BiggerPockets Money Podcast - Scott and Virginia Trench Talk Goal Setting, Spending, Prenups, and Future Plans

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

How has Scott achieved so much financial success already in his early 30s? He’s got a secret weapon nobody else has: Virginia Trench! That’s right, the woman behind half of the puns you hear on this podcast is coming on the show! She's sharing her view on Scott’s early (and extreme) frugality, massively successful financial planning dates, goal setting as a couple, prenuptial agreements, and the Trenches’ recent decision to sell a solid chunk of their index fund portfolio.  Virginia met Scott before he was CEO, before he had a sizable rental portfolio, and before he became one of the internet’s favorite money nerds. Together, they’ve worked hand-in-hand, building a FI lifestyle that fits their family while chasing their own individual dreams, including Virginia becoming a published author with her new book, Our Secrets Were Safe, coming out this summer! In this episode, we peel back the curtain and get a glimpse into how Scott and Virginia run the Trench household and its finances. What’s the one thing they have trouble not spending on? What is their repeatable process for achieving enormous financial goals? And is Scott secretly the world’s worst/best baker? If you’re a long-time listener, this is an episode you can’t miss! In This Episode We Cover The repeatable money date that Scott and Virginia use to keep their family finances in shape Goal setting as a couple and how to reach seemingly impossible milestones  Prenuptial agreements and why Scott and Virginia would recommend one for couples What Virginia thinks about Scott’s recent decision to sell off their index funds  The one spending problem that Scott and Virginia both admit they struggle with  And So Much More! Links from the Show Mindy on BiggerPockets Scott on BiggerPockets Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Join BiggerPockets for FREE Email Mindy: [e-mail] Email Scott: [e-mail] BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group Follow BiggerPockets Money on Instagram “Like” BiggerPockets Money on Facebook BiggerPockets Money YouTube Channel BiggerPockets Money 301 - Why You’re (Probably) Wrong About Prenups Preorder Virginia’s New Book, “Our Secrets Were Safe” Grab Scott and Mindy’s Book, “First-Time Home Buyer” Sign Up for the BiggerPockets Money Newsletter Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area BiggerPockets Money 607 - Has the FIRE Formula Changed? Why 100% Index Funds Isn’t the Answer (00:00) Intro (01:47) Super Frugality and FIRE Goals (04:57) Spending and Blind Spots (08:42) Getting a Prenup (12:08) Financial Planning Dates (17:08) Goal Setting 101 (24:57) Scott Goes Coconuts (321:05) Selling Index Funds (35:49) Grab Virginia’s Book! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-611 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever wonder what Scott's duplex in his 20s was like? Or how frugal he really was? Well, today we are bringing on an expert and pivotal player in Scott's life and Scott's Fye journey, his wife, Virginia Trench. I am so excited to talk with both Virginia and Scott about how their money story has evolved over time. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my co-host, Mr. Virginia

a trench. That's right, Mindy. Super excited to be on Bigger Pockets Money today with my lovely, wonderful wife, Virginia here. And Virginia is actually going to take it from here with the rest of the intro. Bigger Pockets has a goal of creating one million millionaires. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you are starting. Virginia, I am so excited that you are joining us today. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Mindy. It's great to be here. I've been entrenched in this guy's life for almost 10 years. She has better puns than me. And many times, the puns that we use on the show have actually originated from Virginia without due accreditation. Yeah, do citation.

Well, let it slide. And hello to Fred, the cat behind you, who is apparently going to horn in on your show today, Virginia. So Fred, pipe down. Our daughter is at school, but we have Fred, Virginia, and our little one on the way. here as well. Almost everybody. Almost everybody is here. Well, that's awesome. Okay. And quite frankly, the other one is, what, two now? So they're not known for being quiet. No. Yeah. This would be a short episode. Yeah. Okay. So let's go back to the beginning of your journey together. Scott was house hacking a duplex. Were you, like, what is your opinion of this? Because I saw that duplex that he was living in. So I know where you're coming from. What was your thought when you first met this guy? Well, I thought, well, first of all, what a sweet, wonderful man. And second of all,

you know, frugality takes on another level when you don't heat your apartment in January, in Denver, which is when we started dating. That was a red flag for me. But both Scott and Walker, It's funny how getting serious girlfriends timed almost exactly with the decision of, hey, maybe we'll spring for heat here. So I also agree with you that is a red flag. I would walk in and be like, dude, it's way too cold in here. I'm out. But it's that he chose not to as opposed to his heat got turned off. Oh, yeah.

This was not an all over twist situation. This was very much self-inflicted. At what point when you guys were dating, did he bring up this concept of finance? National Independence. Gosh, you know, I don't remember. It's hard to pinpoint an exact moment when you brought it up, but I think it was just when, as we were getting to know each other, and at the time, you were creating a lot of content in the Phi universe that you would tell me about articles that you were working on or ideas that you had. So, gosh, like probably third or fourth date. I don't know. Yeah, somewhere early on there. Early on, yeah. It was really near the beginning.

beginning. Good. I like that. I was married before we discovered financial independence, so he couldn't bring it up on a date. He didn't know what it was. Did you know anything about it before Scott shared it with you? Had you ever heard it? No. I was so out of the whole world. I was at the time I was teaching middle school English. So that was kind of my entire universe. So I was a complete newbie, novice, and still I am in so many ways. But I was very impressed by Scott's commitment to it. And intrigued when he started telling me about it. Was it a difficult change to make to go from however you were handling your finances before to this like kind, I don't want to say extreme frugality. I don't think Scott was ever extremely frugal, although I say this. And then we just had that

story about him, not turning the heat on in January in Denver. Scott, you're crazy. But, but, but did like did you make changes over time or was it kind of uh oh well i guess i'm just going to like completely change the way that i handle my money honestly i was so frugal just by out of pure necessity um just with my job and what i was trying to accomplish at the time if anything it opened up my horizon to think about oh are we being frugal to achieve a specific goal down the line as opposed to are we being frugal just to survive on a teacher's salary and my summer side hustle and all that stuff. So I was, I was very, very ready to be made a believer in Scott's philosophy. Did you have any big money, uh, disagreements? Let's call them disagreements.

I don't, it wasn't a disagreement, but, you know, I remember one, maybe you could talk about how, um, we were like, well, we don't want to live in the basement of the duplex, which then had heat anymore after the second or third year dating. And, oh, these weren't disagreements. It was just sometimes, you know, it's remarkable the blind spots that Scott can have sometimes. It's like, well, we're looking to upgrade our living situation slightly. And wouldn't you know, the lease in the upstairs unit is coming due in a couple of months. And I went ahead and connected those dots. And when, you know, we moved into another townhouse after that, but then we were thinking,

okay, we could use a little more space. We're looking to grow our family, but we're not ready to commit to our forever home yet. What do we do? was like, well, the lease is coming due on the four-bedroom apartment. I just like, I do this for a living, right? And I just, like, couldn't process, like, oh, money going into my business is more advantageous than money going out to somebody else as a renter there. I was like, I'm paying right anyways.

Why not go to this other. And Virginia was like, Scott, you're a moron with this. I protest the use the word moron. I just gently pointed out that we had options. But to answer your question, Mindy, I think one point of shared frustration we have is now that we track our spending using Monarch is we have really had to come to terms with the amount of like Amazon spending, DoorDash spending, things that we, I think, were we not monitoring it would just balloon and be completely out of control. And so I think about, what, like a year or two ago, we decided we need to be really. meticulous and tracking every dollar. And it was very eye-opening. And I sometimes have to do, like, a breathing exercise before I sit down to categorize our Amazon spends. Yeah, that's been a problem,

I think, for me in the last two, three years specifically as well, because as, you know, the job with bigger pockets, like bigger pockets ballooned over this time period, right? So, when Virginia and I started dating, my title was director of operations as an early employee at Bigger Pockets. And then it became VP at BP. I was super proud of that. And I, uh, I think, that point, but Bigger Pockets ballooned so much over the course of the following six, seven years after we started dating. And if there's anything that I can get from a convenience standpoint, I'm going to spend it right now because that, if I'm not doing that, then am I, I'm either not having time with Virginia and Katie, or I'm taking away from the job at Bigger Pockets.

And that got a little out of control probably like the last, like two years ago, a year or two ago, and it's gotten much more under control now. I think Amazon Prime is the worst best invention ever because it's so easy to click. And I already paid for shipping so I don't have to pay for shipping. I have a huge disconnect between buying something online and then it's like, hey, by the way, you have to pay for shipping. I'm like, I don't need that. The indignity.

What is this? 2002? Yeah, exactly. And it's always expensive shipping too. Like three or four dollars. I'm like, no, thank you. I'll just go over to Amazon and get that for free. In fact, I have shared a couple of times at least.

on the show when somebody is having a hard time getting a handle and they're spending. I'm like, cancel Amazon Prime. See what happens. Convenience is a really slippery slope. It really is. And DoorDash is not something I've ever done just because I am so cheap that I can't pay somebody to pick up my food. I would rather just go there. We don't have that problem, Mindy. Good for you. It's hard to go back once you've, again, the convenience slippery slope. Just beware. So have you two combined your finances? I know you've been married for five years. Yeah, coming up on five.

I forgot. Four and a half years, yeah. That sounds right. Sure. We'll say that that's right. Yeah, we signed a premarital agreement. I want to say we were talking about this the other day, about six months before our actual wedding.

And at that point is when we combined finances. Ah, okay, so you combined before the wedding. That's interesting. And the pre-up, was that your idea or was that Scott's idea? I think it was both around there, yeah. I love that. So I, Carl floated the idea when we were getting married a thousand years ago. He's like, hey, we should get a pre-up.

And I was like, no, if you ask me again, we're not getting married at all. I was so offended that he would say that. In my defense, we didn't have anything at all. Like we had, I don't know, a $0 net worth. And in fact, it turned out I had more money than he did. so I should assign that pre-up. But I think that we had an interview with Aaron Thomas from the pre-up prescription. He wrote a book about pre-nups.

That changed my entire view on prenuptial agreements. And I thought it was, I think it's episode 301. I thought it was such a great episode. I love that you both are young and understanding that a pre-up helps you in your marriage, in your, you know, protecting both of your positions even before you get married. You guys are way more mature than I am. And I think that there's an undue cultural stigma attached to prenuptial agreements. And of course, we want to be married for one, we joke one lifetime, please.

But it was from mostly, you know, how do we be transparent? How do we make things, I don't know, as equitable as possible? and I don't know, it just seems like a no-brainer. Yeah, I think we didn't, you know, it wasn't approached from the standpoint of like, this is, you know, going, you know, these are the things here, this is how it's going to be. It was more just like, let's make sure we understand what the rules are in the event that this ever happens. What's Scott's property? What's Virginia's property? What's marital property there? And then hopefully we never need to review or look at the document again. And we will.

married for one lifetime. I haven't looked at it since we, since it's somewhere maybe in our safe. And I will add that this was also in line with we did estate planning. We did our, you know, legal contingency plans for the care of our daughter. Just a lot of things that I think are, you know, nitpicky things that people don't like to think about. We were just, we just thought, why don't we knock this all out at once so we can go on with our lives. I love that. Knock it all out at once. It needs to be planned. If you don't plan. then your, like, who is it? Aaron Lowry says, you already have a pre-up agreement. It is the divorce laws of your state. If you want to direct them yourself, then you need to have this in place. All right. Now we've got to take a quick ad break. But listeners, I am super excited to announce that you can now buy your ticket for BPConn 2025, which is going to be October 5th through 7th in Las Vegas, Nevada. score the early-brood pricing for $100 a bucks off and go to biggerpockets.com slash conference while we're away. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture,

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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 Liener Stronger for Fitness. The Anxious Generation for Parenting Perspective, and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful as its breadth. Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more. All accessible in one app.

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Oh, it's just, it's such a, it's, I don't know, this isn't sound corny. It's one of my favorite things about our relationship, and it's such a nice way to connect on a regular basis to make sure. we're on track for living the life that we want to live. I think we did the first one on our honeymoon, and we update it semi-regularly. Yeah, we update it every quarter with few exceptions. Yeah, a handful of times we've missed it in a quarter

or done in the middle of it or whatever. Yeah. And occasionally, Scott will bring up, oh, I got another question from a Bigger Pockets community member. How do I get my spouse on board with FI? How do I get my girlfriend to get on board with all these seemingly nutty ideas. And I really think that sitting down and making a vision together,

it's a great way to get on the same page and have a why behind the choices that you're making. And it is, it has been eerie how it has worked out. Like I remember sitting down to do our vision and saying, okay, well, sure, I'm going to try to write a book and maybe have some intellectual property to my name and that all seemed like a pipe dream. And my first novel is coming out this summer. It was just wild the other day to finally be able to hold the book in my hands for the first time. And getting back to your question, Mindy, the vision is great,

but the habits and the goals are better. They're so much more important. And it's a great, we try to hold each other accountable, and it is noticeable when we're off track on our habits. Like, does this habit support what we ultimately want out of life? No. Do we need to be extra? exercising more? Do we need to be checking or spending more? Am I happy at my job? Do I need to, you know, change up my approach to my day to day at work and so on and so forth? I could I can ramble on this just as much as Scott. Well, no, I love that. I love that because we have frequently spoken to guests where he will say, oh, she's not on board. She doesn't want to talk about it. She says, just handle it all. Or she will say, I would love to get him on board. He's not interested.

He won't even listen. He won't have these conversations. And having the money conversations, I think, is so important because you just said, the vision is great, but it's the habits and the goals that are even better. And you have an I said annual. It's a quarterly financial check-in. How frequently are you checking in on your habits and goals? Weekly, I'd say, sometimes bi-weekly.

Weekly is the goal is what we try to do. I would say this year, in like the last couple of months, we've been a little less diligent about that, but we've gone through stretches where I'd say we would have gone 20 weeks in a row. And it is noticeable. Those are, I bet you, anything if we were to look back at those times, like, oh, wow, that's when we got. Yeah. This, this is, this, is done. And that's when we were really happy and thriving and stuff. Oh, wait. So you're saying frequent check-ins with your partner to help you stay on track to meet your goals is a good thing. What a novel concept. Yeah, it has to be mutual buy-in, though. My advice.

to anybody who's hesitant to talk about this or maybe you were raised in a culture where money is a taboo subject, once you rip the band-aid off, like, it becomes more, it will stay scary and unapproachable if you let it stay scary and unapproachable. But if you have honest conversations with your partner, it gets easier and easier and better and better with time. Okay, and you briefly showed us through the book and then you didn't, then you put it back down again. What is the name of this book? It's called Our Secrets Were Safe. It's a, sort of a juicy summer thriller comes out July 15th. It's about a group of friends who thought they got away with something, but we're very, very wrong about that. If you love sort of gone girl

type books, it's very much in that vein. And yeah, I really credit in large part our super dorky goal setting process to getting this done and getting another book in the pipe. pipeline for 2026. The book will be published by Penguin Random House as well with that. So as part of a two book deal, Virginia will have another book coming out in summer 2026 as well. So that was super exciting. Okay. I am very excited about that. I have published two books. They were both with Bigger Pockets Publishing. I turned them both in late, way late. One of them was written with Scott and his crazy schedule, my amazing ability, unparalleled ability to procrastinate, led both of those books to be published late. So this goal setting and, you know, regular checking in is really,

really helpful. What are some of the things that you talk about in goal setting? It sounds like there's money. It sounds like there's life stuff too. But what sort of things are you talking about? Do you want to pull up the, we can consult our latest draft? Oh, do you have a document written down, Scott? We sure do. Mindy, we save each version of it. Oh, and it's so much fun. It's like a little memory book looking back at, you know, previous iterations of this.

But usually we start by describing our home environment, what we want that to look like, what our day-to-day to look like. Well, we start off with gratitude. Oh, that's true. And we'll list like 20 things that we're just like grab. So I'm a big, I always push for this. But we have to do.

this work when we're both in a really good mood, which, uh, typically involves a morning, kind of like late mid morning weekend or like vacation day, where we've both worked out and then are on our first or approaching our second, um, cup of coffee at that point. 1,000% and there's got to be like a view in the background that, that feels really important to us. It could be, it can be mountains. It can be a, uh, a picnic.

It doesn't have to be like an, like an expensive lavish thing, but just has to be something that we are, that, that gets our juices going. If you're trying to get your spouse or your significant other on board, think about when they would feel relaxed. If you have young children, maybe it's after the kids are in bed or, you know, when you can give your undivided attention to something. I have been, you know, campaigning for years now to do this with a cocktail, but we've compromised with coffee, but basically a time where, you know, clear-minded, you remove distractions and potential sources of stress. and sit down with your partner. Well, I would also encourage one cocktail. Yes.

Yes. One, not two, or get a bottle of wine and split it over the course of several hours. Well, okay, that's another question. How long do you spend on your weekly check-in and how long do you spend on your quarterly check-in? They're about the same probably. No way. Weekly check-in takes 10 minutes. The quarterly check-in takes half an hour, minimum.

Yeah, yeah, that's fair. I would love to see this document, not your actual document, but like erase it, all the stuff and just see the way that you've set it up. I think I did create a template version of it that was like with some of the, like a lot of the things like that were personal to us removed or whatever. But yeah, there's no like secret sauce to this. This is not like a, this is a piece of paper. This is a word document that we fill out with gratitudes. And then we start, we say here's our, and for the example, the most reason one, here. Here's our December 31st, 2030 vision.

And here's our December 31st, 2027 vision. So we start with the longer term one and then kind of bridge that to what. So here's what perfect looks like in five years, right? And then here's what perfect looks like in three years. If you're following, if we're trying to do a step by step, step one gratitude list, that's always really fun to do in a great way to center the conversation. step to sort of begin with the end in mind, which is a great habit-forming framework. Think, I don't know, you could do 10 years, you could do seven years, five years into the future,

and be as descriptive as possible. And it's always a draft, right? So there's no, like none of this is permanent and we actually update it every quarter. Like that's the, that's the ritual. So it probably took us maybe an hour the first time and now it's 30 minutes. But then we always make a slight change. a tweak here or there, hey, we want to travel a bunch. And that kind of urge is smaller now.

Let's revise that component of this and do something, and replace it with something else. That's awesome instead, like a toy that we have. That's so true. Having introducing young children into our lives, like, we'll get back to the travel one in a few years. Yeah. And so it probably, it's moved a lot.

Like if we were to start with our first one four and a half years ago, we got married under honeymoon, That would be, that one is very different than the one we have now. But it hasn't moved much in probably the last two years, two and a half years. Like they're pretty remarkably consistent now. And we just keep trying to move closer and closer towards them. My dear listeners, we would love to hit 100,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel. And we need your help.

While we take a quick break, if you could do me a favor and hop on over to YouTube.com bigger pockets money to make sure you are subscribed to our channel. Stay tuned for more after the break. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going,

and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward. It's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch'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 in a 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.

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Sure. So after we go through the five. year, 10-year vision. We hammer out a few more specifics, but we think about, okay, what are the top, what are my personal top three goals? The three biggest things I should be focusing on in my life in order to be working towards that vision. So often, I mean, I'd say 90% of the time that shakes out to a professional goal, a health-related goal, and one related to family, community, and that sort of thing. Would you say that that's right? Yes.

Yeah. So once you define the big three, you think about, okay, how does that, what does that look like on a weekly basis, on a daily basis? What should I be focusing on? Then we'll usually branch off from there and we'll each set our goal. Like, here's the goals that we have jointly, but then we each set our goals in derivations of that. I use, that's where we start branching out a little bit. I use a journal that I've used for 10 years. That's kind of like a cheesy self-help journal. And Virginia just switched over to one from Target for, $12. She didn't order it online because we're not ordering as much stuff online anymore. You've learned already. Carl and I actually, this is kind of crazy that we're having this conversation right now. Carl and I just decided we had been setting some goals like meeting every morning to have goal setting for the day. And that is very easy to fall by the wayside because it's so frequent. But also, you know, life just kind of jumps up in front of you. So we decided today that we were going to do this. And I really like having the different goals. It's not right now

It's just how are we going to get this house done? But professional goals, health goals, family and community goals, we're not really talking about those. So I like these different ideas. We pick three. Or at least I do. I pick three big ones that are the most important for that because I can't get, you can't get all eight, you know, like these all these self-help gurus have like these like eight

wheel of life categories because like they're the right. That's the right way to do it. It's like how you do in each one of those. You can't ever prioritize all eight at once, I feel. There's got to be three priorities, one to three. And I will say that, you know, we are rarely, if ever, perfect when we do these check-ins. Like, it is rare when we have a couple days in a row when we hit 100% across the board. Like, this is very much a try, you know, try for it.

But most days, I'd say I average, like, 75%, 80%, 100% on like a great really, really, productive day when everything seems to be going well, but it's, it's very much, like, we try, we're not too hard on ourselves, and I don't want to sound like we're super militant about this, but as long as you are trying, like, that's when you start to see the results in my opinion. Yeah, most quarters, most weeks and most days of our marriage, we're, we've been applying some version of this imperfectly and tending to move towards. the life we want, I think, and it's been, it's been wonderful. Yeah, progress over perfection, for sure. Yeah, perfection is the enemy of progress. Okay, so Virginia, looking back on your

financial journey with Scott, is there anything that you would have changed? I think one thing that I'm working on now that I should have worked on sooner is just more self-education. Like, I truly am, There are areas in our marriage where I'm the expert in areas where Scott is the expert, but I wish that I had taken more time to educate myself to be more of an active participant. And there are certainly still times. Like, it's tax season. Scott is handling that where just the sheer lopsidedness of our expertise makes it so much more efficient for Scott to just drive.

And obviously we consults on everything, but sort of be the decision maker. But yeah, I think that for so long I had a very fear-driven relationship with money. And if I could go back and talk to my younger stuff, I would say, look, there's nothing to be afraid of. Like, just by avoiding something doesn't mean that you're going to magically get any sort of result. Like, avoiding things never gets you what you want. So I think that would be the thing I would change. I'm right there with you.

I do 0% of the taxes. If it was up to me to get the taxes done, I would gather up all of my stuff and take it to somebody to do them. And Carl is taking it to somebody to do them, but then he's got all of these records and all of everything that he's double checking against everything before he submits it to the accountant. And I'm perfectly happy to let him handle that because he's good at it. He, I don't know that enjoys is the right word to describe his feelings for it, but he doesn't hate it. and I would absolutely hate it. And he's done it for kind of our whole lives. So why would I want to deprive him of that joy?

But also, like, it would take me so much longer to figure it out. Plus, one of us has a job and one of us doesn't. So he can take the time to do it as opposed to me sitting there taking all of the time to learn how to do it all when he's already done it for so long. For sure. It's like, and this might seem like a silly example, but I really, one thing I try to be loud about it. My work is not devaluing the domestic work of women. But like, if I were to send you to a grocery store and say, we need groceries for the week to feed our little family of three,

keeping in mind our toddlers' likes and dislikes and just like, God, we're just really trying to get her to eat a vegetable every once in a while, it would take twice as long. The result would be terrible. And it's just more efficient and easier for me to just do it. Okay, one quick story. So Scott is so sweet. He said, Virginia for your birthday, I'm going to make you a carrot cake, my favorite. And he goes to the store to get the necessary ingredients. And he does not pick a beginner recipe. This is a New York Times hundreds of recipe comment, like very in-depth, get out the standing mixer from scratch recipe with high altitude modifications. bless his heart the recipe called for shredded coconut scott comes home with two whole coconuts um he's like yeah these are really expensive like you don't say that the the coconut supply in colorado um i'm amazing you didn't get a good price this is egg eggs first coconuts next what are you going to do um so he comes with two whole coconuts and the recipe further called for shredded carrots so he brought

home, unpealed, like, the bag of whole carrots. And I was just like, oh, honey, you know, you can buy these things pre-shredded, right? So back to the store. And so all that is to say. Well, I man you, I hand shredded the carrots, but the coconuts were the coconut, it was just, it was untenable. It was, it can't do it. And I kept asking.

And then you have to grate the coconut. I didn't want to seem ungrateful. It was like, it was such a sweet labor of love making this cake, which was absolutely delicious, by the way, when you were done. I was very impressed. I didn't want to sound ungrateful, but I'm just kind of like, what's your plan for these? We have a hammer in the garage, but what's the next step? All of that is to say... I went out to the grocery store and got a bag of shredded coconuts, and that solved the problem. I don't know that shredded. Shredded coconuts coming bags. In the baking aisle of almost any grocery store, but all of that is to say,

in a marriage, there are times, I think Kevin Hart said this is. it's convenient. It's so funny. So there are times when you're singing lead and there are times when you're playing the triangle. And it's okay to shift those back and forth as necessary as you build a life together. Do I, do I wish, am I trying to make an effort to be more participatory in our finances and how we, you know, lever that to live the life we want? Yes. But does that mean I need to become, it's worth my time to become a tax expert or for Scott, to go on the Great British Baking show? Probably not.

So that's where we are with that. Okay. I think our husbands are very similar, Virginia, because I have that same story, except it was when Carl was going to make me a key lime pie. Marang on the top. I don't know if you've ever made meringue. I would love to see Scott try to make meringue.

Carl just kind of, he put the egg whites in a bowl and kind of gave him a bit of a stir and then poured it right on top of the cake. He's like, does it just puff up in the oven? I've never made meringue. It's a whole thing. You have to whip it with your blender for like five minutes on high. It is, it is not just, they don't just puff up in the oven.

It was very, very sweet. The important takeaway from all this is that the cake was awesome. The cake was awesome. I still need to work on icing. Icing is not my strength of mine right now. I was so proud of you. It was absolutely wonderful. So let's get back into the, the, the,

discussion. Scott recently sold a large percentage of the index funds that you hold. Did you guys discuss this ahead of time? Yes. Scott is my favorite nerd on the planet. And what, you know, made me buy in literally and figuratively to this idea was just his review of historical trends saying, gosh, if you look back for the past century, every time this ratio has been this lopsided, like a crash has been coming, or it's good to protect against the possibility of one. I know you're very bullish who is saying, I'm not saying the mark is going to crash, so that's not necessarily the point here. But Scott does, he loves a deep dive, and I love that about him. So when I know that he, when he's really fired up about something, he starts bringing out all the graphs and statistics and stuff.

It's like, okay, here we go. Time to buckle down and listen to what he has to say. So, yeah, we did talk about it. Yeah, and the other part was just the income that we think we can get from this property. As you know, Mindy, helping us with the deal there. I mean, it just covers such- Thank you, Mindy. We don't know what we do without you. Yeah. Thank you.

And it just covers so much of the day-to-day household expenses that we'd have. And that's, I feel it's important for us to maintain, make sure that we're living a lifestyle that is well, as a conservatively fire, despite the fact that I, of course, still earn an income. the CEO here at bigger pockets with it. I just feel like that's that's has to be congruent with the way that with what I do professionally and in my home life around there. Otherwise I'd feel like I'm not I'm not living what practicing what I preach basically. I think we're at a stage now with our finances where we're playing to keep what we have. And that was part of that strategy. All right. We are talking about Scott selling his index funds. That was episode 607. We just recent released it at the end of February. And

Scott backs up his position, makes a really good case for why he's making this choice. Carl and I did not choose to follow in Scott's footsteps, which doesn't make it a bad decision. It makes it a decision that we don't want for us. I love what you said, Virginia. You said his review of historical data. Scott didn't just look at the stock market and say, oh, the PE ratio is 31. I'm going to sell. He looked at all of everything.

And you're right. He loves a good deep dive as anybody of this. anybody listening to this podcast knows Scott loves to go down a rabbit hole. He went down a rabbit hole and came to a decision for him and, well, for you, not for everybody. He is just encouraging people to look at different points of view, not just one, which includes don't just listen to Scott. Don't just listen to me. Like, do your own research. This is your money. And if you leave all of your money in the index funds and something happens, you're the only one. one that's going to be having to deal with that with your position like that. Just like if I choose

to leave mine in the index funds and it turns out that Scott was prescient, then I'm going to have to deal with that. But if I stay the course and Scott makes a change, he's going to deal with that. And the reason he's going to deal with that is because he went through and did all of the research in the first place. So yeah, I also think it helps that you got a smoking hot deal on a property. There was this, Scott was happening to look at the market. He's like, hey, that makes a lot of sense to me based on the information that I have about real estate in general, the market in particular, and that location specifically, I think this is a good bet. So he made an informed decision, not a fly by the city or pants decision. And that's what I love so much about that decision.

Yeah, just a tip for folks listening here. You know, you can take you five minutes to kind to test this out. But just go look at Zillow or talk to an agent in your local market and just look at what's for sale for investment properties and then look at what is actually sold. And my guess is that you're going to look at the stuff that's for sale and say, that's absurd. It would never work. It's ridiculous. It's way overpriced. But when you look at what's actually sold, you're like, huh, I would have bought like five or seven of this. Now, this will not be true at every market. Probably 75% of you will say, well, the stuff that sold is no better. But I bet you 25% of you listening will be like, huh, there are actually good deals moving. And that's really what

came down for me. And Mindy, we talk about that at length in the book we wrote together, first-time homebuyer, just as for regular homebuyers, not even investors. But that was what really did it for me is I just looked up and did that exercise that I should have been doing more regularly for the last two years. And I was like, wow, that is a big difference. All right. Virginia, I am so delighted that you joined us on the show today. And Scott, you're cool too. This is so much fun. Thanks, Mindy. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming on, Virginia. I think you should come back again.

So I will, once we stop recording, I will play you with compliments so that you will come back and join this again. Maybe Carl and I can do a takeover. That would be fun. Oh, that would be awesome. All right. And of course, make sure to bring Fred. Naturally. Yeah, Fred doesn't need to be asked.

That's so true. Do cats ever need to be asked? All right. Thank you so much for your time today, Virginia. you. This is so much fun. And the book is called Our Secrets We're Safe and it's out in July of 2025. Yes. Yes. Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. All right. That wraps up this fantastic episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. She is Virginia Trench. He is Mr. Virginia Trench. And I am Mindy Jensen saying goodbye, cool cat. That's a wrap.