BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 124: Starting from $0 at Age 35 as a Teacher and Becoming "The Millionaire Educator"

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Gerry Born is a teacher who is married to a teacher. He started his financial independence journey when he was 33—with a wife, $45,000 in college debt, and a job in Saudi Arabia teaching English as a second language (ESL). He knocked out his debt in two years, then threw everything he could into savings. The ESL job provided everything but internet and phone, so he really didn’t need to spend much money if he didn’t want to. After 9/11, they moved back to the United States and got jobs teaching—and you know what kind of salaries teachers make! Unhappy with that particular school, they moved on to a different one and discovered the magic of the 457 plan. A 457 plan is an additional retirement savings vehicle available to teachers and some public employees. It has the same contribution limits as a 401(k) but can be immediately accessed penalty-free as soon as you separate service from your employer. Gerry uses this to fund his life while reducing his taxable income to as close to zero as possible. If you’re starting late—or if you’re a teacher or public employee—this episode provides tips for funding retirement that will blow your mind! In This Episode We Cover: How he retired early on a teacher's salary The tax advantages he swears by The reason why he maxed out his 457 plan first What a 403(b) plan is His job in Saudi Arabia How he got into the concept of financial freedom How he paid off his debt How he saved his money How he maximized his income And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group BiggerPockets Money Podcast 39 How We Saved 250k by Taking Crappy Jobs - The Millionaire Educator Mr. Money Mustache Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You don't have to have a reason. Just save money. You'll find it when you have money behind you, a couple with an awesome frugal lifestyles the way I always describe it, man, your life has a lot of options. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, episode 124. My name is Mindy and with me as always is my early starting co-host, Scott Trench. Early starting, you know, Mindy, I actually wake up at 850 on the dot every single day. It turns out this is actually a condition called Tentanitis. Oh, my goodness. I had to look at that one up.

Scott is a well-documented, not early riser, but you did start early on your path to financial independence. Ah, okay. Well, in that case, I'll take that. And Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, and show you that by following the proven steps, you can put yourself on the road to early financial freedom,

and get money out of the way so you can lead your best life. That's right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, or are just getting started later on the road to financial freedom, will help you build a position capable of launching yourself towards those dreams. Scott, I am supercharged for today's show. Jerry is a teacher who is married to a teacher,

and you know how much teachers make, right? So he is rolling in dough, right? They also started a little bit later on their journey to financial independence. a little bit later than people we normally hear from. They didn't start until he was 33. And to add on to that, they started off with $45,000 in student loan debt and two broken down cars. Yeah.

And when we launch into the podcast here, there's a couple of terms we want to share with you right before we get started with the interview with Jerry, just because they're central to his approach. He's got a really sophisticated tax-advantaged approach to saving. And he uses four accounts in that approach, right? Those four accounts are an IRA, an HSA, a 457, and a 403B. Now, most of you listening are probably familiar with an IRA, just an individual retirement account, and an HSA, a health savings account, because we've talked about those on past

episodes. If you're not, we'll link to those in the show notes or episodes that discuss those in depth in the show notes, and you can go check them out. The 403B and the 457 you might not be as familiar with, because they're specific to teachers or certain government employees in particular. The 403B, think of as the teacher equivalent of an employer 401K. That's it. It's just their vehicle for achieving that tax-deferred advantage.

And the 457 is a little bit of an interesting account in the sense that it's a tax-deferred account, but it doesn't really have the long-term investing advantages and opportunities that a traditional 401K, 403B, or IRA might have. And so Jerry really uses it as an account where he can save money tax deferred and then withdraw from it penalty free, but it still generates taxable income, when he's perhaps taking a year off of teaching or not working for a year, has a low income year. So again, those four counts are IRA, HSA, 403B, and 47. And I think you're going to be blown away by how Jerry and his wife use these accounts to achieve a really low taxable income and build massive, massive, massive. of wealth and two teacher incomes. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going and more importantly where your taxed

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all accessible in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP Money. Jerry, aka the millionaire educator, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. We're super pumped to have you. So, Jerry, let's get right to it. How did you retire early on a teacher's salary at all, let alone as a millionaire? Well, I wish I could tell you I'm super smart or I had some magic.

But the reality is it's good old hardcore savings. I would shoot for filling all the buckets. And ideally, 100% savings rate. Wait, what? 100% savings rate? That's what I start with. That's my mental vision. Okay.

Explain that. How do you live for free? Oh, well, I have some funds in an old and an IRA that I use a 72T distribution from, which means I'm able to access that money without penalties. Get about $18,000 a year out of that. We also use money from $457 funds because they do not have a pre-10,000. 59 and a half year penalty. So from there, we just kind of piecemeal that we live on what we have and we save as much money as we can. So when you say 100% savings rate, someone listening might think,

hey, that means that this person's not spending any money at all and is living for zero dollars in cost. Is that true? Are you, what are your kind of fixed expenses for your lifestyle? That would be magical, wouldn't it? Live on zero. No, I would say our structural costs are really low. Our house we paid it for, it was $68,000. We live in a low-cost area of the United States. I say, you know, I don't budget. We just spend our money, but I would say we live on 2,000 to 2,500, maybe 3,000 a month,

depending on what we need. But a good lifestyle is very economical here in this part of the United States. We have one car. I live 100 yards, maybe 110 yards from my job. So I walk down there every day with my son. He goes to school there. I teach there. And my wife, the last two years, is also taught there.

But she's not going to be teaching next year. But we got in the car once, twice a week, so we don't have any transportation costs. So our overhead's pretty low. So when you say you're at 100% savings rate, what are you, are you saying that your investments cover your entire lifestyles, giving your meaning that your wage income can cover your spending? Yeah, that's probably not true. in my case, the way I view it is I try to fill up all our tax advantage buckets, namely the 457, 403B, IRA, and HSA.

And then I might live from the remains of my paycheck. Now, if I was really flush with money, like say I had a side hustle kicking in some good money, and to this, thus far, that's not the case. I would probably take the remains of my paycheck and just put it in index funds or even been thinking about a rental property. but I always try to make sure I fund those pre-tax, those tax advantage buckets. That's been the secret sauce for us.

Okay, you mentioned the 457 plan, which is something that we heard way back on the Jamila Sufraud Show, Scott, if you remember that. She mentioned casually that her husband had this 457 plan. That was the first time I'd ever heard of this, where he could put in the same limit, it has the same limit as the 401K contributions every year. But when he left the 457 plan job, he could take all the money out of their tax-free, penalty-free. Is it tax-free or just penalty-free? No, just penalty-free.

It comes in as income. Okay. You are putting money into your 457 plan. Is that correct? Yes, I always max that one first. To give me an example of January through April, I've done $5,200 every month to my $457. And then you can instantly turn around and withdraw that. if you choose and just pay taxes on that.

When I separate service, meaning quit my job, then I can access that money and it comes in as regular income with no penalty. So you want to do some basic tax planning. You know, you've got to know what your income is for the year and then you can assess what you're going to owe. So anytime I take money from that, it's kind of strategic. And then, you know, when I get to the next tax year, I can start doing it again within a certain and I call it my tax pain threshold.

I try not to go, I don't know, too far deep into the 12% bracket. You know, give you an example, and this is a post, probably my most requested post every year. It's kind of ironic because I'm not a tax expert. It's called 2020 free money. And basically I just reverse engineer my taxes and show how much money I can earn before I owe any money. And I know off top of my head right now,

$2,0,000, about $45,000 for our family of three. And then after $45,000, I'm in the 12% bracket. So right off the bat, I'm making informed tax decisions as opposed to many people who just fly blind, scream April 15th, and talk about how everything's not fair. You know, just that little bit of planning helps me, it goes a long way for us. I love that. And your tax-advantaged accounts, just for folks that are not following along here, are you. the HSA, the IRA, the 457, and the 403B, right? Correct. I think that most of our listeners are probably familiar with IRAs and HSAs, because we've

discussed them a lot. And Mindy asked a great question or had a great commentary on the 457. Could you recap the 403B for us? Yes. A 403B is pretty much the teacher and public service job sector's 401K, okay? and it has the same limits as a 401K, as the catch-up contribution limits, just exactly the same.

Now, I would say this, just be aware, 403Bs, there's a wide range of product out there. They're kind of infamous for very high fees. So you just know that going in and ask questions. The beauty of the 403B and the 457 is that you can max both of them out. So essentially, I have two 401K plans. Okay?

And then like we just said, the 457s even more special in that when you separate service, you can pull from that account without pre-59-5 penalties. Got it. Okay, so you have all four of these buckets that you're playing with here.

And your goal is to get below that $45,000 income and adjusted gross income marks. You're in the 12% or less tax bracket, is that right? Yes. You're not even in the 12% tax bracket until that point, right? Correct. Nice. I love it. So this is a very tax-advantaged approach. Which order do you approach these four buckets in and why? I always go 457 first because of that little special wrinkle. When I leave a job, I want that account to be as big as possible because I refer to it as a freedom fund. You know, I don't have an emergency fund because if I ever lost my job, I'm going to have access to those funds.

So I always go 457 and then I go 403B because, you know, I can only contribute those 12 months. And then the IRA and the HSA say to me that's a wash either way because I've got to April of the following year to stuff money in those accounts. But you can't go back in time on your 403B or your 457. Got it. And so in most years, are you able to max out all of those accounts? Or do you come up short and for some of them? How do you kind of handle that? Oh, yeah. Well, let's see. When I first started doing this about 2003, I was just doing the 403 being the IRA. And the least we ever saved since 2003 is $30,000. Then later I learned about the 457. And I have to admit, we couldn't fund all the accounts back then. Just didn't have the cash flow. We had too much house in LaGraines, Georgia.

But we got that account up to about $90,000. And, you know, I kept going through my mind. How can I blast all these accounts and fill all the buckets? Well, then I realized, wait, you've probably been in a job where it starts to feel a little stale and you're looking for a other place to go. And so we were kind of in that mood and we realized, well, wait, if we took another job, we could access our $90,000 in the 457 account and kind of pull from that strategically. And then our new job, we could fill all the buckets. So in 2009, 2010, we took a job here in Eccles County as the first time we came through here. And for three years, we pulled about 30,000 a year out of that 457. And then at the same time, we were maxing out all of our accounts. and I wrote a post on that.

It's called How We Save $250,000 by taking crappy jobs because no one understood why we'd moved to this really rural spot. Well, it turns out it was perfect for us. We love it here. We actually, like I said, bought a house here now. But people just thought, why would you leave and go there? And then when they saw what we did, they're like, oh, now we said, because I didn't know anybody saved $250,000, you know, in three years.

So now that we're always willing to leave a job, and then access that 457 as needed. And that allows us ever since then to fill all the buckets. Awesome. Well, that's the story here, I think, is I love your approach to this and how you're so tax advantage with it. But let's kind of hear the whole story arc here and get back to this point where you're at right now.

Where does the journey begin for you, maybe starting in college or high school or even back that far? I'm from the pre-internet generation. So all we ever did was play sports and read sports books, it seems. And I grew up in Ringgold, Georgia. And being that I grew to 6-7, and I like basketball, that's what my focus was on.

And I became a basketball player at Davidson College. Got a scholarship there. And I went there. And, you know, I was pretty aimless. Not that I'm a dumb person, but I just was rudderless for academically for many years. And so didn't really burn it up there academically, didn't know what I wanted to do.

And what I'm getting at here is, I think, you know, I played basketball in Argentina and El Salvador and I traveled and learned Spanish, but I didn't have any money saved up. I had no idea what I was shooting for, what I was aiming for. And I took my first teaching job around 27 and I think I got paid $18,000 a year. I thought, wow, there's no real prospects in this. So I met my wife that summer and we were madly in love and, you know, inseparable from then on. But my plan was to go get an MBA. So she and I, we went out to Texas and did that. And I also did another degree at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg for Spanish education and ESL. So I got skills all of a sudden that were very marketable. That was really good decision on my part. However,

the downside was, we were $45,000 in the hole. Never had any debt in my life up to that point. you know, one way or the other. I didn't have wealth or debt. And this is at age 27 or two years after that? No, this is, I guess by the time I graduated from grad school, I was 31, and my wife would have been 29. So when my new found degrees, I got a job in Saudi Arabia, being an ESL teacher at their Naval Academy.

So, you know, I just remember thinking, man, I have to buy my freedom back. And I just started sending whole checks in on the student. loans. And I guess after 18 months, two years, I can't remember specifically, we had our debts paid off and we're at zero. So what was, I was 33, net worth a zero. Yes, Mindy. I feel like I have to raise my hand when I'm talking to a teacher. But did you just say you went to Saudi Arabia? Yes. I went there on a, I guess it was a contract that was another contract with the Navy. So, you know, it's not real easy to get in there, but, you know, all that paperwork was

taken care of. And it was, I think I made $39,000 the first year and all housing paid for. Only thing I had to pay for was phone, internet, and food. That wasn't very bad. Okay. Wait. Were you in the Navy? Are you? No, I'm not. A lot of people think I am military because I generally have short hair, but I'm not. But I was on a military contract. And the first, at their Naval Academy, the first thing they do, get a year of English. So I was there to teach them English. And yeah, it was quite an experience. Okay, now I'm confused. You were working for the Saudi Arabian Navy? Technically, I worked for Booz Allen and Hamilton out of Washington, D.C., a big consulting firm. And they, in turn, had a contract with the U.S. Navy who had one with the Saudi Navy. And that's how it all worked out.

Okay, but you're teaching people from Saudi Arabia how to speak English? Yeah, basically they're inapolis. Okay. Yes. And it's a three-year program they have, and the first year is all English. Some of them came in. They had been world travels. They already spoke really nice English. Some people were fresh out off the camel, literally. They were Bedouin tribesmen and they were fresh off the boat, so to speak. So we really had our hands full trying to get them to learn some basic English. So with this, you're 33 years old and you just paid off a bunch of debt. And I love the fact that it sounds like you just went all out, paying off. the debt. You just, you lived fairly bare bones, it sounds like, and put the whole paycheck towards it. Yes, correct. I think my first paycheck I got was like for a month and a partial month. And I think it was like $4,000. And I think I held like $1,000 back. And then I just sent the rest in. And then it's like, man, I think I didn't get my next check. I can, you know, get through that. So I think I maybe held $500 back or something. And I just like $2,500. And then I wasn't super frugal back then.

I would have got it down a lot faster, how it really known about frugality in general. But, you know, keep in mind, this is pre-fire. There's no internet in Saudi Arabia at that time. So, I mean, we're just flying blind trying to figure it out. Okay, got it. Well, was at any point was, so I love just the mental approach of, hey, I'm going to pay this thing down really aggressively.

Was financial freedom? And you mentioned freedom earlier. Was the concept of financial freedom, building wealth on your mind at that point? Or was it mostly just to get out of debt? Well, that's a good question because at first it was just I wanted to get up to zero. And the way I thought it, I realized when I was in debt, my salary was not mine. I mean, people had dibs on it. And that just didn't sit well with me.

And that's even today, so many people are so accustomed to debt. I think that's insane. So I was like wanted to get up to zero and be a free man for all practical purposes. And so when I would go earn money, it'd be my money. But I don't hear people talk like that in the fire community. that was it, but there was a shift there. I was in New Orleans working with my dad. The contract fell through for a while, so we were sent home for about, I think, eight, nine months. And I found a book in Saudi in the public library. It was Al Terahorse book. It's my favorite book,

cashing in the American Dream, How to Retire at 35. I bought many a copy on Amazon. And it gave me a vision about, wow, if I had a certain amount of money, I could just live from the money. And, you know, being that I was a Spanish teacher, I've been to Brazil. And I like traveling. I always like that lifestyle. It's a little bit of a wander. I've still some wanderlust in me. If I had enough money, I could just kind of go do my thing.

That was just revolutionary to me, thinking like that. Love it. So that moment, that's a critical part we always try to hone in on is when that moment occurs for anybody that comes on the show here. When was that relative to your journey? Was that after you paid off your debt? Was that while you're in the process of paying off your debt? was it after you just started to accumulate a little bit?

I think my student loan was done and my wife's was partially done. So this would be about 1990 toward the end of 7, 97, 98, right there. But then I remember when our contract got restarted and went back over there. Man, I just, I was a man on a mission. And at that point, you know, we stayed until 9-11 and we had zero debt and $100,000 saved. So right around that inflection point, it sounds like, where you're approaching zero, is where you discovered this.

Yes, yes. And see, all of a sudden, I knew what to do with my money. And I'd also read some of the Bogle books, you know, Bogle on Mutual Funds. I learned about index investing and keeping your eye on costs and diversification. And, you know, it was really ironic about all this. I had an MBA, but I never had any money.

They didn't really know anything about money, you know, because I know, you know, it's very theoretical if you have none. And then, but I remember having like $3,000 and $5,000 in my bank account. And I was like, wow. It was just mind-blowing. And then I started with some index funds. So what did that look like?

Well, where 1998, 1999 is when you discover this concept. And then by 2001, you're worth six figures in this. Can you walk us through that timeline? Was it just consistently applying it to index funds? And you find yourself in that position. Was there strategy behind that or asset allocation that you're playing with? Well, you know, I was always very big on the KISS style funds, keep it simple. You know, like I really like the Life Strategy Funds.

I think one of my funds was the Life Strategy Growth because they had low fees and U.S. stock, international stock, some bonds, inflation index bond. So I didn't have to do any thinking or monitoring. I love products like that. So that was, I think, where most of my money was. And I had about $30,000 with my 401K. that is in that number because, you know, I was technically employed by a U.S. firm. So I guess I had $70,000 and then that $30.

But yeah, you're right, it was $100,000. And, you know, that was, I just thought I'm the richest guy in the world. It's all relative, right? Absolutely. That first $100,000 is the hardest. It's the snowball slog or the grind that gets you to that, I think. and then it's the, I think that I'm foreshadowing here. I don't know if I'm right or wrong,

but I bet you that that low cost, keep it simple, stupid index fund thing made the next $900,000, not too much more difficult that first $100,000. Yeah, it's not very sexy, you know, when you're using those type of funds, but they sure work, you know, and you've got to take your lumps with the market gyrations,

but if you're patient, and being that I became frugal over the years more so, I don't need a lot of money to live on, So I can just kind of wait it out. Okay, so you said that you were there until 9-11. You were in Saudi Arabia until 9-11. Where did you go after that? My wife and I thought we'd go back to South Texas.

We went there and that just didn't work out. I got a teaching job there. And it just, I don't know, it was, I didn't like the school, didn't like the setup. So I went back to Georgia. And we went to a job fair, not, you know, our big plan was we were getting my wife certified to teach. And then we were going to international. school circuit, see the world teaching American schools or international schools. Well, we went to a job fair in Georgia, and we found a job in LaGrains, Georgia.

And they had a job for her to basically teach technology ed. She is a degree in architecture from Georgia Tech. And I was a Spanish teacher. And we ended up taking it because it was halfway from my hometown of Ringgold and her hometown of Tifton, Georgia. So, you know, we thought we were going to do a year there, get her certified, and then blow out of there. Well, one year led to seven years. And along the way, you know, we just, we got comfortable there. That's where we started really learning about 403Bs and we did our IRAs. And those seven years,

we went from about $100,000 to $450,000. It was funny because I kept thinking, you know, we should be able to save more. Kind of felt like, I don't know, it was, I wasn't since I knew I had buckets that weren't filled, that was kind of driving me crazy. And that's where we went to that phase I described earlier where we separated service and used the 457 money. And then since 2010, it's just been, we fill all the buckets anytime we can, anytime we work. So you said you thought you should be saving more, but I'm going to go ahead and give you a little bit of applause for saving $350,000 on two teacher salaries in seven years. Is that a common teacher salary occurrence? No, no, no. Anytime you're going to do something like this, you're just going to be

out of step and offbeat. And I didn't know. Me personally, it was watching my net worth grow. It was kind of a way of keeping score. And I realized how easy it was to do in those pre-tax funds. But my friends would ask me, you know, some of my coaching buddies, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? And I didn't really have an answer to tell them. I had no fire number in mind. because that wasn't on the radar yet. And I guess the point is, you don't have to have a reason. Just save money. You'll find it when you have money behind you,

coupled with the awesome frugal lifestyles, the way I always describe it, man, your life has a lot of options, tons. So over this period from 2001 until the present, basically, I'm gathering, was there an acceleration trend in general where you're saving more and more each year as you're optimizing your lifestyle or earning more, was it pretty even the whole time?

No, no. It really got accelerated 2010. That was the first year we maxed, maxed everything. And that year was 75. I think 2011 was 75 again. And 76 the following year. Plus, I'm counting in my number, the 250, also my son's education accounts. And then, you know, as we got over 50, my wife and I, I'm 56 now. My wife's 53. and we got those catch-up contributions, and that really pushed the numbers higher. And to give you an example, I believe it was the year 2015,

we saved $106,000 in that year. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And then we worked through to 2016, finished out the year, so that's January through May, but it's eight paychecks. We saved all those.

And so basically, if we're working five months, we saved, I think, $88,000. You know, it was $10,000 a month. I mean, all day long. Now, I know that as teachers, I believe, the salary increases every year are fairly predictable and begin to stack up over the course of a career. So I imagine that's a contributing factor on the income front. But were you also, well, first of all, can you confirm or deny that?

And then second, were you doing any work on the side, like after hours or in the summers? Yeah. Oh, let's see. As far as the pay scale, it is very predictable. And I'm maxed out after 21 years that you can't go any higher. But I also, after grad school, we had our master's degrees. And then my wife and I went about 2005, 2006. We did our educational specialist degrees.

And that was worth $6,000 more a year each for doing the same job. So I call that income maximization, just doing all I could to get a pay bump. And then my seven years at the Grange, every year I did what they call extended day. I had no planning period. So I usually would do that during my lunch period, like make copies and things. So I got 25% more by teaching an extra class both semesters. But I did that seven straight years,

and most of my coworkers said I would never do that. I used to think, are you nuts? 25%? And I'm here at the same time you are. And I have to stay a little extra. My coaching duties, I think the most ever made coaching was like $2,500,000 at that job. Now I coach here.

So that's like, I get, I don't know, probably ends up being $8,000 for that. What was this other question you had that? Were you working in the summers or in the off time? You know, I wish I had a really good thought hustle story to tell you. But in the summers, I generally would do like, you know, I'd go to team camp with them. And that was just expected. And I just took my summers to myself, go hang out with my brother. He'd run a beach place.

We'd go hang out there for a week or two. Go see family. You know, we both have big families. We go see people and we just do some low-cost vacations. We have a great time. But this is impossible. You have a great side hustle story because you made 25% more by not having a planning period. And what does the planning period do?

I mean, when I'm at work, I'm working the whole time. I don't get any planning periods. And I'm not talking smack about teachers at all. I have been doing their job for the last six weeks. And it sucks. and you deserve a 50,000 percent raise. I mean, you don't need it, clearly, but all the other teachers. But no.

So what do you do in a planning period? Well, yeah, I mean, if you're disciplined, unlike me, you do a lot of work done, you know, and I'll print out some things and go make my copies and maybe do a little planning. But it's very easy to get down the rabbit hole in the internet and start reading stuff. And yeah, I mean, I'm not the most prolific planner.

I can tell you that. So in my case, I'd just rather have the students. and it was a good decision for me. I noticed a lot of school districts don't like to give that, especially the 25% bump because a lot of times the teachers will be making more than the principal. Well, then the principal can go teach full-time and not have a planning period.

I didn't know about that 25%. I'm going to talk to my sister. By district too. Some districts, it's like 10%. And I just thought, man, I don't know if it's worth all that to me. I got to keep my sanity to a degree. Well, but the theme here is income maximization while at the job. You looked for the opportunities that will give you that boost and then you took advantage

of them. And that's something that everybody, regardless whether you're a teacher or not, can take advantage of. And tax advantages. Yeah, of course. I think that's the big, you know, the overall theme to this entire podcast is your incredible tax advantaged approach to this. But I just think from the income side, what you can learn is, hey, there's always that raise to go after if you're not a teacher or that chance to go after.

after a new job opportunity or kind of just know your market value and what options are on the table. Can I get that extra $6,000 a year by getting this degree stacked in at my corporation? You just knew your market. You did your homework and you took advantage of every opportunity that was available to you, it sounds like. Yeah, and I noticed a lot of my coworkers didn't really seek out the pay bumps. You know, I knew one person who's my department had for many years. very bright individual didn't go back for graduate degree. And I thought, man, you're just leaving $6,000 a year on the table. This person could easily get in the specialist degree.

That's $12,000 a year. So, and then you can probably get those degrees for, I don't know, back then, five, six thousand bucks. So they pay for themselves in a year. But yeah, like now my current job, there's like a weightlifting, a little, it's like 20 bucks if you cover the weight room for an hour. And it's still like on the clock. You know, where I have to be at school anyway.

And I'll take that any time anybody wants to give it to me. And I noticed my last paycheck, it was for a couple of months, but it was $300. I like to work out. You know, so I go in there and live with them, do push-ups and kettlebell swings and all that. But I'm getting paid. But a lot of people, I'm like, okay, I'm going to be in the weight room anyway. You're going to pay me to be here. Deal, I'll take it.

You know, this reminds me. I got my first job. They offered an employee stock purchase plan. Sorry, I'm going to slate tangent here. I'll be one minute, I promise, guys. But basically, the rules were this. If you buy the stock, you could get company stock at a 15% discount, publicly traded company. Stocks, you cruise over a quarter, and then you can sell it right away. And you incur capital gain if you do that, or you can hold it and defer those. But nobody did this. Not a single person in my department, which is the finance department,

as far as I know, was buying any stock. And I thought I'd discover this big secret. So I put my entire paycheck into the employee stock purchase plan, bought the stock, and then sold it immediately and realized my capital gain. And then I explained this to everybody. And I was like, look, not only did I tell you about it last quarter, I did it, and I collected. Now you do it, right? Nope. And this was free money, this opportunity for income all around us, that for some reason, it seems people just aren't willing to go and take the little effort to go out, reach, and grab and claim it for themselves. And, you know, I don't know why it's just that your story reminds me of that. And I think it's just such an applicable lesson for anybody who's trying to go toward

financial freedom. Just go after those little things. And you're saying it's a little effort. It's a little effort. Jerry's actually in the wait room already. He'd be there for free. But he knows they're looking for somebody and they'll pay him 20 bucks. I will take $20.

Those high schools are kind of stinky. Well, you know, okay. I guess it's been a while since I was in high school. But yeah, I remember those gym rooms didn't smell so pretty. But I will take $20 for something I was going to do for free anyway all day long. Scott, I'm about to take a drink of Diet Coke. Will you give me $20 for it? I'm going to do it anyway.

It seems so silly that people won't seek these opportunities out. What is that quote? Live like nobody else now so you can live like nobody else in the future. Or how I make on that. But this is just, I mean, it doesn't make sense to me why people don't take advantage of this. Well, that's part of the reason why I still blog off and on. and I put my updates. And now that I've got seven-figure net worth,

I'm feeling kind of weird about putting those numbers out there. But there's a lot of narratives in society about how everything is impossible now and that we're going to have some guru come take care of us. And that's not the way I view things. But at the same time, I figured, well, they need an example. And that's why I just lay it all out there because I was a 2-0 student at Davidson

did graduate early, though. I just wanted to get out of there so bad. I screwed up forever in a day, didn't know what I was doing. I'm teaching public school, which is supposedly like an economic wasteland according to everything I ever hear. And I'm like, well, let's flip the script. Let's turn this on his head and show people how you do it. And you can do this with many jobs. Okay, let's say you don't have a 450-something.

You still got a 401k, probably got an IRA, probably got an HSA. Fill those buckets. You know, get your debt in check, start filling buckets. And when you start seeing, you know, hardcore savings is the fast forward button on net worth building. When you start saving $50, $100,000 a year, hey man, that's real money. And you'll get from zero to something substantial very quickly. Yeah, if you could do it on two teacher salaries, a lot of people should be able to do it,

I think. That's, you know what, that's exactly it. And one of the most popular episodes of the real estate podcast was show number 238, with Michael Swanee Swan. He is a teacher. He lives in San Diego. So of course, he has no money and no, he's a millionaire because he started investing in real estate in San Diego where it's really, really expensive. And he did something unusual and he's living a better life because of it. Yeah. And just to give you an idea, you know, what that means since 2012, I've taken three and a half years off from work where I didn't work at all. Took a half year and then we took the 2013-14 year as a family.

We homeschooled our son, went to Mexico for two or three months. And then we talked two years and Douglas Georgia saved all the money. It's like, I don't know, we saved 260 and two years. And then we took two school years off and now we're back here. And this is the end of our second year. So I don't have to work. But when I do work, my wife and I, we save all. our money or we fill all the buckets and we can easily get 100K. We did 130,000. We saved 130,000 last year. That's amazing. I can hear people driving in their cars right now saying, but what about all the growth that he's missing out on by taking his money out of the 457 plan? So can you shed some light on that? Because you are, you were investing, but then you pulled money out. You're not taking

out all the money in the 457 plans, right? Well, let's say the 457 in public school, here in Georgia, generally they have variable annuity products. They have high fees that I don't I don't like investing in high fee plans. So I keep everything in cash. And when I separate service, I pull that money.

I have rolled money from that to an IRA before. So my money's not really invested. There's kind of an opportunity cost when I'm saving in those buckets because I don't think they're very good for investing. So part of the plan is always too quit so I can move my money to greener pastures.

Okay. I give you example, my wife's not going to teach at the end of this year. She's going to be done. So we already have, you know, we already know when we're done here, September, we're going to roll her money to Vanguard. Okay, so you have a high salary now, technically. You have a zero salary because you invest it all. Nice for you.

But you have a high salary now. So when you are, you're reducing your current taxable income. and then you've got terrible options. So you're reducing, you're not even investing in the 457 plan. You're just putting it there to hold. You're not paying the high taxes. Then you pull it out at the below 12%.

Yeah, yeah. In my range, I'm comfortable with the taxation rate, which is, you know, that first 45 for sure. That's, you know, I get that $18,000 of that account. And then so if I pulled, that'd be like $27,000, okay, I'm at 45. I don't know anything. And if I want some more, I just know I'm going to pay 12% on it. Okay. So, yeah, there's always that. It does, it's kind of frustrating at times. I wish I could invest in my 403B, for example. And actually, I did for the first time. I put $18,000 into some funds in my 403B because the market dropped, what, 35, 40%. So I put some money in and it's, I made two or three thousand on it. But still at the end of the day, I'm, got like way more in fees than I would ever pay if I was out getting my first choice products.

I'm understanding what Jerry's saying and I'm trying to explain it so other people get it too. Like those annuities are crap. An annuity is only, only benefits the person who's selling it. It never benefits a person who's actually investing in it. Average fees, 2.25% nationally. That's ridiculous. My index fund is 130 basis. or S&P 500 basis.

That's common in a lot of these retirement accounts. It's just why you stock the money away, tax from tax advantage, and then you move it at the first opportunity, which is exactly what you're doing, which is still a benefit. Yeah. Yeah. You're paying somebody has finagled their way and extracting a large fee from you in order for your access to that tax advantage.

Oh, and the account I'm talking about is one of the better ones. I mean, they don't have surrender charges. I mean, some of these products are just, I call them wealth extraction devices. I mean, it's just a transfer mechanism from the savers money to the intermediary. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch.

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bring you back. Ryan Gosling in the first must-seem movie of 2026. Project Hail Mary. Only theaters March 20th. So over the last 15 years, you have been largely, I guess 18, 19 years, largely you've been a teacher with a couple of years breaks in between. You saved an increasingly large amount of money. You've built a massive net worth, mostly in tax-advantaged accounts.

Have you also built a pension, or are you eligible for pensions? pension as part of that? At age 60, I will get a pension. I think mine's going to be roughly $30 to $32,000 because I'm not going to do 30 years. And my wife's going to get about $20,000, I believe. And I believe that has a 3% cost of living adjustment, or at least it has. We'll see what's going to happen going forward. The Georgia pension plan is the TRS is in pretty good shape compared to many states. But we'll see what Mr. Arithmetic says about all that. Fantastic. And then you're also going to be eligible for Social Security, right? Yes, but I found out that I don't pay Social Security in this district,

so I'm going to be subject to the, what is it, the windfall offset, or I'm not going to get full benefits. So, I mean, there's a chance I might get something. I will probably get something. I don't really know what that number will be. But, yeah, I mean, if I get it, it'll be gravy. And I don't really talk about my pension in my blog, because, you know, that's, but I'm 56. So that's right down the road. Yep. So you've got a very conservative, very strong financial fortress that you've constructed for yourself and your family over the years here.

Are we missing any parts of that? Is there anything outside of the retirement accounts or do you have real estate, mental real estate, those kinds of things? I know I'm going to disappoint the bigger pockets crowd. I have a house. Like I mentioned before, I paid $68,000, a three-two brick owned by one family. We really like this place. and we're probably just going to be here. We don't have any rentals or anything.

And I'll be honest, you know, I played basketball my whole life and I conjugate verbs for a living. I might as well turn in my man card. I'm so unhandy around the house. It's embarrassing. Sorry, Mandy. You could come to my house and I will teach you everything. And I have every job to do.

The unmadly professional former basketball player and coach. Yeah, that's right. I don't know anything about cars. It's pathetic. No, it is not pathetic. You don't have to know about that just because you're a man. But if you want to learn, you can come to my house and I will teach you. And as far as taxable accounts, we have like $11,000 in a taxable mutual fund. So we're all pre-taxed. And what I've been doing over the last couple of years is moving some over.

I've been doing Roth conversions. And when the market took that big dip, I think we got $40,000 over. So I know I'm going to pay some tax on that, but I think future me will be happy with that, just I hope. So, you know, that's funny because that's a lot of our income on a tax. Last year we did, I think I did $20,000 of conversion. So, yeah, but as far as having other things out there, no, we've just done it from those four buckets we talked about before. Well, what about geographic arbitrage? Where do you live?

I live in Statenville, Georgia, one stoplight town. in Eccles County, about 20 country miles from Val Dostin, Georgia, which is a university town. So if we need stuff, we drive it. We drive there and go to Walmart, Sam's and get a bite to eat if we like. So it's not like I live in the middle of nowhere. I'm 20 miles from real shopping. I'm also about two hours, two hours and 15 minutes from Jackal Island Beach for beach trips. A little less than two hours from Jacksonville, about the same distance from actually about

140 from Tallahassee. So if we want to go to Costco and stuff, we drive over there and we go all the restaurants. And we can also get to some really nice beaches from here. You know, I'm just far enough away where I don't have to worry about hurricanes like people on the coast do. But man, it's the Florida coast are just beautiful. And we love Jackal Island as well. So I think we're in a real sweet spot.

Low cost of living, you know, good day trips. We do travel rewards. So I've got lots of rooms that say, country inn and sweet go stay there you know go to the beach stay there at night get up and have a beach stay and then drive home it's a great two days at the beach what else oh the other thing i was going to mention is you know we took those two years off but one of those years we lived in mexico so uh our son could go to school he did his sixth grade year at bilingual private school and merit of mexico colonial town i don't know 800 000 people more or less i'm not really a city person but i love it

there because it's very walkable. People are incredibly friendly, so much to do. But for the whole year, apartment, tuition, meals out, groceries, the whole kitten caboodle, $23,000. It was a whole year. So are you going to go back there? That probably helps in Spanish class too, right? Oh, yeah. Well, you know, we are permanent residents in Mexico now. We went to the consuling, Atlanta and we did all our paperwork. You know, we're still U.S. citizens always will be, but we can stay in Mexico as long as we want. That whole process.

I didn't use a lawyer or anything. It costs about $1,000 or $1,100 for all three of us total. I love Mexico. That part of Mexico, the Yucatan is really nice because it's only like a two hour and 15 minute flight from Atlanta. So in the same time zone for the most part, it might be central goes back and forth. But, you know, I was, oh, you're so far. in Mexico, actually, we're not that far.

And my brother-in-law did come see us. And he was just blown away. He was like, you know, everyone's got their image of Mexico, which is generally, you know, like some back alley in Tijuana. You can find all that stuff you want. But where we live is awesome, beautiful place.

Okay, I just looked it up. I was like, wait, what are you talking about? It's on the Pacific Ocean. But it isn't. I guess my American education didn't show me where Mexico is or how it looks. It kind of curves around. and you're at the very top of the curve.

Yeah, we're at the top of the Yucatan Peninsula there. And the thing is, that part of Mexico is very different. It's almost like Alaska is to the states. You don't just happen across it. You've got to be going there. And the people, they're very proud. They're almost like Texans, in a sense, are very proud of being Yucatikos.

And it really comes through at times. And a lot of people have a lot of expats there now, and a lot of Mexicans from other parts have come there because it's very safe. and they're quick to tell everybody, you know, if they ever say something negative about the region, particularly to other Mexicans about, well, don't forget, you moved here for a reason. Basically, where you live isn't safe. So, I mean, there are many parts of Mexico there are totally fine.

But you watch the news all the time and I don't watch the news. I'm scared to go out the door anywhere. Let me ask you this. You have just outlined a masterful approach to handling your taxes, income, spending, building wealth. you've got a financial fortress with all these different things. You even think about your pension because you're self-sufficient without that, it sounds like, for the most part. I just love the overall approach.

Which class do you teach us in at your high school? I teach you a Spanish one and two in a middle school class. They had me doing ESL last year, but I found out this year they're going to have me doing personal finance class and a weightlifting class. Yes. All right. Oh, I wish that we could show both Scott and I were raising our arms. Yay when he said that. I'm so pleased. And we're going to have Fidey Friday.

All right. Oh, I love it. Yeah, because, you know, at the end of the day, what it's about? It's about having your financial independence, as Mr. Money Mustache always points out so that you're happy. You know, if you're in debt your whole life, you don't get to live your life. And it's amazing how that is almost revolutionary to people. But, you know, this big world, I have a lot of interests. And now that, um, we have some money and frugal lifestyle. We can probably go anywhere. And I share that message with my students. I get a lot of money questions, even in my Spanish class.

You know, some kids have read my blog. And they're like, you know, Mr. Bourne, he's got a lot of money. Well, it's all in my retirement account. It's not I can't access it. But like, they'll ask me stuff. What should I do? And I'll pull them aside and show them things. That's awesome.

That's changing lives for forever. It's just dramatic impact. So really I love to hear that. And that's being taught your school and you're passing that along. One of the kids I pulled aside had a lot of questions. I pointed him to your book, set for life. And he just got a big job with the Navy. He's going to be, I believe, a nuclear engineer.

And he got a big package. But he knows what he's going to do with this money. It's not going for a Mercedes and a motorcycle. That kid is like so far ahead of people his age just because of reading your book and him seeking me out and asking me questions. Well, thank you for the very nice compliment. That kid must be very outstanding because only the top scorers on the entry exams, the Navy go on to be the Navy nukes, is that right?

And they get that big, fat signing bonus. So I know that's a big, big draw. Yeah, we were very proud of him. I mean, coming out of a small, I mean, we have 4,500 people in our whole county, right? 4,500 and the county. And there's a thousand people in my town. You know, I'm a townie. I'm a city person.

No, for a guy to go from, you know, a small town like that, onto a job like that is very impressive. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, very good. It's wonderful to hear that all that's the good stuff that's going on at the school there. Do you have anything else that we should be talking about or asking or thinking about before we move on to our famous four?

Did we can get to in the interview? I would say that, let me just talk about this briefly. Now that I have more time wealth, I have a different outlook on work. I can do things that like normal employees won't do. Everyone can tell them very relaxed at work. You know, and I'll give them, they ask me something. I'm just going to tell them what I think. I'm not going to be rude or obnoxious.

I'll give them my honest opinion. But a big focus of my life now has been a lot of working out, you know, just kind of being an old athlete, you know, my weight got higher to point. But I just wanted to mention with my time, I've started a jogging street. Today I did jog number 1397, that many days without missing. I have not missed a jog. That's awesome. And I've done 9,1005 pushups in 2020.

I do push-ups every day. Wait, how many? 9-1005. Yeah, 9,000-50. So I tracked those. I need to put those in my blog. You just have a Google calendar where I mark them every day. And it's amazing.

You know, I'm 56. And my mom and always have this conversation, she's 78. And she's like, you know, she can't believe how well she feels. And I'm like, yeah, I feel athletic. Now, I don't have the next gear. I can still, like today I jog, 33 minutes, you know? And that just blows my mind because once again, there are these narratives out there. Oh, you get older, you just, you know, you break down and you become type two diabetic.

A lot of those things are lifestyle. And at one time, I probably was pre-metabolic syndrome. I had a big gut, even though I wasn't drinking a lot of beer or anything. But, you know, now I feel athletic. And it's just, you know, a lot of that is mindset and habits. having the time to do it. So it's very important to me. I think it speaks to a lot of these things seem to go together.

Well, good wealth building habits are often coupled with good lifestyle, eating, exercise, relationship, those types of other habits as well. So just I think it speaks to the well-roundedness kind of helps contribute to all those things. Yeah. And when you have time, you can work on those things, right? Yeah. But if you're under the gun, all that stuff is impossible. That's completely true.

Okay, well, it's now time for the famous four questions. These are the same questions we ask of all of our guests. Jerry, are you ready? Yes, lay it on me. What is your favorite finance book? Well, I've already referenced Paul Terrehorst, Cash in an American Dream. So I'm going to give a plug for another one. That's a good nuts and bolts.

This one, Paul Ter Horace, was more for mindset. And that gave me aspirations. I thought Eric Tyson's personal finance for dummies is where I learned about pre-tax accounts and regular accounts. And I didn't know that stuff. And that really kind of gave me the framework in my mind. And it was after my MBA that I learned all this. It's so embarrassing to admit that.

But I'm really glad I read that book. And I think you can get it for like $15. You should not be embarrassed to admit that because there's a lot of people who don't know that even after they've got their NBA. that is something that people, lots of people never learn. True. And that even people who understand a lot of those things don't have a good framework about which to use

and which to apply and why. They're just kind of doing it to defer taxes generally, even if they're going to have a low-income year or whatever it is. But not knowing those differences there, I think are costly. It was worth the $15,000, that's for sure. Love it. What would you consider to be your biggest money mistake? there were a couple things where I missed on that it would have been better financially,

but I think my biggest mistake was just not having any financial knowledge or financial awareness. You know, I had, I mean, let's face the facts, from 22 to 33, 31, I was just clueless. And you just, I called the lost decade. And, you know, there's guys that fire in the amount of time. I was just wandering the desert. And I don't know, you know, I didn't really learn this stuff from my parents. So I didn't really have an example in that regard, like how to like do something really

efficiently. I just thought you go work, you get money and spend it. And that's just a terrible way to roll through life because there's people that give you a job to give you money. And, you know, I don't care what your job is at a certain point. You get tired of it. And I just didn't have purpose financially. But once I got that, it just, everything just got easier.

You know, I knew where my money was good. going to go. And just to give you an example real quick, I played basketball. I think I had maybe five, six, seven thousand bucks, cash, saves. Should have been invested or something, or at least part of it. No, I think, well, I did use it for something good. I went to Brazil for three months, learn some Portuguese. But, you know, I could have put half of that away in an IRA or an index, anything, or a rental property. Who knows? But no, no clue. Just live for the moment. And that was just, That was probably my biggest thing, is going so many years, knowing nothing, potentially. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?

I used to think it was the nuts and bolts things, but now I realize it's more mindset. You know, you've got to get your mind ready for what you're going to do and realize that, first, it's possible to, like, build wealth. I mean, there's so many counter narratives in our society now. I mean, in America, you can't make money in America. What's the other option? I mean, you can do it. It's going to be rocky.

It's not going to be always pretty and smooth. You'll be viewed as a freak by many of your contemporaries and your friends. It's going to take time and pass in stages. You can't, like, jump the stages. You know, you don't, I mean, you don't wake up any of your five, you know. But at the same time, as you're got to realize, you're going to have to have some fun on that five to 15-year journey. It can't all be about Monday. and just you don't want to come 10 years down the road and you're like, man, I hit five,

but God, that sucked. You know, it's no way to live. You know, you got to have fun, you know, and I always tell people, cultivate your hobbies, low-cost hobbies, take vacations, go see things, but do them frugally, have a lot of fun. So, yeah, it's a mindset issue and just a belief, you know, you've got to view that you can do things. Yeah, I think some people struggle with this. When you start out and you're trying to go on this journey, if you want to start saving money or begin approaching the $50,000 you're putting away every year

that you said was kind of the milestone where you begin making that rapid progress, in order to get to that point, you've got to live below your means. And that means that you're living a different lifestyle than the colleagues that you're working with, right? Or maybe your friends. And that is unrelatable to them in a lot of cases. They don't understand why are you living in that half duplex? Why are you driving that car? Why are you bringing lunch every day instead of buying it with us or whatever it is, right?

And they can't relate. And then a couple of years go by. And all of a sudden you have a hundred grand to put down towards a rental property, for example, or 50 grand in your IRA or whatever. And that equally to those same people is an unrelatable amount of money. It doesn't make sense. How did you buy this $400,000 rental? Well, I put $100,000 down.

Where'd you get $100? or grant. Well, you know how I've been driving that car and living in that. And that's the problem here is those two sides. People can't understand either one of them, I think, at either point in time. And that's what I thought of when you were making your comment and your advice there. You know, we had two used cars for 12 years and we drove them. And everyone kept waiting to see us get a new car. And I'm like, no, as long as those things are rolling, you know, because I like funding my accounts, you know, but that makes you an odd bird. You got money, spend it. I am very thankful that my dad drove a 1970 AMC Hornet for 20 years.

I was embarrassed of that car. Nobody else had that car. Do you know what AMC is? American Motor Company that made the Gremlin and the Pacer and the Hornet's like the nice version, but still not beautiful. 20 years. 20 years he drove that car. And he bought me, and my sister and I are the same age, he bought us a car to share when we turned 16 because we had different jobs and, you know, two cars wasn't going to work anymore. So we have three. He bought us a chevette, which is, you know, not the pinnacle of American motor quality. But he would work on them for us and he would do these things for us. And I've never been really into cars except once because I don't care.

It gets me from A to B, and we're driving two cars that we bought new now, but they're the only two cars that we've ever bought new. Everything else has always been used. And like, what kind of car does Scott drive? Does it make him less of a person because he drives some older, what is it, a Carolla, Camry? Corolla, yeah. Yeah. I mean, what does it matter that he drives that car?

He's still a nice guy. Jerry, what kind of car do you drive right now? A Toyota Prius, 2014, we bought that. We moved back from Mexico for a little less than. and 14,000. And it's, you know, I want something, a hatchback and four door. So we can do beach trips, get groceries. And we don't drive a lot.

So, and it's funny because some kids think it's a cool car, but we have a lot of truck culture here. I'm 6-7, and I get in this little Prius. And some people are just like, oh, man, you're not a manly man. But, yeah, I'm the same with you guys as far as, like, cars. I'm not a car person. I've had nice cars. And, you know, I can't fix it.

It costs a lot of money. We got a Beamer back in the day. Take that in. It would be $800 for regular maintenance. So the heck with that. All right. What is your most challenging question of the famous four here? What is your favorite joke to tell at parties?

I had to confirm with my son on this one. And I do a lot of dad jokes and bad jokes in the classroom. Perfect. And so my son, he said, I have to tell this one. What did that? the fish say when he swam into the wall? Damn. I like it. That's a damn good one.

You just love that one. I like pirate jokes, you know? How much does it cost for a pirate to get his ears pierced? A buccaneer. Ah, I like it. Oh, nice. What did pirates say when you went to the golf course? Oh, God. Well, I got to hear.

I'm a T. I'm a T. A, T. Oh, gosh. God, that's so bad. It's awesome. I once got into a pirate jokes battle with a real pirate at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. So that was a fun night.

Well, I thought about... I thought it was a joke. But that's not a joke, but that's not a joke. Fight with a pirate? A pirate joke fight. He would tell me a pirate joke and I would want up him and then he would want up me. and then I got humiliated in front of everyone. Oh, wow.

Yeah, he's probably got a lot of practice, walking around as fire. So does Scott. Well, all my students, they learned the, I call it the anti-joke, and I'll just let you hear it, and then I'll explain it after. There's two guys in a bathtub,

and one guy says, hey, you mind passing the soap. The other guy says, hey, what do you think I am, a radio? And so there's got a great hook. There's no punchline. So I told the students, you can use this when people are dropping jokes. And you jump in and you drop that.

And it's just an absolute mood killer causes confusion. So one of my favorite students in basketball players at LaGrange, he sends me an email one day. And he says, hey, coach, it was rush week. I'm at this fraternity party. I don't think I want to pledge with them. The guys are telling these jokes. And I realized, oh, my God, this is my opportunity to use it. he said I laid this thing out there, everyone there, and no one talked to me to the rest of the party.

I was the biggest weirdo, a loser. He said it was perfect. Yeah, any joke. Feel free to use it, everybody. I love it. Okay, Jerry, where can people find out more about you? These are great jokes, by the way. Thank you.

My blog is Millionaireeducator.com. And I, you know, I blogging frequently. I got some things in the hopper here. I always will do my tax post and, you know, like mid-year net worth updates, things like that. Let's see, I also am on Twitter at Ed underscore Mills underscore. That's my old alias, Milliganer Educator, Ed Mills. The problem was that name was too good. No one ever saw that.

They thought my name was Ed. So I'm there and I have a small Facebook presence where I just dropped my articles. But feel free to reach out to me. Ask me a question. a financial planner. I'm not a tax expert, but I'll give you my two cents on your scenarios. I don't know. You're pretty good at those taxes or pretty good at not paying those taxes. Well, yeah, I have reverse engineer and remember, it's like, but if you start asking about depreciation tables and all the, no. No. Well, but that's, that's, that's fantastic. Okay,

we will link to your everything at the show notes for this episode, which can be found at BiggerPockets.com slash money show 124. Jerry, this was fantastic. I love your story. I love that. you're taking advantage of all the things that you can take advantage of. And you are living like nobody else so you can live like nobody else. And you have a pretty awesome life. Yeah, I didn't think I'd be here at this point, you know. I would just tell everybody in going away here is that, you know, really, who do you go to work for every day to pay bills, to pay taxes? You're always going to pay bills in taxes, but it should not be the vast majority of your paycheck. So do your best to get money on your side of the ledger and keep your taxes in check and, you know, grow your well so you can live the life you're supposed to live.

Awesome, awesome advice. That's awesome. Okay. We will talk to you soon. Thanks, Jerry. Thank you all. I had a great time. We had a great time, too.

This is an awesome story. Yeah, this is really fantastic. Okay, Scott, I get asked this question actually kind of frequently, and this episode was inspired by a question that Nastassia posted in our Facebook group. It says, is anybody just starting out? After years of struggling as a freelancer, I finally got a great job at age 35, first time to have health insurance, retirement benefits, and the like. I have a million questions, but really they all come down to, how can I catch up? Yeah, you know, this is a common issue because a lot of our guests and even some of our hosts like myself,

you know, we got started pretty early, as you alluded to in the intro with my terrible attempted pun response. But basically, you know, it's harder, right? The rules of money don't change. You got to spend less than you earn. You've got to try to increase your income. You've got to invest for the long run.

And you've got to, you know, allow time to compound your investments. And those advantages do accrue to the younger people that are getting started. But I think Jerry really just showed us, hey, if two teachers can catch up, when they're starting from zero at age 33 or 35, he actually clarified with us after the show that he got back to zero officially at the age of 35, not 33, as he mentioned in the show. But he got back to zero at 35 and then was able to become a multimillionaire and is known about

town amongst his students about that, that he's the guy who's good with money there. So I think it's certainly possible for a lot of people to play catch-up here. And like he mentioned, if you can fire just in your Twitter, 20s by doing this right, you can certainly catch up between 35 and 55 to an astounding degree without having to do anything Herculean. I completely agree. So if you are listening and you're not a member of our Facebook group, go join today. It's Facebook.com slash groups slash BP money.

Please answer the questions because we can't let you in if you don't and if you don't agree to our rules too. But it's a great group. Sorry, Scott. Middy's just notorious for kicking people out who break the rules or spam things. I'm sorry. We have a spam free Facebook. One guy posted a comment.

He was like, wow, there's a spam, and it was gone within three minutes. Yes, this is my group. I don't enjoy going to other groups and all this spam and garbage in there. And you don't have to worry about it in my group because I kick it out. You are not welcome if you just want to spam. However, if you'd like to talk to like-minded people, fellow frugal weirdos about your journey to financial independence, you have questions. about money or, you know, really anything else as long as it's not gold and Bitcoin,

unless it's a respectful question. If you're not trying to sell me some garbage, please join our Facebook group because we are open to everybody who isn't going to spam. Okay, from episode 100. It's a resounding endorsement on Facebook group. I want to create a place where people can ask questions safely and comfortably and not get spammed. Love it.

Well, yes. And we hang out there. It's fun. Yes. From episode 124 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he is Scott Trench and I am Indy Jensen and we will see you on Facebook.