BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 39: From “Bad with Money” to Intentional Saving and Spending with Jamila Souffrant

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

Jamila Souffrant grew up watching her mom struggle to provide for her. She decided early on that she wanted to be a millionaire, her solution to not having enough was to simply make a lot of money. She saved like crazy, but didn’t have a plan for it. A good student, she attended college and got into an internship program that places minority students with Fortune 500 companies and pays them well. During college, she saved 80-90% of her salary - but was still considered herself “bad with money,” buying luxury items she doesn’t remember. Internship led to employment, and Jamila changed her focus from IT to the real estate department. But her finances stayed the same. She contributed to her 401(k), but not even enough to get the full company match in her 20s. The switch flipped in her 30s, after an exceptionally bad commute home. She discovered FI through podcasts and blogs, and finally understood this could be her reality, too. Jamila and her husband kicked their savings into high gear and started investing. Jamila went from “bad with money” to saving $169,000 in two years! This episode shows it’s not too late to start your Financial Freedom journey, too. Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums Mad Fientist Mr. Money Mustache The Millionaire Educator Podcast Movement Mindy's Twitter Profile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 39, where we interview Jamila Sufront from Journey to Launch.com. I'm willing to take that risk at the moment because I figure that life is too short and my priorities right now are my family and then just being happy in the moment doing things that I love. So we've changed our investing and saving strategy over the past year to accommodate this big change. It's time for a new American dream, one that doesn't involve working in a cubicle for

40 years barely scraping by. Whether you're looking to get your financial house in order, invest the money you already have, or discover new paths for wealth creation, you're in the right place. This show is for anyone who has money or wants more. This is the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. How's it going to everybody? This is Scott Trench, host of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast here with my co-host, Ms. Mindy Jensen. How you doing today, Mindy? Scott, I am doing fantastic. How are you today? I am doing great. I'm very excited for our interview with Jamila. I thought it was fantastic. And I mean, what a great persona she's got.

What a great story. And look at the power that financial freedom, her journey to financial freedom, has given her already just two years in. Oh, it's fantastic. I can't believe how easy it was for her. How easy might not be the right word because she did still have to have the conversation and, you know, do the work. It's not just going to happen by itself.

You really have to do the work. But I love her story. how she was able to just switch the gears by thinking about what she wants her life to look like. What does she want her life to look like now? What does she want her life to look like down the road? And doing the math. One thing that keeps coming up over and over again is people say, well, I want to go on this journey. How can I make it happen?

And they do some math. And they're like, oh, my goodness, look, it's actually not that hard. Yep. And I mean, this show is really good for you. If you're thinking about, hey, I, you know, we're in a reasonable financial position, right? now. We have a good career. You know, she had a good career when she started this journey. Things are going well. There was some good income. But there wasn't much optimization on the road to financial dependence. And when she really took the reins, had the discussion with her husband and got

family on track for a more aggressive pursuit of five. The changes are just drastic. And she mentioned many times throughout the show, she's still living the good life now. And she's going to have, still have, be able to eat her cake in a few years. Yeah. No, I like her story because she isn't depriving herself of anything. As she says in a few minutes, we cut out the things that we didn't care about anyway. Not everything that you're spending money on means anything to you. You might really like great coffee and it isn't worth it to you to cut out great coffee.

Or maybe you really like having a nice car and it isn't worth it to you to cut out having a nice car. So then don't. Do what makes you happy. Live a good life now so you can live a great life down the road. 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 refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code Pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking.

You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch.com code. pockets. I love Matt, said no one ever. Nobody starts a business thinking, you know what would make this more fun? Calculating quarterly estimated taxes, but somehow every small business owner ends up

doing it. Your dreams of creating, selling, and growing get replaced by late nights chasing receipts, juggling invoices, and wondering if that bad sushi lunch with Scott counts as a right-off. Change all that with Found. Found is a business banking platform built to take the pain out of managing money. It automatically tracks expenses, organizes invoices, and even preps you for tax season without you doing the heavy lifting. You can set aside money for business goals. You can set aside money for business goals, control spending with virtual cards, and find tax write-offs you didn't even know existed. It saves time, money, and probably a few years of life expectancy. Found has over 30,000 five-star reviews from owners who say, Sound makes everything easier, expenses, income, profits,

taxes, invoices even. So reclaim your time and your sanity. Open a found account for free at found.com. That's fow-u-und.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank. Banking services are provided by Lead Bank, member FDIC. Don't put this one off. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Foun. 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 Leen or 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.com slash BP Money. Jamila, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. How's it going today? Hey guys, thanks so much for having me on. Thank you for taking time out of your day to talk to us. Yeah, so let's go jump right into it. What was your kind of experience growing up with money or what was, what do you consider the start of your financial journey? I'd say my start with money was really just from being a child watching my single mom

work really hard to provide for me. So it's funny because there was never. an intentional conversation about money in my household growing up. My mom had me at 20 years old. She came here from Jamaica, immigrated here, and actually had to leave me behind as a child in Jamaica before she could bring me over. She had to come over here first to settle herself work and bring me at least into something where she could provide for me. And even from that age,

and I don't have like specific memories at two years old from that, but watching her growing up, working minimum wage jobs, going to school, trying to provide for me really taught me the value of money from a very early age because I saw how much she had to work to provide for me. And that really just instilled this really good work ethic where I knew that if I wanted to have more out of life, if I wanted to be able to provide and take care of her one day, take care of my other family members or just when I have a family of my own, be able to take care of them that I needed to be smart with how I earned money. So growing up,

my solution to that was I wanted to be a millionaire. Like that was that was, my only goal. I wanted to just make a lot of money. That was how I thought I would be able to alleviate this issue of not having enough, was just to make more. So my goal, even just from young, was I wanted to be rich. That was like my goal. So my money story really starts from being young, seeing my mom work hard, and then having this drive to want to at least make money. How did you pursue that goal in high school and college, I guess? So I got my first job at 14 years old. And I've been working. working ever since. And so working now from 14, 15, just throughout my whole high school years

and then college was really important because I was able to now save money. So I always say that for me, again, the goal was just to make money. It wasn't necessarily about like managing it the best way. Like I saved, but, you know, I wasn't like thinking of saving an investment accounts at 14 or 17. It was just, oh, I'm just saving money. So at least I had that work ethic to help me work. And then when I got to college, what really was a really good starter for me was that I got into a really good internship program. So the Enroads internship program that I did, it places minority students into Fortune 500 companies and you get paid like a good salary. And so my freshman year, that summer from freshman and sophomore year, I got my first internship. And I was making good money for being a college student.

And I remember that I just started working and saving almost like 80 or 90 percent of what I was earning at that time. throughout college. And so I had that internship for my three years, and that's the same company that sponsored me and then offered me a full-time position. So just that really gave me a really good head start on having money, like coming out of college now. I had like a good amount of savings to do things with. So you get this really good internship. What company was this at? And what college were you going to, by the way? I went to Adelphi University. So I went to Adelphi University on Long Island. And then I, when I was interning, I was interning in an insurance company that, but it had an investment arm to it. So I knew I wanted to, again, make as much money as I could. My major was business

management with a specialization in finance. And so I was working in the IT section of that whole company and I knew that I didn't want to be in the IT section. I said, that's not where the money is. I want to be in investments, particularly real estate investments. And so I finagled my way into changing my internship from the IT section of the company. And to the real estate investment section. And so I started to then intern in real estate and then other positions in the investments department. And when I got hired full time, I got hired into the portfolio management section of the

company and then I worked my way back into real estate. Okay. So I have a thing really quickly. You just said your major was business management with a specialization in finance. And we've talked a little bit about your story, you know, just to prepare for the show. And you weren't always so good with money in the beginning. I think that's really interesting to point out that you studied finance, but it's still, like, you have to really pay attention to your finances.

I mean, I studied fashion design in college, and it's not really all that great of a career. It's not a lucrative career. I'm certainly not doing it now. But I didn't study finance, and I wasn't good with money for a while. And then I mean, I was always just really cheap. I wasn't necessarily saving it and doing a really awesome. job until, you know, later. But I think it's really interesting that you studied finance and yet your mind wasn't on it. And when your mind's not on something, you're not really going to do

anything about it. Well, so I think that's a really good and interesting like questions, like to put the framework around finances. I think there's a disconnect with wanting to make a lot of money and earn a lot of money, but then not realizing how it really is that you build wealth. And so I'd say that when I say that I wasn't necessarily good with money, someone can hear that. and say what, you know, you were, you seemed to, you saved a lot and you said you saved 80, 90% of your income. And I did buy my first property at 22, which is now an investment property. So if you hear that, you say, wait, how are you not good with money at that stage? But when I look back at it, I would, I say I wasn't good because I wasn't intentional about the way in which I saved or invested my money.

So for me, I thought it was just good enough to save money and just have like cash sitting around to be able to do something with. And even when I graduated and I worked full time, I was contributing. I don't even think I was contributing up to the company match for a couple years. And then I finally made it to do at least a company match. But looking back now, I think of all like the lost opportunities in where I could have invested and maxed out my 401k while I was in my 20s. And, you know, I bought more luxury items in my 20s that I would never buy now. So I wasn't intentional in ways in which I could use the money that I was getting and then build

the wealth that I was. I wanted to amass. And then since finding out about financial independence, there again, so many things I would do differently in my 20s. So when I said I wasn't good, it was because I wasn't intentional. I didn't understand that there was a way to really build wealth by investing and saving, but not just saving in like cash account, but like investing it in other things. So, you know, I can relate to this.

I find it really, I studied finance in college as well, right? And what I kind of notice about a lot of the finance folks in college and you get these internships at a big Fortune 500 company is kind of a little bit of relentlessness, like ambition and relentlessness to go and be as efficient as possible with their work and careers in the pursuit of earning more money. But what's very noticeably absent from that is the same relentlessness, the same kind of passion or intrigue in managing your own wealth. It's kind of like a weird disconnect where I've worked in the past with really successful graduates of top business schools in the finance world who don't seem to have some basic understanding of

personal finance, but yet they're willing and able to optimize really big business finances. I don't know. Have you noticed the same thing maybe with your experiences at all? Oh, I've totally seen that. Like the smartest people that I've worked with and that I've met along the way that earn tons of money, personally, they're not optimizing or making that money then now work for them. It's almost like that lifestyle inflation where you almost think that you've made it because of your income. Like your income shows that you made it because you're earning six figures. You're doing really well. You have a nice house. You have a nice car. And that maybe signifies to them that they're okay. But then when you really dig down, when you get into this rabbit hole of financial independence and what it all means,

you realize that that really doesn't mean much. Like it means something, but it doesn't mean much, especially when your expenses are high, when you have to depend on. this paycheck to live. And so I quickly realized because I've always had this goal that I didn't want to work for anyone after 30 years old. I just had this goal in my mind. And I thought the only way I can do that, yes, very ambitious. So when I graduated at 22, I said, you know what? I looked around at all like my colleagues and coworkers. And I was like, well, I'm not going to be here like eight years. But the reason why I said that, I thought that was because I was going to create a company. Like the only way I thought I would be able to accomplish that goal of not working for

anyone was that I had to create some kind of big company. I had to, you know, somehow do something big. And I tried a couple of things and it never really panned out. But other than that, I had no clue that there was a way in which you can save and invest to create a life in which you didn't have to actively work for someone else. So when I found that out, I was like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I was looking for this whole time. But I didn't know about it. And I didn't find out about it until my early 30s. And that's when I started to really change the way I invested and saved. Okay, so this is interesting to me. You studied finance and you still didn't know how to invest. And I'm not like, like, I'm not dogging on you. I'm not saying that you're a bad person, but I'm just making a point. Like, you didn't know and you studied it. How do people who have no idea? How are they ever going to figure this out if they don't learn it? This is why we need to teach it in school. This is why, you know, parents need to teach it. But again, if your parents don't know, they can't teach you. I'm not teaching brain surgery. to my kids because I don't know how to do it, but I do know finance. And that's, I just think that's

really interesting that it took a while for you to figure it out too. And that's awesome that you did. How did you discover, you know, that investing is the way to go? Was it like, did somebody talk to you about this or did you just like figure it out? Well, so for me, it came to a point where I was, I was 31 and I was pregnant and I have a long commute. So, or I had a long commute. And my commute. and my commute was about an hour and a half each way, which is crazy, right? Like it used to be driving that far for work. And I was pregnant. And so I came at that point, so at 31 now, I'm a year past my whole end date.

I'm not working for anyone else. So at this point, I'm like, okay, I guess I haven't figured anything out. I guess this is my life. Like, what's so bad about it? You know, everyone around me seems okay to be working and, you know, maybe not 100% happy with what they were doing. So I was like, who am I to want this bigger goal, you know? And so, but at 31, I had this, this really bad commute at, and I was pregnant. It took me four hours to get home. And it was obviously not a normal day. It was just like all the traffic gods just, they were not happy that day. And it was traffic everywhere. And so I was in traffic and I had this breakdown, like almost this like this turning point in which I said, no way, there's no way I can do this for the rest of my life. And it wasn't just a commute because, you know, I could have found a commute or a job that was closer to where I lived. It was more of this idea that.

I had like kind of pushed away and forgot about this freedom, this wanting to do things that I loved and not have to like work in something that wasn't fully I was fulfilled in that allowed me to say, wait a second, there's something missing. I have to find something. There has to be another way. So it took me a while, but I started to like research and Google and I found a bunch of blogs and podcast. And so, you know, that's how typically a lot of people find out about like the financial independence movement. And so I think I found the mad scientist podcast first, which led me down to the rabbit hole at FI and I found Mr. Money Mustache and all these like amazing blogs talking about people who were doing like we're retiring early or reaching financial independence

on regular incomes. So they weren't born into money. They necessarily weren't even making six figures, some of them. But they were saving, investing. And I saw that there were people doing this. And I think sometimes that's all you need to see is that it's possible that there's someone like you doing something. And it really just made me relieve like, wow, if they can figure this out, so can I.

And that's kind of what led me to really get excited and figure out how I can do it myself. Okay. So that's the point at which you kind of discovered this concept. And I'm assuming that some changes are to follow this with how you're spending and investing your money. Before we get to that, can we briefly cover what happened in your 20s? So it sounds like you graduated college with this finance degree. You get a job and you're earning solid money. and your career advances over this period of time.

Is that accurate? That is accurate. Awesome. And what are you kind of largely doing with the funds that you're accumulating or saving from this career? Right. So I'd say that the one good thing that I did in my 20s is that when I did graduate from school, I had the foresight to buy a condo, which was a very good investment. Because when I bought it, it was pre-construction in a neighborhood that wasn't really, it was good,

but it wasn't that great. And now that same neighborhood, it's Dumbo, it stands for down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. It's one of the most expensive places to own real estate in Brooklyn or in New York City now. And so I bought that apartment, really, because I couldn't afford anything else.

It was a studio apartment, and it was relatively, when we looked at the brownstones and the three family homes that I really wanted to buy, it was something that I could almost afford. So I went into contract for that, and I typically, if I would have actually,

if they would have did like an all document check on when I got the mortgage, they wouldn't had gave me the mortgage because my income was barely covering the mortgage actually. So it was a really huge risk. But it was my best investment decision. So I would say that's the best thing I did. But after that, I really just then worked on living life. So I kind of fell into the trap too. I bought a luxury car.

So now, you know, I thought I made it. I bought my condo. And I had no kids. I was single at the time. You know, I had my boyfriend who was not my husband. but we really didn't have much responsibility. So I bought a luxury car, which is crazy because I was driving that car on my long commute, putting premium gas in it and kind of just spending money.

I didn't really, I didn't buy like a lot of, you know, crazy things from day to day, but I bought some expensive purses and you definitely took some trips and vacations. I managed to not go into too much debt, you know, so I only had my student loan debt and I was okay for the most part there. But when it came to like maxing out my 401K, I was not doing it. that. I was doing the bare minimum just to get to company match. I wasn't doing Roth IRA contributions. So I was like doing like just a small amount of investing not much. And it wasn't intentional. And I was usually just like living and spending the rest of my money in my 20s.

And this is not a ridiculous pattern of behavior for folks that are in New York, right? I'm assuming that many of your friends locally were doing pretty similar things. Right. So when I looked like across the aisle, when I looked to my left and right, I was doing really well compared to my friends. I owned the property. I had a nice car and I had a good job. So I thought that maybe that would be enough. You know, especially because my thought process at the time was I didn't understand how it was that I could become a millionaire or not work after 30 since none of the businesses that I thought of were working. So I thought of myself, you know, maybe this isn't such a bad life.

But deep down, I knew that there was something missing and that's all that came to head in my early 30s when I realized that. What more quick question about this period in your life before we move on to the next one is it seems to me, that the focus during this period, the leverage point in your finances that you were applying very vigorously was your career. Is that correct? Can you give us a little highlight? Like, were you able to advance in that career? And what did that look like? And what were you, what did you kind of do that you think enabled you to have a successful career during this period of time? Sure. So when I graduated from school, so from undergrad, I started out, I was making $55,000 in New York City, which was a number of years ago. So it was. It was okay. It was good. And so since then, I went back to school while I was working. I got my master's in real estate from NYU. So that helped in terms of putting me up and setting me up for better positions at my career. I also got, you know, the annual raises. So the inflation that just that standard raise you get every year for working somewhere. And then bonuses. So that was really, that helped a lot. So working in corporate America in a company, a Fortune 500 company that was doing really well. I was able to get the bonuses, which I was then able to, at the time in my 20s, apply to like more things like maybe buying a car or not intentionally like saving for things.

Now, I will say that again, I saved money, but it wasn't intentional. So I was able to do some things, but if I could go back now, I would totally do it differently. But in general, I think for the most part, it was just working really hard on my career, getting those annual raises, and then the bonuses really helped. And so staying in my company from 22 to now 35, you can imagine just the natural course of things. I started to make more money and I raised my income a lot. Okay.

So now that you're in your 30s, you've discovered FI after a four-hour commute home one day. And I used to live in Chicago. I'm sorry, I used to work in Chicago and live in the farthest city west of Chicago that's still considered a suburb of Chicago. And so I've had that four-hour commute when it snows and you're just like, really, I could walk home faster. Like, this is the worst thing ever. After you've discovered FI, what was your first move? We've talked to a lot of people on the show who say the same thing you do.

They call it a rabbit hole. They start like cutting every expense and saving every dime and, oh, we're never going to spend another dollar on anything ever. And, you know, how did your journey to financial independence start? And how did that look? So it started where I discovered this. And I was like, where it has to spend all my life? And I mean, I was married at the time too. So and immediately after even that commute home that gave me that realization that something

was missing, I didn't like immediately jump into FI. I think it took another actually year to kind of find out more about it. Like I started to read more about personal finance and things, but it really took maybe another year or so for me to really get deep down and to like, wait a second. Like I can do this. So because I was married, it was definitely going to be a different type of transition because my husband, like, while I found this epiphany and had all these like amazing thoughts about it, like he had no clue. Like we were living a good life. We had just bought our home that we live in now.

I think I was pregnant again with my second child or I had just gave birth. I'm not sure the time frame. But he was just like, like, what are you talking about? So I would like send him some articles. I remember sending him a Mr. Money mustache article. and a podcast, and he was like, okay, like, what are you trying to get at? Because, you know, like some of the articles were talking about people saving half of their income and living very frugally. So, again, living in New York City, like coming from a lifestyle where we were able to go out without

thinking about it. You know, we didn't have a budget necessarily. We just went out when we wanted to. We spent when we wanted to. So now I'm coming home and saying, hey, you know, I found out about this thing called FI, and there are people who are able to retire in 10 or 15 years or less, depending on how aggressively they save. Like, what do you think about this? So at first he was just like, what is going on? And so it took some talking. Like, you know, I came home and I said to him, hey, what would you think, like,

what would you want our lifestyle to be like in 15, 20 years? Like, what do you envision for us? And then, so how can you be happy in the future? And then how can we be happy today? And that and a lot of other conversations and some spreadsheets. So I also had some spreadsheets with some projections on, hey, You saved this much, we can have this much money in 15 years. Like, how does that sound while still living a good life today?

And so that slowly got him thinking and on board. And what really, really helped is because he's a teacher. So my husband's a high school teacher. He teaches phys ed and health. And so because he's his teacher, he has access to two pre-tax retirement accounts. So I didn't know that this was possible, but when I found out that he had access to two and then I had access to one, so he can contribute and max out a 457 plan. plan and his 4-3B plan.

So hearing or finding out about that really made me believe, like, wow, if we can max all of this out, so his two pre-tax retirement account and my pre-tax plus our raw, like, even if we do nothing else, like that would be amazing. So I think talking through that with him was like the first step, getting him on board. And then like really what changed everything was being able to max all those out and just budget and live off of the rest. It was really helpful. So for a lot of these, a lot of listeners, people aren't going to know some of the terms you just threw out there.

Can you describe a 457 and a 403B? Sure. So a 403B plan, it's like a nonprofit or if you work in a nonprofit sector or a public sector, it's like a 401K. So it's just a 403B. It's called that for teachers. And then the 457 plan is available to most government or official workers or city or state workers. You probably have access to one. But the cool thing about it is if you are.

in that position, you get to contribute not only to your 4-3B, but your 457. So someone like myself who just works for corporate America, my company has a 401k plan. And that's all I can contribute to when it comes to pre-tax money. But if you happen to be a teacher or in some other professions, maybe a firefighter or even a police officer, it's quite possible that you have access now to your organization sponsored plan, so your whatever plan they offer you, plus your state or city sponsored plan, which would be like a 457. And you can max both of those out. And I, again, didn't know that was possible until I heard it on another podcast of someone doing that. And I said to myself, hold on. Like, why isn't this talked about more? You know, this is such a great opportunity

for people who want to save more money and to even just fast forward or fast track their path. And so just doing or hearing about that allowed me to then say, hey, how could we max all this out in our funds and and do that. Okay, so I like to consider myself fairly financially savvy. I've never heard of a 457 plan, but I'm also not a city or state worker, so it would never have come up in my life. And my husband worked for the government, but he wasn't, he was a contractor. So that didn't count.

What is the contribution limit for a 457? It's the same as your 401K. So now it's 18,500. Okay. So you and your husband can put in 18,500 into his state 457 plan. And yes. Or his city. And then you can also put in, what's the 403B amount?

Is that also 18.5? Yep, that's 185 too. So he's got 185 and 185 and you've got 185 in your own 401K. And a company match. So yes. You can suck away 60-ish-ish. thousand dollars just from these these three things all pre-taxed right right and i and i say all teachers at least a minimum so i can't speak to all professions but i do know that mostly all teachers

no matter what state you're in have some sort of access to a four 57 plan in addition to their teacher plan too okay my sister's a teacher and she's never told me about this and admittedly i love her dearly but she's not all that conscious of this either. And she's just starting to ask me if I know anything about investing. I might. So I'm going to see if she's got this now, too. This is awesome. If you are a state or city worker and you're looking for more ways to save for retirement,

ask if a 457 plan is an option. And here's the other thing. Here's why a 457 plan is amazing for people in the fire movement. It's because if you terminate your work of employment. So if you stop being a teacher, if you quit or you change into another profession, the $457 money, the money that you contribute, you can actually take out without penalty, like if you sever employment ties. So typically, if you are on this path, a lot of people, if they're able to contribute to a $4.57, you'll be able to

access that money without the additional penalty for accessing it if you sever employment ties. So, for example, if my husband wanted to retire early at 45 or 40 or whatever age before his standard retirement date, he'd be able to access that money from his 457 plan without that penalty. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is an amazing tidbit and some just like really good information that I did not know prior to this call here that we could do both of these things and really defer that much taxes. It seems like the obvious problem for most public, many of these public sector employees, like particularly T. is that it's going to be hard to generate enough income so that you can then put all of that into these plans. But if you have a dual income household or if you have some other streams that you're developing on the side, this is how you can really use some of these benefits to

accelerate your path towards FI and something that makes the stakes even higher for figuring out how to generate that excess income so you can take advantage of these plans fully the way you guys are. That is such a good point because one of the reasons why, I did a little bit of research on 457s. And the reason why they allowed teachers and other employment people like city or state workers to do that is to help incentivize them, give them more ways to save because, you know, for them giving such their time and a lot of these professions don't pay all that well. But you can substitute your income. So my husband, for example, while he is, you know, a phys ed teacher, and so you think, okay, that's not that much money. He does have his master's degree in education.

So that helps him to make them the most at his teacher salary level. And he's able to coach. So he does a lot of coaching gigs, which also supplement his income. He does morning school. He'll do summer school. So he does do a lot of things to help increase his income. And you're right that for some people saving that much money. So if you are trying to like max out a 401K for your 4 3B plan and a 457 plan,

but your income is not high, you're not going to be able to do that and live off of the rest. But if you have a spouse where they're bringing good money or maybe you live in a really low cost of area place and you're very particular about how you spend money. So maybe you're really frugal. You can possibly do it. I know the reason why I find out about this is the millionaire educator. I heard about him on a podcast and him and his wife and he and his wife are both teachers. And they all they both are maxing out every available pre-tax retirement account. And I think when I remember his story really well, he,

he never really earned over six figures and he was able to do that, but he lived really frugally too. So I think there are ways in which you can figure out if something like that works. And sometimes, say, maybe the 457 plan has better options for investment. So you want to invest there first versus your 403B plan if you have the both available to you. But just if it is, I would just research to see if it is something that is available. So you can start really taking control back and realizing, okay, what investment options do I really have available and what can I do?

Okay. And we've talked about maxing it out, but even just put like every dollar you put in there is a dollar for your future. You don't have to max it out if you can contribute at some point. It's not like an all or nothing thing. And I think that that point is not made enough on, you know, on these shows is that you don't have to max it out. You can put whatever you can into it. And then, you know, sometimes it's easier to max it out than others. Sometimes it's easier to contribute than others. And sometimes you just can't contribute at all. But anything you. you can contribute reduces your taxable income now. So you're paying less taxes to the government. I'm assuming that the 457 and the 403B are just like the 401k and that it's taken out before you are taxed. It's pre-tax investments. Correct. Yes.

Okay. Okay. Just want to just want to make sure that I'm not giving out false information. So it's a twofold benefit. You're reducing your taxes now and you are saving for the future. Right. So going back to the story here, you discover five or a period of a year, you begin putting all these spreadsheets together. You convince your husband to go along with this. Or I guess you come to general consensus. We didn't talk about that process, but we usually, let's hear about that. What was a conversation like with your husband? And how did you arrive at deciding to go down that path? So I think it's really interesting because even now that my husband's on board with this FI goal, he has totally different, I think, priorities in terms of how we spend.

And so I'm the much more, I'd say, conscious, right, about like money and like our budget. And for me, like I'm past the nice car phase. Like I don't really care about that as much anymore or certain things. I don't care. But I know my husband would actually like a nicer car in the future again. So in our 20s, we both had nice cars. We both were just living it up, right? And then now being more careful about how we spend, we don't have that anymore.

We don't have the nice cars, which I'm totally fine with. But I think that he would want one. I know that he would want one. So taking that in consideration that he has different priorities and different values in terms of how he spends, when I came to him, I didn't come to him and said, hey, you know, I found out about FI and we need to downsize everything, move out of our house, and never go out to eat again. Like that would have not gone over well with him. So I said to him, I literally said to him, hey, I know, like I also don't want to live like that. I like to go out to eat. I like where we live.

I don't, you know, I don't want to really move anywhere else at the moment. And so knowing that when I did talk to him, I didn't make it like, hey, this is what we need to do and you need to like get on board because this is like what I want. I really tried to incorporate his goals and really try to make him feel heard in the journey. So for example, when I ask him the question, what would make you like still happy now? Like if we could rank the things that we spend money on, what would that be? Like what would be priorities or what would make you still feel good? But at the same time, then what kind of life do you want to live in the future?

Like, do you want to have to work until you're 65? Like, don't you want to be able to possibly retire early or for him he can actually stop working at 55 because of when he started working in his teacher system? So I said to him, wouldn't you want to be able to stop working if you could at this? age and wouldn't you want to travel without worrying about money. So I think it came to, you know, we still like going out to eat. So we can still do that. Let's just put a budget around that. You know, so instead of not even worrying how much we spent, let's put a limit around how much we spend. And then in the same regard, the money we're saving doing that, let's max out our pre-tax retirement accounts or let's now open up broth IRAs. And so it was that dance of

what does it mean to live good now? And then what does it mean to live good in the future? And then kind of bringing that together really, really, I think got him on board. And I also said to him, listen, I'm not going to judge you for wanting a nice car. Maybe we can get a nice car one day again, right? Like if I can afford to, if we can afford to one day,

let's like buy you whatever a car it is, you know, that you want 10 years from now. And I think that helps him also feel heard in a situation where it's just like, okay, Jamila is taken into account. out what I want to. So it's a joint decision. It's not just her way or the highway. I love every single thing you said for the listener. Scott and I take notes as we are doing the show so we can make sure that we cover everything we want to. And I wrote him a note, I'm going to interrupt

her and tell her what a great approach that is. And then like, well, no, I probably shouldn't interrupt her. That's like, I love that approach. It isn't just, hey, this is what we're going to do. That's really difficult for somebody to hear unless they're, you know, you're the boss and they let you be the boss all the time. But hey, what does it look like? What is? That's a really great way to frame it because I know there's a lot of people who are discovering the concept of financial freedom and maybe don't understand how they can get their spouse on board. Or maybe they approached it the wrong way the first time. Or maybe their spouse was just like, nope, I'm not interested. Okay, well, framing it in your way is really kind of perfect. What do you want down the road? What, you know,

what makes you happy now. You don't have to cut everything. You don't have to like have this horrible life now so that you can also have a horrible life down the road when you're living on beans and rice and peanut butter and jelly. You know, but maybe you really like peanut butter and jelly or maybe beans and rice is worth it to you. And that's, you know, just asking your spouse, what does it look like? What is a good life now and what is a good life later?

I love that. And spreadsheets were a huge deal. I left. I left when you said that because that's like the. the new to financial freedom, do it yourself guide. Oh, if I show him a spreadsheet. Well, and listen,

and you might have some listeners who are just like, all right, I'm not good at spreadsheets. Totally fine. You don't even need to create your own. But what I thought really helped him was that when I showed him,

hey, if we contribute, you know, if we do what we're doing now, which is the minimum, here's what we'll have in 15 years, which is okay. You know, it's not bad. We'll still be okay or 20 years or wherever.

I think if we do this, if we max out all of this, here is what we'll, have in 10, 15, 20 years. And so when I was able to show him like the zeros, you know, from just changing maybe how we invested and maybe just cutting out things we didn't care about anyway, I think that excited him. So I'm like, listen, we can legit be millionaires when we are, you know, 55, 60 years older, earlier than that, 40 years old. Like, we can do this depending on how aggressive we want to make this. So how aggressive do we want to be so we can have that

happen, but then still be happy today. And that's kind of the dance we did to get to where we are. Yeah, that is just fantastic. 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 tax refund can make the biggest impact.

Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code Pock. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves in Edle.

Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at monarch.com code pockets. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed's sponsor jobs helps you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored posts. The best part? No monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through

Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Just go to Indeed.com slash bigger pockets right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest

Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides who are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And with Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data, and all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers.

Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registered Agent.com slash money-free. Okay, so I've got a question here. First of all, what year was this that you go through this transition? So the year that we started to max everything out so that it came all to ahead was 2016 and 17. Those were the years we really maxed and saved as much as we could.

Okay. And there's a lot. So within the last two years, two or three years, you made this transition. What specifically did you do to do this? What, like, where do the savings come from? Was it eating out mostly? You mentioned that a couple of times. Where did that money kind of come back in?

You know, it's so interesting because the year that we did like maxed everything out for the first time, we weren't significantly making more money like that year. year. It's not like we had a windfall or I had some huge increase at work or he did. So I think what happened was, one, we just maxed all the pre-tax stuff. So that stuff came right out of our check. So it's funny because, you know, my husband at the time, I think he was contributing like 3% to his 4-3B plan. So when I came home and said, hey, you have access to another one and we should max both of those out. What do you think? And he's looking at me like, what? Like so literally like 50% of his check would need to go into both then the 4 3B plan and the 457 plan, like 50%. So he was going to have to

go from 3% or 6%. I forgot the exact percentage to 50% of his check. So that was, again, when we talk about that dance and like thinking about it was part of it. But being able to just get that money like out of our check. And so we only had to, we only had to budget what was left. So maxing out everything and then getting our take home and saying, okay, so now what do we budget with? So as long as we could pay our mortgage and the necessary bills, right? So the bills that we needed to survive on was important. And then everything after that was, okay, so how much threshold do we still have for then going out to eat and saving for maybe a vacation here and there? So I'd say that maxing everything out first, the pre-tax stuff was very just key. So we didn't even see that money.

Then budgeting what was left. So what came home in our checks? And then creating priorities around that. So I knew after maxing out everything that I thought a priority, should also be maxing out our Roth IRAs, which we had to do backdoor Roth IRAs because of our income level. That was another priority. Then after that, I was like, okay, so what else do we want to do, you know, our vacations right now, a priority for us, and they weren't, especially with the kids and just it just wasn't. So we kind of put that on the back burner. And so we just kind of went through what was a priority. We budgeted and then we kind of stayed within those confines. See, I love it. It's just, it's basically like we weren't tracking all the spending before it.

seems like. And whatever money we brought home was basically being spent and we didn't really even kind of know it. That's what it sounds like previously. And then with the 50% being held back, you're just like, now we're going to only spend what's left. And it will make it work. It works fine. And we don't even really maybe seemingly notice it that much. Right. And I would say too with the pre-tax stuff, so we're saving money on taxes. So whereas we we weren't contributing that much or maxing out our pre-tax stuff, the government would have taken more money out. So for every dollar that we didn't invest in our pre-tax account, like the take home was less anyway. So by funneling more money and being more tax-efficient, we were able to not only save

and invest in those accounts, but then almost it wasn't like a, it wasn't like apples-to-apples, like takeaway. Just because we're contributing, you know, 18,500 into our pre-tax doesn't mean we immediately saw like 18,500 taken away because we got that tax advantage. So I think that's the thing people also have to think about is that we save so much money on taxes doing it that way, that it actually worked out to our benefit to where it wasn't as much. Yes, our take home definitely was less. It was a lot less, but it wasn't as less because we were getting that tax advantage of pre-tax retirement investing. But so do you have any any ballpark idea of where the spending, because there was less, right? If you're putting 18K away pre-tax, you're still going to have somewhere

in the ballpark a 10K less. in cash. What do you think the room in your budget kind of came from? Was it in child care or was it eating out? Car payments? What kind of areas do you think? Right. So we were able to get rid of our, so right at that cusp, I think a year before we, my husband still had a lease for a car that we were able to get rid of. And then we ended up just buying our cars outright, our economical cars outright that we have now. And again, the budget with the eating, out. So all the discretionary items that maybe it would have been like five to a hundred to a thousand dollars a month that we just didn't think much about. So whether that was just going and shopping

here and there, eating out, just random things, even vacations. So before the kids, we took more vacations. We spent more and more and those things. All that kind of just went on the back burner. And so it's really just optimizing those fine line items in our budget that really helped us. So one of the biggest challenges for working parents is child care expenses. How do you handle child care? Good question. So especially living in like New York City and like the cost of child care can be very expenses. So we are lucky enough to have subsidized child care because my aunt.

So I have a family member who helps watch the kids. So I have a four year old, a two year old and a three month old. So the four year old will start school. which is helpful because we were actually paying for his school at three years old. So now he's four. He gets to go to free pre-K. So in New York City, there's a free pre-K program, which is excellent. So that helps when you have kids that are four years old and over,

they can start going to school for free. When it comes to now like childcare, because my aunt is here and she's helping us, that is, we're able to save money there. Now, I'd say though, we still pay her. And she actually, we have like a basement apartment where we live now. So it's almost like her cash payment is also subsidized by like free room and board and electricity and all the other things that if she actually had to maybe live somewhere else, she'd be paying a lot more for. But because it's kind of included in her like total compensation, it works out. So it's like a, it's a really good deal because we get to not have to pay as much because she does have the free room and board here.

And she doesn't have to pay as much if she were to like to live somewhere else. And so we are able to save on childcare expenses because of that. And if we didn't have this situation, we would definitely be paying a lot more if we had to send our kids, you know, to daycare or to some center while we worked. Okay. Awesome. Great hack. Yeah. Okay.

So let's switch gears now and talk about your entrepreneurship and how it's looking to quit your job and go work for yourself full time. Sure. And, you know, by the time this interview comes out, it'll be public that I, I have quit my job. I am now a full-time entrepreneur, which sounds so crazy saying it actually out loud. But so when I first started this journey, I said to myself, I'd reach my financial independence mark at 40 years old. And I first started at the time it was like 33 when I officially like marked it as my starting point. And since starting journey to launch, since chronicling my path to financial independence, I found my passion.

So that thing that was missing for all those years about not feeling fulfilled in my job and wanting to do more and really understanding that I wasn't utilizing my strengths, I found through Journey to Launch. And so for me, it became this point where I said to myself, I can keep working and definitely meet my financial independence number like earlier, right? I can reach it at 40 because I'd make more money. I'm earning a lot. This is a six figure job. I'm getting bonuses. I'd be on track to meet that. But I'm also unhappy and I'm spending a lot of time away from my kids because my commute is so crazy. And because even if I got a job that was closer, it's really even still not what I really want to do in life. And so I was faced with the decision of like staying on that path or following this path of my passion, entrepreneurship, seeing what was out there in the world.

And so because of that, I decided that it mattered to me more to enjoy the journey. And so I figured that instead of working and putting my head down and being unhappy for the next seven years or whatever it was, I wanted to enjoy myself, enjoy my life, enjoy time with my kids and do something I loved. And so it caused me to kind of step off that path that I first started on and create another path in which this can actually make this journey take longer. So maybe my financial independence journey now will take longer because now I am giving up this guaranteed income, this, you know, safe. cushy job to follow my passions that, quite frankly, are not really earning much money yet, right? So, like, that's kind of crazy. But I'm happier. And maybe because I am going to be able to spend more time doing this and I'm able to put my passion and my talents into this, I'll earn money. Or maybe I'll earn more money. So it can accelerate my journey to financial independence.

But I'm willing to take that risk at the moment because I figure that life is too short. And my priorities right now are my family and then just being happy in the moment doing things that I love. So we've changed our investing and saving strategy over the past year to accommodate this big change. Awesome. So one thing I want to, you know, you started this thing, 2016, 2017, with the idea of being able to retire within a set period of time according to your spreadsheet predictions, right? But then now you're going to be pursuing entrepreneurship. Do you feel that the gains you made financially since deciding to pursue FI have given you the courage or mental power you need to go ahead and make this change right now. I'm so glad you brought that up, Scott, because it totally,

totally did. And this is why I think everyone should be on the path to reach financial independence and not because you want to retire early or that you'll ever reach it, because some people may not ever get to that number. But I think just because I've started on the, this, like I would never be in a position, I think, to leave my cushy job when I just had a baby, have a mortgage, living in New York City, if I didn't set myself up and start and had started saving and investing so aggressively, even for those two years. So sometimes I look back like, oh my gosh, if I didn't know about this and I was able to do this for like five, 10 years before this, I'd have been even in a better place. But just those two years of being so intentional,

it's like our retirement accounts were good in terms of how much we saved. And I'm saved in that. We're on track. We're past, we're on a good trajectory there. So even if we took a break, even if journey to launch makes no money, even if I, you know, I pursue other things and they make no money. And we took a pause on investing. Even if we put it on autopilot, our investment accounts would accumulate to a point where we'd be okay in our standard retirement age. Now, to be clear, my husband is still going to work. So taking such a leap also is beneficial when you have a spouse that can help with this because if my husband didn't have a job, like this would not be possible. But his job is able to somewhat cover the expenses and because we saved so much money

in, so the whole idea of FU money. So you guys know what that is, right? Like if you're saving for FU money. What's it stand for? So. So, so. Sorry, never mind. Forget you. Yeah. Forget you. But respectfully, I always say it's been respect, you know, it's respectfully. I love, I am so grateful for my job to have. given me the opportunities that it did to earn the money that I did. So I, in a respectful fashion now, instead of saving all the money that we did towards our pre-tax retirement accounts, we started to save it in more liquid. So cash in terms of a savings account or Roth IRAs, things in which we could access if we needed to. So that way, taking this break from my job to pursue my passions,

we wouldn't be desperate or on the bridge of financial ruin because we saved enough money to give me that runway. And so, yes, starting on this path, I would not be in a position to do that because if I was just doing the minimum, we were only doing the minimum this whole time, we wouldn't be in a position financially to have enough in our investment accounts, our savings accounts, or even just have the confidence in our FU money to be able to do any of this. I love it. And I think it's just so funny and so like, not funny, but it's just like so ironic that this our whole thing here is how do we help people achieve financial freedom, right? But it seems it's so like the power in that goal is really the journey and the freedom

that it gives you along the way for your entire rest of your life because most people, it seems, don't actually then like slog it out for the 10 years that they need to do to actually achieve. There's a much more creative and roundabout approach that involves a whole bunch of different convolutions and twists like entrepreneurship or real estate or side hustles or whatever. And it's just about more and more freedom and power to direct your day. I don't know. I just, I think it's so interesting that that you start because you start with that goal, you may not achieve it. You may. But you're in a position right now of power that you wouldn't have been if you hadn't gone down this path. Well, she's already reached freedom because she can go

do this. It isn't necessarily about quitting your job and never working again and just sitting on your butt and watching TV. I mean, that's not really a great life goal anyway. Although, who am I to tell you that you can't just sit there and watch Game of Thrones 24 hours a day? That's my favorite. That's your choice. I actually have never seen it. But I mean, you have reached financial freedom. You have the freedom to pursue this endeavor, this entrepreneurship. And if you have, you have, it doesn't work out, what's the worst that can happen? Oh, you go get a job. Like Joel from FI-180 on episode 11, he said, my worst case scenario was everybody else's everyday life. So you try this and maybe you're a millionaire next month and you try it and maybe it doesn't work out. So you go

back and you get a job and you're just like everybody else. It doesn't mean that you're going to be ruined if you try this. So you have reached financial freedom. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. And I will say, so when I, you know, obviously we gave this a lot of thought and, you know, I took my spreadsheets out and I did a lot of calculations on. So taking a break for, and I gave myself two years. And, you know, I'm definitely not one of those people who says, like, it's all or nothing. This is going to work. And I'm never going back to work. Like, I'm not even thinking that way. I always like to think of the worst case scenario. So like you said, my worst case scenario is that in two years, if I'm not able to earn any income with, you know, we start seeing that our accounts are getting too low because literally like the money that we've saved is

going to help bridge now all our expenses because my husband's salary can't cover everything, but we have enough money now to help bridge that gap. And so if I start seeing like, wait a second, like this is, you know, we're getting into uncomfortable territory, you know, our savings are dwindling too much, then I'd go back and get a job. But I think that I'm so blessed to have found this path to now be talking about it and like you said, like spreading like the word to others because without this, without starting on it, I would not be in this position to do this. And so, yeah, it's just like my worst case is everyone's probably everyday scenario or life. So how bad is that?

It's not the end of the world. Yeah, no, it's not the end of the world at all. And I have met you. I saw you speak at podcast movement. You set out a goal and you hit it. You knock it out of the park hit it. It's not just, you know, oh, I might reach it. Jamila just knocks it out of the park.

So I don't see you. I don't really see you having another real job again. But, you know, again, what's the worst? Okay, so I have to go work. I work at a job that I love every single day. Right, right. Okay. Is there anything else that you would like to share about your journey

or about, you know, what you think that other people could do before we move on to the famous four questions? I'd say this, that you don't necessarily have to max. I like coming at this, from a point of view of everyone's journey is different. And so, yes, I was able to save a lot of money and max everything out for a couple years. You know, my husband and I, we had a good income when we were able to do that. But even if your starting point is that you're paying off debt, paying off credit cards, student loan debt, that's major. That's a win. And so I hate to downplay or for people to think that their wins are not

big enough. And I think you should be celebrating each one because it's so important. And every step you make towards getting out of debt, even just putting 1% more into your retirement accounts. Every step you make closer to this FI goal that you have is a good one. And so you should be proud of yourself. So I just want people to listen and walk away with feeling that no matter what they're doing, as long as they're doing a little bit better than it did before, it's good enough. It's good. So powerful.

Every step gets you further. And yeah, everybody's journey is different. Everybody makes a different salary. Everybody has different goals. Personal finance is personal. So your story is yours. But this is so awesome. Okay.

So now it's time for our famous four questions. These are the same five questions we ask every guest. What is your favorite finance book? My favorite finance book is the richest man in Babylon, which is not technically directly finance, but I think it's a great parable on just investing and saving. That's my favorite book too. I love the language. It's written in King James Bible or Shakespearean language.

And I love language. So that's my favorite book. A classic that you should go read if you haven't already. It's like hour and a half, two hours to read the whole thing. Yeah. It's a short book, but it's really, really great. And it was written or it was published in 1920. And I think it's really powerful that the same things that happened 98 years ago

hold true today. Right. And you can probably get it. I think the last time I listened to it was on YouTube for free. Oh, even better. A frugal book. All right. What was your biggest money mistake? Biggest money mistake was probably buying my luxury car that I had to put premium gas in to commute so far to work. But I'd say it was also like my funnest mistake because I didn't feel really good driving it when I had it. What kind of car was it? I was just going to ask that. It was a BMW 328 XI coop.

Oh, nice. We'll have to post a picture of one of those in the show notes. Oh, gosh. Yeah. What color was it? It was black. But, you know, it's funny because after I had my first kid, I was like, there's no way I'm putting a car seat, like, struggling to get the kid in and out of that.

That was so not smart. So, yeah, I got rid of it immediately after my first kid. Okay. What is your best piece of it? advice for people who are just starting out? To cut yourself some slack. So the fact that you're just starting out is an accomplishment because there's some people who never start.

So getting on the journey, just starting it is a win and just take your time. You're not going to write all the mistakes you did in the past. Don't blame yourself for the mistakes that you made, that you didn't know any better, or just start. I love that. That is fabulous. Awesome. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? Oh, my gosh. I'm not a joke teller because my friends will say, like, I'm kind of corny with that.

So can I, like, say I don't have jokes? You'll fit right in. Well, we've got a whole list of jokes. I'm trying to find it now. We've got a whole list of jokes that our readers send in, or our listeners send it because they love these jokes. Scott, I'm sure has 212. Scott, do you want to do a joke? Let's read one from the list. Okay. Gina Moses asks, why did the cowboy get a weiner dog?

Because he wanted to get a long little doggy. It doesn't have to be a good joke. Yeah, wait. I don't get it. A weiner dog is a really like a stretchy dog. He wanted to get a long little dog. not a cowboy, Scott, so you don't know. Oh, I see.

That's what they say. He wanted to get a long little doggy. But that's also a cowboy comment. Oh, oh, here's one from Marvin Barreira. So there were two cannibals eating a clown. And while they were munching away, one of them turned to the other and said, that tastes funny. Is that it?

Yes. Yes. Oh, really? And Jamie DeSuzza, why did the jam? Aguar eat the tight rope walker. He was looking for a well-balanced meal. See? So it doesn't even have to be a good joke, Jamila.

All right. So I'll write these down and I'll take it at the next parties I'm at to see the response I get. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, probably one of those. You have like a huge crowd forming around you. Yeah. Right.

Scott tells jokes just like that all day long, all day every day. Okay. Jamila, where can people find out more about you? Sure. So you can check out my podcast. Wherever you listen to this amazing podcast, you can find my podcast, Journey to Launch. I'm also Journey to Launch on all social media. So I love connecting with listeners after they hear me.

If they have more questions, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as Journey to Launch. And of course, you can just check out my site, Journey to Launch.com. Okay. And that's T.O. Not the number two. Yes, that's T.O. Journey to T.O. launch. Okay. And okay, and we will have all of these links on our show notes. Today, the show notes can be

found at biggerpockets.com slash money show 39. Awesome. Jamila, thank you so much for your time today. I learned so much. You're going to benefit my sister if nobody else because I'm going to go get her into her 457 plan and get her going with that. Well, thank you so much, Mindy and Scott for having me. This was great. Yeah, thank you for coming on. This was awesome. This is awesome. Okay, well, have a good day, Jamila. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks. All right, that was Jamila with Journey to Launch.com. Nindy, what did you think?

Oh, my goodness. Blew my mind. And like I said at the end, I can't wait to go talk to my sister and tell her to start investing in the 457. I've never even heard of that before. And granted, it isn't something that I can qualify for. So I guess maybe it doesn't matter. But I would like to tell other people. I'm really hoping that there are people who have heard it for the first time on this show,

and they can go and take advantage of that or start taking advantage of it. Yeah. And, you know, I bet you that it's not all that uncommon amongst some of our listeners where one spouse works for a nonprofit or in the public sector. And the other maybe works a higher income job in the private sector, right? That seems like a pretty, that seems like something that's very feasible across a large number of people out there. And if that's the case, then you might have the ability to deploy some of that excess

household income through multiple tax-advantaged accounts. and really achieve an advantage that folks, you know, without those kinds of careers, won't have. So it's kind of a way to turn something that's, you know, a public sector job, which is often lower income, into a huge, I guess, not an opposite of liability asset on your journey towards financial freedom. Yes. And before I had kids, I worked at a job that didn't pay super well. It basically funded our retirement. So on January 1st, every year I would go in and say, okay, I want to. contribute 100% of my salary to my 401k.

And it took my HR person a couple of times doing this before she figured out that I really truly did want to receive no income until I had maxed out my 401k because I wasn't making that much money. It really, my paycheck really didn't matter. No, yeah, I did not max out my 401K for the first couple of years in the journey to FI. And I think I had good reason for doing that. I house hacked and I built up some investable liquidity outside of retirement accounts that I could spend and use to fund my journey, you know, when I switch jobs from my first job to

bigger pockets and some other things. But now that I am maxing out my 401k, because I, that is the best move for my financial strategy at this point, the very first of the year, first paycheck, I slide the scale right up to 100 percent, and I do not receive a paycheck any, it's a single dollar into my bank account until I have maxed out my entire yearly contribution. Wow, that's an even more impressive story because mine was I was married and had more ways to generate income and you are not married. So that's a little different. It's not very difficult if you've been pursuing five for a couple of years and save up some cash so you can live off of no paycheck for a couple of months while you're, you know, the way I see it mathematically, if you're assuming the market's going

to go up, you might as well dump it all in at the very beginning of the year because now it has more time to grow in there than if you've dumped it in at the end of the year, right? Past performance is not indicative of future gains. Make sure you get that little disclaimer in there. But yes, I believe that the market will, you know, continue to go up eventually. It might crash. You know, I don't have a super lot of confidence in our current situation. But, you know, it's going to continue to go up, in my opinion. So I continue to invest in it. But yeah, the way that you approached your retirement planning is different than the way that I approached my retirement planning. First of all, I did not have a lot of, I didn't have any rental income.

We were flipping houses, but that was just what we did. We didn't, you know, I didn't realize that was investing in real estate until after I started working here. Oh, yeah, I invest in real estate. So many things like that. It's the definition of investing in real estate. I know, right? So, but yeah, I didn't have these other options or I didn't think about these other

options. So I like that that's what you're doing too. Congratulations, Scott. I approve. Well, thank you. Yeah. And another thing I couldn't understand is like, if you're going to max out your Roth, okay, your plan is to max out your Roth,

like, why aren't you maxing out your Roth day one of the new year? Like, I would go to Scott Trade, which I don't think they even exist anymore. They, like, got bought or something. But, you know, but I go to Scott Trade on the first business day of the year, and I was always shocked that there wasn't a line of people waiting eagerly to deposit the entirety of their maximum allowable contribution to their Roth IRA at 8 a.m. in the first business day of the year. Like it was physically walked there?

Yes, because it would take, it was so difficult to do it online for every reason. So I was just like, like it was about that far away. So I had literally show up with a check at their first moment they opened so that I could get the entire year of gains investing by Roth IRA. And I was always so confused that people wouldn't do this. Like if you're going to max it out, you know, go max it out. Go big.

Oh. So, well, you plan ahead. Yeah. There you go. That's funny. Did you call it me trade instead of Scott trade? No, but I will not, I'm not going to lie and say that, you know, I don't really, I don't know how much of a difference I perceived really between all of the different brokerages and all that. But Scott trade definitely had some appeal to me.

Okay. So Scott, at the end of last week's episode, I revealed that I have received now two emails telling me that over and out is the wrong thing to say at the end of the show. So I am looking for a new end. We do record these shows in advance. So I have not yet received any new endings for people tweeting me, Mindy at BP. That's M-I-N-D-Y-A-T-B-P with your suggestions for how to end the show. So today I am just going to say from episode 39 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, this is Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, and we're leaving. Goodbye. Blam, the brick wall.

Hit a brick wall. Okay. But we did run very long today. with Jamila because she had so many good things to say. So that's the end of the show. Thank you for listening. Have a nice day. Goodbye.