Episode description

037 | In today's podcast we speak with Scott Rieckens, the creative force behind the upcoming FI documentary called 'Playing With Fire' and we learn about his FI journey and this exciting project. In Today’s Podcast we cover:

A discussion with Scott Rieckens, the creative force behind the upcoming FI documentary ‘Playing With Fire’ we’ve discussed on previous episodes Scott is devoting the next year of his life to create this documentary about the FI community Scott’s background story and how he found FI How they were on the ‘hamster wheel’ just working to pay for the lifestyle they were living The importance of a side hustle or entrepreneurship Scott consumes a lot of media, including podcasts and found the Tim Ferriss show especially valuable Lifestyle creep in their living arrangements in Coronado How Scott found Mr. Money Mustache and the FI community through the Tim Ferriss podcast Living a life of happiness while pursuing Financial Independence

You don’t need $10 million (or a similar amount) to retire early How Scott enjoyed the positive nature of the FI community How Scott presented the FI concept to his wife and the thought of ‘why isn’t everyone doing this?’ How Scott framed FI to his wife with the focus on happiness Looking at expenses in the framework of a 10-year timeline Scott’s wife’s list of the things that make her happy on a weekly basis Considering moving out of Coronado and California generally:

Geographic arbitrage How your entire life costs less when you leave a high cost of living area How they approached the decision to move out of Coronado and what that process looked like How moving allowed Scott to take a year of his life to create the FI documentary Playing With Fire Scott’s wife was not only on board with the decision, but she wanted to travel in a camper and go on an adventure Pursuits that matter to them that they now can pursue on the journey to FI

The timeline behind Scott’s FI journey and decision to create the FI documentary Scott’s surprise that no FI documentary already existed and his start approaching us at ChooseFI to discuss the project How the idea of FI can be life-changing for so many people How this documentary can help spread the message of FI

How he decided to call the documentary ‘Playing With Fire’ Hot seat questions Scott’s biggest financial mistake was taking on too much student loan debt Scott would have ‘house hacked’ to buy property in his college town if he could do it all over again