More Money Podcast - 133 How to Actually Retire Early - Tanja, Blogger at Our Next Life

Episode Date: November 29, 2017

Retiring early isn't just for the privileged and doesn't have to be a daydream you refer at your 9 to 5 grind. You can actually retire if you have a plan to get you there, and Tanja from Our Next Life shares how her and her husband were able to do it. Long description: Ever since I connected with Tanja from Our Next Life about a year ago, I was waiting for the opportunity to have her on my show. But for most of the year she was an anonymous blogger. You see, she was waiting to reveal herself until she was able to hand in her notice at her job so her and her husband could retire early. Well, she’s handed in her notice and is set to officially retire early this January. I know, I know, this sounds like a dream most of us have had while putting in those long hours at our day jobs. But what’s awesome about my interview with Tanja is she discusses how her and her husband were able to do it. And they didn’t go to any extremes to reach their goal. They didn’t sell all their things or sacrifice their present happiness and comfort to reach tomorrow’s goal of financial independence. Besides sharing the steps she took to be able to retire early (in her 30s!), she also shares the book that inspired her to take this journey. It’s called How to Retire Early by Robert & Robin Charlton, and it’s a book she highly recommends if anyone wants to learn more about how to make a solid plan to retire early. I know I’m definitely going to check it out, because achieving F.I.R.E. is definitely one of my new crazy big life goals! And if Tanja can do it, really anyone can do it! Learn More About Tanja Sign up to Tanja’s email newsletter Check out Tanja’s recommended resources Read Tanja’s 10 Questions to Retire Early Learn about Tanja’s steps to achieving FIRE Follow Tanja Follow Tanja on Twitter Like Tanja on Facebook Check out Tanja in Instagram Follow Tanja on Pinterest For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/133 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 133 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thank you for joining me for this episode. A very fun episode, mind you, because not only do I know this guest personally, but I talk to her very frequently. I am actually part of, this sounds super nerdy, I know, but I am part of a mastermind. If you've never heard of that term, basically, I mean, some people meet in person. My mastermind is all virtual. So there are three other personal finance bloggers that I meet every two weeks on Skype. And we just chat about what we're up to, to motivate each other and to learn from each other and help each other out. And one of those members of the mastermind is Tanya from Our Next Life. And she has a lot of

cool stuff going on because she's not just like this anonymous blogger that talks about her journey to early retirement. Well, she's actually going to be fulfilling that early retirement dream. And she's also recently just revealed who she is, her face. She used to be an emoji and now she has a real face. And not only that, she just launched her own podcast called The Fairer Sense with another member of my mastermind, Kara Perez from Bravely. So lots of cool stuff, but we're going to be talking about specifically early retirement and the whole FIRE community. But before I get to that, there are just a few words I want to share

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Mo Money Podcast in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Thank you, Tanya, for joining me on the Mo Money Podcast. I'm so excited that you're now officially i mean you have a face not just an emoji over your face it's happening you're revealed yourself i'm very excited about that um yeah i'm so stoked to be here and this is my first ever video podcast so i know surprise i know sometimes i forget to tell people that i'm like, hey, I'm going to do, I'm also going to record video. They're like, oh, really? Just give me a sec. And then they'll have to like powder their nose or whatever. Like, yeah, that's fair. I should give them fair warning, but whatever. It's also kind of, I like catching people off guard a little bit. Yeah. I have, I have worked from home for the last five or six years. And so I am accustomed to

the last minute video conference. So this is my trick. I like put on my glasses and jacket and then the rest of me is pajamas. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm wearing yoga pants. I heard somebody call it like a work mullet. It's like- Oh yeah. I know. Pizzata, party at the bottom or just comfort in the bottom. Totally. I mean, the only reason I ever wear or do my hair and do makeup on my face is if I have to do something like this and someone looks at me. Otherwise, it's no. Yeah.

Not going to happen. I just don't care for it. Anywho. Any who. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm so glad because we talk quite a bit. Part of our little private mastermind. So I've kind of known what's been going on with you and the blog for a long time. So I'm excited that now you're out in the open and can share a lot of

awesome things with people who are listening right now. So first, let's get some backstory in case people are totally new to you and don't follow Our Next Life right now, but probably will after this show. Where did the blog start? Where did you come from? Where did all this start? I was born in... No, let's not go. No, I'm like, I don't care. Actually, let's skip forward. Let's skip forward. Yeah, I'm like, let's be... Yeah, sometimes people are like, where do I start? I don't care about your childhood but like one of my like favorite jokes from Dickens is like I am born I grow up and then we get to this person so yeah yeah so my husband Mark and I I think even before we got married we just really

felt like you know we we really enjoyed the work that we did, which was, um, political and social cause consulting. And we, um, we enjoyed it, but it's also very high pressure and just like super demanding. And also we realized like with each promotion we got, um, the work on some level got more interesting, but the pressure also got higher. And so we sort of realized like, wait, this thing that we may be always aspired to, I'm not exactly sure that that's what we thought it would be. Or like maybe it's one of those be careful what you wish for things of like, do we really want that level of pressure and responsibility in our careers and to be certified by them? So we started thinking about what else might be possible. And we were very outdoorsy.

We still are very outdoorsy. And we thought about, you know, maybe that could mean moving to the mountains one day. Or maybe it could mean cutting like 10 years off our career. I think in the early days, we were just thinking about like, could we quit by 55 or 50, which felt so revolutionary back then. That was pre-fire blogs. And then this kind of amazing thing happened out of a negative. We were both living in LA at that time, and he had been working remotely already for his job. We both worked for companies in DC. And my company's office closed in the financial crisis. And they said to me, like, you still have your job, but you no longer have an office. And so all of a sudden we were both remote, which was this incredible opportunity. So at that point we were able to move to Tahoe, which is in Northern California. Yeah, I know.

I've had to ask you, I'm like, where is that? That is in Arizona. There are real lakes all over. I know. It's hard to keep track of all of the places. I'll get there one day. Oh my gosh. I would love to.

It looks beautiful. But so, okay. So you're able to move to Tahoe and kind of start a little bit of a next chapter. Yeah. And so in 2011, we bought our house up here and we really started calling it sort of jokingly the retirement house. But it pretty quickly turned into not a joke. And so within a few months, we started really getting serious about saving. And then about four years ago was when we put together our very concrete financial plan with annual savings goals and projections of how much we'd need and everything. But yeah, we sort of had this just amazing opportunity to be able to move somewhere where we want to be that would make us happy and live the kind of life we wanted and it just really gave us like

that extra motivation to like because right now I'll be honest like while we're working I sort of feel like this is a place I sleep sometimes I travel so much for work that I don't feel like I really live in Tahoe the way like real locals do yeah and so but like I see it out my window or I don't see the lake no that would be like a $10 million beautiful mountains and beautiful trees. And, um, and so it just gives me that motivation of like, I want to be able to save so that I can actually get out there and enjoy that stuff. Um, and yeah, like I, I feel really lucky that we've both had a very similar vision for life, which I, I contend is more important than having a partner who has the exact same money habits as you. I think if you have the same values and you know what you

want out of life, the financial stuff can all follow. But yeah, I think we're really lucky to have some events conspire to help us get to a place where it was so clear what we wanted and put us in the position to be able to do it. Absolutely. Yeah. I think you kind of hit the nail on the head when it came to values. I think a lot of people talk about, are you a saver or a spender? That's important for sure. But those are also fixable things, especially if you have the same values. So did you know that you kind of had similar values when it came to life, I guess, especially before getting married and, you know, really partnering up that way?

Yeah, I think the values that we have definitely were a big part of what drew us together. Like we just both don't really care about status like at all. Mark did have like a slightly fast car at one point in his bachelor years, but I think like he just had to like, yeah, get out of his system. Right. That wasn't going to be like his thing. So he had, um, in a nice car for a couple of years and then he'd already sold it by the time we got together. So, um, you know, like he still has like all the same clothes from when we started dating like 12 years ago. And I have a pretty small world. Like there were things where we just realized like, we don't really care about this stuff, but what we do care about is travel and adventure. And, um, you know, like we like going

out to eat and having nice experiences, but like, we know, like we like going out to eat and having nice experiences, but like we just, like we could not care less about having a car that impresses people or carrying like handbags or watches where people go like, ooh. And so those are the types of things that I think told us that we were good together.

We also, like he reminded me the other day, he asked me how much I earned on our very first date. Oh my gosh, that is ballsy. And you stayed. So that also probably meant a lot to him too. Like, oh, she didn't run away. Yeah. I mean, like I recall like we, he asked me that. He told me how much he earned. He asked if I had debt. Like we actually got like deep on the first conversation. So to me, like we actually had what we call baller years where we like kind of lived it up and we were like, you know, like we didn't have debt for a while. Like we just like, we're able to do that. You know, we're spending within our means, but

like spending a lot. But, um, but so to me though, the values and the able to, the ability to actually like talk about, um, money right from the start, think, was a huge part of our meshing well. Like the fact that we just didn't talk about that stuff. Yeah, that makes it way easier. It sometimes takes years to get to that point where you're comfortable really talking about that stuff. And it seemed like you're both just naturally interested in that stuff, which probably helped you make that, you know, a fairly easy transition to be like talking about, hey, we could retire early. You'd be like, no, like, let's actually retire early.

So what was that, I guess, conversation like? Like, hey, we want to retire early. Okay, what are the next steps? Like, where did you go? Because I feel like I daydream about retiring early all the time, but I actually have never actually thought about. And I looked at your website, which is amazing because you really actually do break down like this is what you do or this is what we're doing, which I love. But what were your kind of sources of inspiration or resources that you kind of looked at to help

you kind of make your game plan? I think we are probably some of the rare early retirement bloggers who didn't totally develop our plan based on Mr. Money Mustache. We saw like an article he was in at some point, but never went and checked out his site until a long time later. We found a book called How to Retire Early by Robert and Robin Charlton, which is self-published. It's not like a big fancy book. We got it off Amazon. But that was really the book that gave us the details that we needed. You know, they only give you sort of one path for how to retire early, which they really espouse the index investing approach, which we're doing pretty closely to that. But they really broke it down and how much

to save per year and how, you know, like, and, and what's incredible about their story actually is that they did it without ever earning six figures combined and they still retired within like 10 years. Wow. Yeah. It's so amazing.

Like we've been helped by higher incomes than that for sure. But still, like I think the principles apply sort of regardless of what your income is, as long as you have a little bit left over and you can save it, you can apply all that stuff. But so, yeah, I think we looked back at Amazon and we got that book about four years ago. And so that was when we got very detailed. Before that, it was just sort of like, oh, wouldn't that be nice? Oh, maybe let's save some money, but we didn't really have direction to it.

Yeah, I guess you definitely mentioned something that I bet a lot of listeners are thinking about in their heads right now. Like, oh, I'm sure it's way easier to retire early if I earned like 100k or whatever, but I'm only earning 50 and I don't know if I'll earn that much more. I guess, what are some of the things that people have to consider if they won't ever earn, you know, a six-figure salary, but they want to make that goal. I mean, that's definitely something that's always been on my mind. It's like, okay, I'm a freelancer now,

so is my husband. We may or may not make a lot of money, but I would love to not have to work until 65 because I might die. So what are some things that people need to consider if, you know, they kind of make an average salary, but still want to, you know, achieve that big goal? Absolutely. And I think it's so important to put this into perspectives of different income levels. Because to me, the only thing that changes when your income is higher is that you can accelerate your progress a bit.

So like with our higher incomes, like the bulk of the savings has been in four years. Now that's not starting from scratch. We had some home equity before. We already had money saved in 401ks, you know, retirement funds, which are tax advantaged. So that was starting from a good foundation. But like if we can do it in four years, your tax advantage. So, um, there, that, that was starting from a good foundation. Um, but like,

if we can do it in four years, like I really feel like most people can do it in 10 to 15. Yeah. And the advice that I give is first, I really recommend the Charlton's book. Um, how to retire early. It's such a good resource and they break down how much they earned and saved every single year. Um, which I just completely love. But then the other thing is, I think you don't have to think of retirement as all or nothing. Like if you can semi-retire or you can do sabbaticals, there are so many good models that people are showing now, some of the emerging bloggers of like different ways to think about this. So you don't have to be staring down a 40 year career and like you said, you can find different models. So like, I think we've said if we couldn't retire right now, we'd be looking at semi-retirement. We'd be trying to

figure out a way to like take a year off or take even like two or three years off and then try something else or maybe freelancing just enough to cover our expenses, but having like a very good cushion save. So I think, you know, the main thing is just like, like anything, don't feel like there's one way to do it. There are many different ways that any of us could do it. And it's just like figuring out what's realistic for you. Yeah, no, I like that. Because there really isn't one size fits all in any aspect of personal finance. And I think that was one of the things when I started to kind of educate myself more about that. I'm like, oh, I actually thought there was like a yes and no

kind of right and wrong answer for lots of these, you know, problems. And there isn't. There's sometimes a plethora of solutions. But I'd like to kind of talk a little bit more about what does retirement mean to you? I love talking to people about regular retirement. What does that look like to you? Because I feel like what it is for past generations is totally different than what we're going to experience. But what does early retirement look like and then retirement? Because I like how you broke it down into phases on your website. Because I actually really never even thought that early retirement would be different than traditional retirement. So I

would love to get your advice or your thoughts on that. Yeah, for sure. I think it's interesting because our vision of what retirement is, has really evolved over time. When I started the blog about three years ago, we were very hard lined about about it. We said, you know, we never want to have to work again for money. And if we do, it'll only be in tiny doses. And I realize now, or we both realized together that that was very much in reaction to just like our work stress and how much we travel and really just wanting like the exact opposite of that. But as we've gotten further along in our planning and we've thought more about what are the things we actually want to do, we've realized that we're definitely going to work in some way. It's just going to be stuff that we want to do.

It's going to be like our projects. I'm going to keep writing the blog, which to a lot of people would look like work. You know, we have some other projects we're thinking about. We both might do a little bit of consulting for clients that we find especially interesting if it's just like really cool work. And then we both really, it's important to us to do some service. So we're hoping to consult with local nonprofits and just help them be really more effective, which right now, like those types of nonprofits can't afford people like us in our normal capacity. So once we can charge them a whole lot less or nothing, like that'll be really gratifying. But, but so there's a ton we're going to do that's going to look like work. And I hope also there's lots of stuff that we haven't

discovered yet. I think we're just trying to think about like the next two or three years and then beyond that, who knows. But what I really think is the real privilege and what makes it retirement is that we're totally free to fail. Like we can suck at everything and we're going to be fine. Like if I start a podcast and no one listens, no one wants to sponsor it. Like that's cool. My measure is, am I having a good time? Is it something that feels really good to me? Not like how much money is this putting in my bank account? Um, which I just like, it feels like such a gift and being able to think about life that way. And now it feels like I get to live like my ultimate dream. Like the only things I've ever really, really wanted to do in life were write and do radio. And now like getting to do a blog

and podcasts, I feel like, Oh my gosh, I get to be like childhood. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess I kind of, you know, the term financial freedom is, you know, said a lot in lots of different contexts, but I think usually it is in reference to early retirement. But it's true. I feel like when you think of early retirement, you think of finally, I can be free to do whatever I want and afford it specifically. I know you also put something on your website that, you know, early retirement really does mean that you can finally kind of live out your purpose, which I love. So I guess it's kind of a twofold question. First, do you feel like before when you were still kind of, you know, making, you know, working your job and, you know, saving and, you know, kind of doing the grind or whatever, where are you kind of feeling that you weren't living your purpose? And what does living out your purpose mean now that you can do that in early retirement? Yeah, I think there have definitely been big aspects of our purpose that I think we've both gotten to live out through work. And that's part of what's kept us in our careers so long. I know I'm totally an anomaly of having been with my company for 15 years and Mark has been in his job. It will be 19 and a half. He's putting on the gold watch.

Oh my God. I know. And like, that's the only job he's ever had since college. And I had one job for a year. So like, we've really spent our whole careers in one place. We wouldn't have done that if we didn't feel like the work was important and fulfilling. But you know, like any job you're doing for someone else is going to have a lot of aspects of it that you don't like, you know, like the hours have been longer than we think is healthy. The travel has been heavy. Um, so those are the things where even if we were fulfilling our purpose in some small

way, we were also spending a lot of time like not fulfilling our purpose and feeling unhealthy and feeling overwhelmed. Um, and that's the stuff that made us want to just have control over our own time. And so, yeah, the purpose that we mapped out for ourselves using a totally consultant-like exercise that's like ripped straight out of my work is to map out like all the different things that we are dreaming of doing and then figuring out how they cluster. And so for us, they really cluster around three things. One is creativity,

which I think like writing and radio and like, I do a ton of like crafty things. Like I recently made our next life t-shirts for a blog contest instead of like, I could have had Amazon print them, but I was like, I'll make this little screen. That's so much more fun.

Yeah. Also shows that I'm a crazy person. Sounds like a lot of work. So crazy creative person. Sounds like a lot of work. Um, so crazy creative person and then adventure, obviously like it is so important. Regular travel, outdoor travel, um, climbing more mountains. Like that's all stuff we want to do more of. And then service. So, um, we're, you know, we've, we've really tried to work hard to build ways that we can

keep doing charitable giving into our early retirement plan, which I wish more people talked about more often, because I think that's important. Like we're some of the most fortunate people who've ever lived on the planet. We ought to be giving back and doing that more. So that's important to us. And then yeah, like volunteering, we're each on the board of a local nonprofit. So that's all work that we'll keep doing and hopefully expand that and then do some more consulting for them, either pro bono or very low cost. So yeah, I think it's really an extension of some of the things we've done in our lives otherwise. But yeah, the work we've done has definitely been aligned with our purpose in

being important work and work that we've really enjoyed. Um, but we, we just, you know, it, it does also involved a lot of the type of stuff that, you know, any job has that no one loves. And we feel like after we quit, we'll have more control over that. And we can do a lot of work that's really focused on service and giving, um, especially charitable giving. And then, you know, just like do more fun, creative projects and have more time for adventure. That's all what feels like our three part purpose. So yeah, I think you mentioned a really good thing that there isn't that much focus in the personal finance space about giving back. I always try to try to like write about it

every once in a while or kind of put it in there. And for me, it's always been kind of instilled in my brain growing up, going to church. And there was the tithing aspect and all of that. And so I kind of integrated that into my life. I always donate. No matter how much or little money I earned, I would always set some kind of money aside to give back or volunteer my services, which I think is so important. So I really like that. You're you Yeah, put more focus on that.

So I think a lot of people when they think of early retirement, it's like, finally, I could be selfish. Finally, I could do whatever the heck I want on my time. And it's like, yes, but also we're all living in this world together. And it's kind of a crazy world right now so let's kind of help each other yeah totally and like there are so many problems in the world that are urgent and also like humanitarian crises like we've seen yeah um this this fall with Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands and um you know the horrible shooting in Las Vegas like there are things where people need our help now and so I know a lot of folks are talking about leaving a big quest, you know, like if we've all estimated correctly with this early retirement savings, we should all pretty much end up with a bunch of money left over at the end. And so it's great to also leave a really

nice charitable legacy, but there are so many things that just can't wait for that. Like if you're, if you're a believer that climate change is a problem as we are like by the time we die and hopefully like not for 50 years or something like that might be too late. I don't want to wait to give our money to those causes until we're gone. So yeah, that's something that I just think is really important and I know people have different views on this,

but I think the thing I really encourage folks to do is just remember how lucky we are. Even to be in a position to think about early retirement puts you in this incredibly tiny, lucky minority of people who've ever lived. And then if you can actually achieve it, it's just like we have such freedom and it's worth treating a little bit of that, that financial cushion to be able to make a difference in the world. Absolutely. So you, you kind of mentioned that, you know, to be able to even think about early

retirement is a privilege. Absolutely agree with that. But I guess, you know, the other kind of part of that is, you know, there's a lot of people dealing with, you know, a financial burden, debt, but they still would obviously who wouldn't want to kind of accomplish such a goal. What are some steps or what are some foundational things that people need to kind of get in order for their finances to be kind of set that they can kind of move forward with that. Yeah. And I would say too, like just to reassure folks, I think pursuing early retirement has been a really positive thing for us where even if we weren't at a point now where we're about to leave our careers, I still think this has done so much for me that I think setting the goal, even if it's unachievable, is still a good thing and still ultimately get people to a better place. So even if you feel like this is never going to happen for you or like I get people writing in who are like, I'm already 55.

So my goal of early is like to retire at 63. Like that's still great. It's still worth doing. But I think the concrete steps would be first really getting a very clear handle on your spending so that you know exactly where your money's going. I think virtually all of us who've ever done this have had some rude awakening in there of like, holy crap, I spend how much on whatever it is.

Um, you know, like the latte factor is famous for that, but like maybe it's, you know, like iTunes CD downloads or, you know, like music downloads, like it could be whatever, but just like make sure you know exactly where your money's going. And then it becomes much easier to figure out like, what are the areas that I can cut? What are the areas that are important to me that add real value to my life? But I think beyond getting a handle on spending and knowing what you're earning and just kind of knowing your whole financial picture, I think that the big things are having a vision because just saving for the sake of saving isn't especially interesting or fun. just kind of knowing your whole financial picture. I think that the big things are having a vision,

because just saving for the sake of saving isn't especially interesting or fun. But if you know exactly what it's going to do for you of what your life could look like, that is so motivating. And especially for people like I don't consider myself a good saver. I suck at budgeting. But having that vision has been a huge motivator and then I think behind that is having a really good plan of how are you gonna get there which is totally individualized and specific of like what you earn what you can save and and I do find that over time like most of us get motivated or like oh you know that thing that I used to find was a really important thing to spend on like I don't care about anymore now it's more important to me to get to my goal faster I like seeing the progress I'm willing to cut this. So know that

that plan could also accelerate. And then the third piece that everyone needs is a system. And so vision, plan, system. For us, the system is really based on automation. So like if we had to every month, twice a month, decide to put money into our investments to save for early retirement, we would not be as far as we are right now. Um, we'd have decision fatigue. We would have had months where we're like, you know what, let's like take another trip or, um, like, yeah, we deserve a new pair of skis or whatever it is that like people tell ourselves we deserve. Um, we all think that way. Um, like the, the amount that we save, if, if we had had to make that decision every month, uh, we wouldn't be as far as we are, but we have created a split so that most of our

paycheck goes straight into savings and investments. And then we have a very small chunk of that that goes into, into checking. And that's the amount we feel like we have to send because that's the money we see most of our money. We never even see. And so it just goes into checking. And that's the amount we feel like we have to send because that's the money we see. Most of our money we never even see. And so it just goes into investments. It grows like magic. Our real job is just to leave it alone and wait and let that happen. But like, that's the system that works for us. That may not be the right system for other people, but we find that like we can constrain ourselves artificially and hide the rest of the money. And that's a great system. So as long as you have your vision, you know what you're working toward, you have a plan to get there and you have systems that work for you, whether it's a budget or like us, like just a money hiding strategy. I think that those three parts are really the recipe for

making a big goal like this happen, whether that's debt payoff or saving for early retirement or anything else. Yeah, absolutely. No, I totally agree with you with the goals. Before, I just was saving to stop feeling broke. And then I'm like, hey, there's a thing called goals. I should probably have some financial goals. Because honestly, especially in my early 20s, I didn't think I'd be able to do half of the stuff that I've somehow accomplished. Like own a home, move away from my hometown, go back to school several times, all this stuff. Switch careers several times. Because I thought you had to be rich to be able to do that.

And believe me, I was able to accomplish most of these goals making not that much money. Like not a lot. So yeah, whenever I hear people saying, oh, well, I don making not that much money, like not a lot. So yeah, whenever I hear people saying, oh, well, I don't earn that much. I'm like, I don't think it's really not about that. And if you do need to earn more, there's so many easy ways to earn more these days. Like I always had a side hustle to earn extra money. So there's kind of no excuse. There's always a way. I know you mentioned on your blog too that even though though, you know, you do earn a higher than average salaries, you also save a really high percentage of your paycheck. What like,

do you save like 50% or what percentage do you save of your paycheck? I always hesitate to share because I'll share, but let me just put the caveat on there first, which is like, I, I sometimes like, I used to share more outwardly on the blog and then I would get notes that are like, Oh man, I only share, or I only saved 50% this month. So I didn't meet my goal and I'm a failure. And it was things like that that just made me kind of nuts because like in the real world, like outside of personal finance blog land where we all get this very skewed version. Yeah. It's like, Oh, I'm not saving 50%. I'm a failure. It's like most people don't save 10%.

Exactly. But saving anything above 10% is awesome. Saving 50% is incredible. So that's why I hesitate. It's not that I'm afraid to say. Okay. So with that said, we have for the last couple of years been saving pretty close to 80% of after-tax income. And by saving, do you mean that money literally goes into the hiding places you don't see? Yeah. It's a combo of the money that comes out of our paychecks off the top at work for retirement funds. It's the money that we save into our investments and also the money that we were putting against the mortgage, um, until we had that paid off earlier this year. Um, so it's, it's a little bit of, um, of funky math to figure that out. And, and we're in a pretty high tax rate too. So it's not like it's 80% of our total. Um, but that's, yeah, it's, it's been a big percent because we're so focused. And I think honestly,

our biggest, um, the, the biggest thing that's, that's helped us succeed beyond the automation is really just constraining our lifestyle. So I call it lifestyle stagnation, which makes it sound so boring, but really it's like just numbers stagnation. Like we essentially spend no more than what we spent 10 years ago. Like once we got to a point where we were very comfortable living on what we were living, we just started banking every raise, every bonus and just didn't expect to ever be able to send that money. And so we don't, and we hide it. And that, you know, I think we probably started at a savings rate of maybe like 20 or 25%. Um, but it quickly got higher as, you know, like compounding works in your income also over time, not just in savings. So, um,

given where we are in our careers, we're at pretty much like our peak earning years. We think, um, we've just, we've never actually spent at a level that's commensurate with, with what we earn. And so it makes it very easy to save. And if we were all of a sudden to try to like cut our spending back 80% or something, that'd be crazy. We never had to go through anything like that extreme. Yeah, that's awesome. That's so awesome. Thank you. You just have so many great, like for me, honestly, before really getting to know you and your blog, I was never kind of like, yeah, Mr. Money Mustache. It didn't really speak to me and I didn't really understand. It seemed like early retirement was kind of like for privileged people. And I'm like, well, I'm just gonna be happy if I

can retire, you know, like most people. And sometimes I still I'm like, well, you know, my first year of business, I will be very lucky if I can retire, because I have to, you know, I'm not going to get a pension or anything like that. So a lot of the information you have, and you share, and you're so transparent about everything. It's very, I don't know. I love it, but I'm biased because you're on my show. So I love your stuff and I know everyone's going to get a ton out of it. And I think honestly have a different view about what early retirement is. It's not something that is just for privileged people that now can play golf whenever they want. It's not something that is just for, you know, privileged people that now

can play golf whenever they want. It's, it's something different than that. And, and really just based on like really focused on your values and time. And I think that's really important. So before I let you go, there's a couple of things that I want people to be aware of. One, you've got an email newsletter list that is, or an email newsletter that you send out regularly. Where can they find out more about, because I know you put a lot of really good stuff, stuff that you tell people, you know, share info before the masses. How can they sign up? Yeah, there is a newsletter link right at the top navigation of my site, Our Next Life. And it's also, there's a little box at the bottom of each post that you can click on. So it's on almost every

page of the blog. Can't miss it. Yeah, can't miss it, but it's not a pop-up. I've sworn to people like no pop-ups. I know. I totally have them. They irritate me too sometimes, but they do work sometimes too. Um, and beyond that, I know, uh, that you are also, you mentioned the podcast. Tell me about what that will take for him. Yeah. Um, I'm super excited. So I actually have two podcasts launching because again, crazy person. Um, one is with, uh, someone who many of you all may know, Kara Perez, who writes blog Bravely, which is about women's financial empowerment. But she and I are starting a podcast that launches November 8th called The Fairer Sense. That's really not about fire or early retirement at all, but it's just really about women and money.

But trying to get into kind of some of the deeper, harder conversations around inequality and the wage gap and emotional labor and like all that stuff. But it's also a lot of fun. Like we're just both really upbeat, positive people. And Kara is hilarious. Yeah. She's the best.

Yeah. Come for, come for the comedy. If nothing else, stay for the hard hitting conversations. And that'll be up on iTunes, of course, and you can find it linked through our next life. And then in the spring, we're actually waiting until we're for real retired, which won't be until January. But Mark and I are doing a podcast

called Adventures in Early Retirement, which isn't going to be super financial, to be honest. I think that there are others who have great financial podcasts like you, Jess. So instead, it's going to be like, what is the zany stuff we want to do in retirement that most people can't do? Yes, that's what I want to know. I'm like, what are you up to? That's what I want to know. So one of the first things we're going to do is we're going to get wacky haircuts

that we can't have in professional settings. That's the first thing. I love it. Finally, finally, I don't have to imagine professional settings. That's the first thing. I love it. Finally, finally, I don't have to have a professional bob. Can you reveal what you have planned? Oh, I haven't decided yet. Oh, you haven't? Are you going to dye your hair a crazy color?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been thinking about that lately, too, but I can't decide. There's so many colors, and it's a big commitment ah the world has changed though like you can't I think that you can have more of that stuff now than you know for sure when I started my career um so it's not quite as crazy but like yeah like if I like do something wacky it's not something that's like a good first impression with a client um I but I recently like put a hoop in my nose I've had my nose pierced since my 18th birthday but I had a stud in it the whole time. And like, I recently just to sort

of tell myself, like, I'm for sure doing this and for sure retiring. I put the hoop in. So yeah, like we'll do crazy haircuts, maybe early retirement. I got a face tattoo. Too far. Okay. Yeah, no. You can make your props if you pull that off. Oh my gosh. But so yeah, so we'll just be documenting like wacky stuff like that, that we do. And like, we'll share some financial updates along the way. But I think the goal is to tell a different kind of story than what we can talk about on the blog. So that'll be fun. So we'll have that, of course, like we'll share news on the newsletter and on the blog as that's ready to go. Love it. You also, so just one last thing, you mentioned a fire. And before I met you, I'm like, what the heck does that even mean?

So this is a whole other community, a whole other niche. Do you want to explain like, what is it? What are these fire people about? I'll be honest honest i can't stand that acronym and i really feel hard to use it um but enough other people use it yeah it's like it is what it is avoid it yeah but it stands for financial independence retire early which as a grammarian drives me crazy with its unparalleled yeah it doesn't yeah um but, that's the idea. So I think there are people who like to debate things like whether financial independence and early retirement are the same thing or not,

which is just like an academic debate to me. The idea is just that you're free to do what you wish and that your pursuits don't have to make you money anymore and kind of just enjoying the life of the products you need. Whether you call it retirement or not, I think it's just people's emotional baggage around the word retirement. But yeah, there is a whole community, many, many blogs about it. I'm sure your listeners have heard of plenty of them, but yeah, it's intense. It's a whole thing, man. Yeah, it is intense.

I had no idea. It was like this whole pocket of people in the personal finance space. Like, oh, I didn't even know this was a thing. It's a whole rabbit hole you can get kind of lost. And it's really exploded in the last couple of years. I just started the blog like three years ago. And there were definitely some bloggers, you know, like Mad Scientist was already around. Mr. 1500 Days had started his blog a little bit ahead. You know, there are definitely some that had been around but um like in the last two two and a half years it has like mushroomed in a big way yeah it's crazy yeah well hopefully more people will

get into the fire i'm gonna i don't know i want to be a fire person now that sounds weird that sounds weird That's probably not the right, but you know what I mean? We need more women in the community. Yeah. I agree. It's a lot of dudes. Yeah. I mean, that's just like in general for the whole finance thing. So I'm always like women supporting women in the finance space. So, uh, well anyway, thanks for taking the time to chat with me, friend. This is so fun. I'm so excited. Thanks for having me.

You are so welcome. I'm so excited to, uh, yeah, keep, you know, seeing what you're up to, especially as you be, you know, become, uh, finally, uh, early retired in January, 2018. That's going to be awesome. So thanks again. Thank you. Bye. And that was episode 133 with Tanya from Our Next Life. Make sure to check

her out her blog at ournextlife.com. And like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, she also just launched a podcast called The Fairer Sense with Cara Perez. And it is awesome. But not only does she have one podcast, she's going to be launching a second podcast in 2018 called Adventures in Early Retirement. So again, just go to her website, ournextlife.com for all that good stuff. Sign up to her email list and hit her up on Twitter. So thanks again, Tanya, for chatting with me. It was super fun.

Now, before I let you go, some important stuff I want to let you know about. So don't go away. Here are just a few words about this episode's sponsor. Did you know that one in three Americans are self-employed? Because of the internet, it's now easier than ever to become self-employed or start a small business. That's why I was able to take a huge leap of faith and leave my nine to five almost a year ago. What started as my side hustle is now my full-time job, and I can run my entire business out of the comfort of my own home. Now, it has not been a walk in the park. I will not lie to you about that. Going from employee to entrepreneur is not for the fainthearted. But what has made the transition so much easier in my life is by using software that really fits

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And they're offering a 30 day unrestricted free trial to all of my listeners. If you want to take advantage and try FreshBooks out for yourself, all you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash mo and enter momoneypodcast in the how did you hear about a section. Once again, to try it out for free, go to freshbooks.com slash MO and enter Mo Money Podcast in the How Did You Hear About Us section. All right. So before you go, a few things that I want to mention. I do have another episode for you tomorrow.

It is not a Lister Series episode, but it is a fabulous episode that you will not want to miss. It is all about earning money, freelancing. So you'll definitely want to check that out. Then I've got another two episodes for you the first week of December. One with Michelle Jackson from Michelle is Money Hungry. That girl is awesome. She also really helped me out when I was doing that Money 2020 payments race. So shout out, Michelle, you're the best. And then after that, I will be capping things off with a special solo episode with yours truly. Obviously,

it's a solo episode with just me. Just to kind of share, I mean, just I'm gonna word vomit basically. But you know what, you tend to like those. That's like the craziest thing is I will literally just like sit in my home, have a glass of wine and just like spill all of my feelings and thoughts into like a 30 minute episode. And those always somehow tend to be like my highest downloaded episode. No idea why. Maybe I reveal things about myself that I should, I don't know. I'm very, I don't know, I've got nothing to hide really. So you can make sure to look look out for that uh in the coming weeks and also i will make sure because i've been running that contest um that i've been running since october november december uh to uh give away amazon gift cards i'm giving away three amazon

gift cards that are worth 25 each uh and it's super easy to enter. You just have to go to the show notes. So this one would be jessicamorris.com slash 133. But I think I've included them in information about the contest and all the show notes for this season. But it's super easy. You just have to leave me an iTunes review. Let me know what you think about the show. But then also take a screenshot and submit it.

So definitely check out the show notes on how to actually submit it. Because that's the only way I will be able to contact you if you're the winner so i will be revealing who the winners are for the contest in my last episode the solo episode so uh there's still time to enter this contest guys and i really appreciate all the lovely reviews i've been getting they make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside so make sure sure to do that. Okay, that's it for me. I'm going to stop talking. I'm going to let you get on with your day.

I'll see you back here tomorrow for another episode of the Mo Money Podcast. Bye. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.