to see which tickets were available. There was a flight from Minneapolis to Vegas for 20 ,000 Amex points. And I didn't jump on it right away. And then I went back, like I want to say like a day or two later and the flight was sold out.

31:34And that was like my biggest regret in like recent memory. Yeah. It's hard with rewards points. It really is. Sometimes, yeah, you have to make those split last second decisions because yeah, I mean, they do, they do go away. I did want to ask you actually, so Vegas, let's talk about this. So you are obviously really, really busy. You're a full-time college student. You're in the National Guard. You're really, really busy, but yet you flew halfway across the country to come to a FI event, your first FI event. And I think I'd love for you to talk about, how did you make that decision? And what do you think you got out of a live event?

32:12Because there are a lot of people out there who are listening to this, who are on the fence. They might have a local Camp FI meetup in their area, or maybe they're thinking about coming to Economy next year in Cincinnati, or one of these events that I'm going to hold with the Donegan's again. What was it about that that made you jump on it? And I guess then the second question is, what did you get out of it? Well, I was listening to the podcast and then you guys announced it like in the episode and I was like, that sounds fun. And then I just being on like this five journey, I had the bandwidth and my finances to just say, oh, I can drop the, I don't know, it was probably for me like a thousand something dollar trip and just go to Vegas for a weekend.

32:52And I fully attribute that to already just being on the path to FI. It's just you get a little bit more freedom. Just every single dollar you get behind your side of the ledger. And I was just able to hop on the opportunity because I knew it would be gone really fast as soon as it got announced. And then it was pretty much like the night of I heard the announcement and I was contemplating it, tried to find a couple of friends to see if I could drag them along with me, but I wasn't able to. And then I just booked for myself and then bought my tickets for the flights and headed on down. Nice. That is really cool.

33:29Yeah, and you're right. It did sell out rather quickly. So yeah, good decision to jump on it. And from my point of view, it seemed like you had a really good time. I think it was really neat to just see 80 people from the FI community all converge on this wild Vegas, right? But yet have this just incredibly connected weekend. And I think that's not something you normally see when you go to Vegas. It's usually craziness and debauchery. And we had a weekend of designing an extraordinary life and connection. I think it was a really special time. It really was just being able to be around people who think the same way I do, at least about this one specific thing.

34:10We all have this common thread of this is how we think about money. And it just made it very easy to talk to everybody. we obviously all had different opinions on a myriad of things in our lives but this was our one thing it was just really nice to meet other people and it was also very a very great opportunity for me to like just learn from people who were a couple steps ahead of me in terms of life i was the youngest person there and then i think there was two of us that were under 30 and then the rest of the group was 30 and up so it's just like where i'm at right now i've always been like i don't have to make mistakes to learn i learn from my mistakes but i don't have to be the one to make them.

34:46If I can learn from somebody else's mistakes, I'm going to take the opportunity. And that was another thing that I got out of it, just hearing people's stories and just the sense of community. The group chat is still active. It's been a month and that hardly ever happens. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I love that. That's the second time I would say it's sage wisdom here, just in the first bit of this podcast in terms of, yeah, you can learn from your mistakes. And that's wonderful. And that is an important part of life. But you can also fast forward your journey by finding people you trust and respect in your life and seeing what their mistakes were.

35:23Maybe they can help you shortcut them. And I think that's another strategy that goes hand in hand with the inevitable mistakes that you're going to make. Right. I mean, we all make mistakes. Let's be clear. There's no perfect path to five. That's for sure. And yeah, it's been really neat to see that WhatsApp chat continue. And yeah, it's just a really, really special group of people. And I think I've found that from a lot of the live events that I've been to in the past. It's not quite to the level of this Vegas thing, but you always walk away with a couple of connections that are just really, really important and meaningful.

35:57So yeah, really, really cool. So okay, let's go back. You just have so many things that are just launching points for us to jump into. So June 23, it sounds like you started tracking your net worth and expenses. And that was really an eye opener. And you started making very intentional decisions. And I know, looking at the email you sent me in early April, I mean, it looks like you have two dozen bullet points of things that you've done since then. And I love for without me interrupting you every time, just like, give us a flavor of what those early months look like. In terms of the early months, I like instantly overhauled my Google searched portfolio that I had in my Roth IRA.

36:41Like it was a Roth IRA. I at least opened it up on there and started investing in there because I knew it was tax free and had the tax advantages. But I instantly overhauled that and started making contributions to like max it out by the end of the year. So like I just did the math to figure out exactly how much I'd have to invest every week in order to get that. and then I just factored that into how I was saving my paycheck for my internship. I went into my internship pay portal and instantly started saving. I want to say one of the checks, it was just 30 % flat towards my saving up for my down payment because I was making good money as a college student.

37:19I was making, I think last summer,$25 an hour. So I got to really be intentional about where I wanted that money to go because it's really easy as a college student, I'm making$25 an hour. I can do just about anything now. Yeah. It's Gruge McDuck style, uh, swimming in your money. A 30 plus year old reference. I'm not sure how many people get that. I get it. Nice. Yeah. And just, I also started, uh, cause one of your early episodes is like all about eating healthily and being active in the gym. I've always been an active person in the gym since I got back from basic training and I've always just lacked in the diet area.

37:52And I kind of tried to cut out as much processed food as possible as a result of listening to your guys' episode on that stuff. So now when I went into the grocery store, I would just stick to the produce section and the outer aisle, which is the milk dairy and all the other stuff. And the only inside aisle that I'd go to would be the bread section. But I found when I did that, I was getting more volume of food. The food was healthier and it was less expensive. I also started going to Aldi, which was a game changer. Definitely go to Aldi or your equivalent of wherever you are at. And I just started shopping there.

38:29I would just eat majorly whole foods. I would buy, I want to say, five or six things of different types of berries or whatever fruit was in season. And my lunches would pretty much be whatever main meal I cooked. I like to meal prep. I'll cook a big meal that's healthy, high in protein, and then just supplement it with my fruits and other snacks. And before I finally choose a five, it was granola bars, fruit snacks, and stuff like that. And then I cut those out and then started eating healthier. year. The one episode of like finding a job in college that you can pretty much get paid to study. I did that.

39:00I got a job at my apartment building as a receptionist. And I literally just I'm at the secondary desk, not even the primary desk. So I just sit there and study the entire time. And it's not like fantastic pay, but any pay is better than no pay for studying. Right. Something you'd be doing anyway, right? You're sitting there studying. Why not get paid for it. That's brilliant. Yes. And then there's so many things on that list. So I definitely need you to jog my memory. Yeah. So it looks like, right. We talked about saving for the down payment. That's already in. Oh, one interesting one was looking into military benefits and realize you weren't using a certain benefit you were entitled to and getting it not only going forward, but actually retroactively as well.

39:44Talk us through that. Yeah, that's a good one. So another thing that I did was look into my military benefits. And I found out that I was not using the chapter 1606 GI bill, which is just, I think it's like 450 ish, depending on your course load that gets just direct deposited to you as the soldier. It doesn't go through the school or anything. Okay. So I talked to my school about getting it moving forward. And the VA rep was like, do you want to be back paid? And I was like, well, yes, please. Of course. I'm like, is there a catch being backpaid. Do I want to be backpaid? No, no, I don't. Pretty much don't quote me on it, but this chapter 1606 GI Bill interacts with, I believe, the post 9-11 GI Bill.

40:28And if you use one, you can't really use the other or it reduces the benefits of the other. But the thing is, I didn't have this other form of GI Bill yet. So for me, it was no cost pretty much because I wasn't really losing anything because I didn't yet have it. In the future, I might have access to this other GI bill, but I didn't have it yet. So it was a sure shot decision for me. I just, I'm like, yeah, I would love to. So I got back paid for that. And then I, now I get my 400 ish dollars a month moving forward. All I have to do is remember to call the VA on the first, speaking of which I need to do that after this, but yeah, we're recording this on the first of a month.

41:06So yeah. Hey, that could be something I know I'm crazy about that to do is app, but that would be a nice recurring task, right? The first of every month or the first of whenever you have to do it, make that call. It was funny. I actually just got an email from Todoist that I've been with them for, I think it was seven years, 11 months and X number of days. And I reached the highest level of like karma there. So like I, I've literally been using this thing for the better part of a, uh, of a decade. It's, it really is a really great tool, something like that when you use it a hundred percent. So anyway, total sidebar.

41:41So, okay. That is awesome. I know a couple of these other bullets are you actually helping family members. So both sister and parents in some way with this newfound knowledge that you have. Yes. So I set up my sister. We both did really well in high school. So she got a full ride scholarship to her college out of state. So I went through and helped her just set up her Roth IRA. She hasn't been making enough to like maxed it out, but I still started just trickling in a little bit week by week. And then I just told her, like, tell me when you want me to make the money stop trickling in. Like, if you feel like your reserves are getting too low or something, because she just turned 18, she's three years younger than me.

42:19So like, you don't really have opportunities for the most part to invest. You just have your savings account. She had a good little nest egg in there. I'm like, you don't need to have just all this sitting here making zero interest. So I started just investing or like dollar cost averaging that into the, uh, her fidelity account. And then for my parents, I went through all of their, uh, retirement accounts and just took them out of a couple of high fee options that they were in and just changed the split of a couple of them. And then just a couple of my other friends, my one friend who is the one that got deployed, she jokingly says I'm her financial advisor.

42:52And like, I have been for like a couple of years. She's like, lump sum, you've probably made me at least like 5k just through our friendship. but I went in and just like I told her to open up a high yield savings account just so she can make interest because she was the one that got deployed so when you're deployed you can't spend money where you're deployed at so she had a massive nest egg from her deployment and I'm like just put it in here if you're not willing to invest it right now it's it's hard to just drop that investment into the market you know so she's just put a good chunk of that and she's getting hundreds of dollars of interest a month now rather than her 500 a year or whatever it was before oh that's so cool Yeah, it's so impressive really to help other people.

43:30And frankly, that people feel comfortable talking to you about this. Like there's something special there. And I don't know necessarily that I think you're too humbled to maybe dive into precisely why people feel so comfortable. But I suspect that it's, hey, people understand like you're living this. You're an example of doing it right. And people understand like Devin, somebody I can go to to ask questions. and it's awesome that your parents, that they let you frankly do that because they think a lot of parents wouldn't. And it's also really neat that you said in their retirement accounts, you're able to do this because yeah, like that's the nice thing is, especially with retirement accounts, like there's no taxable issue moving money into and out of different funds, right?

44:14Because it's all just under that umbrella. Obviously you're not making a withdrawal or a distribution from that retirement account. You're just moving the actual investments. And yeah, I mean, if you being the person listening to this or you have people in your life who like, hey, they're in those expensive funds, almost invariably, there's going to be a low cost S &P 500 or total stock market fund that you can move them into. And yeah, I mean, that's like a really high value thing for something that, again, there's no taxable ramifications of that as if it were a taxable brokerage, right? That's where I think a lot of people have questions in terms of like, what's going to happen if I sell all these things and their gains?

44:51Like, yeah, there are taxable issues, but not, I think in almost every case that I can think of, not in retirement accounts. So great place to start, Devin. And let's actually jump in. I mentioned this before in the intro, but I think it's the perfect time to talk about it is you are helping people one-on-one, but you also are helping your unit in the guard, right? You put together a presentation that you showed me at the Vegas event, and I was not blowing smoke on that. That was just a really incredibly impressive presentation. Did you take that on your own volition, or did you somehow step up as, hey, I'm a sergeant here?

45:30How did that work? Talk me through how that actually happened. Yeah, so in terms of being an NCO, I'm a young NCO in terms of how long I've been an NCO, and I'm also just young to be an NCO. And that's non-commissioned officer for everybody out there. Yes. And in order to take this promotion, I had to leave the unit that I'd been with since I joined the Guard and go to a new unit to our sister company, just because that's where the slot was. And they're like, if you want it, it's yours. So I was brand new in this unit. Nobody really knew who I was. And then there's a lot of downtime in the National Guard and in the Army in general.

46:05It's a hurry up and wait type of programs, the way the military works. You get you're teaching a class tomorrow. He didn't care about what. He's just, I want to fill some of this white space that we have. And so I was like, what do I know about that I can teach well enough? And I'm like, I could tell everybody about personal finance because it's something that I'm really passionate about. And I feel like there's not enough education about it in frankly, our society. We need to learn more about money. And if I could do my piece to help further that goal, I'm going to do it. So I put together this presentation.

46:40It was Retirement 101, just to teach everybody about retirement on the civilian side, as well as the military side of things. And it went all the way through the 4 % rule, the different type of funds, what a broad based low cost index fund is, and just recommendations. And I just kind of wanted to let my unit know who I was. And also that if you want to talk about money, that would be a resource that you could come to. That is really, really cool. So, wow, that was you're presenting tomorrow and you put this thing together? That's amazing. Overnight. Yeah, I was not kidding. I don't think with all the amount I've researched this and whatever expertise level I do have, I don't think I would have put together as professional of a presentation if I had a month to do it, not less overnight.

47:26So have people taken you up on that? Has anybody talked to you one-on-one about personal finance or have you done other events or was it that one-time thing? I have had a couple of people come up and say they want to talk to me. None of them have taken initiative to actually do so yet, but there was one. He was new to the unit. We actually came in the same month because I was also new to the unit, but I just, I've been in the military longer. So I was an NCO and he was a lower enlisted. And we went out to lunch on one of our breaks and we were just talking about finances. That was one of the first ones.

47:56And then my unit just actually, I was on the rear detachment. They just came back from deployment. So I want to have maybe do it again, but to the whole company, because it was kind of just like one quarter of the company that I did this presentation to. Gotcha. That's very cool. Okay. Well, yeah, to be continued on that. So yeah, it sounds like, again, going down this just incredible list here, it sounds like knowledge acquisition is a big thing for you. So obviously you've devoured 600 plus choose a buy episodes. I know you told me that you rediscovered a love for reading and you actually started a book club with your friends.

48:33Like, I think this is what, what I'm kind of gleaning from you is like, there's this knowledge acquisition and then initiative, like starting things. I think that's really neat. I'd love to hear like, how do you think the knowledge acquisition, you can talk about books specifically if you want, but just knowledge acquisition generally, like how do you think about that? Because there's, there's a lot of information out there in the world, obviously. And I think a lot of people struggle in terms of how to curate information properly, how to find reputable sources, how to think through something as opposed to just kind of getting brainwashed sometimes.

49:07And, you know, obviously we're hopelessly biased here that choose a bias. I would like to believe extremely, extremely reputable source. But that said, you have to cut through the noise and that's not easy for anybody to do. Like, how do you think about that kind of knowledge acquisition? I'd say like what draws me to knowledge acquisition is just like knowledge is power. like you guys always say like you don't know what you don't know and i guess i just wanted to learn the stuff that i didn't know so i could see more opportunities like i've always been in this growth mindset just because the way i was raised my great school system and then going to the military and like when i was at basic training i think like one of the first nights i was there i was laying in my bunk i was on the top bunk staring at the ceiling questioning like how did i get here yeah and like I was looking back through my life and I could see the domino effect that led me to there.

49:57I'm like, well, what are the dominoes that I could place right now to get to where I want to be in the future? So I could see the link of how I got to where I am now. If I could try and do that forward facing. And I realized I need to learn more about what I didn't know if I wanted to make the best decisions possible and end up on the right path. The way I conceptualize time is there's a whole bunch of different timelines. that you could end up taking and just decisions. You make one A and B, you might just cut off everything on A. Or if you go down B, it might reconnect later down the line, but you might miss a whole bunch of little things along the way.

50:33So I guess just trying to figure out what I didn't know and what I wanted to know and what I needed to know to get where I wanted to be are my big things for wanting to acquire knowledge. And starting the book club, I think I just ended up on the right side of TikTok or Instagram. And I like to go to the gym and it's kind of like, oh you like to go to the gym you might like this other personal development thing and i just kind of had to kept getting these book recommendations i was like you know what i'll read these books and then i really liked the books because i was able to like apply their knowledge to my life like just like how i don't have to make a mistake to learn from somebody else's mistake i don't have to do something right to learn how to do something right i can just learn what that right thing is from a book or from a podcast and try doing that thing and if it works great if it doesn't i can just go back to what I was doing before.

51:21That is wonderful. And yeah, it's amazing when you think about what a value proposition books are. I mean, I love fiction books, so let's be clear. I read a ton of fiction, but nonfiction, especially someone's first book, you think about they've literally put their entire life's knowledge into a book that you can buy for probably$12 to$20 on Amazon. And I mean, talk about a value in terms of like you just said, you didn't have to figure it out yourself. You can just read some brilliant person's life knowledge in a couple hours or listen to the audio book, which is something I've gotten into recently.

51:55And I love that visual of the dominoes. When you said that, my mind always goes to how do you message something? And when you said that, my mind immediately went to visualizing those dominoes. And I think we always look back at decisions and the decision path, but you don't think about that moving forward. But yet it's such an interesting way to approach life. I mean, Devin, I've never thought about that before. Never, ever, ever. And I think it's beautiful. That's something that's gonna stick with me. And just looking at your notes, it sounds like you've not only taken that to heart and conceptualized it, but you've actually put it into action.

52:37I know you told me you discovered the industry you wanna pursue post-graduation. Plus, of course, in true Devin style, I landed an internship in the industry with a 20 % pay increase, which is awesome. The part that stuck out to me was I have conducted over 20 informational interviews with professionals in the industry I want to pursue. My friend, that is not normal in any way. That is extraordinary. And I don't know another person, and I'm not over-flattering you in an undue manner. I'm just, I hope you understand. I'm very genuine about this. I said this to you at Vegas that like, if I could buy shares in one human being on earth, essentially for the future, I would buy shares in you.

53:18And like, I hadn't even read this bullet point. Like that is extraordinary. Who does that? Like, okay. You see the dominoes, yada, yada, yada. That's fine. Everybody listening to this is thinking about these dominoes now, but how the hell do you move from, okay, the dominoes to I'm going to out of nowhere, conduct 20 informational interviews. Like, again, that's not a normal thing. And I'd love to hear how you did that? Well, I would say like, I've always been a little bit forward thinking. Like I went to STEM middle school and I want to say like the sixth grade, if you would have asked me what I would be when I grow up, I would have said mechanical engineer.

53:51And here I am. I have one more semester after this one, my last finals tomorrow, till I get my mechanical engineering degree. And the kind of the same thing applied to like what I wanted to do with my career. Because mechanical engineering is like a jack of all trades type of degree. You can do almost any type of engineering you want with it. But I found the niche that I wanted to pursue. So I started talking to my friends who were doing that niche as a major. And one of my friends, the one that I joined the army with, and then she ended up getting that deployment, she's doing biomedical engineering.

54:27And she landed her internship as a freshman, not by applying, but somebody offered her the job, which is unheard of as a freshman. yeah and i kind of like asked her like how did you do that and she showed me as i just been networking a lot and she showed me like this big spreadsheet like with a whole bunch of names where they work at what their role is what section of the company they're in and how she met them and she just made connections and started like interviewing these people just about their career because like i said you can learn a lot from people's experiences and people also just like a quick tip most people would love to talk about themselves so it's a very easy conversation if you want to learn about their career and like what they have to like just ask them for advice.

55:09Most people are open to it. So I really took advantage of that when my school had a career fair and I kind of went in with just I'm not looking for a job right now. I just want to talk to you as a person to learn about your career and where you've been, how you got to where you are. And then at the end of every interview, it's just is there anybody else that you think would be open to this? And so far I haven't ran out. And like I also just like to hop on opportunities to meet more industry professionals. Like there's certain organizations in my university that like do site tours and go out to like industry and you have an opportunity to meet people.

55:44And I'm really trying to like share that with others in my like social circle. I'm president of mechanical engineering, like the student council. So I'm like trying to like build industry relations within the student council so that way we could take students to like meet more industry professionals. So yeah. That is wonderful. So I'm sure we have a whole lot of mechanical engineers listening to this podcast. So maybe reach out to me, feedback at chooseify.com. And if you want to be connected with Devin in some way, obviously this is someone who's incredibly talented. And I love that you've understood the power of connection, right?

56:26I think this is something that I hope our entire community understands at this point is relationships matter so much in life. They just, they mean everything. And like you said, yes, a people do like to talk about themselves, which is great. So if you go and you're genuinely interested in them and you ask them questions about their life, their career, their path, the dominoes, right? Like people want to talk about themselves and that's information you can glean, right? Not in like a weird, weird way of like, you're trying to like get in with them or something like it's nothing like that. You're trying to shortcut the path that they took, some of the errors they made, what worked out well for them.

57:03And when you talk to 20 different industry professionals over the course of X number of months, you're going to make connections that you otherwise would not have. I don't even just mean connections in terms of like the friendships, but I mean, like literally connections in your brain across like, Oh, what are the commonalities here? Right? Like, what can I pick up from this? And then not to mention, all right, look, when it's time to get a job, you have all these connections and they understand that you're not just like desperate, right? Like it's a whole different thing when you're reeking of desperation of, oh, I need a job.

57:35And that's the only reason you reach out to somebody as opposed to, hey, look, these are the 20 people I've spoken with. Sounds like more are on the way. And of course you're following up with them every X number of months, probably sending them an email, asking a question or something like, again, without an ask, right? Like there's no, like, give me a job. it's hey we had a great lunch or we had a great whatever coffee just wanted to check in with you like those kind of things they really do make a difference so yeah that is really really cool and i think just kind of finally here is you talked about okay i went to this design an extraordinary life event you said in your email to me i stopped drifting i started designing the future i want to have and i began to take action to reach it and i mean it sounds like you have really taken an extraordinary action in a short period of time.

58:24And I'm curious, where do you go from here? So obviously at the moment, you have two major things going on. You have the guard and school, but I assume one or both of those things will change at some point in the near term, the school will change. But what do you envision for the next domino or two? Of course, life can take you any which way, but what's the plan as of now? Yeah. My plan is to leave for starting school coming up here. So I'll be gone. And then I come back and I start my internship. My plan is to just absolutely crush it at my internship with the hopes of being brought on as a contractor throughout my last semester of school so I can come in part-time and still gain experience in the role that I want to be doing.

59:07And then after I graduate, the goal is to be working at some medical device company here in the Twin Cities. Very cool. In terms of the National Guard, I reached my six-year contract next March. Haven't fully decided if I want to re-sign, but in terms of intentionally designing my future, one of my best friends I went to basic training with, she's in the army band, the Minnesota army band. I just so happened to run into her at a drill. We were talking and she was excited to re-sign her six-year contract, which is something you hardly ever hear in the military. It's like, well, I'm already 13 years deep, got to do my six so I can make it to my 20.

59:47But she was like excited to do it. And that kind of got me interested in like, oh, maybe I could pursue ending up in the army band. I played saxophone and I was pretty decent at it, play it through middle school, through high school. And I was like, maybe I could do that, pick that back up. I just got busy with school. But when I was in school, I was like, I could learn the guitar. So I took a guitar class through the university to try and pick up the basic skills. And now with the teacher that I met in there, I'll be doing lessons over the next however long. And I'm thinking I'm probably going to end up just signing a two-year contract and just seeing if I can get good enough at guitar in that two years.

1:00:23And then if I can't, that's the end. But if I can, I'll just switch over to the band and ride out my 20-year career. That is really cool. I love that. That's really neat. What a cool little pivot that'll be. So, all right, well, certainly to be continued on that. And I suspect we'll have you back on at some point in the not too distant future to talk about those dominoes, right? Like, where are you going? What are the actions you've taken? And yeah, I'm just really genuinely excited for you, Devin. I'm so glad you came to the live event. It was really wonderful to meet you. I appreciate you reaching out.

1:00:57And yeah, the future is bright, my friend. So again, thanks for being part of our community. Thank you so much for having me here. This has been just absolutely surreal experience, just finding your podcast. And then there was a little piece of me when I signed up for Vegas. I was like, you might ask me to be in the podcast. And then here I am. But I do have one question for you. Yeah. Can I do the hot seat? Oh, of course you can. Let's do it. In a world drowning in debt and rampant consumption, trapped by the chains of lifestyle inflation, these questions highlight the secrets of those who are broken free.

1:01:39Welcome to the Choose FI Hot Seat.

1:01:50All right, Devin, the hot seat at your request. I love this. Question number one, what's a podcast blogger book that you've enjoyed recently? In terms of podcast, I've recently picked up the Huberman Lab podcast, which has just been really interesting. I'm an engineer. I like science, just the practical knowledge that he gives out. And then in terms of books, first book I read this year was Atomic Habits. That one's definitely very high up on my list. And then I'm almost done with the Choose a Vi book, also very high up on my list for obvious reasons. And then I guess a non-self-help book that I read recently was When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Calanthe.

1:02:28And it's just phenomenal. Yeah, you know, that's not something I've ever read, but I've definitely heard about it. Highly recommended. So, okay, I'm literally opening up the Amazon tab right now to look that up. All right, Devin, question number two, an inflection point in your life that was especially memorable or meaningful? Probably the moment I described laying in my bed at basic training, just being able to finally connect all the dots and see that, well, if my past self made these decisions that led me here, my current self can probably make me decisions that will lead me to where I want to be.

1:03:01Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that is really something, that domino thought. I hate to keep harping on it, but Devin, you can see my brain kind of spinning whenever you talk about that. It's just such an interesting way to look at it. And I think that's the future focus that we talk about. We have to think long-term. And I think that's a way to further bolster that. right it's okay these decisions actually make a real impact on future me and uh yeah that is really something so all right let's move on to question number three your favorite life hack my favorite life hack is buying my books from goodwill obviously would love to be a friend of the library but the way that i read books they would not be a friend of mine because i like to highlight i like to write in there and just make the books unusual to anybody but me so just you You can find A, B level quality books at Goodwill for like hardcovers are like$3.99 right now, I think, where I'm at.

1:03:59And then like$2 for Zoffcover. It's a double-edged sword because now I just go to Goodwill looking because I have this big list of books I want to read and you have to keep going back to the Goodwills. But now I have also like 50 unread books in my apartment that my girlfriend is not happy about. So yeah, I can picture that. And I know the feeling. I have stacks and stacks of books that I'm theoretically are in my queue. but so that's cool so you go with a list because yeah i was gonna ask you like do you go there just almost a la a bookstore like hey i'm gonna browse and see if i find something or are you going in very overtly with a list so it sounds like certainly overtly with the list but i'm sure you peruse as well yeah i go in and i'll literally just usually i'm listening to the choose if i podcast and i'll just scan every single row of the hardcover books just because you know they stand up better because they're hardcover in second hand and then i'll just look through every shelf and then go home.

1:04:51I usually go on a Wednesday because where I'm at, there's a military discount. So I can be even cheaper. And yeah. Love it. All right. Question number four, your biggest financial mistake. So I have two. One of them is a little bit funny because I just recently listened to the Dogecoin episodes that you guys had back in the day. Oh, wow. I forgot How we even did that. Yeah. Well, anyways, I bought Dogecoin when it was like 0.0027. Okay. And I had like$100 worth of it. And I like ran the math. Like I made$100 off of it. Not bad. And then like there's that first bubble and then there's the second bubble, made another$100 there.

1:05:34If I would have just kept my initial investment in, like took out my$100 and just let it ride, when it reached its 40 cent peak, it would have been, I want to say over$15 ,000. So like, now I know not to get your initial investment out. And then if it's just speculation, which this was, might as well let the rest ride, maybe take like your little bit of profit and then just leave a little bit in there and just let it ride. That's probably what I would do if I could go back then. And then I would say just like, I've been working since I was 15. This is my second mistake. And I didn't really have anything to show for it by the time I turned 18 because I just wasn't that savvy with money yet.

1:06:12I was beating all my expenses, saving a little bit here and there, but I wasn't being intentional about it. So all those years from 16 to 18, I had nothing to show for it. And then moreover, from 18 to 21, not maxing out my Roth IRA just because I had the means to do it. Like I've been working and I've always made more than$7 ,000 a year, every year that I've worked. And when you're living at home as a teenager or as an early college student in the summertime, your expenses aren't that high. So it was just, I just didn't know where all the money went. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I mean, I think that's probably pretty normal and sure.

1:06:52Hindsight is 2020, of course. You know, I think one kind of cool thing to pass along, I know Sean Mulaney has talked about this in terms of his love for the Roth IRA. Since you can theoretically withdraw the contribution at any point, if you think there's a high likelihood, of course, that you're going to leave it in there and let it ride, then make the contribution. But worst case scenario, you can pull that money out if it's your contribution. This is more not necessarily to 18-year-olds, but for anybody. Once that tax year closes, you can't go back. so years later, you can't go back and say, oh, but I had room in my 2021 Roth IRA.

1:07:33Can I make the contribution now? No, you can't, obviously. So there's time limits on these things. Maybe max it out, especially knowing that, hey, if worse comes to worse, you could always pull that contribution out. So it's kind of like just preserving some optionality, I guess, is how I would think about that. But yeah, I mean, listen, we all make mistakes. I think that's why we asked the question, right? So, all right, Devin, question number five, the advice you would give your younger self? Right on that same thing. Just start investing when you turn 18 and find she's a five sooner. Oh man, that's funny.

1:08:05Well, it sounds like you're doing quite okay, but duly noted, certainly. All right. Here's the fun one that we always call the bonus question for some reason. I'm not sure exactly why, but what purchase have you made in the last, let's say 12 months or so, plus or minus, that has added the most value to your life? Besides the ticket to Vegas, because I feel like that's a cop-out. But I would say probably the concerts and the trips that I've gone on with my friends and family. I will always, like I said, spend money to make memories because they pay memory dividends and all this stuff. And I guess a tangible object is I just bought a new study Bible.

1:08:44It's a study Bible and a journaling Bible. Usually they're one or the other, or just a regular Bible with no margins and just words. But this one's both. So it's like, it's literally like an eight by eight cube almost. But one of my big goals this year with me and my girlfriend was to find a church together and get back into our faith a little bit more. So just that intentional decision. And then we've found a church and found a church group. So it's made just studying a little bit easier. Oh, that's absolutely wonderful. I love that. And yeah, it sounds like from what you said, I'm a friend of the library, but the library is not a friend of me.

1:09:16It sounds like that's part of your reading, right? Is taking notes, underlining things, highlighting things. So that's a really neat way to be much more intentional about reading generally. And yeah, like you're talking about your faith here. So that's really wonderful. Devin, I'm so glad you decided to do the hot seat. That was fun. I think it reminds me I should do that much more often. So Devin, I'm not sure if there is a way, frankly, but is there any way that somebody could reach out to you? I know I could always route emails, but I probably prefer to do it more efficiently. Is there any way people could reach out to you?

1:09:47Yes, I was going to ask you for permission first. So this is a great opportunity. But ever since finding ChooseFI, towards the start of the school year, I had this idea percolating in the back of my mind that maybe I should start a blog or a vlog or an Instagram account, cataloging my journey and just self-improvement and fitness, health, money, just everything. And sharing that with others because it's something I had a passion about. So it would be okay if I use that email to hold myself accountable because school got busy and there's just been a whirlwind. Now I'm here, but it'd be great to have the accountability of the Chooseify community to make sure I have something out in the ether before this episode goes live.

1:10:27I love it. Okay. That's awesome. So right. If you have an email, it sounds like there's a web domain or something. So maybe there'll be a website or maybe you even have an email capture on there or something. So yeah, give the URL of the website. And then if you have an email for an accountability is get some kind of email form on the website so that people can sign up for an email list or something. And that way you can reach out to them or have a contact form or some such. So anyway, what's the domain name and what's the email you want to send people to? Both of them will be freedombytheday.com and freedombythedayatgmail.com for the email.

1:11:05Then I also have a bookstagram, like all the books that I'm reading and quotes that I like that I've just been trying to also percolate and build, which is called Liberated Mind Library. Okay. Very cool. We will have all those links. That's a great domain name, by the way, freedom by the day. That's really great. So we'll have those links in the show notes and yeah, reach out to Devin, follow what he's doing. Obviously this is somebody who's got a lot of things going on and is really going places. So Devin, I really appreciate you being here and it's been absolutely wonderful to meet you a couple of times and to get to know you.

1:11:40So thanks for being part of our community. Thank you so much. And thank you for everything that you have done for the community and the countless lives that you have changed. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If 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 choosefi.com slash subscribe.

1:12:15And 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. And 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.

1:12:49And 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? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then Choose a Vi created a financial independence 101 course that's entirely free.

1:13:24Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.

1:13:35Thank you.