Afford Anything - The Paradox of FI -- with Jonathan Mendonsa and Brad Barrett of Choose FI

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

#160: When Jonathan Mendonsa was 18, he researched which college degrees lead to the highest income. Pharmacy was near the top of the list of high-paying degrees, so Jonathan decided to become a pharmacist. He wasn't motivated by passion or calling. His decision was purely tactical. He wanted to make money. He spent four years in college, followed by another four years of graduate school. By age 28, he held a Doctorate in Pharmacy and an astounding $168,000 in debt. This debt burden might have been bearable if Jonathan loved his chosen profession. For people who love their fields, tuition is the price of being able to enjoy a lifetime of work they love. Unfortunately, that wasn't Jonathan's story. He never held a passion for pharmacy; he viewed it purely as a means to an end. Perhaps it wasn't surprising, then, that shortly after becoming a pharmacist, he realized that this wasn't what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to change careers. He wanted to pursue more meaningful, fun, interesting work. He spent the next four years repaying his student debt. And finally, at age 32, he brought his net worth up to zero. _____ Brad Barrett wasn't thinking about income when he chose his profession. He had received acceptance letters to some Ivy League schools, but he wanted to graduate from college debt-free, so he enrolled at the University of Richmond, which gave him a partial scholarship. While studying there, Brad encountered an accounting professor who challenged him and his classmates in the best possible ways.  Brad felt inspired to major in accounting. His decision didn't come from a rigorous analysis of lifetime income potential. He wasn't scrutinizing labor statistics spreadsheets. He was simply following a route that he found fascinating. After he received his undergraduate degree, Brad decided not to enroll in any further education. Instead, he started working for one of the Big Five accounting firms, with a starting salary in the low $40,000's. He and his future wife both lived at home with their parents for the first few years of their professional life, which allowed each of them to save dramatic amounts. Brad saved more than 90 percent of his after-tax income.  Perhaps it's not surprising that the couple, who now have two children, are financially independent. ____ Both Jonathan and Brad are college-educated professionals in their thirties. They both live in Richmond, Virginia. They're both married with children (Jonathan has a son; Brad has two daughters). Yet their stories could not be more different. What can we learn about careers, work, income, spending, and financial independence from their life experiences? Find out in today's podcast interview with Jonathan and Brad, the co-hosts of the ChooseFI podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything but not everything. Every decision that you make is a trade-off against something else. And that doesn't just apply to your money. It applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention. It applies to anything in your life that's a scarce or limited resource. And so the questions become twofold. Number one, what matters most to you? And number two, how do you align your daily decisions to reflect that?

Answering these two questions is a lifetime practice. And that's what this podcast is here to explore. My name is Paula Pan. I'm the host of the Afford Anything podcast. and the founder of afford anything.com. Today on the show with me are Jonathan Mandanza and Brad Barrett of the Choose FI podcast. Now, Jonathan and Brad are both in their 30s. They both live in Richmond, Virginia, but they came to financial independence, or FI, from very different paths.

And we're going to hear about that in today's episode. Jonathan went through eight years of higher education and became a doctor of pharmacy. Brad stopped after the undergraduate level and became an accountant with a starting salary in the low 40s. Yet Brad is financially independent. Jonathan is not yet. Why? Let's find out in today's episode. Because it sheds light on some counterintuitive notions about what many of us have been taught when it comes to education, careers, income, and our net worth.

Today's episode starts as an interview, but as you'll hear, more. morphs into a conversation. And as part of that conversation, we stumble upon a concept that I call The Paradox of FI. What is that? You're about to find out. Here's Jonathan and Brad. Welcome, Jonathan and Brad. Hey, Paula, thanks so much for having us. Yeah, Paula, this is fantastic. I've been a listener of yours since the very first episode, so this is a real treat. Thank you. What was the original title of this show, Paula? Because there was a point for you, right? It's now, it's, Oh, I know. I was a listener. It was The Money Show. The Money Show. That's right. That's right. With a lot of periods in there, right? Yes, exactly. Money was a, money was abbreviated M-O-N-E-Y, but we had no idea what it was an acronym for.

So we invited the audience to take guesses. And it was the Money Show.com was what this originally was called. That's ancient history. And by ancient history, I mean like, yeah, two and a half years. Internet years. For sure. Exactly. That's a generation on the internet. So I would like to invite you to share your stories. Yeah, I'd love to hop in and kind of start with this. I always consider myself a logical person, you know, and I think many of us do. But then when you look back, you know, with the benefit of hindsight and a little bit of separation of time, you look back at past decisions and you say, well, with the information I have now, some of those choices seem really suboptimal. But when I look at my, you know, 18-year-old self, I'm Googling, what are the top 10 professions, you know,

and I'm kind of looking at these, this is what you do. If you want to be successful inside the United States, it's one of these, you know, very limited options and they're probably going to fall inside that STEM category, right? I went to pharmacy school at the time that was, it was a, hey, it was probably near at the top of that list. And for me, it was always you need to earn more. You need to get a high income. And no matter what sort of debt you incur and no longer and no matter how much school it

requires to get, you know, said degree, the income will always justify it. that was kind of like what I was chasing early on. And I'll let Brad weigh in here. But, you know, at the time, this made sense to me. A guaranteed path to wealth is take out as much debt as you need to get to get the degree you need to get to get the job that will give you that safe, steady income. Before we go to Brad, Jonathan, so I'm curious. So then when you were in high school and you were making the decision to go into pharmacy school, when you were 18 years old, just to clarify, money was a high priority for you at that time. Yes? I would say earning money, but not necessarily being responsible with the money that I had. You know, time was unlimited. I remember, I very distinctly remember one of my early jobs that I had during a summer and I had access for whatever reason to a 401k and a matching program. And the HR department was convincing me or was trying to convince me that I should go ahead and get involved in this and start putting some money aside. And it didn't resonate with me. I didn't see the end game. You know, this idea that I was going to put 4% of my paycheck, which back at that time was probably only like five or six, maybe even $700 or something like that. And I was going to put that aside. And that is somehow going to have benefits for me 60 years down the road or 40 years down the road. And I couldn't see it.

I couldn't visualize it. And so I just checked out. To me, it was, oh, I have time. Oh, all of this is going to be resolved by me going and getting this degree and getting this great paycheck. And I will have plenty of time to catch up then. What did you imagine doing with those high earnings? Well, I think I just wanted to be able to afford a great lifestyle. And this is in the early days.

This is, you know, you're talking to an 18-year-old individual. But at that particular point in time, once I have this income, then I can afford a great life. And that idea of a great life probably look like the trappings that you would suspect when you kind of look at the aspirational hamster whale as we talk about it now. The nice house, the new car, the great, the awesome tech, you know, all of that stuff, I would be able to afford it. That was kind of my goal. with a great income, then I could afford a great lifestyle, and I could afford all these awesome vacations. If we get farther down this path, I'll be able to kind of highlight how not all of that pans out. But, you know, at the time, it was income will allow me to do anything. All right. Final question

about 18-year-old Jonathan before we moved to Brad. You mentioned that part of what drew you to becoming a pharmacist and going to pharmacy school was that you knew that the STEM professions were some of the highest paying. Had you as a child, Now we'll go to like third grade or fourth grader, Jonathan. Were you naturally inclined towards science and math? Did you enjoy that? Or did you make yourself go further into it because you knew it would be high paying, despite the fact that you might have been more inclined to the humanities? Yeah, that's interesting.

I think it's exactly that there's multiple aspects of this. One is that I come from a lower middle income family and money was always tight. I was the oldest of five kids. We had a very safe. I consider myself growing up in a very privileged setting, but I'm using that in the context of we had what we needed, not more. And I think I always did want more than that. You know, I wasn't satisfied with that as a kid.

I wanted to have a stronger financial footing and I assumed that income was the way to get there. Frankly, I mean, it was as simple as saying what jobs are actually out there. I knew that entrepreneurship was too dangerous. I knew that most small businesses fail. I knew this, right? And I didn't want to take a risky path where, you know, who knew what was going to lie on the other side. I wanted a quote unquote guaranteed path to wealth.

That was just the obvious choice. And we talk about it now. You don't know what you don't know until you do. But I knew that the top 10 jobs back in 2003 were, you know, and I could go down the list at the time. But pharmacy was definitely on that list. And I was going to do that. So, yeah, I pushed myself potentially into something that really didn't, if I were to look back and be honest with myself, wasn't necessarily something that I was passionate about because that was just what you did.

Brad, tell me about you. Let's introduce me to 18-year-old Brad. Sure. It's funny. It seems like a long time ago. But yeah, 18-year-old bread. It is a little bit longer for you. Well, for you. I guess I'm the oldest on the call, right? Quick time out. How old are all of us? I am 39. 33 over here. Oh, wow. I'm the middle then. I'm 34. Nice. Well played. All right, Brad, sorry to cut you off. Tell us about 18-year-old Brad. Yeah, so 18-year-old Brad lived on Long Island, New York, so a real high-cost-a-living area.

I saw my dad really never enjoy his job. He was a lawyer and, you know, worked fairly decent hours, but just didn't love it. And he wanted to get out as early as possible. So I don't think, honestly, I've ever talked. about that on my own podcast, but I think that probably impacted me more than I ever really have thought out loud here. So it's funny how things just kind of come back to you when a question is posed a certain way. But I guess since Jonathan talked about college, my own college experience is somewhat relevant, certainly to my FI journey. And again, Jonathan talked about

suboptimal. And I think I was attempting to be optimal, but wound up being significantly suboptimal. So I guess in high school, I did pretty well. I got accepted to some Ivy League schools and top 10 or so schools in the country. So, you know, I did well. But yet I knew at the time that wasn't something that I necessarily valued. And I looked at the price tags of those schools, which seemed quaint now, honestly, Paul. It was like $30,000 a year as opposed to $60,000 that it is now. So it sounds laughable, honestly, in today's age.

But at the time, that was an absolute. astronomical figure. And I don't know how 18 year old brand had the, the mental wherewithal to know this, but like, I didn't want to go into debt. So that was really crucial to me. So what I did was I went to the University of Richmond, which still it's, this is oh, poor me, right? It's still like a top 50 or 60 school in the country. I did get a partial scholarship there. But that said, it was still expensive. My parents, luckily for me, had put some money aside. It wasn't an amount to cover mine. entire tuition, certainly, but it was a significant amount. So I knew coming out that I was not going to have a large debt burden. I was still caught up on that prestige and, you know, potentially like those rankings meaning something, which to me now is, is silly. But I think it did mean something to 18 year Brad, unfortunately. Whereas I look back and I say, wow, there are so many people now, especially in our community, the five community at large, who have figured out college, have figured out the these ways to hack it, to go for almost nothing.

And probably if I was competitive enough, let's say, to get into those top schools, I probably could have gotten a merit scholarship at many schools in the country. And like looking back, I wish I could tell 18 year old Brad, you really should do that. And then that money your parents have set aside, either A, they could use it for their own retirement or B, they might have given me some portion of it. And I could have come out of school with a positive net worth as opposed to a slightly negative net worth. So, yeah, I mean, that kind of catches you up on where I was financially or financially minded as an 18-year-old. Were there any other benefits to going to a slightly more prestigious

school, such as the networking opportunities, the people that you met, the challenge and the rigor of the courses? Yeah, it's a great question. I think the network has helped. I met lifelong friends who are at the top of their fields. And I think just knowing people like Jonathan kind of jokes that he's surprised at the life network that I have. So I think that has helped to some degree. I think also what I knew as an 18 year old to go back to your question was I didn't want to be a small fish in a big pond. And that might be some like psychological limiting factor of my own self. But like I didn't want to just be a no name at a 20,000 person school. At the University of Richmond, there were only 3,000 kids there. And I want to be on a first name basis with

the dean. I was the vice president of the student government. I befriended basically the best accounting professor in the country, and I still email with him and go out to lunch with him occasionally. So there are definitely aspects of that of a small college that really helped me significantly. Going back to something that you mentioned earlier, how did you know that your dad didn't like his job? He did talk about it, but more in like the grumbling sense around the house. It was never, unfortunately, that sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation about, hey, these were the mistakes I made or what I wish that I could have done. Because it was pretty obvious that that's where he was coming from.

But it was never overtly stated in the house. It was more just this sense that he did not care for his job. He probably felt that he could have done much more with his legal career. He wound up working for the Long Island Railroad. And he always said he stuck around because they had a pension. Okay. So I mean, he literally, Paul, he got out as, as soon as he possibly could. I think he was, I guess, technically an early retiree, which is kind of

funny. Like, he, I think it was 20 or 25 years he worked, and that was it. So, I mean, he retired, I think, in his late 40s or early 50s. What about your mom? What did she do? Yeah, my mom was kind of a jack of all trade. She was kind of hybrid state home mom and office manager, actually. So she showed us the value of hard work, but also being there. And I think both of my parents, were there. I mean, my dad was the coach of my soccer team growing up and basketball teams. And, and yeah, she was that mom on the sidelines just cheering her heart out for her boys. And it was great. I mean, my parents, they were there. And, you know, it can still almost bring tears to my eyes right now just thinking about it. They truly were there. And I will never

forget them. How many siblings did you have? I have one younger brother. He's a couple years younger than me. And he's pursuing FI now, actually, which is interesting. So he is doing international teaching, which is fascinating if you've ever dove into that world at all. But yeah, he's living in Santiago, Chile, and just having the time of his life and getting paid significantly for it. So it's, it's really neat. That's awesome. I have some friends who do that. Japan has a great program for that called the Jet Program, where you can get paid very, very well to teach English in Japan. Huge demand for it. Oh, that's very cool. Yeah, I studied a broad in Japan. I love living there. So, yeah, I'll have to tell them that. That's cool.

Oh, nice. That was the first country I ever traveled to without my parents as an adult. No kidding. What are you like 30 or 40 countries deep now? Yeah, I would need to do an official count, but it's definitely over 40 countries. It's, I think, maybe around 42. And my barometer is that I need to spend a minimum of one week in a country for it to count, with the exception of Singapore. That's the one country that I have spent less than a weekend that's on that list. Wow, that's impressive, Paul. I've heard people say like one night even, but one week, that's pretty cool. How many other countries would you have added if it was fewer days than that? Probably only two or three more. But one week, I think, is long enough to have a

meaningful experience in a place. And so that was why I set that as a barometer. I'm a believer in slow travel, and a lot of the countries that I've been to, I've spent months and months and months there. I've spent, geez, I've returned to Thailand probably eight or nine times. I've returned to Colombia three or four times. Ecuador, of course, for the Chautauquas, at least three times. So a lot of countries I keep revisiting Nepal. I've spent cumulatively about two years of my life there. Yeah, so one week just seemed like a solid minimum floor. Yeah, I like that. That's pretty cool. I've never, never heard that before, like it said. But yeah, I like that. Jonathan, you mentioned here the oldest of five, are any of your siblings on the FI path? Not with the same intensity that

their sibling myself is. But they have caught in the bug to various degrees, depending on their stage in life. And all of them are certainly saving more than they would have in a vacuum where I'm not pestering them with all of these little facts and tidbits. Like for instance, when I graduated college, I graduated with my doctorate degree in pharmacy with 168,000, $1,000 in student loan debt. I think I was 28 years old when I graduated. So I'm finally done with school. You know, this path that I was describing earlier had me totally done with school at the age of 28 and 168 grand in student loan debt. And I spent the next four years with a fire under my tail paying that debt off, meaning that practically speaking, I was getting back to broke in my

early 30s. It's a lost decade. And I just, you know, I think when you look at grad and our respective past, I think there's something that's worth contrasting here and highlighting because I knew I was going to make it. I was going to get this guaranteed path to wealth that was going to involve this high paying career. And I was going to do whatever it took to get it, including essentially four years of undergrad, four years for my doctorate, eight years of post-high school education before I was earning any income to justify it. And then when I did start earning income, I'm at this. I have over six figures in student loan debt. I'm massively behind the eight ball. Yeah. And you talk about opportunity cost, right, Paula? Like that is just such a crucial,

crucial concept. And Jonathan really gave up an entire decade to get back to zero because he was basically 32 when he paid off that 168,000. So at that point, certainly he has a six figure income, which is fantastic. But yeah, that's an entire decade that really vanished just to this education and then paying off this debt. Whereas like he mentioned, to kind of contrast with my own story, I've never progressed beyond just a bachelor's. I do have a CPA license. So there is that, I suppose, but I never needed additional education beyond just the bachelors to get my CPA license. So I came out. I was working for one of the bigger, bigger firms in the world. world, one of the, I guess, big five at the point. But yeah, I mean, I was not making this amazing salary.

I think my initial starting salary was in the low 40s, which granted for 2001 was pretty darn good, but certainly was a far cry from six figures. And it would have taken me many years to get to that point. So what I did was instead, I focused on saving. I've always been frugal. I like to term it that I'm a valuelist now. I buy what I value. But I think people at large, would call it frugal or cheap you know i hate that term but we'll go with frugal but yeah i mean i lived at home for two and a half years basically saving every penny i possibly could i mean my savings rate had to be 90 plus percent my future wife did the same exact thing she was also in account and she saved 90 plus percent lived at home and i wound up buying a co-op which basically is just

just an apartment on Long Island. And that was what I had saved up for. So I wound up selling it a couple years later and making a decent bit of appreciation, but nothing, nothing spectacular. And then at that point, it was, okay, we're getting married. What do we do? Do we try to make this life in this high cost of living area on Long Island in New York? We're, hey, we're both CPAs.

We're eventually going to make some pretty good money. But we would always have to give something up. And I think that to us that that wasn't a life that we wanted to live. And frankly, like at 25 that we had this thought, what is still astounding to me. Like I give those 25-year-old kids like great credit, honestly, because it wasn't something we talked about for tens of hours or anything. It was just we looked at each other and said, we don't want to do this. And what we did was we moved 400 miles south to Richmond, Virginia and started a life here.

That was a big leap. But, I mean, that one choice, that domestic geo-arbitraged choice really was the springboard for this entire FI lifestyle that we're living now. How did you choose to become an accountant? Yeah, that is a good question. That's going back to my, I guess, 19 or 20-year-old self. So I didn't have, unlike Jonathan, like I didn't do that research as an 18-year-old kid. It never crossed my mind. It was always just, hey, I'm going to go to college and just kind of see.

I didn't have any sense. But what I did was I took accounting courses at the business school. It was a prerequisite. And I kind of liked it. As silly as that sounds like there was this professor. Okay. There's Professor Hoyle at the University of Richmond who was regarded as both the toughest professor but the best professor at the university.

And I just wanted to take a course from him. He's like the guy who he taught through the Socratic method and you had to show up. every single day and prepare. It was amazing. Like, I mean, invariably, people would cry every single day in that class because not because he was mean, not because he was a jerk, but because he wanted excellence. And he kept asking either you went one of two ways. You either didn't care and you would drop out pretty quickly or you showed up prepared

every single day. To me, it was if I could get out of Professor Hoyle's class with a pretty good grade, which I did, I can do anything in the accounting profession. And I know that's just like one of those seminal moments in life where it made me interested in accounting. So yeah, I mean, I think I think that's the story. So one thing that I hear when I hear each of you tell your stories about how you selected your initial careers, Brad, it sounds like yours came from a place of passion. Jonathan, yours came from an analysis of what might have the highest ROI. A single mercenary moment.

Exactly. Which in hindsight you refer to as a lost decade. And the thing that struck me when I heard that is that if pharmacy were the thing that you were really passionate about, then getting back to broke at age 32 wouldn't necessarily have been a lost decade. If you were, I'm sure there are some people out there who are so excited about the field of medicine or the field of whatever it is that they received a four-year postgraduate degree in that they feel like they were put on earth to do it. getting back to broke is just the price of admission for being able to live that calling. I love that. Yeah, it's a great point. And certainly my burnout does not reflect all pharmacists or all doctors' burnout. There are many people that can hold their heads high for a 40-year career in this chosen field. But I think it's worth considering that you have no idea what your 10-year future self is going to think about a given profession. And while I may have convinced myself that I love something going into it and was willing to take out virtually unlimited debt to do it, you know, hey, maybe I'm not crazy excited about it, but hey, I can force the excitement and maybe even fool myself and oh, wow, this is actually fun. This is really cool. You know, a decade later,

essentially, uh, you find out whether or not that is really true. And if you do that in a scenario where you still have all this debt hanging over your head, you may hate it and have tons of debt still hanging over your head because instead of paying down the debt, you just funded that lifestyle that, you know, that, that hedonic treadmill that we talked about earlier. You, you will always find a way to inflate your spending to match your income. It's actually truly remarkable how quickly you can adapt to any income level. I love numbers. I love just, I love compound dangerous. I love running calculations and looking at graphs. And that number 168,000 that was my student loan debt really stood out to me because that's how much debt I had when I graduated at the

age of 28. If, if I had taken a more optimal path or I had had some of the tools and some of the ideas, the concepts that we talk about inside the FI community, going back to that situation, if I could have reversed that and I could have focused on maybe something that it would allow me to maybe get a profession, maybe it doesn't pay quite as much, but it allows me to start working either right after high school or right after my bachelor's degree. It allows me to hopefully hit some sort of median income so that I can get to a point where I'm saving, either using some of the tools that we talk about like house hacking or living even with my parents for a couple of years, right? I mean, I was living in dorms or with roommates,

for eight or nine or ten years in the context of college and still going into debt, maybe for a couple years, I do what Brad did and I live with my parents. If I could have gotten to the point where I had saved $168,000 by the age of 28, so from 18 to 28 save up $168,000. That sounds like a lot, but if you break it down by year, I would think that would be doable if that was, if I put as much time and intensity into figuring out how to save $168 grant as I did

into figuring out how to get a pharmacy degree, which is each, both of those require a lot of diligence. You could basically walk away and just fund your lifestyle paycheck to paycheck for the next 22 years. And at the age of 50, if you were to have that money invested in it, we're gaining, you know, average market returns over time. We'll just, I'll use 8% just for the sake of this example. There's going to be about a million dollars waiting for you. I mean, that decade, if you would just reverse that and gone the other way, it's a million dollar decision. And so the Phi community has gotten a lot of press lately and people looking at

someone at the age of 40 or 50 having a million dollars and say, that's impossible. How could you do that? You, what were you given a silver spoon? What did you have a high income? No, it's just maybe looking at the paradigm just a little bit differently, understanding how basic math works and making a slightly more optimized decisions. And it's why it's worth exploring different ways of tackling this path. That makes perfect sense. I mean, the example that you just gave, saving a hundred $168,000 over the course of 10 years means saving $16,800 per year, which is a little over $1,000 a month. You could do that by living with roommates. Agreed.

Right. And that's not including any type of return on that money at all. Yeah, exactly. That's principle only. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. Are you looking for a bank that's not going to nickel and dime you with fees and that's going to pay you a good interest rate? Check out Radius Bank. They have this product called Radius Hybrid Checking.

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Jonathan, one thing that you mentioned early in your answer to that, though, was that you have no idea what your future self, what your self 10 years into the future might want or might enjoy. Wait, actually, you know what? Let me scrap that question because I just thought of a better one. Oh, upgrade. Upgrade. Question upgrade. You asked such great questions. Oh, thank you.

My former job was, I was a journalist, I was a newspaper reporter. But the New York Times. Oh, God, no, no. For this dinky little paper that everybody mistook for the student newspaper because it was that amateur-ish. But you were the star reporter. I was one of three reporters, so I was certainly in the top three. So you were on the team. Yeah, it was this tiny,

little paper that everyone mistook for the student paper. It paid nothing. My starting salary was 21,000 a year in 2005. But the thing that I really got out of it was number one that I learned how to write and number two that I learned how to interview. And I had no idea at the time that those would prove to be such worthwhile skills. Yeah, it is amazing how asking questions and just listening. That to me is the biggest thing. Like if you can just actually listen to someone's story, then the questions just flow. That's what I find as being an interviewer on my own podcast. And it's funny, as I hear Jonathan talking, I want to ask him questions. So, Paula, would you mind if I ask him one? Yeah, go for it. So Jonathan, you've very publicly said, of course, that you left the pharmacy profession because you found this passion in Chusify. My question to you would be, what if Chusify never happened? What if you were just kind of aware of the FI community, but you were 30, you had just paid off your student loans. Where do you think you would have gone from there with the pharmacy profession?

Like, were you truly burned out on it? Or was it just that this something amazing came along? Paula, that's a great question. Brad's hijacking your show. No, it is. It is really is. And I have thought about it. I think that this is an unfortunate side effect of finding something that lights you up

and pays your bills is that it makes you loathe anything that doesn't light you up and takes up increasing amounts of your time. And I had both of them running parallel for over a year. And pharmacy took the unfortunate half of my wrath over that year. So like any free time that I had, I wanted to put into something that was quickly becoming my purpose. And the other became a unfortunate obstacle to me being able to pursue my purpose, which is why, like, with hindsight and looking a year back, I think a lot of my tone has been hardened. In the vacuum where Chusify doesn't exist, I had a 10-year plan. I was very happy with working the plan. I was actually, I had already chopped a year off. So basically, I had this little check sheet that I was using.

Every two weeks, I would walk into this room in our house where we had this whiteboard. I had broken the whiteboard into 100 checkboxes. Each checkbox represented a weekend that I had to be at work, a Saturday or Sunday that I couldn't do something with friends or family because I had to be at work. And by the end of Sunday, my feet are killing me. I've been standing up for 10 hours. I just go up to the room. I wouldn't talk to my wife or son or I would just go up and I would check one of those boxes off. It was somewhat cathartic. But even during that process, when the checkboxes were all gone, keep that in mind, 100 checkboxes. That represents very close to four years. Very much like Count of Monte Cristo down there, just checking something off. Even when the checkboxes

were all gone and I was paid off. The student loans were paid off. That checkbox was going to be repurposed very, very likely towards what would it take to get to 25x. And my mindset has changed on this since having the show a little bit. I mean, that was like my plan. You know, work the plan. It's going to work. Along the way, though, I really started to take advantage and incorporate FU money in my life, this idea that the more money you have, the more control you have. If you have one, two, three, four years worth of financial runway in your life, you really can start to make decisions very quickly that may not be in your employer's best interest, that they are in yours. And something that I have seen so many examples of are how people in our community have been able to

leverage FU money to create designer lifestyles for themselves. So, and I think you were probably leading me a little bit here, Brad, because this is something you've been a big fan of as well. If I had gone on this path a little farther in a vacuum where there is no choosify, there's no additional business, I suspect that within a year or two, I would have been really looking at my job and saying, does this make me happy? If that answer is no, I would have probably come up with an arrangement that would have made me happy. I used to hear when I was in school and pharmacy school that the pharmacy was going to provide all these amazing options for creative careers. And you could be doing something in veterinary medicine. There's all these types of concierge pharmacy that you could do.

There's these clinics that have ambulatory care and are working one-on-one with patients. And there were two things that struck me. One is that they're probably going to pay less. And two, I don't know if I will reliably be able to find one of those. And I needed to make sure that after I had this 160K, I didn't go pursuing a rabbit hole where there would be nothing on the other side or something that was going to require me to get a ton of additional training and basically add to my workload. So basically what I'm saying is I felt like there was risk to pursue some of those more

designer options in a construct where I have 160. K in student loan debt. If you were to flip that on its head and I have FU money, I have four years, maybe four years plus of runway in my life and I'm unhappy. If that's the frame, what does it look like for me to carve out the portions of my job that I love, that I enjoy, and just focus on doing more of that. I think there's plenty of room between walking away from your career and staying in something that you don't enjoy. How hard was it, given sunk cost fallacy, how hard was it to admit to yourself that you had poured so much time and money into something that wasn't right? Yeah, sunk cost fallacy is a real thing for many people. Shockingly, it was not a thing for me.

And maybe that is just my unique capacity to put things inside of little black boxes and compartmentalize them and move on. But I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if I hadn't gone to pharmacy school. That was my story. It served a purpose. It made me who I am. I was very excited about that. But when the next chapter was here and the numbers made sense, I was thrilled to walk away. And Jonathan, I think just to add some flavor to this is cutting your expenses and creating that ability where your life just didn't cost that much made this decision so much easier. And I know obviously there are two sides of the Phi coin. And I think Paula might might come down more on the earning more income. And I certainly understand that

point of view, but cutting expenses made all the difference for you. Your life just did not and does not cost that much, especially without that student loan debt. And that gives you options, right? Like, you don't need to make that much money from your side hustle to be able to pursue it. If that's something that lights you up, that was an amazing position. We call that fully funded lifestyle change on our podcast. But really, in essence, it's just making your life cost as little as to afford yourself flexibility to make these decisions that are in your best interest. So he was never chained to his six-figure pharmacy job because he wasn't spending six figures a year. That's a golden handcuffs type situation, right? Like where you have to earn that money

just to keep yourself afloat. That was not even close to the situation with Jonathan. So I think that's worth highlighting. And that's something obviously everyone in the fine community and everyone in personal finance comes down on on their own personal choice of earn more, spend less, et cetera. And I don't want to argue that in any way because it truly is personal. But for Jonathan, that cutting expenses made a big difference. Brad, you describe yourself as a minimalist. Yeah, I mean, I would say aspiring minimalist. That's hard to be a minimalist when you have two kids. Yeah, if you saw my house, you would not say that I'm a minimalist in any way. But, you know, But it's funny, I do not like to own things. I mean, it's not, my goal in life is not to have

the best or biggest toys. Like, if you were seeing the laptop that I'm basically running my business on, you would be aghast of the piece of junk here. Jonathan still cannot believe that I use this thing, but I truly don't like buying things. In my perfect world scenario, I have a laptop and a suitcase of clothes. But that's kind of my ideal scenario. And what's cool is, Living this five lifestyle, like my family, the four of us, we just went on a trip to Europe for about a month. And we got to live that life. I had my laptop. We each had a suitcase to close.

And that was it. And yeah, we were there for a month between London and touring around Scotland. We certainly didn't miss home. We didn't miss the trappings of our nice upper middle class home. It was just what we enjoy is spending time with each other and hiking and playing. playing board games and talking, that's what I value out of life. And I think, whereas, sure, we kind of joke that I'm an aspiring minimalist, but I'm truly a valuelist.

That's how I look at it. It's I buy things that I value and mostly I buy experiences that I value. We've decided to direct our resources as a family is buying these experiences that we can enjoy together. Certainly in the context of buying experiences, you need items insofar as they are tools that facilitate such experiences. So, for example, to travel, you'll need a backpack or a suitcase. To ski, you need skis. The reason that I bring it up is because when I was making 21,000 a year, there were many times in which I would hear people talk about, oh, the trappings of having a big home

and brand new cars, and those things sounded so unrealistic for me. My aspiration was just to have a washer and dryer. That, I thought, was the lifestyle inflation that I was aspiring towards. Yeah, Paula, I mean, I think it's always very personal, right? And I don't like to stuff my own opinions down anyone's throats. People, in my estimation, should buy what they value. So I guess what I counsel is to really think deeply about what you want your life to look like, right? It's not my place as some dopey podcaster to tell you, oh, tisk, tisk, you should not buy it. buy a new car. That's not my opinion at all. If you get value out of that car, then buy it. I personally get zero value from cars. Zero. I would love, I can't wait until like the autonomous

vehicle fleet takes over and, and I have no car ever again. But that said, there are things that I spend money on. I just spent hundreds of dollars on a weightlifting equipment for my new garage that I have here at my new home. That was something that I didn't bat an eyelash. I mean, sure, just like normal Brad, I went and searched for the best deals that I could, but I didn't spend 20 hours. I mean, I found a really great deal on Craigslist. When I found that value, I made the purchase instantly. And I think that's kind of how I describe my purchasing decisions. It's almost like the, probably like the maximizer versus the satisfacer.

Satisfiser. Yeah. So I definitely come down much more on the satisfacer side. I do not second guess my purchasing decisions. I, and I'm certainly not sitting there researching every tiny little thing on consumer reports or on every website. I just find what do I need the minimum requirements? And when I find that, and I've deemed that there's value there for me, then I make the purchase. So again, like this is kind of a silly example with these weights and the squat rack.

But that was something that the old Brad maybe was a little too frugal and not. valuelist enough. And I probably wouldn't have spent the $500 on that. But now today, I know I get value from that. And I am fortunate to be in the position where I can make that choice. And I think that's liberating in a lot of senses, right? That I'm not, I'm not stuck in that deprivation mindset that I might have had little glimpses up. I don't think I was ever truly bad at that, but I might have gone down that frugal, for frugal's sake path if things had gone a little differently. But now I really am firmly in the camp of, do I get value from this? Yes, then I make the purchase.

If not, I move on. I never think about it. Brad, I think you and I have very similar spending mindsets in that I'm also an aspiring minimalist. I prioritize minimalism much higher than I prioritize frugality. And your episode on the reluctant frugalist versus aspiring minimalist in which you highlighted the difference, you know, a frugal person might have a whole bunch of clothes that they bought on sale or clearance or used at thrift stores. A minimalist doesn't have a pile of cheap clothes. The minimalist just has two or three pairs of pants and that's it. That, I think, is just a wonderful way to go because I think one of the benefits of minimalism is that you save not only money, but also time and mental energy.

Yeah, I love that you highlighted value there. And I just wanted to point this out, but we know this. Money is fluid, but time is fixed. But the counterpoint of this, you're kind of looking at this from the aspect of control. You've already kind of designed a life that you can get excited about. But I want to go back to that individual that maybe is kind of just drifting and is letting life happen to them and is really not taking ownership of that. And what ends up happening is kind of marketing guides a lot of your decisions.

And you kind of just fall susceptible to that. And you just wonder where your money went. inevitably your paycheck to paycheck over a period of time. What you don't realize is that you're trading your life energy for said stuff. It's so powerful to latch on to this idea of value and to put this in contrast when I met Brad, I was on this path to pay down my student loan debt and I have this really, really high income. When I met him, I wasn't blown away by how much stuff he had. I wasn't blown away by his flashy car.

I was blown away by the fact that he had total ownership of his schedule. He had the most precious resource. had quote unquote money, right? I had this great income. In reality, most of the money was just going back to the government to pay now my student loan debt, but I had this great income. Brad had time as a lever that he could pull and make decisions that were in his best interest and in the best interest of those that he loved. So many of us have stuff that we don't have time to use that we can't afford, and it's just literally it's sitting in a garage or a basement because we're at work, you know, with 90 plus percent of our time to afford the payments for that stuff.

And it's just, it's broken. It doesn't make sense. But you don't realize that when you're drifting, you have to have a wake-up call. You have to have some form of either an external or internal force, get you to slow it out and say, that equation doesn't make sense. What would it look like to optimize this and make those decisions? And then hopefully at some point, you come full circle. You don't have to be perfect on this on every single aspect and every single instant.

But if you use this 80% of the time, you know, as kind of a guiding light for yourself, letting value drive that, making purchasing decisions that are based on, what do I want my life to look at? What do I want my life to look like over a period, a relatively short period of time? Five, ten years, you just end up in such a better place.

And then it's all about finding these different optimization strategies to implement one at a time, so you get a little bit better each day. We'll return to the show in just a moment. So I'm going to take a couple of guesses about you. based on the fact that you listen to this podcast, I'm guessing you're the type of person who thinks about your long-term financial future. Because heck, that's what this show is all about. It's all about planning for the long-term.

And when we think long-term, a lot of times we think about retirement, but there is something that comes after retirement. And this is that something that we don't talk about enough. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about creating a will or creating a revocable living trust. Now, both of these might seem time-consuming, daunting, and something. scary, but don't worry. There's an app for that. Tomorrow.me slash Paula is an app that makes creating a will or creating a living trust free, quick, easy, and very accessible.

Now, for most people, this process can seem lengthy, emotionally draining, and expensive. Hiring an estate attorney could cost a few thousand dollars. But tomorrow.me slash Paula made a free app and offers a free will and trust to every American family, regardless of income. So they've turned something daunting into something simple, easy to understand, and even kind of fun. Most people take less than half an hour to complete their will using Tomorrow.me. Slash Paula. So create your free will in minutes at tomorrow.combe slash Paula. Are you a small business owner, a freelancer, or a solopreneur?

If so, you probably don't want to spend all your time doing invoicing, chasing down payments, dealing with paperwork and tax stuff, tracking expenses, trying to figure out. out how to get paid, that is the mundane boring necessary, but unpleasant part of being self-employed. So why don't you check out FreshBooks? FreshBooks makes easy to use cloud accounting software. They simplify tasks like invoicing and tracking expenses, which means that you spend less time dealing with that and more time growing your business or enjoying your life. And when tax time rolls around, you will find tidy summaries of your expense reports and your invoice details and sales tax summaries and a lot more. So if you are a freelancer and you're

not using FreshBooks yet, now's the time to try it. FreshBooks is offering a 30-day unrestricted free trial to my listeners. To claim it, go to freshbooks.com slash Paula. That's FreshBooks, F-R-E-S-H-Books.com slash Paula. And when they ask, how did you hear about us? Mention, afford anything. Again, 30-day unrestricted free trial. You don't have to input a credit card, freshbooks.com slash paula. So here's a question. Is FI necessary in order to have that time freedom? Let's assume that you have a young family that is, for the sake of example, we'll say that

they are debt-free, but they're not FI. They do not have assets equal 25X expenses. Could that family not have both parents quit their jobs, move geographic arbitrage, to a place like Las Vegas or even outside of the country where you can rent an apartment for $500, become self-employed, freelance, you know, do some gig economy type stuff, and then immediately have that freedom without building the FI first. You're stealing my talk for Chautauqua. Yeah, absolutely.

I think the goal for all of us should be to design the future we want now and long before we reach financial independence. Give yourself that freedom and flexibility ahead of time. I can tell you that in the context of choose FI, hitting 25X, the urgency for that has been dramatically decreased because I have all of the criteria that you just mentioned. And so it kind of changes the frame, but it doesn't minimize or marginalize the path. It's the path. It's the journey to financial independence that gives you everything that you just described. And then as soon as you have all of that framework in place, you'll find that the destination becomes less urgent. So the paradox of FI is that as you start to pursue FI, you find that you don't necessarily

need FI. Yeah, that's fascinating. We've never really talked about that before. But yeah, that is a really interesting point. And I guess my only slight counterpoint would be, I still think that saving money. So if we're using this hypothetical family and they're just. earning enough to pay their expenses and no more. Well, they're going to have to work every single day that they're alive, right? Like I think by definition, because they have no money saved up. So I think

there's still some value in even for that person who has designed their life, that family who's designed their life. I think there's value in saving money because it eventually gets you to the point where you can make every decision in your life based on what you truly value and how you want to spend every minute, right, as opposed to we still have to earn money. And I think, I think that power construct is, is a very important one for me in just the entire five journey that more power accrues to you in life when you save money and when your net worth increases. So I think we're both and we're all saying similar things here. And it's, it's that same journey. But I still come back to saving money is crucial. Oh, yeah. You can tell which one of us is the accountant.

Where do you think, Paula, on the high income versus low income, do you think it truly is you need to have a high income to pursue this? Or do you think there are benefits that people can get from the FI lifestyle, even at a minimum wage or certainly lower income? Well, I think that what can be off-putting about a lot of the FI messaging to people with a lower income. And I say the speaking of somebody who had a lower income for many, many years is that the practices that the FI community describe as frugal are from the point of view of somebody with a low income, just necessities. So as I as I kind of alluded to before, when people talk about, you know, you don't need a big house or you don't need a new car, from the perspective of someone who's making a lower income, those were never options in the first place. So it's not news that we don't need it. In fact, even if we wanted one, we wouldn't qualify for such a thing. Don't go out to restaurants, cook at home more. Well, again, duh. From the point of view of somebody with a low income, we do that out of necessity. So I think that a lot of that messaging can be a little bit off-putting because you hear people who make more than $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, give recommendations and sort of pat the money.

on the back for living a frugal life when you're thinking, you know what, that's not news. That's just the default of how to live. Right. That's life. Yeah, that's just life. I definitely understand that. And I think we all need to be more mindful of that. But I guess where I come down is the tenants of the financial independence life, while of course

easier for people making that $80,000 salary or above, they really do benefit everyone. And, well, it might be unrealistic for someone making $21,000 to pursue FI at a 70% savings rate, right? Like, that's unrealistic. But I guess I put myself in that person's shoes and I'd love to hear your thoughts and say, okay, most of those people don't have savings. And think about like how stressful a life like that must be where literally anything that goes wrong is an existential crisis. you get a flat tire or your stove brakes, a $200 item is a catastrophe.

So whereas like maybe that person cannot dream currently of getting to 25 times annual expenses saved up, maybe they can say, okay, well, I can still look at this file life and and take what I can for myself and save up $500 or $1,000. Think about how much more secure that person is and how much less. stressful of a life that is when they have that money. So everything is not a crisis. So that's kind of where I come down. Because I've been asked that question before and have put some deep thought into it. And I'd love to hear your thoughts since you did live that life at a $21,000 salary. Well, number one, I absolutely agree. Having savings is a huge de-stressor, particularly when you're

not making much, speaking for myself, I lived with a lot of financial anxiety. And so how Having savings helped curb that financial anxiety. That being said, having a community of people who I could call on also helped curb that financial anxiety. So I had a neighbor who was a car mechanic, and I drove a car that was four, it cost $400. Not 400 a month. The car was $400 in total. I remember many times when that car broke down, I would ask him to take a look at it and I would bake him cookies or I'd make him fudge as in exchange. So he was happy because he got fresh-baked cookies, you know, and I was happy because that was an expense that I didn't have to pay. So when you don't have savings,

then you at least have community, you at least have people that you can call on. If you are in a position in which you don't have either, that is the real problem. That's the real danger. And so for me, a lot of my motivation to save was, especially in the early days, was the fear, this sounds horrible when you say it out loud, the fear that people might not be there, but money will. That sounds really bad when you say it out loud. Yeah. And I think you're making a valuable point by saying that depending on what end of that median income you're on, the power of those tools are much different. For the person making $80,000 a year, an extra $500 a month isn't necessarily going to alter everything for them.

You know, if their paycheck to paycheck on $80K, frugality is going to be an incredible. valuable lever for them, which is going to give them massive returns immediately. For an individual that's making 21K, an extra 500 bucks a month, if you just save that, you've immediately hit a 25% savings rate. And so looking at that median income and realizing that if you're making less, every additional dollar you earn is now going farther in terms of a percentage. It's so much more powerful. And so I like this idea of solving the problem.

Being able to see what other people have done, the steps that other people, people that have been in a situation that's more difficult than yours, what they have done and how they dealt with that same situation. Very few of us have unique situations, but it feels like we're alone. It feels like we're in a vacuum. It feels like no one else has gone through what we've gone through. Being able to find role models of people that have done that and thrive where you feel stuck can be very, very powerful. And if you're at the point where your paycheck to paycheck on 21K, let's solve the problem of figuring out how to earn more. Is there a way that we can pick up a side hustle. Is there a way that we can increase our income? Is there a way that we can

decrease the cost of our housing? Brad and I, we've talked about this thing called the talent stack. And this is not a phrase that's unique to choose if I. I think, Brad, where did we originally get that from? Scott Adams, actually, the author and he's the one who created Dilbert originally. But yeah, he's a, he's a very intelligent author. Yeah, the Dilbert author. And that's a very powerful concept that you can get better in all these different aspects. You can get better not just on the frugality aspect. We know what the equation is, right, Paul, earn more, spin less and optimize the difference or the gap, right? We want to grow that gap. Well, that presents us an almost infinite number of options, very simple equation, infinite number of options, tons of different ways that you

can focus on frugality, tons of ways that you can tackle that. Lots of different ways that you can focus on earning income. We've explored side hustles. I know you've explored side hustles. I know you had Nick Gloper on. That had to have been almost a year ago. That was an incredible episode, where you really were able to explore all these different ways that people were able to tackle the income game. Absolutely. And Grow the Gap is a concept that I've written about on Afford Anything for years. Grow the Gap was kind of the way that I was able to reconcile the earn more versus spend less

camp because that can be a debate in the personal finance community generally. And yeah, what I eventually came to was both of those ultimately are tactics, right? Both of those are methods. So beyond the tactics, beyond the methods, what's the actual goal? The goal is to increase the gap between those two numbers. Big picture, that's what we're trying to do. Increase that gap, grow that gap, and then invest that gap. And I think it's empowering.

I think when you're looking at this individual that just feels stuck, they're making 21K, they're barely figuring out how to make it from one paycheck to the next. And there's so much pressure, that existential crisis that Brad was talking about, It's hard for them to get bandwidth. I think the pursuit of financial independence and this idea that just solve the problem, you don't need to solve your entire life all at once, but can we get better in one aspect and then maybe better in the next and kind of focus on it piecemeal? And you're like, well, I don't know where to get started.

Let's start with something simple. Well, I don't have an idea. Here's a thousand ideas of things that people have done. Brad has a thread that he posts every single week in our Facebook group, which I'll let them tell you about. But it's incredibly inspiring. Yeah, we basically ask, what is the, one thing you did this week to make your life better in any different aspects, right? So it's

not just saving money, but it's optimizing your life for getting healthier, making connections. So what's that one thing? What is that action you took? And that's the crucial part. Again, it's it's not our place to say like you're talking about there, Paul. It's, you're talking about tactics, right? Spend spend less or earn more. No, it's grow the gap. Do it however you see fit. It's not my place. It's not. your place or Jonathan's place to dictate. It's just take action and make your life better. I think that's why we kind of view FI as this life optimization strategy. It's not just the nuts and bolts of money. At the end of the day, the money stuff is easy. Once you've got it set, right? Like,

how much do you think about your money on a daily or weekly basis? I know I personally don't think about it terribly often. But what I do is I think about how do I make my life. better. How do I make the connections in my life richer, right, with the people that I love and want to spend time with? How do I make myself healthier? So when I have grandkids someday, I have, I have young daughters now, but I'm going to be a grandpa at some point. I want to be the healthy, fit grandpa who can travel the world with his grandkids. I don't want to be old and decrepit. What that takes is constant action. When I'm sitting there at night on my foam roller and doing stretches, it's with that goal in mind. And I know that sounds kind of crazy, but like,

that's the person that I want to be and that's the life I want to live. That takes a little bit of sacrifice. And I say that kind of tongue and cheek because all that I'm sacrificing is when we're watching American Ninja Warrior or survivor as a family, I'm not sitting on the couch. I'm just down there on the floor stretching. But that's the decision that I've made to build the life that I want for the next 50 or hopefully more years. But it's it comes down to taking action. And have you found that you actually enjoy the process? I mean, rather than it feel like a sacrifice that you love the feeling of doing the thing that I do. I do. And I think what you're getting at, Paul, is is mastery. Humans crave progress and humans crave mastery. I mean,

Think about like the normal day-to-five job or life. You're not really progressing at anything in the terms of almost like a like the old kind of computer role-playing games. You're not progressing towards the next level. It's just you're living that same life. Jonathan calls it the hamster wheel. Whereas for me, I'm pursuing these items. And now most of them in my current life because I do have the financial side down or most

of them are physical because I had gotten out of shape over the last 10 years. I was always a soccer player and very fit, but I just kind of let that go. And I looked at myself and I said, that's not what I want to be. So this is a long-term play. You don't get super fit overnight. You don't go from being a deskbound, couch-bound, inflexible person to someone who can be flexible and touch their toes with or touch the floor with their palms overnight. That just doesn't happen. But if you work out it day after day, then good things happen. And I've noticed personally, like, I'm pursuing Brazilian jiu-jitsu and weightlifting, I guess, in terms of CrossFit is what I do. But it's more just getting fitter and again, more flexible. Like these are things that I'm pursuing. I do love that

journey because it's not just as linear, oh, I get better every single day. It's there are plateaus, right? It's just, it's the way that life works, but you have to know that that's the journey. If you keep plugging away at it, good things are going to happen. And I've seen remarkable results just in the last couple of years. I'm not trying to revolutionize things overnight. I'm just trying to make these small changes that when you do like that Facebook post, If you do one good thing a week, 52 a year, 520 in a decade, your life is going to be unrecognizable in a decade. And that is really powerful concept that I think anybody can comprehend and really get behind.

That's funny. So we're releasing a free ebook in November, December, called One Tweak a Week. And it's 52 things that you can do once a week. Nice. One tweak a week. I love it. You know, one of the things that struck me just with both. of you. And I guess the three of us on this call is all of us in our own way are owning that word

retired, right? Ah, retired. And I think that it's interesting because it's a word that we kind of own and have latched it on to. But at the same time, you see the mainstream media increasingly, New York Times, business insider has covered it many, many times, the fire community talking about this concept of retirement. And I think what I see that's so remarkable is once you're inside the community, we both embrace and run away from that world. that single word retirement all at the same time. It's actually incredible to watch, and I think it's worth exploring. Yeah. Oh, let's talk about this next time. So why don't you guys come back on the show. You're having us back? Yes, please come back on the show because I would love to have

another conversation about FI versus RE, financial independence, early retirement. Is there a difference? Is it just semantic? Is there more to it than that? Like, let's have a conversation about financial independence versus early retirement versus mini retirements. What exactly is going on here? What's the scope of all of this? That sounds wonderful, Paula. We would be honored to come back on. So, yeah, that sounds like a fun conversation.

Awesome. All right. So stay tuned for next time. In the meantime, I'm sure everybody already knows the answer to this. But if people want to hear more from you before that, where can they find you? So our podcast is ChooseFI. And if they're a new listener who hasn't listened to our show before and they want, Well, where do I start?

Well, you could start with episode 29, which we were talking about a little bit in this episode with the idea of the reluctant frugalist versus the aspiring minimalist. But actually, I would encourage you go check out episode 38, the why of phi, and then right behind that. In the context of taking action, go listen to episode 21, the pillars of phi. It's a fantastic starting place. Well, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Paul.

This has been a blast. Thanks again, Paul. Thank you so much, Jonathan and Brad. By the way, two notes here. Number one, we recorded this episode in September before the Susie Orman interview. So the fact that at the end of the interview, we brought up the notion of talking about retirement, of talking about financial independence versus early retirement, that topic is even more pertinent now than it was two months ago when we recorded the interview. So I'm particularly excited for the three of us to get together and discuss that because I think we could really deep dive into this. that concept. The second note that I want to make is that by total coincidence, we happen to be releasing this episode on the same day that their podcast, Choose FI, is releasing episode 100. So how awesome. It's a big day. All right, what are some of the key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Here are seven. Number one, everything comes with a trade-off.

At the start of the show, Brad described how he and his wife could have had the life of New York accountants. They were living on Long Island. Brad was working for one of the big five firms. They knew that if they stayed the course, they could have a life that most people would find pretty nice. And yet, that would come with a trade-off. We're both CPAs. We're eventually going to make some pretty good money, but we would always have to give something up. And I think that to us, that that wasn't a life that we wanted to live. And frankly, like at 25 that we had, this thought is still astounding to me. Like I give those 25-year-old kids like great credit, honestly, because it wasn't something we talked about for tens of hours or anything. It was just we looked at

each other and said, we don't want to do this. We would always have to give something up. Those are powerful words. And so lesson number one, key takeaway number one, is to know the tradeoffs. What is it that you're giving up in order to get the thing that you are on track to get? And do you want to make that trade-off? Be conscious, be deliberate about the trade-offs that you take. And key takeaway number two, which also comes from this same quote, Don't be afraid to take extreme measures. Brad and his wife sold their home and moved to a different state

when they realized that what they would be giving up was too costly. They sold their home. They moved to Virginia. They took some measures that other. other people might find radical, but that's what got them to the life that they have today. And so that's key takeaway number two. Don't be afraid to take those measures that other people might find to be extraordinary because an extraordinary life requires extraordinary effort.

Key takeaway number three. You don't have to be financially independent in order to start enjoying some of the benefits of the FI lifestyle. Jonathan described how just having a runway, having some cushion, having some savings, that itself is enough to be able to positively influence the career choices that you can make. That itself is enough to give you what's referred to as FU money, which is a term for the amount of money that you need. It doesn't necessarily have to be pure total financial independence, but enough money that you need in order to tell your boss FU. And Jonathan describes how even if you're not financially independent, just having a runway can allow you to have that sense of freedom. I used to hear when I was in school and pharmacy school that the pharmacy was going to provide all these amazing options for creative careers. And you could be doing something in veterinary medicine.

There's all these types of concierge pharmacy that you could do. There's these clinics that have ambulatory care and are working one-on-one with patients. And there were two things that struck me. One is that they're probably going to pay less. and two, I don't know if I will reliably be able to find one of those. And I needed to make sure that after I had this 160K, I didn't go pursuing a rabbit hole where there would be nothing on the other side or something that was going to require me to get a ton of additional training and basically add to my workload.

So basically what I'm saying is I felt like there was risk to pursue some of those more designer options in a construct where I have 168K in student loan debt. If you were to flip that on its head and I have a few, money. I have four years, maybe four years plus of runway in my life. And I'm unhappy. If that's the frame, what does it look like for me to carve out the portions of my job that I love, that I enjoy, and just focus on doing more of that. I think there's plenty of room between walking away from your career and staying in something that you don't enjoy. And so that is key takeaway number three. You don't have to be FI in order to start enjoying the benefits of the FI lifestyle.

Key takeaway number four, and this comes from that same quote, if you want to, you can stay in your same career, but choose a path within that career that's riskier or lower paying. So, for example, inside a pharmacy, there are lots of options for creative careers, but you could use it in a position that might be lower paying, yet more interesting or more fulfilling. And so to the many people that you talk to about financial independence, one of the most common objections is, well, I love my job. I never want to quit. My standard response to that is always like, well, that's awesome. You'll probably love your job even more when you don't have to do it. Nobody's going to drag you kicking and screaming away from your desk. And now with Jonathan's response, I have yet another component to add to that response, which is, if you love your job, that's awesome. You don't have to retire. but if there is some facet of your job or some facet of your career that you could do that's more creative or interesting than what you're doing now,

and maybe it doesn't pay as well, but it would still be within your calling, guess what? Once you reach financial independence or even put yourself on the FI lifestyle, on the FI path, and you build that runway, those options are available to you now. So, for example, if you're a lawyer, maybe you want to do more. more pro bono work or go to work for a smaller nonprofit that doesn't have a major budget and that can't pay you as well as what you're making now. If you're in marketing, maybe you want to work for yourself and not have to stress out so much about the natural ebbs and flows that happen when you

are self-employed. Or maybe you'll want to take on some lower paying clients because those clients are just more fun to work with or they're doing interesting things or they represent causes that you believe in. All of that is open to you. So that's the four. key takeaway, you can stay inside your career, but be more free inside of your career as a result of getting on the FI journey. And Jonathan summarized that really well with this one sentence. I think there's plenty of room between walking away from your career and staying in something that you don't enjoy. And that leads us to key takeaway number five. Quitting does not need to be binary. It's not zero or one, I'm employed or I'm not. Financial independence.

is about work-life flexibility. Key takeaway number six. Stop buying crap. Jonathan said this very, very well. So many of us have stuff that we don't have time to use, that we can't afford, and it's just literally it's sitting in a garage or a basement because we're at work with 90 plus percent of our time

to afford the payments for that stuff. We go to work so that we can buy stuff, but then we don't have time to use that stuff because we're at work. So guess what? If you don't buy as much stuff, you don't have to work as much. Now, I say that, but again, in the statement that I just made, I'm using, quote, unquote, work in only one facet of its definition. I'm using the word work to refer to doing something that you would prefer not to be doing for the sake of compensation.

And unfortunately, in many people's realities, that's what work is. work is something that they'd rather not do, something that they don't intrinsically enjoy, but it's an exchange of time for a paycheck. And again, that's what FI is here to break. It allows you to reimagine and redefine work in a way that is more exciting to you. And so then what ends up happening is you still go to work, but you don't do it in order to buy stuff. There's a difference between work that you have to do versus work that you want to do. And so key takeaway number six, stop buying crap so that you're not forced into work that you have to do. And when that happens, your time will open up and you will most likely fill that time with stuff that you want to do.

So that's key takeaway number six. And finally, key takeaway number seven, incremental progress adds up. This is a long-term play. You don't get super fit overnight. You don't go from being a deskbound, couch-bound, inflexible person to someone who can be flexible and touch their toes or touch the floor with their palms overnight. That just doesn't happen. But if you work out it day after day, then good things happen. You don't get super fit overnight.

You don't go from sitting on the couch to running a 5K or a 10K in one day or even in one week. It might take you years to go from a beer belly to a six-pack. But during that journey, every meal counts, every snack counts, every workout counts. And yeah, you don't have to be perfect, but if you get it right 80% of the time, you'll see results. Those are seven key takeaways from today's conversation. What were your takeaways from today's episode? What did you learn? What did you walk away with?

I would love to know. Please go to Afford Anything.com slash episode 16. That's afford anything.com slash episode 160. And leave a comment with your takeaways. You can also share your thoughts on Instagram. On my Instagram page, we have a little video clip uploaded with a picture of Jonathan and Brad. And a little audio snippet from today's episode. Find that on Instagram and leave a comment with your thoughts, feedback, questions, comments about what you thought of today's episode.

That's Instagram at Paula Pant. A-A-U-L-A-P-A-N-T, Instagram at Paula Pant. Finally, Afford-A-N-N-A-N-N-A-F-A-F-A-F-N-A-F-A-F-A-N-F-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-A-W-E-A-W-W-E-A-W-W-E-A-W-W-W-W-E-N-W-W-W-W-W-W-B. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Paula Pan. If you enjoy today's episode, please do three things. Number one, make sure that you hit the subscribe button on whatever podcast playing app you are listening to, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, Spotify, wherever it is that you like to listen to podcasts. Please hit that subscribe button so that you won't miss any upcoming episodes. Number two, please leave us a review in your favorite podcast playing app.

Speaking of which, I've got great news, we have broken. the four-digit mark. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We have 1,013 ratings on iTunes as of the time of this recording. So thank you so much to everybody who has rated us or written a review or both on iTunes, Apple Podcasts. Thank you, thank you so much for bringing us into the four-figure club. If you haven't done so yet, you can leave us a rating and a review by going to afford anything.com slash iTunes. So that's number two. Number one is subscribe. Number two is leave us a rating and a review. And number three, of course, is tell a friend. Thank you again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pan. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. I'll catch you next week.