Speaker 1
So in fact in real estate obviously in their state income tax in Florida, but um, it's it's relatively It's not somewhere it's not as expensive like, you know, Myers, Miami, those sorts of areas down south. Palm Beach. Yeah, exactly. Palm Beach. Jacksonville is pretty economical. It's one of the islands.
Speaker 2
So is there some geographic arbitrage that played there as well? I don't know what part of the country you're from originally, but... Yeah,
Speaker 1
I'm originally from Kentucky, my wife in Africa, Kentucky. So we actually just came down here on a whim. We vacationed here once and said, hey, it's great weather. If people vacation here, it must be something going on. Well, and then kind of a nice little hurt was no state income tax. So we just went down here on a whim didn't know anybody with a little kiddo too. So
Speaker 2
okay, so how many in your family now? So
Speaker 1
we have two kiddos 13 year old girl and a seven year old girl. Okay,
Speaker 2
so your net worth is about six million. How is that divided up?
Speaker 1
Yep, so that's it. That's including everything as far as what we have equity in homes that we have. So the majority of it about a little over four million is in our Vanguard brokerage account. So that includes a Roth IRA for myself and my wife. We do the back door every year. And that includes both of our girls 529 plants are in there as well. And then all the kind of post tax accounts that are there. So that's four points, but probably about 4.4 million there. And then we have about 40,000 or somebody's down here, we have about $40,000 in I bonds. My 401k with our group have about 250,000 there in a bank account. And there's a little too much in this just a low interest checking account, but I have it just if we need it for something that comes up. There's $125,000 there. Another online bank account, we have $50,000 there. And our health savings accounts, we have about nine grand between my wife and myself and each of our health savings accounts our personal residents right now we owe 227,000 on it and it can sell now for 600,000. So that's about 350,000 in equity there and then we have two rental properties one is a short-term rental on the oceanfront property and there's 400,000 in equity if we were to sell that. And then our long-term rental that we have is we pay cash for that. So there's no debt on that home. And if we had to sell it now, all those homes are kind of selling for $250,000. So
Speaker 2
how does the short-term rental cash flow? I
Speaker 1
would say that cash flows this year has been probably the the slowest year and I think just from Economy talks and inflation so there's less discretionary income for everybody a FERCO But we'll take the kids up there. It's going away an hour away. So we'll just use it if it's not rented But that on average, I would say we would net About thirty thousand dollars every year. Okay.
Speaker 2
So you talked a little bit about debt. You have a couple mortgages. Did you have student loan debt from out of school? Yep,
Speaker 1
out of dental school. No undergrad student debt. I had an athletic scholarship and some academic scholarship. So luckily, I could go through that with no debt in undergrad. In dental school, I was able to leave with only $50,000 of debt. And a lot of that was from my wife. I couldn't have done any of this without her. And, you know, because she's a speech therapist. That's what her profession is. But so she was actually out of school and practicing for two of the four years I was in dental school. And pretty much all of her salary was what paid our bills and allowed me to take out such little amounts of loans. And I can be extreme in frugality and a lot of people wouldn't have put up with what I did. Even though I kept reassuring her there was a method to the madness. without her. She was able to really kind of forfeit any of her luxuries from her being the sole breadwinner at the time just so I could take out as few loans as possible. So a lot of that, having such little debt is from her to literally kind of paying for school as much as she could. I
Speaker 2
mean, it's interesting the kind of discussions you may have had with her about frugality and about saving money. Were you guys always on the same page financially or did how was it for you guys?
Speaker 1
I would say she's kind of middle of the road as far as saving and spending or I've had numerous talks about this. I know I can be at the extreme end of saving to where it's almost overkill. An example I can use is I always remember this, one of our utility bills when we lived in because I did dental school at the University of Kentucky, like I said in front of Kentucky, one of our utility bills for the month was like $18, which is like, I don't know, like I think base charges, I don't even know how it got that low. So. It started in
Speaker 2
the dark, and how did that work?
Speaker 1
stuff that she put up with. But you know, I always said this is temporary. I'm trying to let's get out of here with the least amount of debt as possible. Because you know, I had classmates six times that amount of debt six, seven times now. But you know, she keeps me even though I'm still frugal to this day. I think I've made a lot of progress. But even she has to like slap some sense into me because I could I could borderline save just to be saving which makes like no sense whatsoever, right? Well,
Speaker 2
yeah, I mean, that's that's that's the big question like see you've amassed this this huge nest egg It sounds like you don't have to work if you don't want to be financially independent. Sure. At what point is I mean Jim talks About this how much is how much is enough but for you who has certainly has a mindset of saving saving saving? Let's you know, I to study by candlelight and have an $18 utility bill. How do you then go to be like, oh, okay, let's spend some money now? Like how do you make that transition in your mindset? Right.
Speaker 1
And that is a dilemma with me. I remember when we first got married and her late father said, Phil, it's going to be hard for you to turn on spending this one day. I'm like, oh, no, the easy part. When in reality, I am comfortable now with the lifestyle I have, but it is still harder for me to spend money than it is to save money. And I read a book recently, I'm sure you guys are familiar, but Die with Zero. And that kind of opened my eyes a little bit where the concept of almost working for free, that kind of makes it a little more tangible. So if you have all this money and you're just saving to be saving that you're literally working for free because you'll never use any of that money. So I'm really trying to make a conscious effort here. So I bought a new vehicle in 2019, as you probably assume paid cash for it. But up until then, I was driving the vehicle ahead in high school. So that year, I made $700. I was still driving like the vehicle ahead in high school. So a five-speed Toyota Celica manual transmission love that thing But um, you know pulling into the physician parking lot. They're like dude who's parking it?
Speaker 2
To truck out here this decoders belong in here. Yeah,
Speaker 1
right. I have all kinds of funny stories like that But um for me now, you know, hopefully everyone gets more mature as they age. I'm really making a conscious effort to spend what I have. Because I get it, my wife kind of always puts it in perspective that you know they're saying you can't take it with you. But still, even for me, I am always, and probably forever will always be more comfortable if I had to save versus spend. But I think I've made progress and I still got more progress to go. you know, I did buy a nice vehicle. My wife has a nice vehicle. We have a nice home. It's nowhere near what I qualified for to borrow for. So you know, I'm making progress because I tell my wife, you know, bear with me because I think I'm still spending a ton because I could be like, have a much smaller house, even older car, but I saw I'm making progress. I know that I'm the outlier.
Speaker 2
Have you have you made first class reservations yet for an airplane? Have you done that yet? That's the next step for you?
Speaker 1
We did not do that. But for our 15 year wedding anniversary, we did, which is 2020 COVID, I did splurge and I got us over the water bungalows at the Sandals Resort, but COVID happened and got canceled. I pulled the trigger. I did pull the trigger. Somebody was saying, not yet Phil, not yet. Yeah, that was a pretty penny, but any COVID happened and it was because I think it was in May, they closed everything. So I pulled some bigger purchases now.
Speaker 2
All right, well, I believe in you. I believe you can make happen I think I can do
Speaker 1
any other crazy thing once I do purchase it. I mean, it's like it's to what we have It's such a nominal amount that like you don't even miss it from the checking account and it's like, okay That wasn't that bad. I can do this. I
Speaker 2
mean if you if you would have gone to that standards resort He is very likely you could have come back a richer person than when you left even though you spend a bunch of money on that Right. So So, sure. Right. Okay, Phil. So, you know, you obviously have a lot of advice to give, I think you've changed careers slightly, you've made a bunch of money, you're trying to get your spending, not in check, whatever the opposite of in check is, what do you what kind of advice do you have for somebody who is in your position, coming out of school with a little bit of debt, not too much, young family, what kind of advice do you have for something like that?
Speaker 1
I think your relationship with money and how you view that is very important and what gives you true joy. So if you're someone who does like accumulating a lot of nice material things, which has nothing wrong with that, that's one of the things I understand that, you know, I like nice things too. But to be attached to that and have your happiness and joy and fulfillment tied to that, I think it's almost impossible to get financial independence. And that's because there's a negative correlation with saving money, right? If I'm saving money, then I'm depriving myself of something physical that I like. So my correlation, and I think it's just an innate thing, I've never really valued material things too much. I do like them. But if I didn't have them, it'd be okay. So I'd rather stay in a nice, short hotel room. But if I didn't have one, if there wasn't one available, I'd be fine staying in whatever. So if you can shift what you value, so for me, it's time with my family. It's finding joy in little things, as trite as that sounds. Playing with my kids, that doesn't cost anything, really. My hobby of working out and running, that's a nominal cost. So saving money is almost on autopilot. And it's not, I don't feel like I'm depriving myself of anything. And then along those lines, I think, you know, you hear the word budget all the time. And I think the same thing, the psychology of money that you have, if you hear the word budget, all of a sudden you feel kind of a constriction. You feel handcuffs. You feel deprivation. Whereas, luckily, as I've been to accumulate a decent amount of money, I've never really made a budget and I've never tracked our spending. And that's because I will save a certain amount first. We're saving this much all the time. And then once ever leftover we can spend freely. So it's kind of like the IRS, right? They take what they owe first and then give you the rest. So I don't budget and then save what's leftover, always save a certain amount. And then it's easier to spend because I know we already took care of the savings portion. So all that is easier if you're, again, your relationship with money, what it can provide, you know, is something that more free time than material goods, so to speak. Yeah,
Speaker 2
spoken like a true super saver. That's great. Well, hey, congratulations. You're, you're going to be a decamillionaire before you know it. You come back, you come back on the podcast, probably two years from now when you have that much money. And we'll talk about what you're actually, if you're still practicing, and maybe, maybe you'll be, maybe you'll have gone to Sandals by then, and you'll have experienced all that you can experience.