Episode three twenty three, What Financial Independence looks like Today with Brad Barrett of Choose FI.
Welcome to the Brugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver a your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are having a conversation with Brad from Choose FI. So this isn't an interview like typically when we bring people on, we're interviewing them so that you can take away like actionable tips to do something that we are not confident in our own
ability to do. But this is a conversation that I personally really wanted to have about financial independence, and there's literally nobody else that we would have it with other than Brad Choose a FI.
I mean, he's been in the game for a very long time, has a really nice approach, approachable, attainable kind and we're really looking forward to sharing this conversation with you. Now. There are I think things you can pull from it, but not tips do this, this than that, but more mindset approaches for all of us as we think about the big picture of our finances.
Yeah, this is I mean and again an episode for me cause I have been so quote unquote on fire, so into the fire movement financial independence retire early. I've been really into it and I've been really out of it because I've seen some of the toxicity that can come from extreme fire pursuance. I've been like living in that.
And one of the biggest reasons I think for the catalyst of financial independence to become more inclusive has been the choosei FI podcast effort is it's also been a catalyst for like a lot of extremism in the movement too.
But I have seen so much growth.
And we'll talk a little bit about all the different names for types of FIE, like all that flexibility, which in my mind is just like, okay, well, if you're just saving a normal amount of money so that you can retire on time, sure it's fine, but you just have to come up with a like a fun name for it, I guess, so you're still in the community.
But really it's just normal like financial health. So there's just been so much room for that and to still be included in the financial independence movement that this is. I've just been so interested in the movement quote unquote towards this more inclusive. So if you've ever thought about financial independence and thought it's not for you, this is a really good episode for you, Or if you are really into financial independence, I would say this is still a very good episode for you, and that's.
Probably why you're listening, because.
You are already a big Choose FI fan and I think you will not be disappointed. But first, this episode is brought to you by pre K. It's not quite kindergarten, but definitely not daycare. While daycare can cost half of your salary, pre k can be free. Shout out to Florida for having the largest state level free preschool program in the nation. This is especially nice when you have two or more children under five. Speaking of free, we
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Yeah, right, thank you Florida for this. All right, So financial independence. We used to cover financial independence a lot more back in the day day I was a writer covering essentially investment in retirement, but mostly the Fire Movement, if we're being honest, because those were the personal stories
everyone wanted to hear. So I've done like a dozen personal profiles on people in the Fire Movement, but we haven't covered in a long time because there was just like this really movement to extremism to extremism that was felt very unattainable, but we tried to cover it a little more kindly. So we have a few financial Independence episodes, including episode one fifty two, which is Financial Independence one
oh one with Jamila Suffran. She has always been somebody who covers financial independence with a lot of grace and wisdom. So Jamila hosts the Journey to Launch podcast, so highly recommend her show, and also that episode and then episode seventy three financial Independence through Frugality. I mean, there's always been a joke that you can't reach financial independence if you don't make a lot of money, and we talk
about kind of that idea in this episode. But we've always had the idea that it's not the rate at which you save, but the intention with which you save, and so that's kind of our idea.
If your thumbs can scroll that far right through the archives, right to episode seventy three.
Yes, But if you're not familiar with Brad Barrett, he's the host of the Choose a FI podcast, which is a podcast about choosing financial independence. He's a personal finance expert, a certified public accountant, and he has had a passion for financial independence and helping people take action to make their lives richer, so whether that's wealth, but also health and ultimately happiness. And he achieved financial independence at thirty five,
and he lives. He's a wife, two daughters, so family is super important in his rich life and that comes across a lot in this conversation. So super excited to share it with you.
Let's do it.
Brad, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are so excited to have you here.
Yeah, this should be fun. Thank you so much for inviting me on.
You are such an og like stalwart of this industry. And particularly this conversation. And we know too that FI and fire has changed somewhat over the years, and particularly the last decade.
You've been in it for a.
Decade, probably will longer curious to hear your perspective at this stage on what you would say about how financial independence has changed over the last ten years.
How would you define it now?
That's a great question job for us off and I think a lot has changed on the one hand, but on the other hand, I'm not sure that the fundamentals have necessarily changed. So at its essence, financial independence is saving money until you reach a point where your assets can kick off enough whatever however we want to define it enough income or pulling x percent probably three or four percent of those assets out every single year to live on, and you kind of at that point you
don't need to work for additional income. So at the very broadest level, Okay, I'm saving money, it's compounding. I'm investing. For most people it's low cost index funds or maybe real estate. There's every possible flavor, and that money is compound. While I'm continuing to work, continuing to save, and I get to this number, and I theoretically then have reached a point of financial independence, So I don't think that necessarily has changed over the I guess it's weird to
hear of myself as an OG in this world. But since I read mister Money mustaches the shockingly simple math article, which to me was the lightning bolt that started all of this, it made it concrete, It made it from something that, hey, I was just saving money, kind of blissfully unaware that there was any essentially any purpose to it,
or that there was some end goal. So I don't think anything has changed in that regard, but I think the entire tenor of the conversation has changed, and I think the caricature of the FI community has changed a significant amount, though in fairness, we still have a very long way to go. There are many personal finance influencers.
You hear remaet Sat and the Dave Ramsey's, even though re Meeat is very well meaning, but the Dave Ramsey is The world kind of vilify FI in a sense that it's unrealistic, or it's these misers who are just wishing away decades. And I think if I could say, like one thing, I'm really proud of that choose a FI.
I think I'd like to believe at least has helped change the conversation is it's not this caricature of white guys in their thirties who are in tech jobs and they're making a high income, and of course they can do it. We've made this through hundreds of different people coming on our show with all their different life experiences and stories. We've made it accessible, and I think we've taken it from something that you need it to be
ultra frugal. Right, the early retirement extreme Jacob Lundfitzker spending eight thousand dollars a year whatever, ridiculous amount, that that's not accessible. Right when Joe, when you hear that, what does a normal person do? And they say, oh, that's ridiculous. When they hear mister money Mustache riding his bike all around and that's laudable. That's great, you can do that. But to me in my suburban lifestyle, that seemed ridiculous.
And I think what we've tried to do, and I think the conversation has changed, is that FI is accessible for everybody. Obviously, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. There are people who have higher incomes, and people's starting at certain places, it's always going to be easier. I'm not a fool, I'm not naive, but I think anyone pursuing financial independence is going to get benefit from it. And I think that, to me is the biggest change in the conversation over the last five to seven years.
Yeah, it almost sounds like it has moved in a direction where people asking the question of can I experience this as a person employed in this field that isn't a tech job or finance, and being able to invite more people in and maybe add in larger parameters or the amount of time that it might take to achieve it might be a bit longer, depending on your circumstances.
But it sounds like kind of.
Broadening the community, which maybe at its core is the same, but the ways in which of doing it seem to have broadened a bit.
Yeah, I think that's a perfect summary. And right, you hear all these different flavors, and I honestly thought they were kind of gimmicky when I first said the Barista Phi and the Coast five.
They are so fun They're so funny, they are They're amazing.
Again, in my heart of parts, I thought they were in fairness, I thought they were gimmicky when I first heard them. But Jill, to your point, it does, it broadens it and it doesn't. There's not that one definition. It's not a race to a number on a screen, because I think when it's a race to a number on a screen, you essentially it becomes keeping up with the Jones is in a different way. We're keeping up with the five Jones is not the McMansion and BMW Jones' next door, and that's just not ideal.
Yeah, I would absolutely affirm that. I think Choose Ifi has had an amazing influence on making financial independence more accessible and emphasizing less of the retire early and more on the actual financial benefits that come from investing and saving intentionally. But it was one of those like early on it was disenfranchising to see how people just took one thing and vilified it, which was the keeping up
with the Joneses over consumption. They vilified that, and they did the same thing but with their saving, and there was no connection between You're vilifying one extreme, but you're living in that extreme on the other side. And I think you, guys, I think with all these different names, it's kind of like it's come to terms with that kind of disconnect and really brought it more down to earth, Like, how many different types of FI are there?
Do you think?
Oh goodness, Yeah, I mean there's you and I king. We could go back and forth on this. We should do a round Robin Lean Phi, Barista Phi, COASTFI.
I mean heard Flamingo phi is that? I heard that one.
I have no idea, but I heard somebody say it and I was like, I think they're making that up.
The MAINCA Okay, I know, fat FI obviously is a big one. So yeah, there's all sorts of flavors. And I think it allows you to pursue financial independence based on your own values, and I think at it's hard, that's what every personal finance decision should be. And I know I kind of like to joke even still to this day, though I'm not as bad about it about cars, like that's not my thing. So cars are not my thing,
So that was always kind of my pet peeve. But I've realized some people just get an extreme amount of value out of their fancy car. And it is not my place as some random podcaster to say that you should or should not be doing anything. But clearly we all make choices, and you're making choices from a finite amount of income, you can always grow your income. I think that that's another kind of maybe I don't know,
limiting belief that I used to have. I used to be the Okay, here's my job, here's my income, and that was just that was it. I can get my three to five percent raises. So I thought in terms of a finite amount of income. But I think we've all seen that you can grow, you can learn new skills. I mean, it's the golden age for learning new skills, and you can salary negotiate with All of these things
have crossed my plate in the intervening six years. But at the end of the day, for most people, you're in your job, and if you're spending all of your money, if you're spending every dollar of it, you need to make choices. And what that for most of us means is you have to cut some things, and you have to determine what do you value. And for me it was always I value my time, I value my freedom, and I value that much more than a fancy car or the nicest house on the black. So for me,
that was a very easy decision. To make that. Okay, I'm going to save money, and I'm not framing it as this is deprivation, this is a kin to a diet or short termism. This is a long term, holistic play on my life to live in, to the life that I want to live into. Right, And so it's all about that framing. But clearly, let you know, let's be honest with ourselves. You have to make decisions and
you have to make changes. If you're spending every dollar, just very simply, you can never reach a point of financial independence or even financial security if you're spending every dollar. It's just it's it is the math doesn't math in essence?
Yeah, definitely, I mean, and I think so we talk so much about values based spending on frugal friends and as frugal people, we can talk about that, but sometimes we talk about it in like, oh, yeah, you can value anything, but I will judge you if you value something that's not what I value. And in reality, like we're talking about values based spending so that we all have freedom to spend on what we love, not just you, but everybody else, and they can value everything even if
you don't value it. So I think we do as frugal people, we get this bad rap for being judgmental about what people spend, and so it is eye opening to realize, like, yeah, I mean cars, clothes, bags, first class flights. Those can be things that people say yes to and say no to things that we're not seeing.
Right, I totally hear you. And I think a new phrase that has come across my plate is the skill of spending. And I first heard mister money Mustache talk about this on another podcast, and I actually had him on. We just had a really wonderful, free flowing conversation about it. And there's really two sides of it. So there's the skill of spending on the front side of five early in your journey, trying to optimize your spending because like I said, there's a finite pod and you need to
save money. But then you reach a point where okay, maybe, and again all three of us are, we're all frugal friends here, right, So at some point that becomes maybe a bit of a crutch or not frugality of its essence, because I think frugality there's an importance to it, of
grave importance, there's significant importance to it. But I think it becomes a lifestyle, and when you get to the point where and this is obviously a wonderful place to be, where your money is just growing significantly and you realize, okay, there is a high likelihood I'm gonna have more money than I ever need, which, again, wonderful place to be.
But if you're still stuck in a mentality from fifteen years prior, or from when you were twenty two and your net worth was three thousand dollars and ten dollars meant something to you. When you have a million dollars or multiple millions of dollars, obviously, ten dollars is a very different threshold. And I'm using that kind of as a weird example, But I think what's more important is you get to the point where life experiences are critical. And I know I have we talked about kids before
we hit record. I have two daughters and my older one is fifteen, and we have three years left with her in the house before she goes off to college. And that's a really crazy realization. And we actually just went to a Taylor Swift concert together in Pittsburgh, which was amazing, and you know, we in all Canador. We spent a lot of money on those seconds, and it was the best money I've ever spent in my life,
and I feel zero percent bad about it. And it was just almost like quasi religious experience, like being there with seventy thousand s fifties, like just singing along for three and a half hours, and it was amazing, And that's something we'll remember forever.
That's so awesome.
So you're always going to have this person that's like the traditional fire say fifty percent of their income retire at thirty person, you know, but it's definitely not feasible for most people. So like, how do you recommend most people start to approach or think about financial independence if they're FI curious.
Yeah, So for the FI curious, I would say, and this goes back to that caricature of the original financial independence people. When you don't see yourself in a community, you say, just very logically, that's not for me, and that's for somebody else. That's for some other, that's for them. And I think when we make it a requirement and I said that very tongue in cheek, but a requirement that you need to save fifty percent of your income to be in the FI community, well, most people very
rightfully say that's impossible. That's obviously not for me. That's for somebody who's never made a mistake, who got this right from the time there were twenty two and just locked in on it. Well, I missed the boat. I mean, that's a very logical response. But I think very clearly what my response would be is there are no rules here.
We're just a community of people trying to live better lives, and we believe that the lead domino is getting your personal finances under control and then eventually starting to save money, and every little bit of money that you save that and then invests, and it starts compounding, accrues more power
and autonomy and freedom ultimately in your life. Okay, Because when you have zero dollars saved up and your boss tells you, hey, the workday is another half hour longer today, or worse, tells you to do something that against what you believe in your ethics, your morals. If your life is on the edge where you have no money saved up, you're essentially spending every dollar, what's your alternative at that point? If your life is going to crumble in thirty to
ninety days, what's your alternative? I don't know that there is one necessarily, maybe quickly find another job, but I mean, how realistic is that. But if you had five thousand dollars saved up, if you had ten, twenty thousand, well your entire life is different. Then your entire set of choices are completely different at that point, and there is great power in that. And I want everybody to understand that you don't have to save fifty percent of income.
Just start somewhere, start with one little action to make your life better. They start compounding. I use that word a lot, but they just start rolling. And it feels good. It feels good to make a change. It feels good to move your life forward in every way. I focus on my health significantly. I'm in forty four years old. I'm in better shape than I've ever been in my entire life, Stronger than I've ever been. And it started probably ten years ago when I was thirty pounds heavier
than I am now. And I kid you guys not. It came down to, like my wife and I. You know, we're from Long Island, New York. We eat Italian food all the time. And it started from, hey, we're going to start our loaf of garlic bread, which is utterly ridiculous for dupibility to eat. It's going to be a half a loaf, and then it's going to be a third loaf. Right, I know it sounds like you both are laughing.
Oh I got it.
I love bread jealous Right, it sounds like, okay, well, you keep doing your thing, but like it started there and then it just kept rolling right and every then aspect of okay, I have to get my sleep under control. I have my blackout curtains, and I'm looking right here. I sleep in a cold room. It's all of these things. Hundreds of tiny little changes add up to a dramatically different life. And if you think that it starts with you have to uproot your entire life and save fifty
percent of income, that's not the game we're playing. We're playing one percent changes. So I think most of us can make one percent changes. So, Jen, I could give you a list of things that people could do, but it's beside the point almost. It's how can you make a tiny little change today to make your life better? And then you start feeling emboldened, and you make another change tomorrow and another change the day after.
It sounds like freedom and flexibility to me, and you give examples on both ends of the spectrum of okay, what happens if you your work is not what you want or need it to be, and you want to step away and you've got job flexibility, which is massive. That's a big life changing experience to be able to say I can quit tomorrow and take two months to
find new work. That's amazing. And what I think this also can create is the ability, on the other end, or within the same spectrum, of being able to spend a lot of money on Taylor Swift tickets.
I will co sign that too.
I think when we can identify some of those deeper wise and recognize that money is not going to necessarily buy us happiness, but it can and is necessary in finding the life that we actually want to live. It creates the freedom for the things that usually most of us value the most, the things that money can't buy.
But it does require some intentionality with our finances to be able to give us the opportunities to engage in those things, whether it's job flexibility or getting first class tickets for you and your spouse to go on a
nice vacation. I think it all kind of falls under this category of first beginning with intentionality for our finances, as we're discovering what do we value along the way that we can allocate without shame or guilt and with plenty of cushion towards these things that really matter to us.
Yeah, that is beautifully put. I cannot possibly a head on that other than to just agree with you in the sense that money in and of itself is not the thing that buys happiness. It buys that space, as you so beautifully said. And when you have the space, then you can explore. Because what's the biggest stress in most of our lives. It's money, plain and simple. It's
an existential issue for most people at all times. And when you have that space, you can take a step back, you can take five steps back and figure out, Hey, what am I doing here? I get if I'm lucky ninety years, nine decades on this planet? What am I doing? What's the purpose here? What do I want to spend my time doing? Who do I want to spend my time with? And it is truly an experiment. There's no
easy answer. Things constantly change. I can say this from the other side of this is things are constantly changing, and it shouldn't feel like a failure when you experiment with something and you realize, hey, that's not for me. That's a really important learning lesson. So this is a constant iteration. But having that, most of us who are going to work eight hours a day plus commute plus wine down time, do we have any time to think about what we actually want out of life? We really don't.
You guys are speaking to me right now. This episode is for me because we're going through this with my husband who we have saved money and we have been investing, and he hates his job and he wants to leave. But I'm still in this like, oh, but we have to save, can't We can't invest less? Like while you take a job that may pay less, but it gives you more happiness. And I had to like hold myself and shake myself almost and be like, this is what we did this for this right here. And so you
guys just spoke to me. You're welcome, John, thank you, I welcome.
Yeah, Brad.
Speaking of iterations, I'm sure you've seen many for yourself, for other people. And maybe this is a two part question, but I am really interested to know where you're at what your biggest takeaway from your their own experience of financial independence would be what you've maybe seen from others experiencing and reaching financial independence. Maybe it's two different things, but what do you have to say about that.
I'll try to weave them together, certainly. I think again going back to this iteration and thought is I think the people who I've seen almost quote unquote fail if you will, and I say that kind of jokingly, but fail at FI are the people who thought that they were going to hit a number on a screen and life was magically going to be wonderful, and very simply, that's not the way the world works, that's not the way the human condition works. That's just not the way
anything works. And you need to put in the work and it's years, years and years of trial and error. And I think another way that people fail at FI is being too frugal. And I can think of Brandon the Mad Fcientists as a perfect example. I hit to use like a famous person, if you will, in the FI community, but he's been very public about this about just being too frugal and it getting to the point
where it was negatively impacting his quality of life. And him and his wife decided to have a basically frivolous year of spending, and I think they spent something. It was something ridiculous, like an additional like two to five thousand dollars like that was their absolutely ridiculous amount, and their lives were dramatically better, and they realized that they were putting all that energy into being frugal over two
thousand dollars a year, which is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. And I think there is that concern that you can be a little bit too much with us. And I guess for me, I'm in a weird spot in the sense that choose if I it takes up more of my time than I probably let on, to be honest, and I think for me, I guess my biggest learning is I think in every aspect of life there needs to
be balanced. And that doesn't go away when you reach five and you all of a sudden have sixteen waking hours a day, because you can fill almost any number of hours you really can, and you need to be very intentional about your time. And I think, again, if I'm being really honest, I have not been intentional with my time. And I think it's been a negative.
I know.
This summer is a perfect example in theory. My favorite time of the year is the summer when I go to the pool with my girls and we swim and it's like the best time we have. And I think I've went up to the pool with them maybe three times in the last month and a half, and it's just there's always something. There's always something going on. So this is not an opor me scenario because again, my
little thing, which is it's almost beside the point. But the point is you need to create some kind of balance, and I think it's hard. I mean, honestly, it's hard. You can hear it in my voice. It's not something that comes easy. You have to work on it, and for me, it's very much still a work in progress.
We call it holding the tension. I think finding balance can be really hard if you find it for a minute and then you fall off the seesaw. But holding the tension between yeah, whether it's obligations and responsibilities and freedom and flexibility or you name it, I think having both and is helpful in this equation. And I think one of the things that we have been doing over the last five years with this podcast is these efforts
towards redefining frugality because I don't disagree with you. I think we can take anything too far, to an extreme. And it might just be a sense of vernacular here, but it sounds as though, you know, with the example given that borderlined on cheap, I think we define frugality as being good stewards of our resources, and we're not being good stewards and not just financial resources, emotional mental,
relational resources as well. And if we are in iplementing a lifestyle that is depleting and hurting our well being as it relates to relational resources emotional resources, then that's not in our minds frugality. And so this kind of radical middle place of you don't have to give up all of the fun in your life right now to be able to put fifty percent of your money away, but you also don't have to wait until seventy two to be able to have fun and live your life
like that. We can do both, maybe to different degrees depending on our income, our lifestyles, our choices, whatever, But kind of this inclusivity that you're already talking about and have been talking about with Choose Fi that come to the table wherever you're at, and we can create a plan that's individualized for us.
Yeah, I hear you. Radical.
Say that again, radical middle, the radical middle, radical because no one goes there.
Yeah, let's go to the radical extremes. But really it's the middle that's radical.
That's great. I'm going to think about that for a while. I like that a lot.
So our last question, I think I wanted to direct it like in general, and you can do this if you want, but like I'm really interested in, like how individuals on their journey can find that balance between enjoying the present and saving for financial independence, or maybe if you want to individualize it, maybe what you would have done differently or or have been meditating on currently, Like what are your thoughts, experiences, recommendations.
It's hard, I honestly love for us all to answer that, but this is your show, so I'm gonna I'm going to play ball here and answer. But I think for us and in my own life, I think we probably it's funny again, we were talking about kids before we hit record. I don't think we created a good enough balance in terms of you know, Jill, your abby talking about you're talking about relationships, and clearly like how important that is. And I think it's easy to get out
of balance in a lot of aspects of life. So like my wife and I we don't have family, or we didn't have family for thirteen years of having kids within four hundred miles of us, and we literally never got a babysitter one time to like prioritize date night. And that's not to say we didn't have date nights, and you know, we had family come into town every now and again, but like I think some of our and I don't want to use the word frugality because I think I think it was more negative than that,
maybe being cheap in that regard. It was always, oh it's going to cost us eighty dollars for a babysitter tonight, we can just wait until Grandma comes in town. And I think looking back, that was a strategic hoyer, And I think, you know, just little things like that, just being more intentional, just with every aspect. And obviously everything's fine, so nothing, nothing that's going on here, but just thinking back,
it's you know, these things. That's the perfect example I think of just it was a little bit too cheap and it impacted quality of life, and I don't think we realized it at the time.
I think any one of us can fall victim to that of any time that we become more aware of our spending. And I love how you highlighted spending as a skill.
It's double.
Now we want to go on a date night and it's going to be whatever the date night costs and probably at least that same amount to pay a babysitter. So, wherever you are on the like spending saving spectrum, if you're aware of your spending, that's a hard pill to swallow that we're going to go on date night, it's going to cost us double than what it.
Did pre kids.
And I think it is as you're talking about, than identifying but what's the deeper value here? And we just need to get out and be together. But I appreciate what you're saying there, and I think we all need that message back to us sometimes of it's okay to spend and some kind of sometimes we're going to be so focused on saving, but then what did you say for like, probably this very thing and it's okay to spend it?
Now, Yeah, it is okay to spend it. It absolutely is. And it's essential to spend it. I mean, I think it's essential to save, clearly, but it's essential to spend as well. And I think that's a message that was lost on me for a long time, even though if you had asked me during those years, I would not have said that I was a miser or cheap. I would have at the time, and I would have believed it with full intellectual honesty, that I was being intentional
and that I was spending on what I valued. So, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, I realized that I was just more than a little bit off there. But it's interesting, and I think that's also part of life, right as we learn and we grow and we see what worked, what didn't work, and it's again, it's all part and parcel of this life experiment where we're just figuring out and we're trying to live the best lives we can.
Speaking of an experiment that's stuck, and it's for everyone.
It's working.
It's the bill of the week, that's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week.
Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe.
Your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Du Bill Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the week, all right, Brad.
Every week we invite our listeners or our guests to give us their bill.
For the week.
We know you've been looking forward to it, and we cannot wait to hear yours.
Okay, I have been looking forward to this. This is awesome, and so my bill of the week here, my bill is my friend Bill. Actually, so, my friend Bill.
There's something wrong with your microphone. I'm just cheering, yeah, waving and flailing my arms out of excitement.
So yeah, way back when, when I lived in Long Island, this was probably thirteen probably more than that, it was probably yeah, almost fifteen years ago, I read The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, and that was the lightning bolt moment, one of the probably handful of lightning bolt moments in my life that I mean, frankly led to
everything that's happened after. If I didn't read that book, I choose, if I wouldn't exist in all likelihood, but in fairness, if I didn't know my good friend Bill, none of this would have happened either, because he actually at that time, and this was the infancy of e commerce and the internet to some degree, he had his online business. He was the only person I knew who had an online business, and actually he had a drop shipping business, which was almost exactly what Tim Ferriss talked
about in the f Working. I'm like, this is crazy. I'm reading this life changing book and the one person I know who was an entrepreneur in my entire life had a drop shipping business. And I convinced Bill to kind of partner with me on a website. We bought a firewood storage rack website, which is the most ridiculous thing in the world. I bought this website. We bought this website for five hundred and twelve dollars Bill and I and we sold firewood storage racks on the internet.
I had never lit a fire before my entire life. I never had firewood storage. I never had any need for this. But I sold firewood storage racks on the Internet. And it was all because of Bill. And everything that happened subsequently was because of that first entrepreneurial adventure.
And did this have some sort of metaphoric relationship to the fire movement? Oh, that's like to sell firewood storage rack and then move into this choose fi space.
Wow, that is a bill Bill man.
Yes to my buddy Bill, Thank you to Bill to.
Early afternoon. But I'm a cheers to that.
Wow.
If you all listening, want to submit your bill if it has to do with a friend named Bill, or you are a Bill and you're helping friends start businesses that lead to amazing life journeys, or you know you just paid off a bill, that's good to visit for welfriendspodcast dot com, slash Bill, leave us your bill.
And now it's time for.
This is we get M made it every week also, so with you all right, So this is the vulnerability segment of the show.
This is the part where we will answer questions with you brat.
Yeah we will answer, Yeah, we will get vulnerable questions. Well, it's just one question, and it is what is one financial habit or behavior you had to change in order to make significant progress toward financial independence.
Yeah that's a good one. Okay, I've got one. So I put everything on autopilot. I think to me, getting your silly little monkey brain out of decision making is going to make your life better when it comes to personal plananceys and we're just all prone to fear. We're all prone to listening to these fearmongers on CNBC and the like and thinking they know better, or thinking that we know better somehow we're super smart and everybody else has no idea. And I'm going to sell, I'm going
to buy now, and you don't know anything. Nobody, nobody knows anything. Let's be completely clear here. And the more you can put things on autopilot, just the better your life is going to be. And kind of one of my operating principles is stress mitigation. And this was the best stress stress mitigating move that I've ever made. So I put everything on autopilot. If I could set up bills to pay bill, bill, we're back, come.
Uh, we are.
If I could set up bills on autopay, I did, credit cards obviously, and my savings everything. If I could set it up on allopilot, I did. And it got me to worry less and stress less. And yeah, that's been the biggest thing that I've changed.
Yeah, I can't speak highly enough about putting things on autopilot.
Why I need to think about it?
Why haven't why have an opportunity to accidentally miss a month towards your retirement investing.
I don't think good as it is it is, so why had more things to think about?
Yep? Why let your brain get in the way.
Oh, mine might not be as life changing as yours bread, but I have seen significant improvements in my finances. A behavior I had to change, or maybe a mindset was I'm too busy to cook. Oh, I don't understand kitchens.
I don't know what to do, I don't have time.
Take out, how to eat, just not cooking.
And so this particularly through COVID, and I would say even since the new year, I have totally turned that thing around. I'm doing meal plans bi weekly and cooking at home and it's phenomenal. I'm actually just getting so far to the point that when I go out to eat, I'm usually disappointed, like, oh my chimney cherry is better.
Oh, I could have made that.
Like why they chart so much for this fried chicken.
It's easy pasta, No way Pasta's fifty cents for a plate. I'm not paying you thirteen bucks. I know now I'm sounding cheap.
I do get it. I do like going out to eat, but just not doing it.
As much. And I think especially when you know we're going out to lunch recently and just for the two of us, it's over fifty dollars for just a sandwich and tip and tax. That for this particular season. Speaking of kind of holding the tension between enjoying life and thinking about the future is for right now, I would rather be putting more money aside for greater levels of flexibility in the future, while still saying yes to the things that are ultimately important, but realizing I really don't
mind eating at home. I'm enjoying learning new skills. I like being able to share the food that I've made with friends and family. So that's a recent example for me.
That's a great one.
Yes, And I've seen your list on your fridge with all your meal options.
You're really doing it. I'm doing it.
Good for you, Joe.
Thanks.
And that saves a lot of time too. That's another major aspect of it, right is oh, we're just gonna grab takeout. That sounds good in theory, but it's no matter where you live. That's an old likelihood, a twenty minute little journey, and that takes time. It takes time to think where are we gonna eat from so you're getting hours and hours back in your life.
Yeah.
Not to mention, I'm often disappointed by takeout. They didn't put the sauce I wanted in there. They gave me the wrong entrey, and that's just a headache it on meat in my life. If I'm gona make it for myself, I'm gonna do it right.
Yeah, you're starting to sound like me being dissatisfied.
Well, you're rubbing off on me, Jad, how about you?
So I had several different answers. Definitely going out to eat and shifting what I thought that meant for me was one. But I think the bigger overarching change that I had to make in order to make that change was kind of believing that it was.
Possible and worth it.
Growing up like it was always, you know, very minimal money, just like just enough money to like not be in debt and not be on welfare.
And that's all we had.
We had like no extra, and then I got fifty thousand dollars in debt and I was like, oh, I've chosen a profession.
That won't let me make more.
And so if I'm just gonna be I've already dug myself into a hole, So like what's the point. And it took like meeting my husband Travis and like his encouragement to even believe he's the more frugal, bordering on cheap one in our relationship. And I say that kindly. It like took him to influence me, to like get me to a place to believe that even taking those one percent steps and pursuing one percent changes was a
possibility and that it would be worth it. And now that we're here, you know, like we're not financially independent in like the traditional number sense, but we're financially secure and like we have freedom of choice. And so now I'm shifting in this new direction to live into that and be like it is possible to live without you know, investing as much as possible, and it is worth it. So's it's a constant like journey of the it is possible and it is worth.
It, the iterations Brad spoke about. Well, Brad, this has been both a joy and a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. For many of our listeners who are going to want to jump right over to hear more from you, where can they find that?
Yeah, Well, first thank you, Bill. This is a lot of fun. I mean I just had a ball, so absolutely love this. Yeah, so obviously you're listening to a podcast. You know how to find podcasts, just search choose like, make a choice, choose FI, and hit subscribe. It's I think it's a pretty good show. I think you'll enjoy it. So there's that. I essentially put out two pieces of content. So if you're interested in financial independence, listen to the podcast and get on my newsletter. So choose about a
com slash subscribe. I personally write it. I send it out every Tuesday morning. It's a little bit of that inspiration we were talking about those one percent differences. I get people to write into me every single week, literally hit reply to that email and tell me what they've done to make their lives better. So I highlight six or seven of those every week, and then maybe just a few quick things that I've picked up or I find interesting and in the world in financial independence, et cetera.
And yeah, that's pretty much it.
That's awesome. I love keeping it simple.
Yes, thanks so much, Brad. And yeah, if you didn't already know choose FI which way, I would be surprised.
Go go check it out.
I appreciate it.
Woo. That was a conversation.
We said we were having a conversation, and then we did, and I feel as though we all kind of left it with something further to ponder, which is always a beautiful thing, especially for us, because we say we do this podcast for ourselves mostly and then for our community too, and we hope that you all got something out of this.
But what an honor for us to be able to talk with someone who's been in this space for at least double the amount of time that we've been in it for and to hear a similar heartbeat of kindness and freedom and flexibility and individuality to it is a really nice breath of fresh air.
Yeah. I was so looking forward to this conversation and it fulfilled every.
Expectation that I had.
Honestly, jose Ifi and Frugal Friends have been talking about similar things for years, but to different audiences, and so to have that come together, I think we've been parallel lines, and meeting today has just been so affirming, so life giving, and I hope we have encouraged you on your financial independence journey, whether you call it that or not, whether that's the label you want or not, I just hope that we've encouraged you on your journey beautiful.
Well, thank you all for listening. Your listen means so much to us, and also your kind reviews. They are life giving to us also, and we want to highlight a particular kind review that we recently received from evergreen Light Canadian flag Emoji, pine tree, Pine tree Emoji. Amazingly helpful, funny and friendly. Thank you so much, Jen and Jill. I'm from Northern Canada and have been listening to this podcast for two years.
Not only do.
I love the life hacks and guests, but your podcasts and tips have inspired me to make and keep insanely complex monthly and year long budget that I visit almost daily. And in addition to this, yeah that's a lot. Using your tips, I was able to renegotiate on all of our insurances, reduce bills, cut out subscriptions, make way better financial choices, and set up a second retirement investment savings
account with my bank. Thank you for helping others with your friendly and funny shows, and I've now started to really really pay attention to my grocery bills. I'm obsessed with having so much fun. Also, I gave a sushi budget class to my daughter and now her friends are asking for the same budget classes from me, which I've also started providing. I love being able to pass along your podcasts and your tips to these girls.
Thank you so much.
Smile Majurie, smiling emoji, clep emoji.
Cleve emoji, club emoji right back at you if I could throw at you, the angel emoji, the thumbs up emoji, the strong arm emoje holy smokes, there's so much jam packed in here. But first of all, I do want to highlight that this has been two years of you
listening to the podcast. You're probably doing things prior to that, but you've accomplished a lot, which is so amazing to hear how much you've been able to do in the last two years, and now how you're passing it along to your daughters and obviously doing it in a really fun way. Sushi that they're all asking for of this like let me learn, let me eat good food.
This is amazing.
It's now the only way I want to budget is with sushi. I've decided that now.
So yeah, look at the way you're inspiring us with just your one reviews.
Goodness, thank you so much for listening.
If you're listening and you enjoyed the show and you have not left a rating and review, we would encourage you and ask you to do so because it makes our day.
It makes us really happy to see your reviews.
Especially when they are five stars, sometimes even when one stars. But if you love the show even more, please leave a rating and review because it helps people know what our show is all about and what they're getting themselves into.
And this was a really good one.
If somebody wants to reduce bills, cut out subscriptions, have sushi budget classes, and then this is the show for them, right on.
Wow, see y'all next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.
Oh wow, Jen, I told my story that I haven't told before.
There are so many interesting for my time, like interviewing people in the FI community, so many interesting stories of people doing so many interesting things in the name of frugality. It almost made me renounce frugality I know much. And this was during I had this position over the first
year of the podcast. Literally we started the podcast because I got this full time writing job and I wanted to do something on my own that was not writing related, and so for the first year until I was part of a mass layoff at that job, it was me interviewing these people and hearing like their real estate stories and they're I think the one that sticks out to me the most is this girl slept on the floor in a tent, on the floor of her garage while
she was flipping a house to sell. She was doing a live in flip, and I was like, oh my gosh. At first, I just chalked it up to this is what you do in your early twenties, you know, like this is fine, And now I'm like.
What what is what?
What did I mean? Yeah, like, yeah, you can get like so far down into a lifestyle that really abnormal things start to feel normal.
But you know, here I am.
Also talking about how my husband and I lived in a one hundred and seventy square foot pool behind trailer for a time to help out our finances. You think there is permission to do extreme abnormal things. I think the piece for me that I can't get away from that is crucial is for a limited amount of time, I mean, unless you really love it. Because there are people in the fringes of society and not disappointed with
their lifestyles. But I think, yeah, encouraging people to do extreme abnormal things and calling it relatively normal within that space, or encouraging you to do it for a long period of time when it's not actually sustainable, is where it starts to get into some extreme places.
I think as long as your frugality isn't negatively impacting your health or negatively impacting the people around you or just other people in general, then do you.
But yeah, that was a big.
Live in that tent, right, live in that trailer. Say no to the takeout, not me,