MadFientist: The Hardest Part of Early Retirement Wasn't the Money
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Today is november fifth, and we know what that means. It's guy fox day. Guy fox day. Come memories.

November fifty, sixty four, five went a man by the name of guy fox, who was a member of the gunpowder plot, was arrested while guarding explosives beneath the house of lords in britain. So guy fox day is a holiday, a celebration marked by bond fires and explosive across the U. K.

November fifth is memorialized through the arme. Remember, remember the fifth of november when I opened this episode, and I said, today is november fifth. I have to assume that you expected me to follow that up by immediately discussing the U. K.

right? right. Why is anything else happening today? anything? Anything at all? I can't think of anything else that's happening today.

Guess it's a slow news day around here. Well, with nothing going on in the U. S.

Today, we turn our attention over to the U. K. Specifically to scotland. Home of the mad scientist now who pray tel is the mad scientist.

Well, the mad fined F I interest is the mad scientist of financial independence. He is the fiends st. Who has discovered hyper optimization in our financial accounts.

He knows how to hack your h sa. He knows how to execute back door roth conversion. He knows the most intricate hyper optimization details.

And thanks to all of that, he was able to reach financial independence in twenty sixteen. So the mad scientist, who is forty two years old, has been retired for eight years already. He lives in scotland, and his real name is Brandon gunch brand.

And welcome. Thank you for joining us on such a momentous day and by a moment's day. I mean, guy fox day, of course.

extra having me in the here, especially on guy fox day. That's fun. The explosions in the fireworks should start going off fairly soon, but not yet. Actually.

well, before we start speaking, I think I should formally do the intro to the show. Welcome to the afford anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice Carries a trade off, and that applies not just to your money, but to your time, your focus, your energy, attention to any limited resource that you need to manage.

The show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate and entrepreneur. Ship is double, I fire. I am a host. Polar pant with me today is the mad scientist himself.

For those listening who don't know you, your writings on financial independence for some of the original writings, some of the most formative writings in the modern financial independence movement, where you have cracked the code on hyper optimization of everything, from maxing out your H. C. Account to very advanced investing strategies, back door roth conversions, all of the above, willing to a bunch of your articles in the showed tes.

So people who really wanted dive down that rabbit hole can do so. But Brandon, you retired IT in twenty sixteen. I mean, we sort of briefly go over that story and and then I will lead into what your life is like eight years under retirement.

Yeah, in two thousand sixteen I probably wouldn't quit. But at the time I was working remotely for american company and I was working from scotland, the company was quite happy with that. There was a big university.

And as I started to force myself to pull the plug, because I was definitely gonna be in one more year syndrome, just because I was such a good digg IT was a yeah doing what I like to do, which is coding, and I was able to do IT remotely and on a different time scale, because I was in scotland and they were all on the states. So half my day I could just do coding without any meetings for emails or anything, and there is no commuting or any of that. So I ended up and enjoying IT a lot more than I did when I was in the office.

I probably would have kept doing IT. I kept trying to push the boundaries as far as what I could ask for. Since I need the job and I was sorted fifty, fifty weather, I would quit or not.

I just kept pushing the boundary. So I just kept asking for more, more things. In one of the things I asked for, I was to go to attend to nine contractor.

So rather than ask my bosses about that, I I want to H R. First to seem as even possible. When I did that, I guess H R wasn't really cleaned up on the fact that I was in scotland.

So like I said, all my colleagues and my bosses were happy with me to work from scotland. But when I contacted H. R. And was like, since I work in scotland, I want to go to attend nine. Nine contractor deserves tax optimizations I could have done, and that's now asking for IT.

So then like a few months later, my boss was like, uh, yeah hr said you can keep up moving for us, but you have to come back to the states or or just end in six months so that was the push I needed because like I said, I would probably just kept doing one more years syndrome me because that was, uh, too easy not to. So that was twenty, sixteen and haven't looked back. It's been a wild ride.

My life is drastically different than what I thought I would be like at this stage. My post final life is probably one eighty from what I won't expected that to be. It's been amazing and so thankful for all my best financial decisions. wow.

Okay, so there are several followers that I can pull from that. The first thing that I heard in that story that you just told is that when you have financial independence and therefore have a position of strength, you can actually negotiate for more. You can get more money, more perks, because you are willing to walk away.

absolutely. yeah. The longer story is two years before that day in twenty sixteen, we had saved up a bunch of money, and I was probably lean fire at that point. We decided that we needed to move to scotland because we are living in the woods every month at the time. And I was like, I aggressively pursuing fine.

Uh, also just recently got a free masters degree as part of my employment and anyway we d decided we wanted move back to the scotland I said, look with microsoft london thinking that was going to be IT and yeah they came back and said, hey, you don't don't do anything silly like why don't you just keep him for us? I got a raise and I did enough to commute and all the start of stuff, that's not the first time that happened. Even though earlier in my career wasn't full fire anything.

I had a bunch of savings. So there are two other times in my career where I had the power to quit, to which I read the whole article called the power of quitting. And IT just talks about how being in a position of strength drastically increases what you can get at work.

And the first time that happens, I was moving from scotland to america, and I would bag and plead for a three percent rays, and usually would get one or two percent every year in my new year review. But when I said I was moving to america, I got a twenty five percent bump and then I was working remotely full time, which I would have never been allowed to work remotely one day a week when I was in Scott land. So that was the first time the power of quoting actually give me a huge bumping salary ah.

The second time was same situation. I was working for a company in boston. We decided we wanted move up to vermont. I was working through recruit at the time, and I said, you know, moving to vermont came to me directly and said, hey, how about you just worked directly with us and they give me a fifty percent right? And again, I was working full time remote instead of happened to dress in the tie and go into the downtown boston every day.

And then when I got the job of the university in new hampshire, the same thing I said, I got the job in university, and then SHE increased my salary again in an effort to try to keep me. She's like a look at you. You don't have to stay, but here's more money if you do stay.

So I got to have even more money there for the last little bit of my time for the boston company. So the power of coding is real. If you're in a position of strength and you know you could find another job or not need to find another job and it's something that there was was the bigger impact on my actual working clear. As far as perks and wages.

there is a concept that our mutual friend jail Collins talks about is the concept of F, U, money, which is having enough money to tell your boss A, F you. What you're describing with the power of quitting is the same concept, but applied to wanting to stay at your job. It's the same concept of having f you money, being IT, having that walk away money, but wanting to state your job. And so you then are in a position of strength to be able to get higher pay in Better perks.

absolutely. I love Charles. Have money. And yes, using a few money lots in the past and using IT in net like no thank you ways has been what was most successful for me. And I think the fact that I was leaving on good terms and I wasn't going to a competitor or anything, I was just lucky. I move into this new area that really helps. So it's worth mentioning that because I made the negotiation and everything so much easier and IT just made them want to keep me rather than me sing, give me more money, i'm going to your competitor was me like saying, hey, I love working here. I'm really sad, but i'm moving to x and that introduced to whole other other conversations so yes, even though I had a few money, I was using an in memorial like, no, thank you money which ended up benefit me a lot as far as just being able to maintain those relationships and negotiates higher pay and Better perks.

嗯 so a few money to know。

Thank you money.

Yeah a few money. Thank you money.

yes, but thank you ah because to the confidence and the power to walk away if they give something. So always having that confidence that was great just to be like, yeah, i'm leaving no matter what. If you want to keep me, you got to make IT worth my while and that worked out well.

So yeah, it's incredibly powerful and is something that people on the activity should take advantage of. I think because it's easy to be like OK, i'll just cried out that the driver hate for another ten years and then i'll be five. But I think you should be using that power and meant to be five money, but IT IT is a few money, or at least no thank you money. So you could be using that along the way to make your life Better on the past five, but then also short that path. Fy, because you could usually earn more money .

when you reached five in twenty sixteen. How did you calculate that? Was that twenty five times your current cost of living as of twenty sixteen? Yeah.

yeah. So I just kept tracking IT. I wasn't until probably twenty ten that I realized I was possible. That's a stumble to pan give IT slowly in other retirement extreme and things like that. So I ve also set of five spread sheet once I realized that was the goal.

And then I was just monitoring that back in two thousand sixteen, that would have been a really clean five based on the the four percent rule. And I was based on half of our expenses. My wife and I, we are made in twenty two 2。 So I was my wife and at the time.

okay. So IT was calculated based on two twenty five x year current spending as of twenty sixteen. Yeah.

because we did have any of properties or anything. So as all just index investments in the four percent, all I was and that's still what my speciality calculates, like we still don't have any rental properties or anything that's thring off any income.

Your expenses, how have they changed between two thousand and sixteen? And now by though I actually before you answer that question, just anchor you for the people who don't know you, how old were you in two thousand and sixteen.

twenty, sixteen thousand, thirty four or now forty two? That's I still feel like i'm twenty two, which is very annoying. And answer your expenses question, they really didn't change much until maybe two or three years ago.

The only thing that changed recently that i'm trying to spend more, which has been A A key focus on the blog, which sounds crazy because none five people spending more seems like IT would be an easy thing to do. But for people like something of people like in my audiences who i've spent decades saving and optimizing expenses and things like that, that is a big change in a big switch to flip erly. When I started talking to remote setting on my podcast, that was when I started really thinking about this because exponential growth is hard to really grasped mentally.

But I I ve read about this stuff enough to know, and I can have projected enough to know that the portfolio is gone to grow out of control based on our current spending. So IT was the sort of looking into ways that, okay, i'm not used to using money to improve my life. I used to using money as a last resort and starting to think about ways to actually use money to improve our quality life in ways.

So I would say we probably in the last three years, we've successfully doubled our spending. But still, it's not even what the four percent rule should say we can spend. And that doesn't account for any income coming in, which I had income coming in since twenty sixteen and before.

So I still have a lot of work to do in that area, but I spent one has been a lot of fun, a lot more fun than I thought I would be. And I think I am making progress. And I don't feel like i'm getting out of control or now epm up of the genes, crazy spender, anything like that.

But all the changes I have made, even though they've been slow, they've theyve been positive. And I think that's a good way to do IT because the slower is, the more enjoyable each step of the way is. And I don't feel like it's like i'm getting out of control or anything.

What i'm hearing is that your portfolio has grown seemingly exponentially. It's grown beyond anything that you could ever hope to need. Do you think that, that is due to a miscalculation early on? Do you think that, that's due to the fact that we've lived through a prolonged bull market? Do you think it's due to the fact that you had more income coming in after retiring?

And what are the mary the latter? The last one, obviously, when I was planning for fire, I can calculate any sort of income coming in. But since twenty sixteen, since I left my full time job even before then, which made to leave in the full time job we ve been in there IT was some of the side income from some of the web apps that I made even prior to the math vitis.

They start to bring the money. It's brought in more money than we've spent in a year. So I i've been tapped into the fire portfolio, which is why all the articles I had plan on writing about withdraw strategies I haven't aren't yet because I tend to only read about things that applied to me because that makes me more interested in, that makes me write Better stuff. I had planned a lot of articles about without strategies, but I haven't done any that yet because the income that I have coming in and still greater than our expenses, which is, again, why me trying to spend four percent of our portfolio every year dislike considering any additional income, still very conservative. So that's why I have that is my goal every year, which i've never i've never actually get that goal, but i'm getting closer.

which is yes, your goal is to with raw four percent, it's a good problem to yeah no.

actually I realized how crazy that sounds. But based on how how the readers on my blog g you email me and say they have the same exact problem, that is it's not a unique problem to me. I think this is something that a lot of people, especially readers of my site, to a very analytical and optimistic, definitely tried with.

So but I I do understand it's a ridiculous thing to call a problem. IT is not a problem. IT is a just a fun chAllenge to take on the stage of my life.

Definite you said about three years ago is when you intentionally decided to double your spending. Your son wasn't .

he born around three years ago? He was july twenty two, so just started two years ago. So no, what is actually wasn't related to that IT was just the fact by that, let just call twenty twenty.

By then, i'd ve had four years of earning income that I didn't expect and the income had always outpace my expenses. So the portfolio, especially after the covet crash and recovery after that, got to coming back. The income kept coming in even though I was not doing any sort of work. IT just made me realized like OK, we've been spending considerably less than what the portfolio could provide and the income keeps coming in. So I thought I need to think about IT.

Actually, since my son arrived, I say, are spending is decreased, like other stuff we used to spend up before has decreased anyway, like travel restaurants, that stuff, because all the parents with Young kids will know that that stuff is a lot less fun when you have screaming two year old with you. So all the things that we used to spend on, I say, have decreased dramatically. The one thing that has increased and helps us increased standing as we bought house that is related to the kids because we were living in just like french rentals in edinburgh.

We lived there for year and travel for three months and then move and then come back to a new place. So obviously, with the kid, we wanted a bit more to and have some place that we could just make a home. So those are really where the majority of our excess comfort now. And that is, I guess, the direct result of having a kid.

travel and restaurants. Anything else that increased that .

was really IT like all we did we just laid out of, like beer. I got used to love craft beer, but now with a kid that just like makes me so tired, i'm already tired. So what? I want to drink a beer and then fall asleep earlier.

So yeah, I guess preki life IT was all about going out to dinner, go traveling and see a new places. And then, yeah, haven't like a beer out. Everyone now, then, are a couple beers out, the good craft beers, those things, yeah, those are all drastically decreased.

And now I just have a house that I have to maintain. And still with stuff which another surprised, like I said earlier at the begin of this thing, my life is dressed different from what I visited when I thought about post my life. I used to hate stuff, and now I love stuff that wild.

Say, I used to avoid stuff at all costs because we were moving like every year. So any stuff I got, I had have to move IT and IT may be mad. Where's now? It's like we have a house and I thought longer hard about things that I want to over the last ten years and now I get to get a in.

Yeah, it's been good. It's the other surprises that I I do like things. Again, i'm not going crazy like these are things that I thought about buying for years and now i'm getting to and i'm really enjoying using them. 嗯。

your daughter was just born couple weeks ago.

And congratulations, first of all, thanks.

Do you have a sense yet of how spending might change or lifestyle might change with two kids rather than just one?

yes. So the first way that changes, we had to get up with your car. There are other cars and jazz, which is I think, like a hundred to fit, but smaller because it's over here in europe. So yeah just a small hundred jazz. Twenty twelve.

I think I bought IT for like three thousand pounds back during the pandemic, and I just want going to fit to at these big car tips that we had now have far as other spending, really? No, not really. Because what all of gene sisters have kids.

So we've got so many handy dows of everything. So really that's the only thing we've bought as a as a car that would fit the two car seats in the straw lers and all the crazy money stuff you have to take everywhere with you so far. That's IT the things that are going to change your travel costs.

So now my son's older than two, and now we have to pay for his ticket. Then, well, obviously have another baby that's going to be turning to not too long and and we do like to go back to the states at least once or twice a year to see my friends and family. So that's stuff in any increase travel costs.

But really ah my son really hasn't increased our costs too much. We live in a walkable village with times of kid stuff going on all the time. So we really to stay in our village most of the time. Jeans family come and visit us here. Our friends come here to visit us.

We occasionally go into the big city for random things every now then, but amount money we're saving on restaurant and bar fees that we are racking up on your in edinburgh, definitely commentates for any like the kids classes we pay for, like swiming lessons and all that sort of stuff he has so far kids have not been that expensive and especially sense over here. We get free health care. So I was free to have the babies and all the follow up care and all that sort of stuff.

So I would say they're decreasing our day to day spending. And I just said before, the increase, the spending has made the coming from a choice by a house which at the stage of our life is appear luxury. We've two houses in the past, and I definitely couldn't bought houses.

But in the past, because they stressed me out too much as a hyper frugal person turned to save every penny for five, but now i'm enjoying her leadership for the first time in my life in the third house. Just because I don't let us stress me out, I know that there can be expenses and not hyper focused on saving every penny. So that definitely helps.

Do you regret having been hyper focused on saving every penny when you were Younger?

My only regret on my tire path, fy, is I missed out on a couple bachelor parties in my twice because i've lived in scotlands and my friends were getting married and the wedding was like the next month. So I was like, there's no way i'm going to spend two transit landing flights a month apart just to go and get track with my friends. Now forty two, I won't wanted do that, but I would like to be part of those memories that my friends had.

And so that's really my only regret, a slight regret that I took IT too far when we lived every month, because I really got into like deprivation, and neither my wife and I were happy. And that's why we decided to me back to scotland. But there was a pretty dark period.

As far as just not being happy and not really seeing that, I wasn't happy. But at that point, I was also really focused on getting my masters. That's when I was really writing the most for the man scientist, and I was still working full time, so I was a busy time, so I didn't get a lot done, but IT wasn't a very fun or happy time.

So I probably east off the guest then. But as far as having any regrets for saving that much now, I ve never been more appreciative than I am now. Having two kids, I don't know how working parents to do IT. I don't like I can find them, how single parents do IT.

But to be able to just spend as much time as like as I want to can with both the kids is just such a great gift and to be able to nap anytime that their napping is is so nice and not have to worry about being a worker taking time off to do that. So I definitely don't regret any those decisions. But yeah, I could probably taken my thought off to get out of knowing, no, what I know now.

I could have definitely taken my food off of the gas and not skipped out on some of those things that I would only want to do in my tones, which is why that that would see a book is something that keep harping on about over the last three years after our redit because of but IT just makes you realize there are seasons in life for certain things. And I guess that I wouldn't want to go and have a drunk weekend now in my forties with my friends. But I am sad that I missed that at my old to a lot of find. We'd have great stories to tell. Now that's making me more conscious now of like the example of Venus is like, I love skewing, and I can see myself having a mountain house one day, and maybe you are living in the mouth and being able to ski with my kids and play I stock and plants and things like that. Old me would have just say that a bunch of money for the next ten years and then thought the big mountain house, whether new me is like, okay, maybe in my fifty is i'm not going to be my body's not going to feel like playing I socket so don't put that off and dedicates summer your spending now to doing that even if it's on a no two week or month basis uh do that now while your body still is up for IT uh, because you never know in ten years maybe I won't be up for so I could save a lot of money by this perfect mountain house ten years but maybe I won anna. Have as much fun skiing or playing I socket and things like that so that's been a big, big lesson learn but yeah, that's a long answer to question that the two things that I only regret or maybe do know a little of too too hard on the gas and I missing out on some like just ring them twenty year old stuff that I can get back.

You mentioned to the book die with zero. And I want to ask about that because that has swept the financial independence community. I have probably not since jail Collins published the simple path to wealth have I heard of any won, a particular book that is just overwhelmingly talked about by nearly everyone in the F.

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Welcome back. So first of all, can you quickly summarize the fees of David zero for the listeners who are unfamiliar with IT?

IT was best summed up, I think, by the quote that I heard when bill perkins, the author, directly was interviewed on all the hacks podcast. IT is the question to kept asking in Chris was one's the party. And I keeps saying that myself because it's true is like there's going to a party eventually.

So you you're saving up on this money and there's going to a party, you're either you're gonna die and then that's all going to get a charity and they are going to have a party or you're going to give you to your kids and are going to have a party. But once the party IT made me realized like, okay, yeah, I could save up all this money and let IT grow, and then good to my kids or go to a charity when I die, but would be a lot more fun to be part of that party. So thinking about giving to charity now, or thinking about how I can make my kids lives Better with the money now, and just letting everyone else have this big party after I go, that's the phrase that keeps going through my mind.

So in his booky saying, you should plan to dive a zero, you should plan to to give IT all away or give IT your kids or do everything while you're still alive and not just accumulate and accumulate and then just die and not do anything with that. So guess the main, this is the book, but the that was here that toward appeals to me. It's more the discussions, like I mentioned before, of how there is a season for everything.

And this is the biggest takeaway that I took from the book was you don't maximize for net worth. You should maximize for a net fulfillment. Like I mentioned early, I missed out on some of those things in my twice, whatever my network was in my twice, I could probably now have twenty more of those trips or something like that.

But for nepal film IT wise, IT would have been way Better to take one of those trips. But I was twenty than to take twenty of them when i'm forty. So it's just changing what you're optimizing for.

And that was the big takeaway for me um was my entire life i've been optimising for network just trucking money on the pile. And yes, I did give me freedom, which is invaluable and I am so grateful that I built up enough to have that freedom. But now checking more money on that pile doesn't make sense.

And I should be deep programing, my brain that are used to optimizing for network, instead start optimising for a net fall filming. And if that means spending some money now, rather than spending three x that money later, than that makes a lot more sense. To go back to my mountain example, I could save a bunch of money and have a beautiful mountain house, one of fifty.

But I think net fulfillment was taking a trip every winner that's a month long in a beautiful place with friends and family and my kids. And when i'm still active and enjoying all these winter sports, I think that's gonna potentially have a lot more and net fulfillment, yeah maybe not as creative and investment and may be my network theyll take a day because of that. Now it's a case of optimising for something else.

So there was that the main things I took away from the book and ah the phrase that keeps staring into my head when I make decisions is like once the party and trying to figure out ways to bring the party into our lives now and to our near future rather than just have been a huge party after I go. IT was definitely one the most impact for books i've read, definitely most impact for one of read. So if you haven't reddit and you're like me and you um are just not not a pilot checking money onto a pile, it's definitely worry. I recommended what .

was that about that philosophy that got through? Because I am hearing you talk. I'm thinking about the many, many people over the years who have often said some variation of yellow or some variation, you know, you could die tomorrow.

You can't take IT with you. I mean, we hear that over and over, but somehow IT has always seemed historically like the yellow crowd and the fire crowd have been at odds with each other. And I think you really saw this in twenty twenty during the pandemic, when there was a big yellow crowd that then translated that into Robin hood yellow crypto, A M C game, stop, mean stalks, right in the financial world.

The yolo crowd was really going in that direction. The firewood wood was going in a different direction. IT seemed as though these are now two very different folks, the different branches of people interested in personal finance. And then David zero seem to be the convergence of these philosophies. What was IT about the repayment of essentially the yolo philosophy that got through?

It's a natural of question because you I feel like i'm so far away from the your low crowd even though i'm making progress and the the spending front that feels like a very different idea. But you're right IT effective. It's pretty similar.

And in the fact that you're just up, you're going to die one day, see my suspended, it's a lot more measured and thought that I would say. But I was just the the messaging that was just like OK money. You you don't win the game just by having in the bigger pile of money.

At the end, life is a tool to do stuff with. So yes, saving IT is important because IT does buy freedom and things like that. But at the start, pointing do need to use IT when my brain is still seems very different from the yoo thing but that that's interesting. You breath that up because IT similar in that sense that yeah to enjoy IT maybe since he is successful investor and he's talking more on the long term investment side of things like planning for your forty, fifty, sixty seventies and like, okay, in your seventies you may want have A A travel fund, but in your eighties, you may not want to and you may want to your problem not can use that travel funds and maybe you're going to buy the house and just stay put there. IT seems like not only think that was example on the book, but in the book he was talking more a long term or wasn't like, I just blow all your cash now and enjoy IT IT was more like, don't just get on autopilot, snap out to your autopilot and actually plan for how you can use the money rather than just checking more money on the pile, which is something me and I know a lot of other five people do uh, because what's what we've done for decades and we're good at IT. We get joy from seeing that pile grow, but that was more just saying, hey, you need to use the pile as the piles meaningless.

At the end of the day, I think movements are often IT defined by their extreme ends. And so in its early days, the fire movement was highly defined by early retirement extreme, who, with the listeners who are unfamiliar, IT was a blog written by a guy by the name of Jacob, who lived on seven thousand dollars per year .

in the united .

o yeah in cco. And that was in the early two thousands. So, I mean, okay, adjust your seven thousand dollars for inflation, but still, even seven thousand dollars in the year, two thousand in san Francisco is absolutely insane.

But you truly was extreme to the extent that movements are often, especially in their Nancy, are often anchored by and moved by the most extreme practitioners. We saw, I think, in the fire movement, the iteration from from earlier timing, extreme to mister money mustache, who was, by mainstream standard, still very extreme. He lived on, what, twenty six thousand dollars per year.

He and his wife combined lived on twenty six thousand dollars per year, and that was in two thousand and ten dollars over time. As the movement grew, IT sort of grew towards more of the centre. And I think if you look at extreme yolo, you can see countless examples of the lamborghinis on social media gives, see these countless examples of extreme yellow consumer's credit card debt fuelled living. But in the same way that a movement starts at the extreme end, and then, over time, matures into people who can practice IT in a more moderate and nuances way, the concept of die with zero might simply be that moderate nuances approach to yellow living. Definitely.

I defined value in the extreme because IT does snap out of your defauts thinking, which I oh everything to early retirement extreme and jack up just for the the math that he provided in the fact that I never thought to use my money to buy freedom and I never crossed my mind, I thought retirement was an age, not a function.

And when I realized there was just a math function that just changed my entire life, I never ever wanted to live on seven thousand years, especially in so I think that's the beauty of finding different voices that you can take the extremes and just pick part part of IT. Just like I I don't want that I was here. Like I I value the the security of knowing that I have a chunk of money there and I want to still have a chunk of money there when on my death bed, because that all mean that I haven't worried about unexpected expenses or anything that cropped up. So I definitely don't want to die with ero. Getting these alternative voices in, some of them extreme or more moderate, may help you and help you, help you just you're thinking and you both at the time I stream out with zero and like her mets writing and things like that IT all helps reform my idea, which i'm constantly tweak and adJusting as my life changes and in my course change in and my circumstances change.

Do you still get joy out of hyper optimization? I mean, you are for years. Mr, back door rock conversions. Mr, here's how to hack your h. sa.

And when I came to using very, very sophisticated tactics on tax advantaged accounts, right, you are at the the forefront of that. Is that still A A hobby? Is that still something that brings you joy?

No, not at all. It's something actually actively trying to suppress a little bit because i'm optimizing for the wrong thing. My whole life has been optimizing for efficiency. Or as now I should maybe optimize for something else which is free time maybe, or I with my kids or you know, a clear mind that I can devote to something else.

So i'm actively trying to stop my hyper optimization and all my areas of my life and especially my finances because it's time wasted that doesn't need to be wasted on something like that. But it's hard old have its very hard. My brain loves that stuff.

So even I like to do this today. I have. A note to switch up one of my investment so that I can get more tax. Last, harvesting done and it's still there and i'm it's gonna on my to do this and i'm and then eventually do IT even though the time that takes to set up a new account and move the money is time wasted.

In my opinion, at this stage, i'm not going to do IT because old habits die hard and I can need to scratch that is a little bit. So yes, I still do some of IT personally. But as far as researching wae to really optimize certain aspects, I having done anything too interesting recently, although there's a few things on my list that I I have to look into and they may see the later day as if you turn out to be interesting. Now I have to drive that I had back in early twenty tens when I was really diving into this stuff. Wait.

what are the things that are on your list that may prove to be interesting.

like a state planning? Now that I have two kids, I really need to think about where but things going for when I do kick the bucket in optimizing that. So that still gives me a little bit of interest as far as like actually wanting to do IT, because then it's not my money anymore.

The charity are my kids, my families. So the story desire to optimize a little bit there. That's one of the big things that on my plate and on my to do list to look into.

And again, it's for a personal reason. So that's why i'm still in to doing IT and hopefully I would end up being a really good man. D fine to start to le, because it's always the ones that I personally interested in that, that turned out to be the best. That's a big one.

The last time that we talked, you said that you were pursuing passion projects that could also provide an income stream, such as music. Can you give us an update on that?

That was the ultimate dream of fire was to be able to pursue my childhood passion of writing music and relisting music. And just last week was the final thing that I really wanted to take off, which was to play a live show of all the songs that I wrote with my brother on drums, who is a professional drummer, amazing drummer. He is currently on tour with the traveling broadway around the the states.

Yeah, he was over here after my daughter was born to meet his new niece. And while he was here, I was able to organize show we played just last week. He was amazing, uh, dream come true.

Just a playing songs that routes to the audience that was really enjoying them. And I have my brother back there on drums, so that still going strong. I hope to, right, and release another album by the end of next year, something i'm gonna start working on once I realized how to actually get things done with two kids.

So how we figured that out yet. But I hopefully soon it's a dream come true, really is something that I hoped fire would allow me to do. And IT has it's only something that I realized post fy that IT wasn't money that was holding me back.

Participant was just a lot of soft, being scared and not wanting my dream today and not thinking I could do IT. So IT wasn't actually fine. That made IT possible if I did take away all my other excuses so that I had actually face all those other chAllenges.

And and yeah, it's still my create account. I know how hard and how many things I had, how much learn so much to get. So it's not a masterpiece, but any any means. But to me it's the thing that may be most proud of just because I knew, know what I had to go through the to finish being able to play the songs alive last week with my brother bastioned and drums was really a dream come true.

Wow, congratulations again.

哎。

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I want to dig into something that you said, what you reflected, which is, I reached five, and then I started pursuing this long hell dream. And I realized after I had reached five, that IT was never the money that was holding me back. J.

D. Ross, that the author of get rich slowly has said exactly the same thing. He has talked about how, prior to the age of thirty five, he was broke, he was in credit card debt. And he talked about how during those years, he always thought that lack of money was the reason that he was overweight because he could not afford a gym membership.

Lack of money was the reason that he had a job that kind of sucked, or that he wasn't happy because he had to go to work to pay the bills because he was a credit card debt. So how could he improve his life when he was just trying to, you know, not dig the hole any deeper? And once he got out of all of that, once he he started a business that blew up, that became wildly profitable, kind of caught him by surprise, how profitable IT became so quickly.

And IT allowed him to not just become that free, but actually to become a millionaire in a multi millionaire in very, very short order. And when that happened, he took a look at his life and realized, i'm still overweight. I'm still oud of shape. None of these problems that i'd previously blamed on money have been solved.

absolutely. He was the biggest shock. And that's why, that's why in recent years, especially last five years, when I was only the pandemics that actually allowed me to accomplish a school, because I weird, locked down, nothing else to do, and nomar excuses up until that point four years to put fy life, that I did nothing towards the goal, because, again, I had all the same.

I was scared, and I didn't want to try and fail ever since, actually trying to pursue this goal since twenty twenty. I've talked about that a lot as it's, you need to start live in your post fy life, prefer, and you gotta do as much of IT as you can. Because IT was a shock to me when I had nothing else to blame that I wasn't making progress on this stuff.

And it's tough, especially when one's not a motivating factor anymore for anything to motivate yourself to do these hard thing. So I wish so much that started pursuing these things, prefer they would made positive y transition a lot easier, position y life would have been a lot more fun, and I would have accomplish some of this stuff a lot earlier than I did. So yeah, and my job was absolutely not the reason I didn't pursue any that stuff.

Prefer because if you have time to watch a net look, or if you have time to start the web, you have time to do those things that you think you're going to do post fy. Anyone out there on the journey to financial independence, start living your ideal post fy life. Now as much as you can cause one, you may find out you don't like IT.

We also found that out, like traveling the world. I thought I was going to a travel the world non to stop. I could just be on the road all the time seeing new places.

But we took like a three months trip in by the end of three month was like, this is tiring. I wanna just settle down and get some stuff down there, see some friends. Or I wasn't what I was cracked up to bear, what I thought I was going to be. The more you can live your ideal profile life, prefer you, I think, the Better of your beat.

Let's use travellers an example. To what extent could a person practice that if they have two weeks of vacation a year? I mean, how do you live that post file life in the constraint of a nine to five?

Yeah, obviously you will be taking for two weeks off and doing that there. I think the beatles are a great idea. Like I said earlier, having a nice way to quit is a great way to negotiate a Better thing. So if you save up a bunch of money and you can afford to six month trip, use that as your opportunity to nice liquid. And no.

thank you money. Yeah.

thank you money. You should know thank you money to say no thanks to this job for six months and may be, may surprise you but if they let me work part time remote dly or they may offer you in the job back when you get back and say it's waiting for you, those are the ways to do IT is to be there called a many retirement or sbdc or whatever um if you think travels is what you want to do full time and do IT for a long time and give IT a shot and you may find out, hey, actually a month is good and maybe I can organize that with my job to take a month off every year during the summer when things aren't as busy.

And now I get the best of both words. I get money coming in and not rushing to fly. But i'm living the the travel lifestyle that is actually ideal for me.

Not nothing that I think is ideal for me, and that's drastically different. There are so many insistence of that where going back to my desire to try to spend more on things that improve our lives, getting to fy, I definitely deprived myself. So I tested the lower limits, but post fire have also tested the upper limits and spent more than even made us happy.

So now when we don't travel as much and we don't need that as much, it's not that I feel like or depriving ourselves anymore. I feel like actually that's the sweet spot because I know eating out more, I just feel nasty and bloated and not healthy. Traveling more, I get bored of IT and I don't look forward to the trip as much, and i'm not getting that fun anticipation that you get before a fun trip. So yes, the testing the upper boundaries of what you think you want to do is great. I say if you're stop working, taking little spatial serve and between jobs, really try to live that life because you you probably find its not as uh, idea is what your vision of IT is because life is often different and we're pretty terrible knowing what we actually .

want until we try IT. How does a person even know if they want fire? I'm imagining some subset of people who are listening to this who are perhaps wondering, do I want to retire early? Or do I simply dislike my current circumstances? Perhaps they're overworked or they are in the wrong profession. How would a person work through whether or not early retirement is even for them?

I think retirement, as far as having money, work for you instead of you work for you something most well need to do because ensure the great time we can't work. And so that's obviously standard retirement. I think having your money working for you while you're working is something everyone should dry for.

That gives you so much more power to improve your parent life, even if you're not interested in retiring in your thirties, forties, fifties, accumulating money so that IT works for you and gives you the power to have choices and make difficult choices and say no to bad situations is invaluable. I think so. I think this is a call for everyone.

Whether or not you want to actually call quit, that's a whole other kind of warmth. And I definitely not recommend IT for most people because going from working full time to not having to work at all a is very distorted anting something. I've struggled with this, not having money as a motivating factor my life anymore because i'm inherently lazy.

I'm a productive lazy person, which is why I got into like coding and my god's programme, the computer to do stuff for me. So i'm not like video game, just sit on the culture. Lazy overall, i'm constantly battling to counteract my laziness and do stuff, so not having money motivating anymore has made IT difficult, because money was such a motivating factor in my life.

Going from working hard and striving and being productive and trying to accumulate as much money as possible to then not having to do anything or earn anything is still something eight years and i'm still trying to grab with, and I still struggle sometimes. That's the additional benefit of actually using my money now rather than just checking more in the piles that i'm starting to fine more value money again, which is nice motivating me to keep my website up and running and keep the webs working that I wrote back in twenty ten or whatever. So if you don't think five other retirement is for you, and I I agree with you, it's not everyone, but having that money and having that power is so valuable. So if you aren't happy and you think you want to retire earlier because you hate your current job, if you ever worked, or some the other things he said, then use that money, use the power of quitting, and work your way into something that doesn't have all those downsides, and enjoy your life now, because sticking out for a decade or more, just so you could quit all the other, I don't think as a, as a good solution at all, because you have so much power way earlier in your journey, you should use IT.

I want to wrap up by completely changing topics to ask you about your thoughts on A I.

I am so thankful that I don't have to work for money anymore, because who would have thought I suffered about? I would always said that was always my thing, like when I was early in my five journey. And people like, what happens if this happens, or what happens if this happens, you have to go back to work, come like, yeah, my soft develop pro, big up work.

I can work for anyone at any time and anywhere in the world. Of course, i'll just pick up work. And yeah, I will ChatGPT like I can.

I still do a lot of coding for just like personal projects and for all the webbs that I maintain that I built before, and i'm ten times more productive. So if I was still in the office, me with ChatGPT could replace nine developers. If I was relying on that week to survive for the next thirty years, i'd be freaking out right now.

And instead I am on the other side of the coin, where I invest in the all the companies in amErica and most of the world, and i'm going to benefit they're going to be able to do the same thing for a lot of costs with the help of some of this technology that's coming in. So me, as a shareholder, good drastically see increased profit margins as the stuff starts getting integrated into the workplace. I'm still scared of what that means.

Culturally, a lot of people losing their jobs as beneficial as a shareholder because then you the profit margins are higher. But for society, I don't know what that means and it's scary. So on a society level, i'm scared.

Of the changes that are coming as a shareholder. I'm excited personally, i'm relieved that I was able to work when I did and build up this portfolio that well hopefully allow us to continue our lifestyles. IT is without the need for finding work in a new industry potentially.

So that's my brief summary of IT. But IT has been a lot of fun to use and try out and mess around with on a personal level. And it's just it's amazing how much is progressive so quickly. So it's going to be a wild decade.

I think. Um what i'm hearing in that answer is that A I perhaps even underscores the importance of financial independence in that IT underscores the importance of moving from being an employee .

of being a shareholder.

being an employee who requires the job in order to eat right?

exactly. Are so thankful that I said up what I did and what I did because yeah, what's gna change? It's not alone in gloom and be some amazing things that come from IT, but a lot of things you're gna change.

And I would have never thought that a softer developed job would be something that could be be taken away by a machine so easily. But IT hasn't. IT is. So it's slid to watch. But you I think that makes saving and having that of money there even more important.

What language do you code in?

Although the stuff that I wrote for the web is rubi on rails, that's what I used in my last job at the university. I loved coating in IT because I was so quick, I can just whip up something really quickly and it's so easy to use and and all just really makes sense to me.

I don't have my finger on the developer pulse these days, so it's probably considered like an old and tea language that nobody uses anymore, but IT still ask me to get things done quickly. And that's that's all the matter. So that's still just what I used because no desire to just learn a new technology for the sake of IT. If this thinking help you build a web, that's all I needed to do.

Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Working people find if they would like to learn more about .

you in your work ah my find test stuck com and i'm still on the social, but I don't really do too much on social these days as the main place. And if you want to learn about the music stuff, I ash alone, you can find all the spotify stuff there, which is really the only thing I care about these days. If the followers on the music stuff, the podcast still go on, I rarely put the episode outs when I do is use is something really interested.

And so the cast is still everywhere you find podcast and that's just the financial dependence the cast. And yeah, I guess that that fantis, that's what's a made up words. So IT should only be me everywhere on the .

web so that we will link to all of that in the showut as well, particularly the album.

nice.

Thank you. Yes.

everyone, twenty five.

nice and happy guy fox day. You have any guy fox day plans? No.

it's probably just hoping the works don't wake up any of the kids that will just be sitting there, just hoping that yeah nothing to noy. Besides that, I think that that will be celebrating. thanks. So have you guys, you too, and thanks for inviting me on the special holiday.

Absolutely we should make to say a guy fox day tradition. That's our showers today. Happy guy.

Fox day to everyone in the U. K. For those of us in the U. S, which is ninety percent of this audience, if you are eligible to vote, I hope that you have cast your vote, and I hope that we can unite no matter what happens next, no matter what happens tonight or in the weeks or a months to come, that we can remain united and not judge one another based on how our friends and neighbor's vote.

I hope that we can avoid the ventral and the name calling that so often clouds important conversations about the future of our nation. And I hope that we can think and interact more from our prefrontal cortex and less from our amec della. I hope we get out of our echo chAmbers and we recognize the validity of the multitude of emotional experiences that people across this nation have.

IT is hard and messy to have such a big, multicultural, multifaceted ety. And the american spirit is innovative and optimistic. It's the reason why my family chose to come here.

I was not born here. I'm a naturalize citizen, and I firmly believe that my most valuable asset is my U. S. citizenship.

There is nothing that I owned that is more important than that, because this is the foundation of all the opportunity that has come my way and all the success that I have been able to achieve. And the strength of a democracy comes from its civic participation. So if you are eligible to vote, I hope you do.

I plead with everyone regardless of what happens tonight on election night, and regardless of what happens in the days and weeks, potentially months to come, I hope that we can remain unified and not judge one another based on how we cast our ballot. IT is through the reduction of polarization that we will flourish. Thank you for being part of the afford anything community, no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you believe, we as a community believe in the pursuit of financial independence.

IT is the common thread that unites us all. So thank you for being part of this community. My name is polar pant.

This is the afford anything podcast. Oh, in P. S, I should do a little shift rate here. We do have a course on a real estate. Investing is open for two more days.

All the details are afford anything that comm lash in roll if you think that you're ready to make a move or if you want to get more serious about the prospective buying a piece of real estate to put your portfolio, go check IT out afford anything that com slash in roll. We close our doors on thursday, november seven. Well, thank you for being part of this community again, and i'll meet you in the next episode.

Science game over.