BiggerPockets Money Podcast - How this Couple Achieved FIRE in Their 30s (Average Income)

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Sam and Carolyn reached financial independence in their thirties through frugality, real estate investing, and building side hustles that generated $10,000 per month. Then they made a bold move—quitting their jobs and briefly relocating to Canada. This Episode Covers: How Sam and Carolyn house-hacked their way to a multi-property real estate portfolio The unconventional side hustles that generated $10K monthly in additional income Their complete financial strategy: savings rate, expense tracking, and investment allocation The decision to quit their jobs and achieve full financial independence in their thirties Why they moved to Canada and how universal healthcare and education factored into their FIRE plan Navigating the challenges of early retirement and aligning goals as a couple Building systems for long-term wealth preservation and flexible lifestyle design Lessons learned and advice for aspiring FIRE seekers Whether you're just starting your FIRE journey or looking for creative ways to accelerate your path to financial independence, Sam and Carolyn's story offers actionable strategies you can implement today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're talking with a couple who mastered the fundamentals early. They graduated debt-free, house-hacked early on, and maintained that strategy even after leaving their careers. But here's what makes their story different. They didn't just reach financial independence and stop there. They leveraged their flexibility to pursue Canadian citizenship as a way to hedge their bets against rising health care costs. Five years ago, they both walked away from their jobs in their 30s. Today, they're living proof that fire isn't about deprivation. It's about intentional choices that buy you freedom.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my stateside co-host, Scott Trench. Hey, Mindy, great to be here. We're so excited to be joined by Carolyn and Sam today. They've got an amazing FI story, and we're going to be talking about their journey and the hockey stick trajectory of their net worth today. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Without further ado, let's welcome Sam and Carolyn.

We're so excited to be here. Yes, indeed. Thank you. Let's start from the beginning. Can you give us a little bit of a description about what led up to your discovery of fire? What was your situation leading up to when you decided to pursue financial independence? So we got married in 2011. And even before that, we had bought a condo together. We'd been living together with his roommate as a brother. And we were pretty frugal. We didn't even realize that was like house hacking. We just thought, like, why would we have an empty bedroom in a house? So we, like, got off on the right foot with just not having debt, not having.

a lot of bad spending habits, not having credit cards. I was really afraid of credit cards just from vaguely hearing like Dave Ramsey in the car on the radio as a kid and like they're just being scenes and movies where credit cards ruin people's lives. And we enjoyed ramen noodles. They were delicious and we had no problem there. Like we're having a blast like going to dollar beer night at like our favorite Mexican restaurant with our friends. Like we've like felt well off. So fast forward. We got married. we had this condo that we already owned. His brother moved into the condo too.

That all started because we saw like a billboard that said, your mortgage could be less than your rent if you buy this condo. It was like a really cheap condo. And that like blew our minds. That did blow our minds. That was interesting to hear. So we bought that before we even got married. Did you talk about money before you got married or did you just kind of get some

context clues and not really have any big discussion? The first conversation was as soon as we got married, the tiny bit of debt that you had from your master's degree, immediately was paid for thanks to my savings. So there was a little conversation, but it was immediately like, okay, we're going to get rid of this debt. We're going to be on the same footing here. So honestly, a lot of our frugality and our really high savings rate early on

was because of getting married and taking that pre-marital counseling really seriously. And a lot of the premarital counseling advice is around money and like get on the same page with finances. and what do you value? Like, what is it important to you to spend on and not spend on? So the main reason that we were, like, being so frugal and saving so much money and being so responsible with not getting into debt was just more out of like, because this is what you do when you're responsible and you get married because money problems tank marriages. And that was the phase of our life was like, we're going to set up like an amazing marriage.

I think that's really interesting, right? I mean, you're just basically basically saying, hey, we didn't have bad habits. I imagine that flowed through other parts of your life as well. And you are generally responsible in many areas of life at this point in time. And I think that's it's like that's so fundamental to being able to accumulate wealth as spending less than you earn with basic common sense approach to finance. And I think what's unfair, what begins to create this massive inequality in our system is the fact that, well, if you optimize in the context of that and actually play the tax advantage to games and actually intentionally follow a playbook to build wealth, that just explodes. That takes that good habit and takes it from, yeah, you're going to build wealth for certain over time to you're going to get really wealthy at some point or have the option to retire decades early. Is that kind of how things transpired for you?

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but is there a point where you decide, oh, let's actually figure out the playbook now to turbocharge our wealth? Yeah, exactly, basically. And I think that can be a common theme on this show, too, where people were just kind of doing the right thing and living life and just generally being responsible. and we hadn't even heard of fire. But by the time we needed fire, which we'll talk about why that happened, we already had like paved the way where it wasn't like a massive odyssey.

It was like something like, oh, we can do this. We can just like do these, like the things in the book set for life, you know? Like, and then be there. Like from the time that we decided to like actually pursue fire was, so the time he quit his job was less than three years. Because we were already set up really well. well. Did you discover fire from Scott's set for life book? Or did you, had you heard about it someplace else? I think, yeah, right first from probably Mr. Money Mustache. So kind of the way it worked was we were really

into understanding finances just from like having a good marriage, being responsible in our careers. I got a master's in public health for like practically free, like moved in with my parents. We got married. I think contributions also were a big question in our jobs and how that worked. And that really took us down a rabbit hole. Yeah. So starting our, my first job got really into a blog called Money Under 30, which I think is still around. I don't read it anymore, but that was a huge inspiration for me. And then similar things to that, just like, when you have a job, how do you responsibly start investing in your 401K? So my first job out of graduate school was at a health department and I was making about $42,000, which to me felt like

riches upon riches. So when the HR person like called me in to set up the investments for the retirement account. I was like, yeah, what's the maximum? Like, because, like, I think one of the things they say in Money Under 30 was like, you should always feel a little bit broke. Like, you should always be saving so much up front. So, like, just started out with the max and the HR person was like, okay, if you say so, I guess you can always pull it back later. They also had, like, they had a match. They had a pension. They had some pretty good benefits at that job. So started off with just, like, huge savings rate. And it wasn't until, like, we had a few promotions, started, like, every new promotion and raised just went more and more into savings. We bought a house and just intuitively,

like, rented out the basement to a friend of ours, like, kept house hacking. What did you invest in, in your 401K at first? And did that evolve over time? Yeah. So at the time, my 401k, and I think yours also, my 401k was a Roth 401k, which I think is really rare, but you could choose the Roth 401K. So that's like around where I started researching like what's the difference between a Roth and a traditional. And I was probably like, I think 25 years old at this point and was the only one of my friends that was like Google, like I think I mentioned it to my friends like, are you all investing in a Roth or a traditional? And like nobody cares. Nobody knew the answer for that. So I started getting more into these like finance blogs. And so at the time it was like a target date

retirement fund. I've since like since leaving that job just rolled it over into Vanguard. It's like VTSAX. So yeah, super high savings rate. Every time we got a new promotion, all of that additional money was like just going into savings. Thought a house that was like our dream house. I have another question about the savings rate here. One of the challenges I think for a lot of people is, hey, there's this order of operations. I'm going to take the match.

I'm going to max out the Roth 401k or my 401k at work. I'm going to, you know, maybe if you, I don't know if you had an HSA at any point sprinkled into this. but it sounds like you guys were had enough income and low enough expenses to just go through that whole stack, maxing those out and still have lots of cash left over to invest elsewhere. Is that correct? And that kind of obviated this like middle class trap problem we've talked about in prior episodes. Yes. And we like still kind of found ourselves more recently in the middle class trap, which I'll kind of like come around to later because from the time we both quit our jobs like after 2020, I sort of like tuned out and stopped. listening to like five podcasts. And then years into financial independence was like, no, how do I access the rest of this money? And then that's when I went back to y'all's episodes. You have multiple episodes on the middle class trap and was like, oh, I missed out on like five really good years of content. And I have just been like devouring the past five years of your episodes that I had missed out on. And I could have saved myself a lot of headache by like not stopping listening.

listening after quitting my jobs. Yes. And now a quick word from our show sponsors. 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 entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning

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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. Welcome back to the show. It's like amazing what the unintended consequences of optimal personal finance end up being,

you know, years down the road and how to think about those things. So it's been really fun discovering that and they're wildly good problems to have in the community. Oh yeah. There's so much good post-fi content out there right now. I've been listening to a lot of mile high-fi. A lot more but I thought like, oh, well, I've already like achieved FI, so I don't need to tune in, and now I'm glad I am again. To answer your question, though, we were doing, like, the basic recommended, like, order of operations. I think at the time I was getting that from the Money Under 30 blog, but I think it's pretty similar to what y'all would say to.

We weren't eligible for HSAs. So this was, like, a raw 401K. Then once we were able to, we both, what, we maxed those out, then we started IRAs. And then we were in, like, post-taxas. accounts too. And then real estate, like putting money aside. Although that comes in after we decide, we don't start getting into real estate until we get into fire. Let's hear, let's pick up the store. You tell us where we left off and let's keep, let's keep rolling here. We're maxing out of, we're house hacking. We have a, we're maxing down our whole stack and the really tax-efficient order

of operations, still saving on top of that. Life is going good. We're marching towards fire. It's where we left off. Life's going good. This is the year's 2011 to 2016. Basically, we're both like upwardly mobile in our careers. We've bought a house, like our friends living in the basement, like times are good. And the purpose now, like the main driving theme in our life at that time was preparing to have a baby. We've like nailed it on the marriage. We bought a house. We've got great jobs. And like next step, like having like a healthy baby. And we felt like we'd done everything right, like got pregnant, like saved up like tons of maternity leave, had the baby. and that's when it like kind of like hit the fan.

Yeah. Y'all have kids and you seem like it went really smoothly. Oh, sure. Mine are 15 and 8 or 16 and 18. Oh, she's going to be so mad that I got her age wrong. 16 and 18 and you forget about all the things that don't go super smoothly. The first couple years are hard. It's like a lot like not very, you don't get a lot of sleep.

It's still expected to crush it at work. And it's a challenge. Child care expense comes in if you're working. That's a pretty major. one. I mean, it's a big deal. And you kind of dismiss it before you have kids. And then it's very real once you're going through it or have been through it. It's nothing you can really prepare for. You know, you, those, those years, 2016 into 2017 were just, we were the first in our friend group to have a baby. It was just a, it was just a really transitional time for us. And we just came to the

conclusion very quickly that two full-time jobs wasn't going to cut it anymore. Like, he had like really severe colic, which I understand colic is just the like, term for like, we don't know why the baby cries all the time. He's amazing now. He's nine. He's like our best friend. He's so cool. He's like teaching himself Japanese on duo lingo. He's like, he's the best. But at the time, he was a rough baby, like screamed all the time. No sleep. We weren't sleeping. I changed jobs to like go to a slightly stressful, less stressful job, but then was offered to become the executive director of the nonprofit I went to work with, which was like two. good to say no to. So we found ourselves in this position where it was like, we did everything right.

Like we invested in our marriage. We invested financially. We responsibly bought with like a low interest rate, a beautiful home, like our dream home. We like took our health really seriously. You're leading up to having a baby. And then we have this healthy, beautiful, bouncing baby boy, but we're looking at each other like, this is hell. Like we're both working full time and having this very, cryy baby and not sleeping. Yeah. We're like, something has to change dramatically. Like, we need to pull the rip cord, like, hit the exit button.

This is not where we meant to be. Like, emotionally, mentally, meridly, like, we're, like, fight. Like, not getting along with each other for the first time around then because no one's sleeping and we're stressed out. And that's when we discovered fire, which became a lifeline for us. Yeah. And it was the only thing we talked about. And it really helped our marriage.

we had common ground. And that's how we started down that road. Yeah. So that's like interfire. I think it started with just like constantly fantasizing about like, how do we quit our jobs? Like we got really, I got really into like, oh, there's people who like world school and they travel around with their kid and they like, like they do van. Van life was like really big at the time.

So I got really into this idea of like, we should just like sell everything, quit our jobs and travel around the world. Because like we got to get out of this current situation. immediately. And then that led to like, I think we found like the trip of a lifestyle people. They've got like a cool blog about like you can do that. So once we had it in our heads that like we need to like quit our jobs and travel because this is not the life we meant to be in, we need to like do a hard exit strategy. Then fire became like, well, that's how you do that responsibly and not just like in a chaotic freewheeling hippie way. Which was kind of the temptation.

And so remind me, how close were you to fire when you discovered this concept without even really trying, just by implementing these best practices? Just like some context, we got married in 2011 and our net worth was like close to 200 at that time because that was pretty much from him having saved at his job and then us not having any debt from school and then owning the condo. And then from 2011 to 2016, it went up to like about 500,000. and that was from buying the house we then lived in, and it appreciated, like, rapidly the, like, Asheville area of North Carolina. Like, well, I think, like, a lot of places, like... A lot of growth. A lot of growth.

A lot. It's kind of, like, Colorado. It's very, like, outdoorsy. It's driving a lot of, like, house and costs going up. So by the time our son was born, yeah, it was, like, close to 500,000, which, like, I think Mr. Money Mustache, that's, like, kind of around when I discovered him, was like, oh, if you, I think his figure was like 625. If you can get to like 625, you can quit your job.

I was like, oh my God, we can quit our jobs. We just have to like eat like canned beans. We can do this. So that's when like 2017, we like already have a pretty decent net worth. We're already like in a good situation and like decide that we're going to pursue this. And then we just start consuming all the information. Like we would just go on walks together all day and like talk about. like the frugal woods like set for life.

Money or your life. Yeah, your money or your life. Um, the simple path to wealth. Like all the podcasts, all the books. Like we just were like fanatical. And it gave us like something to talk about other than like, I'm stressed and I hate my job and the baby is still crying. One challenge I think that's interesting on, on this is, you know, how do you think about

as you're planning your retirement and talking through this health insurance as, as that's going through for your new and growing family? in the situation? At the time, we both had really good health insurance through work. So, like, hadn't, like, really come up. And then when we started to think about fire and, like, moving towards quitting, there was a lot in the fire community at the time about, like, planning for health insurance. And we're like, okay, are we going to do some kind of, like, share pro. Like, y'all had some really good episodes back in, like, 2019, like, specifically about that. So that is around when we start, like, fantasizing about Canada too. So we're already deciding like we're going to pull the rip

cord. We're going to like go all in on achieving fire. We can tell you more about that too, like how we did it, how we like put like the pedal to the metal with like side hustles and earnings and real estate. Yes, please. That'd be great. Let's let's say that first and then we'll go back to healthcare. We made a list. I'm like just looking at my notes over here. We made a list of all the crazy things we did to save money and earn extra money during that time. And some of the I'd like forgotten about. We started in 2017 to get into the world of Airbnb. We renovated our basement with a home equity loan. We're able to start that process pretty quickly. And while we were in the world of Airbnb, the Airbnb experiences model had just come out in our area. And so I was

the first Airbnb experience in the Asheville area doing brewery tours by canoe. So there is, there's a side hustle for you. That was a great experience. It's fun. You can only do that for a couple of years before you get worn out. But it was a great way to, in the summertime, to have a side hustle and make some extra money. Yeah, a canoe is not a motor vehicle. So that's perfect, right, for that type of experience.

Yeah, we'd meet them. They would canoe, like, because we kept seeing in, like, outside magazine and all these, like, travel blogs, like, you can go to Asheville and you can canoe from brewery to brewery, but we're big canoers. And we know, like, sure, you could do that. but it's not actually that obvious. It's not like there's a big sign with a takeout that says, here's where you pull off to go to New Belgium

or Sierra Nevada or like whatever. So we knew, like, people really want to do this, and it's not actually obvious how to do it. So we got, like, a fleet of used canoes. We, like, employed a bunch of his friends to help us out. And we, like, would bring it. So at this point, like, our son is already, like, a toddler, and we would, like, bring him with us to, like, run the shuttle.

So people meet, they canude all these breweries, and then they have to Uber back. So it's like up to them. But this was like crazy profitable. Like we were making like $2,500 a weekend doing that. That was just a way of saying, wow, we can really do this. I mean, I think that's when our entrepreneurial energy started to really take off. And we were able to through Airbnb's help to kind of really engage in some meaningful side hustles. Hold on because I want to hear more about this $10,000 a month side hustle that you

have $2,500 a weekend is $10,000 a month. That is your profit after paying your friends, or that's what's all coming in and then you have to pay your friends? We've probably paid our friends 30% of that. Yeah, it depends. Every trip you run was like... You get the money. The hundred, like in the hundreds. So it's really depending. How hard was I willing to work on a given weekend? Like, is it a holiday weekend? Are we running like six trips a day? And with having our friends, we could do simultaneous trips. But yeah, I would say like the max that we would net in a month was like 10,000. Yeah, it was wild. And that we were funneling into real estate. Like, we're not spending any of that. Did you sell that business when you were done with it?

So this is like the pros and cons of doing this through Airbnb experiences. If you, like, I would recommend this for anyone in the fire community, if you're like, kind of want to start a business and you are like charismatic and you're like, I could run a fun, like, bar crawl trivia thing, which we actually thought about doing too at the time. We've had friends do it with other things like stand up paddleboarding on a lake or like, I'm going to take you like on a comedy tour. It's cool because there's almost no upfront like marketing or planning you have to do. They get you the customers. You're not doing any marketing, but you don't really own the business. Like you can't actually like scale it or advertise it differently. So we ended up, like, after we moved to Canada, we, like, leased all the canoes to a friend of ours.

And he kept running the business just under our name and, like, giving us a cut every month. But it's easy to get started, but, like, Airbnb technically owns it. So there's pros and cons. Worth looking into, though. And we hear this so often, and not every story, but many stories of these small businesses that seem like kind of wacky or some, like, lucky, someone we'll call it or whatever. Like we had a teacher recently that makes $4,000 a weekend a couple times a year doing wedding photography, right? And it's like, what is that for you?

And you're not going to discover that overnight. It's going to take many years and you're going to kind of find that opportunity potentially where that comes into your life. And I think you have to seize it, right? You had the formula of saving from your day jobs and following a tax advantage retirement planning strategy. And you had the events, the extra boosts on top of that with this. And I think that the power of hitting even worse.

One winner with an income stream over a lifetime is that mental freedom that it brings to you, like, oh, I can do this. I'm not, I'm not as dependent on my job as I otherwise would have been. And it sounds like that's what you guys went through with this experience. Yes, Scott. I mean, that was the energy that we needed to see the proof of the theoretical right fire idea. And once we started doing that, then it was much easier to, I don't know, rent out a camper van. Bada used road trek camper van and rented it on outdoorsy and like RV share, which was ridiculously profitable. Like the van paid for itself like I think within the first or second summer.

And then we sold it for what we bought it for to begin with. We just started like renting like everything, renting out our canoes, renting out our basement, renting out our van. Our neighbors made fun of us because I guess there's like a Portlandia skit around then. It's like, rent it out. Rent out everything you own. And I was like, that's you. You guys are Commodore. at this point on your journey, right? Like, is that the title that you adopt with your friends and family?

We'll take it. Yeah, this is around the time that people start thinking we're weird. Yeah. Definitely. This is around the time they start thinking you're weird. This particular time in your timeline. Spoiler, they thought it before. Yeah, for sure.

Because, like, we're becoming the people who are like, we're biking everywhere. We're, like, not buying new things. like we're like super, super frugal. And they're already like, what are you doing? Like, why are you working like multiple jobs? But like you also like seem like you're really broke. Also, like you own this nice house and like what? And also now you have mentioned that you want to move to Canada.

Like this is and this is where we're like, let's talk about it. Because we're super into this thing called fire. And there's all these great books we read and these podcasts. And it's like crickets. No one wants to talk to us about this. No one is excited about like, oh, how can I start a side hustle and how can I like, like, quit my job in a few years? Because I'm like, like, around this time, a lot of our friends like start starting families and getting pregnant too. One reason we were like really excited about coming on this show is we got so much out of like the podcast community and just hearing other people's stories that we're like, yeah, we could share our story.

At least Scott and Mindy will talk to us. The attempt to oscillatize for me were not taken warmly by all friends and family during my similar phase of my journey as well. So I don't I don't feel like there. So luckily we had a podcast that we started nine years ago. So I get to talk about this all the time. That was my outlet. Yeah. What I like is those same people are now like, you quit your jobs.

How did you do it? Well, do you remember how I wanted to talk to you about it in the past and you didn't want to hear it? Yeah. When we did quit our jobs, there was a lot of skepticism around that. So I guess I'll share like real quick, we were doing. Yeah, real estate. We bought another house, bought another, like, small, like, fixer-upper. Airbnb beat it. It's a long-term rental now. So we're Airbnb in our basement. So at this point, we have, like, four or five houses. Bought a triplex, which is what we live in now. Did you live in all of the properties or were any one, any of them purchased as rentals outright? They were all purchased as rentals. Although we, every time we've bought a place, it's with like multiple exit strategies in mind. Like, would I ever personally be okay?

living here if that is what we needed to do. Could you Airbnb? Could you long-term rent it? Could you sell it again in the future? And they're geographically close. So we have actually lived in all of these homes at one time or another based on, you know, who's moving in, who's moving out, you know, what can we do to maximize this? That's true. We actually have lived in all of them at this point. Yeah. So how many properties are we talking about here? It was three single families and a triplex. And then we've since then sold one of the single families. So now we live in one of the units of the Triplex and have two other single families. One is a short-term rental because it's like right on a river near a university.

And it's like wonderful for fishing and for like people visiting their kids who are in college. So it just does really well as an Airbnb. And the other is a long-term rental. And we transitioned most of them to long-term. We just found it. We found it easier day-to-day. we found that the financial outcome wasn't that different. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, so the monthly to you after, you know, paying all that's short-term rental stuff is essentially the same. But the hassle and headache is a lot more with a short-term rental. Yeah. We find that to be true. I mean, when you factor in cleaning fees and, you know, customer service. Customer service emergencies, right?

You know, when the pipes freeze on Christmas Eve at an Airbnb, that's a funny story. But, you know, these are the kinds of things that, especially when you decide to move internationally, you can't have a lot of that emergency scenarios happening when you're living in another country. Yeah. And it's a funny story now. It wasn't a funny story at the time. Oh, no. Right. Walk us through this transition point. Let's actually hear what happened here. So you've work in these jobs. You've done great habits for a long time. You've built up a substantial net worth. I'm a gathering kind of like a lean fire number, excluding your real estate and your side business. has been accomplished. Is that, is that right? And this is like 2018 or 2019? So yeah, baby's born in 2016. Then we're like really pushing on fire up until 2019. He quits first. So Sam quit his job first. It was just like a good time to transition out of his job because of some other things that

were happening at the business at the time. I also had like just become the executive director at this nonprofit and felt some responsibility to like give an enormous amount of notice and like be part of the transition and finding a new director. And like I still like love and work with a lot of these people. So I was like, I was like, I need to give it another year. So when he quit in 2019, the net worth was around 800,000. And that's a mix of property appreciation and investments. And I was 35 at that at that time. And friends gave him a really hard time for quitting because he had like a pretty good job. Neither of us ever had super high salaries. Like I think you were at your job for like a decade and your salary probably ranged from like what.

I never got above 65. Yeah. Well, with bonuses maybe like 80 or 90. I think there was one year around 70, but I think that's about as good as it got with the bonuses. Yeah. Yeah. So that job was like, okay, there's not a lot of like you're not going to suddenly have a super high salary. you might as well, someone's got to quit and like do like cooking and cleaning and like being

home with our toddler more. So that immediately helped. How much were you making at this time, Carolyn? Like low six figures. Like like I think I got hired into the job at the nonprofit. And it's, it's like a public health nonprofit. So like, you know, no one goes into public health for the money. So I think like 80 something when I was hired. And then by the time I became the executive director, it was like me like 115, which for public health felt extra. like that's the most I've ever made. Yes. Okay, so you were making like 180-ish when Sam quit.

What was your net worth or how close to FI were you when he left? So by the time he quit, yeah, net worth was about 800,000 and we knew that like he could do this canoe work in the summer. He left on really amicable terms with his job and ended up doing like making videos for Yeah, videography, just sort of switched from technology. to marketing in some strange way. But yeah, there was the side hustles just increased. I mean, the canoe business, you know, we hired more of our friends, videography,

renting out the vehicle, you know, just continuing to hustle on that end. And it was great. It became my full-time job, the side hustles. And I honestly think as far as earnings, I mean, we were doing okay even without my full-time job. Yeah, the side hustles probably replaced your full-time income. And that was the point where, he quit. Friends and family gave us a really hard time because they were like, he had a really good

job. And like, does he seriously think he's going to be this like Airbnb entrepreneur? Like, that's probably like a fad. Like they could shut down tomorrow and your income is completely dependent on this one company. And that's when we were like, yeah, but this is short term. The idea is that we've amassed so much in investments and real estate income that he won't need it. much longer, and then we will just, like, live off of our investments in real estate income, and that's when we, like, lost them. Yeah, we lost in there. They were like, that doesn't sound real, but we also have no follow-up questions.

Thinking back to the time when I was an employee, right? Like, at, and before I joined Bigger Pockets or became a CEO, it seems impossible to earn this, like, additional income or, like, run these side hustles successfully. But then, like, once, you know, as years go by, and at Bigger Pockets is different because I was so, like, it was such a startup vibe at that point. So you're like, oh, let's try this. Let's try this. Let's try this.

And over time, though, you get so comfortable with the ideas of like, oh, there's an opportunity to make money. There's an opportunity to make money. There's an opportunity to make money. Where's the risk reward? It's almost like lower risk as you train your brain over time to be like, yeah, if I wanted to, I could make much more than I could as an employee with this combination of side hustles. And yet that sounds so preposterous to somebody who's very specialized skill set that's

been working at one thing for their entire career. It doesn't seem possible or practical or reasonable in there. And it sounds like that's what you went through. And those discussions, you got that, what are you talking about? That's absolutely crazy. Total mindset change. And we couldn't have done it without just the constant conversation and like communication about changing that mindset. It really is working at a full-time company is a habit-forming thing.

And it's just getting out of those habits of just a nine to five routine and thinking outside the box that we needed every bit of our spare time. to just think through it and talk about it. And like I think maybe it's like Paul Pant has a really good way of describing, like, disconnecting like the working for money correlation and like just having a total mindset shift with this like passive income and this idea that like your time spent working on something and the returns don't need to be like a linear correlation. You can create these like passive income streams. So at this time our obsession is like,

like, oh, I forget who coined this. It was either like the mad scientist or Mr. Money Mustache, but like building a wealth machine, like a money machine. Like at this time, we're like, I have it in my head that we're building this giant, like, machine of like passive income streams, real estate, investments. And that it's this like, I'm picturing like how it was moving castle. At a certain point, it will be built enough that we'll both step back. So he stepped.

And that's what you did in 2020. Yeah. So that's what we did. So in 2019, he stepped back. And then I. I kept working a little longer. And this is around the time that we start fantasizing about like, well, what are we going to do when we quit? It was just like, I don't know, like have a margarita and spend more time with our baby and like start to like enjoy each other's company again.

So that's when we were like, we should just move somewhere. Where should we move? And we start looking at like Dubrovnik and like Costa Rica. Oh, I got obsessed with this like commune in Costa Rica. And I sent it to a friend with mine who was like, that is a cult. That helped the family discussion around this being normal, right? Yeah, so then, yeah, we're getting deeper and deeper in this weirdo hole in like in everyone's minds. That's a cult and you're already in a cult.

Yeah, I can only do one cult at a time. But the geo-arbitrage thing as also something that was floating in our minds and the idea of moving out of the country didn't seem so bizarre, having listened to all the podcasts about that kind of thing. Yeah. So we were like, okay, we could move like somewhere if it's more like climate. climate resilient came up in our heads. So we're looking at all these towns we could live in. And then it occurred to us, well, if we're going to move anyway, let's move to a place that by living there, you could get dual citizenship.

That's when like the Canada idea came up. We're like, there's so many cool towns in Canada. Let's just pick one. And we can drive there. So it's not a huge, huge deal for our moving back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. And then if you go to Canada, you could get dual citizenship and they have free health care.

And that's around the time that I wrote to y'all back in like 2000. Oh, I forget. 21 or 20, 20, yeah. No, it would have been before I quit. So I think I wrote to you all in 2019 and was like, hey, there's all these episodes on like healthcare. Our two biggest expenses post-fire, because we're like months from quitting our jobs, are about to be healthcare and preschool.

Those are like massive expenses. And, you know, Canada does both for free. So like, how come I've never heard anywhere in the fire community people strategically moving to Canada? And I think Scott wrote back and was like, well, because that sounds complicated and do you actually want to live in Canada? When someone says I'm going to move to Canada, my first thought is, oh, look at all those balmy warm beaches Canada has. Like, I'm very sensitive to super, super cold and Canada can get a little chilly. And that's why we're back in the States. I'm looking at this email now. I forgot about it. Yeah. A couple of items pop into my mind. This is 2019. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through the citizenship process for Canada with the primary motivation being free health care and preschool. Do you have other reasons for moving to Canada? Or are those the primary concerns? And then two, how do you plan to occupy your time? I didn't see entrepreneurship or other pursuits listed. I don't think that was in the email. I didn't have this discussion. Yes, your questions were like, oh, those are actually really good questions? How are we going to occupy our time in Canada while attempting to get some.

citizenship. Develing snow. Yeah. And then six years later, on Friday, October 17th, I get a follow-up from you guys. That was awesome. That was so great. Thank you. Well, because I think at the time in 2019, I was like, oh my God, Scott wrote back, Scott wrote back. And then I was like, oh, I don't think he really thinks the Canada idea is like a slam dunk. And then I was like, oh, I actually feel really embarrassed because I don't have a

good answer to how we're going to occupy our time other than not what we're doing right now, which now there's so, much more content in the fire community about like you're retiring into the life you want, not out of a life you don't want. But at the time we were just like, it just has to be not this. Like I don't care. I don't even care what town we're living in in Canada. It just has to be not my current life. And, you know, interestingly enough, I mean, the question, what are you going to do to occupy your time really got us spinning? And for me, I said, you know what? I got a bachelor's degree in religious studies. I've always really admired that work. Maybe I could

switch from technology to theology someday. And that is exactly what I did. Once I was in Canada and a resident there, oh my gosh, the education is top-notch and so inexpensive. I just got an Ivy League level theology education and a degree while I was in Canada. So just, yeah, that answered that question. Education.

Hopefully our son, who will be a person, can experience an inexpensive education too. So there's benefits, I mean, to, you know, to that. And it took like a year after quitting your job to decide that. He took a whole year of just like, I'm just going to like be a dad and I'm going to get my health back in order and I'm going to enjoy being with my wife. And then all of that space to like think made him realize I miss theology. I love reading and writing about theology.

I'm going to go back and get a master's. at McGill, which is like one of the best schools in Canada, and he got to go there for like basically free. One thing I want to call out here is at that time, we did not have the enhanced premium tax credits, right, for Obamacare. ObamaCare was in place, so there was subsidies you could get for health care, but that was not in place. And so what I want to point out here is, I'm going to share my screen for a second. I've been modeling around with this because I'm a huge nerd on ACA, so I've got this like whole retirement optimizer calculator that I'm building here. And one of the problems that you were much more in tune with than I was when I asked that question back to you

was, you know, from a healthcare perspective is this is a really real problem. The health care premiums start high in America right now, but they go higher. Obamacare allows insurance plans to, and it depends on your state, but in North Carolina, this is particularly true, to charge more for age, up to three times more for older people versus younger people, as that is one of the number one correlates to health to claims. And so your health insurance premium unsubsidized might go from like 16,000 age 45. And I'd have to go back and do this for a 35 year old to map to your situation. But it will go up to like 34,000 more than doubling by the time you reach 64 and, you know, or shortly before you're eligible for Medicare. Was this part of your analysis? Were you aware of this

like sliding scale of like how much healthcare was going to increase in costs for you when you asked me that question and did this candidate? Or was it just, were you just looking at the sticker price for the current number and making your decision based on that? I think we were just looking at the sticker price for the current number, the sticker price for preschool were like our two big things. And then just knowing that like we just love the idea of having dual citizenship. So we hadn't gone that far into it. I think that would have pushed us even further into that camp. That move you made, despite my, my questions, which I think probably were like, that seems like a lot of trouble to go to at that point in time,

seems to really have ensured your situation forever in there. It seems like an absolutely brilliant and wonderful move you've made. Thank you. Yeah. It was an enormous amount of work. It was expensive, I mean, to go through the process and the paperwork and the time that it took. And so convoluted. So I think we can share case this is like interesting for folks.

So this is around like 2019. I'm like about to quit. And we're getting all of this like paperwork in order for applying for Canadian permanent residency. The specific program we did, which I think is, like, uniquely of interest to fire people, is called the Express Entry Federal Skilled Worker Program. The reason it's, like, particularly good for fire is you can move to Canada as a permanent resident with, like, you're a permanent resident upon entry once you're accepted, without having to have a job or education lined up.

If you're about to quit your job anyway, you just need to physically be in Canada, And you have access to, it's like having a green card here, I guess, essentially. What does federal skilled worker mean? Does that mean you're a federal worker in America going to Canada or you're a federal worker in Canada? That's, it's a kind of a weird title. You're not a federal worker in either place. It's a federal program to attract skilled workers. Oh, okay.

So the idea, and this is like why a lot of, I think, fire people would be eligible. It's, I feel like some parts of this are actually a little bit like, messed up, but it's a points system where if you have a high education, you're relatively young, you have a good career history, you're basically showing that you're a very desirable person that will likely contribute to the economy of Canada. They will fast track you becoming a permanent resident, and then you don't have to have a job to show up because they're assuming you seem like the kind of person who's going to be able to get a job when you get here. And you have to prove that you speak either English or French. You have to prove before you show up that you have

enough money in the bank to support yourself for at least a few months, like presumably while you're looking for a job in Canada. And a bunch of other things. Like there was so much paperwork. We had to drive to Alabama to take an English test to prove that we speak English. We had to drive to South Carolina to get fingerprinted. And we had to drive to Raleigh to get a chest x-ray. Yeah. We had to drive to Raleigh to get TB test chest x-rays to, I guess to, like, prove that we're not just trying to sneak into Canada with TB. It was like months. But we had time. We had the time to do it. That was the beauty of fire. You said it was expensive. What kind of money are we talking about here? Gosh, I can't remember the exact amounts, but like you have to pay for the English test. You have to pay

for the TV test. You have to pay. These can't be more than like hundreds of dollars, though, what you just said, right? Like, oh no. I think like in the like all said and done with like all of the different like fees that you're paying to Canada, like in the like like less than 10,000 less than 10,000. It's less than your one year of of health insurance premiums in America. Yeah, I think daycare at the time was like 15,000 a year. And then you know, you're renting again. You're living in Canada, so you're renting, right? We didn't buy a property up there. We we were renting. So that, you know, that of course, I mean, we're in the middle of Montreal renting. So the lifestyle was expensive. It's not like moving to another country.

where the lifestyle expense is so much less. Canada is comparable to the U.S. And this feels like a huge, like, duh, in retrospect, they are able to offer these amazing amenities, these amazing things to their citizens, because they do charge more in taxes. So we thought what we're paying, we don't have jobs in Canada.

Our money's in the U.S., so, like, we won't have to be paying a lot of taxes there. Turns out you do have to pay Canadian taxes. taxes. And it's what you've already paid in the U.S., but what you would be in addition on top of that, like what they would have charged you. So you're not double paying, but you are paying the difference between what you should be paying there. So we have had to pay a fair amount. Like there's been the past few years where we owed almost nothing in the U.S. but still had to pay a few thousand to Canada. But it's still way less than what we got from like our son

broke his leg and went to the emergency room and was like in a wheelchair for like six months and we didn't pay a penny. It was worth it. Yeah, it was. So Canada has a progressive tax system as well. So I, I imagine that you're not realizing much income as a kind of very prototypical early retiree household, right? So this is, these are not much in the way of taxes. It's you said several thousand dollars. Oh yeah, maybe like three thousand dollars, not a lot. Yeah. How do Canadians feel about like this, this move like do you ever does this ever come up when when you're talking about hey what we're doing here and our folks do there any push back about hey you're coming in here and not paying into our system but getting all these benefits like is that is that ever come up as a discussion point um

we have a lot of Canadian friends who are all um they're extremely nice people no because we are because we are paying additional taxes by being there and I think um we kept a lot of um of our neighborhood restaurants afloat like we yeah we certainly kept the breweries in business and in in the Montreal downtown area. Yeah, we spent a ton. We were, in fact, like, we, because we had this, like, this money coming in from the U.S., and then we're spending all of it in Canada, we did have a couple of friends who were like, okay, like, cool, like, thanks for, like, pumping money into this economy.

I think it depends, like, who you talk to, but nobody begrudged it, us of it. Like, especially when we mentioned the health insurance, every single one of our friends in Canada is like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe. what you have to go through for health insurance in the U.S. We can't even picture that. Like, of course you want to come here. And I will say that, you know, once we started talking to them, they said, well, I've always heard about Americans moving to Canada, but now we've finally met one.

So that was a nice conversation to have. How much time do you have to spend in Canada to satisfy your residency requirements? Because I, you know, I joked about their balmy beaches, but it can get a little chilly up there. And you don't, you know, you said it was super. super cold. Can you come back and forth frequently? So this program we talked about, it's like fast-tracking you to become a permanent resident. Once you're a permanent resident, you have to spend a minimum of 1,095 days physically in Canada before you're eligible to apply for citizenship. Once you're a citizen, you don't ever have to come back if you don't want to. Like, you could be gone for a decade.

They're not going to revoke your citizenship once you have that Canadian sport. So we are like, close. We moved back to North Carolina before hitting the 1,095 days. So just means we get to travel to Canada this summer. Yeah, we're spending the whole summer in like Prince Edward Island area to top off that 1,095 days. And then that's when we qualify for citizenship. And then we don't like have to keep coming back and forth. Okay. And that 1,095 days is just three years. Within a five year window. Yep. Three years within a five year window. within a five-year-way. Okay, that is good to know. Going back to education and health care, real quick, what are you doing for your son for education right now? And what are you doing for

health care now that you're back in the States? He's nine now. So he's just like in a free public school. And he loves that. He loves our community. He loves his school. Like if he didn't, like, I would have to figure out like how to pay for a private school that he loved or like figure out how to homeschool him. But like, thankfully he is happy there. And, for health insurance, we were on the marketplace. And I think that, like, after the subsidies, we were paying, like, around, we got, like, the cheapest possible plan, like, 400 a month. Now he gets health insurance through work.

And for us to be on his plan was going to cost, like, way more than what we currently get with the subsidies. So right now, my son and I are still on a marketplace plan. It's currently at the moment still around, like, I think it's gone up to like 500 a month. So his is free through work. And I am kind of just like closing my eyes and like waiting to see what's about to happen with how much it's about to go up. It's about to go up probably a lot. And maybe we'll switch to his, which is going to it's going to at least double or triple.

Will your household be over that cliff, the FPL cliff, the federal highway line cliff based on on this or because I think my understanding is that the premium, it's only the enhanced premium tax credits for above that kind of 80 to, you know, I guess it's like. $70 or $80,000 for your household in North Carolina to be over that cliff and you'll still be eligible for the rest of the subsidies because you'll be under that. Is that right for you guys? It depends. So with like real estate income, like a lot of like a lot of that gets like reduced because we've done like a ton of renovations over the past couple of years. So that income has been pretty low on our taxes. He's making like in the 50s at his job. And then I'm also working part time. So we're going to be like right on the line. That's incredible how this cliff effect and how it creates unbelievable incentives.

I actually just this morning listened to the episode that came out today with, I think her name was Regina. Yes. And just this morning was like, oh, no, I need to start researching this more. I don't know how it's going to affect us yet and what that cliff is going to look like. I'd like to just say two quick things. First of all, well, I don't know if you want to say this where we are now in the net worth, because the fire police might say, well, we had to go back to our jobs. You know, your net worth must have decreased.

Oh, yeah. So for that to be, I think that's relevant. By the time I quit in 2020, the net worth it was around like 1.1 million and I was 33. And we thought like, oh, we can be crazy frugal. Like, that's plenty. And I think now I heard you in a recent, I don't know how recent the episode was, but you said like 1.8, like 2.5 is kind of the range people think of these days. Back then, I was looking at like Mr. Money Mustache level frugality as the goal. So now, like, coincidentally, our net worth just hit 1.8. So I guess the fire police could say, like, well, no, you're only just, you only just now made it. So he could quit.

I could quit. Then our income would be like zero. Like, we could then, like, move back to can. Like, there's a lot of things we could do. Like, you know, we've, you know, like, would be happy living in our RV down by the river. Like, we have a lot of choices if, like, things go haywire. So do you call what you're doing right? now, retirement? I think you refer to it as an optional post-retirement career, which in theology

is actually super, like a lot of the people. Second career people. He works a lot of second career people. He's just 40 years younger than most of them. Like semi-retired priests. And I'm like, yeah, working with my friend and it's a startup, so it might work out, it might not. I think that people miss that this, like, this is the point I'd call what you guys are doing retirement. That's what I call it. audit and the fact that you've found something that pays as well doesn't invalidate that. And I think that that's what really makes people's heads explode. Is they're like, doesn't not retirement?

He's working a full-time job. She's doing part-time work. Well, you also skied for six years in between and got a theology degree, we know, while raising a young son. That's retirement. That's what that word means to me, at the very least. And I certainly won't go on the rest of my life, not earning another dollar in an early retirement. That's not that's not the plan there. It is absolutely the removal of the requirement

to earn dollars. And then guess what money nerds will take more if that aligns with the interests that we want to do in a general sense. I think that's the confusion of fire and that term retirement is they, people have a really hard time attaching that word to what you guys are doing. But I think is, which I think is actually fairly common among many people in the fire community. From my perspective in theology, there's something deeply liberative and you might even say spiritual about fire when you can remove yourself from the constraints of money and you can you can get out of that situation it will free you to do the things that you know in in the faith that we're called to do so i think it's it's really important to say that that this not only is a is a great strategy for

early retirement but what it allows you to do is to just get out of the trap focus on the things that really matter to you and in my case that's you know that's the Christian faith. It's helping other people. And I think that's just been just really wonderful. And I'm so grateful to people like you for helping us along the way. To the internet retirement police that are listening to this episode, you can email Sam and Carolyn at tell somebody else at we don't care.com. Yeah. Like if we wanted to, we could both quit right now and go back to that beach in Acomal and like keep eating tacos and like drinking dos Eccas. But like we feel very fulfilled. Like we live near his parents, our siblings are nearby. All of our nieces and

nephews are nearby, which is super important to us to like be a big presence as aunts and uncles. Our kid's an only child. So for him to grow up in your family is really important. Gosh, it does feel like we're retirees. Yeah. Thanks for telling them reminding us about that. Yeah, that's partly why we wanted to come on the show because we were like, wait, did we mess up? Like, we forgot to do a Roth conversion ladder. And we like, I don't. I don't. don't feel like we're like mismanaging. Oh yeah, you messed up. Sorry. No, we're just going to erase all of this episode now because you didn't do a Roth conversion letter. I have done zero Roth conversion ladders at this point in time. I've done 072 T's. I still work. I could be

fine. My husband calls himself FI. He calls himself wife FI because I still work and then we don't have to withdraw anything from our retirement accounts. What do I say personal finances personal? So if your retirement, in air quotes, to satisfy the internet retirement police who really need to get a life, if your retirement includes work, great. You're still retired because you can choose to work or choose to not work. And this is how you choose to spend your time. And I think it's awesome. Yeah. And I love it. Like, I'll just, just to like, just brag on him. Like, we've been married for, I don't know, we've been together like almost 20 years. And I've never been like more proud of him. Like he just, the work he does, like, like, consoling people who are grieving and, like,

checking in with people who don't have enough food to eat and, like, looking out for kids who are in families who are going through something really hard. Like, he's doing amazing work. And I don't know, like, I've just never been more proud of him. And you're in public health during a really hard time. So, kudos to you. So I think, like, he's living his best life. And I've never been more in love with him that his version,

of what retirement looks like is like serving the community at a local church. I just, oh my God, that's so sweet. Like, yeah, like, you know, we did the margaritas on the beach and that he's like, this is how I want to spend my life. It's just amazing. I'm just, I don't know. I just won the husband lottery. Wow.

Okay. Take her. Goodness gracious. All right. It's a boot's time. We take another break here. We'll be back in a minute after this. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full

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boat and we're back now to talk more Canadian fire. Did you guys significantly draw down on your core financial portfolio during this early retirement period? Or was there enough income coming from rental properties or other sources in a general sense to really obviate the need to sell much of your kind of core equities, the core positions in your portfolio? Yeah, that's a good question. We didn't really get into the details of our like decumulation. I, I guess, long story short, the first year, like, 2020 to 2021, we were just, like, living off of, like, post-tax, like, brokerage accounts and then the rental income. And then we were going to start doing some more, like, complicated drawdowns from investments, but we ended up selling one of the houses because, like, it had just appreciated so much, but had also kind of started to become a headache to manage for a variety of reasons. rent was it was it was not the 1% rule ideal it was not the ideal situation it was like the house was so

nice that you could only rent it to like really rude fancy people like um so we sold that house and then have basically been living off the proceeds of the sale of that house and then those are now like running out and that's the point where i was like oh i forgot to do the roth conversion ladder because that's when this would be coming in i meant to start that five years ago There's almost like a like a like if you could go back, you would have taken this tax, tax free capital gain, use that low income year to do a bunch of Roth conversions and then started withdrawing from that point. And that opportunity was missed to a certain degree. But it clearly did not blow up your your whole plan here. Yeah, it's fine. We had a lot of like really low income years and we should have done the Roth conversions in those years. Now that he is working and I'm working part time, we're actually about to meet with um, is it tangerine or nectarine? The financial. nectrine. It sounds like that's almost like a great like, that's almost like a great plug for financial

planning. Like if there was a financial planner that knew what was going on here and you'd had that relationship that it sounds like that could have like you actually made a several tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands dollar difference over a long period of time. So yeah, better late than never to get like

a good plan in order. You know, we have I'm 38 and he's 42. So if all goes well, you know, we've got another like 50 or 60 years. So, you know, we need to like get a good plan in place. I love it. I think that's a great place to wrap up the journey here. You guys sound like you're doing so phenomenally well. Thank you guys so much for reaching out all those years ago and then following up six years later. And thank you. Because we couldn't have done it without fire. And that's why I emailed again because it was this like

episode where you were like, oh, people are like, fire is dead and like fire doesn't work anymore. And why should you even pursue fire? And you sounded kind of sad about it. And I was like, I got to reach out and say, Scott and Mindy, thank you so much. Like the fire community, all of this information changed our lives. We went from being like middle class trap, like miserable parents with a baby, to like, he's just doing this amazing work now. And that's why I wrote again to you guys just to be like, FYI, things turned out great. And it's thanks to you. Thank you so much. And whoever's listening, I've gotten a number of emails like this over the years, and I try to respond to every single email. I've probably missed a few over them over the years there. But if I've ever responded

and, you know, it's just such a joy to hear a follow-up a few years later in there, or to hear if something's not going well and if there's an issue there, that none of this is financial or legal advice. It's all entertainment purposes only or questions that I pose typically. But it's just so great to hear back from that. So please email me at Scott at biggerpocketsmoney.com. It's my new email address. I'm Scott at BiggerpocketsMoney.com. If we've ever conversed, I'd love to hear an update out there. And thank you so much, Sam and Carolyn, for doing that here. And for any listeners who are on the fence about coming on the show, it was so much fun. And it forced us to, like, get all of our, like, current finances in order and write down our story, which was something we'd been meaning

to do. So, like, huge plug for coming on the show if you're thinking about it. All right, Sam and Carolyn, thank you so much for your time today. This was a really fun story. I heard a lot of aspects of my own, mirrored in yours, and a lot of aspects of other people's FI journey mirrored in yours. And I'm so thankful that you had time to come on the show and share with us. Is there any place people can find you online? We're not actually super online, but I would say if you want to find us anywhere, come support the economy in Western North Carolina. It was hit really hard by Hurricane Helene, but it is open for business now. Come shop, you know, Western North Carolina, local businesses. But no,

we're not like really online we don't have a blog getting a canoe and go find a brewery yeah that sounds like a lot of fun really i'll connect with you so you can be my brewery guide okay thank you again so much and we will talk to you soon thank you thank you all right that was sam and caroline and that was a really fun story scott i have never heard of anybody going to canada for dual citizenship as a way to hedge against our health care costs here in America. But as you and I have been covering, healthcare costs in America are going up. The Senate has decided not to extend the additional tax credits that people in the fire community were taking advantage of. So this is going to be a real concern for a lot of people.

I really enjoyed this story. I love their FI journey. It's, it's reminiscent of so many other people's FI journeys. Spend less than you earn, invest intelligently, and, you know, look towards the future. I'm so amazed that they did it, right? Like, they, they've emailed me and, you know, I can tell from my email. I was like, I don't know about moving to Canada. That's pretty hardcore commitment to fire. But it worked for them. They've lived their best life for the last six years, and I hope a lot more people do those things.

I think it's still too much for me to consider doing. I'm a homebody and, like, being here in Colorado. I like my routine and where I'm at in my community. So I don't think I'm going to be doing that. And I'd rather, you know, I decided, you know, and I had the privilege of having the job at bigger pockets to build wealth that would allow me to just do that here. But I think it's going to be an option that will open more people's eyes to the power of geographic arbitrage.

I also want to call out that the mindset is so huge in the scenario. Again, I can relate to this so much as an employee starting out of my career. And then later on when I was earning higher income at my CEO job, it's very scary to contemplate doing these other things to earn additional income or even sometimes basic household maintenance or playing around with the systems in your property or those types of things. It can be a little hard to conceive of if you are a reasonably well-compensated employee who's been at it for a long time. That's your specialty.

That's what you're good at. And it's hard to imagine other ways to make money. But even if you just do it a little bit on the side on a part-time basis and you finally hit one thing that earns a little bit of income that's reasonably material to your situation, I think that flips the script for your brain for the rest of your life potentially that makes a lot of these things more accessible. And that's why I'm such a big believer and such a big proponent of these side hustles of trying to get that entrepreneurial itch scratched alongside your core journey to fire where you are going through all the best practices from a tax

advantage account perspective. Because I think it will open your mindset and it'll make you feel able to do what Sam and Carolyn did here on their journeys much, much earlier in life. And even if it doesn't get you retired at 32 or retired at 30, it will still get you so much more as a person who is understanding your financial situation, who is working towards this goal. I would encourage people who are like, oh, they did it when they were so young. That's not relevant to me. Listen to the rest of the story because the story has so many lessons that you can teach.

And it's so similar to so many other stories that I've heard. One last thing I got to call out here because we just didn't talk about it enough is when they aligned on the vision for their life and aligned around the goal of five. I think that's something that is so powerful is to just have some kind of artifact something written down that says here's what we want in life that describes it you know there's a there's a template for this at bigger pockets money.com slash resources if you want to use ours but like it can be a piece of paper it can be a word document just type that out with your significant other you know in a

setting where you're both proactive you know happy and excited and I think that will just have to be such a powerful simple exercise to align on on goals like fire or some variation of it that accompanies, you know, building wealth and living the best life that you want to live in the next couple of years. I think it's, I think, so overlooked and that was so powerful. That was, I think, a huge catalyst for their journey that we didn't discuss deeply enough. Yeah, Scott, your goal setting document is fantastic. Carl and I are still working on it because it takes a lot of thought. We know what we want, but actually articulating it can take a little bit more than just, you know, oh, this,

this is how I want my life to live. And we're on the same page. And it, I think it's a really powerful document, even if you're, you know, especially if you're not on the same page, get yourselves aligned together because having somebody, having a partner on this journey makes it so much easier than having an adversary on this journey. That's again, just free to download. You don't have to give us your email address or anything. We would welcome you to give us your email address So if you want to get an update every week from us, but that's at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash resources. You can just download that either in a PDF or as a Google Doc.

Oh, hey, Scott, if our listeners would like to improve their financial situation, that document is part of the 31-day DIY financial challenge. So Scott and I put together 31 days of free emails that we send to you every single day, giving you a task to work on your finances so that you can get a better handle on your finances and elevate them to the next level. And you can sign up for that email challenge at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash 31 days. Mindy's being very generous here with this bigger pickerbocketsmoney.com slash 31 days. The number three, the number one days. Mindy put this together. This is a really incredible resource and plan here. I have not completed all of the steps in the 31 day challenge

personally. So I look forward to actually getting my personal finances in SAPE here, like I host a podcast on personal financial responsibility as part of this challenge myself. So thank you for putting this together, Mindy. I'm looking forward to it personally here. And if you're listening to this later down the road, you can still go to biggerpocketsmoney.com slash 31 days and sign up and it'll automatically start. All right, Scott, should we get out of here? Let's do it. That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.

He is Scott Trench. I am Indy Jensen saying, cheers, dears. Thank you.