Getting Personal with Personal Finance: Maggie Tucker | ep 571

25:41And yeah, I'm all over the place. I hope I answered that in some way. I think it's such an inspiring story because it means wherever you're at, right? Like you, yeah, you can get to where you need to go. Yeah. Okay. So let's fast forward a little. What's your life like now? It's a good question. Let me put a little bit of theoretical context to it. Yeah. Which is, of course, if you had stayed at your fancy job, right, then today you might have four Teslas. All my kids could have a Tesla, right? You'd be falling out. It is something that you must think about sometimes. I do. That there was a real trade-off to have the life that you have now.

26:27I like to travel with my children. Every time I walk through first class to the back of the plane with my kids and we sit in coach, I give a little, you know, first off, when I traveled for work, I used to get to fly first class when it was overseas, which is a lovely perk. And it was only a perk I had at work. I never used it in my personal life. And my kids are always like, when do we get to sit up here? And I was like, never guys, go get a job. And we're like, you know, we've flown out of the country with our kids. Like our kids have been to like, I don't know, 14 or 15 countries. So they live very lovely lives in coach though.

27:07And so I do walk through and sometimes I do think, oh, we could fly first class everywhere. But the problem is the way I spend money, like intentionally, I think even if I was making that money, I'm not sure if I'd allow myself to spend 50 grand on flight tickets, you know? I don't think I could do it. It's like not in my DNA. And so I'm just not sure I was even like fit for that kind of money and lifestyle. You know, like I like a little bit of like a stoic exercise of moderation and minimalism. And I just think it actually makes me happier. And I truly like, I appreciate nice things and I like nice quality things.

27:47But I truly believe and know like in my soul that money doesn't buy happiness, right? Like, and so I, I mean, look, money buys some nice comforts in life. You know, I love to sit in first class, but like, I'm okay and coach, right? I'm gonna be okay. And there might be a day that I, you know, like if I was flying, I upgraded my mom to first class once like flying to London or something like that was lovely, you know, the first and last time she flies in first class. But like, I just, yeah, I do sometimes think about what I would be doing if I had still had money. And my kids will sometimes mention something and I'm like, oh, if only I had kept working, you know?

28:27Oh, it just like gutted me though, when you just said like money doesn't buy happiness. And we, of course we hear that all the time, but to hear it in that context of, yeah, the only thing maybe that you gave up was dying with more millions. Passing more to my kids or something, which I don't really think would teach them anything also. Right. And I think a lot about my kids and like the lifestyle and the lessons I want them to learn. And I want them to learn about moderation. And I want them to learn that they need to work for things and that they need some skin in the game on certain things.

29:02Look, I want them to have, in some ways, like a quote, easier life than I had. Right. And not that I had a difficult life, to be clear. I'm just saying like, look, I got a junior who's taken five AP classes and in an ACT prep class and doing two varsity sports. She's really stressed out and she babysits sometimes, but she doesn't have a job. And I worked a lot when I was her age doing the same stuff. And I appreciate that like, you know, my kids can have some luxuries that I didn't have because of what we do have. But I also think, you know, when we're taking them on cool summer trips, they can fly coach.

29:39It's a, you know, it's a humbling. It's not even humbling. I like laugh when I say that, but you know what I mean? Like they're going to be fine. They live a very privileged life and all the ways that matter. And if I had a lot more money, I'm not sure I would be spoiling them to use that word. Right. And I'm sure people have different points of views on that, but like for me, I don't think I'd be spending it all on them or myself. I get what you're saying. I think it's something about we can buy these things for our children and increase, we could increase their pleasure, but that isn't going to increase their satisfaction or the meaning in their lives.

30:18And of course, as parents, that's what we want. especially at this age, right? I have three teenage girls. Their brains are not fully developed, right? Like if I gift you a first class ticket, you can recognize what, or my mom even, right? She can recognize what a special and unique moment this is and like appreciate it. They will take it for granted and they will be like, when's the next first class ticket, you know? Okay, Maggie, can you tell us a little bit more? We're all so interested in your short timeline. And I know that you said, okay, part of it was like, I have these habits and then I was able to use my big paycheck.

30:57Can you tell us what else helped you to really fast track this? Yeah. So the thing that helped me, our company had something called a deferred compensation program. And I never fully understood or like believed in what it was until Mike, again, was my old co-host on my first podcast, which was called Friends on Fire. It's still out there, by the way. We did like 200 episodes together. And his parents, like they early retired. So he grew up as like a little fire baby, fire teenager. And so he had a goal to early retire. That's kind of what we bonded over. And so he really pushed the company's DCP.

31:35And I was like, well, I've been doing like the minimum because there's a 2 % company match if you're at a certain level. And so I was like, I've been doing 2 % since this started. And you could do up to 75 % of your salary. And it's essentially a tax optimization tool. I think of it as like a pre 401k. So you can defer a percentage of your salary and not pay taxes on it. And it goes into a fund that you pick the investments for similar to like your 401k. There's some choices that the company has pre-chosen, pre-selected that you can choose from of what to invest it in. I basically have mine invested in a total market index fund.

32:09And I then get distributions out of it based on our company is a bunch of different rules. Every company has different rules. A lot of big companies do have deferred compensation programs. Even my husband worked for a nonprofit hospital and they had a 457B, which is a version of one. A lot of teachers have that available, government workers and teachers. And it's a similar program. They all have different rules on when you access the money. My husband could choose when he left, how he accessed his money, and he could take it as a lump sum or over 10-year disbursements. I had to choose when I got into the program.

32:45Each year, when I went into the program, I had to choose what the disbursement was when I left the company, which is hard to like predict. Like for example, what? So when I signed up in 2018 with my benefits that year, just like you decide what percentage you're going to put into your 401k, but you can change that throughout the year. You decide what you want to put into your deferred compensation plan. You cannot change it throughout the year. You're locked in. So if I pick 10%, let's say I make a hundred thousand dollars,$10 ,000 of my salary, you know, obviously calculated per paycheck is taken out and put into a deferred compensation plan, just like my 401k, I can decide what to invest it in.

33:23But when I elect that money, when I sign up for that year's plan, I choose when it pays out. You can choose a year. So like one year, I didn't know what to do. I chose the year my daughter would go to college because I was like, it'd be nice to get a lump sum. Then you can choose a single payment when you leave the company. You have no idea when that's going to be. You don't know if you'll get let go, but it's a lump sum when you leave, or you can choose a number of years after you leave. So it kicks in when you leave, but it's over 10 years. And the purpose of this is tax optimization. And so I, my last three years working 2020, 2021, and 2022, I deferred almost 75 % of my salary because that's the max.

34:03I almost got like no paycheck for some of those years. And I deferred it and then you pay taxes on it when you get the disbursement out or the distribution, if you will. And so I now am in a much lower tax bracket. When I was working, that last amount of money I was earning, some of it was taxed in the high 30%. Yeah. And now I'm getting taxed in the low 20s, below 20 even, right? And so it's a huge way to aggressively kind of force your savings because you're locked in for the year and to optimize your taxes too. Again, it's for everyone who's like, oh, well, I don't have a DCP. The magic isn't just in the DCP, right?

34:45You could do that with a brokerage account, right? You're paying taxes on it differently, but you could still force an aggressive savings level yourself if you wanted to. And some people do that. And sometimes they do it long-term, sometimes they do it for a couple of years, but we definitely were living for us a bit leaner those years. We spent a lot more now in retirement than we did then. And we were very aggressively focused on getting ourselves in like tip top shape for early retirement. Yeah. So then you're 41 years old. I like the beginning of this conversation. You're like, oh, it's not that unconventional.

35:21What are you talking about? I do get a lot of like, looks when I tell people, people will ask what I do. Like I take my mom to a lot of doctor's appointments. And her doctor is always like, how are you so here all the time? And I was like, I'm tired. And they're like, you look like a baby. And I was like, well, I'm 45. 45 year old baby. Thank you. So as a 41 year old infant, when you told the people in your life, I'm retiring, what was the response? I got a mix of responses. So, you know, the people closest to me, this wasn't a surprise, right? I started a podcast in 2020 with my friends at work, right?

36:01So, I mean, at work, everybody knew about it. It wasn't like, I didn't surprise anyone. I gave like a year's notice at work. Nobody was surprised by this, but people that I didn't know as well were surprised by it. And I got all the responses under the sun. My favorite response is somebody who just looked at me and said, F you, but they said the full word. And I was like, I love that response. Cause they meant it like in an endearing way, they meant it. Like I would love to retire early. Like I would like to dip out of this experience right now. So I thought that was the funniest response. And I still have a friend who I play pickleball with who has a job and we're always trying to like schedule times.

36:39And she still says that to me sometimes when she's like stressed out at work. And I'm like, well, you know, I got to go for a walk after this. So, but I got, I would say like 90 % of people were quite like sincerely happy for us, including like our moms were very happy for us. I don't think they even fully understood it, but they were good for you. I did not get a lot of fear from... Usually, I always wonder what my dad... My dad died almost 13 years ago. I wonder what he would have thought because he was a very hard worker. And I wonder if he would have been... I think he would have been very proud of me, especially if I shared numbers with him and told him, look, I'm going be okay.

37:25But I think it would have been like so unconventional to him and like the generation he was raised in and how he had spent his whole life versus my mom was a little like she was like super happy for us. And I think would have had like less not like judgmental views, but like was a little more chill on like, oh, yeah, yeah. Like she was not as like into working as he was. I'll put it that way. Yeah. But most people were very sincerely happy for us. I think most people would be like, I'm super jealous. Like, how'd you do it? I got a lot more questions and curiosity than I did any sort of negativity.

37:58I got some people that were like, oh, I love my job. I would never want to do that. And I was like, look, I love my job too. I just didn't love the volume of what came with this type and level of a job. And I just, I'm tired and I'm burnout and I want to live my life differently. Yeah. I think it's interesting how we often talk about like not knowing the right thing to say to someone when something hard happens. And yet also so many people are bad at responding to good news, which is why I asked that question, right? Like it's hard for a lot of people to kind of be faced with someone else's good news sometimes.

38:41Yeah. But I, again, I don't know if it's like, you know, sincere because people have, you know, their surface level response to you and then they have like what they'd go home and like chit chat with their spouse about or something. But most people, I think it's either like a good friend who I think I really do believe is like genuinely happy for you. And then otherwise, they're kind of an acquaintance anyways, and they don't really like care that much, you know, like they're, they're just so busy with their own lives. They're not too caught up. And maybe again, some of them might be kind of intrigued and interested in like, I meet more people like that for what it's worth that like want to know how we did it and are fascinated by the concept of it and had never even like crossed their mind.

39:20Yeah. Then I do anyone where I get a sense of like a lack of, you know, every now and then I meet someone where I'm like, you don't get it slash it's just not your thing. And you can't even like wrap your head around it. And they like, don't have a lot of outside hobbies and interests and like working. And again, it's not like I dislike working. I think purpose is incredibly important. And I spend, oh, that's what you asked me earlier that I forgot, like how I'm spending my days. I didn't even answer you, but yeah, I'm pretty busy. But like I spend, I volunteer a ton. I do a ton of stuff with my kids' school.

39:58I'm on like a bunch of community boards. I'm super busy, right? And I feel like I have a lot of purpose in my life right now. And if I didn't have that, I think I'd be very unhappy. Yeah. Well, one place I think I know that you get some purpose from is the podcast that you do. And one thing that is always so has been intriguing to me about your podcast is it's really, really well done. I can tell you spend a lot of time on it, but you intentionally don't make any money. Yeah, which I think is really unusual. Like not the not making money. I think that's really usual for a podcast, but that you really go out of your way to not make money from it.

40:40Yeah. And I don't know, can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. So it gives me purpose. First off, I love it. I haven't missed when Mike said he wanted to leave friends on fire, like he wanted to, you know, early retire that podcast, which was about early retirement, ironically. I started Inside Out Money and I planned it to launch the week after we had our last Friends on Fire episode. So I have not missed a Monday of putting it up. I actually put them out Sunday night since January 2020, which is when we launched Friends on Fire. And then 2023 is when Inside Out Money started and one ended and the other started.

41:16I have not missed a week of podcasting. And I can't say that for anything else in my life has had that level of consistency over the past five years. So for me, it is a nice anchor. In a time when I, especially during early retirement, have felt a sense of ennui, listlessness, and untethered, being untethered to something. I was so tethered to work for 20 plus years. It was a really good thing that tethered me to something. And I've gotten as much out of it as I've put into it. And I was very inspired by the Minimalist podcasts. Have you ever listened to them? So they don't have ads and they have this like joke, they're like advertising sucks.

41:56And look, they make a lot of money off their podcast because they have like Patreon subscribers and they make money off like other stuff, books. And again, mostly subscribers. And for me, I was like, look, I don't, I don't mean to make this sound like all whatever, but like, I don't need the money, right? If this was my job, I needed, it's really hard to monetize a podcast anyway. So if I was trying to monetize something, no offense, but it wouldn't be podcasting. I have other skills that would make me more money in other areas. But I always liked that their podcast didn't have ads. I'm trying to like, you know, suggest people live more intentionally and spend less.

42:30And so for me, it's kind of counterproductive to like insert an ad in there, even if it's an ad for something I believe, you know, like I love Monarch. I push a lot of products. I'll take a little referral credit here and there. So, you know, I've gotten some free years on Monarch as a result of, you know, referral links and stuff. But I just don't, like, it's not the amount of money I would make from ads is not life changing to me. And right now to me, like, this is my gift to other people. It's the resource I wish I had had when I was in my 20s, which was like an enjoyable conversational fun take of like friends talking about financial topics, not a super detailed, dry, boring financial podcast.

43:14And so I just want to put out a good product. And if a meaningful amount of people are listening to it, it's worth my time. And I'm doing it with friends that I enjoy talking to. I got a rotating set of co-hosts on Inside Out Money. They're all friends of mine from different aspects of life. I mean, one's a childhood friend, One's an old work colleague. One's Liz, who I met online through podcasting and talking about financial stuff online. Oh, and one was my husband who sort of like quit the podcast recently, but I still make them come on sometimes. But it's fun for me, right? It's like people I enjoy catching up with.

43:49And I love putting out, you know, thank you for complimenting it. But like what I think is a decent product, not awesome, but, you know, good enough product out there. And I just like, I don't want to monetize it. I do sell some stickers on Etsy pretty much at cost. They're like three bucks each and that covers shipping and the cost of the sticker and a very nice card that I send you. But every now and then I get my$6 from Etsy because they take their fees out. Do you have some stickers? I'm happy to send you some stickers. I send out more free stickers than I do paid stickers. Please send me stickers.

44:21Well, you got to send me your... Hey, here's a fun thing. Maybe I could say the first 10 people that DM me on Instagram. I just made, I'm just making this up, Ginger. This is so fun. Keep going. The first 10 people that DM me on Instagram and tell me they heard this podcast, I will send free stickers too. This is so great. I have lots of fun stickers. I have ones that say, stop buying stupid SH asterisk T, go for a hike instead. I have ones that just say, stop buying stuff. I have ones that say, secret society of frugal people. I think I have some fun stickers. So you can like, you can go to my Etsy store, tell me which stickers you like.

44:56I'll send you free stickers. This is so fun. I've always appreciated, I guess I really have honed into whenever you've said something on the podcast about like not doing advertisements or not making money from the project, because I think it normalizes something for me or makes me feel seen around. I like to do a lot of weird projects that don't make any money. Yeah, they're called hobbies, passions, right? Like everything doesn't have to be monetized. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. And look, no fault. Have you listened to the new Taylor Swift album? I have not. I'm the only person in America who hasn't.

45:35No, you're not. It's okay. I have three teenage girls who don't even like the new album. But Taylor, if you're listening, I really like it. Also, I'm impressed if you're listening. I'm sure you're not. She has a song called Wishlist. It's one of my favorites. And wait, can I just tell you the opening lyrics? Can you sing it for us? Look. You know, we've been singing a lot of the podcast. Have you heard any of you? I have. I thought it was worth an ask. Look, I got a terrible singing voice. I'll give you my light version. Okay. Is it going to be a light version? She's talking about this, like in the intro, she's talking about like all this fancy stuff people have and want and like, you know, Balenci shades and chopper blades, yacht or whatever.

46:18And then she says, they want it all and they should have what they want. She's almost talking this part. So I am kind of singing. She's like, they want, I don't know. And they should have what they want. They deserve what they want. Hope they get what they want. I can't really sing. That's about all you get for me. But so like for me, I'm like, look, if you have ads in your podcast, like no shame. This podcast has ads in it, right? No. Wait, none of the choose five ones do? I think they used to back in the day, but not anymore. Yeah. Well, congrats. But like people, it's fine if you have ads, right?

46:52And there's people who need to monetize their podcasts and they should do whatever you want, right? Like I'm not, I'm not throwing shade on other people. I'm just saying like, for me, if I turn this, I know my personality and I know how I am. If I turn this into some things where its goal is to make money, it's going to kind of ruin it for me. and I'm going to treat it differently than I do now. And so for me, like this is a passion project. This is in, I have categories of things in my life. And this is one where I am trying to give back to a world that has given a lot to me. And I look, I got other areas where I do a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of financial coaching because I enjoy it.

47:33And sometimes people reach out and ask about it. I don't market it. That is taking time away from my family and other things I want to do. I charge for that because of that. Right. But like I've chosen to put this podcast out there and you don't need financial coaching if you just go listen to a bunch of free podcasts, you know, but some people want a little more handholding and that's fine. And I will charge for that. So it's not to say I'm not some like, you know, I'm not going to like give away every last second of my time for free, but I enjoy doing the podcast. And it's it, again, it has given me as much as I've put into it.

48:08And it has provided me something quite nice during my retirement. Also, like when I talk about that sort of identity piece, I mean, I think I'd be fine without it, but it did give me something to like tether myself to, if that makes sense, which I do enjoy. I do think it is kind of a radical thing now, though, just to say, hey, I do this thing for fun. Yeah, like a radically good, we should do more of it. Absolutely. If you can afford, that's a privilege though, right? Not everyone can literally afford to do that. And so I can, and so I am, but yeah. Okay. Let's talk about my favorite episodes on Inside Out Money that I referenced earlier on.

48:53I share all of your expenses. Yeah. And I guess the more general question that I want to ask is something like, have you always been so open about money? Like, have you always been so transparent? Or is that something that you have kind of worked on because you see value in it? That's a good question. I've always been open about most things in life. Like, I'm a sharer. I'm a, like, oversharer, perhaps. I mean, even at work, like when I got to the point in my career where I was like managing people, which I was doing at a fairly young age, there'd be times where I'm like, well, I'd be in like some reorg discussions.

49:33And I'm like, wait, we're not allowed to talk about this with people. Like, this is awkward. I'm like, I'm going to be with these people. You know, and I would even in like all team meetings, I was just an overshare, you know, like I could keep confidential information confidential. But I told people more than they needed and wanted to know. And I give a lot of context and other things. So I'd say I've been an oversharer since I was just a wee kid. And my daughter is also. She gets it from me. But financially, I just didn't even, it wasn't even like a topic I was aware I could overshare about probably until I met Mike and we started talking pretty openly.

50:13He was like my finance business partner at work. He supported my function and he was new. And somehow we got to talking about something. And I think I like asked him a question about my personal taxes. And I felt comfortable enough with him that I was like, I know this is not your job, but you seem very knowledgeable in this space. And he like, it just opened the door to realizing like, we just started having more and more financial related discussions. And now like anybody that wants to talk about financial stuff with me, like, I love to talk about it. But I think at the time, I didn't even know it was on the table as a topic to discuss with people because like, it's like a lot of things we were sort of taught that it was almost like uncouth to talk about financial stuff, you know, but I don't have a lot of, I'm not super proper.

50:57Right. So I was gonna say, I'm just not, I'm not super couth. I've never actually used the word that way. I just had to Google it to see if it was a word without the un in front of it. Yeah. What did Google say? It is. Yeah. It means cultured, refined and well mannered. I am not any of those things. For all the things my parents taught me, they never sent me to like finishing school or as even growing up in the South, what do you call it? Oh, like cotillion. Like my ex-husband, like they go to cotillion and they like teach you all these very Southern thing. Sure. I grew up in Atlanta. It was not very Southern and no, nobody ever taught me stuff like that.

51:34No one like laid back family. No one ever taught you not to share how much dinner cost. Yeah. Not at all. I love it. So now I'll talk about like, somebody will be telling me something. I mean, most people know I have a podcast, but I'm trying to think what someone was telling me the other day. And I'm like, okay, but how much did that cost? I didn't go ask somebody their salary, but when someone's talking about how they had to go get some piece of work done on their house and they're like, oh, I had this plumbing issue, blah, blah, blah. I'll be like, oh, was that expensive? And then I'll be like, oh, you mind?

52:04If someone I don't really know, I'll even ask. Because it's not like a personal, it's like a very transactional question. You know, so it shouldn't, there's a spectrum of discussing finances, right? Like asking me how much your plumber charged you is very low on one end. Me asking you how much money you make is like at the other end or like what's in your bank, you know, what's your net worth is at the high end. Right. I don't ask anybody that question unless they want to tell me. Yeah. I was trying to think about, so to give context for people who haven't heard these episodes. So there's four of you, right?

52:38Yeah, my husband, Liz, Erica, Andrew. Yes. And so they're all on the episode and they're all sharing like category by category for six months. Hey, this is how much we spent on restaurants. And we're all quite different. Right. Well, like kind of similar, but I mean, different in many ways. Andrew buys like one coffee per six months, his wife, and it's not even him, one coffee per six months. It's like$10. Like she went to Dunkin' Donuts once. Yeah. So they're very different. And that is like critical. Like that's what makes it so interesting. And you as the listener get to kind of figure out, oh, where do you kind of fit in?

53:15And I was trying to think like, what is appealing about this? Is it just because I want to hear someone who spends way more and then I can feel good about myself or like I hear someone who spends way less and then I, but I think there is something about because we don't talk about money very much generally, right? We're not allowed to ask each other salaries or whatever, how much we spend on those pants. I just feel like I'm floating out there sometimes. And so it's not so simple to say, oh, just spend on what you value. It is actually helpful to kind of see what other people are doing. So I do think it is really useful to just actually listen in on a conversation or have a frank conversation with a friend about what this looks like in your life.

54:04So here's my theory on it. First off, there's just a little bit of like, I was gonna say voyeuristic, but I just Googled that and that has like a sexual connotation. But you know what I mean? Like all of us have some sort of like, you know, inquisitive, nosy, like we want to know what's happening. I mean, Liz will admit this all the time, right? She just wants to know what's happening with, you know, she's more curious people. And that's just by nature. I think there's a comparative piece too. So you think about like, you know, kids are super comparative, right? And you slowly hope you age out of like not comparing yourself to others.

54:36We get a little bit better with wisdom, but it's natural for us to have a curiosity and to compare ourselves to others. And also like, you know, I spent 20 years working in corporate America, benchmarking was a huge thing, right? That is a professional way of comparing yourself to others, right? You know, the definition of benchmarking is to evaluate or check by comparison with a standard. So you don't know if you're spending a lot or a little till you compare it to somebody else. And often somebody else in like a similar demographics, not the right word, but like, you know, Liz doesn't have kids.

55:11She has a partner, no kids. Erica has a partner and two kids. Myself and Greg, we're a blended family and we have three kids. They're not with us all the time. So there's like all these different comparisons, you know, and Andrew's married and has two kids yet somehow spends like a third of what me and my family spend, but separate point. Is it interesting too? But I always think of like, we like comparing like utilities costs, right? That's a commodity to compare, but like, you don't know if your electric bill is high or low until you compare it to somebody else's. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, what size?

55:45I mean, we've done this on the podcast where I'm like, Andrew, how is your, you know, bill this cheap? And we're starting to compare like what we're paying per therm with which gas company. And I'm like, you live in a different county than me in Atlanta, but you live 30 minutes away and you're paying like half the price I'm paying for gas, for natural gas. How's that possible? So anyways, I just think comparison can be such a bad thing. I'm mixing like 10 points here, Ginger, but I'm going to land this plane soon. We have an episode called comparison is the thief of joy. I did not coin that phrase, as you know.

56:17I don't know who did, but it's a great phrase. It is the thief of joy, but there are times when comparison is incredibly helpful. Yes. And comparing what you pay for life insurance to somebody else is helpful. It's how I realized I was paying too much for life insurance. And then I got another quote and realized I could be paying a fifth of what I paid for the same policy at an older age. And so you don't know until you start to compare this stuff. And so if we all live our financial lives, which is huge, we all have to spend money to live. One thing we all have in common as human beings is we're spending money in some capacity, whether a little bit, whether a lot, whatever.

56:56And we don't know what is good, what's bad, what's normal, what's average, what's high, what's low, whatever. It means nothing until it's compared to somebody else. And I think that to me is why those episodes are so interesting because they are some of our most popular episodes. And I love seeing what other people are paying for things. Yeah. I guess let's just loop it back to the beginning where I was like, okay, for some reason, I can't stop reading case studies. And it's the same reason. It's because you want to find someone who's kind of like you. Yeah, right. And like, how are they doing it?

57:30And what is the advice that this person is getting? And it's, yeah, it's useful. It's helpful. Yeah. And hopefully that, you know, I want people to take the good from that comparison and that view into someone else's life. I really encourage people to like, dampen down the part of comparison that is the thief of joy, right? And that's a heart, right? That's mindfulness. It takes a lot of, you know, training of your mind and brain and wisdom and maturity and other things to get to that point. And I feel like I've gotten to a pretty good place with that, right? Like I can look at what someone else has and still appreciate it.

58:06And if they have way more than I do, I still appreciate and I'm incredibly thankful for what I have. It's still interesting to see like what they have and how they're living their life. Yeah. But I don't want it to like make me feel bad about my own choices. I want to use just, I just want to take the good parts. Like there are good things about comparing yourself and to tie it back to fear. There's good things about having fear, right? Fear stops us from doing stupid stuff. Like fear stops us from putting our hand on a hot stove. Like we know that's going to hurt, so we don't do it. But fear also stops us from doing good things and taking chances and, you know, jumping off the cliff of early retirement is something that, you know, fear stopped me from doing for a little while, but eventually you know, I got past, but it's like comparison, right?

58:49There's just, there's good and bad angles and perspectives on it. And so the writing question there for both of those is, is this useful? Yeah, that's a great take on it. Okay, let's wrap up by you mentioned that you value travel. So let's end on something fun. Okay. Tell us what are some places that you have traveled with children that you would recommend? Oh, gosh. Right? It's a different beast. Yeah. It is a different beast, but I can't think of any places I've been that I wouldn't also go to with my kids. Other than like, sometimes I just want alone time as an adult. And so, but I think you can take kids just about anywhere.

59:35It's more of like their age and their, your enjoyment level based on like, I'm not suggesting you like, you know, trips around the world with toddlers, though some people do and they, you know, they do it in the right way. But some of my least enjoyable trips with kids were when my kids were much, much younger. Yeah, they're like so much more fun to travel with now. And you know, in the past few years, even we have been, let me think, can I give you a fun stat real quick? Yes. We have taken our kids to 12 countries. Not since our retirement, but since Greg and I met. And I never really even traveled out of the country.

1:00:13I never did as a kid at all. The first time I ever traveled out of the country was when I was getting my MBA in my mid-20s. And I just wanted to get a class credit faster. And I could go to Buenos Aires for two weeks to get a whole class completed. And it was a fair excuse for work. And we've been to even more countries without our kids. But I think you can take kids anywhere. So I wouldn't let the location limit you. I think it's more like who you are and what you like to do and what your kids will enjoy. I've certainly learned lessons on when you have kids of a certain age, which really is any age, you got to do stuff they want to do, or you're going to be miserable.

1:00:48If you plan like an adult trip and then drag your kids along, nobody's having fun, not the adults or the kids. So we've been all over Europe with our kids. We've been to Australia. We've been to Iceland this past summer. We got married in Canada. That was the first trip we took our kids on is when we got married. It was just us and the kids. And we're trying to go to Asia with the kids this summer. They're like really excited to see a new continent. And yeah, I think you can, I think it just depends like where you're going and, you know, just making sure there's some, you feel comfortable personally.

1:01:20And I think I've heard people say they don't even feel comfortable going to certain countries. And I'm like, I've been there. And it's like, I felt incredibly safe. And, you know, so I think it's more your own style and what you feel good about. But I don't think there should be any limitations. All right. We want some specifics, at least two places that you went that were fun that you would want to go back to. I mean, Ireland was one of my favorite trips with the kids. It was also just like, it's funny, my husband was saying Scotland was maybe his. And I was like, no, I liked Ireland better. But I think it was like the age of my kids too.

1:01:55They were younger, but they were just like really sweet and innocent. When I look at pictures of them, not that they're not sweet. Sometimes they're sweet and innocent now, but they're 13 to 17. So, and they're all girls. So you can put that together yourself. But I just, I have fond memories of all these. Like Greg and I are always looking back at pictures from some of these trips and like, we've got like a digital picture frame in the kitchen that's always rotating pictures. And so I don't know, that's one of my best ones. And then I'd also say Australia. We did three weeks in Australia, not two summers ago.

1:02:26And that was really fun. And we did a six week trip right when we retired. That was to like celebrate our retirement where we went to six different countries. That was a really fun trip, but it was exhausting. It was like too much, constantly moving too much. Sure. And so we try to do like much more slower travel now. But I, okay, I'm going to give you specifics. Ireland and Australia. Okay, good job. Two of my best memories. with the kids. Okay. Speaking of Australia, I mean, any tips for surviving like whatever horrendous like 30 hour flight? Oh, no. Just all the usual stuff. Like I always plan, I mean, you know, like drink a lot of water, get up and move a lot.

1:03:06You know, the kids are crazy resilient. Like we're the ones that are half tired. My kids are kind of like comatose, but they'll sleep anywhere. You know, they'll sleep on like a bench in the airport. Yeah. They sleep in the most uncomfortable positions on airplanes that I've ever seen. And, you know, they're kind of cranky. Sometimes I try to just plan the first day I land somewhere, I don't have plans. Yeah. So that's my biggest advice is just you lose a day. Yeah, getting yourself situated. And like, I don't mind just spending a day like being lazy in a hotel, if that's what everybody wants to do to get their acts back together to enjoy the next day.

1:03:40It's a pretty good tip. Oh, look, I do have good tips. Okay, we'll end on that great tip. Thank you, Maggie, so much. I was so excited that you were willing to come on the show and chat with us. And I feel like I really followed through on the promise from the introduction where I said you will find something helpful and meaningful from Maggie. Yeah, I hope so. And if not, I'll send you a sticker to apologize. Yes, don't forget the sticker thing, guys. Okay, so where are they going to? What's your Instagram? My Instagram is at InsideOutMoney. Okay. Or you can go to the website at InsideOutMoney.org.

1:04:15But if you go to Instagram, first 10 people who DM me and say, I heard you on Choose Fi with Ginger, and then tell me what stickers you want. I'll send them to you. I can even, I have these international stamps. I never use them like every now and then. So all over the world. It's opened up to a world-like competition. I'm so excited. All right. Thank you everyone for listening and we'll catch you next time. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first, subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player, just hit subscribe.

1:04:48And then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand. And I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to chooseify.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.

1:05:27So head to chooseify.com slash local and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world. And if you're just getting started with FI or you have a family member or a friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Choose a FI 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.

1:06:04And then Choose a Vi created a Financial Independence 101 course. That's entirely free. Just head to choosefi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.