BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 55: How to Quit Your Job and Travel the World with Millennial Revolution

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

Kristy Shen grew up poor. Knowing her parents couldn’t help her financially, she gave up her dreams of being a writer, and went to school to make big bucks as a software developer. She even graduated on the five-year program with an internship to... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 55, where we interview Christy and Bryce for Millennial Revolution. Because you kind of need both sides of the equation, like the budgeting side and the investing side, in order for this lifestyle to work out. So I make sure that all the bad things that could happen, we have a backup plan for everything. And then Bryce, you know, make sure that like, we got to also follow our dreams. It's not always about the money. It's not always about the fear. You know, there's other ways to live life besides living in fear. So I found that that combination of our background worked out really well in terms of getting us to where we are today because we have that different opposite points of view. 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 going, everybody? I'm Scott Trench. I'm here with my co-host, Ms. Mind Jensen. How are you doing today, Mindy? Scott, I'm doing fantastic. It's a beautiful day, and I'm super excited to talk to Christy and Bryce. I met them a couple of months ago in Greece in a conference called Chautauqua. They were speaking there, and they just have such an amazing story. I love talking to people who have already pushed the button and gotten past the early retirement. They've quit their job.

They've started doing whatever it is they're going to do in post-retirement. And Christy and Bryce are really just living it up. They are traveling the world. They are spending less than they planned. And they're just a really great example of how this actually does work because math doesn't lie. Yeah. I mean, Bryce and Christie both got great jobs, start out of college. They managed to graduate debt-free and start with that kind of head start going into all this and then spend very little and make a solid income. I think they both approach six-figure salaries right just under that towards the end of their career, their six-seven-year career. And we're able to produce financial and they're now traveling all over the world and living a incredible lifestyle. And look, yes,

this is a dual income, no kids household that has been able to achieve this. But it's something to pay attention to because this is the kind of result that you can produce if you don't make any major, you know, they say they have made a mistake of not investing enough, right? If that's your mistake going into the financial picture, you're going to live a life that's going to be, that few in human history are going to have the opportunity to share in. So I think that there's a really big benefit to this episode if you're starting out in life or considering kind of getting going and you're still in your early 20s or even late 20s and want to kind of produce a similar outcome. They've got a phenomenal situation that they've built through overall good decision making over a

period of years. I think it's extremely repeatable if you start off the right way. Well, yeah, that's what makes their story so great is that it's kind of boring. We got good jobs. We saved a lot of money. We still did what we want. And now we're retired. We've been retired for three years. We haven't even dipped to. into our savings at all. We might have to do it this year because the market's down, but we have their three point plan to not have to run out of money is brilliant. I haven't heard it before.

I'm super excited to read the articles that they shared about the episode. And I love how easy this is, how not difficult this is to a little bit of tweaks to the normal everyday life changes your whole direction. It's life on cheat code, right? Is what he said, I think, right? It is. It's like, it's like you're playing a big. video game and you have it, you have a cheat code, you can do it ever you want, whenever you want,

wherever you want, with whoever you want, still spend less than the average person and not have to to work. This is what happens if you just have a very clear winning plan and you can do it even faster than them, right? They made some mistakes that they pointed out, right? If you wanted to hustle and get this done even sooner than they did in life, you could start out from a similar position and race towards it even quicker. And you know, I like how they say mistakes don't define you. Don't use that as a crutch. Oh, I made this big mistake. I guess I can't do this.

Well, maybe it doesn't happen as fast as Christy and Bryce's situation because you graduated school with student loans that you had to pay off first. But like Craig Curlop said in episode 35, you don't have to pay those off right away. He started investing first and is now using his investments to pay off his student loans while continuing to invest. So there's a lot of different ways to do it. But this is the main way. Low spending, high savings rate. Yep. Geographic arbitrage doesn't hurt either. Geographic arbitrage is a really nice...

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How are you today? And where are you today? We're doing great. Hi, we're great. We're actually talking to you from Madrid, Spain. And it's around 5 p.m. in the afternoon right now. Ooh, it's 9 o'clock in the morning over here. Well, thank you.

Should she be asleep? We just woke up from our siesta. Yeah. Yeah, we were just talking about this before. man, I'm really enjoying the Spanish lifestyle where there's eat way too much drink, way too much sangria every lunch and then just fall asleep at like from like two to four. That's just how they operate over here. That's terrible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The American and the Canadian like work like constantly every weekend, checking your email and then transitioning to like what they do here. It's like, yeah, it's like night and day. So that's perfect. You guys are living the dream. You're in Spain. You're having a great time.

You've solved your money. problem. Let's talk about the journey to get to this point and how you're kind of operated now. So where does your kind of financial story with money begin? I would say it begins in Toronto. So we're both working in the IT sector as software developers. And so we were basically going around doing what everyone else is doing, getting really stressed out about the Toronto housing market, because that's what everyone else is doing, trying to afford that million dollar house because average detached homes in Toronto are over a million dollars now. So it really began trying to be like everyone else and following that path of,

you know, you got to buy a house, you got to have a really big mortgage, work until you're 65, and then you can actually relax and retire. At that point, when I started to look around and see how stressed all my coworkers were to the point where one of them collapsed and actually almost died from overwork, that was my wake up moment that I realized I do not want to work at my desk and then die. This is not the path I want to go down. At that point, this was back in 2012 that I decided, you know, is there something else we can do? Instead of trying to afford that million dollar house and then working like this and stressing out, is there something else we can do with our lives? Can we go a different path? And that's where this journey started. So what was your,

how did you kind of get into that position in the first place? You know, you're both software engineers. What was your path to become a software engineer in the first place? And what was your kind of financial position like where you were looking to buy this first house. Okay, so I think we have very different backgrounds. Like I went into engineering because I grew up quite poor in China. So I grew up in a small village and at one point my family was living on just 40 cents a day. So my relationship with money was very much like fear based. So it was really like not having enough money, constantly worrying.

And then when we immigrated to Canada, when I was eight years old, I was having, you know, trouble learning the language and assimilating with the culture. So there was that kind of fear of, are we going to be okay? And so money has always been fear based for me. And then for me going into computer engineering was my way of securing my future for me. Because there was, you know, I couldn't pick a career where if it didn't work out that my parents could support me because they also had like family members and parents and brothers and sisters to support back home in China. So for me, it was really like money has always been since the very beginning, something that was always on the forefront of my mind and always. something that I needed to make practical decisions in order to make sure that I was going to be financially secure. I just want to ask one quick follow-up question about that. How did this influence

your schooling? Does this, is that influence your choice to become a software engineer in the first place? Absolutely. Absolutely. So how I actually picked my career. So in Canada, yeah, we definitely don't have the amount of student debt that people have to deal with as Americans. But at the same time, I still had to like pay for my living expenses and I had to pay for tuition. And so what I did was I, I chose this particular program, which is software engineering in Waterloo, a program that was one year longer than normal, because it's five years instead of the typical four. And what that allows you to do is alternate between doing internships and actually going to school. So that was actually one way that I could actually pay for my tuition and living costs throughout school so that I could actually

end up with zero debt by the time I graduate. And on top of that, I would have some work experience already behind me. So for me, it was really just optimizing and making sure I got into as little debt as possible and being able to support myself right out of school through graduation. For you, it was almost like a 100% financial decision because like, you know, we talked about this a lot on our blog. She always wanted to be a writer. Like that was what she always wanted to do and that was her dream and this kind of stuff. Her two, her subjects were physics and computers. So of course you would then pick computer engineering as your as your major. It was just kind of like, it doesn't like for her, it was like it literally didn't matter what she's.

liked, it was like what paid the bills and what cost the least amount of money. Got it. What about you? I had a much more kind of, like I grew up in Canada. My parents were reasonably middle, middle class. One's a dentist and one's a pharmacist. So it was a completely different thing for me. I actually went into computer engineering because I liked it.

I like programming. I was programming when I was in grade four just for fun and this kind of stuff. So for me, it really was more of a passion thing. For her, it was a much more financial thing. But it's that juxtaposition of our two added to two. money that really made this whole thing work. Because for her, like, you know, she makes fun of me because whenever I go into a grocery store, I don't check the prices. I don't know why I'm saying. I just got to go, give me some apples. I don't look at that thing. But she has

encyclopedic knowledge of how much apples are supposed to cost. And then she'd be like, no, no, no, don't get it at this price. She can get it for like four cents cheaper over here. And I'm like, who cares? But it's those two attitudes that are really, really helpful because as a result, like even right after we started working, our savings rate just automatically started out like 50, 60 percent because she would just like shop the hell out of everything. Like with like how we picked our rent, how we picked like whether we chose to buy a car or not, which we didn't, we use car sharing, how we buy groceries, how we buy everything. She's always the one that's optimizing and maximizing the value you got out of every dollar

that you spent, that you're spending as low as possible. So, I mean, but this sales sales rate was like really, really, really high just by default. But on the other hand, her attitude towards money, which is it's fear-based. Yeah, she said, it's fear-based. It's really, really poorly suited to investing. Because when you put money into the stock market and it goes down like $10,000 in a day, that's not fun, right? So, and so that's kind of where, like, our two attitudes had to kind of combine because she's the one that's making sure we're spending as little money as possible going out the door. And I'm the one managing the investments because I can, I'm more comfortable with volatility and she isn't. So it's that weird

Yeah, we have a weird pessimistic, optimistic combination that actually made this whole, like, if I thing work really well, because you kind of need both sides of the equation, like the budgeting side and the investing side, in order for this lifestyle to work out. So I make sure that all the bad things that could happen, we have a backup plan for everything. And then Bryce, you know, make sure that, like, we got to also follow our dreams. It's not always about the money. It's not always about the fear. You know, there's other ways to live life besides living in fear. So I found that that combination of our background worked out really well in terms of getting us to where we are today because we have that different opposite points of view. Okay. I want to talk a little bit about getting over the fear

psychology that you grew up with for so long. I didn't have fear. I just grew up really, really frugally because my parents were, I'm a grandchild of the Great Depression. So my parents each come from enormous families with no money. So there was always like nothing and deprivation And they've come a long way since then. But I grew up with that mentality. And we went to garage sales every Saturday morning. And we didn't buy things brand new. And we did shop.

My dad still shops gas. I mean, Gas Buddy is his favorite app on the phone. They live in an RV and they travel around the country building churches. So they buy a lot of gas. But that's like he's obsessed with gas prices. And like Bryce said, you will, oh, don't buy these apples. You can buy them for four cents less. How do you get over that?

How do you let that go? Because that can really cripple you. And, you know, that was something that actually my husband had a hard time with when he was leaving his job. He was also a computer programmer. He had this high paying job. His dad was an electrician that was like getting out of work frequently. He was laid off. So how dare I let go of this high paying job to go travel around the world? Like how do you get over that? It is very difficult. It was it wasn't just the hurdle of the fear. It was also my cultural background, right? Like having to go against the grain and like telling my parents, oh, by the way,

I'm quitting this perfectly good job. And I'm going to travel. world and I'm not going to buy house and I'm not going to do all these traditional things. So it really is that you not only have to get over the mentality that you've been basically like dealing with your entire life. You're also dealing with family and friends who may not understand why you would be doing this and, you know, losing security and all that. I think the thing that really helped me understand that this was the right way to go and that it wasn't always about fear is just seeing other people like going down that traditional path and almost losing their lives. Like seeing their health, you know, things that you'd never expect to happen just for a programmer to, like,

actually end up in the hospital. And then, like, to have, I was having all sorts of, like, health problems. I had to be on medication. I had to wear this wrist brace because my, I was having chronic pain in my wrist. And just like the health problems that I was seeing, which I thought, okay, if I have the secure job now, you know, I'm earning money. I shouldn't have to worry about security. I shouldn't have to worry about health problems. And that was my wake up call to realize that constantly worrying about money. constantly living in fear, constantly living for tomorrow and like, you know, 10 years from now and when I'm 65, what if I don't make it until I'm 65? So for me, it really was a health issue that

kicked me from that fear-based mentality to kind of a hope-based mentality to think like, what can I do that would make my life more fulfilling and that I could actually live for something else other than money and constantly living in fear. I was kind of giggling, as you were saying, because it's really funny how we, because if you had asked both of us that same question, for me, how do I get over that fear? For me, I'm just kind of go, I just do the math. And I look at the spreadsheet and I go, it seems fine. But for her, the only thing that got her out of that fear was a bigger fear, like avoiding the worst, even the even worse thing that she was even worse thing that she was even worse thing. It's just kind of like, the only reason why you would jump off the bridge is that you thought a train was coming.

Even bigger monster. A big, even bigger monster was coming at you. Well, I think that's really good. I mean, like, when I remember the first time I read the four-hour work week, right? And I'm working at my job and I'm like, hey, the clear probability of what's going to happen to me if I don't pursue financial independence is I am going to spend 30, 40 years in a job very much like this one and end up like kind of, you know, maybe a little overweight and overworked and not being used to my best talents, you know, not being able to kind of go to that. that's a much bigger risk than attempting to pursue financial independence and pursue your dreams, right? So I think that that's, I think that's a great way to look at it and a good way to take for people with your mindset, how to change that so that you can kind of pursue this with a little bit more enthusiasm.

Going back to kind of your story here, so we kind of have a background on both your financial mindsets coming into this. What was the kind of story maybe out of college, the first couple years in the workforce? when you discovered FI and we're going to put this money down on a house, what was your position looking like at that moment? And how did you get to that financial position? Like what was your income? What was your savings? What were you kind of spending?

How are you avoiding those expenses, all that kind of stuff? Okay. Well, when we first graduated, because we were both classmates and we both picked that program, which was one year longer than usual, but we were actually able to pay our tuition and living expenses while we were going to university, that helped a lot because we came out with zero. And a lot of people actually come out of. school with student debt. So when we graduated 2006, we had no student debt. We didn't have any

savings either, but the fact that we didn't have debt was amazing. We also had two years of experience with work. So we were actually able to go back to the companies that we went to during our internship, and they actually gave us full-time jobs right out of school. So that was, I think that's one of the most important decisions I've ever made in my life, was picking that program and being able to start with no debt and high-paying jobs straight out. out of school. So even though we're students, we counted out of school in 2006, we were able to hit the ground running right away. So we only worked for six months in 2006 because we graduated in June. But even then, we were able to save within the first year around like $30,000 just because,

you know, we didn't have the student debt and we already had good salaries coming out of school. And like Bryce said, because coming back from a background of poverty and having fear that I was going to run out of money, even though we were doing in a few, things like living in two different places, paying two different rents, we could have moved in together. We were paying $1,500 for rent between the two of us, because we had two separate places. We still ended up having a 50% savings rate right off the bat, like within the first or two years, the first and second year outside of university. And then so from then on, from that point, 2006 to 2012, during those six years in which I was still following the traditional path

of trying to save as much money as possible towards a down payment. You know, working the traditional job like everyone else, not even thinking of FI at the point, just thinking about, okay, I need to buy a house. Houses are in Toronto are very expensive. We need to save as much money as possible. Our savings rate ramped up at this point to be about 60% a year. And we were making like really good salaries close to six-figure salaries each.

We were getting promotions during this time as well because I was trying to climb the corporate ladder. Once again, like everyone else, we would be working weekends. I had to carry this like pager that used to call me all the time. And anytime there's a production issue, I could wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning and do some support whenever I was being called on. So it was a lot of putting a lot of hours in and just climbing the corporate ladder. So by the time 2012, which was where I had my epiphany that we were going to do something

different and go down this FI path, we had saved half a million dollars. Because our salaries were good. there's two engineering salaries. Our savings rate was hovering around 50% to 60% at that rate. And then at the time, even though that's a lot of money to be saving within six years, I was still thinking that wasn't enough money because when we went to open houses, people looked at us, like real estate agents would watch us walk in and said, are you sure you guys are in the right place?

Like, can you afford this house? Like that's the kind of attitude we were getting. And, you know, lo and behold, like before even put any offers in, they would be getting bidding wars between other people who were even like older than us, people who had even more money who had bought another house and they were moving up from that house. So that was the mentality that I had going in. Like even though we had saved that much money, I still felt that, you know, we were not doing that great compared to everyone else who could afford even more house because they were

older and there was just bidding wars all over the place. So that was our mentality. We did quite well picking that program and having zero debt coming out of school. We saved half a million dollars within six years and with two. really good engineering salaries. But despite that, my fear mentality still told me that that was not enough to buy a house in Toronto and that I would need to save more. And I need to climb the corporate ladder even faster than what I was doing at the time. And that's kind of when I activated because she's the fear monster and I'm the hope beacon. So then I started reading about a financial independence.

I found money mustache. I found Jim Collins and all this kind of stuff. And I started like plugging into my spreadsheets and this kind of stuff and be like, hey, but check this out. check this out. You know, we could buy this house and then pay it off over 25 years or according to these spreadsheets, we could retire in three. And then it was like, no way. I was like, no way. You can't retire without like five million dollars. No way. Right. So, but then, but then she's like, let me see that. And she checks all the numbers. And she's like, huh. So like the thing was showing between like three or four years, but I was able to hit the million mark and then being able to retire off of that with, you know, $40,000 as our spending. And then it would just kind of like,

oh, this is much better. So it was like, we were powerful. So it was like, we were powerful. our saving already towards one goal. And then when I realized that sucked, it would just kind of like, what else can we, you know, buy with this money? And what we bought was retirement. So it's kind of, oh, yeah, that's much better. So that's kind of where all came from. So what were you doing with your money when you were, you were saving, you had this $500,000.

Was it just in a bank account? Was it under your mattress? Was it in? Well, we were investing. We started investing right before 2008. Perfect timing. Yeah. So it was just kind of like, this is going to be great.

So that was, again, like there's a lot of that fear thing going on there because when we were putting, I remember distinctly the feeling of putting like $1,000 into the ETF or mutual fund that I was using at the time. And the next day, it would be like a thousand point drop on down. And then my money would just evaporate. So I was just like, where did my money go? But I knew enough that what I was supposed to do is I was to keep buying into the dip because it will eventually come back up. the index never crashes to zero. And lo and behold, when it started, when it did bottom out, like in 2009 and it started coming back up, I actually recovered all my money within a year,

right? So we managed to get out of the 2008 financial crisis without losing any money. However, we did make the biggest mistake by jumping out of the market after we had recovered back to our original point because I said, you know what? No, let's like put this money aside and let's not invest it. Let's save enough to buy a house. So we actually missed out on three years of the bull run because of fear and because that we were, you know, working towards getting a down payment for a house. So even despite that, we were still able to retire in our 30s just because the savings rate was so high. And because we came to our senses in 2012 when we discovered we were going to go down the five path and we went back into the stock market. And that actually got us there

within three years. So I think that's the lesson to be learned that even if you make mistakes with investing, you can still recover. Right. It's a lot. It's a lot of. It's a lot of. It's a lot of, really not, you know, oh yeah, this is the end of the world. We're not going to be able to retire. This is a stupid mistake. We shouldn't have made any mistakes in the first place. So I think despite the mistake that we made, we still got to where we are today. Yeah, it sounds, you know, for one of gathering, it sounds like the major lever that you guys pulled to move your financial position for was, yeah, you had good jobs, an expensive city, but you spent very little and were very frugal throughout this period.

So can you walk us through something? Like, that's the unusual part here, right? Most of your peers, the people that you were working with, probably were spending more money than you on various things, right? And not having to say. So how did your lifestyle contrast with maybe what peers were living at the same time? Like, what were some of the differences that you can highlight there? The funny thing is our peers would kind of, you know, say, oh yeah, you know, because we didn't have a car. We used something called auto share, which is a car sharing service. It's like zip car. Yeah, it's like zip car. So you can actually get the car and rent it out for, you know, two or three hours to get groceries. whenever you needed a car, you basically sign it out.

But the cost of the actual car is so little. When even including insurance, it was what, like less than... 10 bucks an hour. Yeah, less than 100 a month, for sure. Yeah, so then that was like, saved us a lot of money. But then people were making... Our peers were saying, like, how can you possibly live in Toronto without a car? Like, how can you possibly not have a car?

But then they would, you know, be jealous whenever we went on fancy vacations, because we would go on at least two vacations to Europe a year. That was one thing. I was not willing to compromise on in terms of cost. Like travel was one thing I was willing to spend money on. But then they would be like, oh, yeah, well, you just came back from Europe. You're going to go again? Like, that's ridiculous.

But then I'm like, you have a car when you live in Toronto. That's ridiculous. So it really is just kind of the contrast between what our priorities are, right? Like people were willing to just spend 10 grand a year on their car without blinking an eye. But then, you know, I spend like $2,000 on a vacation and I come back and they think I'm nuts. So I think for us, the biggest difference was making decisions. on renting. Like our rent was very low in Toronto. We rented the top floor of a townhouse for only $850 a month. And our landlord was really nice to us. He didn't really raise the rent. We got along

really well. And then we didn't buy a car. I think those two were the things that a lot that got a lot of our friends, or a lot of our peers, because as soon as they graduated, you know, they had to buy the car. They didn't hesitate as long as I did to go into the housing market. They didn't spend as much as we did on vacations and traveling, but they spent a lot of money on everything else. So it really, to me, it really is just prioritizing. Like, if I'm going to spend money on traveling, I'm not going to spend money on the car. I'm not going to spend a lot of money on rent or buying a house. It really is just prioritizing instead of, I have to spend money on everything. And the funny thing is for her, she used to be a hoarder. The thing about growing up poor is that you never throw anything out,

because you never know when that might come in handy. So her mom, literally has pots that were made during the communist era. It's like 40-year-old pots. Like older than me, yeah. And it's got holes in it, and it's like probably got tetanus all over it or whatever. And she refused to throw it out because it's like, I don't know, who knows when this will come in handy?

And I'm like, never. It'll never come in handy. So. That's my family too. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like I would keep empty CD cases for, like, I don't even have a CD player and I would still wouldn't throw them out, just in case I could use it for something, right?

And then on aside, As we go around and like meet people doing the Ishikwas, meeting other to the other F5 bloggers, what I've noticed is much like I'm noticing right now is that for almost every single person who end up doing this, if I think at least one person spent some amount of time in poverty. Like that that's almost like a universal truth that I've noticed. And like we like when we see it, we get each other and we're like, you, you're one of us and this kind of stuff. But what's interesting is that most people don't like to talk about their time in poverty. Most people find it embarrassing, right?

We're unique a little bit in that we lean into it. And, you know, she talks about it directly on the blog and in the book and this kind of stuff. But that experience, I think that that experience in poverty is actually one of the reasons that causes people to become FI. It's not actually like they make it not despite their poverty, but because of it. Anyway, so we were in that situation in which we were, she had all this stuff that was just filling up the house and filling up the house and filling up the house. And normally this is kind of when you creep get into that inflation's lifestyle creep, which would be like, right, just too much stuff. We need to buy a bigger house. So why don't you know, you want to tell us how we, yeah, how we, how I got over the hoarder mentality. So our apartment was getting super crowded. I was thinking

either we were going to buy house or I was going to rent a bigger place. And Bryce being the smart guy that he is, he didn't actually say no. He wasn't like, oh, no, just get rid of your crap. Like, who needs all these empty CD cases? No, he was just like, okay, well, let's go out and let's take a look at, you know, the different rentals and see if there's any that you like. Let's go do it. And we spent quite a few weekends looking around at comparable places to rent. And I realized that we were getting a super good deal where we were. Places that were around the same size or even a bit smaller were, you know, starting at 1,200 and we are only paying 8.50.

So then at that point, I started doing the math. And I was thinking, okay, so if I get rid of all these things, this is how much money I could stand to lose because I paid money for it. But then I compared that with how much money I would be losing by moving to another place with way more expensive rent. And even if I had the extra space, is it worth it? So I did the math, as we call it, math shit up on the millennial revolution. And then I realized that it was actually going to save me money by getting rid of all this stuff. So that was very painful a couple weekends trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible. But I think it's kind of like was very

therapeutic for me as well. Because then I started realizing, hey, this actually makes my life a lot. easier. Now I don't have to maintain it. I don't have to clean it. I don't have to be constantly searching for my clothes to wear every day. I have to be searching for things that I need around the house, around the apartment. So it was a gradual step-by-step process of getting rid of all the things that I didn't need and kind of letting go of the fear that, you know, I might accidentally throw away something I'm going to need later on. So then I went more from a horde. It wasn't exactly a met a minimalist at that point, but I went from hoarding to like a normal human being that doesn't need to keep crappy empty CD cases lying around. Yeah, because I was able to add up the value of all

that stuff that you were throwing out and be like, let's see you throw out something that you accidentally need later need to buy it back in. And it would be like, you know, a couple hundred bucks in this kind of stuff. And it was like, okay, but the differential in rent is now 400 bucks every single month. I mean, so it's just buy those things back every month. So it's like, you're not going to So that's how I manipulate my wife. I don't trick her. I just show her the numbers and then let her Asianness. That's the key to a strong marriage is manipulation. Well, I want to point out a couple of things here. First of all, if you look at average expenses, the largest one is always housing, right, for almost everybody, right? And you knock that out by living

in the top floor of a house, right, and getting a really good deal on that, right? And then you keep that by recognizing the issue of, hey, I'm collecting more stuff slowly. Right. If I continue doing that, I'm going to need a bigger place. And that's going to directly work against my goal of long-term happiness and financial dependence, right? So I'm going to get rid of that stuff, which is a hard decision. This is a theme that's come up on a couple of recent episodes as well for us.

Then you don't have a car. So you get rid of two of you really have a low level of expenses on two of the largest expenses that most people have, which is housing and transportation. Right. In America, I don't know the connection. Canadian stats, but in America, that gets you to a 50% savings rate if you can eliminate those two expenses or get them down to pretty low. You're right there at 50% already. Then I assume that if you're doing this, you know, you say you have good vacations and that's a priority

for you. What are you doing for like day-to-day entertainment, food, all that kind of stuff? Are you going out to eat a lot? Are you going to happy hour during this period? How are you kind of managing the other expenses in your life? Did they even matter? So in the beginning, after we graduated, we were eating out a lot. And part of that was just out of convenience. Like we were eating out maybe three times a week. It wasn't until we started to realize, hey, I'm starting to gain a lot of weight from eating out. It wasn't even the money in the beginning, right? Because in the beginning, I wasn't as concerned about saving towards five. I didn't even know what that was. It was because I was to gain a lot of weight. And then I started to look at, maybe I can, you know, start

controlling what I put into my food, you know, start cooking and doing a bit more healthy eating. And then I started tracking the expenses because I'm thinking if I'm gaining a lot of weight, this is probably not good in terms of how much money we're spending as well. And then we realized that just on drinking, like just on like pints of alcohol that Bryce was getting when we were going out, that added up to 400 or 600 a month. Just the drinking parts. And I was thinking Like, this is how much we used to pay for rent in university. So you are basically drinking away rent every single month. So at this point, we started thinking, okay, so we get double advantages by, you know,

just cook. We weren't going to cook all the time. I was still super stressed and I wanted to go out to eat every now and then. But can we try to cut down on the alcohol and just try to eat healthy? Just take these small steps and see if that's going to have benefit to our wallet as well as our waistline. And for her being manipulative shoe that she is, she was just like, don't study, you know, you don't have to drink. You don't have to not drink. I'm not saying, I'm not judging you.

Just drink it at home, right? It's the exact same amount of alcohol, but it's like, you can go out for a pint once a week instead of three times a week. But I don't drink it at home. And then it's just kind of like, and then alcohol costs dropped to like a third of what we were before. But without affecting how much. I also lost 15 pounds in one year because we started eating paleo. We went on a paleo diet. And then I started cutting out a lot of the carbs that we were eating when we were.

going out to eat. So that had multiplicative effects that I wasn't expecting. And then so I think food-wise, we were spending at the time at least 1,200, maybe 1,300 a month on food. And we were able to cut that down to, I would say, 800 to 1,000, just like taking some small steps in the beginning. And then we eventually started cooking more and more as we actually enjoyed that more. And it was more healthy for us over time. So I say like in the beginning we were doing what everyone else is doing, just like turning your brain off, you know, because our rent was so cheap, we didn't have a car,

we were already at 50% savings rate. But we didn't really care about eating out and trying to cook as much in the beginning. But then over time, because I saw health benefits and I saw that we were actually saving money, that continued going forward. So I think a lot of like when people say, oh yeah, I'm spending all this money and I don't know where it's going. A lot of the times it's when you're going out to eat, you're just not being conscious of how much you're spending and you're not being conscious of your choices in terms of what you're choosing to do. And I think even now, we still go out to eat quite a bit just because I think that's enjoyable for me. I just don't go out to eat all the time like I used to.

I think money mustache is also like wasn't to this whole paleo thing. And the thing about paleo food is it's like less grains and less refined carb, but it's a lot of like natural like meats and vegetables. Coconut oil, a lot of coconut oil, a lot of butter and like that kind of stuff. So when you're actually pretty good at that, it actually tastes really, really good. So once her skill level at that, at this paleo cooking stuff had gotten to the point where it actually tasted better than restaurant food, then it became like a real no-brainer because they're just kind of like, go home and eat our food, it tastes better than their food.

It costs like way less and she like loses weight as well. So it's just kind of like, well, and then I'm popping beers back home that I get at the store rather than rather than at a bar. It's just like win, win, win. So at that point it was just super easy. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people ask. 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

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money free. Love it. So let's talk about your transition here. So in 2012, you have all this kind of healthy stuff that you're kind of figuring out and you're getting a very solid savings rate already. What changes about your financial plan? What's the major transition you make in 2012 with your finances? I assume it's not continued incremental progress on just the spending front, right, in order to move you towards the position you're in now. What happened there? At that point, I started learning more about like investing for financial independence. how to calculate that. And when you realize we were that close, it just made us want to, like, find even more incremental improvements. Like at that point, because we knew we were so close to it,

we were willing to be like, you know, the last couple of years, we didn't go on any vacations at all because, you know, our life was going to be in then this medication afterwards, right? So our savings rate at that point actually crept up. It went to 78% at that point. It was like 78% in those. Oh, wow. And yeah, and then I started figuring out how to invest in like index investing, not just like the long term, 30, you know, 30 years from but like invest so that you are, you can actually live off of it. So I figure out on the investment side of it, while she went even more like, I was optimizing even more because you're just kind of like, oh my God, when you're like almost there,

you really want to find that last little bit that just gets you over that line. Well, that's really interesting. So I love to go into some of the savings stuff at some point. But let's talk about what you're talking about when you're building a portfolio that you can live off of. What does that look like in your mind? Is there a difference between that and just like straight up index fund investing? Yeah. So when you are pretty far off, you just throw everything in the S&P 500 and you just set and forget it.

When you get closer to retirement and when you're actually living off of it, you need two things. You need to be not as volatile and two, you need income. So you shift your allocation from 100% equity to include bonds as well as, you know, we use also other assets like REITs or real estate investment trusts and corporate bonds and high-yielding bonds and this kind of stuff that has two effects. You're shifting out of equities so your portfolio is not swinging as wildly anymore. And then the second, you're raising what we like to call on our blog the yield shield of your portfolio, which is the amount of income that the portfolio is producing without having to sell anything. So when you establish this yield shield

of our portfolio, even when the markets go down, there's still money that's coming in and you don't have to sell anything because the worst thing that you want to do when the markets are down like right now is to sell a capital loss. you want to hold it and just kind of harvest the cash that's been generated over the year. And the second part of that is we established what's called a cash cushion. So outside of the portfolio, you want to have some cash that's lying around that will allow you to not have to sell assets during a prolonged downturn. So like we like to keep three years of cash cushion in just like a savings account outside.

So when the markets are down, like right now, we'll be able to just harvest the yield, take one year of that cash cushion, and then use that to take that to pay. pay for the next year spending. Now we don't have to sell anything. We can we can then wait for our portfolio to recover. So right now, everything's negative. And I think this is at the end of this year, we're going to have to do that. Got it. That's awesome. I mean, this is, this is a fantastic tips. Mindy, you had a question about the jobs? I had a, well, I was going to ask how they transitioned out of their jobs going back to my own personal situation. My husband was having a hard time. Like, we had hit our number. And then he was just not quitting and not.

quitting and, you know, how do I reconcile this life of growing up with my dad always out of work with this high paying job that I should continue to work at because why would I throw that away? Obviously, your goal is to travel all the time now. So that would make it a lot easier. He didn't really have like a specific thing that he wanted to do after retirement. So I think that was a lot harder. What did your last couple of years look like at work? Like, did you guys have a lot of conversations with each other? Oh, we're getting close. We're getting close. Did you have a specific date? Did you have a specific date? Did you have a a project you wanted to finish up?

Or did you just walk in one day and be like, I'm gone. See you. Two weeks. Yeah. So what you're saying about Carl, yeah, I had the same thing. I was terrified to quit my job.

So even though, like for him, I could understand it would be harder for him because he actually liked his job. I was not a fan of my job. It was causing me all sorts of health problems. So you would think that, oh,

give my notice and then just be like dancing around the apartment, happy to have be done with it. But no, I actually, when I gave my notice to my boss, I was having a mini panic attack inside because that had been my identity for the last 14 years being a computer engineer. So what was I going to do now? Like if I wanted to go right and follow my passion, would I actually be able to do that?

Like, yeah, we're going to be traveling the world. But at the time, I didn't actually know how much it was going to cost to travel the world. So I thought it was going to be, you know, somewhere in the 75,000, 100,000 range because that's what I had projected from how much it costs to go on vacations back when we were working. So, you know, that combined, I didn't know how much it was going to cost travel the world, plus the fact that I was giving up an identity that I had built up over a really long period of time, even though I didn't like my job, I was still really, really scared. And this is, I think this is something that a lot of other people have basically come up across. Like, just quitting your job is not as easy as you think it is.

You think that you're going to be done with it. You think that you're going to be relieved, but it's actually really terrifying. So what actually happened was I quit my job. People at work, I didn't actually tell them, but we were FI. I just told them that we were going to take a gap year and travel the world. So they thought I was doing the stupid millennial thing. They're like, oh, yeah, you're going to come like crawling back. Yeah, travel the world.

That's great. Yeah, so they had no idea what we were actually doing. So after I gave my notice, I think what helped me instead of just constantly staying inside my head and thinking like, oh my God, is this a mistake? And like, I just lost my identity. What am I going to do with my life now? I spent more time trying to get rid of everything that we owned, like selling it and packing everything into two backpacks. So getting out of my head and then actually physically doing something and preparing for our world trip was the thing that kind of got me out of that spinning panic attack, kind of debilitating fear mindset.

And then when we actually started to travel, one of the things that helped me a lot in terms of like calming me down and getting rid of the fear was realizing how inexpensive traveling. actually is. Because the thing is, when we used to travel, it was really just buy a vacation package, have other people take care of it, and then you don't have to think. But when we actually started traveling, we started living like locals. Like we stayed in Airbnbs. We cooked our own food. We split our time between expensive places like the UK, but then we also went to places like Thailand. And then I realized, hey, it's actually not that expensive to travel the world. You just have to balance your time and live like a local. And then once we finished our year around the world, I realized that, hey, we had only spent $40,000 Canadian, which is like 30,000 US

dollars. So at the end of it, I was like, this is actually less expensive than if we stayed in Toronto. So that's also within the 4%. So we could just do this forever. So then I started, that fear really went away because I realized, hey, you know, we have the yield shield. We have the cash cushion in case there's a stock market crash. But we also have geographic arbitrage. By traveling the world, we're actually saving money. And that's our, you know, third prong of backup plan in case anything goes wrong. So for me, it really was going out and actually just doing it. Like, it doesn't matter how much you think about it and all the backup plans you can think about in your head, actually doing it by quitting your job and actually traveling

and then, you know, pursuing your passion projects. That's what got me out of that spinning fear mindset. And I think just letting you feel that fear and instead of ignoring it really helps too, because a lot of people are going to run into this. You know, it's not easy. to all of a sudden go from 10 years of working to having all this time in the world to do whatever you want. It is a very big mindset switch, but I regret nothing. Like I'm surprised that we didn't do this sooner. Like after we did this, I was like, why was I so afraid? It really is not that scary. In fact, if I had stayed in my job, I would have been more afraid because now I hear from all my friends and ex-co-workers that there's layoffs happening all over the place and people are

getting outsourced. And they're actually way more afraid than I am, even though, you know, I'm living off the portfolio and don't have a fixed income because you never know when you're going to be on the chopping block. You really have no control over job security. So to me, it really is just getting over that mindset. It's not as scary as it seems, but we all build it up in our heads. Okay. So now it's time for my favorite quote in the show. Joel from FI-180 has this amazing quote that I use in almost every show. He's like, what's the worst that can happen when you quit your job? the worst thing that happens is you run out of money and you have to go back to work. Your worst case scenario is everybody else's everyday life.

True. Yeah. Your risk is much lower than that of everybody else who's continuing to work that same job that you guys just quit. Right. Absolutely. The only person that's at more risk is the person with less assets, right, in a market downturn. So I think that that's a really important point there. The other thing is that I wanted to go back. Well, actually, there's two things.

want to cover real quick. One is how did the transition of your portfolio look in the year or period leading up to you quitting your job? Did you design that portfolio after you quit or was that something that you had tweaked and fine-tuned and started receiving income from prior to putting in your notice or the mechanics of that process? Tweet tweaked and fine-tune in beforehand. So in 2012, when I decided I was going to quit, I started building the 6440 portfolio and every year measuring, am I actually getting the yield that I'm expecting and then this kind of stuff? So I had three years of runway before we actually pulled the trigger to know that all the stuff was going to work. So the combination of U-Sield and cash cushion is how we knew that we would be okay in the event of a downturn.

The third one that appeared afterwards is geographic arbitrage, as Christy said. Because when we discovered, as we were traveling, she was meticulously tracking every piece of spending, you know, as she always does. And then we were able to realize what our average spending was in each of these locations. And then we were able to realize that if we spend the entire year in Southeast Asia in places like Thailand or Vietnam or something like that, we could spend $20,000 for the entire year and live like kings. So, and $20,000 was actually underneath the yield that our portfolio was generating, which was about 3.5% or about $35,000.

So we realized that there was a third backup plan, which is geographic arbitrage, that if it was a downturn and we had used our entire cash cushion, we could just live on time, we could just move to Southeast Asia for a year and then just live off of the yield and not sell anything. at that point, it was just kind of like, wow, this is really easy. Like, I know there's a lot of guys that talk, I know Jim talks a lot about the investing side of the kind of stuff, but there's this group of people that are out there called digital nomads that they work remotely and they use geographic arbitrage to keep their cost down.

In fact, Thailand has a big community of people who are trying to start up tech companies. And they go to Thailand to do that because their startup capital can last a lot longer. And they have like a five-year runway before, rather than like a six-month runway because they're just spending a lot less. So when you combine the ideas that the digital nomad community have come up with versus financial independence, the two create this kind of bond and the synergy that it really becomes stronger than just on its own, right? So it's like that was really amazing and interesting. And we learned all that just by traveling.

Yeah. One other thing that we learned is that we met people from other walks of life that we wouldn't have met if we stayed in Toronto. Like one of them we met in Mexico and she was traveling with her son. And we learned that this is actually a community called the World. world schoolers. So there's parents that actually travel the world with their children. And this actually started partially as a result of 2008 because there were some families, like they had either lost their investments or they had lost their jobs. And they had to find a way to make ends meet online while also living in inexpensive places and raising their children and using the world as the classroom

for their child. Because some of their children actually fare a lot better outside of the structure of a classroom and then spending all that time with their parents. So another thing we discovered is like, you know, how do we live this lifestyle if we actually decide to have kids down the road? And then that's another community that we found out that we would never have even known about, have we have we not started traveling. And they also know how to, you know, make money online and optimize their spending with their kids as much as possible. And they figured out how to deal with like expat insurance and health care and all those things that we wouldn't even have thought of. and making sure your kids, like, how to grade their papers that's recognized by the school system

and making sure that they can slide back into the university system and all this kind of stuff. So, like, we're just, like, we just met with them and then we interviewed, we interviewed them on our blog and we're learning about how all that kind of stuff works. But it's just been a fascinating journey about all these different groups of people that would have never really interacted. And then you put their ideas together. And then you kind of go, combine it with FI. Now I can retire and raise my kids while traveling the world while making money. Right.

It's just kind of like, what? I think I can do that. Yeah. Like ever since we retired, our portfolio has gone up. Like we retired with one with a million dollars. And now it's like 1.3. So I'm like, what the hell? I mean, like, it feels like cheating.

It really does. But like you take these cities and you combine them. And then it just becomes like, wow, life is really easy. So what is a typical day or week look like for you? How long do you stay in one place? How far in advance do you make travel plans? Do you like, do you have your whole year mapped out? Or you just, ooh, Pouquet looks good today.

Well, it depends on which city we're in. So to give you an example, in Madrid, because there's so many things to do, and there are so many museums that are free and food markets, like what we've been doing for this week while we're staying in Madrid is during the day, we've been visiting museums and going out to, like, food markets. And then in the evening, we've been, so we're currently writing a book with a penguin, random house called Quit Like a Millionaire. So when we come back, we would write our book and work on the blog, which we're

are passion projects. So we kind of divide up the day to go sightseeing during the day and then come home and work in the evening. That's just for this week because Madrid has so many things to see. But then, you know, there are other places like we were in Madrid, a couple weeks. Sorry, not Madrid, Malta a couple weeks ago. And that's more of like a beachy place. Like you go and relax on the beach. It's not so much like big city museums and things to see. So then we would kind of do one day work and then one day going to the beach and then we don't do any work every other day. So it really just depends on what we feel like and which city we're in. And I think the, like, you know, having each other as stability, like being able to travel with your best friend, with your husband,

is, it's been quite amazing because you always feel like you have, you know, your community with you, you have home with you. But then at the same time, you also have the variety. Like every single day is different because we're in a different city. If we decide that we're a bit tired, we want to stay there for a bit longer, we can slow it down. If we decide that we want to visit more places, we can speed it up. If we decided we wanted to work one day and then relax the next day, if we wanted to go out in the morning and then come back in the evening, we can do that. So it really changes day by day. And I really enjoy that. Because when I was working for the 10 years, it was really just go, go, go, go all the time. And it was really the same. You had to be there

at the same time as everyone else. And sometimes I worked on the weekend as well. So this has been really a big mind shift into thinking, I don't need to be doing things all the time. And every day doesn't have to look exactly the same. I can actually design it exactly how I want to design it and change it up whenever I feel like it. So I would say that our schedule, we generally have some things that are set kind of like having a shelf and then we put our, you know, activities, as many activities as we want or if we don't want to do anything, we just want to relax. We can do that as well. Yeah. And as for your like a other question about like how do we pick where we're going to go we generally have flights booked out for the next month so we know we're going to be in December but after that we don't so we always

just pick kind of like where we go and based on what i was like oh where we're nearby what routes ryanair has a sale on is always it's always an interesting kind of thing that oh hey we could be in Barcelona is like okay so so i'd rather like that somewhat of a like there's always a bit of a surprise around the next corner we thought after you know uh she talked about we just had an in Greece that we were going to go from Athens directly to Southeast Asia. But then, like, literally at that week, we're just kind of like, you know what, we still have this, we have this visa that allows to stay in Europe for a year. So we're like, hey, you know what, why do we stay in Portugal for a couple more months and Spain and then go, go see that? Because I'm just kind of like,

I've never been to. And Ryan there has a cheap flight to Malta. I've never been to Malta. And we're never going to be this close to it to ever again. And we're just kind of like, yeah, okay. So it's like, it's a little bit half hazard, but it's also a system to it. What are you guys doing for healthcare? So normally in Canada, we're covered by our gold-plated Canadian healthcare system. But because we've been out of the country for two years, we've actually lost our health insurance. So we became uninsured and had to deal with whether we wanted to return back to Canada or continue traveling. So what we found is we looked up this thing called expat insurance.

And this is insurance that's meant for people who immigrates to a new country and aren't covered by that country's system. So you have to pay your own way and this kind of stuff. So there's a bunch of companies that offer this, and it's usually a lot of the same companies you're familiar with like Cigna and Aitna and the one we use is IM Global. And they offer insurance policies that cover you for not just like emergency care, but like regular care all around the world if you have to pay out of pocket. And the funny thing about expat insurance is they literally have like two zones of coverage when it comes to the expat insurance.

One is the U.S. and the other is everywhere except the U.S. because insurance, and if you pick the U.S. one, your rates skyrocket because insurance and insurance and healthcare in America is ridiculously expensive, but it's ridiculously inexpensive within the rest of the world. So I think what we're paying right now is... It's 60 a month for the two of us. It's like $60 US a month for the both of us, okay? We recently had, I recently had to go to a doctor and they didn't even...

I didn't Malta. And it took it took me over and I was like, okay, where do I pay? She's like, ah, don't worry about it. It's just whatever. That's the second time that's happened. Whatever. And then I took the prescription to the pharmacist and then they'll be like, okay, how much does that be? And they'll be like, two euros.

And I was like, it's not even worth it telling the insurance company about this. Like, it's just like. It's not expensive outside the U.S. It is not at all. And it's funny. We mentioned, if you look in the like those expat insurance policies, they will actually, they'll be like, you know, if you're in the U.S. It costs this much or whatever and there's this deductible.

But if you were able to seek treatment outside. outside the U.S., we will pay your deductible for you. Because they really want to encourage you to be outside of the U.S. It's so cheap. Because then it doesn't cost, it costs almost nothing. So it's like, I get that. Health insurance is like a huge deal for Americans, but if you are literally or decide to travel into literally any other country in the world,

health insurance becomes just a trivially easy problem. Like, you know, Jeremy from GoCurry Cracker? He lives in California for many years. And then when he moved to Taiwan, because his wife is Taiwanese, He now pays like $25 a month for health insurance. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, we're getting a lot of good dental care as well because we found a dentist in Poland. So there's a site called dental departures that you can look up.

They actually vet clinics abroad and make sure that they're actually really good quality. So we actually just booked an appointment about a couple weeks out. We got in, didn't have to wait. Got our cleaning done and it only cost like 40 U.S. US dollars. So it really is not that expensive once you actually get out of the States. I have insurance and that's what it costs me. Yeah, exactly. And then they like put a lot of, it's very organized. They give you all your x-rays. You don't have to wait at all. All the dentists speak perfect English. Like a lot of them are trained in America. Yeah. So in Mexico there was a lot of dentists as well. We got the same level of care. So it really is not that like healthcare is really not that scary once you're outside the States. Yeah. All right. It is time now for our famous four questions. These are the same five questions. We ask all of our guests.

So four questions and a command. First one is, what is your favorite finance book? Oh, I'm going to go with J.L. Collins, the Simple Path to Wealth. Yeah. That's a good one. I agree with that one. All right. Trish talked out on an audible if you're interested in that book.

He's got a incredible voice. James Earl Jones. James Earl Jones-esque, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can hear. He can say anything. And it just seems like it's authoritative because of the way to use.

Yes. Yes. I love his voice. You can listen to him on our podcast, episode 20. Oh. You can find that on biggerpockets.com slash money show 20. Okay, cool. All right.

What was your biggest money mistake? Yeah, that would be after 2008, getting out of the market after we had recovered our money back and just missed like three years of bull run. But in terms of mistakes, it's not. not like the worst thing in the world, right? It's like, you know, I learned from that, but the real mistake that we avoided was getting out of the market at the bottom of the market. That would have devastated our savings. But fortunately, I avoided that and made a much smaller mistake afterwards. Awesome. Okay. What is your best piece of advice for people who are

just starting out? I would say your mistakes don't define you, you know? Like, there's a lot of people that come, that talk to us about money was, oh, I wish I could do what you did, but I have all this debt and this kind of stuff, right? If you change your habits going forward, like, we do these thing called reader cases on our website where people write into us, they show us all the numbers and this kind of stuff. And some people come to us and they're just, they feel really hopeless because they're just kind of, look at all this debt that I have. And usually I can make like two or three kind of changes and I can't get them retired in like the next two years, but I'll be like, and then now in 15 years you can retire. And they'll be like in their 30. So they'll be

like, oh, that's pretty good because that's 20 years younger than everyone. else, I like 65. So most of the time, actually, in almost every single case, there is no mistake that devastates you permanently, but you have to make a change now and get going in the correct direction. You'll eventually get out of there. But the only way to really, really screw yourself over is to just give up and kind of go, I made that one mistake. I'll never, it'll never, it'll never work. So I'm going to keep making stupid mistakes and not learn this stuff. Like, past mistakes don't define you, but you have to learn from them. Yeah, you know, I want to chime in here with a thought because your story, here is one of hard work, savings, good habits over a period of six, seven years, and the

accumulation of a retirement level of wealth through a very formulaic approach to this system, right? Which I think is fantastic. I mean, that's what happens if you, you know, smart, get good jobs, behave reasonably for a long period of time, you're going to have the lifetime of opportunity that you guys are going to go after, right? Right. If you're not in that position, if you're starting from a position of disadvantage and it's going to take you longer, still work according to the formula. You can build a formula like you just pointed out. That will get you to where you want to be in 10, 15 years.

But also put yourself in position where maybe you can get lucky. You know, what's a side project? What's a side endeavor, an investment or something that could accelerate your position by three, five, seven years if it works out. That's very low risk, right? If you're in that position, don't lose hope because you don't have some of the starting position that you guys maybe had. still work towards that, but also think about ways, hey, how can I speed this up? How can I put myself in

position to advance quicker? Absolutely. We actually met a couple in Iceland. They write on the blog Where We Be. And so they retired when they were 43. And the wife, she actually originally started out making only $18,000 a year as a travel agent. So from $18,000, because she went back to school for two years to be a nurse, she managed to almost triple her salary. And as a result, they still retired within 15 years. So, like, that's an exact example of what you're saying. Like, she decided to invest in herself and go back to school and actually raise her salary. And then as a result, she still made it in 15 years. So it really is that exactly to your point where even if you're starting out, you know, much lower than you were expecting, it's not the end of the world.

And your past mistakes don't define you. You can definitely still make it. It might take a bit longer, but you will get there. Love it. All right. Last most difficult question. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties around the world? That were homeless millioners. That would probably go over there. Yeah. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. I will bring in, I'm going to tell a joke. The Tasmanian Group Next Development sent me this joke. They said, what lies on the bottom of the ocean shivering?

A nervous wreck. Oh, okay. Those kind of jokes. The kind that you're like, oh. I got a joke. Someone sent me a joke on Thanksgiving, which is pretty good. This is Kevin. Kevin, what a listener he said in this joke.

He says, a doctor going to write his patient a prescription, reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a thermometer. Oh, shoot, he says, some asshole has my pen. I like that one. I like that one. That's Kevin from British Columbia. Great. Good job. A nice tie-in with our Canadian guests.

Exactly. There we go. Okay. All right. Okay. The command, the demand. Where can people find out more about you? That would be our blog, millennial-revolution.com.

We are also going to be having a book coming out next year called Quit Like a Millionaire from Penguin. So we're literally just working on it like an hour ago. So, yeah, that's where you can find us. and yeah, come to hear from you. Yeah. Hope to hear from you. Awesome. Thank you.

We will put all of these links in our show notes. I'm going to, I found your article about the yield shield. And do you have one about the cash cushion? Do you have an article about that? Yeah, that would be in the same series, but I can send it. I can send you. Yeah. I think it's not like how not to deplete your portfolio in retirement.

And, and yeah. Perfect. Yeah. That's something that I think a lot of people have a lot of questions about. So, you know, going into more depth on a blog article would be great. I'm going to include all of it. these links in our show notes, which can be found at biggerpockets.com slash money show 55. Okay, Bryce and Christy, thank you so much for your time today.

This was really, really awesome. This show is going to get a lot of comments. I just know it. Cool, cool. Always, always a pleasure. Always fantastic to see you. Okay, well, enjoy. Where are you guys headed next?

You're in Madrid for how long? So, yeah, we're in Madrid for a couple more days and then we're going to Malaga. Oh, well, enjoy Malaga. That's a seaside town, correct? Yes. We want to be on a, we're an experience being on a beach in December. Nice. Being Canadian, we tend to run away from the cold now.

Yeah. Or giant whims. I never want to see another snowflake ever again. Well, then don't come visit Denver right now because there is snow on the ground. Oh, geez. Yeah. Until next year when you pick up skiing. Yeah.

Well, I got enough of that when I was growing up in Canada. Yeah, I guess you guys get a lot of it up there. Okay. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for your time today, guys, and we'll talk to you later. All right. Cool. Thanks for having us. Yeah, cool. Bye now. Bye. All right. That was Christian Bryce from Millennial Revolution. Mindy, what did you think? Okay, Scott, that was awesome. There was so much information in this episode. We kind of missed a really great nugget near the end. Bryce said when you asked him how his portfolio was made up, did he do it after

retirement? He said that he had three years of experience with his portfolio and the returns he was again before he retired. But then he brought up geographic arbitrage, which is also a great topic. And we talked about that. We never really got back to the portfolio makeup. So Bryce and Christie agreed to come back tomorrow and share more information about the way their portfolio is made up, the reasons behind the allocation that they had chosen, and how frequently they adjusted. So check out tomorrow's episode at 55.5. You can find the short notes at biggerpockets.com slash money show 5-5-5.5. from episode 55 of the Bigger Pockets of Money podcast.

This is Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench. Until tomorrow.