Getting Personal With Personal Finance | Laura And Ginger | Ep 529

24:53I loved working in labs because I could just go off in a corner by myself and do something interesting. But the reality is that it's not how it works. Like it's very social, it's very political, it's very strategic. And all of these things kind of get more amplified as you get further along in this career. And I think those things have been weighing on me quite a lot. So, and I don't know why it was so hard for me to come around to that. Like, why didn't I just say, yes, as soon as Eric was like, look, we're going to be able to do this. I should have been like, yeah, let's go do that. You know, instead I was like, whoa, wait a minute.

25:26No, we're not like, I I'm clinging to these things. So why am I clinging to these things? And where is myself in all of this? And I think that's why I ended up having to finally go into therapy and just kind of deal with those questions to really dig out, like, who am I right now? And how much of that is coming from this career, you know, and I think that allowed me to finally kind of peel away the layers a little bit and prioritize what's important to me in my life. And that has made this feel okay. I mean, I'm not, I definitely have days where I'm like, oh, I know I'm going to miss that person or I'm going to miss that thing.

25:59And that's going to feel, you know, who am I going to interact with now? I think I have to, I do have to replace some of that and I don't know how I'm going to do it yet. And that's a very common question. People are like, what are you going to to do? And the answer is, I don't really know. But I feel like in other times in my life, when there's been major decisions, I didn't really know what the outcome was going to be. Like when you decide to have kids, you have no idea. You never feel like it's the right time. You don't know what's going to happen when you get married, right? When you all these big decisions are risks that you take.

26:28And this is, in some ways, it's a risk because you're trusting that when you get on the other side of this, that you're going to be happy and fulfilled in the absence of this career that you've filled your time up with, but I don't think you can ever be sure, you know? So that's where I, that's how I'm thinking right now. Yeah. I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. Like you have a lot of experience of figuring things out and you'll figure it out. We were talking a little bit before we pressed record about how I had transitioned from teaching at a university to being a counselor. And one of the things that was really hard for me when I was on that side, and I was thinking about quitting, I just felt like I was so narrowing my life in a way.

27:13Like, if I step away from this, I can never go back. And what if the path I've chosen is the wrong path? Like, this could be a really big mistake. And then once I got to that other side, oh my gosh, I felt so much freedom, sort of like how you're describing. And suddenly it occurred to me, like, I can do anything. If I don't like this, I can do something else. But there is some way where I think, especially after we've done something for a really long time, that it can just really narrow how we think about what our future is or what it could be. And you have to take that leap in order to see, oh my gosh, this is like infinite options ahead of me.

27:51Just because I'm closing down one thing, it doesn't matter because there are so many other ways to be in this world. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's different depending on how you're coming to it too, because I don't know if this was your experience, but my experience was I was raised in such a way where it was, you know, you need to make sure that you can support yourself and your family. You can't rely on anyone else and all your decisions have to be centered around that. And you almost like have this obligation to be dedicated. Like you need to be, you know, the person everyone can rely on, the person who says yes to everything.

28:28You're not going to let people down. You know, I think my response to that was to sort of, I guess, pay more attention to other people first, you know, and being successful to me had a lot to do with whether or not I was keeping people employed and keeping people in my group happy or making sure that my institution valued me. And sometimes that meant I was saying yes to a lot of things that weren't really in alignment with who I am. But that also meant that I kind of didn't really know who I was. Yeah, it's kind of weird. And so you have to face up to that at some point. And I think eventually you're going to retire, right?

29:08I mean, everyone will. And I'm really grateful that I have the opportunity now to do it when I'm young, because as you said, all the opportunities are there, you can do anything. But that's also very scary, because there's no boundaries on it. But if you retire very late in life, and you realize that now what is it too late for, you know, and I don't want it to be too late. And when you are in your 50s, you start to see people getting sick in ways that they may not recover from, you know, and it starts to get scary. You start to like realize I'm so grateful that I can do this. And it would be, you know, I would be fine if we were going to keep working.

29:44Like, let's say we do this and it's all a horrible mistake. Like I can get a job, you know, like it's not the end of the world. And I always tell my kids, like, don't be afraid to make decisions because you feel like all these doors are closing. You have to focus on all the doors that are opening when you make a decision. And, and if it doesn't work, you make another decision, you know, just move on. And like, why wasn't I not taking that advice for myself in 2019 when we first started talking about this? Like, why did it take me a few years to come around? I don't know. But like, it's very easy to dole out advice that you don't then take for yourself.

30:19Okay, so I get this sense that you're not liking it when people ask you what's next. Is that true? Yeah. But everyone asked me that. I mean, every, you know, of course, right when you tell everyone at work, you know, that's what everyone says. But it continues to happen. It's been I gave notice back in March, I think. And I still have people asking me. Yeah. So what are you doing? What's next? Have you figured out what's next? And I don't have that figured out. Yeah. I'm curious about the tone when they're asking you that. Like what has been the reaction of people? Because kind of like we were talking about before, this is something, you know, retiring in your early 50s is just not in the imagination, I think, of most people.

31:02And so they're going to have a kind of response when you say this. Right. And so do you think it has mostly been positive, mostly been like some curiosity or negative? What what has that been like to actually tell people that you work with? Yeah, it was a mixture of all those things. every, you know, there was a category of reactions, which were, that's amazing. Congratulations. I want to be able to do that. Right. So there were some people who responded that way. How did you do it? Oh, I know when I retire, I'm going to do this. Like I was at a meeting recently and there was a couple of graduate students who came over to me and they had just heard that I was retiring early and they're like, Oh, it's nice to meet you.

31:42I, you know, we talked about science a little bit and then we're like, but more importantly, I just heard that you're going to retire early and that's what I want to do. And they don't even have their PhDs yet. I mean, they're so, so they want it, they're getting their PhDs and they're going to go do this career, but they're already thinking about what they're going to do when they retire. And I'm like, maybe, you know, you should think about what you want to be doing now. I mean, I don't know, like I could be wrong, but, but she was like, I know what I'm going to do when I retire and I'm going to retire early and I'm going to open up a wine and cheese shop.

32:11And I do notice that like younger people, it's much easier for them to envision what they would be doing. So like when I talk to younger people, they're all sort of like, oh, this is so exciting. And someday I want to do that. And when I do, here's what I'm going to do. And I remember being that way too. Like I could envision so many things for myself when I was young and then like older people, including me have a hard time envisioning what they would do next and why, I don't know why that is, but yeah. So the next category were the people who were like, oh my God, I'm never going to be able to do that.

32:44And even if I did, I can't think of what else I would do. I like this job. It keeps me busy. And those are the same people who are like, if I came up with things, like there was one person who I was talking to who was like, oh, you know, what are you going to do? And they were in this kind of age group. And I was like, well, initially I would really like to travel more. I've traveled a lot for my job, but you don't really get to experience the place with your best friend. Like Eric was not traveling with me when I went to Japan a few times. And I would like to go to Japan as a tourist with him and enjoy it that way and not necessarily do it in the context of work.

33:17So I was telling this person different places we were interested in traveling to and every single place I mentioned, he was like, oh yeah, I've been there. Oh yeah. Yeah, I've been there. Oh yeah, yeah, we did that. And it was all in the context of work. And he's like, see, that's why I love this job because I'm able to do my science and I'm making a difference in the world and I can travel. And so he was kind of reasserting to me why he was so happy to continue in this job in the same conversation where he was asking me about what I was going to do when I retire. And that's a hard conversation because he's actually is tapping some insecurities.

33:51You know, whatever insecurities I have about making the decision get triggered a little bit by that conversation. Not that this person was doing it intentionally, but yeah. There is something dismissive there about, oh, well, I don't need to make that choice because I can have everything you want while still having my job. And it's interesting how when we have conversations like that with people, like he just wants to feel good about himself. So he's got to tell the story in a way that he can tolerate hearing this. Right. Yeah. And then you're tempted to say something dismissive back like, oh, well, yes, you went to all those places, but it was for work and you probably didn't really enjoy it as much as you would have if you didn't, you know, and like, I don't want to get sucked into that kind of thing Cause then you're just like, you're having that kind of reaction.

34:35That's just not healthy. So I was just sort of like, Oh yeah, that's great. That's cool. Okay. See you later. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And then the next group of people were the people who were saying, how can you do this? You're such a great scientist. You're not going to be happy. Like all of us who do this, we're so dedicated, you know, there's no way you're going to be able to walk away from being a scientist and do something different because, you know, this is who we are. and there were some people who said that and then also in that category was like other kinds of remarks like okay I can see why you're doing that but Eric's not going to step away from his career he's at the pinnacle of his career you know there's like snarky things oh and the people who said who would come in my office and close the door and say what's going on are you sick you know like that I would be quitting because I have some terminal illness or something just really hard for people to understand.

35:29Yeah. Later, I think I was on Reddit, maybe it was like the chubby fire subreddit or something. And somebody was talking about the different reactions they got when they told people they're retiring. And one person commented, that's why I don't tell anybody. Now, like, I can't avoid telling people at work, obviously. But they were referring to like, the people outside of work, who is kind of optional, you don't have to necessarily tell people everyone that you're retired, like, could I have gotten away with just saying to my family, I'm just making a change in my career and not said I was retiring, not said anything about the finances of it.

36:05And in some cases, I think like maybe I was expecting people to be happier for me because I had come through this whole thing and made this decision. And there was a lot of work that went into becoming financially independent, a lot of work that both Eric and I did. And then a lot of like emotional work that I had to do to really think about what I wanted to do now, that you feel like you want to share that and you feel like it's a success. But then, you know, some of the reactions you get from your friends and family outside of work are mixed too. So some people are happy for you. Some people are kind of like, oh, it must be nice.

36:38Oh, it must be nice. Yeah. Or like my mother just completely confused by the whole thing, like really concerned. What do you mean you're going to walk away from your job? How are you going to do that? Have you guys really thought about this. Like your boss is going to be mad at you. That was one of her classic reactions. You know, like the day that I gave notice, she texted me and she's like, what does your boss say? Was she mad at you? And I'm like, where's the company? Like she just comes from this generation of like, why would I be afraid of my boss being mad at me? Yeah. So it's been interesting, the mixture of reactions and across the board, everybody does ask what you're going to do.

37:15And it doesn't matter what you say, you know, like I could say, I'm going going to write a novel, or I'm going to, you know, start a disease foundation, or I'm going to start an entire research institute of my own, or I'm going to like lay on a beach for two years and do nothing and drool. You know, like, I actually don't think that any of those things matter to the people who are asking in some ways, I feel like sometimes they're just thinking about what they would do. So lately, I've been saying, like, I don't know, I have no idea what I'm going to do, what would you do? Oh, I love that. And then, you know, some people are like, I don't know.

37:47And And then of course, there's the young people who know right away, right? If they're under the age of 30, they're like, oh yeah, I'd open up a coffee shop. I'd do this. I'd do that. So I don't really have a straight answer for that question. I mean, the immediate few years, I mean, one of the things that Eric and I decided, which is different than what we were talking about before, we will keep his business going, which means that officially, like you might argue, he's not really fully retiring. And so was this some kind of bait and switch that like we were supposed to retire together and now he's not?

38:16But I think sitting down and talking about our ever-changing FI number, our first FI number was when we had, was based purely on what our fixed costs were. So that was pretty low. But then it was like, well, what about our discretionary? And as our discretionary spend has changed, and every time we dream about things to do in retirement, it has a direct impact on that discretionary spending. The way that we think about that number has changed. So there's that and then just having that using the business as a cash position early on, and then also using it as a way to pay for health care. So health care is a big one.

38:52Everybody worries about paying for health care when they retire early. Some people are lucky enough to have these like pensions where they get health insurance forever, but very few people have that. So definitely we knew in the first few years, we didn't qualify for sort of the COVID ACA subsidies, which will probably go away anyway. So, you know, one of the things that we're doing is I become an employee of the business and then we use an individual contributor, HRA, to take money. Basically, I'm paid with that and then I buy health insurance for the family. Yeah. I want to go back to something you said about, hey, we worked really hard to get here.

39:30And I know that there you're talking about like we did a lot of work and we did a lot of saving. But I think there's another kind of work that you did, which was the psychological piece. And part of that that we haven't talked about that I think people aren't thinking about when they have their reactions, right, is that you had to get to a place where you said, this is enough. Yeah. Right. Because if you had kept working, you could have more money. I think that is a really big task. ask that is a big thing to get to that place where you say, this is how much money we're going to have. And I feel comfortable.

40:04I feel happy with that. And I wonder what that was like for you. Was that hard? Did you have any of that scarcity mindset around like, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely did. Because so one place where I think we were not on the same page was how much money are we going to save for the kids college? You know, as you're sort of deciding whether or not it's enough, you're taking those things into consideration. Like how much are we helping our kids. Do we need to help our parents at all? As they're in their late 70s, talking to them about their finances. Well, first we had to actually have those conversations because your parents, I don't know about other people our age, but my parents did not want to talk about my mother and my in-laws.

40:44My in-laws were more open to it, I guess, but it's kind of like they didn't grow up in a time where they didn't talk to their parents about finances. We just took it for granted that our parents would be okay. And they are going to be okay, but you have to have that conversation before you decide if you have enough because you don't want to give up all of your income and then turn around and see that your aging parent doesn't have enough money to live off of. So we did start drilling into those things a little bit more than maybe I expected early on. Like, you know, are we on the same page about helping our family out if they need it?

41:15And are they going to need it? So that factored into like, is this going to be enough? And then, of course, like just trying to forecast as everybody does, you know, how much money do you need to live off of? I mean, you have that sort of like curve and retirement where you're spending more money early on. And then, you know, you get to your like no go years and you're not spending as much. And then towards the end, when you need, you know, nurses coming in and taking care of you or long term care, you need to make sure you have money for that. So you definitely do all of the forecasting to answer those questions as best you can.

41:46And then after that, it's like, OK, so is this enough? Yeah. And it's like, OK, well, let's look at like our wish list of things we want to do. how much are those things going to cost? So for us anyway, we did change our number a couple of times based on, is this going to be enough? And we had to come to some kind of agreement about, you know, how much we wanted to contribute to college. We still want our kids to have some skin in the game. And, you know, we have this conversation about weddings. Like, are we going to have to pay for weddings? Like what's the tradition now? I mean, surely it's not that like, if our kids even do get married, like, are we going to help them pay for that?

42:23You know, We have to make sure we have that money. So yeah, I think that's a very personal thing for different people. How much you feel like you want to support your family. What do you want to do with your time? How frugal do you want to be? So you have a lot of conversations. A lot of conversations. A lot of thinking about that concept of like, what does your rich life look like? That's the Ramit Sethi thing where I was listening to a lot of Ramit Sethi during that time too. And I kind of like those concepts. like sort of sitting down and really making a decision for yourself. And as a couple, like, what are your priorities in life?

42:55And making a decision about what's enough based on really what your priorities are. And, you know, you're not guaranteed you're not going to have the same priorities, right? There's going to be some differences. And you have to face that. And I'm like a classic avoidant personality. So I don't want to have conflict. I don't want to have change. You know, like those conversations for me in the past have been very hard because I don't like to confront conflict. But you have to do that. I mean, I, for me, anyway, I really had to like, understand that for us to move forward, we have to really address all the areas where we might not be in alignment.

43:30And finances are a really important part of that. Yeah. So when you say you changed the number a few times, I'm assuming that number got bigger and bigger. Is that right? Yeah. And then at some point, like you could see how you could kind of revise that forever. So how did you get to a point where you said, okay, well, we've changed it. Now it's this new higher number, but this is it for real. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then you start to think about things like, you know, am I now trading time that I don't have for money that I don't need? Right. And that quote came from somewhere. And I remember Eric brought it up with me and I don't remember where he read it or heard it, but that resonated with me quite a lot.

44:11I was like, okay, okay, now you're getting to the point where it's time and money and, you know, how precious is your time? And how do you want to be spending your time? And when I really look at that, it also kind of like breaks my heart a little bit because I think back to all the precious time that I had to lose early on when my kids were young, you know, the things that I missed and, you know, other people took steps back when their kids were little, you know, and I couldn't take a step back and still be able, like in this job, you can't take a pause and then come back in. Like, I think you mentioned that about when you were pursuing teaching English and being a professor of English, right?

44:50Like you can't just like take a side road and then come back in right back to where you were. Like, as soon as I have a lull in grants and papers, I'm done. Like, I'm not gonna get any more grants after that. And if I don't get any more grants, there's no more papers. So like, you can't stop. So I'm not looking back on it and saying that I wish I hadn't done it because I feel like I had a great career and I'm very proud of it. But I did sacrifice time to do that. And now I don't have to do that. Yeah. Maybe that is part of what has made that concept of selling your time more powerful to you now, right?

45:27Because that's something that has stuck with me too, that same idea of, okay, hey, well, if I just keep piling up money, there is a consequence to it. But it's just so far down, you know, that we're not really thinking about it. Yeah. And I, it's not worth it to die with a pile of money. Yeah. You know, so at some point, you have to say it's enough. And, you know, you can do all the Monte Carlo simulations on your portfolio, and you tend to pay attention to the failures. Like, Like, I'm going to rerun it every time I change my household budget and see what it looks like. You know, if the failure is always like, okay, if you run it with you start retiring during the Great Depression at the beginning of it, like, okay, fine, it's going to fail in that scenario.

46:12But all the other scenarios, it's doing fine. You never look at the upper end scenario, which is like, oh, my God, in this very small percentage of time, I could be dead with$10 million. Like, it's great for my kids, but like, what have I done? And I feel like every time, we definitely revisit it a lot. This whole process is revisiting our budget over and over and over again and revisiting simulations over and over and over again. And what does it look like if we do a CAPE ratio withdrawal? What does it look like if we do the 4 % rule? And what does it look like with a variable, other type of variable withdrawal?

46:46And you do all these scenarios so that you can say to yourself, okay, financially, it's time to stop. We have enough. And we had to go through all of those. And then we had to just decide, okay, now this is going to be enough. Yeah. You're talking like someone who is sort of at the end of that. And I know not the very end, but in terms of like, you seem to have some peace around this is where we've settled on is enough and we feel good about it. Yeah, I think so. But it certainly wasn't done without like exhaustive, you know, rehashing of everything. I mean, we both have that in our personalities that we just like looked at the numbers a million different ways.

47:25Yeah. So I think we have enough. I think we have enough now and we should be fine. Exciting. Yeah. Well, let's transition into resources. You know, you mentioned the simple path to wealth was helpful for you and quit like a millionaire was helpful for you early on. Yeah. Just getting started. I think those things were very helpful. Yeah. Are there other things for people listening who, you know, may be at various stages of this? Yeah. I mean, then as you, Once you get past the early retirement 101 stuff, then you go into Big Earn. Right. Yeah. So he's great. I think what I really love about him is his tools are very complicated.

48:07You know what I mean? So when you're using his tools, you're going to see everything under the hood, all of the numbers. And it's kind of overwhelming. But once you get past the beginner stuff, and then you're really sort of like, do I really trust this? Do I trust all of this? And you start drilling into stuff that's like, you know, you really have to have a background in economics and have training and financial analysis and whatever else to really, you know, there's a lot of science in there, actually. And so I really appreciated having access to those resources. And I definitely would read to a point where I was like, OK, now I'm definitely over my head.

48:45And do I need to understand things to this extent or can I back out now? So those tools were helpful. I'll just jump in there for anyone who's listening who has not yet dipped their toe into the Big Earn content. I loved his case study so much. And that could be a really good place to start. Although I will say they are really involved. And I really thought they were written in a way that I really liked that. But I did send it to a friend. And she was like, stop, never text me again. Because it was like way too much for her. And so you've got to be a little bit more into it. As far as case study goes, those, I learned so much from those.

49:25Yeah. And he's been on, I mean, across all of the more popular early retirement podcasts, you'll find interviews with Big Earn where sometimes it's helpful to hear him talk through a lot of this. So in addition to going on his website and using his tools and listening to him talk about it, I think it was all of those things together kind of satisfied that need that I had to sort of get deeper into it, I guess. And then not the financial side, but Fritz Gilbert, his book, he sent it actually, because I think Eric and Jason had him on their podcast. And then he sent me his book, Keys to a Successful Retirement.

50:01And that covers sort of like, once you retire, you know, what are the key things that people have found that they need to feel like they have a successful retirement? And it's things like, you know, Finding your passion projects and giving back to the community and different techniques that you can apply to find purpose, I guess, after retirement. And so I enjoyed listening to him and that book was helpful for me. Projection Lab is a new tool that I think Eric and Jason got access to it. And so Eric and I were using that most recently. So I have a 457, for example. and we've gone back and forth about like okay when I leave the lab this 457 I can take it all in one lump sum and just bite the bullet and pay the taxes on it or I can take it in 10 disbursements and at any date that I want and we had kind of decided that screw it let's just take it in one lump sum and maybe we'll wait till like next year or the year after when our tax bracket is hopefully a little bit lower but then he showed me projection lab and we started using that to sort of like okay we could actually compare what would it look like if we took lump sum now versus lump sum in three years versus 10 disbursements.

51:12And it literally shows you like, what is the most tax advantage thing you can do? Right? Oh, cool. And it has a really nice graphical user interface. And you can play around with all of those kinds of decisions you can factor in and make a projection about what that does to your retirement portfolio. I love it so far. I mean, actually, someone that at work who I know wants to retire early, I sent a link to her. I'm like, you guys are going to love this mainly because you have this ability to sort of like tweak all these little things. And like, what does it look like if you do a variable withdrawal rate?

51:44What does it look like if you do 4 %? What does it look like if, you know, you decide that you want to spend this much money? You can even change. I think like, you know, we know that our discretionary spending is going to be high in early retirement, but then it's going to sort of drift down. So I like the idea that I can kind of run these projections without making an assumption that my withdrawal is always going to be similar or like our discretionary spending is always going to be similar. Yeah. Even when you try to project it, you know, it's going to be lumpy. But I can definitely say that in the first 10 years of our retirement, we're going to be spending a lot more money on travel than we will in the second 10 years.

52:18Yeah. And then in the third 10 years, it'll be probably much lower even than that. So for all those reasons, I think that tool has been really useful. And maybe also I like it because it's very graphical. So I like having the graphics in front of me. Yeah. Helps me a lot. Okay. Well, we will put that stuff in the show notes as well as I know Bigger and has been on Chooseify. So we'll put that down there as well for you guys to check out. Yeah. Well, Laura, thank you so much for having this conversation and letting us take a peek into your life at this. Like I said, this really interesting time in your life a couple years ago.

52:54Actually, it was probably like 10 years ago now. I was talking to a friend who was 60 at the time, and she was talking about what the next few years were going to look like in terms of she was going to try to cut back on work and, you know, wanted to be totally done by 64 or 65. And I had asked her kind of how she felt about that. And she had some sadness around it. And she said, you know, between 50 and 52 is when people should retire. she said that would have been the perfect time oh and that's great like oh stuck with me because and was that was that because she felt like she was too old to do certain things yeah okay I had so much energy then I had so much desire to do these different things and you know she couldn't make it work it's hard to it's hard to make it work like you said a lot of work goes into getting to that point but of course I was a lot younger than that at the time And so it felt like this sage was giving me advice about like, hey, I want to do it right.

53:54This is the ice cream. So yeah, as I talked to you today, I'm like, you're doing it. You're doing the dream. It's really exciting. And I, so far, the overall feeling has been that I'm unburdened. I feel unburdened. And I don't feel guilty if I, in the middle of the day, go to the gym for two hours or go for a hike or, you know, even though I'm still working right now, my schedule is opening up very quickly. And I'm just wrapping things up. And as I have more and more time to myself to just open unscheduled time to do what I want, I'm feeling happier and happier and more and more comfortable with the decision that I made.

54:34And I will certainly miss work and the people and, you know, that doesn't go away. But the overall feeling is, is freedom and excitement about what's next. So yeah, if you can do it, even if you have a job that you feel like is your identity, I think you have to really check yourself and see if it really is. And it might be, but I don't think it's mine. Yeah. One thing I ask people in my work a lot is sort of like, what is that thing you want the most? What is underneath this? And people always say the same thing, which is freedom. And that you have used that word so many times, like unburdened, unburdened.

55:12Yeah, it's great. Like you're really in alignment with that. Yeah. So far, so far. We're excited for you. Thank you. Thank you for talking to me. I appreciate it. It's nice to meet you. And thank you everyone for listening with us to the end. And we will talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first, subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player. 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.

55:47So 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 crowdsourced personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in-real-life community, we have Chooseify local groups in 300-plus cities all around the world. So head to chooseify.com slash local, and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20-plus countries all across the world.

56:25And 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 years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then Choose a Vi created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free.

57:00Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.

57:10Thank you.