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Picking back up with the Household of FI series, Vivian is a single mom who found FI in the last year, but initially, it seemed impossible. It wasn't until she was introduced to the ChooseFI podcast and saw real people reaching financial independence that she believed she could do it too. Vivian has been dealing with a number of challenges: a cancer diagnosis, a child custody battle, and caring for parents who have no savings of their own. As a pharmacist, she earns a significant income. She's already managed to pay off $300,000 in student loans in six years and believes she can save $60,000 a year. Vivian has been paired with mentor, Leslie Tayne, also a single mom and attorney who helps people with debt relief. Leslie acknowledges that what Vivian is going through with her separation is one the most challenging times in her life and it is a very emotional experience along with being financially damaging. However, there is a light on the other side and she will come out with more freedom and more control. Because her significant other's mom used to watch her child while she was a work, childcare is a challenge right now. Childcare is expensive and not something you can find discounts on. As an attorney, Leslie helps her clients to fix their financial messes without judgment. She doesn't believe in a debt-free life since life has its ups and downs. Instead, it's okay if being debt-free is not realistic. We should learn to embrace our debt but what is important is how you manage the debt. Due to the separation, Vivian will be selling the house that is entirely in her name. If she makes a profit, she should talk to her tax preparer about qualifying for a capital gains exemption. Vivian is also interested in ways to save for her child's college education to which Leslie offers several options: contributing to a 529 plan, a state pre-pay program, or a regular savings account. There are tax advantages to contributing to a 529 plan over a savings account and should Vivian's child decide to not go to school, the money in the 529 plan may be used for grandchildren or withdrawn with earnings taxed at regular income tax rates. The Texas pre-pay option would allow Vivian to lock in current undergraduate tuition rates and required fees. When it comes to budgeting for groceries, Leslie says that her family mostly eats at home and orders out just once a week. One trick to not overspending at the grocery store is not to take the children with you, shop with a list, don't allow yourself to get distracted, and buy non-perishables in bulk. When you have no choice but to bring your child with you, you can allow them to pick one item so that they can pick something they want without filling your cart with everything they want. It limits your financial exposure when shopping. While eating out, rather than order a kid's meal, share bites of your own meal, and develop a taste for adult foods. Vivian's daughter is not yet attending pre-K schooling, due to the virus but may be able to find reasonably-priced options that give her the option to socialize. Because her significant other has not been cooperative during their separation, all of the attorney costs and other fees have gotten be very expensive. Vivian needs to be as cooperative as possible to limit her financial exposure. Leslie says a good piece of advice is don't marry or get involved with anyone you don't want to be divorced from. It's often advisable to keep finances separate in a relationship and protect any assets with a prenup or postnup because it is very tricky to untangle them should the relationship end. Everyone should look at what deciding to combine finances in a relationship really means and how it impacts things. Brad reviewed the capital gains tax question and said because Vivian has lived there for at least two of the last five years, she would be eligible for up to $250,000 in capital gains tax exclusion. The decisions being made should be ones that will make life better over the long-term. Brad's goal is to set the groundwork for a successful life. Jonathan notes that Vivian doesn't appear to have an issue with her savings rate, instead, she may be at risk of slipping into a deprivation state. To fight this urge, Brad believes we need to have a better idea of what the path looks like for her. As ChooseFI follows Vivian during this study, she will need to better understand her expenses and her FI number. She needs to have a sense of where she is to know where she is going. ChooseFI recognizes that some audience members are just finding and joining us now. ChooseFI is building out a curated path to help you figure out where you are and what information will serve you best. Sign up to receive this information and more at ChooseFI.com/start. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION ChooseFI Episode 155 FI for Single Parents The Tayne Law Group Compare life insurance policies with Policygenius Get 80,000 Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Sapphire Preferred Get back to basics with ChooseFI! IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

Building a business online has never been easier than right now, but Corbett Barr was forging his path in the early 2000s when it was hard. We're diving into his origin story to learn what gave him motivation and why he believed entrepreneurship was for him. Working as a consultant in Fortune 500 companies, Corbett had the kind of job a lot of people really wanted and could build a career around. Though he wasn't aware of financial independence at the time, he didn't want to climb the ladder only to find it had been leaning up against the wrong wall. Unhappy with his career, he was nudged toward entrepreneurship but was scared to take the leap until a friend asked if he wanted to become involved in a new project, which he was able to do without risking any of his own money. In his early 20s, Corbett was furloughed from his job during the 2000-01 financial crisis. During his efforts to stay afloat, he was ashamed and learned how important it is to save as much as possible. His savings gave him enough of a cushion to last a year or so in order to find out if he had what it takes to be an entrepreneur. His picture of entrepreneurship at the time was working yourself to the bone, sleeping under your desk, and hitting a home run before earning a bunch of money and doing whatever he wanted. But he found that he still had a host people he still needed to answer to and felt even more trapped than if he were an employee. After putting in so much time, effort, and money, it was painful to realize he didn't have much to show for it. But after having a taste of entrepreneurship, it was hard to imagine going back. Rather than jump into another project, Corbett and his wife took an eight-month sabbatical in Mexico to clear his head, reset and pivot. The Mexican sabbatical allowed him to put some space between himself and the friends, family, and San Francisco venture capitalists influencing his life to see that something else was possible. It was around that time he discovered concepts of location, independence, lifestyle design, and digital nomads. He realized that perhaps what he wanted wasn't to be wealthy, but instead to have enough time and control to do the things he wanted, like working on the things he wanted or spending time with friends and family. When discussing the dark side of entrepreneurship, Corbett says we don't often see the path of destructions can leave in people's lives. However, it has become much more democratized in recent years where you don't have to take investment money or big-name advertisers. It allows you to really be in control and think about how you go about doing it. Though he originally envisioned building a product and then finding customers who wanted it, he decided to go with an audience first business where he would find customers who wanted a product he would then build for them. An audience first strategy ends up taking a lot of the risk out of things. In the beginning stages of entrepreneurship, it's all about finding your topic and what you are going o building toward. It's good to jump into something you are interested in and can become good at. It can take experimentation and doesn't necessarily come overnight. Something that Corbett teaches is "minimum viable income" where you cut back all of the fat. Though he jumped in with both feet and lived off savings, people like Brad did things on the side. And adding an extra thousand or two in income through a side project, it can change the entire trajectory in terms of FI. Some of Corbett's observations about working for yourself are: you have no one to blame but you, when you work for yourself, you don't have to worry about a new boss, you decide when you work and when you don't, no pointless, actionless meetings, no cubicles, and the coffee is amazing. When living a nomadic lifestyle, Corbett and his wife consider the total annual cost of their home base, including any rent they might receive back. Some locations are better than others, so you may need to get creative about it. In 2009, when Corbett began building his audience first business, he began with free ebooks on affiliate marketing, followed by an online course, and then another, and another. He began to realize that he wanted to layer coaching and community on it. He's been doing that through Fizzle since 2012, along with a podcast. Free consultations are a great way to understand what questions your audience has and then build it into your product. There are ways to ease into charging for the product you are creating to find out if it's viable. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Quickly and securely send money to people with PayPal Get a $75 credit to boost your job posting on Indeed.com Wondering what it would look like to make work optional? Go back through the ChooseFI archives or visit ChooseFI.com/start IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

Going back to the basics of ChooseFI being a crowdsourced show, Brad and Jonathan address what's going on in the FI community with a wild card Friday episode. Why revisit content that's already been discussed? After several years of introducing new ideas, the ChooseFI audience may be in a different place financially and ready for a refresher on some of the more advanced concepts presented earlier in the show's history. And newer listeners may not have combed through the archives and missed out on topics relevant to their situation. This episode back to basics provides an orientation of what ChooseFI hopes to deliver. Goals for the podcast are to introduce a new idea or story during the Monday episode. But not every strategy or tactic works for everyone. Friday's Roundup episode looks at that idea from different perspectives, incorporates audience feedback, and seeks to answer additional questions. The FI Weekly is the email Brad sends out every Tuesday where he provides subscribers with ideas to ponder, inspire, and motivate people on their own journey and shares what actions he is taking to make his life a little bit better. Opt in to receive Brad's email, The FI Weekly, at ChooseFI.com/start. Financial independence means different things to different people. For Jonathan, it means he has options allowing him to choose what he does during the best years of his life. For Brad, it means freedom, giving him the ability to live life on his terms, spending time with his family. Pursuing financial independence doesn't mean living a life of deprivation. It's about choice. No one should tell you how to spend your time, your freedom, or what to spend your money on. You have the freedom to spend money on an expensive car if you choose, as long as you understand the impact of that decision. It's not even about being at financial independence or not. Simply being on the path to FI gives you options. Whether you're in a toxic situation at work or want to pursue a passion project, just working toward FI gives you options those on the standard path cannot afford to take. Sharing stories from the community and discussing the decisions they have made broadens and brings to light the scope of options available to the variety of personal challenges you may have. The pursuit of financial independence is not necessarily about hitting that FI number. It's a life optimization strategy. If you are working in a low-wage job and don't see the path, you can be trained in a new industry and be making $60-80K within six months. Check out the Talent Stacker podcast. Shane recently posted in the ChooseFI Facebook Group, "I'm a recent college graduate, 23 years old. What advice would you give yourself when you were my age regarding investments, retirement/401K, and student loans? I want to invest, but I also have about $30,000 worth of student debt, but I'm only making around $41,000 a year." Brad notes that a lot of people like Shane are looking for tips or special advice that will get them to financial success, but that there's nothing complex about it. It comes down to savings rate and time. Increasing savings rate is easier when you reduce your structural expenses. If your life doesn't cost much, you can increase your savings. When first starting out, Brad and Laura weren't making high salaries, but they set themselves up for success by moving to a city with a lower cost of living, purchased a home with a reasonable mortgage, and have driven the same car since 2003. These choices allowed them to have a 50% savings rate and meant if Laura decided to stop working once they had kids, they would be fine. Brad and Laura became wealthy because they didn't care about looking wealthy. With some quick math, Jonathan calculates for Shane to have a 50% savings rate, his monthly expenses will need to be $1,700 a month. With a mortgage and expensive car payment, that may be difficult. He might do well trying something like house hacking. Shane could purchase 4 bedroom house, rent out rooms to friends and cut his housing expenses down to $300 a month. 40% of most people's expenses go to housing and transportation. Optimizing in just those two high-cost areas can make a huge difference in your savings rate. Anchoring yourself to a food budget of $2 per person per meal per day in another way to reduce a major expense category. Laura sits down once a week to plan out several meals for the week, making enough to have as leftovers on a second night. The meals she cooks average that $2 per person per meal goal which helps them save over $1,000 on eating out and picking up convenience foods at the grocery store. A rough target for housing expenses is 25% of your take home pay. For investing, Brad recommends Shane begin with low-cost index fund investing and JL Collins' book The Simple Path to Wealth. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Build your plan NewRetirement Sign up to get The FI Weekly delivered to your inbox every Tuesday! Switch to Mint Mobile Order you copy of Raising Your Money-Savvy Family for Next Generation Financial Independence by Carol Pittner and Doug Nordman ChooseFI Episode 232 Raising Your Money-Savvy Family for Next Generation Finical Independence Build new skills and create your own opportunity with the Talent Stacker podcast ChooseFI Episode 016 House Hacking with Coach Carson ChooseFI Episode 148R Expense Ratios and House Hacking ChooseFI Episode 022 The Ultimate Guide to the True Cost of Car Ownership Download ChooseFI's $2 per person per meal cookbook ChooseFI Episode 023 Career Hacking with ESI Money ChooseFI Episode 211 How to Negotiate Your Salary Without Burning Bridges with The Financial Mechanic ChooseFI Episode 147 Negotiate Your Salary with Tori Dunlap ChooseFI Episode 019 The Stock Series Part 1 with JL Collins JLCollinsnh.com Get started on your own path to financial independence at ChooseFI.com/start IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

Everyone's path to FI is going to look a little bit different and there is so much we can learn from each other. Hoping to inspire and share lessons learned through conversations with community members, Brad and Jonathan speak with Julia Harder, an active duty member of the Coast Guard, is already well on her path to FI. Always a natural saver, Julia was influenced by her dad, who stressed the importance of investing, and Dave Ramsey's teachings that debt is bad. She was on a good financial path, yet she still felt something was missing. Though it sounds counterintuitive, Julia's path to financial independence began with divorce. Prioritization to her marriage, she rarely spent money on anything she didn't absolutely need. During her marriage, her husband helped her learn that some spending can be a good thing. Unfortunately, he was an irresponsible spender and there were months Julia found she couldn't pay all of the bills. Although she knew something was wrong, she failed to listen to her instincts and all of the red flags that kept popping up. she just assumed everything would be okay rather than taking a step back and thinking about it critically. Following her divorce, she was left with a $300,000 mortgage, a $20,000 car loan, no savings, and was feeling like she had hit rock bottom financially. Following Dave Ramsey's advice, Julia began to follow his steps to get back on her feet and find herself and her financial objectives again. Julia was all in on Dave Ramsey's strategies. She cut up her credit cards, began using cash for everything, and made a budget every month. It gave her discipline and solidified her habits. She found ChooseFI in May 2019 after she began teaching personal finance to other members of her Coast Guard unit. The thought of optimizing investments and taxes really caught her attention. It was exciting to begin taking action to optimize her money in these areas as well. It was more difficult to come around with respect to travel rewards credit cards, but because she had learned to be disciplined with her budget, she could spend money on a rewards credit card and begin optimizing her travel spending too. Before ChooseFI, Julia thought she was killing it with her 15% savings rate. She assumed 59 and a half was the earliest she could retire because that's the age her finical advisors had given her. She was blown away when a ChooseFI guest discussed their 70% savings rate. It was then that she realized she could control so much more than current her zone of awareness concerning savings and retirement. Julia plans on remaining in the Coast Guard until eligible for a pension at 20 years of service. While others often ask if she'll be bored, she has a list of passion projects she can't wait to pursue without having to worry about how to pay the bills. As someone who always enjoyed public speaking, last Fall, she took up book narration after reaching out to a friend with audio experience for help getting started. She's also joined Jonathon's Talent Stacker class and looking to start a podcast. Julia keeps a list of all the things she wants to accomplish and FI will give her the freedom to pursue them without being obligated to a job or other people's expectations. Between Julia's pension, TSP, Roth IRA, and a taxable brokerage account, she plans to hit Fat FI in 2027 when she becomes eligible for her pension. Calculating a FI number with a pension is a bit different than multiplying annual expenses by 25. Julia estimated her pension using the military's pension calculator. She multiplied the difference between her pension and her expenses to calculate her FI number. While she still follows the tenants of Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps and has met the minimum standards, she believes she has moved on from the standard path of working for 40 years and is more in line with ChooseFI. Jonathon stressed that like Julia, members of the military with a pension, the Roth Conversion Ladder is not going to be a good option since it requires a few years with little to no income. When exploring the idea of a talent stack, some people may have a difficult time identifying what they are really good at. It might start with identifying a pattern in what others tell you you are good at. To watch the video highlights, click on ChooseFI.com/252 RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Get "unstuck" with Jillian Johnsrud and the Everyday Courage podcast Build a better portfolio today with Fund Rise and get your first 90 days of advisory fees waived Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond by Michael A. Singer IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

Martin and Ayesha are both natural savers who have been great about living below their means but lacked a real plan. Their goals are to maximize investments for retirement and finding ways to utilize dividend funds. After stumbling across the ChooseFI podcast, they felt like their financial independence number and retirement seemed obtainable which has helped push them to commit and make even bigger changes. While Martin and Ayesha had a 20-25% savings rate before finding FI, Brad commended them on what a great job they were doing. He also stressed that FI is about living a better life and having the financial security to get you there, not what your savings rate is. Despite the inclination to save, Ayesha always resisted the thought of meticulousness and restrictive budgets. However, she found that she could get behind the idea of focusing on spending on what they truly valued, so they began using Personal Capital as a less obtrusive method of tracking their spending and gaining insight into their habits. Something that Martin and Ayesha place considerable value on are experiences, particularly travel, spending time with friends and family, and being healthy. Instead of getting together at restaurants and spending money on pricey meals out, they began hosting monthly potlucks. Ayesha has found the website Budget Bytes to be incredibly economical when it comes to low-cost recipes and efficient for discovering uses for the ingredients she already has in her refrigerator. It's helped to cut their grocery bill to around $600 per month for their family of 4. Due to quarantine restrictions, Ayesha was out of work for months, which she calls a blessing in disguise. During that free time, they were able to take a deep dive into their spending and immediately saved $500. It also allowed them to slow down and spend more time with family enjoying the outdoors, playing games, and eating all three meals together. Following the time off from work, Ayesha has realized that it does cause her some stress which made her want to buy things. It also strengthened her conviction to reduce her workload within 5 years to perhaps just one day a week so that she can find more joy in the moment. Although Martin enjoyed his two-hour daily commute, working from home during the pandemic has made him more aware of the importance of time. He now strives to make the most of his time and focus on using it in ways that bring him the most value. While their monthly expenses are not constant because life is lumpy, it runs around $3,500 but can go as high as $5,000 a month when home repairs are needed. Martin and Ayesha have a goal of reaching FI in seven years and are looking at exploring several different options to help get them there. With option one, they would withdraw money from an investment account to pay off the mortgage on their home. The money saved on the mortgage payment would then be invested for the next seven years. In option two, they would use their investment account to pay off half of the remaining mortgage and continue to make the monthly mortgage payments which result in a mortgage pay off in seven years. Their third option is to refinance their current mortgage which has 17 years left at 3.3% interest rate to a 15-year loan at 2.6%, but that refinance incurs $7,000 in fees. The payments would remain the same, but the home would be paid off two years earlier. Ayesha likes the idea of not having a mortgage but doesn't want to do it if the numbers don't make sense. However, Martin is okay with a lower net worth if it means they can get rid of their mortgage because he feels they would have more options. Brad admits this is an issue he and many others in the FI community struggle with. With such low-interest rates on mortgages, it's almost always a better option mathematically to keep the money invested, but it doesn't mean it's the right decision for everyone. The psychological aspect needs to be considered. If they would like to pay the mortgage off in seven years, the best thing they can do it to use an amortization calculator and see how much extra they will need to pay each month to have the mortgage paid off in seven years. Martin and Ayesha can then see how that payment fits into their current lifestyle. As a fourth option, Brad pointed out that they can drastically reduce their FI number if they were to pay off their mortgage. With a FI estimate of 1.25 million, using the 4% rule, they would have $4,000 per month. If the mortgage was paid off, they could reduce their monthly expenses by $1,600, and then their FI number is only $750,000. After living through the 2008 housing market crash and not having a plan, and then this most recent market downturn, Martin and Ayesha have realized they may not be as risk-tolerant as they used to believe. Brad suggested having an investor policy statement that they've written down to help them stay the course in times of uncertainty. The biggest takeaway is the being on the path to FI gives you options when you have the freedom and flexibility to create a plan that works to meet your goals and live a better life, even if it isn't always mathematically optimized. It's a common problem to be overwhelmed with all the information we consume about optimizing various aspects of our lives that we end up with analysis paralysis. It's important to remember that we're trying to live better lives. They don't have to perfect or 100% optimized. One final concern Martin and Ayesha have is funding their children's education. Brad admits it may be wishful thinking that the higher education system goes through some sort of dramatic change in the coming years, but he and Laura consider paying $50,000 a year for college to be unpalatable and have stopped putting money into their girls' 529 accounts. Instead, they have tried to normalize the conversation about money in their house and have discussed lower-cost options for college. To watch the video highlights, click on ChooseFI.com/251 RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Create your FI plan today at New Retirement with a free 14-day trial ChooseFI Episode 122 Intro into Dividend Investing ChooseFI Episode 122R Learn More About Dividend Investing Start managing your money with Personal Capital Budget Bytes Slash your food bill with the ChooseFI cookbook! Protect your data with ExpressVPN Register for The Simple StartUp Fall Challenge Get started on the path to financial independence today! IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

Once you realize financial independence is possible for you, how do you ensure the money lessons you've learned are consistently passed down to future generations? Anne Zonca's family is well ahead of their time when it comes to financial independence. When many are focused on second-generation FI, Anne herself is third generation FI working to pass along her family's lessons to her own children. Children of the Great Depression, Anne's grandparents were deeply effected by having lived through it. Starting out in marriage with literally nothing, they worked hard and saved so that they never had to live through a financial situation like that again. Understanding that saving was not enough, they began investing in the stock market in the 1950s. With a formal education, her grandfather stayed informed with the Wall Street Journal and sharing stock tips with his brother. They invested in individual stocks, picking ones they felt were stable, like oil and gas, or utility companies. For stocks that paid dividends, they reinvested the dividends. with this strategy, they were able to build a substantial amount of wealth. Anne's mom recounted stories about how her grandfather got into stock investing, but Anne became more aware of her grandparents investing prowess around 14 when they began gifting stock to their children and grandchildren. While the value of the gifted stock wasn't necessarily a large sum, it was substantial considering they were regularly gifting to 4 children and 11 grandchildren. The gifted stocks were paying decent dividends, but rather than receive a lot of checks for small amounts, the dividends were all reinvested. Though the growth on the stocks gifted to Anne was not enough for her to reach FI, she definitely had a heart start and was learning about stocks and investing at a young age. Her grandparents gifting stock to the family was a win-win scenario as her grandparents did not have to sell the stock and pay capital gains on the appreciated value. Though the recipient bears a tax burden, children are entitled to a certain amount of capital gains each year tax-free. Currently, children can have up to $2,000 of capital gains before being subject to capital gains taxes. Following the example set by her grandparents, Anne's parents were able to achieve financial independence as well through entrepreneurship and real estate. Although preceding generations had reached financial independence, it wasn't wealth being passed on from generation to generation that got them there. It was the lessons of spending less than you make and smartly investing the extra that perpetuated generational success and wealth. Despite her grandparents' success in the stock market, there was remarkably little conversation about investing until the grandkids were older and showed an interest in having such conversations. As a result of the gifted stocks and her parents being good stewards of it for her, Anne was able to use it and graduate from college debt-free. As life is often bumpy, Anne experienced her own financial setback when she divorced her husband and the courts gave her ex-husband half of everything her grandparents had gifted to her. Luckily, the money lessons she had learned allowed her to be in a financial position to leave behind the marriage and move on with her life. Although not everything has gone fairly or smoothly since the divorce, Anne has adopted a great attitude by understanding that it's only money, she will be able to move on, and that she will still reach FI. The advice she would give to anyone else going through a divorce is to work with the things that are burdening you, follow your heart, and don't sacrifice your life, happiness, or the person you want to be over a bad decision. You can work hard and invest. There are still a lot of opportunities to save money, meet goals, and find love. Having been a stay-at-home mom and yoga teacher, Anne needed to get back into the workforce to support herself. A friend advised her to do it scared. The first year was hard, but she built up her skills and got her CPA certification renewed. Anne's grandparents lived long enough to begin gifting stock to their great-grandchildren, so her kids have been the fortunate recipients of these gifts and their associated money lessons. In addition to the stock gifts, Anne started a program of investing pocket change with her kids. Now that they are are in high school, they listen to ChooseFI with her and she's established stock accounts for them so that they can become comfortable investing in stocks and mutual funds. To impart a FI mindset in her children by being an example. Anne drives used cars. She also has them responsible for paying their own car insurance, which incentivizes them to get good grades to earn a discount. And she gives them some say in how Anne she invests money for them. Anne says financial independence means freedom. She can make decisions independent of the financial impact. Second, third, and fourth generations have a distinct advantage when starting out in life with the information, language, and a framework to make their path to FI easier. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Compare life insurance policy rates with PolicyGenius Get your copy of Raising Your Money-Savvy Family for Next Generation Financial Independence by Carol Pittner and Doug Nordman Get started on your own path to FI! IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

Brad is back after taking August off of work as his Red X month. Though his original vacation plans were changed because of COVID, he made the best of it. They spent three weeks in Long Island visiting family, enjoying the pool, board games, and a digital detox. While Brad was away relaxing, Jonathan used that time to work on a couple of big passion projects. During the month of August, Jonathan created a podcast course and membership group. He also started a new podcast as a way to demonstrate to the group how you start one. The Talent Stacker podcast uses the content discussed on ChooseFI but then goes even further and fills in the holes to focus on skills, certificate programs, and career paths that don't require the high cost of college. The first episode of Talent Stacker has already been released and this coming Monday's episode will feature Bradley Rice where he and Jonathan discuss a carer path you can start for free with no talent stack, no career, and no experience and after 6 months of training, you can make a minimum of 60-80K with the ability to scale for an even higher income. The Talent Stacker membership program has lifetime guaranteed access where they will work with you to as long as it takes to get you working in that new job earning $60,000. Programs such as the one discussed on next Monday's Talent Stacker episode are becoming more popular with examples like Google's new career certificate program which also takes about 6 months to complete at a fraction of the cost of traditional college. The Vice President of Global Affairs at Google, Kent Walker, stated they consider the certificate to be the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles. The next Households of FI family featured this week is Carol, sho found FI in 2020. In her mid-50s, Carol claims she is financially illiterate and does not want to end up being a burden to her child. Her goals are to change her deprivation mindset when it comes to money, retire with financial security, and kick her lifelong issues with credit cards. Carol was introduced to financial planner, Roger Whitney, to come up with a financial plan of attack. Since finding FI, Carol has jumped right in reading and listening to as much as she can. In that time, she has cut her debt in half. She believes her first steps should be to pay off debt, start an emergency fund, and begin saving aggressively for retirement. She also knows she needs a mindset shift. Carol struggles with budgets, but she's contributing to her 401(k) for the first time and is only giving herself a small amount of spending money with everything extra going to savings after her bills have been paid. Roger suggests there are two ways to tackle the mindset issue, either toughen up and do it, or set up a system to capture her excess money. Rather than focus on the big hill Carol needs to climb, Roger wants her to focus on what little thing she needs to do next to begin to create momentum. He also suggests that having a community like ChooseFI is great for providing encouragement, assistance, and being a virtual mentor. Carol wants to know which is more important paying off her credit cards or building her emergency fund. Because she's been good about not using her credit cards and they have a high-interest rate, Roger wants her to focus on paying off her cards with every extra dollar she has. Second, Carol should set up a system for how she manages her money. It can be helpful to have income deposited into a savings account we don't see and then transfer spending money to checking accounts at another bank. After paying bills and buying groceries and gas, Carol has about $200 leftover at the end of the month before she receives her commissions from sales. With her commission checks, she would like to save 50-60% of her income. Carol's company offers both a traditional 401(k) and a Roth 401(k), but she is unsure what the differences are. Roger explains with a traditional 401(k) contributions and growth are tax-deferred until withdrawn, while Roth 401(k) contributions are made from post-tax income and grow tax-free. The next two levers Carol needs to focus on are earning as much as she can in commissions which is the most effective way to make the plan work. The next lever is to hang on to the money she is earning. Side hustles are another area Carol is looking at to increase her earnings. She's already published two books and is working on a third, as well as looking for another side hustle. Since she enjoys writing, Roger suggested that Carol could share her journey on her blog and collect readers and be an inspiration. Mentioning that seeing her M1 Finance account grow, Roger thinks it would be useful to set up a system around that kind of excitement for continued encouragement. To watch the video highlights, click on ChooseFI.com/249. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Freelance to Freedom by Vincent Pugliese Total Life Freedom Talent Stacker Podcast Google Career Certificates Register for The Simple StartUp Fall Challenge Get your copy of Raising Your Money-Savvy Family for Next Generation Financial Independence by Carol Pittner and Doug Nordman The Retirement Answer Man Podcast Rock Retirement Club Rock Retirement: A Simple Guide to Help You Take Control and Be More Optimistic About the Future by Roger Whitney The Retirement Manifesto M1 Finance Review IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

What does it look like when you are invested in building wealth, environmentalism, and sustainability? How do you combine raising your net worth while optimizing these other areas of your life? You build a holistic approach to the different types of capital. Laura learned about the different forms of capital through her experiences with permaculture, which is a design science that looks to nature as an example of a closed-loop, no waste system. Her introduction to permaculture through her gardening interest in sustainability. The permaculture flower has seven petals, with each petal representing concepts like Land in Nature, Stewardship, and The Built Environment. In addition, 12 guiding principles can be applied to each petal, such as Catch and Store Energy. She became intrigued after learning permaculture could be applied to more than just the landscape. Not pleased with the investing options available through her employer's retirement account investment options, Laura turned to the permaculture space around money, investing, and finances. Financial permaculture got off the ground around 2010-2013 where permaculture principles were applied to finances. While much of the thinking done early on has been at the macro level, Laura has been working to bring it down the personal finance level. Socially responsible investing is something that Laura does at the local level. She looks for investment opportunities in her local community, like purchasing a share in a local permaculture farm. But she recognizes local investments are few and far between, so she casts a wider net for meaningful investments outside of the stock market, like with the American Homeowner Preservation Fund which buys distressed mortgages and works to keep people in their homes. While it may sound like a charitable contribution, Laura is investing in these opportunities through her retirement account. Though she recognizes these investments may be riskier, she believes there are far greater risks to the environment with many other investments. Anyone considering investing in this way should do their due diligence and understand the risk before investing in a non-diversified portfolio. Laura tries to mitigate this risk using multiple forms of capital as a safety net. In addition to financial capital, there are material capital, intellectual capital, experiential capital, social capital, living capital, cultural capital, and spiritual capital. Other forms of capital sometimes discussed are time, health, and attention. Within social capital, Laura discussed communities helping each other through mutual aid societies and time banks and how they have been springing up since the pandemic began. Understanding these various forms of capital has shaped how Laura thinks about retirement planning. Financial capital is how we access the other forms of capital and they are where our quality of life comes from. Laura has been thinking about how to build and develop her other forms of capital so that she will require less financial capital. Long-term care is extremely expensive as is the insurance to cover it. Building social capital is one way to defer those long-term care costs but may not be a substitute for everyone. Thinking about some of these issues as a system versus a singular item brings more joy and focuses on quality of life instead of a number on a spreadsheet. Jonathan acknowledged that when describing his investor policy statement, he was looking at his options through the various forms of capital he has not solely his net worth and that changes his investing approach. Laura believes it's not necessary to have balance across all forms of capital. It may be more effective to specialize in several and looks to our networks, friends, family, and community to find who is rich in the areas where we are deficient. Though asset mapping, some communities may be poor in financial capital, yet wealthy in other forms which, when tapped, can be converted into financial capital. These forms of capital are not limited to homeowners. They are still accessible to those living a nomadic life, who are renting or not thinking about retirement yet. Community gardens, volunteering, and online communities are several ways to build capital. To watch the video highlights, click on ChooseFI.com/248 RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Get a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital sale from Stamps.com using promo code "ChooseFI" Check out all the titles available from ChooseFI Publishing Get started on your own path to financial independence at ChooseFI.com/start IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

Continuing the financial independence case study series, Households of FI family, Zach and Marilyn are a married couple with young kids. Using Dave Ramsey's baby steps, they no longer have any debt but have wondered what to do next. Looking to explore investing in real estate, ChooseFI connected them with real estate expert, Paula Pant. Though Zach and Marilyn once lived below the poverty line, they managed to pay off their debt, including student loans, a car loan, credit cards, and medical debt. During that time, they gained a little experience with buying and selling property. Since that time, Marilyn has gone back to work and their income almost doubled. Having earned a profit on some previous homes they flipped after living in and renovating them, it's encouraged them to use the skills they've acquired on future investment properties. Where they currently live in Cedar City UT, the market is a bit inflated and are concerned about the 1% rule where monthly rent should equal 1% of the total purchase price. Paula explains that if a property rents for 1% of the purchase price, that is 12% per year at full occupancy. Since it is estimated that operating costs will be roughly 50% of the monthly rent, 6% of the purchase price is what if leftover as an unleveraged dividend on the property. Assuming no increase in the value of the property, but keeps pace with inflation, that's roughly another 3% based on historical averages, the property gives a 6% dividend and 3% inflationary increase, for a total return of 9%. It is a rough way to determine if a property is worth looking into further Exceptions for the 1% rule of thumb may be made when operating costs are expected to be less than the 50% average, such as if property taxes are extremely low or if it is a newer home. Other exceptions to the 1% rule can also be made when buying a multi-unit home where you live in one unit and rent out the others. In those cases, personal criteria for where you want to live also come into play and the 1% rule can be thrown out the window. Because property values are a little inflated where they live, Zach and Marilyn are interested in buying properties in markets where they don't live. Paula believes that it's easier being an out-of-state landlord because it forced her to treat it like a business when she couldn't just pop over and take care of issues herself. Zach and Marilyn were also interested in what criteria they should consider regarding properties that are fixer-uppers versus being move-in ready. Paula says what she teaches the students in her real estate investing course includes a graph where on the x-axis represents a spectrum with "You Find Deals" at one end and "Your Create Deals" at the other. On the ends of the Y-axis are "Move-in Ready" and "Not Even Habitable". There are tradeoffs between effort and reward, but as effort increases, generally, reward increases as well. If you don't have time to devote to the hardest quadrant of the graph, then it might be easier to find deals in the move-in ready quadrant instead. Since they are debt-free, Marilyn I feeling anxious about taking on additional mortgage debt, but Paula views the mortgage from an investment property differently from personal property. An investment property mortgage is a tool that allows you to cashflow positive. Paula doesn't have a specific price range she won't exceed but says there is a balance of equity to debt that she tries not to exceed across her entire rental property portfolio. She tries to keep a 50/50 ratio where for every $1 of debt she has, she also has $1 of equity which is conservative by most real estate investor standards. To ensure that enough funds are on hand to take care of emergency maintenance and other unexpected household repairs, Pauls advises having 3-6 months' worth of rent on hand to cover these expenses. Zach and Marilyn are wondering if they should cut back on retirement investments and divert to real estate to help them acquire property faster. Paula suggests instead look at how much from their overall budget they want to save and then decide how to divide up the savings. Considering what happened in 2008 with the real estate market, and unsure how the pandemic will impact real estate today, they are unsure when to jump in and purchase an investment property. Similar to trying to time the stock market, Paula encouraged them to look at the numbers to decide if it's a good deal right now. If in the future, the market shifts and no longer makes sense, then sell. When this is done repeatedly over a lifetime, you win. Since they have done well in the past with live-in flips, Paula cautioned them to be aware of their emotions and to be careful about separating what they want from a home they live in with what makes sense as a good investment. A 1031 Exchange allows you to avoid paying capital gains when selling an investment property and reinvest the proceeds from the sale within certain time limits in properties of like-kind and equal or greater value. Living in a property for two of the last five years qualifies you for a capital gains exclusion of up to $250,000 or $500,000 for couples filing jointly. Brad has been an out-of-state landlord like Paula for more than a year. He purchased a couple of properties in Georgia for $50-55,000. The market rent for these properties is about $750-800 so Brad is above 1% at around 1.4%. To watch the video highlights, click on ChooseFI.com/247 RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Afford Anything Get the FREE ebook Escape by Paula Pant Get your first 90 days of advisory fees waived at Fundrise Create a new retirement plan and get 14 days for free with NewRetirement Get started on your path to financial independence at ChooseFI.com/start IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

What happens when someone is using your finances to prevent you from making decisions that are in your own best interest? What does financial abuse look like and can you reclaim your financial life? Rachael shares her story and how she's become passionate about economic empowerment. Although she had a successful career and what appeared to be a healthy relationship from the outside, Rachael found herself in a relationship with someone who walked all over her. Slowly over time, Rachael's boyfriend began chipping away at her confidence and inserting himself into her finances, putting his name on all of the bills, linking bank accounts, opening joint accounts, and pushing to have his name on the mortgage to the property she had purchased on her own. Your instincts and feelings are worth paying attention to. Had Rachael explored her feelings more, she believes she would have listened to them better. Not knowing what's happening with your bills or financial accounts is a red flag. Sharing accounts is only good when both people are acting in good faith. The drive to take over control finances may start as a result of insecurity in the relationship, but it can take a turn and be used against the other person as a form of punishment. Rachael describes financial abuse as a psychological assault where your trust is so broken that it can damage the relationship you have with yourself. If you aren't making decisions willingly and freely, you are giving up bits of your power and it's then a slippery slope to giving away too much. There's nothing inherently wrong about merging finances but there's needs to be a conversation it. After 10 years, the relationship ended, Rachael found herself in a legal battle over the property, was experiencing PTSD and unable to do her job. The systemic assault she experienced during the relationship and in its aftermath destroyed her trust in society. All the business, government, legal, and social systems she sought help from had failed her. The bright light in her experience is that Rachael has now become an agent of change to have new laws passed in the UK to help other victims of financial abuse. Learning to tell her story and fight for herself was incredibly difficult, but also a skill-building endeavor. She channeled her anger, found her voice, and learned how to speak clearly and with confidence. Always a fan of journaling and understanding the power of words, Rachael started a blog as an unfiltered outlet for her feelings. The positive feedback she received from family and friends also helped build her confidence. Not wanting to return to teaching, Rachael attended one of Alan Donegan's PopUp Business Schools to possibly become a personal fitness trainer. When hearing about using your experiences to build an authentic business, Rachael realized she wanted to help other victims of financial abuse. Rachael wants to become a consultant to banks, housing associations, and lawyers and tell them what they need to do to stop financial abuse from happening, protecting both themselves and their customers. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S CONVERSATION Register for The Simple StartUp Fall Challenge Order your copy of Raising Your Money Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence by Carol Pittner and Doug Nordman IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT CHOOSEFI: Share FI by sending a friend ChooseFI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.