605 | Retire in Less Than 10 Years

20:28Cody Berman:We talk about money, real estate, health and fitness, travel, relationships, our goals for the next month. And then we have like a random category. But so it's just been like a project, I guess, since 2019, we've originally made this list. But now I'd like to say that we have ironed out like what our perfect Tuesday looks like. And we try to just stack as many of those perfect days on top of each other as possible. Oh, my God. Okay, that's a way better answer than you're expecting. Oh, my God, that's amazing. That's like hitting the question jackpot. That's incredible. Okay. Wow. I have so many follow-ups.

21:02But first, taking a step back is it doesn't matter if that's in New York City, if that's in Boston, if that's at a lake house that you may or may not be building. It doesn't matter if that's in London or in Patagonia, right? Like it's the same Tuesday. And I think that's what's fun about FI and also how you two did this. this is an iterative process. You figured that out over, you said since 2019, right? Like that's a seven plus year journey. I suspect if we talk in a decade, at least one or two of those things will have changed. And that's perfectly fine. That's perfectly normal. That doesn't mean this, this conversation and your exact Tuesday was a failure.

21:45It doesn't mean that at all. It just means life changes. Right. But again, like, and I think the way that I'm conceptualizing this Tuesday project is like, okay, what are the things I want in my environment also? Like you mentioned walks a couple of times, Aaron and I live in a walkable community here in Richmond. And like, this is really important for me in the future. I've noticed that when I went to London and Barcelona, I want to be within a three minute walk of a little market or a grocery store. I want to have a gym that's a sub 10 minute walk away, you know, et cetera. You can fill in all these blanks.

22:17you don't have to optimize for, I want to live in the perfect city. It's, I want to live in this perfect little micro area where I can take an hour long walk and not be bounded by a six lane highway or something like that. That's very different from saying, I want to live in Lisbon to, I want to live in this exact neighborhood in Lisbon. And that's part of the fun, whether the person who you listening to this is saying like, Brad, I don't care about those things. Well, that's fine. Do whatever you want to do for your life. But like really think through this on the path to fi, because for most of us, Cody, notwithstanding for most of us, a path to fi is going to be 10 to 15 plus years.

22:57And you've got a long time to think about this and to iterate and work on it. And yeah, Cody, that, that is really incredible that you guys have this, have this so mapped out. But like you said, there are some days where, Hey, we don't, maybe we don't have time for that walk or we just don't feel like it, or I'm feeling a little rundown. That doesn't mean your plan is a failure. And I'm curious, how adaptable are you? On a given 10 days, how many of them follow that itinerary pretty closely? Or what would pop up of note that would make you say like, okay, look, we usually do two or three workouts a day.

23:32We need to stop for now, or I'm going to skip my morning workout for Tuesday through Friday or something. Does that ever happen?

23:39Cody Berman:If we're talking 10 days, like a Monday through the weekend, to the next Wednesday or whatever that is, we're probably hitting 80 % on pretty close to that day. Of course, it's not going to be like the exact timing and maybe some things get shifted around ever so slightly, but no, we're pretty spot on. Now the weekends get a little chaotic. If we're traveling, things get a little chaotic and, you know, we might have an excursion plan for the whole day, but a typical day where we're like, have the capacity to work again, it doesn't have to be we're in central Massachusetts where we're located, but yeah, Yeah, honestly, I'd say like 80 % bread.

24:14That's amazing. You have this awesome new book, Retire by 30. The subtitle here is how to build wealth, gain freedom, and live life on your own terms. Cody, I told you this before we have recorded. The book's absolutely fantastic. And the Retire by 30 part, it's both the coolest hook, but it's also like a potential limitation that someone listening to is saying like, I'm already 38. I'm already 58. Like, is this still applicable to me? And I'd be curious what your response is to that person.

24:46Cody Berman:So I definitely stole this out of Tim Ferriss' playbook with the four-hour workweek. I think the point of his book is just to be more optimized, be more intentional with your time, buy back some of your time where you can. If you don't achieve a four-hour workweek, that's fine. If you go from 40 to 30, that's a huge, huge win. And it's the same thing with my book. You don't have to retire by 30. You could be starting this journey when you're 55 and then retire when you're 55. that's still a huge win. You're still beating out a majority of the population in terms of your five age, your retirement age.

25:17Cody Berman:So no, it's not prescriptive. Like you have to be under 30 years old reading this book or else you're a failure. No, like just because my financial independent sprint was from 22 to 25. There's no reason why someone else can't do that from 33 to 36 or from 41 to 44 or from it doesn't have to be three years either. It could be from 50 to 55. Like you can pick this up and start implementing stuff right away, regardless of age. Yeah. And I think what you did at its essence and what most of us in the FI community, all of us are doing is it's not about retiring by a certain age. We're compressing a process that normally takes what, 40 to 50 years for most people, if they're lucky, into a much shorter period.

25:57Hard stop, end of story. That's what we're doing on the path to FI. I think a lot of people can do it in 10 years, especially, interestingly, late starters, you could even argue that they have an advantage, a structural advantage, because they're finding FI at the top of their income years. That's a pretty big advantage. So my question to you is, if you lost everything tomorrow and you were starting over at 50 with a late starter, what would you do first?

26:25Cody Berman:Probably hit expenses first. See where you can cut without feeling super deprived. And I got a lot of pushback from folks in that demo from in the 40s to 50s, because, you know, my story is like I house hacked. That's how I got housing down. I drove a paid off car. I, you know, did some of these things and people will be like, well, you know, I have a family. I can't do that. If you are willing to get creative, there are ways that you can house hack. Like there are house hacks where, you know, you could buy a four bedroom house that happens to have like an ADU on the property. Like you don't have to share walls with someone.

26:55Cody Berman:You don't have to share a bathroom with someone. Like if you're someone who's living paycheck to paycheck, listening to this, like I promise you there are ways to get crafty and get creative and create gaps in your between your income and your expenses. So I'd probably hit the expense side first. And I think you guys have talked about this a lot on choose fi. Like it is probably easier and faster to lop down some of those expenses. But then I would turn my attention toward the income side of things. And it's going to depend on your job. If you're someone who has variable comp and a day job, and like you can make more from your day job with commissions, or maybe it's jumping to another role in another company, or maybe it's making an internal switch.

27:28Cody Berman:You can totally do that. You can also pursue side hustles. Obviously, I'm partial there, but I'm not like one of those guys who's like, screw the nine to five. Like, if you have a nine to five, you suck. No, I think the nine to five is a great way to hit financial independence. And if that is your main lever for creating income, hammer it as much as you possibly can. But you can also use side hustles to boost your income and increase that gap. Because if I could whittle down my book into one sentence, it's just like, earn more, spend less, invest the gap. Very simple. That is financial independence in a nutshell.

28:00Cody Berman:We like to make things super overcomplicated, or at least the financial industry does. But that's seriously it. I could have invested in pretty much anything during those three years. And to give you some real numbers, the gap between my income and my expenses, if you were to bucket all my income together, all my expenses together for those three years was like$625K. So unless I'm buying meme coins and stonks and like crazy speculative assets. If I just invested like any old index fund, I'm my wealth is going to compound many, many times over because that gap is so, so important. Absolutely. And somewhere Jonathan is smiling because that is almost verbatim what he said on Jews of I from probably 2019 to 2022, because that is really right.

28:46It's earn more, spend less, invest that gap, invest the difference. It's really pretty simple. And, you know, it's funny, you were talking about the house hack and the person who's hearing about it for the first time saying like, I can't do that, man, the path to fight really life, frankly, is littered with people who failed saying, I can't do that. I just find that such as almost like pathetically limiting belief that people just love to dismiss like, oh, that's for somebody else. I can't do that. I'm sure you could rattle off a whole handful of things that people, oh, I can't do that. Oh, I can't sell my car.

29:24I just bought it two years ago or I have a loan. I'm like, okay, well, maybe you could. I mean, how many things can you think of?

29:31Cody Berman:Off the top of my head, pretty much everything, anything that doesn't defy the laws of physics, you can probably do it. Is it going to be uncomfortable? Maybe. If you can get comfortable being uncomfortable, even a little bit uncomfortable during those early years or during the early years of your journey, regardless of your actual age, you're just going to be infinitely better positioned than someone who's just, wait, how you're saying it. Oh, I can't, I can't, I can't. You should switch your I can'ts into how can I, and then listen to podcasts like this, find people who are actually doing it.

30:00Cody Berman:Cause I promise you there's someone who paved the path before you. Like if I just went into FI by myself blind without having all these people who had done it before me, the Mr. Money mustaches the world. Choose FI. Grant Sabatier was a mentor of mine. I was able to hit FI faster than everyone I just named. No offense, Brad, because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. People had paved the path before me. So whatever age you might be, whatever gender, whatever race, whatever background, I guarantee you that there's somebody who had a very similar path to you that hit FI and all you're going to do is just copy exactly what they did.

30:33Cody Berman:It's not rocket science. And because you have them to emulate, you can skip out on a lot of their mistakes. So like seriously, the only reason, as you said, Brad, I'm a product of the FI environment, of the FI movement. If I was not standing on the shoulders of giants, I would have had to figure all this stuff out on my own, I probably would have made way more mistakes. But because I literally had this golden path laid out for me, I knew exactly what to do. And so I was able to do it in three years. And I know people who have done it faster than me, which is a really cool thing about all of this and the five movement in general.

31:03Cody Berman:So long story short, I guarantee there's someone out there with a similar story, similar background to you, find them, see what they did, and then emulate them as much as you can. Yeah, I love that changing. I can't do that to how can I, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. The path is there. And you also, you don't have to hit the jackpot, whether it's the meme coins or it's the outsized entrepreneurial success, because inevitably there are going to be people listening to this episode, even well-meaning five people who say, ah, I can't listen to this guy, Cody. He did it in three to five years.

31:34Who the hell cares? I couldn't do this. It's not about that. It's about the principles. Even if you wanted to take the slow route to five and make it a very intentionally make it a 20 to 30 years path to five, like that's perfectly okay. You have to decide what works for your life. Obviously Cody had a particular plan and he succeeded wildly. But I think for a lot of us, this, as you kind of joked on me, like you hit five way before I did, obviously a full decade or more earlier than I did in my own journey. And like, that's perfectly okay. There's no keeping up with the Joneses on like, how fast did you do this?

32:11I think we're all being intentional in the lives that we have. I suspect when we first met you at 21 that you had some ideas of things that would really move the needle, things that would matter, that might not have come to pass as mattering. Can you think of anything off the top of your head of like, hey, I really thought this was an integral part of the path to fi, and it just didn't wind up being that important? oh this one might ruffle some feathers okay let's hear it tax optimization stuff i think people in

32:47Cody Berman:the fi community not that taxes aren't important but people get so enamored with the mega backdoor roth versus backdoor roth and like all this crazy stuff not that it's crazy i do all this stuff but you know what matters way more than all that tax optimization is the gap between your income and your expenses and same with i saw someone arguing in a facebook group last week voo versus VTSAX. I'm like, okay. Yeah. So you can argue VOO versus VTSAX. I'm sure there's people who are probably chomping at the bit when I'm going to say something wrong, listening to the episode, but like at the end of the day, if someone's, you know, investing in VOO versus VTSAX, the person who has the bigger gap is the person who is going to win.

33:25Cody Berman:Not the person who's like, you know, it's traded this many times per day. And this is the expense ratio. Like, does that stuff matter? Sure. It matters a lot more when you have like a billion dollars, when you're talking about 0.03 % on an expense ratio or something like that. But I think people, myself included early on in my journey, way, way overemphasize and over optimize for things like taxes and like all these fancy tricks and loopholes. Whereas if you were just to maximize the gap, invest in literally just any broad-based total stock market index fund, like you're going to hit FI. Yes. So that's the biggest one.

33:59I love it. Well, it's certainly not ruffling feathers here. I mean, personally, I've never done the backdoor Roth or mega backdoor Roth. It almost seems like to me like much ado about nothing, frankly. I know we're myopically focusing on that. Almost everything in life comes down to simplicity. You can write the principles of virtually anything on one index card. And I think the index card for FI is really, really simple. Yes, can you eke out a couple extra tenths of a percent or 1 % better? Listen, I've been talking on this podcast for a decade now about 1 % better. And I hold to that. It can, both things can be true.

34:38Like you can eke out those 1 % betters. And I think you should look for ways to improve your life where you can. I think it's how obsessive people get, Cody. I think that's where I find that people go down rabbit holes of, like you said, VOO versus, you know, VTI. Come on, guys. These are, in most cases, no, this is the one time in history that I can think that they're actually not 99 plus percent the same because SpaceX and that insanity that's going on, like, you know, VTI is going to include it. VOO is not for a little bit for about a year. Can we with a straight face say that makes any difference on a 15 year path to buy?

35:15Of course not. Of course not. And whether you put money in as much as I would like to say, I think traditional retirement counts are more important for most people. Again, not as a blanket statement for most people. You should prioritize traditional retirement accounts over Roth. Do I think that somebody who maxed out their Roth for 10 years made a bad decision or is doomed to failure? Of course not. They're going to succeed wildly if they focused on the gap. And I think that's the critical part here. All right, Cody, so we've talked about this gap. In your mind's eye, how much of phi is math and how much is that identity piece to you?

35:53Oh, identity.

35:55Cody Berman:I thought you were going to say psychology. This changes the question a little bit. Again, awareness and then having that destination in mind is probably first. So I can actually give a real example because I tried to get my then girlfriend, now wife, Lauren, on board by showing her spreadsheet. I'm like, hey, babe, look, if we save 80 % of our income, yeah, that did not work. Say, hey, babe, look, if we save 80 % of our income, we can retire in seven years. We're using like the shockingly simple math article and backing our way into it. And she's like, I don't even know what I'm looking at. So I'm going to say math comes second, psychology first.

36:29Cody Berman:So what I actually did to get her on board, I'm like, okay, what if we can spend any given Tuesday playing pickleball or going on a hike or going to the beach? Like we can just do whatever we want on a random Tuesday. She's like, oh, that sounds awesome. I'm like, what if we could take a month off to travel the world whenever we want? That sounds awesome. I'm like, okay, now here's what we do. And that's when the math came into play. the identity and psychology piece has to come first and you have to like latch onto that and really want the end destination i think a lot of people try to sell the plane and the packing and all that stuff versus just trying to sell the greek islands a spouse who doesn't know fi doesn't want to hear about the packing and the plane ride and all the stuff that you have to do to get there you just have to sell them on the actual vacation on the greek islands and then they'll hop on the plane and then they'll pack and then they'll do all the things that we're doing in the fi community to get there, but you have to sell them on the destination first.

37:18Cody Berman:Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think clearly being on the same page with your partner, in this case, we're talking about people who aren't single. It's about alignment. It's about trying to figure out like, where do we want to go? And of course you're using the trip, even though we talked about a normal Tuesday, but everybody knew what you were saying there. But I want to go back to those monthly meetings that the two of you have. Getting on the same page. I think that's something that a lot of couples really struggle with and setting that North star together and having that conversation. But I'd love for you to really dive into this like nuts and bolts, like, okay, she didn't understand because you approached, you know, the stupid Jonathan style way or, you know, something that a lot of us spreadsheet nerds might start with.

38:04Oh, let's save 80 % of our income. This is a great plan. And meanwhile, most normal people are not going to buy that. But how and when did that conversation happen? And then what do those monthly meetings look like? Because again, like nuts and bolts, I think a lot of partners who are on the path to fight together, they might not be doing those meetings and they might need a framework.

38:23Cody Berman:Okay, so I'm literally going to pull this up on my phone for you, Brad, so I can read the exact categories that we talk about every single month. But we started kind of reviewing our overall picture, probably 2018, 2019. The reason I know this is because we started recording an annual video every year at the end of the year. And our first one was 2019. So that one is just like, actually, I can just share every category that we talk about because I have it here right in front of me. And the funny thing is, we haven't watched any of them back. I think we're going to start watching them back when we're in like our 40s or 50s.

38:54Cody Berman:I don't know. We haven't. That's that first one was, you know, seven years ago. We haven't watched it back. But I'm so curious to hear what 22 year old me has to say. So the annual review video, this is how we started. We talked about just the state of the world, then our careers, then our investments slash spending, talk about our real estate, net worth update, health and fitness, hobbies, shows and movies from that year, travel, music and concerts, food, drinks, restaurants, bars, kind of a random category, friends and family, and then future goals. So we kind of set out our goals for the next year.

39:25Cody Berman:Then probably after a year or two, we started getting more granular and we're like, let's meet about this every month. Because sometimes we'd swing slightly out of an alignment with one another. Maybe one of us would want to do this and the other one would want to do that. And so we're like, okay, let's kind of snap ourselves straight every month and just get more live aligned, more communicative. So in our monthly review meeting, we do this every single month on the last day of the month. Usually we talk about money. That's the first category, which is like net worth update, like where are our investments going?

39:53Cody Berman:How did our investments do this last month? Then we talk about our real estate portfolio. If there's anything we need to do, how that's going. Then we talk about health and fitness, how we fared that last month. Do we feel healthy? Do we hit all the goals that we set out to hit? If we're training for something, Are we hitting our training goals and time blocking effectively? The next category is travel. So we're mapping out our travel for either that month or the next month. We do travel a lot. And so we like to stay on top of that. My wife's actually a travel planner. And then the next one is relationships.

40:21Cody Berman:So this was actually interesting because this is Lauren and my time to complain about one another if there's something that the other person is doing that's bothering us. It's like a safe space where, you know, if I'm doing something that's bothering her or she's doing something that's bothering me, we can bring it up in the safe space during this meeting so that it doesn't get worse. So we like we nip the problem in the bud before it happens. And that's general life. This is not necessarily so this is like a life meeting, right? Life meeting. Yep. I mean, we do. It is kind of some financial nerd stuff, but it's a life meeting as well.

40:50Cody Berman:Just making sure that we're fully aligned on stuff. So, yeah, we talk about our relationship. Then we talk about like friends and family relationships. If there's anything noteworthy there. Then we have just like a random category, a catch all in case there's anything else we need to discuss. And then we set our goals for that next month. So that's our monthly review that we do at the end of every single month since probably 2021 or two. That is amazing. Are there any other like fun aspects? Like do you have it in a certain place? Do you bring a glass of wine or something? Like I know it sounds silly, but like are there any other habits that you bring into it?

41:22Cody Berman:No, these things matter. That's a great question and great observation. So yeah, we usually do it at a restaurant or we'll cook like an atypical meal, like something fancy. Like I know I made like a chicken cordon bleu one of our other meetings ago, a couple of meetings ago. Like that's not a typical weeknight thing. So yeah, we, we just try to make it fun. Like it's, we don't dread the, Oh, we're doing the monthly meeting tonight. Like we make it a fun thing that we enjoy and it's like a fun date for us. That is fantastic. Thank you for diving into that. For sure. All right. I wanted to go back to like the reality of five for most people.

41:53I think this book is, is what happens when you take a decade seriously. Obviously, you can transform your life in a decade or less maybe, but we'll say a decade. I think a lot of people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year. And they just want to, we see this all the time, right? With fitness, with health, with money, et cetera. But they really underestimate what they can do in a decade. You said psychology before. I'm going to ask you to play armchair psychologist. in all the people that you've worked with and you've met in writing this book and going out and talking to people about it.

42:29Do you have a sense for this? Like, is this something that rings true to you that like a lot of people in the broader environment want that instant success? They sprint for a little bit and then they get frustrated and they give up. Whereas it seems like a lot of people who succeed with FI are long-term, are able to somehow think long-term. And that's not normal. I don't think that's even normal in humanity. I think a lot of humanity is surviving to the next day, right? A, does that ring true to you? And B, what do you say to somebody who's just starting out to FI? They just found your book and they know they're undertaking a 10-year journey.

43:11How do they get motivated to do that?

43:13Cody Berman:So to your first point, a thousand percent people want the instant gratification. It's like the marshmallow test. The people who wait for the second marshmallow, that's us. That's the people in the FI community. We're willing to wait. We're willing to sacrifice a bit. We're willing to delay gratification for a larger pot of gold down the road. But this is why, you know, sports betting and the lottery and these things are so popular, even amongst my friends. I mean, these people, I see some of these people on a weekly basis and people are just not long-term thinkers. And no matter what I do or say, I see so many people who, again, I'm in direct contact with.

43:48Cody Berman:I think it's just, again, it's the awareness thing. It's you need to be aligned with the destination. You need to really want this because unfortunately, most people are such short-term thinkers. They're not willing to sacrifice a little bit each year to then have this like crazy compound effect in a decade or two decades. Like a lot of people will come to me and they're like, Cody, what stock should I pick? Or Cody, like how can I make$10 ,000 this month? It's like, that's the wrong question. You need to, going back to your point, figure out how to be like 1 % better or do 1 % more this month and then next month and next month.

44:20Cody Berman:And over the course of five years, you're unrecognizable. Like that's how my journey kind of went. Even though it was an accelerated journey, I didn't just come out of the gate making$100 ,000 a month or something like that. Like that's not my story at all. I didn't have some big tech exit and I had millions. Like my first month in entrepreneurship, I probably made like a couple thousand dollars. That was it. And that was me working like 80 hours a week plus. But I've since built up and scaled my businesses and everything that I have going on to the point where I'm at today. So yeah, usually for me, like if I'm introducing FI to someone new, it's just giving them whatever content they're most comfortable with.

44:57Cody Berman:Maybe they're a YouTube person. Give them a YouTube video that kind of gives them a general outline of FI. If they're a podcast listener, give them a podcast that gives them a general outline of FI. If they're a book reader, now I have a book I can give them. But I think awareness is key. You're not going to get someone to change their spending habits just by telling them they should change their spending habits. That conversation is going to go very poorly if you're like, hey, you know what? I think you should downgrade your housing and sell your car and go out to eat way less. If they don't have that destination in mind, they're just going to say, screw you.

45:25Cody Berman:Why the heck would I do that? YOLO, life's about living. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. But in the FI community, we make these intentional choices because we know what's on the other side of those choices. And I think that is the most important piece. You need to be aware and you need to have that destination. This is something I grapple with. You said those of us in the FI community are the second marshmallow person, right, from the famous experiment. We can delay gratification. Do you think this is, I guess there's a way to negatively look at that and say, okay, we can't actually convince anybody to join the FI community who's not already biologically fit for it.

46:05And I don't think that's true. I think, again, my co-founder of Choose a Fight, Jonathan, is the perfect example. Like he is, as he's always called himself, a reluctant frugalist. He was a spender. He was an absolute spender. But I think a lot of getting new people into the fight community is finding those people who are maybe inherently long-term thinkers. And that's all well and good. But I think that limits the total adjustable market, if you will, to be entrepreneurial about it. And like somebody who just says to you, Cody, look, I've been a spender my whole life. It's just what I do. It's what I've always done.

46:40It's what my parents taught me. It's what was what's been around me. It's what my neighbors do. How do I see out of this? What are the tangible things they can do to make moves from that first conversation with you?

46:54Cody Berman:I think usually when someone is coming from that perspective, they don't want to cut expenses or cut anything out of their life because they think that they're going to have to sacrifice. I think probably what I would do in someone in that situation with that mindset would show them that there are alternatives to what they're doing to live almost the exact same life, but at a lower cost. So going back to what I was mentioning before, like we lived in a nice one, one, and we had a four bed, two bath and 600 square feet of office space that we rented out. We also had friends who lived in one ones.

47:27Cody Berman:They were just paying some of them$2 ,000 a month to live in Boston. We're in central mass taking in$800 a month. Like, so at face value, we're not living very different lives than them. We're living in the same square footage. You know, we're pretty much doing the same types of things. We have the same amount of parking with everything. It's just we own the building and they were renting. I think introducing people to just the slightly different ways that you can live the same quality life is just super eye opening because a lot of people just fall into this. Oh, there's this is the way and this is the only way to do it.

47:58Cody Berman:I can't get my rent down. This is just what rent is or I have to keep driving this car. You know, I've already had it for two years. I have this loan on it. Like just showing people the math behind what a slightly different choice can be and how it's actually not going to lead to a lower quality of life, I think that's probably the way I would approach it. And I would just go category by category with them and be like, okay, housing, transportation, food, travel, here's how you reduce all of those and still do exactly or almost exactly what you're doing right now. Yeah, that reminds me of an old article that Mr.

48:31Money Mustache that Pete wrote years ago, which was called how to go from middle class to kick ass. And it was essentially that.

48:37Cody Berman:I remember that one. The traditional regular person, spendy person, as people would say, and then the mustachian. It was just category by category. And also something that I've touched on so many times here is every$100 a month you can cut out of your budget is$30 ,000 less you need in your fine number. But of course, it doesn't end there because you invest that. And if you invest to that $100 a month for 20 years at 8 % return, you're going to be sitting with$60 ,000. That's what's crazy. $100 a month. So that's a$90 ,000 swing on$100 a month. So anytime anybody ever tells you little things don't matter when it comes to personal finance,$100 a month is a$90 ,000 swing over 20 years.

49:20I mean, that's crazy town, Cody.

49:22Cody Berman:Yeah, that is crazy. I want to do a little rapid fire for you since you've reached FI and you've designed this life that turned into something extraordinary. And I don't see it stopping anytime soon, but I like how you and Lauren have become much very intentional. I don't want to say much more intentional because it sounds like you've had intentionality for a long while. What surprised you the most in your post-FI life? I think having to face the reality that anything that I say that I want to do and that I don't do is a Cody problem. Before FI, you can blame things on time. You can blame things on money.

50:01Cody Berman:But when you have all the time in the world, when you have enough money that you no longer have to work for money, anything that you say that you're going to do and that you don't do becomes a you problem. And sometimes that can be really freaking scary, Brad. Like looking at yourself in the mirror and you're like, you know, I want to get a six pack. I want to be fluent in Spanish. I want to learn the guitar. And you don't do that thing. it just becomes abundantly clear that the job wasn't the thing that was holding you back from achieving that goal it's something else deeper more internal that you have to fight and so i think that's what it was for me i don't have like a super specific one but i i remember having that realization just like it's kind of like when you go to college for the first time and you can just like do anything with your days and i felt that but now a lot more mature and with a lot more money and kind of a better grip on the world and i just remember having that freedom and it was awesome but scary at the same time.

50:49Cody Berman:Like I can do whatever I want with my days. It's almost like you hold too much power. And so again, if you set out to do something and you don't do it, it all just comes back on, you know, that's no longer a time or a money problem. That's a Cody problem. I am the reason why I'm not achieving this goal. And so I think that's probably one of the craziest realizations I had. And I honestly probably still grapple with it to this day. Well, it's a tough one. And just to commiserate a little bit is I clearly feel the exact same way. And for me, it's been clarifying in the sense that there is a finite amount of time, even though it seems like you and I have tons of time, it's still, we are beholden to that 168 hours in a week.

51:33If you get eight hours of sleep at night, 112 waking hours, you have to fit everything in there. And it comes down to priorities. I've said for two decades, I want to continue learning Japanese. it happens in fits and spurts, but it doesn't really happen. Same as you, like it's you with Spanish, right? Like, okay, well that just isn't a priority. I've said, one of my favorite things to do is reading. And I probably read fewer than 20 books in the last year. That's not somebody who says reading is their number one priority. I think you need to be honest with yourself and update your thinking and also like not beat yourself up about the fact that that doesn't mean I'm sitting and twiddling my thumbs and going on Reddit 112 hours a week.

52:16I'm doing other interesting stuff. It's an interesting realization about time for all of us. And I think we need to give ourselves a little bit of grace when it comes to that. But like you said, it is a Cody problem. It is a Brad problem. But I don't necessarily want to use the word problem because it's just it's about priorities. And I think that the proof is in the pudding ultimately. You know what I also think is funny is that I heard myself doing it and I heard you doing it

52:42Cody Berman:bit there. We'll try to explain ourselves out of something. And honestly, if you're fi and you're just enjoying life, like it's okay to just be, you don't like have to have some goal. Like you don't have to learn Japanese or be a great reader or like learn the guitar or any of the things we just talked about. Like it's okay to just exist and be happy. Like you could, if walking makes you happy and you just like walk and listen to music, you can do that for 12 hours a day. And that's a winning life for you. So I think a lot of times, especially in the entrepreneur world that I'm in. And in the FI world, we'll try to justify the things that we're doing, like saying, oh, you know, I'm so productive.

53:15Cody Berman:I have all these things that I want to do. And I'm going to do this my post-FI life or before. But I think it's okay with just being sometimes. Just existing is totally fine. Oh, it totally is. It absolutely is. And I think, frankly, like finding times to rest and recover and rejuvenate is really valuable just for life. So I love that you dialed into that. And it's not about productivity. It's about trying to build a life that you want. I'm a massive soccer fan. The World Cup started five days ago when we were recording this, and I've watched between two and four matches a day. So we're talking four to eight hours a day.

53:52And I suspect that's going to continue for the next month. And I have no issue with that whatsoever. But in fairness, I do have to understand that something is going to give a little bit. But that's fine. This is an example of a season of life, but I'm thrilled about that. there always is a give and take. That doesn't mean you're off on some bad path or something. You just, we're going through each and every day and understanding that. I know I dial into this so much, but like, it's just really important that we all give ourselves grace of like, we are trying to figure our lives out. And Cody, I guess in light of that, so in your post-fi life, what problems disappeared that you might have been surprised by and what problems maybe didn't disappear that you were also surprised by i mean the obvious problem that did disappear

54:45Cody Berman:was just worrying about bills am i going to be able to pay the mortgage am i going to be able to pay utilities all that type of stuff hold on let me let me jump in do you worry about money today? No, but that's not since I hit five. That's probably three years post five while I was still hammering the accelerator, like I mentioned before. Okay. Okay. Keep going. Because I went way past five and I'm open about sharing numbers. Like when I hit five, my net worth was just over a million between the real estate and the stock market investments. Like just before my 30th birthday, I hit the$5 million milestone.

55:23Cody Berman:I went way past where I needed to go. And I think that's probably why I don't worry about it as much anymore. But it's honestly, maybe because I had a scarcity mindset that I had to go so far past the goalpost to stop worrying about money. But at this point, no, I don't worry about money. Like I'm getting a lot better at making decisions that are not driven by money, both on the income front and on the expense front. Okay. Okay. I like that. So I could ask you a million questions, but keep going, go back to where you're going with that problems that disappeared, problems that didn't. So most money problems disappeared.

55:52Cody Berman:Now I can't go and buy a private jet tomorrow. Like that's not in the budget, but like normal money problems, living a regular middle-class lifestyle. I know you've mentioned that a million times, Brad, like I can live a normal middle-class lifestyle with no worries in the world about running out of money. Try to think of problems that persisted. I think it goes back to what I was saying before. It was everyone thinks when they hit five, they're magically going to get in better shape and they're magically going to learn the language and their relationship is going to get better with their significant other or their family.

56:17Cody Berman:They're going to have more time for their kids, this and that. But if you're not practicing those things during the journey, it is very unlikely that you're going to practice them even more in PHY. So again, if you say you want to learn an instrument or you want to spend time with your significant other or you want to learn a language, dedicate 10 or 15 minutes a day now, even during the beginning of your journey. And then as you start to gain some of that time back, as you start to build that financial foundation, that FU money, if you will, then you can start to add more time to those things that you've deemed worthy, that you've deemed valuable in your life.

56:47Cody Berman:So yeah, I think it's probably more of the same. what I was saying before is like the problems that have persisted is just like the Cody problems. It's I said I wanted to do this. I am not doing this. OK, let's actually dig into the real problem here. It's not time or money anymore. It's me. Yeah. OK, you are post economic at this point, which is wonderful. Have you dabbled in anything that might feel a little uncomfortable in terms of Cody, who was frugal from the time he was born, basically, until he hit FI versus Cody now, who just by very virtue, if you were making$0 and you had a$5 million net worth, you could spend 200 grand a year.

57:30I suspect you're spending nowhere near that, if I had to guess. Just as an example, Aaron and I this year have started dabbling in grocery delivery. This is not a big deal, but it's a little uncomfortable to, instead of going to Wegmans, which is four minutes down the road or Costco, which is 12 minutes down the road. It's not that big of an extra charge for the little extra that Instacart charges you. And then the tip. And it's like, I just saved an hour and that cost me maybe 15 bucks or something like that. That's a decision we've been trying to expand our horizons a little bit with like, how can I make my life easier with something that might feel a little uncomfortable for the frugal me, the prior frugal me, and just kind of lean into it a little bit.

58:13And frankly, in both of those cases, we've had great success. And it's been like, man, in my perfect world, I would have done this way earlier. Anything jump to mind for you on things that you might have changed now that you are, you are fi?

58:27Cody Berman:It's funny that you just said bought you so time because that is exactly what I'm doing now that I'm post fi. I buy back my time aggressively. We get all of our groceries delivered. We have people come and take care of the lawn and do our gardening. We have house cleaner. I am all for the services. I am all for buying my time back now that I can afford those things. And 22 year old Cody would throw up at some of the stuff that I'm spending money on now. Like we've upgraded to business class on flights home from Europe. We've stayed in Airbnbs that I would never even think about paying the money for.

58:57Cody Berman:Now that I'm again, post fi, like we're going on a trip this summer with my mom and brother. and I spent more on that Airbnb in Sweden. I mean, I can just say the number. It's been like$6 ,000 on just like a seven day Airbnb. I would never, ever spend that type of money on just the accommodation. Like my whole vacation wouldn't even cost that much. But now that I have the money and now that I have the margin, like again, I'm still aggressively pursuing entrepreneurship. My businesses are still growing. I still have a pretty healthy gap between what my income and my expenses are. But on a nominal basis, my expenses have increased like five to 10x since I started on that five path all those years back.

59:35It is interesting how our paths, they adjust, they have to. Obviously, you have this significant net worth and you are earning income. So I mean, you clearly, it goes without saying, you never have to worry about money again, which is a really nice place. I think a lot of people, even people who have reached FI on paper or the numbers are sound. I think people succumb to that one more year syndrome. And there is some nervousness, even those of us who have been doing this for a very long time. Is it just overwhelming net worth and income for you where you just realize like, look, I don't have to worry?

1:00:13Or did you still even maybe a couple years ago have lingering doubts?

1:00:19Cody Berman:I think my lingering doubts stopped happening probably two-ish years ago. And my net worth is probably like 2 million lower. So like around three, I guess for me. And that was like, my original five goal was 1.5 million. I was planning on living on$60 ,000 a year, which just seemed like a ludicrous amount of money at the time because I was spending$24 ,000 a year. But yeah, I think because I've continued to build these semi-passive businesses where I have the opportunity to work 30 minutes to maybe an hour a day on the worst days while I'm on vacation. but because I have those still rolling, I think I feel a lot more comfortable in my spending because I know for me, and I know a lot of other people I've spoken to in the FI community, just drawing down from a nest egg for me, for some reason is like so scary.

1:01:04Cody Berman:I am so much more comfortable pulling from cashflow. It's kind of like I've had some friends who have sold businesses for millions or tens of millions of dollars and they said they felt richer when they owned the business because they were getting monthly distributions and having a$10 million pile just sitting in a bank account or in an investment account, it feels scarier to pull from. I don't know why I'm wired like that, but living off cashflow just feels safer to me to answer your question in a roundabout way. Yeah, no, I hear you. And again, psychology is important and we can never discount that, right?

1:01:37It's like, but I think the problem is a lot of people do suboptimal things just to get what they deem as cashflow, right? Like we've seen people do this with dividend investing.

1:01:47Cody Berman:Or like annuities. Yeah, like a handover backwards to convince themselves that this is a good strategy because of this magical income that isn't actually income at all. It's a slippery slope. But we do have to understand that we know it's going to be hard. And I kind of got into this whole to-do about this supposed middle-class trap thing over the last year or two that friends of ours have been talking about in the FI community. I think it's much ado about nothing because of exactly that. It's like you've won the game. you have this net worth. And for people who say like, I can't sell investments.

1:02:26So therefore this doesn't work or whatever. And it's like, you're grasping defeat from the jaws of victory. Like you have literally won the game of life and people are afraid to be uncomfortable for five minutes. And sometimes you just have to grow up and say like, look, I'm going to be uncomfortable for five minutes, no matter what my net worth is, no matter what my withdrawal rate, it's going to be uncomfortable. You know that Cody, I know that when you go to sell that first time, when you've saved your entire life, it's going to be uncomfortable. It's kind of a feature, not a bug. If it was not uncomfortable, we would have done it all along, but you steal yourself for that.

1:03:02And then you log into fidelity, you click sell for a couple of thousand dollars that you need that month and you go on your merry way and you did it. If your income streams from your business is dried up tomorrow and you didn't have your rental property, it's like you still have a net worth of$5 million. You've won. And it will be hard to log into Vanguard or Fidelity or Schwab and sell, but it'll be hard for five minutes, Cody. And then you're done, right? And then the next month, it'll get a whole heck of a lot easier.

1:03:31Cody Berman:Yeah, I 100 % agree. I know that it's all psychology that's making me scared of selling my investments. But also, I think it's just a function of my age and my stage. Like I'm 30 years old right now. Lauren and I are planning on having kids. We don't have kids now. I'm trying to make as much money as I can while still thoroughly enjoying the journey. Like again, some months I'm working an hour a day, not even. But I'm just like trying to pad the pile as much as possible. So then when we do have a family, I can like really, really take my foot off the gas with zero worries in the world. I know if Ramit was hearing me, he'd be like, Cody, you have way too much money.

1:04:03Cody Berman:You could just spend whatever you want. I know. I know. It's probably something that I just will continue to battle. Well, if Ramey was here, he'd be needlessly making fun of the fire movement for no reason whatsoever, even though we're kindred spirits and he just wants people to click on his whatever. We'll put that aside. But Cody, I love this, man. I love it for you. I love your success. I love what you and Lauren have built and where you're going. And the book is really great. We're going to have a link to it. You can find it anywhere. retire by 30, Cody Berman. I'd love a final word from you, of course, as we leave.

1:04:38And also, if there's anywhere else people can find you, obviously you have a podcast, et cetera. I'm going to leave that to you. But for me, this is not about living a life that is locking you into something. We're buying freedom. We're buying choices, not obligations. And it's not about retiring at 30 or 25 or 45 or 55. It's building a life and it's following a path and it's being intentional and it's building into this life that you want. And it's having fun along the way and iterating and trying and quote unquote, failing at some things and succeeding wildly at others and just getting closer and closer to that perfect Tuesday.

1:05:19I just love that you and Lauren are there and it'll be so fascinating to have you on. Hopefully it's not going to be another eight years before I have you on. But if it's eight to 10 years from now, I just can't wait to see where your lives are then.

1:05:31Cody Berman:I think that's the coolest part about all this is I highly encourage folks if they have a minute or 50 minutes, however long the episode is to listen back to that first episode. Because if you asked me then during that campfire roundtable or during that first full episode I did with you guys, what my life would look like, I would have never guessed that it would be the life I'm living today. Like I knew I was going to be frugal. I knew that I was going to have a massive gap between my income, my expenses. I knew that I'd still be into health and fitness and travel and all that stuff. The core of Cody was still the same, but in terms of what my day-to-day looks like or the businesses that I have, I could have never guessed the things that I'm doing today.

1:06:05Cody Berman:Because like I said, I've tried over 30 side hustles, over 25 of them are in the side hustle graveyard. But because I took that first step and was willing to be comfortable being uncomfortable, that made all the difference. So to let folks know where to find me, I know you mentioned the book, retire by 30, retire by 30 book.com. Cody D Berman.com is kind of my hub for everything I have going on. And then at Cody D Berman on all socials is where you can find me. And Brad, just got to say, this is such a cool, awesome, full circle moment, listening back to that very first episode and then hearing myself now, or just like talking to you now.

1:06:42Cody Berman:It's just, it's so crazy that I'm at where I'm at. And like I said, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. It's because of all the lessons I learned from Choose Fi. I learned a million different ways to make money. I learned a million different ways to save money. I learned how to invest the money through podcasts like Choose Fi. So I'm forever grateful and appreciate you and all you do. That's incredible, man. Onward and upward from here, my friend. We'll have all links in the show notes. And as always, thanks for listening to Choose Fi and being part of the community.