BiggerPockets Money Podcast - Mr. Money Mustache’s Simple Secret to Retiring Early in Your 30s

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Pete Adeney, aka Mr. Money Mustache, joins BiggerPockets Money hosts Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench to break down the shockingly simple math behind early retirement. The man who started the FIRE movement and retired at 30 reveals why most people are overcomplicating financial independence—and why your savings rate is literally the only number that determines when you can quit your job. Pete doesn't just share theory—he walks through the real strategies, investment decisions, and mindset shifts that allowed him to achieve financial freedom in his thirties. Whether you're new to FIRE or looking to optimize your current approach, this episode cuts through the noise to deliver the foundational principles that actually work. This Episode Covers: The one metric that determines your entire FIRE timeline Why saving 50% gets you to FI in just 17 years (and the math behind it) How Pete retired at 30 and what his portfolio looked like The psychology of frugality and why it's actually liberating Pete's current thoughts on real estate investing for FIRE His take on Bitcoin and alternative assets in a FIRE portfolio Common FIRE mistakes that derail people's progress Why your income level matters less than you think Practical strategies for increasing your savings rate immediately The mindset shifts that make extreme saving sustainable And SO much more!00:00 The Basics of Early Retirement 01:02 The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement 01:21 Understanding Your Savings Rate 05:41 Pre-Tax Savings and 401k Considerations 11:06 The 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate 13:09 Seven Levels of Safety in Early Retirement 28:44 The $50,000 Earner 31:51 Raising Kids on a Budget 35:17 Health Insurance in Early Retirement 41:39 Real Estate as a Retirement Strategy 46:41 Bitcoin and Speculative Investments 51:19 Connect with Mr. Money Mustache Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if I told you your early retirement timeline comes down to just one number? Not your salary, not your investment returns, not even how much debt you have. Just one single factor that most people completely ignore. Today, we're going back to the basics on how you can fast track your fire journey. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me as always is my has a mustache but isn't Mr. Money Mustash co-host, Scott Trent. Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here stumbling along on our journey to financial independence. We are so excited to be joined today by Pete Adeny, but you probably know him as Mr. Money Mustache on our podcast once again. Welcome to the show, Pete. Thanks. I think I've been here before, so it's great to be back. Well, welcome back, Pete. It's lovely to see you again, even though I see you frequently because we live in the same town. And that's a privilege. It is a privilege. Longman is the best town in the universe. And I've lived in a lot of them so I can say that with confidence. All right, Pete, you have

have boiled down early retirement to what you call the shockingly simple math. For people that are hearing this for the first time, what's the one number that determines when they can retire? One number. Well, if we were going to make an actual number, I guess it would be the number 25. But the point of that article that we're talking about here, the shockingly simple math behind early retirement, is that the only thing that matters is your savings rate as a percentage of your take-home pay.

So in other words, your earnings is one side, your spending is the other side, but how much of your earnings are you keeping? And if you are consistent in your behavior as you save for retirement and then after retirement, then all that really matters is what percentage of your money can you save. And that's what determines how long your mandatory working career has to be. I refer to this all the time because it's the basis for any calculation for how long one has to work and the work begins here. And I think that as the years have passed, and this community around the financial independence, retire early world has swelled, people have both taken this too literally and not seriously enough.

And there's kind of an endless amount of debate and confusion about various components of this, when really the point is the more you save, you're going to shave decades at first and then extra years with every incremental bit of savings that you get out of it. Is that how you read it as well from your perspective? Yeah. And the real part is just to put a very simple and easy, target for people that's most valuable at the very beginning when you know nothing about retirement or finance or investing. And it's good to just know the basic rule. For example, if you're able

to save half of your take home pay, then your total working career works out to about 17 years. So if you started at 20, you'd be able to retire at 37, start at 30, it would be 47 and so on. And later you go on to realize like, oh, it is possible to save 50% of your income. It's just not common in the United States. It's kind of cool to know that a working career does not have to be 30 or 40 years, like everybody says. And just that realization alone is why I wrote that article long ago. It's from more than 10 years ago now because it just opens up a lot more possibilities that you can just have a lot more, you know, decades of freedom in your life than people assume. So I have the ability to hear people yelling at the radio as they're listening to this,

deriving to their job. And they're saying, but Pete, I make $50,000 a year. There's no way I can save 50% of my income. Yeah, right. And I would say, well, first of all, congratulations in being like in the top 1% of the world's population, probably, still even at 50,000 US dollars. And secondly, yes, it's possible to live in any amount of money. It gets more and more advanced the skills and adaptations you have to make. But you don't have to save 50%. You can save whatever works for you. That's number one. And number two, does anybody make more than $50,000 in this country? If so, maybe you can be one of them too. You know, things change over time. And that's the real thing. It's like the shockingly simple math is just the numbers that don't really lie. And then it's up to you

to decide where you want to play within that set of numbers. You know, we're not really accepting complaints on this. We're just telling you what your options are. Love it. And let's define a couple of variables in this. What do you mean by take home pay? Oh yeah, that's a good point. So the reason I put that is there's all this stuff that's like income taxes are the biggest thing. So if you have a $100,000 salary, at least several thousand or maybe even tens of thousands of that is going straight to the IRS. So we don't really count that in measuring your savings performance. So let's say you have 80,000 or 70,000 left after that. That's really the scorecard of what you're taking home. And then how much are you saving beyond that? So if you're saving 35,000 out of that 70,000 take home pay,

then you have a 50% savings rate. And the reason that I do it that way is because once you're retired, at least in the fire community, where we tend to focus on somewhat lower levels of post-retirement spending, the income tax burden is quite low. Like most people who are living on a retirement income income, like the amount that I spend, if I was only earning that amount, I wouldn't really be paying any income taxes. And I encourage people to do that. That's my personal philosophy because I like efficient living. If you want to be more in this fat fire community, which is what we call higher levels of spending, then you do have to account for more income taxes in retirement. And the math changes a little bit, but at the same time, you're living in such a

bath of money that the details matter less because, you know, you don't have to be very efficient when you have that much income to work with. Can you just for clarity explain how, you know, pre-tax savings like a 401k would work when calculating your take home pay? Yeah, that's a good Well, that becomes part of your take-home pay, like if you're not paying taxes on it. So if you have, let's go back to the $100,000 salary and then let's say you're allowed to put $20,000 into your 401K, whether it's an employer plan or some other fancier variety, that, of course, gives you a tax deduction. So then your remaining take-home pay might be an additional $60,000 beyond that.

So in that situation, you have $80,000 of take-home pay, but you're also saving a higher percentage of it, right? Because that 20K that went straight into your retirement account is already saved. You've saved 100% of that magic pre-tax money, and then you still have a bunch left over to save beyond. And then the math is going to work out that you're saving a huge percentage of you take home pay. I'll also just chime in that once we get there, a lot of people then worry about how do I get that money out of the 401k? That's something you can worry about later as you get towards early retirement. But if unless you are again, are in one of these super high income tax brackets in retirement, the fat fire world, really, it's not a problem.

in practice to actually convert that money either to a Roth or extract it from the 401k tax and in a low tax bracket and or penalty free at that point. Those are additional reasons that the community, I think, is built on this work and really, really found ways to make that very simple observation of accounts. Yeah, that's definitely true. And I get questions from people a lot like now, now that I'm doing a little bit of coaching on people that are like, how do I retire, can I really quit my job? I have all these savings. It turns out it's not a big deal. even if you have a lot of it in your locked up retirement accounts because they're not really locked up, there's always a way to get it out. There's both tax options and there's just the order of spending

options. Like if you have a bunch of money in a brokerage account or even if it's a savings account and then you cut your job off and you retire, then you can just use up all that other money first. And even if it takes you like through the ages of your 50s and then you hit zero right as you're like 60 years old, then surprise, surprise your other retirement accounts, then unlock for penalty-free withdrawals at that point. And then for the rest of your life, you know, you could just live off of the money that had been compounding all these decades while you were using up your previous savings. So there's always a way. And I just encourage people not to worry about these details too early. Just focus on getting the savings rate right for now. And of course,

mainly just enjoying your life while you're still young and make sure you are saving. And then there's always going to be a way to sort out the details later when you're spending that money down in your distant future. All right. We're going to take a shockingly simple and short ad break. Then we'll be back with more. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening.

That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your taxed refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward. It's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth,

and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch's subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool. that makes money management simple.

Use the code Pockets at monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at monarch.com code pockets. I love Matt, said no one ever. Nobody starts a business thinking, you know what would make this more fun? Calculating quarterly estimated taxes. But somehow, every small business owner ends up doing it. Your dreams of creating, selling, and growing

get replaced by late nights chasing receipts, juggling invoices, and wondering if that bad sushi lunch with Scott counts as a write-off. Change all that with Found. Found is a business banking platform built to take the pain out of managing money. It automatically tracks expenses, organizes invoices, and even preps you for tax season without you doing the heavy lifting. You can set aside money for business goals, control spending with virtual cards, and find tax

write-offs you didn't even know existed. It saves time, money, and probably a few years of life expectancy. Found has over 30,000 five-star reviews from owners who say, Found makes everything easier, expenses, income, profits, taxes, invoices even. So reclaim your time and your sanity. Open a Found account for free at Found.com. That's F-O-U-S-E. Nd.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by lead bank, member FDIC. Don't put this one off. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this

point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Leeners Stronger for fitness, the anxious generation for parenting perspective, and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful is 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. All right. We must ask you to join us back here on Bigger Pockets Money. I want to encourage people to run the numbers. Do these different scenarios. Don't just hear this and automatically dismiss it. Oh, I have to say 50%. That's a suggestion.

Just Google the shockingly simple math. And it will take you to this article and read the article. There's an amazing chart in there that shows you. If your savings rate is 5%, you have 6%. you have 66 years to work until retirement. If your savings rate is 45%, you have 19 years. If your savings rate is 85%, you have four years. And there's a bunch of numbers in between. Look at this information and see, you don't have to do 50%. Like you said earlier, Pete, you can choose your own adventure. Just realize what you're giving up. You are giving up more time at work than if you

were to save a little bit more. And it's shockingly simple and it's kind of exponential. So the first bit of saving you do is very valuable because if you save nothing, you're going to have to work forever, you know, or at least until Social Security or some pension or inheritance bails you out. And then even saving a little bit makes a huge difference, huge bit. And then it gets less and less important as you save more and more, which means you can relax more and more because it's not going to make much difference anyway.

But the problem is most countries, like including the U.S., we have a very, very low savings rate. something in the 5 or 10% rate. And that's why we end up with these perilously long careers where people are barely even able to go to work anymore because they've kind of signed up for such a mandatory career by saving so little when they were younger. There's one side of this, right, in terms of the math, the shocking simple math here, which is the savings rate is a percentage of your take-home pay. The other side of the equation, however, assumes a return rate, a real inflation-adjusted return rate. What do you use there and why do you use it?

I think I use something that was on the low side of the historical returns of a stock market after inflation, you know, like just the whole index. I'm scrolling through the footnotes at the bottom my article, but I think it was probably about 6% after inflation. I think it's 5%. Oh yeah, that's right. It's right at the bottom. It says assumptions. You can earn 5% investments returns after inflation during your saving years. So that's a little bit lower than the historical stock market returns because we don't want to assume a continued boom like we've had for the last 50 plus years. And if we do get it, you know, like when I wrote that article, it was something like 13 years ago. And surprise, surprise, we've had an even faster economic and stock market boom since then.

So people have earned more like 10% post inflation from their stock investments, which is why there's so many happy moustachians like retiring with twice as much as they expected. But once again, never assume the future it's going to be as, Rosie as the past because you won't have a safety margin. And then hopefully you'll get a positive surprise in the future as well. Can you briefly touch on the 4% safe withdrawal rate? Is that something you used personally? Yeah, built into this chart. I mean, I tried to make the chart as simple as possible, which is like, how much do I save? How long do I have to work? But there's like math hidden beneath all that. And it's like, I link to the equation. It's actually part of like Jacob Fisker's book where he like

breaks it down with all this math. But what it really means is that if you have a chunk of money that's invested in reliable long-term index funds and maybe some bonds as well, if you limit yourself to taking out just 4% of the value or the initial value of that chunk of money throughout your life, and it's going to fluctuate, but on average it's going to go up and it's also going to pay dividends and it will approximately never run out, you know, based on all the historical patterns of our country's economic growth, which means the stock market gradually going up. It's a pretty safe withdrawal rate, which is why it's called SWR or safe withdrawal rate. So to make that really simple, if you have $1 million and you shot off your switch of income and you say, I'm going to take $40,000

out next year from my first year of retirement. And then the next year, I'm going to index it for inflation. I'm going to give myself a little raise each year. I'm going to look up the consumer price index. Inflation was 3% this year. So I'm going to get like a 3% increase on my 40K. and you just blindly do that without even adjusting for anything, even that is pretty safe. And the reason we use that number is because there was a bunch of studies. The most famous one is called the Trinity Study. And a bunch of people have done backup research since then saying like, hey, 4% usually works out for a pretty long run.

And on top of that, people have a lot of safety margins. Like, you're going to get Social Security someday if you live in the U.S. And a lot of people get at least some inheritance from family members of parents as you get older. And by not including that in your 4% rule, those are your little additional safety margins. Oh, okay. You just use the word safety margin. You link to another one of your articles in your shockingly simple math article conveniently just above this chart that we're talking about. It's called it's all about the safety margin. And you have in there seven levels of safety. And I think this is something that is not talked about enough. People are constantly

worried about running out of money. Pete, have you ever known anybody who was early retired to have run out of money? No, everybody has tended to gradually have a bit more money than they expected for a variety of reasons. Some people keep earning income, which is like all of us have done in our post-fire years just because we still have energy to do stuff and some things make money. Some people have lived purely off of their retirement income, like the shirt I'm wearing, our friend Mark has been very disciplined saying, I am not going to earn money. I'm only going to work for free and I'm going to live off my portfolio. And even he has found too much. He had too much money in retirement, which just means he is more generous and has more fun than he had originally

forecast, which is not a big problem. It's pretty hard to run out of money if you follow a 4% rule type of approach. And that's because that approach is already pretty safe. And then there's these additional things that most people have like inheritances or pensions or social securities or income that tend to just pile up. And, you know, if you get to a million dollars of savings, fairly young in your life, chances are you're pretty good at money and managing your spending. So that's kind of a universal pattern. I want to just quickly run through these seven levels of safety because I think people don't realize this. Number one is primary income. Number two is backup income, index funds in a taxable account, something like that. Number three is optional part-time

work. Number four is 401K plans. Number five is Social Security like you mentioned. Number six is lifestyle flexibility. And I hear people that I know who are retired saying things like, oh, you know what, the stock market's down a little bit. Instead of not traveling at all or not doing anything at all, I'm just going to cut back a little bit. And then when we're having an upmarket again, I'll add those trips back in or I'll do the things back in. And work flexibility is the seventh level of safety. And I think that people aren't aware or aren't considering you can always go back to work. And that doesn't mean it has to be a full-time job. You can get some part-time job or just earn a little bit of income to help smooth out the bumps when the market

dips down. Yeah, absolutely. And the only problem is a lot of people remain overly conservative, both when they're saving for retirement and when they've already early retired. And I think they limit their fun and work a little bit too long and cheap out on themselves a bit too much. And I know that Carl and Mindy have been dragged over the coals by our other friend in the personal finance world, Rameet, for being too cheap for their level of wealth too. Carl's famous for like booking multi-hop flights when he could pay for a direct flight, like slightly more. I would sell like my child before I took a multi-hop flight within the US.

Like it's just not even an option. So I'm like, huh, I thought I was cheap, but I guess the Jensen's were out doing me. You kind of have to train the frugality out of yourself because it's possible to go too far in that direction. Okay. So this is kind of at odds with what we're talking about. And I hear people yelling at the radio saying this. We're saying be frugal and save your 50% or more, save aggressively so you can get to retirement. But then once you get to retirement, loosen up the purse strings. How do you flip the switch? Well, this is maybe a third MMM classic article. And I have one that I wrote one that's called it's all about the sweet spot because

you can be too cheap, you can be too spendy. The reason I wrote my early blog articles on this like fist punching type of mentality is I was basing it on what I saw in average Americans who are, they really are too spendy. You know, like people, they'll have zero dollars, they'll have an unpaid credit card debt, and then they'll go out and sign up for a loan to buy like a $50,000 pickup truck when they don't even have $50,000. And in the fire world, we don't do that. You know, in the fire world, it's like, oh yeah, I have, I have a million dollars.

should I spring for like the $30,000 new car? No, I'm going to buy like a $10,000 used one, right? Like it's so far on the frugal side of this sweet spot spectrum that I've realized that a lot of the readers and followers of our podcasts and blogs need the opposite kind of training. The regular American who's financing the pickup truck should not listen to that stuff because it's dangerous. It might make them go even more into the crazy tail end of overspending. Really what we should be going for is being relaxed about money, having a good time with it, but also still having a relatively high savings rate, you know, 50% or above while you're working, hopefully. And then just always check in with yourself. Like if your wealth level increases,

then make sure that all the frugality stuff you're doing is still in line with your values. And if you have more money, you might want to be splash out on some more stuff. Like one little example for me is I always take the toll lane, you know, like when I'm driving to Denver and you see the little sign that's like, you can skip all this traffic jam for $2.90 and you'll, it'll get you all the way to downtown. I'm like, here we go. Yeah. And that's like always the best 290 I ever spend. And I'm like passing hundreds of cars. And I'm like, I can't believe you guys won't even spend three bucks to skip this incredible five mile long traffic jam. Little things like that you might not do if you're like, you know, on the bleeding edge of poverty. But you got to relax as

your financial situation improves. It seems like there's an efficiency element here that is maximizing your life in a general sense. And to do that, it was, have as high a savings rate as reasonably possible while we're amassing wealth. And then it's within reasonable high constraints, how do I optimize for something else that is not just more wealth at this point? It's happiness or convenience or time spent doing the things you enjoy with the people you look. That's so true. But I also wouldn't even say like there's a line like accumulation versus retirement spending. Like you want to have a good time for your whole life. You might still be taking the toll lanes even while you're still saving for early retirement.

Of course. Like if you can afford it and your savings rate is still reasonable, just don't go overboard, jeeping out on yourself. And that's why I always try to focus on things that are a win-win rather than a win-lose. Like taking two flights instead of one to save money is a win-lose, right? You win some money, you lose a bunch of time and your trip is less fun. Whereas living closer to work so that you can work. walk to work or bike to work is a win-win because your days are better and you're spending a lot

less on your car and commuting expenses and you're healthier. So there's usually so many win-wins that you can do if you're at a beginner stage that you don't even have to get into the weeds of like sacrificing stuff you like in order to save money. Not too much anyway. And I think that's really important nuance for folks who are less familiar with all of the, I think I've read every single article of yours, by the way, over the years, except for this sweet spot one. I don't how I missed this one in those deep dives. There's folks who think, oh, it's just about being frugal. No, there's much more to it than that.

But with that caveat, could you explain why controlling spending is the more important variable compared to income generation in your view? That is because what we've seen is that throughout our incredibly wealthy country, people seem to be able to manage to blow any amount of money. No matter how high your income goes, people can blow it all and still end up in debt. And that's why we hear about the movie stars and the NFL players and everyone else who's had multi-million dollar payouts that still end up bankrupt shortly afterwards, even though like just one year of their income is more than enough to raise a family in upper middle class forever,

you know, if they just invested that money. So it's, I mentioned that stuff because I want people to understand that having at least some concept of your spending is important. And also, if we're just thinking about the math of early retirement, the spending has more powerful effect because it accelerates your path to early retirement by making your savings rate higher, right, lower spending. And presumably you've learned the skills of how to have a happy life on this lower spending level so that after retirement, you've locked in lower spending. So any amount that you've saved also goes further.

So that's why I consider a double effect because it lowers the amount you need to save and then it lowers the amount you need to spend for the rest of your life to be happy. So a smaller amount of investments gets you further. And very few people talk about lowering spending, at least before this whole fire movement started, because there's just such an implicit bias in the United States that more spending is always better, no matter what. It's like you always want more. I also think that there's not really a profitable way to communicate the value of spending lessness from a mainstream media perspective, right? Like there's not like a product you can sell.

It's just like don't spend money. So like here, there's a billion ways to do that. You can, there's like tools out there like monarch money, for example, that are great or mint.com or Excel spreadsheets. But I think I think that that's another challenge is you can sell a course for five grand to help somebody make money. And if it helps them do that, maybe somebody gets value out of that. But there's nowhere to do that. And your view was, this is just common sense. I just want to share it with the world.

And I think that was very refreshing and very powerful. And that's why it appeared so unique at the time. Maybe, yeah, because you could argue that in a commercial magazine or newspaper, they're depending on all these advertisers who are selling stuff. Like, in a wealth magazine, most of the ads are for luxury products, you know, like Mercedes and Rolex and all this stuff. So those advertisers are going to be a little pissed if the main message of the magazine is don't buy Mercedes and Rolex products because it wrecks your chance of an early retirement. Pete, let's look at your specific situation. What was your savings

rate. And at what age did you start your fire journey? How long did it take you to save up enough money that you felt like you could early retire? Hmm, deep, deep history. So I did try to write this down once because what happened to me is I retired early and then enjoyed six years of retirement before I even started writing my first blog article. So it was already kind of stuff I'd done just passively. I was always kind of like I'm interested in money and I would, I started reading investment books when I was a kid just because I found a whole subject interesting. So when I started earning like a professional salary, which was really just pretty average, it seemed like a ton of money to me, especially growing up in a family that wasn't super high income. So I just saved, I lived the life

that I thought was very luxurious, which left a lot of money left over still because I was an engineer and I like to do things efficiently. And then after that money started building up and it's like tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands. I'm like, well, what should you really do when you have too much money, there's got to be some good use for this. And I already knew about investment. And so as I just kind of put two and two together and realized, well, investments are a form of passive income. So as soon as your investments cover your lifestyle, then you can quit your job. So that realization was probably in my early 20s. And I had already been saving up for a while. My fiance at the time and I were both like living this kind of lifestyle. At that point, we realized, okay, there's only

going to be a few more years that we have to work before we are financially independent. and we also wanted to start a family, so we thought it would be great to get all this done before the baby was born so that we could have the time to be full-time parents. And those are all the pieces that went together. It really, the whole career took me about 10 years, right, because I started working around 20, finished working around 30, just before 31, actually. So you could just round it up to 31. I think, is that all the questions?

What was your savings rate? Oh, the savings rate. Yeah, it varied depending on income, right? So initially, I started off making at the time, like $44,000 was my first salary, and that was Canadian dollars too. So my savings rate was lower. And I bought a car as well on my first year after graduation. So it's probably like 10% the first year.

But it quickly went up. And towards the end, it was more like 60 plus percent because our salaries were up in the $100,000 range times two, you know, two workers. We were spending what we thought was a lot. It was like 40 plus thousand, which would be $80,000 in today's dollars. But that still left a lot. to save. It kind of happens like this. And at the end, as your salary goes up, your spending level is probably going down because you've already built out your household. You got all the

furniture you need. You've got your car, have a paid off car. You've optimized all this stuff. You already got your bikes as a young adult. You know, all the things you need to buy when you become an adult. So I find the spending kind of goes down, which makes it easy to save. And then, of course, every time there's a life change, like having children, your spending is going to go back up. But then it goes back down again as you get through each stage. So it's 60%, maybe even as high as 65 or more, that combined with like, I did a bunch of home renovations. So we kind of like did some forced equity in our first house and then rented it out in order to buy the second house. That all kind of like in big messy way added up to financial independence after about 10 years of work.

You said you bought a car after college. We used to ask us what their biggest financial mistake was. And that was hands down the number one answer was, oh, I bought this brand new car after college. Scott, you also bought a brand new car after college. Was it a brand new car, Pete? Was it like a big, I can't imagine you ever in one of those $50,000 pickups, which are $70,000 now, by the way. Well, I've never been a pickup duck guy, but I liked sports cars. So I bought a sport E car for Canada anyway, and it was only like two or three years old.

I remember it was a 1994 Ford Probe GT. So it's kind of like this little sporty two-door thing that was a clone, mechanical clone to the Mazda Emick. 5 Miata, which is also a cool car. Not Miata, MX6. It was fun. It was like more than I would have spent if I was Mr. Money mustache at the time. But really what it did is it basically just consumed most of my first year of savings. And it was worth it, right? Like that's an example of a splurge that was worth it. So like it delayed, you know, it cost $15,000 at the time. So maybe like 30 of today's dollars, $1,000. But I had so much fun with it. And my friends thought it was cool and, you know, it's a good date car and everything. So I wouldn't take it.

that decision back, it was worth it delaying my retirement by a very small amount. Interesting. Okay, that was not the answer that I was expecting. Yeah. And then I bought a $10,000 motorcycle right when I moved to the U.S. because I'm like, what? I'm making so much money. I was brand new, Honda, like, sporty bike. And that was like another $11,000, which is like $20,000 of today's dollars. That was maybe a bit of a worse decision. I probably wouldn't repeat that. But, you know, like I still recovered from it. I sold it for like $5,000 a few years later with hardly any miles on it because I didn't really need a motorcycle. But it's still fun. You know, I don't, don't super regret it or anything. Then you bought a 50 to 75 year retirement following that. Those

didn't impact things too much. You can afford to be very inefficient and still do pretty well. Like the key is being slightly less ridiculous than average. So like I did some ridiculous stuff, but not as much as my coworkers who would buy like a $50,000 BMW and like a pickup truck with six wheels and like drive one each, you know, alternate driving them to work. from a really, really far away, like horse property. So, like, that kind of stuff is such bigger numbers that it really, that's what kind of sabotages your retirement is when you're doing multiple years of salary, just getting burned up on all these little purchases and big purchases.

This is our final ad break, but we'll be right back after this. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your taxed refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch.

Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning, together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all in one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at Monarch.com

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

through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Just go to Indeed.com slash bigger pockets right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Terms and conditions apply.

Hiring, Indeed is all you need. When you want more, start your business with Northwest registered agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest Today. Northwest registered agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S.

with over 1,500 corporate guides who are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated insights. and outs of running a business. And with Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data.

And all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why remember, 988. Kanda suicide crisis hubline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Thanks for sticking with us. I've got a couple tangential questions here. One is, and I'm going to,

I'm going to lodge a complaint here. I know you say we can't take complaints, but this is a common one that we get is, is where are all the stories of the people who fire, but only ever make $50,000 a year, way through adjusted for inflation. And these folks are rare in the space, but you know, you mentioned, you started with a $44,000 salary and ended at $150, 200. We've had so much trouble finding this person, right? Like we've heard from the community over and over again, we want to hear from this person. And we just can't find them out there at a high level. My hypothesis is something to do with the fact that if you're going to pursue fire, you're going to get very good with money over a long period of time. And that is going to naturally translate to boosts to the income.

over a decade or 15-year grind that typically it takes most people to achieve this goal. But have you found examples of that $50,000 earner the whole way through? And do you think it's reasonable to expect people to be able to get there with the income that low? Yeah. So it's kind of rare. And it's possible that because our platforms are filtering for a certain type of person, you know, like people who seek out finance podcasts and websites and their like readers,

they might tend to just be higher income people. but I did remember a couple. So one person I'm still in touch with, his name is Joe. And he and his wife at the time, they were teachers in like the public school system in Las Vegas, which I think is notorious for having fairly low salaries for public school teachers. And Joe became the main guy who encouraged me to start a forum on my blog. So like this thing called forum. com.

He was like the lead moderator. So I heard lots about him. He's a really, really smart guy. Both he and his partner. geniuses. So on top of being teachers, they also just started like save, save, save. They lived really frugally and then they would buy a rental house and then manage it really well and then leverage that to buy another rental house. And they're really good at managing the tenants. And eventually, they built up a pretty big real estate income portfolio that was bigger than their teacher

salaries. So they're like, great, we're done. They ended up like that wealth level kept going up and up and up. And even after quitting the teaching jobs, they ended up in an upper income situation just because they were so good at all these other things. So it's a little bit like your story because they started out with lower incomes, probably like 35,000 each. And they had children, but they work their way up from that situation. And, you know, that's one of the things about the United States is there is a lot of upward mobility. And if people are smart and work a lot, it's pretty hard to stay in a lower income unless you're really dedicated to just staying exactly in this thing that you're passionate about, or if you're spreading your energy around,

you know, like to other things, like raising a family, you're obviously going to be less devoted to your career. So anyway, the point is, the math still works. You just have to spend less money, but the people are rare because America has a lot of money in it, and that's why I moved here, right? That's why I moved from Canada to the U.S. in my 20s is because I wanted the same upward mobility, and my salary doubled as soon as I crossed the border. That happens a lot in this country and that's great. The other place that I think people get stuck on a lot is with kids and planning for those expenses. And that did not seem to impact you and it has, it seems to have no impact on a portion of the fire community. And it's just an enormous roadblock that's insurmountable

for another portion of that. And if you observe that dichotomy as well with folks, and how do, how would you respond to that? Kids are interesting in the form of expenses because they can cost as much or as little as you want, right? Like as a parent, you get to choose, short of like medical emergencies or whatever, but in general, of kids, like most parents choose to spend more on their kids, and this goes up with each generation. And richer people have always spent more on their kids than less wealthy people. So I think it's more about do what you can afford and don't worry that it's going to wreck your kids' lives if you live a frugal upbringing, right? Because I grew up. My parents spent almost none on us. You know, I have two sisters and a brother,

so we're a big family and we didn't have any spare money. So nobody did any expensive activities. We just like run around, play in the forest or go to school and then find something to do after school. There's no, we didn't do it like after school activities. And that was like great. You know, I had an amazing childhood. It was super fun.

All kinds of like wild, you know, creativity stuff like making our own cars out of scrap parts and tree forts and everything else. And we didn't lack for anything despite the fact that there was no money. And then we had to pay for our own educations too, our own. our own college educations because the parents didn't have the money to just fund everybody like happens in the rich families. So I don't think there's any shame in that for parents who don't have a ton of money. And so that should make it easier for everybody to get through the child raising years without as much pressure as we apply to ourselves. And now, you know, in my life now,

I know a lot of people who are in the child raising stage living in very wealthy communities. And sure enough, they spend a ton on their kids. You know, they might spend 40,000 per child per year on all the stuff between all the sports and private school tuition maybe or just things that they buy their kids. And that's fine to you. But it's totally up to you. It's not really, it doesn't have to be expensive. We have just the one child who is a grown up now. And I like to joke that he cost less than nothing because it was so intense to raise him that his mom and I weren't able to go off and do the normal stuff we would have done, like go out for dinner or going vacations because child demands so much. And, you know, if the kid's crying all the time,

you don't want to bring them on the plane and destroy everybody else's vacation. So you stay home and do stuff locally. So, um, that actually saves money. It pays for his diapers. I have one more area of expense that I think trips people up when they think about this math of the shocking simple math to early retirement. So we've discussed income. We've discussed, um, expenses as the major component, we discussed their investment returns. But I think that the expenses, um, there are some expenses that people don't consider when they get to retirement or that trip people up like child care, which is a cost for, you know, the costs of raising a child in general that we just discussed. Those are costs for a period of time that then go away, presumably when children

become adults, right, or could get bigger if you decide you want to pay for an elite fancy private school, college education, for example. So there's things like that that trip people up. And then there's also insurance, which I think is the last major bucket, that is a challenge for people because that's often covered in part or in full by an employer while one is working. So could you basically share your kind of high level overview of how you view insurance as a general concept and how you think about things in your personal life as a financially independent multimillionaire? And how one should kind of wrap their head around that when they're approaching early retirement. Yeah. I mean, to focus on health insurance specifically, because that's the thing that

most people worry about in this country. It's not as expensive as most people assume. That's the one thing. Like, if you've gone through your life with employer health insurance coverage, a lot of people don't even know how much the employer is paying for it. And so they assume, oh, I can't leave my job because I need this insurance that you can't get any other way out. Well, guess what? Your employer's paying this money. So obviously, it must be a finite amount that they can afford to cover. And you can buy that insurance for at least as cheap as your employer, as it turns out. like when you look on the marketplace nowadays, what is it called? The Affordable Care Act has made insurance a bit easier and more transparent to buy.

So it's in the hundreds of dollars per month, not in the thousands of dollars per month, you know, on a per person basis. So it's not as bad as what people assume. And part of the reason they get confused is because when you quit a job, you get this option to continue your health insurance through the program called Cobra. But the Cobra insurance is always like some ridiculous like multiplied to infinity. It's not what your employer was paying, but they charge you more, maybe just because you're scared or they think you're desperate or whatever.

That's not the real price of personal health insurance. And then on top of that, I have, there's other alternative. Like I use a direct primary care physician subscription, which is like, in my opinion, much higher quality health care, but it's only $100 something a month. So which is basically like a doctor subscription. And then I have a separate thing that I don't really need that's just like a catastrophic health care program, you know, where if I have more than a $5,000, expense, they'll reimburse the rest of it in any given year. But the wealthier you get, the more

this doesn't even matter because you can self-insure. Like if you think about, you know, Warren Buffett, he doesn't need a health insurance company to come in and pay his bills. If he has medical bills, he may or may not have health insurance, but he doesn't need it. So the higher your wealth gets, the less insurance matters. And like, that's one of the reasons I don't keep insurance on my house, my primary house. And that's just because it's not a very expensive building. And I could afford to rebuild it if it burned down. And I would, as a house builder, recreationally, I would make it cooler than it is right now. So that would actually be kind of fun. But don't come burn down my house. It's not an invitation. So, like, whereas if I was just starting out in my

20s and I had a huge mortgage on this house, I absolutely couldn't afford to replace my house out of cash. And also the mortgage company insists on you carrying insurance. So insurance isn't a big factor, you know? Like it's more like helping you sleep at night, but it shouldn't be a giant part of your spending. First, great point on the mortgage component, right? I am now starting to have a couple of properties without mortgages, and you can boost the deductible very high on. So I would not feel comfortable replacing some of my properties ground up. So I carry insurance, but I'm fine with a $20,000 or $30,000 deductible, which sends a very clear message to the insurer, hey, I'm only going to be calling you have to place burns to the ground because I'm not Mr. Money Mustache and will not find

it fun to rebuild the property of my own in this particular case. So that makes it much cheaper, much, much cheaper, like thousands of dollars a year and premium is cheaper. And then I also was, I am a little surprised at the difference in rates for families on the private marketplace. Even if you have a high income, they're significantly cheaper. But a big component of that is you just take it for granted, I think, Pete, that you're going to use a high deductible plan. which I think almost everybody who pursues fire should be doing in that sense. Because if you have millions of dollars, you can self-insure up to $20,000 or $30,000 in a given year. And that will make a huge difference in you or your family's overall premiums that you pay for health insurance.

And then last, I'll also say that as you think about this in a self-employment world or being amassing significant assets, there's a whole bunch of alternative solutions that are coming up like the direct primary care, mentioned, which I also have for both of my kiddos. And it's fairly cheap. It's like 130 bucks a month, I think, for both kids, an infant and a two and a half year old. And it's great. The doctor responds anytime day or night, I never have to go to urgent care. In the case of a serious emergency, we of course, have to go to the emergency room. But otherwise, we're able to get all these prescriptions filled in all those types of things and set appointments pretty quickly. It's much better way of doing medical care than I've ever experienced. And there's no co-pay. So you have like a little

thing where you need a prescription, let's say for strep throat, you just text them. They're like, oh, yeah, or maybe a video call in the worst case you go in. And then they're like, here's your prescription. And then the whole thing's done. There's no bill for that. Whereas even with the health insurance, you typically go to the Kaiser office and you're waiting and everybody else is sick around you. And then you feel like you're in this third world situation. And then you get a bill for like $200 until you reach your out of pay max, whatever deductible thing. So the whole thing feels terrible in the old system and great with direct primary care. And it's like cable TV package price, right? Like I'd rather have that than cable table TV. And that pairs really nicely as well with these

health share plans. I haven't made that leap yet, but I know many, many people in the early retirement community are making that leap. Yeah. And I have an article on that too, just to plug it a little bit. I wrote this article called two years without health insurance and what I do now. And then that's how I landed on this idea of using the health share program, which is by, you know, the researcher on that was our our co-owner of headquarters, whose name is Bill, he got us all, or at least me, interested in this program called Sedera, which is one of the health-sharing companies. He convinced me to sign up. I've been a happy subscriber ever since. And it just helps not have to think about what if something happened, even though I've never really had a health cost since I moved to the U.S. It's still

just nice to know that you have the coverage in case. The article around shockingly simple math really presumes a stock market, you know, pretty linear return because that's how you have to model these things. And that's, I think, led, there's been a lot of confusion in the early retirement space about how to factor in other types of assets like real estate and I'll throw in crypto, for example. How do you think about those in the concept of an early retirement portfolio? Let's start with real estate, maybe your framework on that because it's probably a little easier than something like a crypto investment. Yeah, that's for sure.

So real estate is supposed to be pretty passive income source if you're doing it well. But it still has numbers that you can attach to it. Like you'll have an amount of money that's tied up, you know, the capital, the amount you own of a property. And then you're going to have its net cash flow after all of your expenses. And that's the part that you get to use towards your early retirement. So at the very most simple level, if someone is retiring off rental properties, you could just say like if the cash flow that's free and clear from these properties is enough to pay for all

your bills, then you're retired. And then that's kind of nice because you know that your rental properties are probably going to go up with inflation automatically over the years. It's going to be lumpy, but it'll still go up. Sometimes you get lucky and like in the Denver market, it'll go up much faster than inflation and your rents will rise faster than inflation. So you'll get a positive surprise. But if you're just modeling it, I would suggest to take the conservative route, which is you figure out the cash flow only. And then remember that if you have mortgages on these rental properties, those are going to get paid off eventually as well. So every time you have a rental property that has a principal plus interest portion in its loan statement, that principle is savings. Like you're

actually saving every month. A lot of people miss this detail. So a thousand dollar mortgage payment might have like $271 going to principal. The other $800 is interest going straight to the bank. And then they put that whole thing as a cost. And it's not a cost. They're actually saving and then the interest is a cost. And eventually that goes away. And then you're going to get. get like that property is going to be free and clear and suddenly you're going to get a huge cash flow bump. So I would consider that as like additional saving that you're doing. You can do like a cash out refi if you need to get access to that money. I think the big picture is that real estate should be outperforming the stock market if you're doing a good job at it, if you have the right

properties because it's a job, right? Like if it's not outperforming the stock market, then you shouldn't have real estate because why not just have this totally passive investment? So I always encourage people, like including people I've been coaching recently, to look at each of the rental properties. Don't keep it just because you have it. Make sure it is a valid rental property. Like, make sure you don't have like a million dollar house that's only giving you $2,000 of rent because you get way more in passive stock market income if you just sold that and bought the index funds. But in general, I don't, is that how you, would you agree with that? Is it mostly basing it on cash flow, but remembering that the cash flow is going to gradually increase. I struggle with it because I

that that's the most conservative way to think about it, right? Is this is an inflation-adjusted stream of income. You know, if you buy a $500,000 house that generates $30,000 a year in net operating income, that should be a reasonable baseline target for a paid-off rental property. Hopefully some folks can do better than that. That should just produce that amount of income, give or take, perpetually. And the advantage to that is that it's a much higher cash flow stream. Potentially, if you're in a higher income tax bracket, more tax-advantaged, the way you could harvest that money from a more traditional stock bond portfolio, but then there will also be work and some lumpiness to those cash flows, of course, and you can't sell it off in chunks the same way

you can from a stock bond portfolio. And then the leverage component should amplify those returns, yes, in the accumulation phase. So I completely agree. I think it's challenging for folks to wrap that around in their heads, especially when they're in between those two states, the high leverage, high return phase and the paid off cash flowing phase when it will underperform the stock market over a long period of time, but also produce that very predictable cash flow stream. It helps if you just do a net worth calculation where you add up the value of all the rental properties and then subtract the mortgages, any debt that you have on them. So then you really understand how much assets you have working for you. And then you compare that to the cash flow

and decide whether to keep them, first of all. And secondly, you can do a future forecast and say, well, what it's going to be like when these are all paid off, whenever that might be? And then that's going to be your terminal, your final cash flow if you let them all have no mortgages. And that's what your long-term budget is going to be. Between those, if you're smart enough with money to accumulate these properties, I'm sure you can do the analysis and determine what your retirement budget can be. I think the challenge is in that middle piece because there's a 30-year window where most people are in that middle section.

And in that middle section, if the cash flow is tight, you can't really count on it the same way that you can or on one that's paid off or that has a very large spread between the gross rent and the mortgage payments. And I think that we find a lot of people who invest in real estate have this in practice a problem translating that theory to how much can I actually spend from this portfolio right now. And the answer is almost always what you just said. Make a list to all your properties. Determine which ones are winners, which ones are losers, sell the losers, and keep the winners. And that's very challenging in practice for a lot of folks for whatever reason. Okay, last question here. Let's talk about other all assets that are a little

harder, right? They don't generate cash flow. They're not stocks like, and let's use Bitcoin. You and I share, I think, a similar viewpoint on Bitcoin. I had a video come out last year. Looks like it was pretty poorly timed called the rational investors case against Bitcoin. The comments have not been kind from the Bitcoin community. They have strong opinions there. And then you have an even better titled article, which is more frank, why Bitcoin is stupid from seven or eight years ago. But how does one think about this asset that has gone up and value a tremendous amount over the years and incorporating it into one of these retirement portfolios? Yeah. Well, I would think people should sell it and buy real investment because

Bitcoin is like a dice role that has just been continuing to come up on sixes over and over and over again. And people are like, see, I'm a genius investor. And other people believe that it's going to keep happening. Like, Bitcoin is entirely dependent on belief. Like, there's no actual fundamentals. It doesn't generate any income. And that's why it's by definition, not just my opinion, but that's why by definition, it's a speculation rather than an investment. An investment is something that generates income over time, and it would be worth it owning it for your whole life if you were never allowed to sell it. And imagine if somebody said, well, Bitcoin is great, but the price doesn't actually matter because you're never allowed to sell it and it will never

give you dividends. Would people actually want to own Bitcoin in that situation? Well, no, of course not, because it's guaranteed by definition that it'll never give you anything. However, Bitcoin has value only because you're hopefully that someone else will buy it from you for more in the future. Or some people dream that it'll replace the US dollar or whatever. Either way, you're hoping you can buy stuff with the Bitcoin. So that's not an investment. And you can keep speculating on it. And that's fine. And if it goes up more, they're good for you. But I certainly wouldn't bet any percentage, any significant percentage of my future wealth on this very, you know, moment of human hype. I'd rather own something that generates ongoing income like a rental house or a business,

which is what stocks are. So that's up to you. Well, you don't invest in Japanese yen. You don't invest in euro. Why would you call it investing in Bitcoin? Yeah. Well, the reason people think it's investment is because it has been going up recently during its very short lifespan. And that's how bubbles work, right? people get excited, they get FOMO, and then they make up, they fill in the backstory of like, why this is different, you know, why it's not a speculative bubble, like, oh, well, the Federal Reserve is corrupt, it's Fiat money is all toilet paper, like we need to have independence and that.

And like, and the reasons keep shifting because the story has to, you know, keep existing. Otherwise, the whole thing doesn't have any value. Like, it's dependent upon a story and a belief system. And I just don't play those games, right? Like, I've never been part of any religion or belief system or, like, worshipping leaders just because they're famous. So that's how I feel about Bitcoin, too. And if other people want to have a different opinion, that's great.

It's funny because the criticisms I get from my article, they're all based on people who didn't read it. Like, 100%. They're like, how do you feel now? Bitcoin's $117,000? Like, whereas right in the article, it says, this article is not about the price. It's just about the idea of speculating on anything based on future price improvements. like that's not an investment.

And no one reads that. If Bitcoin goes to $4 quadrillion, my article is exactly as valid as it was if Bitcoin had gone down to one cent because it's not about the price of Bitcoin. It's about the meaning of speculating on things. It looks like the three of us will not be making our bloodlines, as one Bitcoiner put it to me,

with this speculation here. I completely agree. Bloodline. You're missing out an investment that could make your bloodline. Actual quote from I. presume Bitcoin bro in response to some argument I made against it at one point. Is that talking about having a bunch of building a dynasty and then you give money to your children so that they're they are rich in the future? I think if you just hold Bitcoin forever and never

sell it, it just perpetually compounds and value going up at infinitum and then your heirs and descendants are rich until the end of time. No, the first generation makes it. The second generation preserves it and the third generation spends it. That's true. And that's the other funny part is like they're criticizing this approach that we have, even though I'm like, well, I've lived most of my life in financial abundance and been retired since I'm 30 and I'm almost 51 now. So like, I can't be doing anything all that wrong. Like, how much more do I want? How much better money situation do I want? So I don't need Bitcoin. Well, thank you so much for coming on here today, Pete. It's always just a privilege to chat with you. It's been great to see you

a couple times recently. Thank you so much. And yeah, I hope you continue enjoying your retirement here. And, you know, what's on the docket for the rest of the day? It's an even bigger privilege to be on BP money. So thanks a lot for the invitation. And the rest of my day, it's just a dad day for me. So I'm going out for a hike with my son. And I'm doing some construction for the rest of the day. And it's going to be awesome. Happy Tuesday. I had to check. Love that you had to check like your watches just Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It doesn't even have hours and minutes. It just does the day of the week. I've seen clocks like that. That would be a great wristwatch.

Okay, Pete, before we go, where can people find you online? If you just look for Mr. Money Moustache, you'll find all the different versions of me. My favorite place is people reading the blog or joining the boot camp, but I also have a mostly an active Instagram account and Facebook and X slash Twitter, whatever. Awesome. Okay. Pete, thank you so much for your time today. And we will talk to you soon. All right. You too. All right, that was Pete, Mr. Money Mustache, and Scott, I always have a great time talking to him. What did you think of his commentary?

It is just always a privilege to chat with Pete. He really pioneered a lot of stuff in the world that we live in in the fire community here. And he's only continued to expand those concepts, even, you know, as he has enjoyed decades-long, early retirement during that time period. So it's just truly a privilege to chat with him and love the refinements. and the evolutions, but the lack of deviation, almost in its entirety, from the core principles that he's stuck to his entire life. Yeah, he is, you said he pioneered a few things. I think he pioneered a lot of things. He was one of the first financial bloggers talking about how you can reduce your spending

to retire early and live the life that you want. He was certainly the person that we found first, and when we talk to people, it's almost always, oh, I found this one article from Mr. Money Mustache. It's funny because we were mentioned in his first car purchase, which I didn't know before. That was kind of fun to hear about. His blog obviously influenced my first car purchase. And you would not believe the amount of time I agonized over whether I should buy a then-brand new 2014 Toyota Corolla or if I should buy a 2006 or 2007, seven or eight-year-old Toyota Corolla because of his blog.

and the waste split is a component of that. It seems like it's such a silly thing to agonize over 10, 15 years later. But that was where I was thinking. I never had the cool car. I sort of have one now with my Tesla here. But it was funny for me to hear that. I was actually surprised that he had purchased a fairly new car right out of college. I thought for sure he would have been very frugal his whole life.

So that was a fun little tidbit that I had never heard before. All right, Scott, this was a super long episode. so we should get out of here. Are you ready? Let's do it. That wraps up this episode at the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench.

I am Indy Jensen saying farewell, Gazelle.