Mr. Money Mustache on Being Retired 19 Years & Turning 50 | MHFI 241
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Hey, what's going on? Welcome to the mile highly podcast. I'm duck hunting ton in today. This can be a super fun episode. mr. Money, must dash does not need an introduction, so i'm going to skip IT pete, welcome today. How are you doing?

Thanks, dog. It's great to be back in your, my favorite destinations in long one.

So you turned a fifty here recently in your you hit nineteen years of retirement. You didn't interview with A A R P, which I assume was your goal. The whole time is just to be featured in A R P. At some point. Did they contact you or did you reach other them?

They contacted me. And so first of all, the secret as i'm not quite fifty yet, but I I stretched my birthday bit just because, uh, I like to keep IT, keep keep people guessing. You want to put too much your personal information online but i'm very close to fifty and yeah apparently have been in an interview with A R P. Many, many years ago, like just a super short one, then I didn't remember so they reach back out and they said, hey, we would love to feature you that you're officially A A R P L age and I said, okay, yeah, that sounds like a fun thing to do.

Are you a member of A R P.

by the way? No, but of course I know i'm going to be signing up now. Maybe I can visit a free membership and exchange for that interview.

You get it's I mean you get great discounts but is also really cheap so people can check IT out this is not sponsored by ARP but anyway yeah ah good probably .

good deal if you use the discount that they that they have worked up .

for you and I I read the digital version, it'll link up to us so people can check out how is a nice interview, good photo shop. But i'm told that the print version of this has some kind of a singer. Four, Victoria, is that true?

Well, who told you that? I don't know if the print versions is out yet. I don't of my features is gonna be. And I hope so because we I think some of the pictures are good.

but I don't know. Yeah, we will try to hunt you down and people look and actually ask people about that. So anyway, one of the things when we were brainstorming was about some of the topics that sort of typical retired people who are older, usually what they think about and then what fire people think about and the things that were concerned about. So you highlighted a couple of the themes from, like, traditional theories, and you send over a couple articles, some headlines from A R P. So you want to expand on that a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, I think that really depends just done you the path of your life in your age. So I did a bit of reading of A R P articles just to see what type of things their typical readers are interested in. And it's stuff like how to find your car in a parking lot of using your smart phone or something like that and that, you know certain things are changing in the medicare program should be concerned and so make sense.

But of course, if you're in a different stage of life like the fire community, a lot of us are retiring in our thirties and forties. So we're more concerned about stuff like parenting and school stuff. And health and fitness is probably a little bit more in style among Younger generations.

Then in my parents, to generation IT wasn't quite as much of a thing. So I think in our fair community for the example, you'll see a lot of people are into like all the health podcast and books and experiments with nutrition and training and stuff like that. So it's nice to have you know the junior retirement community still expLoring issues that are more interesting to our age group.

We are thinking about values and happiness and anything. Carl and I like most of the time, our conversations end up like heading towards happiness or lifestyle and just like time optimization, but it's interesting. So we're talking in optimization.

And usually as fie folks were really optimizing, maybe too good, we get obsessed with IT and then a manifest later where it's like maybe a little harder to spend money sometimes. And we're like trying to optimize when we don't need. We actually d optimize.

We could show the fuck out and just relaxed a little bit. And you know, other topic is sort of like spending for values and community, right? So I mentioned like four or five things were like happiness, the optimizing values and community. Do you have any anyone you wanna dig in to a little bit deeper here?

Yeah hey, that's a really good point. And i'd like to amend my my form previous answer, I guess, because you're write that. okay. This seems to be a currently a movement which I think is really, really great, where everybody is looking into what happiness really is and trying to be more purposeful and understand your emotions and studies going through and saying, like, I want more travel or I want more luxury or whatever, like the things that we default, thinking what happiness is.

And we most people in previous generations, I think you just kind of stumble around some things you enjoy, some things you don't, but you're not really being proposed for about IT. Whether if you start out at the beginning and saying like okay, instead of just trying out you know boat ownership or luxury cruising, whatever, like let's dig into like psychology and see what what human happiness is really about and being, you know, then I think your choices will be a little bit different. And one of your examples, which is saving an accumulating a whole bunch of money, that's definitely not a great things to just pursue for your whole life thinking that's gonna you happy, like the idea of money being a tool to gets you freedom.

But then after that, you should really make sure that you're not just continuing to follow that old behavior and just keep stashing and accumulating. And that's been a big thing in the fire community this year, especially with carl and mandi. And remember and the mad scientist, everybody y's talking about spending and are you good at spending or you still being cheap with yourself? And i've been experimenting without myself, and i'm really glad that this is something that's now part of the dialogue a lot more because I think it's going to make everybody a bit Better to just let go of the scarcity mentality. And yeah, I think I be under a little bit no, the it's perfect.

And I think it's so tough because like the fact that we were saving and optimizing, being efficient, which a lot of a service engineers, not everyone, but we do, we don't like to see waste. So once we get that sort of habit died in and its worked for us and we got what we want IT, but now it's like you you have to reverse IT. So there's definitely some like retraining and you have to look at things from a different perspective.

So okay, turn here. But we should probably keep moving on here when one other thing that you mention is just like the health and fitness aspect. And there's been a couple we don't see each other like every week or anything, but there were a couple stretches where I didn't see you. And I think maybe when we some of us went to, uh, the phoenix area a to call the sack, which we'll talk about later, I was like, do what do you do in your jack? So you want to talk a little bit about your fitness routine currently and maybe how to change over the last year or so?

Well, i've always been into this stuff since I I was a little kid, you know, just I thought I wanted to be a big, strong man. So i'd like a, like many a Young people of that era. And you watch the action figure movies and the movies and everything, and like a kind of inspired stuff.

So that was like always the background. And then later I got into IT for Better reasons, I think, which is you getting older and you want to maintain functionality and not have a bunch of health problems that are self imposed. So i've always, you know, bike and which trained and walked in everything like that.

And I think I just decided over the last year and make IT a bit of a higher priority instead of just like putting work out at the end of the list of daily, I kind of put IT that a higher priority and said, what doesn't matter if you do, if you get your other tasks done, the workout is the most important. And then also, when I was living in this cold desk, the neighborhood named called the sack in arizona, which we can talk about later, they had a really good gym on site, and I had, like, maybe a bit less interesting social life than I I do here in long month. So I made IT even easier.

Just walk over to the next building and do these great, huge workouts every day. And then I just eat really well the same time and then that that stock ever sense. And because I also have a gym at my house in the world and it's really good. And yeah, I think just making IT a higher priority is especially good the older you get. And that's one change that I am glad I did.

okay. And then couples very specific questions, like how many days per week do you work out and do? Do you log everything or you do track and make sure you're making progress?

Well, the answer is the first one is every day, like just seven days a week, do some weights because I find the seems I take a day off and I can't forget.

And it's easier to just do IT every day, even if you have to scale back in order for the body to build to keep up with recovery, it's Better to do a smaller work out every day and just walk away through the body parts instead of saying, no, I only work out three days a week and then I work out harder and then I I don't have um you know like specific goals and programme and maybe I should that I just have A A journal on my on the desk that's in my garage that next to the weights where I write down when I did encourage to need to do more because I could say like, oh yes, I want to be to write down the big numbers of working hard. And I give myself lots of excEllent nation explore Marks, OK and like ths up and stuff. And as long as I do IT consistently than you know, I do a good job in and work hard. okay.

And then final question around this. We can do a whole show on this too. But your protein intake, so H A lot of IT is around diet. So you're working out hard, your consistent, you enjoy, you're in the gym, you know pretty much every day. What is your diet look like?

I think it's just the pretty basic whole foods diet. So on the war and I tried as much protein as I can in a practical switch, still ends up being just the recommended amount, which is like one gram per body weight pound. So about physical for me is like a hundred eighty five grams for a is my rough guideline.

So I just pretty eat as much protein. Whatever I can like that includes the yogurt with protein powder like mixin there play in yogurt because otherwise the numbers just more behind enough right? And you know, like occasional a lots of chicken grass and lots like grilled stuff. Can a girl every .

day OK got IT OK, let's move on to some of the retirement stuff. So you have been retired for nineteen years. You retired just before your thirty birthday.

just before my thirty first day, thirty, thirty OK, which is why it's it's nineteen years than twenty.

okay? So long time you you've definitely been retired longer than you are working, right? So jav anees specific reflections on being retired, especially at such an early age where basically none of your peers were doing that, they that you were crazy for the most part.

That part is true. Yeah, yeah. I think it's definitely the best thing that I ever did in my life. Well, that and moving to the U. S. In the first place, which is something I did when I was twenty four years old, then I was quite A A leap for me because I moved here by myself.

And that turned out to be amazing from canada, because I think my life has been a lot Better here in colorado than I would have been in ontario. And then the second best thing I did, you know, which allowed me to do so many other things Better, is just, yeah, quitting a job and having the freedom to start a family. You know, my my job is a dad, which has been amazing.

The only reason I was so amazing is because I was able to put IT first instead of having my career as sort of like competitor to my child raising job. So that's the thing i'm always going to be the most proud of, proud, so glad that I retired, was able to do the best job I could as but then there's a lot of stuff that for me too, that i've been able to do like the whole idea of never having the compromise on your your health and fitness because you don't have the job sucking away your time has been amazing. And so many family vacations and my personal vacations in the last six years, you know, like everything has been made Better by the extra free time that I have. And I still like working to, you know, i've done a lot of little businesses and times of construction. So it's it's not like i'm i'm just laying around with my retirement, but I just love the free time because IT gives me more chance to express my own creativity.

And that's that's a piece that we we hear all the time. People like I don't want to retire. I like my job, which you they're extremely lucky in the so rare like most people don't like their job.

But that is one of the objections people have. And I think we we know that regular we need to work can be productive, like we like to do things and create things. So can you talk about some of your creative projects, whether you classify them is work or if it's a more more of a hobby type thing? You know you could talk about recent things or stuff from ten or fifteen years ago, kind of wide open for you.

Yeah, what's been in the hering past because I did not always know exactly what I was going to want to do. So I tried some things and they weren't fun. Like one of my really things that I started a actual construction company with a friend where we were building brand new houses because we both left construction and in design and stuff, and that turned out to be even worse than the job a had just retired from because IT was really stressful.

And you're managing like permits and rules and contractors and insurance in all this stuff is like, okay, failed experiment. But there is no such thing as a failed experiment, because I just learned what I prefer and ever sense. Then I kept the part that I do like, which is construction and carpentier and design.

But I did IT without the company and the big you know, overhead of making entire houses. So I just work on renovating houses for myself, for for friends or sometimes we have done pretty major stuff like building entire new places. But IT was kind of like out of an existing house, so I didn't have to deal with the parts that I didn't like.

And so that's going really great. And of course, becoming a blogger is one example. This is a child raising thing that I mentioned. That's probably be the biggest and the most recently since twenty seventeen is that is co managing the headquarter er's coworking space with car ola, mutual friend and and media and our other friend bill, like that part has been a super random, like silly. We just stood IT on a win, but IT turned out to be one of the best things that I ever did.

And I never want to try that while also having a job because I would have thought to be too stressful and very IT would be. I'm very much like single tasker, not a multi tasker. So I like to have enough space to do the things that i'm committed to and not overcommit.

What's so great about the coworking space? Well.

the coworking space is great because it's become a friend harvesting machine, which is what I joked about what was going to be when I first started IT. But it's just a really, really great way for everybody who's a member to just meet a bit of new people and get closer and closer to them. I love when people are friends, you know like without even me being involved. I just love to hear that people met at the H Q.

Or you know that there's an event there that I didn't plan just because IT has a life of its own or for example, involved in a little music group now outside jazz trio or i'm getting to play base with the friend who's an amazing piano player and other friend who's an everything player, but he's doing the drums for a and so we're tracking a couple songs that we're going to you know present a uh, an upcoming party ad quartus. So all that stuff is examples of why having a community group, the headquarter is is disguise ed, you know its label as a coworking space. But it's really more of a social club that just has the option to work there doing .

the day as well OK. yeah. And I was going to say that most of my friends there at the coworking space of things and put them together.

And thank you for same thing like it's it's really, really valuable. And the caller of people that show up there is just really nice. And yet I I really have no complaints and we just got to keep IT keep IT going and get a little bit Better retire and that's also great.

So you mention the construction company and amiable that that was a full time job basically, as I suspect, rebuilding houses this .

part time because I already had, like our baby was born, okay, he was now in twenty year old that so i'm obviously not going prioritize this hobby business over child rating, but I still felt like I was I was pulling me away and and that's why IT wasn't compatible with my retirement. Got IT.

So what kind of related? So you Operated with the four percent rule. When you retired, you were like, okay, we have enough. You know, we can retire from our jobs.

Have you had to tap into your retirement savings? And you could sort of mention in two thousand and eight, you had a newly built house from the construction company, but you couldn't sell IT. If people remember, the market was little but in trouble back and you rented IT out for a while. So you were kind of in a much different situation then you probably expected a couple years before. So have you tapped in to, you know your retirement savings and use and executed .

the four percent? Yeah, although was very chaotic, can not all that organized. So first of all, doing those early years as a retirement before I was a retirement bloggers, I didn't really know about the four percent rule by that name.

I just kind of thought a fixed amount of investments should be able to fund your lifestyle, and we probably have enough. Turns out we were roughly following the four percent rule without realizing IT. But then in order to start, the construction company actually sold a bunch of my index funds and use them to pay for the construction of this house.

So it's like transfer assets from one category to another. And then the ideas, we would sell the house and make a profit. And then I would put IT back into the explains.

But for a while during the housing crash, I was forced to rent out that house instead is actually the second house we build. But so anyway, IT was a different form of the four percent rule, because we had a house that was worth like, let's say, five hundred thousand hours at the time. And I was renting IT out for twenty five hundred dollars a month, which I think is thirty thousand years i've income.

So that was like a six percent, which isn't a very good ratio, but who is still six percent of the of the capital was coming back to us in the form of income. And we were living off that for a number of years. So is still a different form of retirement living.

But I was just wasn't the one I chose because I was like a little more stressful. And then we've had my former wife and I both had part time jobs at different times like he used to work and you know some accounting and marketing work sometimes and it's this is the thing that happens with a lot of people's retirement. So early retirement especially is like you just try a bunch of different things and very few people are just like, okay, I quit let's turn on the income stream from the four percent rule and then i'm just onna, sit back and watch the checks come in.

It's very rare that people are dynamic enough to retire early, but then so sedentary that they're not doing a much cool stuff for their life afterwards. So you know, the four percent rule, I often say, is just a guideline to give you the churches quit your job and then you go ahead and live your life and then see what happens. Okay.

you are on the tim fares podcast in twenty seventeen, and I think the title was something like living on twenty five to twenty seven thousand per year. And of course, you know that was a few years ago. Inflation would make that more. Can you tell us which your expenses are now in twenty twenty four?

Funny part is the answer is yes. So Normally I don't track my spending. I tell that I told the blog readers attract their spending when they are trying to figure things out initially, but afterwards because I know there's plenty I I don't do IT.

However, I just went back and read IT IT. So I added up all my expensive for the past year. I just happened to do that a couple weeks ago. My spending has dropped even though I am trying to spend more getting ridiculous with like my car, you know, have a nice car now and spend more in restaurants and travel yeah, but even so, I added IT all up. And in the past twelve months, my personal spending was only eighteen thousand dollars.

Instead, like the twenty five to twenty seven we used to spend now that used to be a household of two parents and a child, right? So now we have two separate hole households because we are not married. And so i'm just responsible for mine.

My house is little smaller now, but I I still surprised me. You know, I thought i'd be like in thirty thousand range. And then if you include all my business spending because I have the business that owns the blog in the construction company and then I went through all that and there's like an additional nine thousand dollars that's debate.

Let's like benefits me. Like for example, I love construction. My construction company buys all the tools so I can do construction. So there's several thousand of that. So that was about nine thousand dollars, including the business related travel and other things. So if you really, really add everything up and in the most pessimistic way, then maybe my spending is like twenty seven thousand eight these days and but that includes property taxes and like actually have my spread sheet open here. I'll just read out a couple of things just because they surprised me.

So when I summed up, my restaurant spending was like a full half of my grocery spending, IT was like, like five here we o five six thousand nine groceries for me and my son, twenty five hundred for just twenty six thousand for travel well, and then my utilities, two thousand thirty five hundred for amazon stuff, which is probably like gadgets and tools in construction materials, some of IT. And then thirty five hundred is my health insurance premiums, which is like a direct primary are doctor. And then this sidera healthy share thing, which is like a catastrophes health insurance alternative.

And then my car was actually quite a bit because I had overPrice insurance for the past year, which I have since fixed. So that was like thirty two hundred dollars on car expenses. okay? Even though I don't have to pay for gasoline, it's still added up. So it's kind of funny how even with this crazy stuff, I still ended up under thirty thousand dollars.

Yeah, IT doesn't seem like enough.

but try, but you seem happy. Dict.

so side question. So you buy a tesla. In the last couple years, people could read the blog article and check out the craziness of the internet in the comments there, but that's another story for another time.

So you obviously spent money on the car. So how do you factor that into your expenses? Do you like spread that out over several years? Because I was, well, like you get some good cash or the the tax rebates, but I still like thirty forty thousand box, right?

Yeah if you include all the like the tax sales tax on the car but then attract the tax credit, they still spend like forty five thousand on that car. That was more than twelve months ago, so I didn't show up in this spending. So really what you should probably do is count the depreciation of the car each year as my spending on the car. So I really I guess you'd add probably like three thousand dollars, you know three to five thousand because the car is so new it's in its fast appreciation stage, right? So that's a good point.

okay. Yeah obviously like and if I had .

borrowed money for the car, then they reveal like a car alone an and the interest portion of that and the negotiation will be party of budget. So um so i'm winning a little more because of having a nice car.

Definitely agree. And let's talk a little bit more about spending mad finantia brand in his talks about like trying to spend more. I think the meat was on his show or vice versa. And they they talked about just like spending more money and it's like i've hung out with you, like you spend money, you're like calling back on anything. Is there anything where you're like I could or I want to try to experiment to spend more money on this to see if I do like IT?

Yeah well, ever done that? Like any time I want something, as long as I genuinely want IT, I will not purchase that item. And you know lots of fictions with friends and you know anything related to like dating or nice dinners with friends or whatever, there would be no, no holding back in that department either.

And I even pay to get the Better plane seats, you know, like I pay for those upgrades. So I don't have to sit in real leg, see ninety nine b or whatever, you know, I don't mind spend them like an next two hundred dollars and trip to sit near the front of plane. So that's all been good.

That's increased my spending by few thousand a year. Feels great. The only thing the next frontier is potentially a bigger house. I mean, my house actually has almost everything you need, so I only need a bit more workshop space and maybe a music room, which would be a stretch. But you know, if a nice house right in my nights hood came up for sale, I would consider spending money to upgrade that.

And then but even Better, I i'd actually prefer to have A A co own thing, just like we do with headquarters where friends and I get together to buy like a nice mountain property with like a stream running through IT and then have a large john there in some cabinet and spend lots of time up there with summers and you know, in the summers and have friends and kids and campfires and all that. Yeah, that's a good way. Spend more money because you can spend like a million dollars or more on a nice piece of resort.

Yeah, real state and there's such a nice places within just you know less than an hour. But if you go like a couple hours out, like there's some really awesome yeah like you get away from the heat in the summer and then if you into like winter sport activities, like you can ski or snowy barter or snow show whatever do ski and do you do any winter activities?

Yeah like i'm a snowball. My favorite is really the mountain biking. So so for me, the mountain place would be a summer retreat. And then I would rather i'll still go there and crack around in the snow, but I think i'd rather go some more warm for the winters and that's another way to spend more money as I was thinking of renting, uh, seasonal rental. I don't need to own a big house, but I would like to own a place or have access to a place somewhere warm. Please spend the winners.

Yeah, yeah. Because you're canadian. Now, what I thought, you're just natural. Don't you like the cold weather?

now? Canadian s hate the cold weather. And that's why they, those of us who can afford to go, I mean, typically to florida because that's exoti C2Canadians lik e all my so coo lly, but yeah, anywhere. I had a great time being in in the phoenix x area last winter, and I really, really enjoy the weather there. And that taught me that there is just no need to endure winter, right, if you don't have to.

Yeah yeah we've thought about IT too to just like get yeah rent a house for like a month or six weeks like in sani o or something like that and just for the coldest part of the winter and give somebody to shovel the snow. The occasional know that we get this usually not too much, and then just melt away.

Yeah right then. What I realized of being away from our friend group last winter is that I was really craving every time I came back here from pin x, which is once a month last winter. I just had such a good time and seeing everybody again, and I was sad. I have to go back, even though the weather is so much nice for in arizona.

So I mean, to stick around this, where and see, have a goes and it's to be determined like the long term old man winter plan yeah I mean, the idea would be to set something up where the friends can come and spend a lot of time there, like renting a really big house and sand ago, for example. right? And then we could all have access to IT.

People come and go. Yes, that would work pretty well. okay. So we have a bunch of questions from the facebook group.

So what can hit those? And people I want to check out the facebook group is IT my high five dot com slash facebook. And then that should redirect. And then I think I to approve you are something. So no, no spas out there.

So this questions from sam, what advice would you give to a Young adult today, the ones to retire early maybe, uh, there's different obstacles than when you more coming up and just any tips. I mean, I I think a lot of the the principles hold true, but things are a little bit different now. So what advice would you give the Young person?

Yeah, well, congratulations. Because if sam is thinking about this already, that's that's really all the battle that you've already one. I mean, the biggest thing that we get as fire writers in pod casters is a lot of people like I wish i'd discovered this when I was in my twenty because then i'd already be retired. I don't really think anything has changed since I did this in the one ninety ninety years and two thousands or since I started writing about in twenty eleven. Like the same idea is just, is just there, which is, earn your paycheck.

Try to increase your income, if you can know, do a good job at your job and then just don't blow all the proceeds from what is probably a pretty good salary and just streamline your life, like make your vehicle choices are reasonable, live close to work around a bike, don't spend a time on, you know, fifteen dollar Martinis right after work and it's just just by changing the defauts american mentality, which is extreme inefficiency, is pretty easy to cut your spending by half without even having your lifestyle look all that different. It's only when you're trying to cut by a ninety percent or something that things really look extreme. You know when you're living in a trailer and you know just entirely understood diving type stuff, what you don't have to do and you can do if it's fund, but you shouldn't do IT.

If it's not fun, you should just go for like. The middle class with some thoughtful spending. And that's that's the american uh, dream.

I think because in this country, the incomes are high, the necessities are cheap. And then beyond that, you can spend as much as you want. So it's kind of like a really nice free. You have a lot of options here.

One one thing is like the place you choose to live, right? So the cost of living can have a huge impact. And there are some I forget which bag castle i'm thinking up, but they're like when you're earlier your career go to big cities, I think I might be got go away. So is like good to big cities, like there is more opportunities there, but it's often more you maybe you can afford to live like downtowns. We have to live in a suburb and then you get a car and then like a at a snowball effect yeah so yeah, what advice you have for someone worse like I like I get this, I can get this good job, but is in the bay area, it's like super expensive verses like other options like how would you face that?

Well, when you do the math on those things, I think the real problem is people are not typing some shade into a spread shit, which they should be doing. And Scott galloway is, point is good, I think because when you look at the the bay area jobs and for this copy for those aren't don't know that the lingo, the the pay is so high there sometimes that IT more than makes up for the difference in rent.

So if you're like in the cheapest city, you know, oklahoma, small town, you might be to rent your apartment for like a thousand hours a month. And then that same entirely in you know know like right close to the google headquarters or where your job is, is going to be four or five thousand and six months. So that's a difference of about fifty thousand noise a year.

You know that's the mode between the two most extreme rental markets in the whole country. So as long as your pay is fifty thousand dollars a higher, which to be honest, I mean, sometimes that is like a new god computer engineer starts at like a hundred fifty thousand two hundred thousand dollars in in in demand field. And if you're comparing that to a job where we only make fifty, well, that's a huge difference. So you pay the difference in the rent. I'm not even talking about roommates.

If you can have roommates, that cuts your rent and half again and then you still have like many, many tens of thousands or even hundred thousands of dollars difference in order to be able, which you can invest and build up a huge you know stash and retire early and then it's up to you like you might have such a high income that you can still stay in the bay area and afford to pay that rent forever or by spend the three million of the cost for house or whatever. So yeah, it's it's crazy that the incomes go very high in the U. S.

But yeah, usually you're not saving money by commuting forty five minutes each way. A lot of people think, oh yeah, my renters five hundred dollars cheaper and my gas is only like two hundred and fifty dollars. That's like terrible math because you're actually spending much, much more than that if you value your time and your health and even just the car costs. So that's time and commuting is usually a money loser.

Yeah horble, I can imagine. Next question from neil gratulations on becoming an empty nester. What are you most looking forward to in this new phase of life?

Yeah well, thank you. I'm not really an empty nester yet because our son still split this time between the two parent houses. We live red in in the neighborhood, same igher hood, but is getting easier and easier, right? Because he likes to be more independent and you can go away and up the kids not in a star because he needs to be fed or anything like that like would be the case with a Young child.

So i've already been doing more and more things, you know like getting out and having more trips than we've been changing our our copah ting schedule where it's more like we just have this adult onderstand mate who hangs hangs out in his apartment at the two homes and he's working on, you know, eventually, of course, he will move out, but it's it's already great. You needed to have more free time and I I love having my son around because he's a great he is great company as well. So I ve just traveled more and and not allowed to have I let myself have friends over yeah as much as I want. And I know it's not going to make me a worst parent because it's not like he needs me right to be attending to him.

perfect. Next is from king. What is something knew you've tried to recently that you would recommend to others? And I can be an experience, ed, task, habit, whatever.

That's a tRicky one because I feel like I as a nineteen years retired person, have already been trying to do everything that I could think of but there is a one that we talked about before the show started, which is um retreats with friends. Doug and I were both on what I call the men's mountain ary treat that one of our other friends put together. I guess I can say he was right.

Is actually brad beret the truth? If I guy invited a bunch of friends and rented this condo in recent region, and we all just went up there for most of a week, I guess did a bunch mountain stuff like mountain king hiking, a fourteen pickle ball match, pickle ball, yes, he was really fun to catch up with everybody, and IT felt really special. So I kind of want to do that more, and I want to be the instigator where I will just rented a nice place and invite, you know, good friends. And if you do IT early enough enough advances, notice people tend to say yes because they would love to. Just, they love when someone does the planning for them and then it's a really great way to catch up with your friends yeah.

IT was so fun. And thanks to brave for putting this together. We ve got some new people, so not everyone knew each other.

And one cool thing I was actually little concerned about going out to eat all the time. It's typically unhealthy. And if they're trying to turn the table and a tell like broken ridge is like, that is fun.

We ended up eating like ninety percent of the meals in. Someone was sort of in charge of dinner and for each night, and we kind of trade IT off IT was just the people that like wanted to cook the food. But I ended up being awesome because, you know, a couple people would have A A drink or something like that.

We often had like a discussion topic, and then we would have, like, great food, tons of protein. We are all like lots of protein and veg. So was just like meat and veges all the time. I was super school.

and actually we were lucky to have a chef in our midst as well who is like just making these incredible multi course meals for us. So shout out to Steven. Yes, great. And actually, doug bd, amazing food too. So that helps to yeah, I definitely would include that factor. And you know if you have a big in our budget, you could even hire like have catering, like you could just be Normal dora ash stuff just to make IT easier to facilitate your group haven't fun and not having a weight restaurants just to get fed right, but also just bringing a lot of groceries and stocking in the fridge in your rent house that goes a long way towards taking the edge off of of that typical fiction in.

yeah, I was going to say when IT worked out fine. But I was going to say this specific kitchen that we had, like, I made IT more difficult to do dishes. So it's like that is one pro of like having like either some catering come in at least for a couple of meals because then cleanups kind of their care of bit bit everyone like pitched in. And I was if you cook, you do dishes below .

the not be fitting of gentleman of our status. So i'm going to suggest that we go up market a bit next time, get some a bit fancy.

IT was a good IT was a great test like that. We could optimize ze certain areas like A A couple .

extra bathrooms. Yeah yeah like that was i'm just joking around like obviously we're super grateful to brad and yeah planning IT that he was Operating on a short he found like everything was already rented and right important party is being together more than exactly where your rental is. So he wanted to be right in downtown recorded ge.

But now that I saw the layout, be Better to be like a few blocks out and then perhaps these more house rentals out there or whatever anyway yeah that we're get on a side taner. But the main point is retreats with your friends like it's a really good idea. Get to create warm memories in your life.

Next topic is sleep, one of my favorite things, and this little segment sponsored by ghost bed. So ghost bed y've been great partners. They have mattress if sheds have bad frames, and like a split king situation, like a good stuff. Or you can talk about sleep in this question is from rich, what is your sleep routine and are you a good sleep? Er yeah .

i'm really lucky, I think because i've heard about most people don't really sleep all the way the night and I have trouble falling asleep for getting enough hours and I just sunk out, you know and then I wake up when the birds are tweet and I go to Better really like before ten o'clock usually okay, I did read these books like from the sleep diplomat matt Walker is a good example. There's a lot of stuff people do that are bad for the sleep.

So as long as you learn those things like don't watch T V past seven P M, don't epson P M much of stuff like that, then um sleep becomes easier and don't do anything particularly exciting. Just let your your whole system wine down, you know have the lights in your house stem and then your body can just takes over after that. And then as you get up the next day, make sure you set your clock, your biological clock, appropriately.

I get out into the sunlight and then your sleep. I'll be fine. From at least from the body perspective, I know that the mattress company is going to have some opinions like well, being comfortable and other factor, right?

Yeah, I know i'm in a four shoe before you leave to lay on a spat, but you don't have to say any opinions about, but we're going to check this out. So one thing that I started doing, and I think you do this as well, I started wearing I am mask. Critical in the summer like now where in the fall in the days are shorter. So it's not as important. But um do you wear sleep mask?

Oh yeah, I forgot. I definitely know all that stuff to because i'm very easy to wake up. So I like to be in a complete you princess bubble.

I have the full, I am ask and I put your plug in. Even if i'm in a perfectly dark, silent place, I still do that. Just a psychologically, my body knows that i'm not going to be interacted, so therefore, it's not worried about waking up.

And therefore, I don't wake up. I fall asleep more quickly. So it's like maybe a little bit high maintenance.

But well, since I have the option, I just use those things. And IT definitely helps because you don't even want like any light hitting your islands when you're asleep. And the best thing is about early retirement as you're also never using alarm clock to wake up.

And even people as jobs should be careful about this. You need to change your sleep schedule so that you go that early enough so that you wake up early enough, so that you never use an alarm clock. That's the most evil, yeah, terrible invention.

Like, why would you take the most important bodily function, which is sleep, and then cut IT off artificially? right? That's a stupid this idea. That's just like injecting a little bit of poison as your way you do every day.

This reminds me to the broken ridge. We had a little argument. P, do you remember this? Did we hike A A fourteen or the next day called quanti? And I I was like, from a melt nearing standpoint, we need to get out there early so we can get down early.

I think we should wake up and fucked in whatever I was like. Four o'clock we should leave at five we should be hiking in the dark. And what what was your response?

My response was no, and it's because our hike is supposed to be fun. And what's the point of like doing something not fun in order to have fun? Yeah and destroying the funding activity.

And of course, we get lucky. First of all, we were really close to the the mountain, so we didn't have to like travel far to get there. So there is no need to start that early.

And when you look up at the speck of the mountain, IT wasn't that long of a client. So all you need to do is be off the mountain before a noon to avoid understory. Ms, so when you do the math, there's no need to start that hike five o'clock in the morning.

In through some a heated debate, uh, we worked IT out numbers like I, you know what you you're ripe right about that. And IT turned out you were even more right, because IT was rainy that morning. So if we started early, we would have been like cold, and where and a of IT would have been a horrible day.

But we started the bright. When the clouds broke in, the sun came out. I was beautiful and I was like, you were right, man. Like.

you nailed IT. Well, the rain part was obviously just dumb luck. But yeah, we came across some soil n people who had started too early and they are like, we didn't go to the top because I was too rainy.

Yeah, and we just had beautiful clear weather for our hike. Very grateful for that. The lesson in this focus, don't using alarm clock, and if that if that's not possible for you, then change your life until IT is possible because ARM clock are not acceptable.

So thanks to go bed, they have one hundred. And one night at home sleep trials, you could check IT out and see if you like the mattress, and then to figure out what to do if you don't. For some reason, that many different matters is, you can say, fifty percent with the code mile high, five at checked.

So as we're wrapped up, we kind of do some rapid fire because we we have a quite a few questions like so we have a kid who is a campfire that we were out earlier this year and you mention that you consulted with someone who wanted you to review their retirement plan. So have you done more these consultations? And what have you learned from the experience of self?

Oh yeah okay. So just to fill in the the listener is I I tried one paid coaching session because i've never done anything know in that sense. I was just did free advice or blog articles that are like a case study. So accept IT one like, I guess you could say client and that was the guy who gave me his full financial details and asked like and I on try to retire and should I make me changes? And I found that to be really, really fun.

And I would like to do IT again, not for not so I can make money, but just so IT can because IT feels useful to like just kind of really digg into if somebody so I would still charge like a nominoe for IT and maybe do one on every month or two because IT feels meaningful and like A A human connection for me. And what I realized like the stuff that I no in the way I think about early retirement and stuff, to me IT, seems really obvious. And like, how could this be useful to anybody is so obvious.

But the more people I work through their situation, the more I realized that, yeah, maybe I do have something to offer because like the big soup of numbers, like I can pull IT apart and make IT simple and then give him back to the person and we talk to IT over that. no. Like, oh, well, thank you.

I didn't realize IT was so simple. So to me, it's nice to know that I have that skill that is kind of rare, and I want to use IT more and help. You know, it's really fun when people can have a Better .

life because of IT IT all link up to a clip because we actually talked about this on the episode that we recorded. IT can find and it's fairly simple and you're very smart. P and you've done this for a while.

So like IT doesn't surprise me that you're able to like sort through the complexity and then help someone see things in a simpler way so that they are not confused by, you know, the noise and they can focus on the signal there. Point out another thing because I some people, you know it's the internet out there. People will probably be like, why are you charging for this? Your retired, your rich.

But the thing is like if people pay for IT, they'll value IT and they'll come after they've done their homework because they have skin in the game. So like I get that you don't want to like waste your time and like someone advice and then they completely ignore you because I don't put any value on IT. Yeah so and I know a lot of people like why would value IT? But the thing is like unless you actually have skin in the game, it's likely that you will value IT as much.

Yeah it's fine. Like it's it's nice. Have a little filter. And I just, I just find IT fun, you know, I find I find IT fun when we make IT more like a little bit of transaction course have only done IT wit, right? I would still charge in the future for my my coaching service.

Do you have what's if someone is interested in that? How should they approach you?

Well, I ve been decided when to do IT. So i'll put IT on my my blog, like I put IT into a oka article or something and provide a link that people can. Okay, scheme, if I decided, do I haven't fully decided because I just, you know a holiday season, I get some fun stuff coming up here. Any work right now?

Sense of lot like work yeah so okay so keep keep tuned into the blog and and you posted if if IT comes up yeah all right this one is Andrea SHE asked you mention wanting people you mention you want people to build new towns like long, but you have any thoughts on where the quote next long might might be given how expensive it's become? So yes, it's kind of expensive here in long mind now yeah well.

it's interesting question. So I wouldn't I don't think long, man, where we live here is particularly special like it's special for us because we have a really amazing huge group of friends here and it's growing and I got headquarters, but the town itself is just like a Normal american city, one hundred thousand people like, it's not particularly bike friendly. They keep expanding the roads.

There's like these major sort of four light to six lane, what I call superhighways rn into the town. And there's like no traffic enforcement. So it's a bit of mad max, uh, zoo, but that's actually kind interesting because if you can still bike and enjoy your life here in long night, like I still do ninety nine percent bike transport oration I bikes here to get to your house, then you can do IT in most american cities.

And i've always done this like wherever I live and in a bunch of other countries too. I just bike around cities i'm over doing in new york in the winter with a friend. And we totally got around was way faster than the taxes and even the subway.

So most people to discount the idea of anything other than car transportation as an excuse. And you can still define and that the reason is because the roads you're on with your car are not the same things you're going to be taking with your bike to get around. So of course, when you're on the big car, ros, you're like, oh, this place is so bike on friendly, you just get mode down but you wouldn't on the same roles that you're like, there's always another way to get somewhere OK.

So yeah, I wish long mark were a bit more pistrians and bike friendly. And there are some people in the in city council that genuine, they care. But man, we can do much, much Better. Yeah, I I really admire people who work as advocates to try to get their towns to improve a little bit in yeah.

we were chatting before and we because we probably talked about that but yet i'm not i'm not comfortable writing my bike on most roads. But actually to your point, a couple times I rode to H Q. And yeah I have to write on main street like there's a couple side streets and I was like, this is like a nice um neighborhood like there's big trees, is very quiet.

I hardly saw any cars i'd needed to cross like one sort of busy er road third third tree or third avenue or whatever but other than that yeah was like pretty much neighbor ods. Um there's a lot of Green way and i'm right off the Greenway. So the chAllenge is like there's only a certain places you can get too conveniently, but I think. I think for me is just like being a little more comfortable like, right, I need more comfortable seat too.

Maybe look, here's I think biking is the skill. And americans are simply drivers and they are driving the skills here. You know, if you just start driving, that would be hard and you have to license and insurance and everybody coming out out from scratch, that would be like wall. This is incredibly hard.

How do you do this? But if you just try IT, and it's really nice to bike with an experiences biker, like sometimes i'll take people on group rides to get them comfortable with stuff that they haven't done, and then the next time they can do that right very easily. And then there's a whole little bit of skill you got to develop, like how do you have a good bike that is trouble free?

And you need to have lights that are just on the bikes you press on when when you're riding that makes you safer, helps you ride at night and and you have to make sure like you have an an air pump because allowed people to stop biking for a decade, because they get air gradually this out of the back door night. Oh, well, I guess i'll just take the f 3 fifty every day to go to get my coffee。 It's just just as easy.

So like the thresh hold is all mixed Operate. If you if you put a time of IT to work in a biking man, like i'd love to ride with you around long much so you can get comfortable because I have a feeling like you're an athletic guy. You'd have no problem biking the same amount that I do. You're not in the habit, in the habit.

yeah. And it's just what was going to say. The other thing is, did you write your e bike cover today is right.

I did. But just because I was in a rush.

okay, what I was like, I like that would help a little bit too for longer distance is not a rush. But at the same time I right is going to take like an hour to ride my bike over there as I like, yeah, twenty minutes. So I totally recommend .

that actually if someone's not an experience biker, just start with a pre made electric bike from any manufacturers like the brand. Electric is one, or a red, red power bike is another ride one up as may be the best. Okay, because then the bike is all set up for you.

It's got light bill down. It's all high quality, is usually pretty double tires, everything, so never get flats and IT also gives you a boost when ever you want IT. So it's like a car and but you don't need license insurance.

And then yeah, I think that's really, really great. E bikes have changed. They didn't really exist when I started writing.

Now they're just everywhere, and they sell, they outsell regular bikes and they outsell cars, even the united states. That's great. So definitely just look for, to keep a symbol. Look for ride one up brand e bike OK. If anyone looking for bike or i'm not sponsored by or go to a bike shop and I have some good to do, but usually for like a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars, you get something that will outperform a car in terms of getting you around town and you're going to get in shape and have a have your life because of the .

next question from producer Chris, and Chris has a blog will link up to IT in the shown notes here as well. He's just getting started, so check IT out there should be more stuff come soon. So what are your thoughts on the cold a sec model? And have you brought any ideas back? Too long mind from your time down there.

Yeah, that's a great question. So I spent four months last winter living in this experimental new apartment complex that's build itself as a car free community or even a town on it's kind of nice to set up like a campus and they're still building IT.

But um the idea is that most of people live there who live there don't have cars and they have very minimal parking and the idea as you they give you a knee bike as part of your lease and it's also right on a light rail station. And there's also like a really nice car share system built right into neigh'd where you walk up with your phone, he's nice electric car is unlock and you just drive away. So you really do have a car, but you just enough to pay for IT other than the super nominal hours fee, which includes like the free electricity for the car.

So that's a really great model. I think every apartment complex neighborhood should be built that way. IT doesn't have to be as hard core as called as act, which is very antiqua, you know, because it's like part of the fun ideology there there like we're going to beat the system.

But the real idea is just like let's make things a baLance where it's not entirely assuming that you're gonna drive for one hundred percent in your trips. In exchange, you get a lot of the space back from what you would have wasted building parking lots and parking garage just to how these things that we don't really need to have as many of these cars. And yeah call the sex is really beautiful.

And i'm really happy that they're they're fighting to do this new thing. Gets a lot of positive news coverage because of IT. So what what if I bring back from my own life? I think IT is not really going to change the way I do things.

I just like the idea of supporting projects like that is a new one that just got announce called as moral da. It's going to be in northern california like wait north of santa tisa, and that will be a car light rather than car for neighbourhood. But it's another great thing, like the more of these that get thought of and built, the more it's gonna get into the public consciousness. And then I just want americans to realized, like a car is a great thing for certain uses, but it's not a useful thing for like going in a starbuck and going through a drive there or whatever, like cars should be for intercity fun trips, you know, to go visit your friends or go out on a high car.

whatever. And we we had a great time when we were in cosa. Everyone was super cool and I was great to to stay on there too. So lot of fun. A few of us, one down there sort of observation.

There was another question kind of related to, you know, long mind and like having a walkable town and know that so where I live, so I have enough one fifteen. We talk about IT in the the soundcheck people can can listen to IT. It's A V A is the worst thing I could do. I'm sorry, pete, but very, I butted IT a long time ago, so I never .

too late to to ditch your gas goo. This the article with that title.

So the thing is I hardly drive. So the rec center I could walk to, there's a bunch of retail that I could walk to. There's a costco that I could walk to as well, although it's hard to Carry back a lot of stuff and try to .

Carry hundred pounds of groceries like it's nothing.

But I think like the place where I live, if there was a grocery store that I could walk to, like if there was a trader joes like over there, well, that bath and beyond used to be like that be perfect because I could just walk everywhere and I hardly drive. So even though I I have this one star city truck this way too big for and and I don't need IT by. I'm walking most of the time. So it's like I wish like I didn't get that feeling from codec as there was in a there was in a grocery store right there. I think they were replacing IT like IT now finites.

They have a new one on site now, and that's a key thing for reducing people's ceived to need to drive, right? But the thing is like bikes are just as fast as cars they can get. They can get around cities like really, really fast because they're not subject to traffic and they can go thirty miles an hour if you have a new by and stuff average speed of a car, like fifty miles an hour when you're going around the city.

So there is no compromise on speed. The thing is love, you will think it's either walking or car walking is extremely slow, like it's nice, it's luxurious, but you don't walk somewhere. If you're in a rush, it's just so slow, like at least get into a running shape, which you are, they are already, then you can get there pretty fast.

It's like two to three times faster than walking. But why not just have a bike work as others SE people take the cars, which are not really all that useful. You know, the costco parking lot is is terrible if you're in a car because you've just waiting behind these like super, super slow drivers, I can even back out of their spaces.

Yeah, where's over the bike? I just go just cut through that hole in sane hell scape. Lock up my bike right in front of the door. Go in.

Emg, sy is struck him in the trailer and i'm just gone before you know that probably people are still halfway stuck out of parking a lot parking space. You know, in the entire time, IT takes me to get my groceries and get home. That's how insane costco .

parking lots are. May you mean biking sense? So fuck and sexy.

It's it's just because it's driving is just so I can stupid like yeah like not all of IT but driving like when I see drive through that is just the fuck and most stupid thing that i've ever seen and that happens even write a long time like they're cars and they're waiting at the chick fill layer that amplifies chicken yeah and i'll have to do stop and take ten steps and get their food food and they are gone said they'd wait in in the other asses for half an hour to do that same thing like is so insane so I can't even believe these people have the intelligence to Operate the steering wheel in the paddle if they're not smart enough to figure out like you could get out and get your chicken and way faster.

Well, up are IT question from kal. So what are your thoughts about the connection between the fire movement and environmentally ism? Have you transition to social and responsible investing now that there are some low yeah lov index funds for that?

Yeah lots kind of a neat question that doesn't a talk about much. So I happen to care about pollution and natural resources, and that's one of the reasons i'm an engineer. I'm just like see the numbers on the earth and i'm like why we wasting this next planet? It's it's such a when we don't have to, right? So I care about that stuff.

I feel like most fire bloggers and. Practitioners that kind of this don't care about that stuff. They just they're just interested IT for the freedom. And that's fine because inadvertently, they might still consume me and pollute less just by spending less money, although that's also why i'm kind of opposed to the whole fat fire movement because it's like throwing thring everything out, like let's just consumers as much as possible because we conford IT to into the second question.

I think um yeah the social responsible and socially responsible investing is kind of a mixed bag like it's not all that doesn't work all that well, but it's probably Better than nothing. And I wrote on a blog article about this. I think it's called lic esg v investing is IT also more profitable? And so IT looks into if you just buy the vanguard fund that has the ticker simple esg v, choose that instead of the Normal one called vt.

I, you'll have your own slightly different companies, right? You'll have like no oil companies. And instead you'll have a bit more tech instead.

That's basically what I boils down to you. So you might be making a slight difference. I happened by E S T V most of the time nowadays, and it's slightly outperformed the overall index since I wrote that article.

And that's mainly because of like A I and n video and stuff like that. Like the tech sector had a big book. The oil sector has not you know in some other time period, the opposite could happen if you if you care about IT, I think it's a fine thing to do.

Just there's also like some controversy around IT and people like oh esg v is walking dull, you know like it's and in a way that might be a good sign because I feel it's like a reaction from these other companies who are now getting less investment. And so they decided to target the esg v people as being, you know these terrible liberal hugger, whatever yeah i'm mildly in favorite, but it's not like it's not the perfect way to do IT. I think even Better is just to you know consume less fossil fuels yourself and make changes in life so other people do the same.

And yeah, we can go on in line because I have heard people say maybe even even from you like you, you're really blog ing about like environmental ism and just like conscious consumption. And you had to trick us by writing about personal finance yeah OK.

And really I win when you get a Better life ah if you spend less and consume less, especially less polluting stuff. But yeah, this is also a thing that would save the world if we all did IT last .

question from rash, how do you maintain your composure when IT seems like everything around you is following apart?

I'd love to know what request talking about here because um I don't think everything's falling apart. Things are fantastic like both in my personal life, the member also the world as a whole and even the united states as a whole. If you if you don't get your information from the T V news or the politicians, you realize that things are actually, on average, improving quite a bit.

So I like to look at things like gap, minder dog. That's one website that tracks like the world well being, things like childhood morality and average life expectancy and the number of people living in democracies for the dictatorships, and the number of percentage of the worlds population killed in violent conflicts, like all that stuff is getting Better over time rather than worse. And that's really, you know what the most you can hope for as the human species.

So yeah, we're lucky that that's happening. And I also i'm always an optimist, but we're also in middle of big energy transition where one of the worst things that causes conflict in pollution, which is fossil fuels, those are obsolete now and people just don't even realize IT. But like the cheapest energy human kind ever known is solar power.

And it's out there, solar and battery. You can build that a power plant with that cheaper than any other thing that ever been invented, cheaper than coal power plants. We don't need nuclear refusing even though at school. So a lot of people who aren't like engineers who've studied the energy markets for a long time, which is kind of what one of my hobby, they don't realize how good we have IT.

So I think we're acting for a pretty exciting next ten years as this thing that has already happened trickles out into public knowledge and people have realized, oh yeah, maybe there is a pretty bright future for humanity. No, I mean, barring something really crazy happening, like big nuclear war starting or something I think Green for another great few decades and bond that you can't predict, right? So things look great for the media and medium term future.

So it's easy to to hold, keep my composure and that that sense or cash. But furthermore, even if the world were going to the sheer, there is no point me worrying about that because I I still have only a choice of what to do with my on life. So i'm just gonna make the most of what I do have control over, which is biking over the dogs have to do a podcast.

That's fine. And after that, my sons come over to my house and we're going a fantastic afternoon. You know, they're going to go for a walk on the forests. That's that's what human being alive is really about. IT is making the most of your days are not worrying about stuff you can control.

I think that's a perfect ending, pete. This has been amazing. The other sort of final words? Or is that a good to .

great ending? I just want to put in a plug for the my boot camp email series of the listeners aren't already members to go to my website and you will see a place you have to go on the next top version actually, because we have the currently a problem with the mobile version where you can see the sign box. But go to mr.

Money mash up com, join the boot camp, you'll get the fifty two weeks once a week useful emails on all the best stuff that have written over the last ten years. And that kind of my main way of sharing with the world right now. Unless your hard core and just want to read all the five hundred articles, which is even Better, right? But that's all I ask from people.

All right. Well, thanks, pete. And yeah, I think we should be able to maybe can be to come back on and will convince me get an E V or something like that. Don't know there's a lot topics we can jump off to a pleasure. Yes, we will make up so people can find .

out yourself sounds good. thanks.

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Before ascended to the soundtrack, I have a quick message from our friend Christian nap, so i'm going to roll that and then we will do the same check afterwards and takes her check about this episode all right on here with Christian from five friends. travel. Christian, you got a trip coming up, and it's kind of limited. So key. Tell us about IT.

yeah. So I lodged this just because, like, I love to travel and I love hanging out with five people. So I thought, why not combine my two fairly things, right? So i've created this way for the five community to travel together, to see the world together.

And my very first trip is going to be to portugal and April at six nights. And IT has launched. We have six spots left. If you want to learn more about IT, you can go to five friends traveled at com um you can set up for my newsletter there, which will give you updates and also let you know when more trips watch and also I will just give you a quick little for shadow here. We do have some more trips coming up and working on putting together.

Maybe they get ten or twelve day trip to moraca for fall thinking october twenty twenty five and then already launched because they set out early um a december twenty twenty five european river creese to do the Christmas market. So I know a lot of people excited about that. A really special thing.

very cool. Like what sort of quality or what level is this? Is this like a really like high end? Is this really low end? Like what should people expect with the company?

This is not like intensify, right, like hours and hours and hours of of of programming and making you think through your fight plan and crush numbers. This is not that as a matter fact, i'm not doing any programing at all because where they are to travel together, this is about creating memories, creating those member ing dividends, right that we talk about.

And also if you get a group of fy people together in you're in nova for two or three hours driving between cities. I mean, let's be real. These conversations are going to happen anyway.

So I didn't feel like there was the nee to take time out over this exotic place. So where the others side of the world are not taking time out to, let's sit in a room and and talk about the to our investment strategy. Now we're going to see the world together.

And and that's the point is that this is for people who love hanging out with their five friends, and he also loved to travel. And this is just a way to be able to do those things. Things together .

will link up so people can find IT. And that's over IT. Five friends travelled that calm, right? Yes, very good.

Well, thanks, Christian. Thank you. My current car, pete, is a, what's a truck? It's A V A truck.

It's everything that I think you're against. But recently I looked at a chevy volt. Are you familiar these chevy vote? Yeah.

the volt in the volt, not to be confused.

right? So the volt, my neighbor had one and it's discontinued, but it's a plugging in hybrid. And I I almost got IT, but I I was like i'm not really sure kind of spur the moment thing. So as I Y, i'll probably pass on at this time, but I look seriously and the many impressions on the volt, have you looked at them in the past?

okay. Lots of friends have those, especially before the bolt came out. And so far, a listeners of vault is like a sedan. It's a pluggin hybrid, so runs on gas or electric, but you never have to use gas if you make sure you charge IT most of the time.

And yet the great cars, the boat is Better because it's a newer technology and it's also a hatched back and it's more upgrade and more ruby, right. And right now in the use market, they're both super great deal. So yeah I think you're hopefully you do end up with one of us yeah put a trailer hit on IT and then not even need you pick up truck.

Well, the thing is like this point time I was, I I lived in an older house. So like, you know, maybe I used a track ocaw. And like, we had part of our tree broke off.

I don't know if you saw that. So I like, I needed to hall the debris and the truck was super convenient. But that literally was like the first time I need my truck bed. And like four year yeah .

plus s you do know that as a headquarters member, you get access to our trailer, which is much bigger than a pickup truck.

Anyway, that's true. That's true. So yeah, the volt was intriguing in my neighbor.

He got knew he got a lease on one of these hundred, like iconic five. Yeah, I answer, great cars too. Crazy deal. I think I was like a hundred and fifty dollars a month and like the IT was only twenty three hundred down for and this is a two year lease and it's IT was great.

It's a fun way to have a racy car with yeah it's like mostly the tax credits that are paying for at least for you.

right? So one thing and I don't know if you ran into this, but this is actually a good information and then get move on to the show, we can do the whole show .

and um just the E V staff passionate things about.

So buying a used E V R plug in hybrid like the volt is you're still eligible for the tax credit. However, you need to buy IT from a dealer yeah and that creates complications. But through some research, I found there's like an online dealer that serves as I got pass through, I forget the name. I think I might be key savy and you're able to kind of access is an esco as well. So it's like there's a little protection for the buyer and the seller and the nearby to pass through and get the instant tax credit because that online .

dealer service deal a good deal guy in a thousand like commission fees.

yeah. So it's it's pretty amazing. So if people are in that situation, I can point in the right direction if you if you email me.

But I seem confusing. I was like, oh, I just wanted buy this car for my neighbor. I'll be I can just write him a check, very easy and simple. But I was like, I went the tax credit, which is like four thousand bucks for a used car under twenty five thousand or something yeah.

that could be worth if you if you want to save a few dollars, you don't mind some hassle le. But i'll just thrown in my little word here, don't get plug in hybrids if you don't have to because real bad electric cars are just way Better and you never to get the oil changes anymore of the emissions test or how like maintain the gas engine. And so they were a great transition technology.

But the only reason everybody is, is not buying batter elected cars now is just because they don't realize how good they are like there's just no compromise. They're so awesome. Yeah i've had I switched over in two thousand sixteen and man, gasoline is just so silly. I can't believe .

they're still making gas engines right? Yeah writing around in your car and then cls, why as well? It's um yeah so much Better. They are very .

nice yeah and the cheap so get a use charily bolder use tesla model and then you you're done with IT.