Getting Personal with Personal Finance: Ginger & TJ | Episode 519
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Hi everyone, it's ginger again. I'm here today with tj to have another personal conversation about personal finance. I've talked to tj exactly one time, and in that short conversation found him to be an extraordinary person.

It's rare to meet someone so successful, so warm, so generous, who is also so very Young. We're here today to learn his secrets. And with that little teaser, welcome to choose if I.

Thanks, danger. I'm so excited to be here and happy to share my experience that might be helpful for others.

Yeah absolutely. So let's go ahead and give people a little bit of a image here. So give us some demographic information. How older you what is your family look like?

So I am thirty seven years old. I am married. And my wife and I had arfa son recently.

He's twenty months old and a joy to be around. And we've been saving for a few years. We found five, realized that there was a purpose to the savings. And we've gotten to the point now where as far as essential expenses go, we've hit our fine number and are starting at least of many retirements, which may turn into a permanent retirement. And really excited about that.

I'd love IT or just jumping right in. So T J is retired. Slash sort of retired. Flash may be retired. So we definitely want to hear the details. But let's kind of start with you said suddenly we realized our savings had a purpose. Can you kind of talk us through what was that experience and when did that happen?

yes. So my wife and I have both been natural savers. We grew up in families that goods making ends meet, but not a lot beyond that.

So when we followed what our interest, where we each ended up going to college for engineering mean particular, I got a backwards in mechanical engineering and a masters. And nuclear engineering is all excited about the opportunities for chAllenging career. But the other thing that comes with that is also the opportunities who earn a lot more than i'd ever seen in my families past.

So once I had enough money to buy things, I realized that the life that I had been living, that I had through my whole childhood, was an enjoyable life to me. And I didn't feel I need to change much of that. And so had a lot of extra money available.

And that ended up being money that instead of spending on other things that I already knew I didn't need, I, I just wanted to save and have available for whatever the future might bring. And so we started saving the money, was blessed by finding programs like what's currently called faith five, which is a Christian based finance program. At the time, I was called compass swan.

And so I knew a little bit about from that, a little bit about how to invest some money and make IT grow, and not a sit in a bank account under mattress. And we lived a life that we really enjoyed and put the money away in a way that I was growing. And one of my good friends and prior coworker, Chris can, and introduced me to the juice of I podcast when he was backing about episode thirty.

And there were a lot more actionable tips about, okay, what can we do with this? And we realized, hay, there's a method that we can be very intentional about making the money work for us and allow us to have experiences and a lifestyle that I honestly didn't even know as possible until I found choose. Fy.

yeah, I want to show you down a little. You were saying, okay, so you've got out of college and got your first job and suddenly you were making more money than you had realized. Could kind of be a thing, right? Or was so for how you grew up.

And for some people, for a lot of people, that can be tRicky, like obviously wonderful and a and now I can buy things that I wasn't able to buy before, but I can kind of be tRicky in terms of how I think about my own family. And oh, I feel a little bit of guilt. Or did you have any emotions around that, that you kind of had to work through? Or were there ways in which I was actually counterintuitive ly difficult to earn more than your earned? Yeah.

there's a probably much more than a podcast worth of information to share on how that journey goes. So what i'd say simply is that when we grew up, you know, there's always the necessities, so we always had food on the table. But IT was also always important to volunteer.

My mom is an incredibly selfless person, and so SHE demonstrated that for us and model IT. And so even when we didn't have much money of our own, we were giving of our time. And going on a lot of, you know, every summer would be a mission trip and something of that sort, so that the loving, generous mindset that I grew up seeing and emulating in myself.

And so, but my parents wanted for me was always to have a, you know, whatever parent wants, a successful, well adjusted adult. So I IT was always, you know, a very supportive family environment through out my entire family of, you know, going to college like neither of my parents had been able to achieve and earn more than, you know, all of the odds and ends jobs that I did from the time I was fourteen on. So IT wasn't I D never felt really guilty about being successful.

IT was a celebration. Everyone was very supportive. And IT gave me options and abilities and remove some stresses that, of course, i'd been in my life up to that point.

So IT was actually just a very positive thing. yeah. No, no guilt associated with IT. Just a an excitement.

yeah. I love that idea of IT was a celebration. okay. So you and your wife started listening to choose if I and now we are up to today, how much time laps, like how much time were you on this very intentional path to we are going to buy our freedom.

So I started listening to youth, if I early on, but my wife did not SHE was not on board with all of this talking about early retirement. And honestly, SHE still doesn't like the idea of an early retirement or reaching financial independence. So her term for is work optional.

And that's her favorite way to think about IT and say IT. And once we started getting really intentional is probably around twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen time frame. And my wife, Jessica, is amazing and supportive, so he was always on board with helping save money, but he was very hesitant to accept the F.

I. lifestyle. We would listen to all those story book. So SHE knew about Vicky rabbit. And she's like, I don't want to live on an island off the coasts of washington that's not all right. And other books and things like you just couldn't see herself in any of the stories. And I understood that.

So I did most of the research and listening and planning and IT was through a free financial advisor that my company offered where we could actually put our goals to paper, and they ran some numbers and gave us percent likelihood of success and what our network would look like if we continued work until we were sixty five and the numbers were just in the millions, like way the second we can live on million. And so that was the moment that sh'll say you got on board with, instead of trying to just earn millions that we knew we didn't need. How do we target what we really do want and what we do need and the line on that.

And so we've got really intentional once those numbers were put to paper in twenty eighteen and now it's twenty, twenty four and we've hit our essential fine number. So we don't have to work again. We are work optional, both of us and were also at a point where we can I mean, it's just so exciting with my son at twenty months that I get the ability to see him each and every day. And so that's that's what we're using to do is to spend that time as a family and just loving that.

Yeah I wonder if I would be helpful for people if you could kind of walk us through logistically what you meant by, okay, my wife got on board and we started working towards this. And what I mean by that is i'm assuming that meant, oh, maybe we were opening a broker account that was after tax instead of focusing on our retirement account, right? But that might not be what you mean. So can you kind of walk us through like what that actually looked like to take this pathetic is not traditional, right? And so we we don't hear about IT unless we go looking for that information.

But what does that look like for you? Yeah, that's true. So we were always savers. So we had a lot of money both in our retirement accounts and our outside the retirement accounts. I was blessed to have recognized investing was important early on.

So I had an after tax broker accounts, and I learned enough from my own personal research to do some investing. IT was around the time that I started listening to choose if I and read the simple path to wealth, that I realized how powerful the simple index fund approach was. And so really, we started tracking our network is the big change that happens in twenty eighteen.

And we ve just gotten married the year before. And so one of the things that we agreed to an institute was a quarterly money date to sit down and go over, you know, where have we spent money, where we're gone to be spending money in the next couple of months, making sure we're aligned on all of that stuff. And then also, is there anything we want to change based on where we are? And is there anything that we're spending money on that we're not value? So IT was having those discussions and those are those specific questions that we had on a page in one notes, and we were just, you know go down them, answer them every time.

And so we've got a history from the last seven years of every quarter what all of our accounts were worth and what our thoughts were, what our expenses were gone to be making sure that we were aligned in that and we were on the whole and and really good shape as far as being well under our income. What we were spending, you know, we actually found out, then we started tracking or like go, we ve got like a forty to seventy percent savings rate, you know, depending on the year. But IT was okay.

How do we want to invest in? Which places do we want to be thinking about putting money? I found out that my company has the after tax option in the boron k.

And so we started saving even more money there and converting IT to ross. So there's all these like little things that we started intentionally doing and that kicked off in twenty eighteen. And just, you know, little decision by little decision help us get to the point where we are now.

I'd love that you guys took notes on your meetings.

I am very much a note taker. The ability to take good notes and remember where those notes are and go back to them and something that has served me well both in my career and also at home to help keep us aligned and help us going in the right direction has been great.

Yeah, do you remember anything? And you can look back at your notes if you don't um that you're willing to share under that category of what we want to change in terms of like overspending on something that doesn't have value or we need to make some changes around the budget, that kind of thing.

yes. So couple of examples early on that we identified somewhere we wanted to save some money. So realized the cell phone bill was expensive and we made the switch.

We couldn't do MIT mobile because of his t mobiles towers, and those don't exist very much where we are. But we were able to a switch to the low cost provider, U. S.

mobile. And that saved us hundreds of dollars a year. I started carpooling to work, which saved on gas money and the commute.

I've had an our plus commute to work as far as the drive every day for the last thirteen years. So that's certainly a larger expense than if I were a little bit closer to work. We also found that we were heeding out having fast food or go into restaurants pretty regularly.

And so we started buying more groceries and taking more packed lunches. We also found areas where we wanted to spend more. So for example, we have a guards that's a little bit difficult to know.

And given how much I was working in overtime and other things that, uh, Jessica was doing, we decided to hire a moving company and also a company to take care of the pool. So those are things where is still aligned with our values and was within the budget. And so we decided to spend more on those things, and some of those we still continue today. All of the cost cut ting measures we continue today, and the combination of the things just made sure we were aligned all on the way.

Was there anything difficult at first about spending more on some of those things?

So there's a certain bit of tension when you have a goal that involves saving and then you have an action that involve spending. So in some ways, yes, but we talked about IT and we talked about the process cons and how we affects our lives and the the time that, that means that we get to have together in the sense of what we were spending on. So IT was a conscious and intentional decision to spend, and we were aligned in that.

So IT was A A positive thing, and we were definitely happy to do IT, even though we knew that IT wasn't the optimal path directly to the fine number. But our goal was never to shoot straight to the fine number. The goal was to be aligned in our finances and in our life and recognize the value of the saving money that we were doing everywhere else was bring to us.

Yeah, seems like you did really well with that baLance. I think about how with some of my friends, we say things like, okay, we're lets go out to coffee and just retire four minutes later then we were going to .

you I wonder, do you feel good about drinking the coffee and getting IT? Well.

I love your focus on we're really enjoying that. We get to spend more time together. And while the value is really evident now, that seems like a good, healthy way to approach that. And you really lend into that word, intentional. And so so much of the spending we do that is mindless. Is the spending that ultimately we have feel bad about, right? So I could see how saying, like OK, well, i'm not gonna be the on myself and this is gonna eighteen more minutes until I can retire to say, okay, this is my life now also has value in our relationship in this moment, has value until, boy, we're really gona enjoy that now yeah.

One of the things that was important to make sure that we were aligned in this on board together and the financial independence plans as we both worked hard and come from a place where we didn't have financial means to do a lot of things.

So talking about, okay, what do we want to do now that we have all these options? IT gives us an opportunity to really think about and make decisions from a place of alignment and excitement about what we're choosing to do because, you know, early on, we didn't have options. I mean, I can still remember before I got my first paycheck after graduating college, I had went on a trip to europe with jusici that was soon after our first date met her, and a month later we were in europe together.

So just can I, both, as part of our colleague experience, spent time in germany working and living there. I did IT through an international cop program, which meant that I had a job over there and I was working and SHE had uh, semester abroad as well as a job for a time. So we met each other at a german club and only spoke german to each other for the first three months of knowing one another.

So maty then .

the first time I spoke english to her was when I asked her out on my first day, because I was not confident enough in my german to be able to flit. yes. So we went on that day.

And one of the things he brought up was how her work was sending her on a trip to italy. And he was lamenting a little bit the fact that he was getting a company sponsored trip to europe, and he really didn't have anyone to share IT with there anywhere to go. And he has a different opinion on how the conversation went, but i'm confident that he asked me to go with her either way.

A month later, we have planned and uh, successfully executed a trip around europe to different places we wanted to see. So I booked my own flights. IT was a period of time between graduation with my masters and starting work, and spent all the money that I had essentially need to go over and meet her in italy and gosa prag and visits in places in germany together.

And he did all that at the end of her work trip, so they pay for around trip light. Didn't matter that the return flight was a couple of a weeks later. So we got back from that much closer as a couple uh, excited about, you know how much uh, we shared. And then my job hadn't started yet, right? So I had I spent everything and I actually went to a close end of mine and said, hey ah I don't know if I want to have enough money at all to make IT to my first page so he wrote me a five thousand dollar jack and he said, if you need to cash IT, you can cash IT.

And so like you know, I I held under that and you know was careful with my expenses during the month of time where I moved uh, a couple of states away, got my apartment, all set up, went work and then you know, with well under two hundred dollars in my bank account, that first pay check came in. I got to celebrate. Okay.

hold up. One minutes ago you were like, we're natural savers, so it's just natural for us to have stashed away all of this money. This is not the same person who spends down is like, I don't know if i'm gonna able to make IT to my first paycheck. So what's up where you just so in love?

I definitely wasn't love. yes. And obviously the decision was a good one. What i'd say is i've never not enjoyed the life that i'm in and the moment that i'm in, even though I know it's important to save and I had money to be able to go to europe, even though I also had you know student loan dead and you know just the expenses of living but at the same time I was really important that as I was working a lot and you know working through college, that part of the money that I was making didn't just go to you know um whatever was needed that day but that I also had some put away for other opportunities. So there are things that I wanted spend on and going to europe again and getting to spend time with a new girlfriend who ended up becoming my wife was I mean, about the best investment I could possibly have imagined.

Looking back on IT, I see your point. Yes, and I can't help you think about any duke. Have you read the thinking in bets book that protects?

And i've heard him talk about IT all the time. But no, i've not read of myself.

I think so many people who are listeners of choose, I are also familiar with any dude. So we're going to explore this for a minute. He talks about how we often will conflate the outcome of our decisions with, like, the decision making process.

And so if you ask someone like what's a good decision you've made, they always respond with something that turned out well. And the same thing with, if you say, like what is a bad decision, always something that turned out poorly, right? When in fact the decision itself, yeah right, because of how probability were. So really think of IT in the opposite of what i'm gonna say. But what I think is like you made a bad decision and IT had a .

great out and I love that .

because I think also like I look forward to reading your book, which is you know um beautiful bad decisions. Because those are the things that also define our our lives, you know and bring so much beauty to our life. And i'm so glad that you were willing to really take a big risk and to think about what were your other resources if money wasn't gonna be your resources. Now it's onna run out at the end of the day.

Yeah so for listeners, I am not writing a book, don't have that scale set. But I I would almost I would turn that a little bit. Do I see your point like he sounds like it's a terrible ideas went everything you have and you notes skate on through.

But i'd also accepted a job. I knew that I had a sixty five thousand dollar a year salary that was going to be coming my way. This is a very short term risk, and that's mitigated by my friend is well, and help me make IT that extra month or two till the paycheck comes in.

The other thing is, I mentioned that we've lived in germany. So part of my college programme at the university since, and I was a Mandatory cop, so they found a CoOperative education, you had to work to be able to graduate. So you had to have work experience in your field as part of the the degree that you got.

And so you know, you would know what you are getting into, but also you kind of prove in and you have a lot of background on the resume. And so I had collapsed. I'd worked for a couple of different nuclear power plants.

So I had this experience, and I was making, you know, at the time, I was really good money for a student, so twenty, twenty five dollars an hour, and knew that I would be able to make a lot more. And then I signed up for the program in germany because I didn't know german, and I wanted to learn the language. And so there is six week intensive german course, and I went over, and I was making five dollars and forty five since U.

S. Equivalent an hour. But I knew, even though I was making less money, I was living in europe. I was getting that experience.

And I mean, I proved to myself that I could live over there with that lower income and still have a wonderful experience. I visited seventeen countries. I really got so much of those memory dividends as I was zero calls IT. And the experience I had, they approved that even if i'm spending the money and are not making much money, the life experience in the value that brings to me is so, so worth IT that when I got to be able to make that decision again of, should I go to europe again in this time before I start work and, you know, have a year round obligation in my very last summer, like, yes, absolutely. So maybe my prior experience helps me understand that the probability was Better than you might see at first.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Oh, okay. I think everyone is curious about your six week intensive language program.

yeah. What tell us about that? Did you actually work?

absolutely. Uh yes. Z here can touch. It's like a yeah .

just talks about IT so yeah as part of the .

international corp program at the university since and ei, in addition to helping place you in a job, if you can find one of your own in a country that they support, there will also give you the opportunity. Sign up for a course that a six week intensive language course. So at the time that I was going through IT, there were the options to take spanish, japanese or german and already knew some spanish from high school, taking spanish in latin.

So that wasn't as interesting to me. I had no confidence that in six weeks I could learn japanese. And I said, okay, german IT is. And so I was part of the curriculum of sorts.

I had a six week period of time where, you know, from morning the night, all we did was go to class and speak german like we got there the first day. And up on the board were a couple of phrases es, and you know, one of them was vx man. And there was a blank, and then I said out to each, and so that's the phrase of, how do you say blank in german? And they were very clear.

You need to learn this because this morning is the last time you're going to speak english in this class. You ask if you don't know word, how do you say that word in german and then you start from there. And so really immerse y myself in IT.

By the end of six weeks, I was um I knew german well enough and we had native burman speakers who were teaching the course. So you know thankfully that helps a lot with pronunciation. And by the end of IT, we had to give a full presentation powerpoint kind of thing in german to a couple of companies um in the since and the area which has a large german cultural heritage.

And I mean, at the end of my presentation, I actually had a vice president from one of the local companies come up to me and directly offer me a job from that. He's like if you can learn german and you can present this well and you got a technical we've for you to work with us so anything yeah I mean, and the thing is there were eighteen of us in that class and everybody learn german and everybody went to germany y six months. And no, it's just the communal support and the experience was just wonderful.

I'm so curious because i'm one of those people who I would really like to learn another language, but i'm too lazy and so and so I do do a lingo for two days and then I stop and so i'm always kind of like, okay, well, this is not the way for me. This isn't working. So is great.

So learn in there the time.

Yeah.

I love IT.

Okay, so we are having a good time and laughing about how bad you are making decisions. But I want to transition this a little bit to a little bit more of a serious topic. I know that when we were talking about are you retired or do you consider yourself retired, you had said kind of and that there are a couple reasons where you weren't comfortable just sing, oh yes, i'll never work again or I won't work at all and one of them was about medical expenses and how you didn't know what those we're gona look like after you left your great company benefits and you .

talk us through that yeah so this is one of the areas of massive financial uncertainty in our lives. so. Less than two years after my wife and I got married, we had to make a very unexpected sudden trip to the hospital.

My wife ve got some scans of her head, and they came back and told us that he had a brain tumor that's needed Operated on within the next two weeks or SHE might not survive oh my god. So you yeah that was absolutely unexpected, shocking. Um so we had to where to make plans for, okay, what does this look like? How do we deal with the um so the brain surgery happened.

We were lucky to have an excEllent brain surgeon right in the area local toss. And a couple of weeks later the results came back that IT was cancer this and IT was a particularly rare brain tumor and SHE was gonna to go through treatment. So we started looking at, okay, radiation oncology, and what does that look like? And what is chemotherapy for this type of a brain tumor look like? And know all of those kinds of things.

And I took a lot of time for us to eventually rap her hands around and like, and just mentally understand, okay, what is this? What does that mean? And how do we deal with IT? And what ended up happening was he ended up meeting a second brain surgery to remove more mass.

That was honestly a miracle that during the second surgery, both neurosurgeons agree that they were going to take one more size of brain, and then they were gone to stop. And that was all they felt comfortable removing, and they removed that slice. And the brain behind IT looked Normal and didn't look like a had ney tumor. So just a huge blessing.

And with that successful of a brain surgery, we had a lot more opportunity than plan for, okay, what is radiation treatment and chemo look like for the little dangerous that go out from the big mass? But also gave us the comfort of knowing that on the scans there is no longer any visible tumor, which is a huge blessing for anyone going through any cancer treatment. So then the next steps were to go through the radiation treatments and chemotherapy and the outpouring of supports from friends and family for meals and a small go fund me that we used for that meal prep.

And the initial hospital bills was just amazing. As IT continued though, I mean, we had more than a half million dollars in medical bills that came to our door. And even after insurance, we spent well over fifty thousand dollars in medical.

And so that was the initial. And then they told us, hey, you know, brain tumors are kind of different and classify differently than some other cancer types. And this is not one that will ever tell you goes into remission. And so it's gonna a require lifetime monitoring.

So what that means right now is that every six months we go get M R I and the next day after radiation technicians have been able to read IT and the doctors ready to talk to us about what IT says, we go find out if everything is stable or not. And so um it's a checkpoint. And so far after the initial year of chemotherapy and everything, it's been a checking that we pass with the with gratitude and here stable.

But it's also something that where when we think about and reflect on IT IT can really hit hard that, you know, this is our life and you know, it's surprising and unexpected and not something we planned on. And it's definitely changed the way that we think about how how we imagine our future together. And so for others who have had similar situations and we have more than a half dozen family members who have had cancer of one type or another, you know it's very difficult to look forward and say, yes, we're going to plan for, for retirements when, uh, we we don't know if will both be there for retirements.

And the thing is none of us know what what the future holds. You know I don't know if i'm going to be on the earth tomorrow, but having something like that, the diagnosis and the studies with the you know median survival and all those numbers can be particularly um also scary. You know having the background that I have and having the backgrounds you know my wife has helps us understand the medical literature Better than most.

But it's still you know thinking back to the thinking in bets discussion we had earlier, you just you don't know and you have to make the best decisions with what you do know. So for us, we do know that for the rest of Jessica's life, we're gonna be having high medical expenses. We're gonna a be spending about up to our out of pocket maximum every year no matter what health care plan were on.

So that changes are fine number when you add in those expenses, especially when you leave a job that has a great health care and look for something on the the open market though we that we don't worry about IT, you know with our with our faith, we do believe that will be taking care of no matter what happens and that everything's got hands. And we also know that we've done a lot to help be ready for unexpected expenses that might come up. And our saving has given us freedom and flexibility that you know would not be possible otherwise.

So where we've at today is a point where we can say, yes, I can lead my job now and spend time with just when I know I can spend the time with jesica. And so it's very much what I want to do. And IT makes the decision easier and more important and more urgent, I guess, to make sure that we are living this life to its forests each and every day.

I hear you on the that, of course, none of us know what will happen, and also, we all do know that we will all die. Like, yes, we have that knowledge, yeah, but you guys understand IT differently than most Young people, right? Like most of us are very happy to have that thought kind of the of the periphery push IT .

good back .

with ice cream and dual ingo and whatever. But like you said, that word urgent right, brought urgency to your life. And I wonder if if you can talk about that a little bit more about like what did I mean practically for some of the decisions you're making about your present in your future?

Yeah so the the deepest ends, hardest conversations that just can I have ever had occurred in that time period between the first surgery, in the second surgery, because we understood what we were dealing with and we were knowingly going into another brain surgery, which is obviously not something you agree to lightly. And I mean, the risks associated with that they were talking about SHE might wake up and not be able to move half of her body, and that is a good likelihood that she'd have some amount of weakness for the rest of her life.

Now so there you're talking about physical life is different, the chemotherapy you know what that goes after fast growing cells and and a Young woman, fast growing cells are the kind that why you to have children and they told us IT was less than fifty percent chance that we'd be able to um have a family after you know our own after we went through the the chemotherapy for a year. So uh we had that going through our minds and our conversations. And then you know even if you talk about the if maybe could we have a family at the time when we found out SHE had the cancer, we were trying to get pregnant.

And you know, the number said, you know what, even if you would do succeed and having a kid, SHE might not be there to see him or her graduate by tough, tough conversations about the future. So, you know, we did our best to accept the things that we could not change. And that takes a lot of time, takes prayer IT, takes reflection.

And then once you get to the acceptance point, then you say, okay, knowing this, what are we going to do for us? Am not losing hope, of course, and to get the best doctors we could and the best treatment we could and take care of ourselves. And you know, one day, one month, one year at a time, see what life offered us.

And minor financial plan definitely change from there. So Jessica, I has not returned to a full time work since that occurred, gave the opportunity to be a state home mom. She's done some part time work but decided that, you know, being at home is the place for her, at least right now.

And you know, that changes our savings trajectory as well. But you know that finances are a way for us to a line on our priorities, work on what we want to work on. And in our case, because we had been intentional about finances, IT gave us this opportunity now to both so that SHE didn't have to come back to work full time, but also that I have the opportunity to step away from a very demanding career, one that I really enjoy. But it's not more important to me than time with family.

I see kind of two things. You have used that word acceptance a few times. And even when we very first started talking about this, he said, this is our life.

Like this ultimate radical acceptance line of this is what is happening. And so now i'm gonna talk about, you know, what that means and what comes next. And then you brought in that word acceptance several times.

And I also see, when you say certain words like brain surgery, this shock on your face, right? Because there's still this way. I think that it's just like, so mind blowing in the worst possible way that is still maybe is surprising that this has happened. Is that partly what you're feeling or what that's like?

Um yeah so IT is certainly still a surprise that this is the path our relationship and just cus health and our lives have taken for sure. We could not have predicted IT would not have chosen IT, but we also understand that we can't control the reality that IT has occurred. yes. 对 对， happened.

And so I guess there's there's an element of surprise and disbelief both in that IT happened but also in all of the surprising good things that have come from IT in the, you know the revelation that the mass that was taken out almost the size of A Q ball well and that afterwards Jessica is still Jessica. You almost no change in her personality and her day to day life. You know, when he recovered, IT takes a while to recover, but I mean that surprising and amazing just the opportunity to see the support and the love that so many people shared as he was going through the recovery.

That's not something that most people get. You know, you don't want the reason for IT, but the experience of seeing all that love. So tangibly is a good surprise. And then you know now years later, having been able to naturally conceive when we were told there was a low chance of that is. And one of the the best surprises that we could ever imagine.

So it's still hard to mash the concept of something bad has happened and that we could not have controlled that as much as we might want to with the concept of no matter what happens, we are still able to intentionally drug close to one another and to our friends and family. And it's made us more intentional and more present and more able to spend the time that we have meaningfully. And so there's a bit surprise, but there's a response to that, that I think is also Better and in that way, more surprising than I could have imagined in the first place.

Yeah, I wanted talk a little bit about how you got there because it's not that's not what happens to everybody. You know that a terrible thing happens and then they're able to kind of like be more grateful and notice all the good things that have come out of IT. And while I mentioned the stunt, look on your face, you are also, we can hear, as you're talking about IT like you are such a grounded person. And I hear that part of that is your faith and part of that is this community that you have, you know, the people around you who stepped up and we're able to show you how much they loved you. Are there other things i'm thinking about you personally that helped you to manage the stress of the situation?

Yeah, I guess to a large degree, it's what you've already mentioned, the faiths and the family that's through out my life. I've had great examples of no matter what happens, everything is going to be OK and that is as much a mindset as IT is, you know, to see what the experience is and look back at IT. You know, you can have that mindset as you go through IT.

And for me personally, my friends and family have always told me that i'm a naturally positive and optimistic person. I'm hopeful in whatever is going on. And being able to apply myself, help others in whatever is happening is something that brings me that that grounded feeling.

I don't know if I have good words for IT, and you might have Better ones than me, even let the way I would describe IT is whenever something chAllenging comes up, I look at how I can respond in a positive way. And by doing those actions, that proves that I have some amount agency, and that continues to ground me and you make me able to handle IT Better. So you initially we ve got a diagnosis of a rare brain tumor.

Okay, well, I know how to do some research. I got a message degree. Let me go look at medical articles and what's the latest information on this, and find which, you know, university hospital is publishing the most on IT. And we're going to go talk to them for the best path forward. No, that's little things, big things. Whatever is in chAllenging situations, owning the ability to respond and respond positively is something that, for me, is very helpful and helps me both emotionally and also just generally gets me moving in the right direction as a response to IT.

Yeah, I think that this is a really insightful thing that you're saying, right, that I can choose how i'm gonna respond to this and that there is a lot of power in that in terms of how you feel about a situation. And IT makes me think back to what you were saying about, hey, we saved all this money and now IT gave us some options. And I think in the same way, you are kind of doing the same thing with your outlook and with your mental health. You know that, hey, like kate, i'm always a person who's trying to look at what is hopeful in the situation. And that has served you in this time when IT probably was .

hard to do that. Yeah.

well, i'm glad to hear that Jessica is okay. What has IT been like to be doing the follow up appointments? Is that a rapping up of anxious that comes up? Or is that more .

routine now depends on who you ask. So I would say for both jaska and for me, the situation is it's not something that brings anxiety. It's something that we schedule, we put on the go there. We know it's coming up. We get a skin, we get results like that's just, it's a matter of fact, part of our lives .

what I win you.

And so yeah, we can celebrate that. Now some of our family members, you know they care very much and uh that you know a blessing and that's a little harder for some of them. You know they're nervous for us and exist themselves.

So of course, we always send out updates out. We get the results. And um I think you know that the time is always gonna be the there is the option in the you know opportunity for IT to be y're racking, but doesn't gain us a whole bunch to do that. So instead, today is the day where we actually get a results, where um we went out to breakfast, we've got a nice breakfast. And then this afternoon we're going to go see the doctor and here what the latest scan says so we can we can just take IT one day at a time.

I hope you had a nice breakfast. I hope you ve got the extra coffee.

even though I might put off your retirement. Now we right.

right. okay. Well, let's close out by kind of talking about recommendation. So thinking about the reason were having these conversations is helpful for other people to hear what other people have done and what were the resources that helped them along the way.

And I love that you started by saying, OK, my wife wasn't actually really into this at first. And the isn't was SHE didn't want to move to an island off of seat, right? Like SHE didn't see herself in the stories that he had listened to and scene.

And so how powerful IT can be for someone to hear your story. And so we know you read a simple path to wealth. You mention that, are there other books that have been helpful to you, either in terms of practically thinking about how to get where you are or mindset stuff? What have you got for us?

For us, the biggest things have been the poddar ast episodes because they're more bite size than books and so much that we can get through, and there's too many to name there. The work optional term came from tiny a hester and her book. But I think simple path to wealth removed the burden and made IT clear for us, you know, a simple take action path forward.

And that's definitely been the biggest impact. Not really the books, but just sit in down and having those alignment meetings once you have the basics really being consistent in looking and making sure you're continuing along the path that you said you were gonna go along and that is still where you want to go as you know, life grows, things that you things change. Yeah, that's definitely an actionable thing.

Yeah, I really stuck out to me at the beginning when you are talking about those meetings. He said thing that really did something for us was tracking our network. And brad has said that a couple times and that's kind of what got me to start doing IT too, because IT doesn't seem that should be, I don't know, meaningful like in terms of like okay, because you know what the small pieces are.

So like what's the big deal about adding them up on a piece of paper? And yet for me too, actually was a really helpful thing to do. And so that can definitely be, I think, a action IT for people if you're not doing that already. I do that through empower what used to be personal capital. Is that what you do or you just season a sped cheap?

Well, I I preferred mant when I was around because I was Better at linking in category ing things. We do have empower and use that mostly to just quickly double check all of our expenses over the previous months. Mixture were same, what we need to save her, we were saving stuff.

We still put IT into a one note page and write the numbers down. That way, it's no static. And since we're doing every three months, you can kind of click through. I started moving those to a spread sheet so that we could plot IT and see the changes.

I think the reason though that that's so impact for is because even though you know the little pieces when you're saving and that money is going into investment accounts, it's growing with compounding. And you don't see that unless you start tracking IT. So that's the invisible part.

You know how much you put in. But by actually putting IT on a piece of paper, here's how much IT has grown that can spray on to keep doing that because the momentum is building. Trying to think more about you know actionable items.

One thing I would suggest, which we didn't do very well as considering early on, what is insurance look like after you stop working if you want to do an early retirement? Because in the simplified plans, it's like it'll just cost me what I currently cost me. But of course, I have a greatly company subsidized insurance.

And then you know they see a way and ended up being in a lot more when you considered both premiums and out of pocket. So that was an unexpected cost that wasn't part of the original plan. But again, one we're just accepting and not not worried about.

Now you know, what was such a bummer to me was learning that H. S. C accounts, you can use them for insurance premiums. okay? I mean, I recognized if you don't have an h. Sa account, you're like, what this isn't devastating, but to me that seems like such an obvious way actually like for people in this community who are like, okay, I know the hc account is so great for all these reasons and then we also have this fear about what when I stop working, i'm not onna have this benefit, but IT turns out you gotto find another way.

Yeah, you have have that money elsewhere. yeah. And after fifty nine and a half, IT still has to come out for medical expenses or its income.

That to me was a surprise, which we've got plenty of plenty medical defences. So we will probably be able to join our you to say pretty well. But .

relations for.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I would say another action will step is for us, growing the income was a big part of all of this. You know, at the end, me being the soul provider for the family and working, my income was more than about just can I working together years earlier.

And so having that income growth and being able to focus on that side of the equation meant that, you know, we still don't need to be excEllent at meal prep and the little expenses, you know, we can enjoy that long day at breakfast. You know, in our case today, we have got plantains with some cream sauce at the restaurant because IT sounds a good and do we need to know, but can we afford IT? yes. yeah.

Well, that makes me think where you were like, okay, that income peace was so helpful, you said one thing I wish we had thought about more was how much insurance was gonna. What would that i've changed if you had known that?

So as you get ready to get a job, there's you know the transition from out of a career and subsidized health care means that you need to purchase another. So in that planning, picking the right data leave impacts whether or not you have health insurance for the rest of the year. So for example, for me, originally, I was gonna leave a little bit earlier than I finally decided on.

And what I realized is staying a couple of extra weeks and ending at the beginning of a month is a huge benefit because I get health insurance through the end of that month. And then the other thing is retiring in the later part of the year, IT makes more sense to stay on cobra and continue on the health plan. Then IT does to sign up for a new health plan because we've already hit our out of pocket maximum for the year.

So I don't want to take insurance plans and then have to start with a zero dollar towards my deductible, pay everything for the stuff that comes up. So the action thing there is just making sure that you have think about how everything comes together. And for us, IT does change what our final fine number is, and you will be looking carefully over the next couple years of know how much we're spending and make sure that what we actually end up having as far as coverage is concerned, matches up with what we're planning on spending.

And so IT just requires us to be more intentional in in our tracking hand. You know, if I have to do part time remote work, which is an option in my field, then I have to do that. And knowing that in advance is something that helps me be more more open to IT, more positive about IT because it's totally okay. It's part of the plan because we've .

had down to play them. Yeah, I love that as I kind of a closing message about being flexible and just about how we can get so scared about like, oh, no, what if the four percent rule doesn't work or what whatever the thing is, whatever the rule is and to say instead, like now this is a dynamic process. We're intentional about how we're making decisions and we can change your mind about things yeah.

and I can be fun too. I mean, when when I was making that five dollars an hour in germany and took a trip with friends to switzerland and the happy meal and mcDonald's was like fifteen swiss Franks and I couldn't afford that. That day was let's go to the grocery store and get some bread and button and continue walking around and enjoy IT like the experience was still great and IT was within the budget that we had at the time. So yeah, that flexibility. I mean, if you embrace IT, IT can help you have a great experience every day, no matter what the day ends up looking like.

no. Well, thank you so much for being open to having this conversation in a real way and really sharing, you know what your experience has been like because I do think it's gonna a be so helpful for people to hear. Last time I was talking to brad, we were talking about how awkward I am at the end of every episode.

He didn't say that. I said, don't make me say something at the end. It's always, it's too weird. I don't know how to say goodbye. So, T, J, you are going to Carry us out in the last seconds here and close up the episode. What do you say?

sure. You'll give you a shot. So a lot of this episode we've talked about, you know me in my experience, but I want to close this out with mentioning, you know, how amazing desk A T is as the one going through the real chAllenge in this.

And you know, SHE took a year of fun employment when he moved from her previous job to spend time with me. And then, you know, eventually that let us getting married after the long distance, stating we had done. And I want to share that like SHE wasn't on board with five, but SHE herself had taken a gap year fun of IT.

And so as you think about all these things that you're hearing on this episode and all of the episodes, you know any resistance that you feel, you know it's real resistance. But as long as you are still taking the actions, your driving yourself in the right direction that i'll lead where you want to go, so go take action hopefull. You can be excited about IT and know that other people are making IT happen, and you can make that happen to thank .

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