BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 203: 14 Kids, One Income, and STILL Retiring 10 Years Early

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

What’s your excuse for not hitting financial freedom? Maybe you work at a low paying job, maybe you only have one income for your household, or maybe you’re caring for a few kids, limiting the income you can save and invest. Prepare to have your excuses obliterated, because today we’re talking to Rob and Sam, who raised their 14 children on one income alone. And we aren’t talking about a $500k per year income, we’re talking about a median income! Rob and Sam always wanted a big family, and luckily, they were raised in frugal households, allowing them to save every penny, shop the deals, and have a budget. While Sam was at home raising the children, Rob was out working and slowly paying off their house early, without Sam’s knowledge. One day, Rob told Sam that the house was paid off, which came as a huge surprise to her! He had also been maxing out their Roth IRAs, his 401(k), and their HSAs. Rob was doing all this while comfortably raising 14 children. How is that even possible? Well, you can learn all about their tips, tricks, and budgeting tactics by buying their new book: A Catholic Guide to Spending Less and Living More: Advice from a Debt-Free Family of 16!  In This Episode We Cover Setting up budgeting, expense tracking, and being deliberate with your spending Maxing out your 401(k) match, your Roth IRA, and your HSA Being frugal so you have more money to spend on the important things Fixing up a foreclosed house to save money when shopping for a home Getting out of debt so you can tackle bigger (good) debts Becoming intentional with your spending, saving, and investing Raising a family of 16 with a single income And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Scott's Instagram Mindy's Twitter Mad Fientist Check the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/moneyshow203 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, show number 203, where we interview Rob and Sam Fatsinger, a couple who probably have more kids than you do. I've always wanted to have lots of kids. I've always wanted to be a mom since I was like in second grade. And so I said, yes. I said, forget the dog and make it 11 kids. And that was a deal. A year later, we got married and got pregnant on our honeymoon. And she's got three extra kids on top of it.

the 11, I promised her. Yes. That's what I'm going to be. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me, as always, is my agreeable co-host, Scott Trench. Agreeable, huh? I concur, Mindy.

It's a great adjective. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else. To introduce you to every money story, because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where or how many kids you have when you're starting. That's right. whether you want to retire early and travel the world, going to make big-time investments and assets like real estate, start your own business, or achieve FI with a family of 16,

will help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dreams. Scott, we have interviewed multiple dinks on this show, dual income no kids. Today's guests are a complete 180 from that. Let's call them simks, single income many kids. How many? The most that we've ever had on the show. Basically, every excuse that we have ever heard for why someone can't pursue financial independence

is blown out of the water by today's guests. Yeah, I mean, this is just an incredible story. And we asked them at the end what their biggest mistake, financial mistake was. And spoiler alert, and this is the famous four question, right? But they couldn't think of one. They were talking about it. And it took them, you know, 20 years or something to pay off the first mortgage. And then they really achieved five from that position with the paid off house over the last 10 years or so.

And the how of it is just, you know, really a tremendous amount of discipline, a clear dedication to their values. And what seems like a wonderful life and thriving large family here. And so just really awesome show today. I think you're going to learn a lot and be really inspired. A couple of the spoilers there. We just gave away. I don't think they'll change what you'll take away from the show. Should we bring them in?

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Don't put this one off. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Leaner Stronger for Fitness, The Anxious Generation for Parenting Perspective and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being.

What makes Audible so powerful as its breadth. Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more. 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, dot com slash BP money. Robin Sam, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I cannot wait to hear your story, but first let's introduce your family.

So we have 14 children. Okay, well, you can't reach financial independence with 14 kids. So thank you so much for your time today and we'll talk to you later. Bye. Nice talking to you. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. Oh, we have to tell you.

Okay, so I am going to knock down every one of the protests that I hear people say all the time within one fell swoop with your story. So let's look at your family. How old is your oldest? How young is your youngest? Our oldest is 31 and our youngest is four. And we have eight grandchildren. How old's your oldest grandchild? Six. I love it. So your oldest grandchild is older than your youngest child. That's happened in my family too, my mom's family. Yeah. Math is hard sometimes. Sometimes it is. My granddaughter asked her mom, Mommy, why does Grammy have kids? It's a really good question, Scarlett.

Okay, so you have lots of kids. Clearly, you live in a low cost of living area. Yeah, it costs nothing to live in the D.C. area. Oh, do I mention we lived in D.C. suburbs? Yeah. Okay, 14 kids in a high cost of living area. You must both work full-time jobs making $500,000 a year. Each, yeah.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, living my dream. And I work in IT, make a little bit over $100,000 a year. Okay. 14 kids, high cost of living area, $100,000 a year. You must have no savings rate. We save, yeah, it's not too high. It's about 50%. Did you just say it's not too high?

It's about 50%. Sorry, my sarcasm came out there. I love it. I love it. Okay. If you're listening and you think that I knew the answers to these questions ahead of time, of course I did. Rob and Sam are what we have termed, we have coined the term,

Simks, single income, many kids. T-shirts coming. That's right. That's a side hustle. Are you on the path to financial independence or are you there already? We are what I'd call 99% there. I mean, I could stop working this afternoon. And if my boss sees that, maybe he'll fire me.

Make room for somebody else. The plan is officially at the end of the year to retire. Okay. Probably do some stuff part-time for side businesses or, you know, something to bring in a little extra money here and there. And he does turn 56. All right. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So you are financially independent living in a high cost of living area with a lot of kids on one income, saving 50% anyway, and you're not 65. I'm not. Do I look at? I'm afraid of that. No, you don't look at it. But how can you get to retirement with all these things stacked up against you? Let's go talk about your story. Where does it start? When we got engaged? Or she likes to, well, it starts earlier for her. Go ahead. So just that my parents, I'm the youngest of nine. And because I was the youngest, my mom and dad actually grew up during the Depression. So we, we,

just always grew up very minimally. All of our needs were always met. We always had a minimalist before it was cool. Yes. Beautiful dinner on the table every night, you know, all the courses, always had shoes, always had clothes. But the mindset of need versus want and, you know, make do with what you have and, you know, recycle and all those things that are so in right now. I just kind of grew up never expecting a lot and never going above and beyond what was necessary. And then when Rob and I, we were dating when I was in high school and then we later got engaged. And I think a little shocked that he actually asked me. And it was around 1988.

And I looked shocked and he looked at me. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It'll be 32 years in a couple days where I have our 32 anniversary, 32nd anniversary is coming up in two days. Congratulations. Thank you. So what did you say? I said, well, you have to say yes because who else will give you 10 kids a white picket fence and a dog? And I also might have mentioned something about being thrown off the mountain.

We were on a picnic if she didn't say yes. And I pondered for a second and thought, you know what? there aren't a lot of guys right now who would like to have a big family. So she's settled for me. And I've always wanted to be, I've always wanted to have lots of kids. I've always wanted to be a mom since I was like in second grade. And so I said,

yes. I said, forget the dog and make it 11 kids. And that was a deal. A year later, we got married and got pregnant on our honeymoon. And she's got three extra kids on top of the 11, I promised her. I gave birth to 12, and we have a 9-year-old now who we adopted when he was 5, but we got him when he was 12 weeks old.

We were just going to help out a mom in a hard time. So we had him from when he was 12 weeks old, and by the time he was 5, we finally persuaded her to let us adopt him. And then we have a bonus baby who we got out of the hospital four and a half years. ago and he will be five in August and we've had him constantly and we again are hoping that his parents will let us adopt him. So who knows what God has in store, but we, because we were financially independent, being able to be open to these other children was able, we were able to do that. And the funniest thing too was 15 years ago, our daughter, who was our 10th child, we were making half as much then.

So we just kept living simply and never, you know, as my husband was making more money, we just kept living like we had all those years. Yeah, we started out when we were engaged and then first married, Sam was working part-time, but we always lived on my income and we just saved whatever she was making at the time. And then when the first year of marriage, when she had the baby, then she just, you know, stopped working.

But we just always were used to living on one income. Well, let's dive into it and kind of go through the financial journey here with all this. So 32 years ago, 31 years ago and 363 days ago is where the journey begins. And what's your financial position at that point? What's the income and savings and wealth of that? Yeah, well, let's see that'd be May of 89-ish. Yeah. I was working at a bank, probably making $17,000, $18,000 a year. I think my first, now, that was a raise from my, you know, when I got out of college, I was making $13,000 a year at a bank. Sam was working part-time, so we saved all that. After about a year, we opened a bookstore in 1990, summer of 1990. And we had our own bookstore until, and I quit work at the bank after a year.

year and ran that full-time. Sam and the baby, the first baby, we were actually running it during the day most of the time. And then we had that for 10 years, and then this weird, little-known business called Amazon kind of helped, you know, make it not be viable as viable. So during that whole, during the 90s, we probably made between 30 and 40,000 a year, give or 10. depending on how the year was. And how did you manage your spending during this point? How are you building wealth and managing your spending? Is it intentional in these first five, ten years of marriage?

It was, yeah, it was intentional, not as much as it has been the last 15 or so. Our first house, our mortgage was 10% in 1989, which was actually low. 10% interest, which is actually low because when I started working at the bank, we were doing 14, 15%, you know, I was happy to get 10%, which I know, 3% people are now, you know, are looking at me like you're crazy. But so I always paid a little bit extra from day one from my first mortgage to my last mortgage on that little townhouse we bought. Also started setting aside money.

We were saving her part-time paycheck. From a daycare center. From a daycare center, she was working at probably making $4 an hour. Miner wage back in the old days. Yes. So we always had some savings like a cushion, you know, to fall back on when the, you know, the radiator went in the car or whatever happened. And also we had some money saved so we could use it to open up the bookstore. And we started saving a little bit for retirement early on in a traditional IRA back then. You know, I didn't have any retirement plan being self-employed. Once we closed down the bookstore in 2000, I got what I call a real job with benefits and started contributing the 401K. How would you peg your kind of net worth around that time in 2000? It sounds like that's like a little bit of a turning point for you with closing down the bookstore and starting a new career.

Yeah, net worth, it wasn't too bad only because we had just sold a house, our house, and made some money on it and bought a foreclosure. We bought a very beat-up foreclosure and a nice neighborhood. So net worth-wise, we were probably around 75,000, but most of that was home equity, I would say, probably maybe 25,000. thousand in savings in retirement 20 years ago and then started contributing the 401k more and then eventually added health savings account, which I love those, contribute to those and I don't spend the money. I let that grow. And we were pregnant with number eight at that time? When we moved into this house, we just had number eight, yeah.

No, number seven. Or number seven, pregnant number eight. Yeah. I forget their names, but number seven and eight. whatever their names are. Robert and Domit. Okay, she knows the names. I know the numbers.

It sounds like during this 10-year period, there wasn't a lot of intentional wealth building going on. It was paying the mortgage and keeping a savings account, making sure there doesn't sound like there's a lot of stress because you had a savings account, but you weren't really investing for retirement or building network. No, we did not have much set aside for retirement in those first 10 years at all. Just a tiny bit.

And, yeah, you know, we had a cushion, you know, like you mentioned, savings and it was mainly focused on, you know, paying the mortgage, the utilities, and feeding the growing family. But we weren't deprived. I mean, we went on vacation each year. I mean, we didn't feel. You went on vacation when you had eight kids? Like we were poor. Yeah, yeah, God bless the people who we rented from. I don't think we destroyed any houses. And that's, that's where our simple living comes in. So we would go to the beach. But when we go to the beach, we go to the beach. We don't go to the beach to go on rides or to go out for ice cream or to go

miniature golfing or to go to the movies. We go to the beach and we just pack lunches, bring food and stay on the beach all day. And, you know, that's a kid's dream. Again, you know, those things are fun and those are special treats. And it's nice that, you know, every once in a while when we do go, an uncle will take a couple to, you know, miniature golf. And they just think it's the best. they don't expect it, it's a treat.

And so that's kind of where we draw the line between being frugal and like living and special traits and having them appreciate things instead of expect things. Mechanically, how did you transport the 10 of you to the beach? Well, we used to have a station wagon. Then we graduated a suburban and probably for the last, what, 15, 20 years. We've had a big 15 passenger van. Yeah. Nice.

Which now filling up with gas is ridiculous. I mean, it's 12 miles a gallon. That's not bad these days, right? Yeah. That's very efficient for 15. It was bad last week when the pipeline was shut down. It was hard to find gas. But we go off season.

We were going off season. We were going like the first or second week of September to the beach when it's still nice here, but it's after Labor Day. and you could, instead of $3,000 a week, you could get a rent a house for $700 a week. And so we homeschool. So that also allows for that. And that's one of the secrets to homeschooling. Some people just homeschool so they can go to the beach in September or October.

That's the price. That's a secret. So it's 2001 and you guys, you just change careers here. How much are you making and how much, how does your wealth begin to change trajectory from that point over the next couple of years? Yeah, I still am. I'm in the IT software tester, and I started doing that about 20 years ago. Started out in the low 40s as my salary, and then it crept up over the years, you know, 5, 10% here and there. And then I would say 10 years ago, maybe 8 years ago, I finally hit the 100,000 a year mark.

Also, when we tell people about buying this foreclosure, again, my mom had always taught me to buy like the worst house in the nascent neighborhood. And we both live in the town we grew up in. And it's my dream come true. Not my husband's dream come true, but it's my dream come true to live here. And these are the houses in the neighborhood we lived in were the ones that, you know, when I was growing up, you always wanted to live in this particular neighborhood. So we got this amazing foreclosure on a court with a huge backyard. So when you have eight kids, it was just a goldmine. It had a big room addition in the back.

But what you have to understand is it was so beaten up. Instead of taking out loan to fix it up, we just made it livable. So lots of white paint, you know, the basic appliances, the basic, you know, whatever we could buy, even though a lot of people can take advantage and build the house of your dreams, we knew that would put us in debt. So we just did the basics, made it livable. Yeah, we took out a well, I mean, we took out a mortgage on the house, obviously, but we'd made some money in our other house. Just for numbers sake, this house, and we bought in May of 2000, it cost $150,000. We put $50,000 down because we'd gotten money from our previous house had gone up in value. And it took

got a $100,000 mortgage. I started, that one was only six and a quarter percent. So we, you know, we're down from the 10 percent loan. So that, so I was paying a little bit extra on that each month. And then basically a 15-year mortgage that we paid off in 12 years and three months. So the mortgage was gone in 2012, summer fall of 2012. Which was a shock to me. I had no idea. And at the same time, we were starting to save a little bit in our 401. and it started in IRA, and then in 2012, it kind of went into overdrive because we didn't have the mortgage anymore. And we just got baby number 13.

Yeah, and so our savings rate jumped up a lot. In 2000, you buy this property, and you have $100,000 mortgage. You're contributing a little bit for the next 10, 12 years to your 401Ks and those kinds of things, but really the primary driver of wealth, it sounds like, is the 15-year mortgage being paid off in 12 and a half years. Is that accurate? Correct. That would be correct at that time, yeah. Okay. And that's remarkable in and of itself, because you're on one income, you now have a bunch of teenagers. I know how much of a vacuum I was

for food. And they always bring people home, which we love. Like we bring them all over. The more the merrier. Yep. So you're, again, so still for this period, you're still not really driving towards five for this 10, 12 year period. You're more just kind of, you're not doing anything where you're accumulating debt or you're living well within your means, but it's not an intentional wealth-building approach is what I'm hearing for this. Well, I was going to point that out, Scott. They're also not aggressively consuming debt and acquiring debt. And I hear people who don't have 14 kids and don't live at a high cost of living area and have two incomes rapidly acquiring debt on a lot of these stories. And that right there, I think, is your superpower is just,

we don't want any debt. So we're not going to get debt. I mean, nobody wants debt. Nobody's like, Let me take out all this money and loans and, you know, have a hard time sleeping at night. But just because they don't want it, doesn't mean it doesn't come into their lives. And throw in four weddings and a big trip and two big hospital stays for two of our sons. But to the debt question, we haven't had a credit card debt. I had a little bit in 1988, I paid off my credit card. It was the last time I carried a balance. and I also had a small car loan when I got out of college.

I bought a car for like $3,000 and had a small loan for that. So other than a mortgage, we haven't had any debt since 88. We're 89 when we took out the first mortgage for our first house. So it sounds like the intentional journey to get to five begins in 2012 at that point. That's a big turning point for us. What would you say your, what's your situation in 2012 when this hits? I want to know everything. How old are the kids? What's kind of like your financial situation? What triggers the change in course or acceleration?

Yeah, 2012 we had 12 kids and we had just gotten our foster baby. We have, you know, well, our house is paid off. So we have, you know, we have the equity there, but we're not, you know, I'm not really counting that as, you know. Oldest daughter just got married. Oldest daughter just gotten married. I'm starting to ramp up, you know, instead of putting And I was probably maybe putting, I probably had like 50,000 in my 401K and IRAs combined. Nine years ago, you had $50,000 in your 401K. And now you are 99% of the way there. Yes.

God bless the bull market. Well, we probably went from about 10% savings to, you know, to close to, you know, 50% savings rate. And my income was going up at the same time, too. and we're just, you know. And our three college sons moved out. Oh, that's saved on food, yeah. Three college-aged boys moved out.

Yeah, that helps. So what's the mechanics of that, though? Is it the mortgage payment going away at the same time as the income increasing? Are you just getting more intentional with the budget? How do you mechanically increase the savings rate there? Yeah, it's kind of all of that. I was like, I didn't want to, can we made our last mortgage payment? I'm like, well, we got this money freed up.

I don't want to just have any valid. operate and go to, you know, who knows where, just to stuff. So I was intentionally, you know, so instead of, I was paying extra, so we're paying about $2,000 a month on our mortgage, even though it wasn't that much. But, and then I still have about $600 a month. You know, I have to set aside for property taxes and homeowners. So I just said, well, okay, well, I don't want to just blow this $1,400 extra, you know, that is suddenly, you know, in my checking account. And I didn't know he was paying off the house that soon. So it was really no big change for me because I didn't realize he'd been doing this. When he handed me this piece of paper in the front yard, I was like,

what's this? And he's like, read it, read it. And I have no idea what this means. He's like, I paid off the house. And I was like, what? I mean, I grew up in a time where, you know, you would kill the fight of calf and have all the neighbors come over when you, you know, paid off your house. And I grew up with right next to the teller. phone, my parents having a sign like, God bless our mortgage home, you know. And we just, the whole concept was so shocking to me. And I was just in awe. So to me, you know, the day before and the day after, it was no different because he had been doing this without us ever realizing it. We never, we never felt like we were missing out on anything. So the goal was to just keep on trucking along

and keep living simply and not, you know, and buy paper towels every once in a while. Yeah, so we started cramming all that money in this, you know, open up a broth for both of us. Then each year I would increase our rate. Like if I got, if I got a bonus, if I got a two or three percent raise, I would, you know, increase, you know, it all went to savings. So, you know, we're maxing out his and her IRAs and which, well, I'm 56 now. So, you know, once I hit 50 and then she's 53, so when she had 50, you could, you know, contribute even more. then I hit, you know, 50 with the 401K and you have the, you know, the catch-up contribution. And then probably three or four years ago, our medical plan, you know, it switched to a,

it was a high-deductible plan. So I had the HSA. So I think that's $8,000 a year now I can contribute to that. And we pay any medical expenses out of pocket instead of touching that. So we're currently maxing out. I max out my 401K. I max out both our IRAs. and then I max out the HSA.

And I have no idea anything he just said. I can tell you what a good price. I can tell you what a good price on toilet paper or chicken or ground beef, but I have no idea. Actually, reading our book, we got to the part where he talks about this. I just skipped that whole chapter. I'm like,

I don't even understand any of this. Thanks. I mean, it was so enlightening and informing. It was well written, I'm sure. Well, there's two sides there. There's offense and defense, And it sounds like, Sam, you've been playing really good defense for 30 years here with the money and making every dollar stretch and being frugal with those types of things.

That's what I'm picking up. Is that at all correct? Yes. And the funny thing was, you know, I was in shock when he told me he was paying out this house. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And then all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute. All these years have been using cloth diapers and spending a half an hour in front of the meat department trying to figure out if we can afford this meat. week.

But I'll help it. Yeah, it's teamwork. Teamwork, but I don't regret a minute of it. And our kids will tell you, and that that's one of the people's favorite part about this book is our kids talking about this. And actually, our kids are the ones who should be being interviewed because they are amazing. And they grew up with this mindset that they had to do it.

If they wanted it, they had to work their tails off. And they did. And they have. And hopefully the last seven will, too. Well, you're halfway there. Yeah, seven of them are out of college. Eight of them are out of the house. So that's good.

It helps the food bill. Yeah, and the water bill. Yeah, let's talk about food bills because I actually don't know what my food bill is. I haven't tracked my food spending in a while. But I know that when I go to the grocery store, it's a lot all the time. So you. Yeah, we used to spend about 1,500 a month on groceries. it's down closer about a thousand now.

A thousand for eight kids, six or eight people, six kids. Eight people. A thousand dollars a month. How do you do, do you like grow all of your own vegetables? No, our thumbs aren't green. We can't even grow aloe. I'm the only person in the world who kills my aloe plant. Actually, right now it's alive, but just give me a couple months.

We can grow dandelions. That's about it, but we haven't tried to eat them. We just grow babies. You do. They, you know, our kids just, it's just amazing. Like, I just, I can't say enough about our kids. And we're normal. Like, someone interviewed us and said, what, your kids just, like, eat lentils all the time?

No, we eat all the junk. And we, you know, we don't grow our own food. We just have taught them to, like, when, when they're out, like, it's so funny. My daughter, who's about to be 18, she went out to eat with a bunch of her buddies. And she's like, Mom, you know, Gabby got water. It was $2 for a water bottle. I just went up to the counter and said, can I have some tap water with ice in a cup? And she was like, what?

You can actually do that? Like, she just thought she knew the best kept secret in town. So it's little things like that. And my kids were concessions. They see people waste food so much. They, you know, whenever they're out with friends, people are like, oh, does anybody want this? I'm going to throw it away. And of course I want that.

Like, you just pay fun. 99 for those fries. Of course I want them. So it's just kind of like, not that they don't get things, it's that they don't, they appreciate them or they work hard for them, but they don't expect them. Setting up expectations. What does a week of food or groceries look like in your household? Size-wise, a couple cards. We were very blessed. We have Aldi and Lidl right close by. and then we have a bigger grocery store that marks down their meat at a certain time during the day. So I think I mentioned this before. My mom always said become friends of the butcher.

And so I always check with the butchers and the grocery stores near us. What time do you put the meat down? I have very often gone to this bigger grocery store and they'll have meat that's going to expire the next day. So it's not even expired yet. It's going to expire the next day. And so it's 50% off. So sometimes I hit, you know, a bonus and I get like a cart full of ground beef or sausage and chicken breast and chicken thighs. We have a large freezer and we have two refrigerators.

Definitely large freezer. And we do have two very big refrigerators in our kitchen. So in our kitchen we have two refrigerators, two dishwashers, two ovens. and so what I'll do is I'll get all this meat. It's so funny, I'll go push the cart and everyone's like, oh, you're having to cook out today? And then one of the people who works at the store is like, oh, no, those are the fat singers. They have 14 kids. They buy it and they freeze it.

And it's just an easy way to get meals ready. So that whenever we're meal planning, people don't, we don't plan our meals by making a menu and then shop. We plan our meals by opening our freezer. and saying, okay, we've got ground beef, we've got sausage, we've got pork, we've got chicken, we've got lots of chicken, we've got frozen pizza. And so then I make a meal from what we've gotten on sale. And if there's some super sale on, you know, tomato sauce or pasta, because we have a huge pantry, I'll buy 10 of them or I'll buy, you know, whatever the max is. So we eat from the pantry, which is really a big thing now. It's called pantry chopping.

and pantry cooking. And that's how we could really save. And again, buying in bulk, I'm not running out to go down the street to go pick up a box of pasta and then, oh, I'm there. I'll grab some of this and grab some of that. We also have a really amazing community. So almost at least twice a week, someone in our neighborhood's like, who's got cream and mushroom soup or who's got frozen broccoli or who's got a bag of flour?

So we all kind of team up together. and also those wonderful friends and the same ones who say, hey, I'm going to Aldi. Does anybody need anything? So we're kind of all on the same team to try and help each other out, which is huge. I'm gathering that you have a substantial skill set in this. Like, you know how to do all this stuff. You've honed it. You've optimized your, I imagine you have specific equipment, like more so than what I would have in my kitchen

to cook for a large number of people. Yeah, but we also cook simply. We, you know, every fancy meals are not. but they, you know, can kill a budget. So things like pasta, roasted chicken, you know, tacos, lots of rice, lots of, you know, potatoes, lots of butter noodles, all the easy things. So I, you know, for people, we love a special meal and holidays are great, but we don't go above and beyond these fancy recipes. Like, we'll look at a recipe and we'll know right away. Well, we don't have this. We can't afford that. So we do cook very simply, but we do cook very simply,

but with a bunch of little kids, as most moms and dads know, they like simple. They don't want their food touching. They, you know, their favorite meal is spaghetti and meatballs. Like, I'm like, you can have anything you want for your birthday. You know, we do a lot of hamburgers, lots of food on the grill. What I'm gathering, though, is that it sounds, a lot of thought and attention goes into this. And it may be second nature to you at this point. But some, like, this is not how I go shopping with this kind of stuff.

With this level of sophistication. The thought is simple. live simply. Just try to, you know. One, you know, shop the outside of the store, the outside aisles by, you know, single ingredients, generic. I feel sorry for people who don't have an Aldi or a little. Seasonal fruits and vegetables, they're not outrageous. I think we talk about that in the book, too, is like, my kids will be like, oh, mom, can you get me a mango? And I go to the grocery store and mangoes are 99 cents for one.

And I'd come home with three bags of Clementines because they were $279 a bag. But then the next week I go and the mangoes are, you know, five for a dollar. So I get tons. So everybody gets our own mango, you know. So they learn that it's not that we can't have mangoes. We can't have, you know, blueberries. It's just we have them when they're on sale. And even when they're at the store with me, they'll be like, oh, can I buy that?

I'm like, no, it's not on sale. And then we go down a couple more aisles. And, you know, their favorite cereal or something else is, you know, buy one, get run free. And I'm like, no, but this is on sale. We can get this. So I don't think any of our kids feel like they're missing out. Especially the ones who are married now who are like, wow, mom. They actually appreciate us so much more when they start having kids.

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Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 9-88, Canada's Suicide Crisis Hubline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. For the first 20 years here, we're kind of staying above water, not assuming any debt,

and building wealth through some automatic vehicles. And then after, in the last nine years, we get really intentional and multiple things happen at once, where your housing expense becomes effectively zero besides the taxes and insurance, the 600 a month, you mentioned with that. It sounds like you have a paid-off van that transports the Klan here in a pretty efficient manner. You're saying it's not good gas mileage. It's extraordinary gas mileage for transporting 15 people. Per person, it's very good gas mileage. And we've always paid cash for, you know, bought used vehicles. This current van, we've had 12, 10 or 12 years. And it was a couple years old, so it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't expensive, and we pay cash for it.

And it's great. We're helping the environment because we carpool everywhere. So if I have an extra seat in my car, I'm going to pick up one of my neighborhood kids. We're going to bring them all to the park or to the pool or to youth group or, you know, wherever it is, to the beach for the day. We always are really good about, again, I think community is huge. So, you know, we laugh because we'll get in our neighborhood. We have a bunch of big families. And we always are, when we all get to, you know, the cross-country or swimming and all of our cars plug, we're like, no, no, no, this is ridiculous. Tomorrow, I'll take, you pick up, you know, so we maximize that.

So we aren't driving a lot. Yeah. Like you said, like nine years ago, it was kind of like a perfect storm of the mortgage was paid off. My salary was increasing. I got more interested. You know, the fire movement was just kind of where I just started hearing about. I'm not sure how. Yeah.

Can you walk us through that? What was your kind of turning point mentally with this? What triggered that with the fire movement? Well, I guess it was when I always wanted to pay off the mortgage. And that was kind of financial because it was a 6%, you know, a little bit of a 6% mortgage. But it was actually more kind of more of a peace of mind type thing for me to have it paid off. And then I'm like, well, now I got this money. You know, I'm what I was I?

Mid-40s or so at the time. I didn't want to, like, man, I'm going to have to work till I'm 70. I mean, I'm looking at how much I have saved and this and that. I'm like, well, if I start, you know, cramming all this money and then up in it each year and then you get online and you start seeing all these finding things, you know, different people, my websites and stuff, you know, regarding fire. And so I just got, I'm like, well, you know, I can't do it as fast as, you know, people with dual incomes and no kids, but, you know, we can still retire before I'm 70.

So I just kind of made it a game, I guess, almost. Like how much can I save and, you know, and just kept up in the savings rate each year, I would just, until I'm maxing everything out. And what, 15 or 16 years ago, he sacrificed buying a motorcycle and let me fix up our kitchen. Yeah. That was a big deal. Well, let's ask about that. So it's 2012.

You're beginning to make these changes. Everything's hitting at once. And Sam, you were surprised, I think, when the house is paid off, right? No idea. Were you guys on the same, did you guys get on the same page and the journey towards fire? That journey kind of continue in a lot of your hands, Rob. Yeah, it's probably more me. It's all, Rob.

I mean, I think she just said, you know, she didn't understand all the terms and stuff. But she knew I was, that we weren't going to be, you know, I was like, just because we had this extra money in the mortgage, you know, we're not going to start going to Ruth Chris every night for dinner. and buying, you know, a Jaguar. But we're going to, you know, we're going to save and we're going to work towards securing our future and our retirement, you know, whenever that would be. At first I was thinking it would take, you know, maybe 20 years, you know, may I get my early

to mid-60s? And then, you know, rate of savings just increased. And then the bull market and just, you know, stuff, God bless compound interest. So, or compounding or however you want to phrase it. And it just made it more doable and you could see a light at the end of the tunnel. He's good with money and I'm good at not spending money. Yeah. Well, yeah, it sounds like one of the biggest things is last 10 years has not seen much in the way of inflation in a large sense except for in housing. And for you guys, that's been a non-issue because your mortgage has been paid off for this journey.

So that's a big piece of the puzzle that you were able to pay off with the 12 years prior. Yeah. Yeah, that timing was great. Yeah. And our older kids, you know, a couple of them have bought houses. and I'm not sure, you know, going forward, it's going to be tougher. Yeah, our oldest who's just turned 31, just bought her fourth house, and she has three children. She rents out the other three.

They bought Fixer Uppers and foreclosures. Wow. They look down the road from us. So they have three houses in our town and one about 10 minutes away that they all ran out. These teachers are just getting a whole career full of kids from your guys' family with that. But yeah, not having the inflation has been nice. And I mean, I guess, well, the houses, the prices are up. I mean, at least the mortgage rates are, you know, so low.

I don't know what having checked lately, 3%, give or take, for a 30-year fixed. The houses are going like crazy around here. And they probably are in Colorado, too, and other places. Yeah, it's amazing what these houses sell for. I'd sell mine if I didn't, you know, have people to. No. I'd go live in a tent down by the river. With six other people?

No. Yeah. Just by myself. I don't know what they would do. Let me ask you this. So the approach is very simple, strategically from an investing standpoint. It sounds HSA, Roth, 401K. And you just max them in that order, basically.

Is that correct? Yeah. My order is 401K. to the match to get my match. That's what I did first. Then I started maxing out our IRAs first after that. The Roth IRAs. Yeah, we both have Roth because they have better investment options.

And then we had the HSA I didn't have 10 years ago when we started. But now, like three or four years ago, I started maxing that out. So that actually became my second most important thing because I like the tax benefits of that. and it has a brokerage option too. So 401K for the match, HSA, then we max out our Roth IRAs, and then I went back and started upping the contribution rate to the 401K until I reached the max on that too. That was my order of preference.

And this is another language to you. She would read the book on the chapters I wrote. I love it. And then how did you determine your investment? allocation from an asset class perspective? Just researching. I like doing it. So, and I also have relatives that have been in investment in banking and bounce ideas off them. I don't have it quite on autopilot. I have some fire people just, you know, pick two or three index funds and, you know, set it and leave

it. I get a little more involved. I have index funds, but I also have some individual stocks because I enjoy researching and doing that too. So it's a mix of investments. I want to underline that. I have individual stocks because I enjoy researching them. If you do not enjoy researching individual stocks, you should not be investing in them. My husband loves Tesla, has been involved with Tesla for nine or 10 years. Anybody listens to this show has heard me talk about Tesla all the time. He talks about Tesla all the time. I don't care.

I don't want to do the research. If it was up to me, we would not be investing in Tesla because I don't want to do the research on it. but he loves it and it has paid off. He's also done some, you know, he's had a couple of stocks that were stinkers. So I should say that too. I think he invested in the sands in Las Vegas or something. Like you have to do your research.

He didn't do any research when he invested in the sands. He just threw money at it and it didn't work out. So yeah. And I mentioned that in the book. I'm like, if you don't like doing this or do anything, just, you know, pick a couple index funds or talk to somebody and just leave it alone. And we're not, I'm not, you know, financial. planner certified or anything. This is all, you know, basically, I mean, I worked at a bank,

but that was not in the investment area. And so I understand the numbers and stuff is more self-taught. It's, it's a kind of a hobby. I enjoy it. So, yeah, if you don't, I tell my older kids, if you don't, you know, just pick a couple index funds and look back in 10 years and see how you're doing. You have eight kids currently with, and that you're still at home. At home. Six at home. Six at home. Eight out of the house. But you, but you, you. You are saying, hey, I go through, I max out, I take the match in the 401k, then the HSA, then the Roth, then finish out the 401k with this. Is there any money left over after that? And do you have a strategy for that, or is that? There is a little bit left over. I do have a regular brokerage account that

has money in it, that I invest in. Okay. Anything excess goes into that. There's not always a lot access in that. I think that's okay that there's not always a lot of access to go into that when you're doing all these other things. I mean, I'm listening to people talk about how they make $100,000 as a single person or as dual income, no kids, and they can't find any money to put into their 401K. And I'm like, I bet you could if we looked. I mean, I'm sure there's extenuating circumstances that people couldn't, like,

a really chronic illness with really expensive. I know MS is really expensive, but I think that the majority of people who aren't on the path of financial independence or say, oh, I could never do that, just don't feel like making the sacrifices. And do you consider any of this a sacrifice? It doesn't feel like we're sacrificing. And I know it, well, I've worked from home for 12 years, but when I used to be in an office, some of the single guys who I knew made more than me, you know, once in a while they would complain about not have any money saved or something. And then they would look over, then they would look over at me and kind of get quiet. And I just roll my eyes at them.

And as, you know, I'm pulling up to work in a 10-year-old Honda and they have a two-year-old BMW. And for the long weekend, they flew down in the Bahamas with some friends for three days. I'm like, well, we live different lifestyle. I mean, that's your choice. You know, that's fine. But, yeah. One of the funniest stories is Rob's younger brother. he always teased us about, you know, having all these kids and you can only bring three at my house at a time.

But every year we would give him. He was mostly joking. He's mostly joking. We would give him a picture of all the kids. And so when Christmas, I guess there was about nine or ten of the kids in the Christmas picture. And a bunch of his buddies walked in his office complaining about, you know, not having money in this. And, you know, you got to give me more time. I'm having all these financial troubles and we got to go to the daycare center to pick up our kids and this cost so much money.

And he just turned the picture around. He's like, this is my brother. He's got 10 kids and he makes half of what I make. So don't even start. So even though he wasn't the lifestyle, he chose, he still could kind of laugh it off and wasn't inspired by, you know, that you can't do it. It's just a matter of adjusting things. And as we say, you know, we spend less in some areas so that we can live more in other areas. So, you know, we want to go on this vacation or we wanted to make this big trip for my son's wedding in Arizona.

So, you know, we just cut back a little bit here so that we can spend more in other places. But again, it never seems to be any huge suffering. What's the understanding with your kids for around college? Well, they, um, good question. Good question. That's actually how we went viral is the Washington Post wrote an article about how our kids graduate debt free and that went viral about five years ago. Yeah.

So they, um, well, as we mentioned, they're homeschooled. So they're usually done by the time they're 16 or so with the homeschooling part, high school. Can only teach them so much, you know, chemistry and algebra, calculus, stuff like that. So they go to the, uh, we have a really good. community college about 20 minutes down the road. So they go there for two years, for two years and take all their basics. And they know, they usually have an idea of what major they're going to do. So they know that the classes they're taking will transfer. Then they go to a state school. And you guys are paying for the community college? No, no. We're mean. We're mean parents.

They pay for their own school. A lot of them, especially the older ones, would get financial aid because we weren't making as much and we had more dependents. But yeah, so they all work. They start, you know, they all have jobs. They work. Two or three jobs in the summer to pay for it. And save their money.

And then they pay for the community college. And they live at home because, you know, to save money. And so they do that for two years. And they transfer to a four-year school for their last two years. We're in Maryland. So University of Maryland or Towson or, you know, one of the schools here. And they go there for two years. Some of them have lived at home and commuted.

some have lived on campus or off campus. And the first, what, four or five, you know, they all finished up without debt. Three of them have advanced degrees. Some of the ones like kids, six, seven, eight, they've taken out some mortgage, or not mortgage. It feels like a mortgage probably. Taking out student loan for their last semester or two, you know, to pay for part of it to make it ends meet. And then they work towards paying off the loans. And then number eight and nine have had to do college during the pandemic, and their normal full-time and part-time jobs haven't been happening.

So who knows what's going to happen with them. But actually, it even goes back a little farther. I mean, we make them pay for their own phone, their own service, their own car, their own insurance. I mean, we're horrible. We're so mean. And all of our kids, most of our kids have bought their own car before they're 16 because they've saved up money from babysit. or dog walking or, you know, plant watering or newspaper routes when those used to be a thing. Lots of babysitting. Lots and lots of babysitting and mommy helpers, you know, shoveling snow, mowing

grass. When I get lots of phone calls like, hey, is anybody at your house able to babysit Saturday night? A lot of the kids will kind of fight over who's going to get that job. No, it's my turn. I love that. How many, how many, um, how many, um, bedrooms does your house have? All right. We have seven bedrooms. Can you? So there's a lot of sharing going on with those bedrooms.

Yeah. Yeah. So we have currently, there's six kids here and they all have their own bedroom right now. That's the first. They're all very excited. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And yeah. So we, it was a five bedroom foreclosure we bought. And during the first year, we added a two bedroom. addition on the top, kind of on the top. We have a large walk-in attic that we bumped out and added windows. So it's now seven bedrooms. So they, yeah. But let's use. So for the college,

yeah, they've all, not all graduated completely debt-free, but most have. And two got their master's degree with the help of the state, a program where the state, if you agree to work for the state for two years, they would pay for their master's, and it was an advanced master's degree program, or accelerated, I should say, where it was 12 months straight instead of two-year program. Where in Maryland are you located? Just, I'm curious because I grew up in Maryland as well. Yeah, we're in Bowie, which is near Annapolis, between Annapolis and D.C. Nice, yeah, I grew up in Howard County, Maryland, so not too far away. Okay, like Columbia area or? Yep. Okay, yeah, we're probably 30 minutes from down the highway,

from Columbia. That's where my last office when I used to commute before I started. I'll plug it up top. Wow. Yeah. So, okay, so we've got call it, what else should we be asking you that we can't even picture because of the world of raising so many kids? Maybe weddings.

We have, we have four kids, four of the kids are married. Two of the girls and two of the boys are married. So we've had to pay for two weddings. And we've also, my one son, we love the girl he's married. Don't get me wrong, but he married somebody, you know, who lived 3,000 miles away. So we trucked the, well, not trucked, flew the entire family to Arizona about four years ago, I think. About four years ago for his wedding. At first, I was very excited that he got engaged.

Because I was like, oh, good, I don't have to pay. You know, he's his son. I don't have to pay for this wedding. And then I'm a little slow, so it took me a few days for it to click in that, wait, I have to get like 15 people to Arizona somehow and house them and feed them. Two cars. Yes, we wind up flying instead of driving. And, yeah, so, you know, all the flights and rented two large vehicles,

rented a house for a week in a nice neighborhood. I got you an A list for the next two years. on one round trip. Yeah, we had a blast, but it was nice because we were able to do this because we were, you know, financially stable. And it was a great, like huge trip. Got to go to the Grand Canyon. The kids got to go on an airplane for the first time, you know, got to do all the things.

We laughed because of my mother-in-law, who's also very frugal. She and I, the first, our first trip, we took all the kids to was to Goodwill. And we went and we bought everybody, Arizona T-shirts. Grand Canyon hats, you know, the snow globes of the Grand Canyon and like key chains and ornaments, all the things. So instead of buying them full price at the Grand Canyon, we were getting them for a quarter and 50 cents. That's awesome. What is the, how do you work the weddings?

What's the strategy there? Again, just me. Well, for the girls, we set a budget and they're actually frugal and not, they're not super, you know, want some fancy or needy. They're not high maintenance. I don't know if that's... That's another pro tip. Our kids make amazing spouses

because they're not like, oh, I want this fancy car. I want to go to a fancy vacation or I want a fancy ring or fancy, you know, whatever. The in-laws who are married to our kids are so grateful that our children are... I mean, that's a huge gift now. And we never thought about that.

You know, when we were first having all these kids and living so simply, it was survival, you know, living from paycheck to paycheck, you know, our goal was to keep the tiny humans alive. And now they turn out to be these amazing adults and responsible and not spoiled. And we give our daughters about $5,000 and like, here, do whatever you want with it. You know, you can have a simple wedding and pocket the change or you can have a fancy wedding and add your own money. And they did everything themselves. They did a great job. Do all the wedding planning and friends.

Yeah. And so we have on our website, which is that spam.com, we have three extra chapters that wouldn't fit in our book. And one's how we do weddings. One's how we feed a family. And one's how we do college. And those actually are our favorite chapters. But they use those to, you know, download them for free.

You don't have to buy our book or anything. Nice. Well, we will definitely link to that on the show notes. Can you spell out that URL? real quick. It's F as in Frank, A, T, Z as in Zebra, F-A-M-F-A-M-FATS FAMM.com. All right. Well, and if you, so you can go check that out, or we'll link to that in the show notes at BiggerPockets.com slash Money Show 203. Yeah. It's a very simple website. We're working on that when Rob retires. Everyone's like, oh, you should pay $3,000 for someone to do your website.

We're like, it goes against everything that we stand for. I think you should tell one of your kids to take a course at the community college on web design. We actually have some teenagers who are like, I can help you on that. But right now, this all happens so fast. I mean, we just were asked last year to write this book two months before the pandemic hit. Like, who would have thought that the world was going to need a book on finances? So we're kind of starry-eyed right now that it's already gone through its first printing. you know, we're getting all these great reviews on Amazon.

But like, this is beyond like our friends in our neighborhood buying this book. So it's really been exciting and wonderful podcasts and blogs like you guys are really helping us out. Hopefully our friends are being frugal and buying one copy and passing it around. I just love your story because it literally knocks down every single argument that I have ever heard about why somebody could not possible. get to financial independence. And what it boils down to is you choose not to make any changes to your life to make massive changes down the road. You can live fairly frugally and still spend on stuff.

I'm excited that you guys go on vacations. That's awesome. I know big families that never go on vacation. Yeah, well, exactly. But I don't think people need to, it's really about a mindset change. Like, people need to stop thinking of that a vacation has to be a cruise to Disney World or something. You know, when we were growing up, a vacation was you all got in the station wagon with your mom packed brown bag lunches and you drove to a relative's house and you visited and you spent time with your family. You know, it's nice that we can do these, you know, special trips.

It's nice and you can do all these other things. But even I was just thinking we have a daughter-in-law having a baby. and she kind of laughs like we're like give us a list of the things you need and she's like I don't actually need anything because you know my older daughter's like I have an extra crib the other daughter's like I have a you know a stroller you know she's getting a new car seat but you know she doesn't need any clothes or anything I have bags and bags of stuff from the older grandchildren so it's just changing your mindset like you don't need all these fancy things so are the children-in-law called like, you know, four and a half.

Is that how you refer to them? They're called my daughter in love and my son in love, especially now that they're giving us grandbabies. Yes. Yes, you need more babies now. Yeah. The old. She likes to spend money on the grandbabies.

She would never buy our kids new clothes and she's buying the grandbabies new clothes. I found this really nice thrift store. I can get like all these things for like 25 cents. I'm like, oh, but I have to pink and, you know. So what's next for you?

Like you said you're 99% finished. What is finished to look like in the, in the FI journey and, and what's going to, what's the next on the horizon? That's what we've actually been talking about that. I like to do something part time. I know I can keep busy because I have plenty of hobbies and kids and grandkids around.

So, yeah, trying to figure out if I want to, I don't think I want a job job, but figure out, you know, some streams of income to subsidize what we have saved and also to keep saving. I don't want to stop, you know, I don't want to go, I don't know, cold turkey is not the right word, but go from, you know, shoving money in all the time every month and then just taking it back out. So, you know, I'd like to keep up. And we're going to practice this summer or budget. Yeah, I made a retirement budget.

So we're going to try that out this. I track our spending anyways, but we're going to try it this summer and see if it changes our lifestyle on how it works out, just a little retirement foreshadowing. And he's an ultra runner, so he'll just run 100 miles for fun, so we'll have plenty to do. Yeah, I get myself busy running, if nothing else. And you also have a book coming out, which will be potentially an income source as well, right? It just came out on Amazon already through the first printing. And can you tell us a little bit about the book?

Sure. So it was just, it's a Catholic guide to spending less than living more. And it's just our story about how our family has found ways to spend less in areas so that we can live more in other ways. So living more to us was me getting to stay home or living more to us was having another baby or adopting a child or fostering another one. And then because of my husband now in our state and life, you know, because he's so good with spending and saving money. And so wise about what we do spend money on, we're able to, you know, support ministries that we really feel called towards that we weren't able to do before and, you know, sponsor a child in a different country and things like that.

So helps our kids realize that, you know, even though we're saving money and like the kids, like, the kids, kids say to us now, you know, we're selling these books. Well, you know, why do we have to have, you know, this for dinner tonight? You know, can't you just sold a book? Can't we get something fancier? Like, again, it's not living any differently. And it's teaching them so that they'll stay out of debt. And what's wonderful in our family is the older kids are such a huge example for the younger kids. So they know that, you know, this particular sister can bought her, bought a nice car with money that she had saved. She didn't have to buy, you know, she didn't have to go into debt to get a nice car or she, you know, their other sister has a house or they can help out, you know,

with other things because they're so wise with what they're spending. Yeah. The older kids wrote a section for the book. It was going to be an appendix of we gave them topics and they wrote, but instead of an appendix, it wound up getting interwoven. So some of the kids' quotes and thoughts and how they handle money, the older eight, are woven into the story. And that seems to be everybody's favorite part. I also have an account on Instagram, so it's Sam, JMJ, and there's a video of them all reading their part, which a lot of people just thought was great to kind of see the kid reading what they had to say. And then Rob's on Twitter. I'm on Facebook under Sam Fatsinger. So if anyone has any questions for us, you know, or you can send us messages on our blog or

our website. Well, we do have four questions for you. These are the same four questions. We call them the famous four questions that we ask every guest. How was that for a seg, Mindy, by the way. Way better than yesterday's not so smooth segue. Mindy, do you want to take the first one? Yes. Robin Sam, what is your favorite

finance book? You can each have your own finance book. That's fine. Yeah, I want Yeah, probably tight wide gazette because I was, you know, as a mom, you're always looking for cheaper ways to, you know, do everything.

To fix things in the house. or to, you know, budget meals or learning, you know, I was reading that when I was a new mom. So, like, learning what a good price is for meat and for detergent and, you know, making a lot of our own things and making do with what we already have. I mean, Rob has fixed more things by watching YouTube videos instead of calling, you know, 1-800 fix-it guy to fix something. And sometimes we still have to call those people, but at least he gave it a good shot. It's for the first time.

I said my favorite book, probably a common one, is a millionaire next door. I'd probably get that a lot. Love that one. Yeah, that's a great. That's one of my favorites as well. Well, you're your favorite's going to be this one. Oh, I should have said my own book. I'm sorry.

That's right. Yeah, the rule is you can't plug your own books. Well, he made fun of me because as soon as it came in, I just devoured it. And he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I've never read it from cover. to cover. You know, when you're writing a book, you just kind of get piecemeal, and then you have to read the final print on a computer. And I'm like, no, so I was highlighting it. I'm like, wow, these people really knew what they're talking about. This is great. That's awesome. What was

your guys biggest money mistake? Is there a money mistake? We would sound arrogant if we said we didn't make any, because we always make money mistakes. I'm trying to think of what a big one would be. And maybe a car purchase. And we may have bought a car that was a lemon, but that, I mean, that, that you, buying and use cars is kind of a roll of dice sometimes anyways. And we got great deals on, on our two houses. What about the townhouse? Like, yeah, the townhouse, we actually, the first house, we bought an 89. I don't know if it's a mistake. I mean, the market was flat. I think we sold it for $500 less than we paid for it. We probably didn't need to start off in a townhouse, although it was great. And we ended up staying there until we were, pregnant with our fourth baby. But being the youngest of nine, you know, a lot of my brothers and sisters started off, you know, renting an apartment or, you know, living in a dump. But that, I mean,

I loved that neighborhood and I loved that house. But it was probably fancier than maybe we even needed and fancy in no sense to what people get nowadays. They buy these mega mansions. Rob, you said it might be arrogant to say that we didn't make a big, money mistake. I don't hear a big money mistake in your story. I hear very intentional, hey, I don't like debt. So in 1989, I'm not going to have any more debt except the mortgage, which Scott and I don't feel is actual debt. It's like forgivable debt. Yeah. Nowadays, yeah, the 3% I mean, it's almost like free money. Yeah, it kind of is. Yeah. Back then at 10% it didn't feel that way. Our first mortgage.

But yeah, nowadays, because the older kids will ask me and some of their friends, you know, in their late 20s, early 30s, well, should I pay off my mortgage first or retirement? I'm like, well, it's almost free money. I mean, whatever you're comfortable with. But, you know, I've kind of revert. I mean, back then I was paying down my mortgage more. And nowadays, you know, it makes more sense to save for retirement. I would say the only times I make bad money decisions or financial decisions is when I'm, you know, unorganized.

I know that sounds funny, but I'm not really that organized. And I love stuff and I haven't, you know, I'm not, I'm kind of messy. But like when I'm not organized and it might be just like a $5 or $10 purchase, but, you know, if I can't find that book that I'm looking for or the glue gun that I know is in here somewhere, but because of the, you know, kids dumped out, the arts and crafts is, It's really like when I'm not organized and when I'm not tidy, that's when I have to go out and spend money on something I know we have in the house. Yeah, if you can't find it. I probably have eight hammers I own, but the kids keep, I'll find them in the woods. The kids are building tree houses. I can't find my hammer. I buy another one.

And I think that's what's kind of nice about our older kids is they're living this whole new minimalist, which is, you know, never even, I've never even heard of that when I was first married. But it's kind of a nice way to live because they're living very. simply. They don't have lots of stuff. I love that. And I think that's very financially grueble and financially wise. So again, I know it sounds funny, but like, you know, if the pantry's not clean, I can't tell that I have pasta or. I mean, you don't have to make a big financial mistake to get in trouble. You can make a lot of little this. Yeah, death by a thousand paper cuts. I mean, if you make a whole bunch of little ones, they add up. So yeah, yeah, try to minimize those. I own about 47 utility knives because I can never find them and I need one right away,

so I got to go get it. Yeah, exactly. The organization is key. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out? So I kind of tell people to remember my name and it's Sam. So S is for just simplify, live simply, you know, buy sales. A is for, you know, asking for help. Again, like building that community.

I don't know about where your listeners are from, but around here we have, you know, free cycle and, and ask, ask, ask you sell and all these other things on Facebook marketplace. So don't go out and buy, you know, those rollerblades for your kids that they're not going to wear next week. Don't go out and buy, you know, my kids are like the hobby of the week. And, you know, oh, I want to be a professional golfer. Can you buy me golf clubs? I want to be a professional lacrosse player. my kids are like that all the time. And so what we just get this network, like I'll call the neighbors down the street. Like, can I borrow your skateboard or do you have any rollerblades? Or like,

oh, yes, please, just take them out of my, take them out of my garage. I've been trying to get rid of these for years. So working a network, I like that, whether it's free cycle or whatever, a lot of times I just put something on my Facebook page, like, hey, you know, my kid needs a new bike. And I get five people saying, oh, here, take this one, take that one. So just building that network. So that's why I say by ask for help, ask around. And then M is that minimalizing, making do, you know, make a plan, you know, make a meal plan, whatever it is. Make a plan.

What that goal is if it's a fancy vacation, if it's a new car, if it's a new house, or, you know, whatever it is that you want, make a plan towards that and start chipping away at your debt so that you can afford that. And mine would be save something each month, even if you're in debt with credit cards, or just put something away, even if it's a little bit. I said we got our first house in spring of 89, and from the very first payment, I paid extra because it was 10% loan. And I, so I mean, some months it was only $10 that I could pay extra. And I was also putting a little bit in savings. And it might be $5 a paycheck.

It might be 10 back then. And automated it, if you. you can. If nothing else, it gets you in the habit of saving something. I know that people say pay yourself first, you know, just automate it and put something away. Either pay down debt if you have it too, but just, you know, having an emergency fund, some type of cushion will give you peace of mind and you won't have to go, you know, put something on a credit card when the timing belt goes in your car. Not that happens so monthly. Yeah. I love it. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's effectively your, been your strategy for the last 20 years with this.

Yeah, save and save and then put it all towards the, and then not inflate the lifestyle and then automate the wealth building. Yeah, I mean, it's worked for us, so, yeah, it can work. That automated stuff out of your checking account, you know, out of your... Do we have a checking account? No. Yes, we did. Yes, we go.

Okay. I was going to quiz around what bank we bank with, but I don't know. It's a good thing she's trusting. What is your, this is the last and most difficult question. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? Guess how many kids we have? Or name the fat singers from the oldest to the youngest. Bonus.

You get a bonus. Yeah, maybe we could put, well, we'll add an additional one after the joke of, can we get all the names? Yep. You want the kids' names? Yeah. All this is Alex, Andrea. and then she's married to Pascal

and they have Scarlett and Luca and Andres. And then we have Joshua is our son. He's married to Katie and they have Ellie and JJ and Fulton. And then Caleb is married to Sarah. And they're expecting a baby in August. And then we have Lizzie and she's married to Paul. And they have Adelaide. And then there is Barbara.

Barbara. she's the fifth and she's single. And apparently a good catch. Yes, really good catch. And then Joseph, he's also single. And then there's Robert and he's taken. And Dominic and Mary and Cecilia and Eric and Colby and Ray is nine and Bradley is going to be five in August.

That's awesome. That doesn't sound like 14. You say really fast at night when you're saying your parents. That was all the grandkids too. Yeah. And the in-law, the love-in-laws. Yeah. They're going to be like, Mom, I can't believe you forgot me.

Yeah, there's only 13. Alex, Josh, Caleb, Elizabeth, Barbara, Joseph, Robert, Dominic, Mary, Cecilia, Eric, Colby, Ray, and Bradley. Can we forget Colby? Kobe. Whoopsies, whoopsies. But we just named him now. I think we did forget Colby.

He is 11. Did I forget him? Oh, he's my sweetie. He's the last one I delivered. So he's number 12. He's our dozen. Wow. Thank you guys so much for coming on the show today

and join us and telling your story with this. And if you're listening and interested in learning more, check out a Catholic guide to spending less and living more from them. And we'll also link to all of the social media profiles and all of the social media profiles of the 20-some odd folks that you mentioned just now. Just kidding, on that part. We'll link to all of those different profiles and your website on the show notes at biggerpockets.com slash money show 203.

Thank you so much. Okay, Scott, that was Rob and Sam Fatsinger. They have 14 more kids than you do. What did you think of their story? Like I said, in the intro here, I thought it was a really inspiring, really powerful, and shows that the fundamentals work even in situations like theirs, where they've got a tremendous amount of kids. It's just a fundamentals-based approach.

They're going to, they have, they had a really good strategy that they developed and worked on over 20 years to lower housing, transportation, and food. expenses. And then once, once 2012 hit and they became intentional about building wealth, they were able to then just leverage and parlay those fundamentals into an effective investing strategy that generated, it sounds like they're either millionaires or close to it at this point and finishing out their journey. So I hear from people all the time. I couldn't possibly go, be financially independent because I have kids. Here's a story that proves that you can. I can't because I I'm a stay-at-home mom.

So is Sam. I can't because I live in a high cost of living area. So do they. I can't because I don't make a huge salary. Neither do they. Like every single argument is just blown away. And it boils down to living simply. Well, let's have.

Let's point out, though, that like, hey, they didn't achieve FI in five years, right? I would argue they really achieved FI in about 20 years after, you know, once they started, once they put the house in the 15-year mortgage and began paying it down in 12, that's when they really began journeying towards it. So there is some truth like, no, you know, with 14 kids, you're not going to get to FI in one income, you know, that's immediate income with that. Now it's more, but you know, around a median income with there, you're not going to achieve FI in three years. But you can, you can do it in 10 with this, it seems like, even with a lot of these challenges that they had. Yeah. And I mean, we should acknowledge

that we did have a bull market, and we absolutely took advantage of that. They absolutely took advantage of that. But it does not change the fact that they have way more mouths to feed, way more bodies to clothes, way more everything to do, and they're still pursuing financial independence. And I just love everything that they are sharing. And like I said, it boils down to living simply. When your expenses are low, you can do a lot more with the money that's coming in. the money that's coming in doesn't have to be so vast. It's just, I just really love their story. And I hope that you listeners love it too.

Should we get out of here, Scott? Let's do it. From episode 203 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he is Scott Trench, and I am Indy Jensen saying, have fun storming the castle.