Journey To Launch

Episode 373: Overcoming Poverty, Divorce, and Achieving FIRE with an Over $1 Million Portfolio w/ Jackie Cummings Koski

May 8, 2024

48:02

This week on the Journey to Launch Podcast, we have Jackie Cummings Koski, author of the award winning book “Money Letters 2 my Daughter” and her new book, “F.I.R.E. for Dummies”. Jackie overcame poverty, divorce and single motherhood and despite having a late start and making less than six figures, she reached Financial Independence and Retire Early (FIRE) at age 49 in 2019 when she officially retired from her corporate job with a net worth of over $1 million. Jackie shares with us the importance of mindset and reframing attitudes towards money, strategies for managing retirement finances, & how you too can reach financial freedom even if you are starting later in life.

In This Episode you’ll learn:

How Jackie used the 25x rule to get her FI number, and what financial habits helped her reach FI in 10 years, despite being in a difficult financial situation after her divorce.
How shifting your mindset from saving for retirement to investing for financial independence, can make it exciting to save and invest.
Why she initially struggled with the emotional aspect of withdrawing money from her investment accounts in early retirement, and how her net worth increased to 2.8 million by 2024, even after making withdrawals
Example of retirement planning strategies for early retirees, including Social Security benefits and tax-free withdrawals
How Jackie’s daughter has been her biggest cheerleader and how her views on work and retirement differ from Jackie’s as she is part of a different generation, Gen Z.

Watch the video to this episode on YouTube by going to https://youtu.be/JARjqHD1r0s