507 | Taking the Fear Out of Your Future | Ginger roundup

24:34And it was so funny because I remember after I did it the first time, I was like, never let me do this again to the friend that I was with because it was so brutal. But I'm just in a different place now. I have so much more strength. So I know that I can do that part better. And so I'm really curious. And this is like, I think we said two years out. So this is not happening anytime soon. Yeah. But I am curious to see kind of how I can perform strength wise. But the reason I said never again wasn't because of my failures around the strength stuff, because there were some that I couldn't do. But it was, there were a few obstacles that had a height element.

25:15And I do not do well with that. Now, interestingly, I did them, which looking back, I'm like, why didn't I just skip that obstacle? But that just didn't really seem like an option. And so I did them and it was awful because I was so terrified. And in fact, someone had to kind of help me at the top of one, like talk me how to get to the other side because I was so terrified. But I think I'm at a place in my life where like, I don't know exactly how I'm going to get better at that, but I really find it to be a worthy goal. And so I want to try to do this race again. And I want to do the scary high things that aren't even that high, but I just, I don't do good with the heights.

25:56And so I'm going of kind of take that journey to see if I can overcome some of the mental stuff. Oh, I love that. Yeah. But what has been appealing to you about the race? Yeah, I think it's just the challenge and total unknown. Can I do it? How would I do? Like, I don't really run all that much. So that would be something I'd have to work towards. And yeah, I've never taken part in any type of official race, really, like ever, even like a 5k. Yeah. Okay. Well, why not just start with this hard one? I think you would love the Spartan race. I mean, that's why I'm bringing it up. Like the running, if you do the sprint, which is like 20 obstacles, which is a lot of obstacles, it's the hardest race I've ever done by far.

26:38But the running, it's like 3K and it's just like between the obstacles. It's like the easy, relaxed part of the race. So don't let that be the thing that stops you. Okay. Okay. Well, I mean, that sounds really cool. Maybe we'll talk about, maybe we could get a whole bunch of people from the FI community to do it. How awesome would that be? Okay. To be continued on that. That is really cool. Thanks for listening to Chooseify and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support Chooseify is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at chooseify.com slash cards.

27:12I 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. and it's interesting you brought up 45 because i actually got a voicemail from a friend of mine elizabeth andrews who i actually mentioned on the podcast a couple weeks back where i was talking about my london trip and just like some amazing this it ties all in which is interesting and like some of those amazing points of connection and we just had this like incredible day in london with her family and me and my girls. And it was interesting because we've been texting on, on WhatsApp and we were talking about like, how do you have more of those days in your life?

27:55And she said something just so deeply profound. And she said, basically, this is my whole thing right now. Quote, a fulfilling life is made up of fulfilling days. And I just, that just hit me. Maybe it's the place I'm in right now, but like a fulfilling life is made up of fulfilling days. And when I think about all of those really extraordinary days in my life, every single one of them ties back to connection. And like that day in London with Elizabeth's family, we had a similar day in Barcelona with my friend Andy and his family. I think of a day in Gris-Chautauqua that was just so unexpected.

28:32It was a day the group of us that were there would never forget. I recently actually had one. I was invited to a NASCAR race by one of our listeners, this guy, Pete, who's just incredible. And he put together this remarkable group of people. And there were seven of us. We hung out. These were total strangers to me. And I hung out with them for 10 hours. And we just had a ball. And it, again, is opening your mind up to that serendipity of, hey, what's the harm in saying yes to something? The old me would not have said yes to that. So that is all a very long preamble to Elizabeth actually wrote to me saying, I was planning to send you a voicemail tomorrow on my 45th birthday, which is actually the five year update to my first call.

29:15So she left a voicemail on this podcast in 2019 on her 40th birthday. So I'm going to queue up this voicemail. It's just really cool to see the evolution of people's lives as it pertains to fi. And it's, uh, I think you're really going to like this. Hello, Brad and she's a fi. This This is Elizabeth Andrews, and I'm following up a voicemail I sent five years ago. So that one was on my 40th birthday, and I was describing my eight-year plan to reach FI. So I'm five years into that eight-year plan, and here's the update. Okay, that was 2019, and the pandemic took away what I loved most about my job because I had been consulting on international projects and would meet up in different parts of the world with the teams I was supporting.

29:59So when that went entirely remote, it took a lot of the joy out of it and added so much stress that at one point I got shingled. And by the end of 2021, remember the market was way up at that point. So I was looking at these numbers and thinking, okay, I've been living on half my income for years now. Doesn't that also mean that if I'm willing to pause my investments, I could actually work half as much? And like I said, I was really unhappy with what my work life had become. So I took a six-month sabbatical to reformulate my business and test some things out. And let me say the market crashed after that.

30:33And it was no fun watching my net worth dwindle while I wasn't working. But there comes a point, and I wonder how many other listeners can relate to this, where you've been doing this FI strategy long enough that you know it works. And because of that, your relationship to money changes, at least mine did. So in the beginning, before I started this journey, I had not only a lot of fear, but also a belief that money was in some way bad or evil. And so the less of it I touched, the better I would be as a person. And that belief was helpful initially because it made it easy to lean into the frugality.

31:06It felt like a sort of moral hygiene, cleansing my budget of all unnecessary expense. But something happened when I got to a probable lean coast five, meaning if I wandered off and never contributed another dollar, in all likelihood, I could come back to those accounts at traditional retirement age and have enough to survive. So when that really sunk in, a certain weight was lifted. And I felt like, you know, I can essentially count on winning the lottery in 20 years, at least enough to live in the frugal way I had established. And that turned the rest of my life into kind of a playground. I just have to stay out of debt.

31:46Although, you know, let me be real. Even when I say that, there's part of me like my inner Susie Orman screaming, it's never enough. You should always invest as much as possible. You can never really be secure. And that's okay. She can hang out and provide a certain background vigilance. But just clearing that first bar of, okay, 65-year-old Elizabeth is going to be fine. Basically, by getting me to that point, FI de-risked my current life. It gave me room to experiment with my business and shift to work that's more enjoyable and more exciting. And in the end, I have kept up with the contributions and we probably will reach that lean FI number in about three years, but I already got the things I thought I wouldn't get until retirement.

32:28I already got the freedom. And that brings me to my final point of gratitude for this community and this movement because the people I've met through it have become some of my closest friends. Post pandemic, we've been able to meet up and sometimes travel together. Brad, you mentioned on the podcast, that amazing day we had in London with our families. And honestly, there's just nothing better than getting to be around great people and share our ideas and reflections and perspectives. And so Brad and everyone, thank you by helping me secure my future. You gave me back the present and it feels great to be 45.

33:04How about that? Oh, incredible. And I'm really interested to hear what stuck out to you in that message. But I will say one part that I loved that I thought was so wise was when she was talking about, okay, once I had reached this number and I realized I would be okay at 65, this weight was lifted, right? That she had de-risked her present in a way. And I thought that was so wise because she's saying it like this is obvious, but what a lot of people do is that they change what they are going to need to feel safe. Like, okay, yes, I have this, but this could go wrong or it needs to be this number or like, I'm always going to be changing that and I'm never going to be able to feel safe.

33:46And so that's where that wisdom piece, I think, comes in that she was like, okay, you know, like I can integrate that and I can let that change my life. Yeah, that was great. You saw me furiously typing things, typing all my notes down. And yeah, that was one that stuck out for sure. I think so many of us build layer upon layer of conservatism basically into our financial projections. And it's really at the cost of today. And I think that was another profound thing. She said, it gave me back the present, right? Because she said, like you alluded to 65 year old Elizabeth is going to be fine. And, you know, again, going back to being too conservative, like so many of us build, okay, well, I hear about the 4 % safe withdrawal rate, but that doesn't sound like for me, I'd rather be 3 % safe withdrawal rate, right?

34:37Oh, every expert in America says the worst case scenario approximately, and nobody can know precisely, but for social security is you're going to get 70 % of your current promise benefits. But I don't believe that. I'm going to put it at zero, right? Like, oh, I know my expenses are probably going to be$60 ,000 a year, but I'm just going to bump that up to 70 or 80. So now you've built, okay, my expenses are 70 or 80. I'm only doing a 3 % save withdrawal rate. I'm assuming 0 % social security. This happens all the And it's like, you are signing up for extra years of work for no reason. Yeah. Because you just decided, right?

35:17Fred, I am at risk. Yes. That's you? Did I just describe you? Yes, I get it. I totally get it. And I get what you're saying intellectually about why this is a problem. I agree that it's a problem because I don't want to waste years of my life when I could be doing more of what I want to do. So my question for you is, because so many people right now are saying, yes, that is also me. Like what is the action step for us? If this is all about taking action, if we are in that camp of being way too conservative and we don't want to be, what is the action step we can take today to help with that? Yeah.

35:54Well, I mean, listen, I'm not going to help you overcome. It's ultimately anxiety, right? Like the definition of anxiety is like coming up with a fictional future that is harming your present. Like you're actually harming yourself in the present. Believe me, I'm a lifelong sufferer of anxiety. So I get this on a very visceral level, like literally harming yourself today for something that may or may not happen in the future. Okay. So just kind of understanding that and just having some awareness, like that has always helped me, like just having that thought of, okay, my brain, the goal of my brain is to keep me safe.

36:28You know, you can make arguments like the goal of your brain is to help you see and or move around. But like on a lot of levels. The goal of your brain is to keep you safe. Okay. And I get it. I mean, I get why anxiety exists again, lifelong sufferer. Okay. But once I became a little bit aware of that, like I'm causing myself harm in the present for something that is fictional in essence, that awareness helped. I think that's like, end the show. That's it. Like that awareness is the action step because what so many of us are doing instead is we're labeling it as like, I'm being so smart. right so it really changes it to say oh this is anxiety that's what this is and so i'm going to approach that in a different way where if i'm just thinking oh well i'm being really safe and really smart i don't have a problem you know i don't need to change anything and so i like that just as that awareness is that taking action awesome well thank you for uh thank you for that maybe letting me off the hook in terms of like actual uh action on that but i think genuinely that is important but i mean i described three different variables that i think people are being too conservative on, right?

37:33So safe withdrawal rate, no social security and your annual expenses. Okay. So chances are, and I'm sure you're not hanging along here, Ginger, like chances are you're doing all three of those. Most people are doing all three of those. Change one of them. Okay. Let's do the easy one. Let's do social security or we can even have a stab at all three social security. All right. Look, if you're counting in at zero, that's crazy talk. You know, That is absolutely crazy. If you know anything about the political realities of how the world works, the likelihood that politicians on both sides are going to say, oh, screw them all, Social Security's gone.

38:11The likelihood of that is almost zero. I think most experts say 70 % is the worst case. Make it 50. If you really want to do it, make it 50, but put that, okay, so now you have extra money coming in sometime probably between 62 and whatever, 67 or 70, right? That's an easy one. Yeah. So the action step there to summarize is don't be crazy. Yes. Don't engage in crazy talk. Okay. Like Big Earn talks about safe withdrawal rates, obviously, and a lot of experts do. And in many simulations, 4 % is too conservative, but Big Earn, I think the last time I spoke to him about this, so it may have been updated, but the worst case scenario that he said, I think it was 3.25%.

38:55So if you're in the camp of, oh, I'm just going to say 3%, like, oh, all those people say 4%, I'm going to make it 3 % or 2.5%. Again, crazy talk. The worst case, barring zombie apocalypse is 3.25%. I think realistically, frankly, that is way too conservative. But if that feels more comfortable to you, bump it up a little bit to 3.25. 3.5 would be very reasonable. So let's just start building a little bit of like reasonableness into this. Yeah, I'll jump in to that one because there's something that helped me that maybe can help other people with the safe withdrawal thing. And this is like, was so obvious once I heard it, but I would not have gotten there on my own.

39:34But it was like four years ago, I heard this interview of someone talking about it and they were saying, okay, well, the problem is when we think about the 4%, we think about like, no matter what we have to pull 4%. And of course that's not how life works. And if something were to happen, you could change that. And at that time, that year, you could pull 3%. And just hearing that, I was like, oh, okay. This idea that you're not locked into something, that of course you're a person and things change. And so that can be adjusted. That really helped me in terms of is this the right number? No, you're not going to watch your entire net worth go to zero because like things are going terribly and you have to keep pulling this crazy number, right?

40:19Like that's the laughable part. But you know, for a lot of us until that scenario is played out, oh yeah, that is laughable, right? Like I can adjust. Oh, you're so right. And yeah, I mean, to imagine that someone who had the intelligence and ingenuity to get to FI is just going to blindly like lemming style, run themselves off a cliff, right? To like$0 net worth. It's so silly. it's just it's not going to happen like you could do anything you could get a part-time job you could cut your safe withdrawal rate you could i don't know lower your expenses for that year not take a trip like you could do anything there are so many options again it's like going back to that like definition of anxiety it's like causing yourself harm today for something that's fictional in the future may come to pass but it's a very small probability it's the same with this like you are imagining every worst case scenario for what could happen.

41:11And you're literally signing yourself up in today's present for more work, right? So like guaranteeing yourself in essence, giving up a year or more of your life. I won't call that harm because that's a bit of exaggeration, but like, that's where my brain goes. It's like, you're causing yourself harm today by signing up for a job that in an ideal world, you wouldn't be working for a fictional future that your brain has fabricated to keep you safe, assuming that you're going to lemming style run off the cliff of$0 net worth. It's just so silly. We're so adaptable. And yeah, Ginger, that's brilliant.

41:45I love that you brought that up. Okay. But I want to hear what you have to say about the last one, because the last one is definitely the one that I struggle with the most, right? So the first one, I can factor in social security. Absolutely. The safe withdrawal rate. Absolutely. You can change things if things go differently than you expect. But that third one about overestimating our expenses and there's fear there around like, well, I'm not really going to know what I need in 20 years. Not only what I need, but things that I'm willing to sacrifice now, like certain areas of comfort that might not feel good to 65 year old Ginger.

42:22And so that one is sort of really harder for me to estimate. And therefore I think I really overestimate. And so, yeah, I'd like you to talk about that. Yeah. I mean, agreed. This is the hardest one. I think how I would approach this is I would not build in just an arbitrary buffer. So I think a lot of us just throw in a miscellaneous number and this is how I've seen it. This is how it works in my head. You might do something totally different. I'm curious. I'd love to hear that. But a lot of people just throw in like, okay, yeah, my life expenses are actually$75 ,000, but I'm just going to throw in an arbitrary miscellaneous of$15 ,000 just for giggles, basically.

43:05I would counsel against that because I think what I've seen most regularly is people being surprised that they're spending less post-fi than during their working years. So while I can only give you, you know, I can't even give you a probability of that, obviously, but I can just say what I've seen in my experience and people who I've spoken with. Now, does that mean that you're not going to be the person who spends more in fine? No. I mean, I can't know your life, Ginger, you or anybody listening to this, but I think a lot of things naturally, those cost segments in your budget just go down dramatically.

43:45like travel is a massive one. Like we all think like we're going to travel a lot and we probably are, but it's a very different type of travel when you're at five at X age, it doesn't even matter. Like slow travel. I mean, just look at people like Bryson Christie from millennial revolution. They talk about their lives costing like$30 ,000 of traveling the world for a year. And they were shocked at how little it costs. And it's because by its very nature, when you think about like our vacations, right? And Hey, I'm flying on usually very expensive times. I am only going for a short period of time.

44:25So I feel like I have to maximize this. Like a lot of people spend five to$12 ,000 on a week family vacation. So therefore they extrapolate and say, Oh, but when I'm fine, I'm going to take five vacations. So isn't that going to cost me $25 ,000 to$60 ,000? No, it doesn't work that way. Because A, in all likelihood, if you're going to Europe for a month or two, you're not going to fly back and forth to US. You're going to fly to Europe once. The flight cost is the same. You're going to stay somewhere for two, three, four weeks potentially and get discounts on Airbnb. You would be shocked at the discounts on month-long stays at Airbnb.

45:04It's crazy. You're going to actually live there. You're going to get groceries. You're not going to go out to dinner every single meal. So I'm painting a picture of that's going to cost dramatically less. Your clothing for work, your transportation, if a lot of people who are at FI and their incomes are dramatically lower, their health insurance and their health costs are going to be dramatically lower because of subsidies on the ACA. That just is going to go down. If you want to even get granular, your tax expense is, especially if you're in FI and you're using a lot of the advanced FI strategies that we talk about, I mean, your tax expense is going to go down to virtually zero or very low effective tax rates.

45:44So I'm painting a picture of all these categories and who knows, maybe you've set it up so that your mortgage is set to be paid off before you get to FI. You get to a world where you have no mortgage, you don't have any car payments, you're traveling a lot, but you're doing slow travel. Your healthcare doesn't cost a lot. Ginger, your life doesn't cost very much in that case. And that's a pretty cool life of travel and fun and connection. And is that going to be everybody? No, of course not. Obviously. I'm talking to a hundred plus thousand people. There's no world where I can talk to every single individual.

46:17But I think on average, you'll be surprised that your post-fi life doesn't cost any more than your pre-fi life. You know what I think it is? Did Did you ever play hooky at a previous job? You took a day off that you didn't really need to take a day off. And the whole day you were so worried that you would be found out that you're like, I should have just gone to work. And I think for a lot of people, it's that fear of like, I'm going to retire two years earlier. And then I'm going to spend those two years panicked that I should have just gone to work. Right. Like I should have just been safer.

46:56because I'm using these two years worrying about what could have been. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of truth to that and that's how it manifests. But yeah, like you said, the action step might be just that awareness of the anxiety and trying to just to kind of, I know it sounds kind of hokey, but just like talk to it when it comes up. Yeah. Thanks for trying to keep me safe. Like, I really appreciate it. But like, you're actually causing me harm today for something that's like, it's not real. Yeah. And for this one, I think like, yes, talk to yourself, of course, but also talk to other people.

47:32Like it's so comforting just to hear people who are kind of on that other side and who, oh, they didn't find that their expenses ballooned by 200%. And that can be really powerful. Just the normalization of here are people who are doing okay. And I can be like those, those people. Oh, I love that. That is brilliant advice. And here I am. I'm speaking to a licensed counselor and I'm the one giving the psychological advice here and you're getting into the practical stuff. All solid. Okay. So we set up this episode by saying like, oh, we're going to hear so many people from the community. So maybe we should transition to another voicemail.

48:08Yeah, let's do it. So Ginger, this one came in from Ashley and she has some interesting tips on the new rules with 529s and potentially being able to roll some of that money into a Roth IRA when unused. So yeah, I think we're all going to pick up some good tips here. Hi, Brad and Ginger. This is Ashley from Oklahoma. And I wanted to talk about a new 529 rule that has been established in the last year or so. And that is that you can take 529 unused assets, and now you are able to roll unused 529 assets into a Roth IRA for the child. There are a couple of nuances. One is that the 529 has to be open for 15 years, and another rule is that you can roll over a maximum of$35 ,000 per beneficiary, and then another rule is that the rollover is still subject to Roth IRA contribution limits.

49:07So my son graduated high school, and we did have money in a 529 for him, but he's choosing to do trade school for electricity. That's actually free because our trade school has a partnership with our high school, and students attending our high school are allowed to do trade school for a year for free. And so my plan is that when he gets done with trade school, that we can take that 529 amount and maybe roll over 7 ,000 per year for five years. So I just think that would be such an amazing frugal win and just setting your child up for success to not only have no debt for school, but to be set up with$35 ,000 and a Roth IRA at the very beginning of your adult life.

49:52And I'm really hoping that my other two kids will take advantage of it also. My daughter is wanting to do nursing, and we actually do have an LPM program. at our tech school that she could do for free. And then there are more paid programs that are LPN to RN Bridge or LPN to BSN Bridge. There's also HVAC Tech and a lot of auto mechanic and just a really broad array of things that they could do in the trade school. So I just wanted to pass that on if anybody else had kids that are nearing the end of their high school career to definitely look into that. And I hope you guys are doing well. I just think that your trip sounds really fun, Brad.

50:30I bet your daughter's friends think that you're just the coolest girl, dad, and your girls will never forget that. And that just sounds like an amazing priceless memory trip to have. Wow. That was an incredibly sweet way to end, Ashley. I really appreciate that. I had heard about this change recently. Has it affected any way that you are thinking about your girls? I assume you have a 529 for them. Do you? We do. We do. Yeah. I have not really contributed that much to it of late. Yeah. I think, well, this is going to put it in perspective. I think we put$2 ,000 in per girl per year. So it's not obviously an insignificant amount of money, but it's certainly not.

51:12We're not like funding it, expecting it to cover college. But yeah, I mean, this one, it still feels really early to me, like the rules on this. I know when I spoke with Sean Mullaney, I'm not sure if this actually ended up on the episode, but it just feels like one of my rules in life and five ginger is like, I try not to wade into like, like people get so worked up about, Oh, Congress is thinking about changing like the credit card travel rewards or, Oh, they're going to get rid of the backdoor, the Roth IRA conversion line. And like, I have seen, not that I'm like some wizened old, you know, old person, but like, I've seen so many of these things that like, I just never get worked up about it until it actually comes to fruition because it's just wasted mental energy.

51:59And frankly, most times it's a big nothing burger in essence. And the other cool part about the fight community is we always find a way to figure out the rules and figure out how to best maximize them. So that's my kind of general thought. But yeah, it feels too early to know. I think they're still working through some things was the sense that I got from Sean. And I, you know, I'm not saying that verbatim, I'm not putting words in his mouth, but that's, that's the sense I got from that conversation. So I'm like cautiously optimistic about this, but as of this moment, I'm not making any significant changes that could change just like always as a new information comes in, I changed my mind as it is.

52:40But, uh, yeah, as of now, nothing much. What are you doing? I see. So you're saying something I hadn't thought about talent. You're saying, Hey, if this is real and if I knew I could trust it, that might change the amount that I'm putting into these accounts. It's conceivable. So I believe that it's real. So this is truly real. Ashley is 100 % accurate. No doubt about it. I still think there are too many slight variables for me to feel comfortable that like it has risen to the level of being worthy of making changes to my plan. I think that's how I approach a problem is like, I think this is real.

53:17Clearly. I don't have enough information as of this moment to do anything actionable with it. Like I'm not all of a sudden going to dump it into the five 29, because I'm not sure if there are like any second order consequences of this or like, do I really want to put it there? Like I'm not getting any tax benefit. So I don't know. There's like a bunch of things kind of rolling around my head. And And I think honestly, what I'm waiting for is like, okay, let's get somebody in the FI community to really dive into this when they feel that it's settled enough and we'll see if it makes sense. And I think that's kind of a cool way, but suffice to say, this is definitely real.

53:56No question. It's that$35 ,000 limit. Everything Ashley said is 100 % accurate. And I think that does take a lot of the mental burden off of like, oh, do I really want this money to get stuck there? I know there are plenty of ways to get it out of 520. But yeah, like it takes away that big mental hurdle, which I always had of like, I just don't want the stupid money stuck there for some reason. So that is now gone to a large degree in terms of at least that amount. So yeah, does that make sense? Yeah, that was my response. I mean, yours is totally valid that you're saying, okay, well, I'm taking in this information to think about should I be doing something differently?

54:32And it's not making me want to change what I'm doing now. And from my perspective, where we're at is I'm like, this is how much money we're putting in. Not a lot of things are going to change that unless suddenly I start making a lot more money, right? Or making a lot less money. And so for me, the information is just exactly what you were saying. Like, it feels good to me to think, okay, well, if he ends up not using it for education, there's this other thing that I can feel really good about. Love it. Absolutely love it. And especially when, I mean, my child is small, but not two. But when they're like two, it just feels like, how am I supposed to know what this kid wants to do in 16 years, you know?

55:15And so that is kind of a hard thing. And this makes that a little less hard, I think. Yeah, agreed. And we also kind of glossed over the second half of the voicemail, which is all about trade schools, which I think is absolutely brilliant. I mean, there are so many, I guess, quote unquote, blue collar jobs that are like, those aren't coming and being taken by AI, right? Like, those are jobs that are very much in demand. Like, I don't know about you, but for the last number of years here in Richmond, like, it has been really, really difficult to hire anybody because they're just busy all the time.

55:47and there aren't enough crews to go around. So that is a career. And I know that's a very nebulous career because there are hundreds and hundreds of different types of jobs that would fit into the quote unquote trades. But goodness, if you have interest and aptitude and you know about FI, I mean, you'd be hard pressed to screw up your life if you started making a boatload of money like on the path to FI at 18 or thereabouts, like coming out with a real significant career in a trade. And I mean, while I am hugely pro-education, obviously, I have never been like in the bag for like college as the only choice.

56:25Anytime society stuffs something down our throats, you got to question something a little bit. And like, is there a better path? And I think that's part of what FI is. It's like, all right, look, college might be the best path for you, but it might not be. And it doesn't determine your worth in society that you went to a four-year college. Like if you come out with a six figure job in a trade at X age, 18, 19, 20, thereabouts, that's not show shabby at all. And like, I think that's a brilliant idea. So I'm glad she went into that. Yeah. I think trade schools need better PR. And I think that's kind of, there's a bit of a cultural shift that's kind of happening.

57:00Agreed. Yeah. I think it is happening. I think you're absolutely right. So yeah, I mean, we're, we are trying in the fly community. I think there's no sacred cows. And I think that's, that's just really important. It was like, you have to see the world for what it is, not like what people tell you or what society wants you to think. That's just yet another way that we in the fight community open up our minds. So yeah, Ashley, thank you for the voicemail. Elizabeth, before that, thank you for the voicemail. And so yeah, we have some frugal wins of the week that came in. And Ginger, I know this is one of your favorite parts.

57:31So this was a cool one because it referenced our last episode, actually, the Making Fight Fun Again, episode 502. So Lottie said, my 1 % win this week. I was listening to your latest episode with Ginger, where you were discussing going back and listening to old episodes of ChooseFI. And so I went way back to the beginning and started listening to some of your very early episodes. This one in particular was you and Jonathan discussing insurance and how you can choose to increase your deductible if you have the necessary cash in hand, should you need to make a claim and that you can accordingly reduce the price of your insurance premium.

58:03By happenstance, we got sent our home renewal premium, which had gone up 10 % since the last year. I rang up the company and asked to increase my voluntary deductible payment from 250 pounds, this is British pounds, to a thousand pounds. What do you know? The price of the policy went down by 145 pounds for the year, and now it is 10 % cheaper than last year. Thank you for the 120 pound per month swing in our favor. That's just a really cool one. I think if the details on that got a little bit messed up, I think that that might have been me. So So don't really hone in, Ginger, on the exact specifics of that.

58:40But what was cool was it was supposed to go up 10 % and now it's 10 % cheaper. And just by making a call and just by being aware, I think like, and this is something I want to do in the future. I had pulled our newsletter about the annual FI checkup and it was like, okay, look, what are the things you should be doing each year as like your annual FI checkup? And I think looking into your insurance premiums, that's a big one. I think we all think like, oh, I've been with this company forever. They're going to treat me well. no, no, no, my friend, that's not how it works at all. You need to shop this essentially every single year.

59:11I wonder if this is because we were talking about this last time, but I made that call this month. Actually, I've made a lot of calls because I feel like, yeah, and I'm kind of still in the middle of it. And this email that you got is making me reconsider. So I got a couple of quotes and some of them were worse than what I have now. Well, that's normal. Yeah. And I got one that was better, but kind of only slightly better. Like I was really hoping for more. And so I was doing that calculation of like, is this worth the hassle of what I'm about to do? And you have to realize I've already experienced some exhaustion with like, oh, I've been on that phone for how many hours with people and I'm just kind of ready to be done with this chore.

59:55But what I was wondering is, is it worth it to take this information to my current home insurance company and to say, hey, here's what this other company is going to do. Can you do better? Is that a worthwhile thing to do here? Of course. I mean, is it guaranteed to work? No, of course not. But I think another one of the enduring aspects of FI and this show specifically is like, as we say, everything is negotiable, right? Like, okay, so what's the downside? The downside is just the time. So, I mean, that's an open question. Like, is it worth your time? Yeah. I don't know the answer, but next week I might have the resolve to do it.

1:00:37Yeah. Cause I'll have recovered from some of these phone calls. Yeah. And there is something to that. And one of our past guests, Nick Majuli talks about the return on hassle. And I think that's also something to think about. I'm not going to lie. If I shopped around and my insurance premium was going to go down a percent or two or something minuscule. We're talking like pennies in essence. Like, am I going to upend my insurance life on, you know, we have all of our policies with one company, like for just a couple bucks a year. This is me personally. I'm not saying this is the optimal decision or I'm giving this advice to do this.

1:01:13I'm saying everyone has their own threshold. And I think that's critical, right? So like for me, I'm just thinking about all the things I would have to do in my own head. Like This might not even be that hard, but okay, well, now I got to tell my mortgage company that I have a new insurance. And whether that happens automatically or not, I would invariably send a secure message and tell them about it. What do I have to do? That's an extra bit of work. If we're talking a$20 or$30 savings in a year to sign myself up for an extra hour or two of work, I'm just simply not going to do that. So that doesn't meet my return on hassle threshold.

1:01:48and it's easy for that to become a slippery slope towards like total inaction. And I'm not arguing that at all, obviously, Ginger. But like, I think it's fair to say like, all right, look, I did my due diligence this year. Like in your case, you got a bunch of quotes. Some of them were higher. The ones that were lower weren't that much lower. Like that might be an okay time to just say, hey, look, I'm going to put this on my to-do list for August of 2025 and we'll revisit it then. Yeah. You are always so careful to say that this is an advice and other people might be different and they might approach it differently.

1:02:23I think you can lean into, you know, no, no one should do this for$3. It's okay. Where's the Brad who was saying a half an hour ago, don't be crazy and think that social security is going to be$0. It's okay. It's okay to be that Brad. You might open up a Pandora's box here because anybody who knows me in my real life knows that I'm like extraordinarily opinionated and it can be a little off-putting. So maybe I'll let a little more of that filter into the podcast and maybe Frank Vasquez, who calls me the nicest guy of five, might temper that a little bit. But no, I think that's true to a large degree.

1:03:00But yeah, I think you're right. It is important to have honest, hot takes on things. Yeah, like it's not worth your time for three bucks a year, obviously. Is it worth it for 20 bucks a month? Yeah, probably. But, you know, it depends on your return on on hustle. So I like it. Thank you for giving me permission. OK, so next up, we have a travel rewards win. And this one is from Mike. He says, my one percent better. My companion pass expires this year and we have only flown once using it for free, of course. So I just booked a surprise trip for my wife and I to the Hyatt Zalara Cancun for three nights in November.

1:03:34A hundred percent on Southwest and Chase Sapphire Preferred Points. Since the resort is all-inclusive, the only out-of-pocket will be the cab to and from the resort and the international flight fees less than$400. My wife and I have not had a trip together with just us since before we had kids 13 years ago. We are super excited. How can she be super excited if it's a surprise? Well, maybe he's implying that she's excited. That is a great question. Yes, maybe he told her right after he booked it. But that is awesome. Awesome. How exciting and what a win. What a great win. Yeah. So Southwest Companion Pass, it was going to expire at the end of the year.

1:04:14They only used it once. Yeah. And then what's so cool is they were able to use chase points and transfer them to Hyatt, which is my absolute favorite transfer partner. And yeah, Hyatt now has, I think Ginger, it's something on the order of like 50 different all-inclusive resorts that you can use your points at. It might even be more than that, frankly, like for a long time and there were only, I think, four of them. But now it's somewhere in the vicinity of like, well, many, many dozens from the last time I checked. So yeah, Mike, that is absolutely awesome. That sounds like a pretty darn good way to spend your first vacation in 13 years.

1:04:50So good for you guys. That's incredible. And I'm definitely doing the same kind of calculation about my mini companion pass where I'm like, ooh, like now is the chance because I only have whatever, five more months left and should I be taking more trips? But then you kind of have to weigh it out because of course the flight isn't the only expense, right? And you don't want it to tip the other way where, oh, now I've spent way more on travel than I would have had I not gotten the pass. But he did it right because he said, okay, I'm doing this all inclusive. And so he didn't even have to do that math.

1:05:24Yeah. That's a good call. Like fabricating travel and then calling it free travel is, yeah, that would be me. Yeah. But nevertheless, and I'm actually taking, I didn't mention this to you, I'm going on another roller coaster trip with my daughter, Anna, at the end of, actually, before this goes live, we'll have taken it. So it'll be a Labor Day weekend. And we're, of course, using our Hyatt points to book some Hyatt. So we're going to Carowinds in North Carolina, because the best roller coaster there was closed last time when we were there. It like essentially broke, like literally the day we arrived.

1:05:56So my poor daughter was distraught. And then we're driving down to Atlanta to go to the Six Flags down there. And of course, staying in another Hyatt in the vicinity. So yeah, it's just some gas and three free hotel nights. Thanks to Hyatt. And it feels like a nice win. Yeah. Nice. All right, Ginger. So this next win came in from Colin. And this was a really cool one. It's pretty long, but I'll read it in its entirety here because it's amazing. So he said, Hi, Brad. I'd like to share a massive win from this week. This seems like more like a 100 % win than 1%, but here it is. I sold my two-bedroom condo and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment with my girlfriend.

1:06:32So what does this mean? I cut my commute time in half by moving closer to work. Since my girlfriend can take public transport to work, we're able to get rid of one of our two cars. By selling the condo, I cashed in on a serious amount of equity and appreciation. With that money, I paid off my student loans in full. So I'm debt-free for the first time since I was 17. I opened a Roth IRA and maxed on my contributions for 2024, contributed the max amount to my HSA for 2024, created a six-month emergency fund split between a high-yield savings account and my taxable brokerage account. And finally, I allocated the money I was sending to student loans every month towards my 401k, which increases my contributions from 6%, which was the minimum to get the company match, up to 25%.

1:07:16Well, it's too late for me to hit the contribution limit in 2024, I'm on track to start maxing it out every year starting in 2025. I'm still many years from reaching FI, but for the first time in my adult life, I feel like I have breathing room, like the world wouldn't come crashing down if I lost my job tomorrow. It's absolutely incredible feeling back to broke, as Jonathan always said. This seems big enough to warrant a year-end win voicemail. So if that episode is happening this year, I may record one and send it in. And Colin, I kind of stole your thunder here, my friend, but you can still send that voicemail in.

1:07:48That episode is absolutely happening. And this was just too amazing to not mention here, Ginger. How cool is that? Yeah, so incredible. And it makes me think about this idea that it's wonderful to cut back on the takeout coffees or whatever, but the kind of change that can happen just by thinking about your transportation, housing, food, and taxes, right? And he did one big move that had this ripple effect and influenced so many other parts of his life. So what a great decision and congratulations. Yeah, that is truly incredible. Well, I can't imagine we could come up with a better stopping point.

1:08:25Indeed. That was beautiful. That was absolutely beautiful. Okay. Well, have fun on your trip and I hope we will hear about it when you get back. Yeah, that sounds good. I will absolutely update. And yeah, Ginger, these are so much fun. We're definitely going to try to do about one of these a month if we can. That's the plan now. So we've got a good cadence going. Hopefully our trips don't mess it up. But yeah, until next time. Until next time. 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.

1:09:00So you're listening to this on a podcast player. Just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to choosefi.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.

1:09:34And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choosefi 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. 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 if i created a financial independence 101 course that's entirely free just head to choose if i.com slash fi 101 and again thanks for listening

1:10:36Thank you.