ChooseFI

Brian Eufinger from Edison Prep shares insights on college admission and financial aid. Topics covered include the importance of challenging classes and extracurricular activities, maximizing opportunities for admission and aid, improving test scores through hard work, finding qualified tutors, and the significance of internships for career development.

Tanja Hester, the author of 'Work Optional' and a personal finance blogger, shares her journey to early retirement after years of career-driven ambitions. She discusses her transition to a purposeful life without financial stress, emphasizing the importance of identifying themes that guide one's interests. Tanja advocates for a bulletproof retirement plan that includes multiple models, diversification, and careful healthcare planning. With a year and a half into her new lifestyle, she finds fulfillment in community work and creative pursuits.

Grant Sabatier, founder of Millennial Money and author of Financial Freedom, shares his inspiring journey from unemployment to financial independence. He discusses the pivotal moment of realizing he needed to make a change while living with his parents. Grant details how a Google search led him to digital marketing and lucrative freelance opportunities. He emphasizes the importance of storytelling in sales and building genuine client relationships. Additionally, he advocates for focusing on increasing income over micromanaging budgets to achieve financial goals.

112R | An evaluation of the long-term savings that result from driving old cars, a review of how Naseema McElroy has optimized her finances and reversed lifestyle creep, and a series of voicemails and messages from the ChooseFI community. For more information, visit the show notes at https://choosefi.com/112R

112 | Naseema McElroy, a registered and practicing nurse and blogger at Financially Intentional, explains how to accumulate $1 million in debt, and how she earned her freedom through financial independence. How does someone accumulate $1 million of debt? Naseema is from West Oakland, Ca., where she was taught to either join the military or go to college. She attended the University of Southern California for both her undergraduate and graduate degree, then later completed an accelerated nursing certification program at the University of California in San Francisco. Floor nurses where Naseema works earn above $200,000. How could Naseema have been significantly more efficient with her college education? Many nurses have two jobs: Naseema works part time with benefits (three eight-hour shifts), and a per diem job (two 12-hour shifts) without benefits, at a higher pay rate. Even after finishing her education and working full time, Naseema accumulated more than $1 million in debt, and was living paycheck to paycheck. Most of her debt was student loans and Bay-Area mortgage costs. What inspired Naseema to move from a 5002ft apartment closer to the city into a 40002ft home in the suburbs? Even with the house and the car and the seemingly perfect set up, Naseema did not feel secure, and even owed her family money. Dave Ramsey set Naseema on the course to pay off her debt. What was her first step? Once Naseema began tracking her expenses, she was an early user of Dave Ramsey's Every Dollar app. A zero-base budget is projecting how much you'll earn and set aside how much is intended for paying off debt, then adjust the remaining numbers to reflect other obligations and other adjustable expenses. What inspired Naseema to begin blogging at Financially Intentional? Before Naseema sold her suburban house, she had already paid $300k of debt. Naseema chose to leave one of her jobs when it became an unhealthy environment, because living debt-free gave her the room in her budget to do so. Currently, Naseema has moved out of the Bay Area and commutes back into the city 6 days a month for work. Building wealth is a mindset. You have everything it takes to be successful. Links: Clever Girl Finance The Stock Series For more information, visit the show notes at https://ChooseFI.com/112

111R | Jillian from Montana Money Adventures gives advice for laying out roadmap in your life, right after and Brad and Jonathan review Monday's episode and highlight activities from several local groups around the globe. Brad and Jonathan reflect on last week's episode with Billy Banholzer. A video inspires Brad to learn swimming from his daughter. Your current behavior or mistake doesn't have to define you for the rest of your life. One of the first steps to Billy's success was setting goals. What are Brad's suggestions for developing into a better writer? Billy found ChooseFI while he was looking for a community of people who were pursuing the same things he wanted to pursue. Getting started on the path to financial independence can be really hard at first, but it gets easier as you move further down the path. Brad shares excitement about a local meet up and changes people are making locally. Highlight reel of local group activities: Combined Southern California and San Diego groups have a sold-out meeting where Jillian from Montana Money Adventures will speak. The Nebraska local group is meeting every two months with specific topics. A new group in The Netherlands has more than 20 members. The local group in Portland, Ore., met every week in 2018. A Northern Ireland local group doubled its membership in the past month. Alex, an admin from the Baltimore group, is setting up mastermind groups. Jillian, from Episode 84, talks about building a life roadmap: Focusing on your values is the first step to building a better life. How did Jillian and her husband create space to talk about their values and what they wanted their life to look like? Be. Have. Do. Jillian uses sticky notes to brainstorm her ideas and organize her thoughts. What is a Quit List? How does Jillian consider seasons of life? Each person's superpower includes: What you're passionate about. What you're naturally good at. What activities you get caught up in and find really fun. Brad talks about listening to where there's resistance in your life. Could. Should. Want. Writing down your thoughts helps clarify and anchor them. Tickets for Chautauqua 2019 will go on sale soon. For more information, visit the show notes at https://ChooseFI.com/111R

111 | Billy B., a writer, entrepreneur and blogger at Wealth Well Done, shares his story of finding freedom in prison, starting over in his 30s and pursuing financial independence despite the setbacks. For more information, visit the show notes at https://ChooseFI.com/111

110R | Voicemails from the ChooseFI community about saving on grocery bills, making life changes to optimize your circumstances, and a travel suggestion, as well as a review of Monday's episode and updates from Brad and Jonathan about bills, travel, solar panels and more. For more information, visit the show notes at https://ChooseFI.com/110R

110 | Rocky Lalvani, blogger at Richer Soul, shares his story of growing up as an immigrant's child, learning how to save money in his early years, and how he's teaching his own children about finances now. Rocky's parents came to the U.S. in 1968, when Rocky was 2 years old. Among Rocky's parents' friends and their community, money was an open topic, and in pursuit of the "American Dream" his family consistently climbed the financial ladder. When Rocky was 7 his father became a single dad, and Rocky started learning how to be more independent, personally and financially. Paying attention to what customers and supervisors actually wanted helped Rocky advance at work. How much was Rocky saving when he was working in his youth? Rocky worked through college by delivering pizza and working at the university, finishing without any student debt. When he got his first post-college job, his dad helped him set up all the available automated savings accounts – 401k, company stock, etc. After realizing he needed to get out of consumer debt, what was Rocky's strategy? Rocky's plan was always to be a millionaire – he had been calculating and trying strategies since early on. Seeing people lose their life savings in an economic downturn motivated Rocky to get himself into a steady financial position. What steps did Rocky take to get himself to FI? Started saving early. Always spent less than he made. Rocky paid off his mortgage as early as possible. How is Rocky teaching his children about money? At this point, Rocky's children are young adults – they don't need things to be confident. Rocky wishes that in addition to teaching how to save money, he had also taught his children to earn money. Rocky's strategy to help his daughter do well on the SAT, and hopefully earn a good scholarship, was to download an app on her phone and answer one SAT question a day for three years, prior to taking the exam. Earning a scholarship to college is a sliding scale – a student might earn scholarship at a lower tier school, when they would not earn anything at a "better" school. Rocky and his son went a step further and did their best to figure out how to pay for college with the lowest price tag. For more information, visit the show notes at https://ChooseFI.com/110

109R | Big ERN from Early Retirement Now joins the show to talk about the current market climate: How is it impacting investors, who could benefit, and what markers he uses to evaluate its actual condition? We also share a voicemail from Abby, who provides a few more helpful hints for teaching abroad. Highlights from the show: Brad maxed out his HSA for 2019, and talks about how he's prioritizing fitness. Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life. Preview of who will be at the coming CampFI that Brad plans to attend. Review of Monday's episode about teaching abroad, and the wide variety of opportunities available. A voicemail from Abby H., who is currently teaching in China and has experience in several other countries as well. Abby tried teaching in Kuwait, but found that despite a high salary the cost of living was also extremely high. Suggestions from Abby: Don't just look for jobs in the Middle East, or other "high salary" locations. Try negotiating your salary/benefits offer. Look for options that don't require purchasing a car. How did Rob and Scott, from Monday's episode, replace fear with flexibility in each of their lives? Big ERN joins the show to talk about the current market situation: What is "sequence of returns" risk, and why does it matter? Under the assumption that the great recession or the dot-com bust will not repeat, Big ERN thinks it's too early to worry about the current market climate. The 4% rule isn't as untouchable as people think. With a small market downturn, it's possible that some people will need to draw as much as 5%. If someone's portfolio decreased this year, should they work a few more years to rebuild it, or count on the market recovering? If someone is still many years away from retirement, they shouldn't worry too much about the market, and might actually be benefit from low stock prices. If you have a 50% or higher savings rate, you are going succeed financially, regardless of this drop in the market. The U.S. economy is still strong, so the value of the market isn't necessarily going down – the price is just down. If someone has a sum of money ready to invest, should they invest it all at once, or employ "dollar-cost averaging"? Who should be concerned about the market and what should they be looking for? Look at the fundamentals of the U.S. economy to evaluate the conditions of the market. Big ERN just retired. His family is just settling in to a new house in Washington. Links: ChooseFI Local Groups are helping to build on-the-ground community TeachAway Early Retirement Now