614 | Getting Personal with Personal Finance: Oz Chen

28:42To be able to step away from those habits of mind. I think you're absolutely right. And so keen to call out that two week period. It's because usually when I do take my like standard American vacation, like two weeks out of the year, there's always that stress of coming back. Oh my gosh, I have so much to catch up on, like so many emails and my boss is going to throw so much on my plate the moment I get back. And so crossing over those two weeks and then be like, oh, I still have like 10 weeks left out of this. I was like, wow, this is insane. Like there's so much time to really just, you know, know, really rest and not be in a hurry all the time.

29:22Gosh, that just speaks to that feeling that so many of us have around like scarcity of time, you know, where you're saying, oh, it felt like so much time to have eight weeks more or whatever that was. I mean, that time is before us anyway, but it feels really different when part of that time belongs to someone else. Okay, so you're enjoying your sabbatical and then something unexpected happens. Yes, it was divine timing, I would say. In literally the last week of my medical leave slash sabbatical, I received the layoff notice. And so I had to really scramble to figure out what this meant. So that last week was a crazy period because three things happened.

30:12So like the next week I was supposed to return to work and I was, my mental state was like, you know what, just grind through till August. It's no longer going to be December. This time period off has really affirmed to me. I should leave earlier and later. So, okay, I'm going to pick the closer day August. Right. And then I think it was like the Wednesday that week where, because I've been logged out of all my systems, some of my coworkers texted me. They're like, Hey, I don't know if you heard, but like, you should like check your email because there's a massive layoff. I was like, Oh, wow. Okay.

30:43So, so I logged in and then I see a calendar invite with HR on my calendar, you know, like the dreaded HR 15 minute call. Zero to 10. How surprised are you about this? Nine or 10. I was pretty floored. Cause I was like, wait a minute, like this is happening now. It took time for it to settle into my system. And then probably after 10 minutes, I was like pumping my fist in the air. I was like, oh hell yeah. I was like, I can't believe this is happening because the layoff date was actually pretty much the date I was planning to leave. And so I'm like, well, I'm glad I didn't jump the gun there because then I would be paid to leave the company rather than like, my plan literally was, all right, I'm going to grind it out till August on my best date.

31:32And then I'm going to ask my manager, like, can you lay me off, please? Can you fire me? You know, so that I could collect unemployment. Like I literally wrote that down as like my plans. And then like this happened and it was like, it accelerated everything. I was like, this is exactly what I had wished for. Oh my gosh. Okay. So your dream layoff timing happened. And how much time has lapsed since then? It was like 11 and a half weeks because I saw on the last week of my medical leave and I was going to return to work the very next Monday. So that was really wild because when I first read the layoff email, it said that, hey, you're going to work until about like end of July, August, and then that'll be like your final layoff date.

32:23So in my head, I was like, oh, this is kind of the same plan, except now I have like a solid end date with severance. And then because I was late to the game in terms of being logged out and not getting all that context about the layoffs, I didn't realize that in two days, the end of that week, they said, that's technically going to be the last day you could badge into the office and logged out of all systems. And that took me a while to grok. And the term in the industry is called garden leave. There's something called the Warren Act that I guess larger companies with big layoffs, they do this to, in order to accommodate like state laws, I guess.

33:04So effectively, I was like, wait, they're going to pay me for like two months to not work. And then they're going to, you know, on that final severance date, basically pay us out. So it's very generous. I'm like very like happy about all that. So then my initial 12 week time off sabbatical medical leave just turned into like what it is now. Like so as of today, I've been not working for four months. Okay, so we have found you at a very interesting place in your FI journey. And I wonder just how you're thinking about the next 10 years. Is that a hard question? Actually, I do have something around that, but please finish your question.

33:47It's a good question. I was just going to say, you know, you had thought about this in such a different way just a few years ago. And so I imagine the future has opened up for you in a really different way. And so I wonder now at this very beginning part of this part of your life, how you're conceptualizing the next decade or how you're thinking about what's next for you. And so I think throughout this conversation, I shared some of like my building blocks of confidence, what I accept and taking this time off for 12 weeks and pushing for that space and stitching things together that cumulatively added up to like a lot more confidence with this new scenario.

34:30And so when you ask that question about the next 10 years, I do have a timeline that's a little bit closer, which is my partner and I would like to have kids in the next two to three years. And so that added like a really nice boundary for myself where I think of the next two years from now as the best time to explore, to learn, to experiment with things because I want to arrive at parenthood with as little resentment as possible. honestly. I want to arrive at that stage like, you know, like I gave myself that time. I took the opportunity to really honor that time to pursue a lot of different interests and hobbies.

35:20So just two years from now, that is something that has helped shape my timeline. I'm not sure if I have something specific for 10 years, but in the long run, I think this is one of the beauties of the Choose a Phi show is the theme of learning and experimenting and being flexible and iterating. And so for me, I think that Phi is something that I could use in seasons. I just think, hey, this is like my initial Phi season. Like, let me enjoy it. Let me act like a early retiree who's taking community college classes, which is what I'm doing and doing all those things. but there might be a time where I really want to go back to work.

36:05And I got really attuned to that during COVID when a lot of the parents I talked to, they couldn't, it was actually after COVID, all the return to office mandates. I talked to a lot of parents who are so glad to be back in the office because they were stuck at home with their kids. And I'm like, wow, that's a different level of stress and pressure that I haven't experienced. And what if I get to that point? Maybe it's a five years from now. And I'm like, I can't wait to get an office job. I can't wait to get out of the house a little bit. You know, I entertain that possibility. So I'm going to try to honor the season I am now and then be open to other seasons that change with respect to work.

36:46Okay. I love this answer because it's personally something I've been thinking about because Brad Ed and I are trying to work on our time buckets from we're doing the die with zero activity. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like when is the best like time to use your resources for life experiments? Here are all these things that I want to do. And now if I think about which of these belong in, you know, the next five years, the next 10 years, right? And you're doing a version of that in real time right now where you're like, okay, I've got this two to three years. and I really want to think about what I want, what makes most sense for this time of my life that won't make sense in five years or 10 years.

37:28So I hear you, like you've got this theme of exploration. Do you have any specific things that you want to make sure that you get done, just in case I need to add them to my list? Well, man, I feel like with one thread opens up so many threads, which is the joy of talking to you as a host. So to back up a little bit, again, I'm a list person, I'm a brainstorm person, and I write down a bunch of ideas. So I'm like, oh, now that I'm definitely not going to work, like how do I want the next three to six months, the next season or two to play out? That timeline tends to work better for me. I have a better grasp of my desires and how I want to see them through in the next two seasons or so.

38:11Beyond that, it's more of like a question mark. And so one of those things is really thinking about what kind of work in quotes I want to do. And I'm very pulled to things that are the opposite of the environment that I was in. A tech worker who went to the office a lot, sitting in front of the screen a lot, and had to badge in three times a week. And so I was thinking it would be really great to do something hands-on. I would love to learn a lot of trade skills and music skills. So it's both like trades and arts that I started looking into. And I would say something about trades is that when I shared this with some of my friends who are also very much wanting something more analog and wanting to do something like wood shop or how to repair things, they asked me, oh, like, have you considered trade school?

39:04And it was a great question because I immediately was like, no, I'm in the season where I don't want to be committed to anything more than like 10, maybe 20 hours max, if it's a really great thing per week. I do not want to just launch myself into something that like absorbs all my time and the portfolio of my time. I really wanted to be in buckets and diversified. And that's how I like it in my first season. So it's like, all right, if I could find something that's like five to 10 hours here, five to 10 hours there. I still have time to write. I still have time to go and work out the gym. I like that mix.

39:41And that was really informative for me to create guardrails for myself in this season, because I did look at jobs. There were really cool gigs where I could learn how to be an apprentice to install solar panels. And then I really looked at that job description. And I was like, it's 40 hours a week minimum. And during the summer, he, I was like, I think I would really regret making that decision when, and also that line of thinking about doing those jobs, it was also a little bit still steeped in fear because in the tech community, there's this fear that AI is going to replace our jobs. So you better diversify by getting some sort of like manual skill, do something in the trade.

40:24So I had to admit to myself, hey, that was an element that was still playing out in my fears.

40:30Jonathan Mendonsa:And then, you know, kind of seeing that, I was like, all right, let me throw spaghetti at the wall and just stuff that's fun for the first season. And so I've long been interested in music. I've really liked electronic music, have thought it would be great to create a track, even if it's like a silly little ditty or whatever. And so, yeah, community college has been great. I'm now in my second community college class. And in like the second day, I created like a little track, you know, that was like 30 seconds. I'm like, oh, this is amazing. Like it sucks. But I am actually doing something in this area that I've really thought about for a long time.

41:10It's like that sat in the background of my mind for years and years. I want to pick up two of the threads there and kind of and talk about both of them. Like when I think it's really interesting that when I said you said, oh, well, I'm thinking about the next two or three months. You said, I thought about what I wanted work to look like. And you used that word work. And it's something that I have been thinking about as well in terms of, like, you still obviously have thought about, I still need to be making effort in some way that's going to feed me intellectually or give me purpose. Or how did you think about that?

41:51What do you mean when you say work? Something that engages my attention for a period of time and ideally with some sort of output. Work to me could look like writing a blog post or having this conversation with you because there's going to be this lovely conversation and then output like, oh, something is living on in the world. That's one way that I define work. And that is still something that is near and dear to me, that if I go a long enough time not having something creative oriented and without some sort of output, then I'll feel kind of empty. But it doesn't mean that the work has to be in the form of a formal job, like an office job or even getting a paycheck.

42:40I know this is kind of semantics, but I think maybe it could be useful. Do you think the word work here and creativity is like the same thing? Like, are those the same things and how you're conceptualizing them? Like, I want to express this creativity. I want to express this part of me and make something. Is that sort of the same thing? I think just to make this probably even more complicated, like another word that comes to mind with creativity work is maybe the through line is like effort. There's some sort of effort that feels good. And the types of effort that, let me just contrast it with my last role, the type of work that I was doing started to feel very, very abstract.

43:24It was meetings upon meetings and coordinating amongst people to see if we could get this initiative started off. And then maybe a leader just like steps into the picture and says, oh, that initiative is off now. So there's a lot of circling type of energy, like where is this going? And so that effort didn't feel, doesn't feel like great, honestly, for me. Yeah. It wasn't directed maybe. Exactly. And as someone who values, a lot of five people value autonomy and independence, especially with work. I love the type of effort that's like, I put effort into this thing and it's of my own autonomy, of my own creativity.

44:03and there's some sort of thing that could live on, whether it's like a MP3 file or a blog post, some evidence. Directed autonomous effort. I do feel like it's really useful to like pin down what we're talking about because if we don't, like people are really at risk of like, oh, I have all this open time before me and I know that work is bad. You know, I'm using my little air quotes here. And so what is like, what is the next thing for me? And I wanted the other thread that I wanted to pick up was where you use that word contrast, where you said, okay, I thought about what work was like before, and I wanted the work going forward to really be in contrast to that.

44:49So, you know, one of those things was autonomy and you were thinking about those in contrast. And I've been thinking so much about contrast as well, kind of in a similar way, but just in terms of, hey, is part of what makes my days off so great is that I'm working on the other days. Right. And like, what do I do with that information or what will I do with that when I don't have the harder days? But maybe you're kind of answering that with if you have this other kind of directed effort, those can still be contrasted with another type of day. And that contrast is part of what gives us a kind of a rich experience.

45:30I don't know. What do you think? I feel like that's so keen. There's so many ways to take that. I do feel the same thing that you're describing, which is even when I was in a job that I didn't enjoy as much, the weekends would feel that much sweeter. There'd be a little bit of this pent up energy of like, yeah, let's go out, you know, like explore the city because there's more of that contrast. The personal signal for me when I was going through a really tough time with work was realizing that my creative capacity was greatly reduced. So I would come back from work and didn't have the energy to write.

46:12And then I went a long period without writing. And that really bothered me. I was like, I do not like this equation at all. And even when I had time to write, I was too burnt out or too disinterested that I couldn't create that energy. so I feel that that was a key part of my journey that really ticked me off to okay something's off here and that that isn't to say in the future I could be in another formal type of work environment and enjoy that and still have that nice contrast with I'm so glad I'm like so looking forward to the weekend because of the hard work that was that happened earlier in the week yeah so to use that language we've been using, is it fair to say all of that effort was being used in your job?

47:01But of course, it doesn't have to be. So we can still have that contrast. I feel like you're saying you can still have that contrast, but it just feels so much better because it's work that you are directing, that you are choosing. Exactly. I have a lot of empathy for people who are falling into that rhythm where work has kind of consumed a lot of their energy, mentally and spiritually, such that there's not as much spaciousness to consider other things, to have space to do other things. I think it's a very common experience because I think then that setup leads to just playing out the status quo more.

47:46You're going to do the thing right in front of you. If I have a stressful job, but I have all these bills, but to blow off stress, I do all these things. Some may be like less or more healthy than others. And it kind of keeps the cycle going. Like I have a lot of empathy for that. I've been through that. And it is something that really takes intention and effort to get out of. Yeah. You have to have the space to use your imagination. It's like not available to us if we're in that reactive state. I think about AI a lot because my previous job was fully focused on, half of it was focused on AI initiatives to try to get other people in the product department to use AI more.

48:30Like that was like my mandate. So I'm very close to this and I use AI a ton myself. And it's really interesting, the theme of contrast, because in a work environment, it's very easy to fall in line with that framing because there is literally leadership. That's like everyone has to be using AI. Like if you're not a top AI user, you're probably going to have to leave at some point. That was kind of the messaging, very common in tech. and it kind of in quotes made sense in that environment and what I found is that AI actually just created more work I'm not saying it's bad I think there's so many things that are wonderful about this technology but because you can do more you're going to be asked and expected to do more outside of that work environment I'm able to look at that with more clarity because in my personal life and time that I spend because there aren't KPIs I have to hit.

49:33There aren't company goals I have to hit. Now all the creative arts are like, why would I want to use AI to write? I'm writing because I enjoy it. That's part of my practice. It would take away from the point of writing for me. And so without the pressure of performance and productivity that is expected in a corporate environment, there's a lot of opportunity and spaciousness outside of that line of thinking to just like do your thing, AI or not. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for going down that road with me. I want to go back to, you know, one of the things that I think is so helpful about ChooseFI and shows like ChooseFI is that we get to see these unconventional things that other people are doing and that can give us the courage to do unconventional things in our own lives.

50:21Like it's so powerful just to see someone doing something different and just to hear how they actually met some of the challenges that go along with that. So I'm going to ask you a really practical, maybe not practical, I think a practical question. You said early on, you said, oh, I haven't really been saying I'm early retired. I'm saying I'm taking an extended career break. And I wonder how that has been received by others. Does that make them worry about you? This is why it's good to have five friends because you'll at least have some people who understand. I just caught up with a former classmate from college just literally yesterday.

51:08And I was trying to catch him up on what was going on. And the natural question is like, oh, okay, so what are you going to do next? Like you're going to like find another job. Even when I was telling him some of my interests, everything was kind of anchored to work. Even when I was talking about like, yeah, I'm just exploring some like electronic music classes. Like, oh yeah, like, are you going to be a DJ? So it's, it's this very quick jump to work centeredness or having like an identity to, to hold you. And I realized that could be kind of scary to not have a defined role, especially when talking to people and saying like, this is just what I'm exploring right now.

51:48And I think sometimes I find that maybe people don't know how to respond to that. And it's okay. The conversation kind of like drifts out after that. I said that I would ask, do you have 500 friends? Definitely not. I think I know 500 people, but I think as time goes on, I do feel like the circle gets like smaller and tighter. That's a theme I've noticed with like a lot of people too, just like over time. I think as a tangent off of that is the perception of someone who isn't, doesn't have a job. With my circle of friends, they might have the perception of like, oh, so you have, you just have all this free time all the time.

52:35Like, you know, can you go do and do this and that? Oh, like you're busy. You can't make it. That's weird, but you're not working. I think that's something that I'll continue to run into and I don't have a perfect solution to it my cheat for it is take community college classes like like I do have something that is like a structure that is nice because I have this class that I go to Monday through Thursday for like four hours and it gives my day some structure and I like learning it I'm not sure if I answered your question. Yeah, you made me think I hadn't really thought about, especially for someone who's younger, the negative ways that this might influence your close friendships.

53:17Do you think that any of your friends are jealous? One of my really close friends, I love him to death because he's so open. He was like, I'm so jealous of you. You're doing what I want to do. I've only had heard that once. And it is really humbling. I try not to take that and turn it into more pressure. Like, oh, this is what my friend would do with this three times. And then I should probably think about doing something similar, almost having the guilt of options. And I do think that that person who said, I'm so jealous, like that's the safe kind of jealousy. That's just like out there and friendly, right?

53:56It's the, it's the ones who aren't saying that and who kind of is sitting underneath that can feel maybe not good. Yeah. I think earlier you mentioned the word practical and I did want to add in some practical things that are... Let's do it. So some of those practical things are on like the analytical brain that my optimizer brain like really needs. I need both that like heart and mind piece to like arrive at decisions. and I'm reading from my notes. One of the really important calculations that I made was not the 4 % rule, but more like how do I pay for literally the first month, the second month?

54:43And that exercise helped me so much because the classic problem I think for people who arrive at PHY is I have this overdeveloped muscle in just contributing, contributing, contributing, buying VTI and I see this balance grow. I like to see that balance at that level because that looking at that number makes me feel fi. So finally decumulating for me is really, it was just this like daunting thing of like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to sell VTI. No, like it's my favorite thing. So favorite investment, I should say. So when I like really looked at it, I was like, okay, what does this look like in practice?

55:25And I didn't realize I had this total misnomer in my head because when I thought about the 4 % rule, it's like, let's say that it's $60 ,000 a year to fund it based on 4 % rule. And so I thought, oh, I have to like literally withdraw 60K in my first year. And I was like, wait, that makes no sense. I could just do it one by one, month by month. So that already lowers the perceived barrier of like, okay, 4 ,000 this month, 5 ,000 this month. And it's not as daunting to sell tens of thousands of dollars or all of that. And another calculation off of that that helped me a lot was realizing that because I looked at my whole portfolio and all its balances and in my investing career, luckily the base of it has been relatively responsible index funds.

56:16But in my 20s, I bought a bunch of random stuff in Robin Hood and I have like all these random stocks, right? So looking at the prospect of like, how would I fund the first month, two months, the first year, an aha moment clicked for me. I was like, I could do a garage sale of my junk stuff first. I don't have to touch my VTI first. There's some random crypto, there's some single stocks. I will offload those first and like, happy to. I'm happy to do that. And that for me was just like, it felt so good to, I don't know. I don't know what it is about that. That's like, that feels so good about perhaps offloading some waste in order to fund my life.

56:59You lowered the barrier to entry. Like you made it something that you were happy to do. You know, it's sort of like they say in writing, oh, you don't want to, the night before, you don't want to finish your full thought or whatever. Like make sure that it's easy to get started the next day. That's sort of the idea, right? Like you set it up so that it would be something that would be easier to do. Yeah, exactly. And so that's like the decumulation part, like how I made decumulation feel a lot less scary for myself. Those things. Another thing that really appeals to my optimizer brain is that looking forward to the optimizations I can make in my low income years, you know, which has been talked about on the show, but it's like, oh wait, I could like get tax advantages and government programs and like get things for free.

57:48That is like, it's almost kind of like, like, like for me, I love credit card points. So I love getting a little bit of bonus as I'm like doing something and kind of reframing the low income years, which could be very scary to, Hey, there's like a little bonus you get for not having an income. That also like really jive with my optimizer brain so that it just made the prospect of like the first couple years feel a lot less scary. Those are really good. Do you have any other tips for us before we wrap this up? Putting the pressure on, but I feel like this episode has been so good in terms of just making a list of like things that are going to be helpful for people as they kind of do some of these tricky things?

58:36Yeah, I would say that really looking at what's at your disposal to buy yourself more spaciousness in time is helpful. So not everyone will take FMLA or be eligible for that. And so I saw this crazy stat that like Americans on average get so many hours of vacation a year, but they actually don't use it. If it's like 40 hours, then maybe they use like 20 hours. So I think there's like a stepping scale of experiments that one can do, especially if they're feeling a little bit either stuck in their career or wanting to experience a life outside of work, sabbatical, career, break, whatever it is, to really try to look at like, what is at my disposal?

59:24Can I actually use up all my PTO this year? Can I challenge myself to do that? Can I go beyond that? Which is, ask my team or manager, hey, can I take one more week unpaid? Maybe some places actually offer a formal sabbatical program. And also, I think just if you're already thinking about leaving your job, then try to use that time between jobs as something that adds space to your life. I kind of liken the analogy in my head is, for a lot of five people, a lot of people in this community who are listening, leaving a job and immediately jumping to another is kind of like you just had a breakup, like a relationship breakup, and you just like jump right into another relationship.

1:00:08I think most people can grok that that's probably like not the healthiest thing to do all the time. And so it's like, hey, this is an opportunity to really take the space for yourself. And a lot of things can arise once you do have that space to meditate on your life and let things come up. Yeah. I've noticed a bit of a theme in the advice that you've given. So I'm going to try to summarize it and tell me what you think, which is that you're all about breaking big things down into littler things and that that applies to almost any challenge that we have. And so you said, when I said, hey, what's the next 10 years look like?

1:00:46You said, I can do the next three to six months, right? That feels manageable. I can figure out what I might like in three to six months. You just said, hey, we could think about take your vacation, but also could you ask for one more week, right? Like just this one tiny step towards something that could give you a little bit more spaciousness. When you talked about, oh, it's hard to think about drawing down, but then I thought, what would it look like for one month? What would it look like for the first month or the second month. All of these things seem so much more doable. And of course, that's how we live our lives is like one week and one month at a time.

1:01:24And so I can see that being really applicable to the things that you shared and also the challenges that we might be facing that we haven't discussed today. Yeah. And just to add to that, I think that it's easy to fall into a frame of expecting clarity before action. And so breaking things down into smaller components and then zooming into the specifics of like, okay, even if I broken this thing from a bigger thing to a less scary, smaller thing, how would I specifically do that small thing? Get it on my calendar or whatever. That's what for me generates clarity through action. Cause it's something that I could action on versus a big blob of scary thoughts.

1:02:10Yeah. I like that phrase, generate clarity. All right. Well, we'll end on that note. Where can people find you? How can they sign up for your newsletter? Yeah. You could just type in my name anywhere, Oz Chen. So that's O-Z-C-H-E-N. And you'll probably find my Substack right away, which is ozchen.substack.com. I've titled it money for humans, but that may change. But I tend to keep things tied to my name. So that's easy to find. Yeah, Substack is a great place to read things and not be as caught up in the fast social media stuff, if that's what you're looking for. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us today and for putting so much thought into what you were going to share with us.

1:02:57We really appreciate it. Thank you, Ginger. I think this series, Getting Personal, is so valuable. It's definitely helped me get a lot of clarity in my own journey. So I really appreciate the conversation.