Front Loading the Sacrifice with $Pro Doc G #074

it's independence. And if people are wondering why he's called doc G, well, there are a lot of people that blog and do podcasts in that community that have day jobs and they don't really want to let everyone know that they're a part of the fire community, which is financial independent, retire early, and so dc G it goes kind of under that anonymous name so that his employer

doesn't find out that's who he is. Yeah. You know, the first time I realized that, when I came across a bunch of those folks, I thought it was the weirdest thing ever, because there's they post pictures of themselves and put like a sticker over their face that sort of thing as well, like no social media at all.

But uh, you know, it does make sense. You don't want to jeopardize your job, and when it comes to how much money you have, you don't necessarily want all that information out there because a lot of those folks lay it all out there like they lay a bear, and you can look at their budgets, how much they're spending, how much they're earning, and there's a lot of privacy that you're giving up when you're doing that. So I can get behind that now, but initially it totally through me.

But uh, what you got for us today? Yes, So I'm excited about this episode. I feel like there's a lot of takeaway for folks as they kind of start to think about saving and investing. But before we get to that, Matt, I wanted to mention two different frugal versus cheaps. Yeah, let's get back to that, Fermitt. We haven't done a frugal versus cheap. I saw that note on there. I was hoping you'd have one. Yeah. So MLS soccer is back and I'm super excited. I know

you are too. We root for our local team in Atlanta, Atlanta United, and I have two frugal versus cheps. I wanted to share. One was is it frugal or cheap? That I a couple of years ago, right when Atlanta United first launched. I bought a jersey from China. I know you're gonna say that, because it was much much cheaper than buying one from like Adidas or the Team Store or something like that. So I ended up getting a jersey I think like twenty bucks shipped to my door.

That is cheap, that is inexpensive, That is very affordable. But then when I put it on, all my friends noticed instantaneously that it wasn't the real thing because it was this completely different shade of bread, and like the emblem and stuff like that started to fade super quickly, just wear completely off the jersey, and I just stopped wearing it because honestly, it just looked ratchet. So was that frugal or cheap? I mean from the get go,

I I noticed as well. And you can always spot the folks who had on the Chinese jerseys because they were a brighter red. And I remember Pat specifically, our buddy Pat. He would he would point him out. He'd be like Chinese jersey, Chinese jersey because he hated him. So the fact that you had to get another one, or you didn't have to, but you chose to get a new one you know, I asked for one for my birthday because they completely fell on my face when they came to buying that one. So i'll that's a

frugal fail. That was that was me cheap and out being cheap, and I lost out on that one. So I tried to go for the knockoff. It didn't work. It ended up just kind of sitting in the back of my dor because I felt too ashamed to wear it. Man, I gotta be honest. You can wear it cutting the grass or something though, Right, that's a good point. Yeah, all right, I got one more for you, So frugal or cheap I doubleheader. I took my my oldest daughter to a game the other night and it was super fun.

It was we just had the best time, just her and I hitting up a soccer game. And if it's a late night game and you park at one of the meters that's like a third of a mile away, you don't have to pay to park, and so it's pretty sweet because when you get close into the stadium, people are, you know, lots of times we're riding bikes and I probably should have ridden bikes that night, but I didn't, and we drove and so I parked at

one of the meters and and didn't pay. But but then we had like this really long walk ahead of us to the stadium. So is that frugal or cheap that I'm that I'm parking further away at getting free parking, but taking that long walk to the stadium. I think, Okay, Well, first of all, I think you should have ridden your bikes. Yeah, yeah, that's what I would have That's what i'd say. First. Uh, yeah,

I think that's fairly frugal. I think you know, what you're teaching your daughter is that just because you can part closer, like we're not necessarily going to do that, And as long as you're not walking through maybe a sketchy part of town or you know, like a dodgy area. Personally, I would do that. I think that's totally frugal. And there might be sometimes when you might want to splurge and maybe pay for parking, But with a bike, you get to pull up and you get free bike valley parking.

So that's the best. Man, you're right across from the stadium, That is the best. And I try to do that as often as possible. That is a blast and here's the Here's the other thing though, when you park further way that I actually like. So when you park really close and you're trying to leave the stadium, you're in this nasty traffic jam because everyone close ends trying to go in the same direction at the same time and

get out of these parking lots. There's one way out, and so those parking lots are jam packed and it's tough to get out and takes forever. So parking further away, I'm walking faster than the traffics going, so I actually break free. Yeah, so I actually think like, not only am I saving money getting a nice little fun walk in with my daughter, but then at the same time, I'm out of there much quicker because I'm not like

sitting in that parking lot traffic. Plus they're small enough now where we can throw them up on our shoulders and we can kind of pick up the pace a little bit if we need to. So yeah, no doubt. All right, Joel, let's talk about the beer that we're gonna have on this episode. We have a bunch of beers from Spindle Tap Brewery. The brewery reached out to us directly, and yeah, it's been a minute since we've had an actual brewery sent us some beer, So I'm

excited to have a few of theirs on the show. Yeah. This man, Leo, who works for Spindle Tap. He listens to the show and just super cool. He reached out via Twitter and said, man, I love the show. I worked for spindele Tap and offered to send us not only beer, maybe sent us some really cool T shirts too, So yeah, some mad props. Yeah me too, I'm loving mind. Yeah,

so that's super kind. And and Spindle Tap, I gotta say I went to their website after Leo reached out, and I just scrolled through their list of beers and they make just I p A after I p A after I p A, and they all like my mouth was watering. They just all sound delicious. So I'm really excited to try this one tonight. Yeah, so this is

aggressive additions. I p A, Joel, You're going for it already, initial thoughts quickly, I'll say, this one's right up my alley, and Spindle Tap just through like two SIPs, worked its way directly into my heart. So I'm looking forward to, you know, sharing more of our thoughts about this beer at the end. Of the episode. Oh my, this one is good man. I'm looking forward to not only talking about it, but drinking it on this episode. All right, Matt,

onto the topic at hand. We're talking about frontloading the sacrifice. And like I said, we brought money pro doct g on to kind of give us five minutes of distilled wisdom. This is a topic that is near and dear to his heart, and it is so important to him because he realizes that most people don't understand that just a little more effort upfront can mean a much smoother ride

in the future. We're gonna talk about saving and investing, but just other ways of frontloading your sacrifice can have compounding, massive effects for you on the back end. It's such an important topic to essentially help people understand that today is the day you need to get started, not next week, not next month, but like today, because once you start moving in a direction, the dominoes just kind of begin to fall for you and and it all gets a

little bit easier over time. So and I think doct does a really good job in this five minute segment of presenting that well edual. And something worth mentioning as well is that doc G's advice. It comes from the standpoint of someone who is financially independent. He himself is financially independent. He's partially retired, which I love, and we can talk more about that later. How he's sort of

testing out the waters of retirement. But financial independence, we've talked about this before, but quickly, it's essentially when you have enough assets or money invest in that you no longer have to work to earn money because your money itself is earning that money. And also, there's just different degrees of financial independence as far as folks that are willing to give up different amounts of things, different sacrifice that they're willing to make in order to achieve that

sooner versus later. But for all of them, like that's their goal. Their goal is to basically break free of the chains of having to to work in order to pay their their monthly bills. And so it's worth mentioning that because I think to a lot of folks his approach might sound a bit extreme, but at the same time, the advice that he is giving is widely applicable regardless of how soon you actually want to retire. All right, Matt, So without further ado, let's get into doc gees Money

Pro segment. Just a quick reminder. Every time we bring a money pro on the show, they send us five minutes of distilled wisdom about this particular topic. So so here are doctees finest thoughts on the topic of the day, Frontloading the Sacrifice. Hey guys, thanks for inviting me on to speak about one of my favorite topics, frontloading the sacrifice. Getting to financial independence requires hard work, planning, and missed opportunities.

This is part of the process. While some have found a way to climb the mountain while also enjoying the beauty of the local terrain, the great majority of us have an end in mind. We tend to track that end with laser like focus. Whether it be early retirement or a particular net worth. We're willing to put in the extra hours, lose sleep, or work weekends to make it happen down the road. We all, in one way

or another, past the marshmallow test. Thus, especially if you're a young person, I have one key piece of it ice front load the sacrifice. The concept. It's straightforward. The harder you work as a young person, the less you will have to as you get older. Want to retire at forty, how about thirty five. There's no way to achieve such mighty aspirations unless you pay your dues, so do yourself a favor. Pay those dues early. The worst mistake you can make is a failure to launch. Think

about it. What requires the most energy during a typical trans atlantic flight. You'd be correct if you guess take off. Once the plane is up in the air and on its trajectory, fuel needs decreased drastically. If you can just make it past the original hump, you can expect smooth flying for the duration. Your financial timeline is no different. The fuel you create and burn early in your journey will often propel you even faster the rest of the way.

This is particularly important in your early twenties. Leaving college, you may face a mountain of debt. Whether you demolish that mountain or build it up even higher will have profound consequences on your financial well being, although they may seem self evident. Let's look at a few reasons. Front loading the sacrifice is so important. You all know about the magic of compounding, if not, for God's sake, google it.

The idea is simple. Start with a little money in vast watch the trick over turns turn into an avalanche, and then retire. It goes without saying that earlier you start compounding, the faster your net worth will grow. As a resident physician, I moonlighted at my local hospital. The extra profits originally went into a down payment on a house and then later into investments. Can you imagine what that ten thousand dollars I made in residency is worth?

If not, find yourself a compound calculator. It's not just the compounding gains, but also the compounding losses. That's right. Credit costs money, So if you have a huge educational or car loans, you're sapping your jet fuel. Every month you're paying interest. That interest will erode your wealth and happy your path to financial freedom. My wife, for example, had fifteen thousand dollars of educational debt when she finished college. We both put in extra hours at work in those

early years to pay it off fairly quickly. By becoming a free of debt, we are able to maximize retirement savings and start a taxable brokerage account before becoming parents. It's also easy to forget that experience compounds. These skills you learn and the education you receive when you are young, can serve as you mature in your professional career. You know what other advantage that most have upon leaving college no children. You don't have children, or possibly a mortgage

or other responsibilities that weigh you down. You are free to aggressively pursue a career, business opportunity, or side hustle. As you get older, have children, and settle into suburbia, your time becomes parse between unyielding mistresses screaming for your attention. The young also have an abundance of something else that we old timers are sadly lacking energy. As a young physician, I could work thirty six hours in a row without getting a wink of sleep. Now it takes me weeks

to recover from such activities. In summary, the money you make as a young person will be the jet fuel for your transatlantic flight. It will propel you through the stratosphere and prepare the way for coasting at a comfortable altitude. The young have large reserves of energy, a few responsibilities, and the ever important time horizon to take advantage of the magic of compounding front load to sacrifice. You won't regret it. And one last note, don't fall victim to

the you only live one syndrome. Yolo is a no no. Yolo is a no no, because you don't only live once. I would argue that in the typical eighties some years of existence, people experience many new beginnings. There are new days and new decades, new careers and new relationships. Change is so constant that we are continuously beginning or ending

a new stage of life. When you make economic decisions based on the idea that once the moment is past, it will never come back again, you spend based on fear and short lived hedonism in actuality, especially when you're young, every new stage in life will feel like a fresh start.

Although wisdom accruise, new beginnings abound. You know what happens when people spend like you only live once when they are young, they end up facing the multitude of new life stages, poor and unprepared to fully enjoy what life has to offer down the road. Think of all the joy as a new parent or a newly retired person can experience when they have enough economic fuel to propel them in their journey. Don't erase the wondrous effect of compounding.

There you have it frontload to sacrifice and you don't only live once words to live by. It almost sounds like reincarnation a little bit mad, right? Is that? Is that what doctors going for? Yeah, that was awesome stuff from Doc g and I'm looking forward to unpacking that with you man right after this break. Alright, Matt, we're back and Yeah, that was some really good stuff from

from Doc. And really a lot of what Doc is saying is that if you want to achieve what's called financial independence that you kind of defined a little bit earlier and we talked about in a much earlier episode. Is financial independence a good goal to have? Well, it's going to require a lot of hard work planning and

missing out on some opportunities that you're probably interested in. Yeah, you know, honestly, for me, missing out on those opportunities, whether they be experiences like events or even sometimes like stuff, that to me is the hardest because I can work hard, and I think a lot of folks feel that they're not afraid of hard work. You can even plan some but behaving and not overspending after you've done that hard work. For me, that, honestly, I find that to be the

toughest challenge when it comes to my personal finances. You work hard and and you feel that you've earned the stuff that you're going to purchase. I guess a little reward. We've talked about that recently. You hear the motto work hard, play hard, But like that's the problem. A lot of times that's when your finances can totally get out of whack and you're not really getting ahead even though you're working really hard and you're earning an incredible wage because

you're spending all of your money. Yeah, you have that kind of treat yourself mentality. Well, you utterly deserve the things that you're buying. You deserve a bigger house, you deserve a new car because you worked really hard, exactly, and and and so I completely understand that mentality. But

that's the mentality we have to get away from. And so you and I'm at though on this show, we have talked about many, many times throughout all the episodes we've created that we are into living a rich life now on less money. And so I do need to stress that utter deprivation is not what we're all about. But ultimately there is a strong need to hone in and focus on the things that actually matter. If financial

independence is something that you want to achieve. And so ultimately, people that are able to achieve a certain amount of financial independence in their lives or that ultimate goal of real financial independence, they're able to stay focused along the way. So the goal might truly be retiring early. And documenttioned some lofty numbers of retiring like thirty five or forty And I gotta be honest, for almost everybody listening, I know that's a really really hard number to hear. Even that's, uh,

that seems impossible. But for but for some people listening who are We got an email Matt the other day from a fourteen year old and for him, that's totally that's that is totally possible. For most people, that's gonna be really really hard to do, and especially because we have a lot of listeners who are in their thirties and forties and fifties, and so for those people, that

opportunity has passed. But at the same time, there's the ability to right now, whatever age you are, wherever you're at in life, to start front loading the sacrifice now. So it's not about going back and doing it over because obviously that's impossible. What it is about is creating a focus to change the trajectory of your future. Now, yeah, man, keeping that that laser like focus like you mentioned is so key. And can you mentioned the marshmallow tests? Have

you heard that? I have? Yeah, I read up on the marshmallow test just based on what he said, So I thought it was I thought it was fascinating. Do you want to explain it? Yeah, it's it's kind of a classic if you haven't heard about it. It's the Stanford experiment on delayed gratification basically, and Stanford did the best like psychological experiments on people prison was it the

Stanford prison experiment? They do all these sort of messed up studies and that like that's borderline unethical and maybe completely exactly because this one maybe borderline unethical. But they had kids sitting in a room, uh, and they're told that here's a marshmallow. We're gonna leave. If you don't eat the marshmallow. When I come back, you get two marshmallows. And so yeah, it was a test of delayed gratification.

And what they found where that the children who were able to say no and through discipline, were able to control themselves ultimately in the long term, we're able to achieve more in life, and so Dag is essentially saying that in the same way, like this is the experiment that we're exposed to every day when it comes to

our purchases and expenses. If we can say no to the things right now of consumption, at some point down the road, when you're financially independent, hopefully you're gonna have a lot more choices and you're gonna have a lot

more options presented to you. Yeah, and Matt, we did an episode back in the day about peace out Money, and that is kind of like one of those stepping stones on the way to financial independence, And so we said that even though financial independence is this incredibly lofty goal and it takes quite a while to achieve, right, you're not going to be there probably in three years. It's gonna take decades to to hit that goal of

financial independence. But even along the way, you're gonna hit these stepping stones and something like peace out money, which gives you kind of enough of a cushion in order to say, you know what, I want to move on to another job, or I even want to take a job that pays less money because it's something I'm more interested in doing, and I think I'm gonna be able

to stick to it for a longer period. So I just want to stress too that it's not necessarily all about achieving this ultimate end goal that that might be decades down the road, but there are these steps in between that you're gonna hit that are going to provide

you no matter where you're at. Maybe it's just building up that emergency fund and having laser like focused and you've got a frontload of the sacrifice right now in order to get there, or you're ready to get to that piece out money place so that you can look for another job. Either way, it's gonna take passing that marshmallow test and and not eating the marshmallows put in front of you, and putting that marshmallow in like a

low cost index fund through van or something like that. Right, So that's that marshmallow sun exactly, so it can multiply into more and more marshmallows. But yeah, I feel like that is a good way for us to see it is is that it is easy to just kind of eat the marshmallow. It's easy to satisfy our sweet tooth, and it's easy to buy something based on a perceived need and it just takes more work to maintain that focus that's required in order to kind of achieve that

ultimate goal. Joel. And something else is I wanted to mission how delay gratification isn't something that you're just born with, like some people might have that sort of natural disposition, it's kind of ingrained in them. That's also something that you can cultivate. It's like a muscle that you can flex. Is build it up through decisions and through discipline and just practicing it. And the studies proved that as well.

There's been lots of other marshmallow experiments since the original Stanford one and where they did different experiments leading up to the final test of you know, what will you do with marshmallow? And it involved lots of different things, but like rewarding the kids when they did perform what they're supposed to do versus some of the kids who weren't rewarded, you know when they said they were so

basically like the promise, Like was that promise fulfilled? It's just crazy interesting to see how that impacts how we view things. Yeah, if we get a quick positive response, Matt to the change that we make, I feel like that actually enhances our ability to kind of continue on. That's right, yeah, exactly, And so for a lot of

people that long term thought of investing. Most of us just can't think in that twenty or thirty or forty years sort of time period and it just doesn't seem like we're ever going to get so why would we prioritize it? Right, It's like, well, why am I? We're taxing my six sixty year old self over my thirty year old self, and that positive feedback just isn't gonna happen immediately. It takes a while to feel like you've built up some breathing room and to feel like you're

actually on your way to meeting your goal. So it's not like you open up a roth Ira or start investing in your four oh one K and then three weeks later you get that positive who I'm doing it? It takes quite a while, and so, well, that's why it's so hard, right, Like, that's why investing is so hard, and why I think a lot of times people get burned because they invest and they hear that they're supposed to invest for the long term, but then the market

dips a little bit. What is the instant feedback that they're receiving. It's that I'm losing money and because of that, they don't want to invest and they freak out pull their money out, or they stop investing altogether. Yeah, I think that is why it's so hard and why it's so important to keep that long term goal in mind on the horizon and have that be the focus regardless

of what's happening right now. And I think that's why Doc g made reference to an airplane, right, and that that failure to launch it is the hardest part, is the most energy consuming part of an airline flight is just that takeoff and and imagine, right, you have to lift this giant metal tube into the sky with hundreds of people on it, and in order to kind of get that lift, Like, do you know how much Jeff fuel you're burning? I mean a lot, I guess, right,

And yeah, I don't know the specifics. Yeah, I'm not an engineer, Like I don't know any of that stuff, but I gotta imagine that the amount of fuel just to kind of get off the starting line there and to get this massive aircraft into the air is so much more than an aircraft. That's kind of already in motion, right, already in flight, flying through the air at thirty feet. So just know too that that is the hardest part.

And so if you have been wary of starting because it is a big lift, we've tried in previous episodes to help people see how easy it can be. But we realized that even though it's an easy button to click, it's a harder thing to move in your mind, to move that boulder of saying you know what, I can do this, and I need to do this, and this

is actually gonna be beneficial for me. I think having that illustration of of an airline in your head, it's like boom, I need to get my wheels down, I need to get moved away from the gate, and I need to start going. Let's go ahead and dive now into the reasons that front loading the sacrifice is so important. Dot G touched on several of these. He kind of said that there's maybe self evident, but we like to pick things apart, so let's dive into it. So the

first thing he mentioned was compounding interest. We touched on this before, but we all know that the earlier you get investing, the better, like the money you have invested earns money, and then that additional money that you didn't deposit and that you didn't save that earns money, and then it continues to roll over on itself. That's compounding interest. Yeah, it's pretty magical, right. Yeah, And so an example we've given before is imagine that you're saving dollars a year.

Depending on your situation, like that might be a lot of money, but let's just say you're doing it. You're doing that every year from the age of twenty five to forty five. So that total of twenty years, you've invested a total of forty eight thousand dollars. But then imagine that you stop like completely, and then you let it grow for the next twenty years, from forty five to sixty five. At the age of sixty five, there's a good chance you're gonna have over one million dollars.

Let me say that again. You've only invested forty eight thousand dollars and over time you've been able to convert that to over one million dollars. That is the power of compounding interest. Yeah, Matt, Compounding interest is a beautiful thing, But compounding losses are kind of the exact opposite, right, And so payments on loans that you have and interest on credit card debt also cost you in a major way.

We just talked about student loans, and federal student loans don't work on a compounding interest level, but private student loans typically do. And so the longer you have debt out there, the more it's gonna grow and hurt you. So that's why do you mentioned prioritizing debt payoff, And I think debt payoff is a crucial part of the equation.

In order to reach financial independence, you need to not only do your best to frontload your investments as much as possible, but you also need to do your best at frontloading your cash towards debt payoff and especially paying off those super high interest rate debts as quickly as possible. That's right. And we've talked about real estate plenty of times, and real estates a great investment in a lot of times. You and I we both have mortgages on multiple investment properties.

That's an example of good debt as we would define it. But it's like debt because of an investment now that's making money exactly, not debt because of lifestyle and lifestyle and consumption and those are the times that you need to be especially wary. Uh, anytime you're financing lifestyle specifically, we realize some of those things, like student loans not really in that lifestyle equation, but it is. Its student loans are kind of like in the gray area. Yeah,

it's it's it's just one of a weird thing. And we had a couple episodes on that recently. If you need help with your student loans, go back and check those out. But to break you down, I feel like the more that you can put into investments early on and into paying off those higher interest rate debts, I mean, the earlier the better. The sooner the better. Kicking debts to the curb earlier and not having them linger in your life, I mean that's just gonna have massive impacts

for you further on down the road. Yeah, and something else Doc G mentioned is how not only does your interest compound and your losses compound, but your experience compounds as well. And he said that when you can take the education and the skills with you you mature professionally in your career, these are skills that are gonna serve you and your personal finances for the rest of your life.

One of the things I realized, man, is that it's not just the head knowledge that you can but also that experience, the habits that you form now will make

it easier in the future. I know, for me, I'm kind of a creature of habit, and I know that if I didn't have the best money handling habits starting at a young age, I think it would be really really hard for me to flip the switch and all of a sudden say cool, now I'm gonna start investing ten percent of every check I make and I'm gonna slash all my spending in half because I'm gonna become financially independent. That's just not how I work. For me. Once I do something for a long time, it's it's

really hard for me to break out of that. And so I think that applies here as well. Like when you have that experience, when you have those habits formed from an early age, those are literal skills you can take with you and you can continue on that path. And the fact is it's going to be easier for you as you get older, as you make advances in your career, as you start earning more money that you're

doing smart and awesome things with your money. Yeah, man, I think when we're talking about experience or skills, the earlier in our lives that we start to implement those things the better. And so let's say you're a school teacher, taking a certification to teach gifted courses or maybe getting your master's degree a little it earlier. It's going to lead to a much higher rate to pay earlier on, and you're gonna be getting paid more throughout the years.

And not only are you gonna be getting paid more for a lot of teachers, you're going to ultimately that's going to results in a higher pension in retirement. Right. And so by getting that skill earlier on in your career, it's just gonna have these like ripple effects that last for quite a while. And if we're talking about just gaining a skill, let's take the skill of reading. For example. I think I read a stat at one point, Matt, most Americans don't read one whole book for their entirety

of their life once they graduate from high school. That it's it's just kind of crazy, that yeah, crazy. I want to say, it's like eighty or of Americans don't ever read a whole book. In its entirety, it's kind of crazy. So if you can develop just a skill of reading five six eight books a year something like that,

you know, start light. But find a skill in your life that's gonna help you build a knowledge base, maybe a skill that's going to help you in your career in the earlier that you can do that those skills that you can build on kind of earlier in your life to help turn you in to a lifelong learner, and potential skills that will help you in your day job now make you more well rounded, make you more likely to get a promotion. That sort of experience, that

skill set compounds on itself. Hopefully it leads to you being kind of more well rounded as a person, but also it can lead to higher earnings, and just earning a little bit more can make all the difference sometimes and trying to reach your goal like five and so all these things that doctors mentioning are things that you can do at any age, whether you're fresh out of school or if you're older in your forties and fifties. You want to invest now, you want to cut that

unnecessary spending. But again, like you said, Jell, the sooner you get started the better. Yeah, Matt, there was a Chinese proverb that I read that says that the best time to plan a tree was twenty years ago, and the second best time to plan a tree is today, and so you can't go back. It's a proverb or

a fortune cookie. I don't know, mind doing both, but I mean, I just think that's so profound, right, And when you're thinking it's so easy that like, let's say you're listening to this podcast and you are in your forties or fifties and you're thinking, I totally screwed up and I can't do it at I think you have to kind of take that to heart. You have to realize that you can't go back in time. You can't

fix mistakes who are made in the past. But what you can do is you can plant that seed today and you can get the ball rolling, you can get your plane in the air, and you can start frontloading. The sacrifice. Whatever that means for you today is what you need to do. Yeah, Jule, I completely agree with that. And then so after the break, we're gonna talk about

some tips, specifically if you're younger. We're also going to talk about our thoughts on yellow all right, Matt, this part of the show is for the youngsters out there, like that fourteen year old we mentioned that rode into us. Uh, And if you don't have any kids, it's time to aggressively get after it. You have fewer responsibilities in general pre kids, and you know what, maybe you don't want

kids at all, that's totally cool. But if you do want kids and you don't have any yet, if you're single or a young married couple, whatever it is, you don't think you have as much time as you do.

But in reality, pre kid life is going to be the most time, the most spare time that you have to be able to invest in learning that skill right that we just mentioned, or gaining some experience moving up the ladder in your job, and even just upping the percentage of your paycheck that comes out into your or four oh one k or yeah. Man, when when you're young,

like now is the time because you have time. And that's not to say that what you're working on right now when you're younger isn't important, but the fact is is life just gets busier if you add kids to the equation, or if you add additional responsibilities, there's just less time to put towards financial independence or whatever your goals might be. And Joel, I know when I was in my twenties, I thought that this is probably as

busy as my life is going to get. But the fact is, like when you add kids to the mix, when you add additional responsibilities, life does just get busier. And even if you're not going to have kids, you have parents that are getting older, you have different family obligations.

There's things in your community, schools and organizations that you believe in that your volunteering, and that's okay, and like that's great honestly, because you're aligning yourself with things that you believe in and doing things in a way that you feel will help you to live a better life. All I'm saying, though, is that you're gonna have less time to do that hard work, and it's much easier

to do that hard work when you're younger. Essentially, you're kind of laying this foundation, right, and if you put together a really solid foundation for a house, it just becomes so much easier to build the house. And if you put together kind of a crummy, haphazard, uh not well planned out foundation, the house is going to be misshapen. It's gonna be much harder to build the house. The angles are gonna be off, it's just gonna be difficult

to produce. So at the same time, for for young people building this foundation for the rest of their lives, it's really important to kind of get started in building those skills, the experiences, and starting to actually put money aside for the future. Now that is front loading the sacrifice. The other thing, Matt, is that you have more energy at a young age, and so you know, we're in our mid thirties, our energy is a little more SAPs kind of by the other things that we have going on.

I just look back to my early twenties and the the amount of energy that I had to tackle the things before me, I was totally willing to work weekends, nights, whatever it was. Now I just don't have that willingness and I don't have the energy to to make that happen. And so if you are younger, just realize that your energy level isn't going to stay the same for forever.

I'm not saying that like we're old dudes and we're tapped out that, but but there is an element to which we just don't have as much energy to produce as much as we did earlier on. And that's another checkbox in in favor of kind of frontloading some of that sacrifice in order to kind of reap some of those benefits down the road. Edull, you know what you mentioned. You mentioned willingness to do that work, and honestly, I feel like for me it's more of the willingness versus

the actual physical energy. Like, honestly, right now, I feel like I'm in better shape than I was in my twenties. Like I I really do think I might have more energy, like my body hurts a little more, like I have to stretch more because of getting older. But for me, it's a mental energy. I don't have the same bandwidth that I had when I was in my twenties. Again, because of these additional responsibilities. There's things that I'm required to think about, like my family and my kids, and

that I love to think about. It's not like it's just a requirement, but there are things that take energy, and for me, I guess yeah, maybe it's just more that mental energy. So that's all great advice for when you're younger to aggressively get after before you have kids. To not underestimate the fact that your energy is going to lessen over time and that you're just not going to have as much time to dedicate to building that

foundation as you grow older. But what does this mean if you already have kids or meaningful responsibilities in your life? And I love what doc G said. He said, yolo is a no no, and that's because you want to be able to face new stages of life prepared and able to enjoy them. Well, j yeah, I think that's the Like, that's the key question here is like what does this mean for you if you do already have kids?

Another stuff going on personally, Like I have a family with young kids, and I'm already at that stage of life. And while I have made some smart financial decisions in my life, I'm not financially independent. My plan is to continue to be smart with my money now, but my goal isn't to go at it with everything I've got, Like I'm not trying to achieve financial independence. Uh, not trying to achieve retirement at a super young age. And I think, especially when you have kids, like you have

to take that balanced approach. I know doc G, he has kids, and I think he would say the same thing like once you have kids on the scene, once you have these additional responsibilities, you still can work towards your goals. You can still work towards financial independence or to travel more or whatever it is that you're going after. It's just a lot harder and it's gonna take a little bit longer, but it's still totally doable. Like even you and I doing this podcast, like, this is something

we enjoy. We're both we have lots of responsibilities, but this is something that we love to do, and it's totally worth it for us to put forth the effort

and try to create something that we love. Yeah, Matt, And what I think d G was getting at Matt with the with the yolo comment, I think I may think obviously, if you look at looking up the hashtag on Instagram, you probably see a lot of people doing some crazy stuff with their money, blowing it in all sorts of different ways, completely sacrificing the future for the present. And that can be a mistake, especially that one makes

in their youth. And so I think if you're listening to this podcast and you're young, first off, kudos to you, because that's rare. You're in you're you're in rare territory, just listening to a podcast giving financial advice and realizing the fact that a little bit of pushing that marshmallow down the road, not buying into the yellow mentality and stacking up possessions and expensive experiences today because you only

live once. Realizing that, like Doc g said, every new stage of life is going to bring new and interesting things and exciting things along the way with it. I think that just makes the idea of delayed gratification that much easier. Yeah, the yellow hashtag, I feel like it definitely involves a lot more bullying, a lot more shiny and fancy cocktails, maybe going to like the fire Festival

or something like that. But I mean, at the same time, though, like even when it comes to parenting, I think you can overdo it when it comes to if you kind of go into it with more of that yellow mindset. Right, And I'm not at all advocating that you're broke by the time your kids go off to college. All right, we have the best eighteen years of our lives, but now we're broke and we don't have any money save

towards retirement at all. You can overdo it whether you're living that young twenties single lifestyle or even as a parent. I think there's a lot of different ways that you can overspend and have yellow as that excuse. Yeah, man, I feel like on the note of parenting too, once, once you kind of enter that phase of life, you are willing to kind of step back in the amount of work that you're willing to take on. You're willing to make sacrifices in order to enjoy time with your kids,

with your family. That doesn't always have to, like you said, mean just a lot of expense. It doesn't have to mean spending a lot of money. And so there's a way to pursue the things in life that are meaningful, like relationships, community, family, in a way that allows you to still prioritize saving and investing. The most important things in life usually don't cost much money. Usually what it means is working a little bit less and being a

little more intentional. And I think that's okay, right, that's okay, But that yolo lifestyle is just kind of antithetical to what we're trying to achieve, and it's definitely gonna prevent you from achieving some of those ultimate goals that you do want to achieve. So we're gonna talk about our thoughts on this beer, but man, let's first talk about our final thoughts from this episode. And Doc g He says that money that you make as a young person, it's going to be that fuel for your flight, that

jet fuel. However, keep in mind that this doesn't mean that you have to make all your money early in your career, Like you don't have to make tons of money like this isn't the money that you'll be retiring on. The majority of the money that you were hier on is going to be the fruit of the money that you're investing now. It's going to be essentially like the grand grand grandchildren money of the money that you're investing now.

And so I don't want people to hear this and think like jet fuel, Oh I've got a stock up, like this is the only chance I have to actually save any money. What you do need to make sure that you're doing now is taking that money that you are earning and get that ball rolling by investing it. Yeah, you gotta get started at least, right. That can be the hardest part, and it's also really important to use

kind of frugality to help you. It's not necessary to have a huge income in order to get started, and Matt, a big income also isn't necessary in order to kind

of reach some of these goals. They're countless examples of people striving after financial independence that make reasonable salaries, and someone earning a reasonable salary can use the tenants of frugality in order to kind of help them on their path, essentially growing that gap between what you earn and what goes out and then investing the rest right, and then you start that compound interest train going, and you're also kind of cutting out those unnecessary exp is you're not

accruing debt and paying interest for lifestyle purchases. And in the same way that compounding interest is a massive benefit to you over the decades, well, compounding losses paying high interest rates for debt that you accrue for lifestyle purchases, that's going to have the opposite effect. But I think the most beautiful thing about this topic is that you can start frontloading the sacrifice now, no matter what age you are, if you're eighteen or if you're fifty two,

you can start frontloading the sacrifice now. Start by identifying that goal keep on it with laser like focus, and that little bit of extra effort now is going to be mean a much smoother ride for you in the future. Awesome, Joe. Let's go ahead and take it now back to the beer. Huge things again to Leo out with Spindle Tap Brewery for sending us a bunch of beers. We're drinking aggressive additions I p A. And I'll kick this one off, man,

I really really like this beer. This is fantastic. This was a hazy, hoppy I p A. And specifically some of the flavors I picked up on it were a funky blue cheese like hot flavor. And I've gotten confirmation from other guys that are into beer that they taste the same sort of profile, you know I'm talking about. I do. I kind of love like an I p A that's like hoppy, so happy that it's got that funk level addition the aftertaste that goes on your tongue.

It's so nice. Yeah, yeah, it's so blue cheese is the best way to describe it. Where it's like the sharpness, which sounds weird. Yeah, it sounds really weird to say. I think most people listening who haven't tasted a beer like that. They're gonna say, that's weird. Why do those guys drink beers like that? That sounds disgusting. Why you're drinking blue cheese? But yeah, it's not quite so that funk level. But it's just this just enough sharpness that

you get with a dry blue cheese. Like that kind of weird description, but a very delicious beer. Joel, your thoughts, I don't have any like fancy descriptors or anything like that mad for this one. I just thought it was really, really good, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would drink aggressive editions this beer probably every day of the week. It was like solid, Yeah, the new definition of a

good beer. Yeah, this beer right here exactly. Yeah. So big thanks to to Leo from Spindle Tap Brewery sending this out to us man. We really appreciate it. Thanks Leo, and so Joel. That's gonna be it for this episode. Thanks everyone so much for listening. We really appreciate it. We'll have some show notes up on the website at how some money dot com, and we'll throw some links up there as well. If you want to check out some more stuff by Doc G and a quick reminder

of the doc. G co hosts a podcast called What's Up Next, and it's a roundtable discussion of topics related to financial independence. And he does a really good job leading the conversation, having on interesting voices. So I thoroughly enjoy his podcast, and I think if you care about money, it's worth checking out for sure. And we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. And if you like this episode and he found it helpful, we would appreciate your review on Apple Podcasts, and don't

forget to hit the subscribe button. Why you're there, And if you think Matt and I have room for improvement, head on over to how the Money dot com slash do better. We love your feedback there as well, all right, Joel, So until next time, Best friends out, Best Friends Out, M M.