More Money Podcast - 148 Why You Should Be the CFO of Your Life - J.D. Roth, Blogger at Get Rich Slowly

Episode Date: February 28, 2018

You take so much care and consideration at your day job, why aren't you doing the same with your financial life? I chat with early retiree & big-time blogger about why everyone should be the CFO of their life. Long description: In the personal finance blogging community. J.D. Roth is considered a very big deal. He started his blog, Get Rich Slowly, early on, became one of the go-to resources for personal finance information, and he was able to sell it for I believe 7-figures, helping reach his goal of early retirement. And during his early retirement, he started a second blog focused more on being the CFO of your life called Money Boss, which also took off and was always nominated for Plutus Awards at FinCon every year. Well, at a certain point, J.D. realized he wanted his original blog back. Since he was in the financial situation to afford it, in the fall of 2017 he bought it back and now he’s back at it (and I’m loving it!). So, that’s a little bit of what we talked about this episode, but we also dive deep into getting your financial life in order, taking your finances seriously (as seriously you would a high-powered job in a big corporation), and what steps you need to take to reach financial independence like he was able to. If this episode won’t inspire you to get out of debt and start investing for your future, I don’t know what will! Check Out J.D.’s Recent Blog Posts Spending and Withdrawals During Early Retirement: A Real-World Example The Future of Money Boss The Secret to a Rich Life The Optimization Trap Follow J.D. on Social Follow J.D. on Twitter Follow Get Rich Slowly on Twitter Follow J.D. on Instagram Like Get Rich Slowly on Facebook For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/148 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 148 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Thanks so much for joining me for another fabulous episode. And this one really, really is great because I'm kind of talking to a legend. He is kind of like the biggest figure in the personal finance community in my point of view. I'm talking about J.D. Roth. He is the creator of Get Rich Slowly, also moneyboss.com. And so we kind of go into his story of starting Get Rich Slowly as a way to, you know, kind of track his journey, also educate others on how to get rich slowly and, you know, reach financial independence and all that kind of stuff. But at a certain point, he was able to basically sell his blog for a lot of money. And he decided to kind of just do what

he wanted with his life, early retire and live it up. And then he started Money Boss on the side. And then he decided, you know what? I want to buy back Get Rich Slowly. I miss it. And he bought it back. And now he is in control of the website. Again, he's writing on it consistently, like my goodness, almost every day. And there's so much great content on there, great resources, super inspirational. And it doesn't hurt that he is literally the nicest guy. I mean, I don't know. I just had the best time chatting with him. So I know you're going to love this episode because we both had, we laughed a lot. We, you know, coughed a lot, but I edited those parts out. We had a lot of good times in this episode and I'm going to get into that interview right now, except at first, just a few words about this episode's sponsor.

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needs, risk tolerance, and financial goals. The best part is you can get started investing for your future online anytime. And if you have a question or need some extra support, the registered advisors are available to chat via email and phone and are happy to help. And Nest Wealth is currently offering all Momany podcast listeners three months free. To get started, visit learn.nestwealth.com slash Jessica Morehouse. Once again, that's learn.nestwealth.com slash Jessica Morehouse. And if you want to learn a little bit more about how it all works, check out my video review in the show notes or visit jessicamorehouse.com slash nestwealthreview. Thanks, JD, for joining me on the Momente podcast. Yay. It's great to be here. I know. I'm stoked. Oh, you're stoked. We're all

stoked. So where are you currently? This looks like a really amazing place. There's a million books behind you. There are a million books and you can't really see it, but I've got my Kermit the Frog painting up there. I commissioned a Kermit the Frog painting. So this is my riding shed. My girlfriend and I bought a new piece of property, a new house in July and we moved here and we downsized our house. We downsized to a 1,200 square foot house and we got an acre of land. So I got one of those prefab sheds. You can go down to Home Depot. Do you have Home Depot in Canada?

We do. We do. So I got one of those prefab sheds from Home Depot. It's 200 square feet, so it's decent size. That's quite big. It's like a tiny house. Yeah, exactly. Except for it's a tiny office and uh so i paid them to like construct it and then i finished the inside so

this is my riding shed it's specifically for me to write in i love it right i thought you were saying riding i'm like do you have horses and where are they? Everyone thinks they say riding. I've got to, I've got to have a harder T writing, writing shed. Oh my gosh. I want a writing shed. I wonder if I could get a horse in here. Maybe.

I mean, maybe a pony. Well, anyways, that looks amazing. I'm a bit jealous. I totally have fantasies. I've been talking to a lot of people about financial independence,

and I just recorded an episode with Liz from Frugal Woods, and she is living a life that I dream of on an acre in nature, and it just sounds amazing. She's got like 60 acres in Vermont or something, right? Yeah, she has like a country or something. It sounds amazing. Yeah, she has her own country. I know.

I know, and it's funny too because uh i think i've been talking a lot about like wouldn't it be cool if we you know i've been telling my husband a lot of like i think our next kind of financial goal we just bought our townhouse in toronto i think we should the next goal to work towards is financial independence for both self-employed now that should be something that we could totally do and And he's like, okay, cool. And it's like, what does financial independence look like? What do we kind of, and one of the things is like, I would love to actually live on some land. We have family in New Brunswick, beautiful. They just have acres and near the water. And I caught him yesterday looking on like this real

estate website at this house in Nova Scotia. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I don't know. I'm just, I don't know. I just started, somehow led me to here and look at this place. There's all this land. That's funny. The other day I went down a rabbit hole. So this piece of property costs us $450,000. And where is it?

It's just south of Portland, Oregon. So that's where Portland goes from being a suburbia to country. It's right on that edge, like within a quarter mile. And, uh, so for whatever reason, I went down the rabbit hole of looking at Zillow and I was looking at, uh, uh, Southeastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia. I was just looking at Kim, Kim, look at what we could get for $450,000.

We could, we could sell this place and move to, uh, the, it's not really the get for $450,000. We could sell this place and move to the, it's not really the Midwest. We can move back there in woodsy areas and we could have like 40 acres and this giant house. Not that we want a giant house because we don't, but there'd be a lot of room for the dog to roam. Uh-huh, you can have so many dogs. We could.

We make too many decisions about our life around our dog. And I know a lot of people do, but it's... Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. No. When I think about how much we paid for our very tiny stacked townhouse in Toronto and what we could get, like not so much in Canada, because Canada is kind of expensive, but if we're to move somewhere, yeah, like in Ohio, I'm like, oh my gosh, we could live in a mansion. It's just incredible. One day. One day we'll get there. Anyways, that was a little bit of a tangent.

I just had to go there. For people that don't know your story, and there is probably a couple of them listening, though most people probably already know you because you're kind of like a big deal, one of the biggest bloggers. Oh yeah, a little bit. Maybe in that one tiny space. Just one tiny space. What is kind of like, you know, the big backstory, you know, kind of on the about page of your website, it talks about how you were kind of thrown into working for the family business. You didn't really have a business background. You kind of learned as you went, and you got really good at basically being the kind of CFO for the business. And then at a certain point, you're realizing that you weren't paying that much attention to your personal finances.

Yeah, I stuck with my personal money. Yeah, and I think that's like most people. They're very good at one part of their lives, and then just awful at another. But it's funny that you're managing money for a business and making sure everything was great and just totally getting into debt and just not taking care of your personal finances. What happened in your life for you to realize that you need to make a change? Well, for me, at the time I was married and my wife and i uh we had just purchased well first of all i was carrying a lot

of consumer debt yeah and uh i was i was making an average salary about 45 50 000 us dollars a year but i was spending it all and then some uh so uh my wife and i decided to uh move we had a uh just a small standard ranch house in a small town, the small town I grew up in. And we just on a whim, we weren't even looking for a house. We found a house that we loved. We saw it and we're like, oh, let's buy it. I wonder if we can afford it. And so on paper, we could afford it. And here I should say that my wife and I, we kept completely separate finances. So she was saving 30% of her income. She never carried credit card debt. I was the one who sucked with money. So on paper, I could afford it. She could definitely afford it. So we bought the house,

but we moved in and I was like, oh my gosh, so many repairs need to be done. Just all the monthly payments started weighing me down. I felt like I was drowning. I was like, what am I going to do? And I read a bunch of personal finance books and it dawned on me, you know, I suck with my personal finances, but I do all right with the businesses. The businesses always make money and good money. So I thought, what if I manage my personal life as if I were managing a business?

And so that became like this conceit that I used. And sure enough, applying that technique and other strategies too, of course, over the next, it was 39 months. It took me 39 months to dig out of debt. As I dug out of debt, I started writing about it. I'd had a blog for a long time, back before blog was even a word. I started blogging in 1997 with a web journal. Oh, yes. I started a blog, and I called it Get Rich Slowly. Getrichslowly.org, not.com, but.org. And I just basically chronicled what I was doing to get out of debt and learn about money.

And for whatever reason, my story, it appealed to other people. It was helping other people get out of debt. And so it became a place where all of us could get together and talk about money. people it was helping other people get out of debt and so it became a place where all of us could get together and talk about money and it was awesome uh the irony in the long run i'm spoiling the ending in the story here but uh uh writing about how to get rich slowly allowed me to get rich quickly which was a crazy irony that That's pretty funny. And so you were able, was it because documenting your journey helped you figure out your finances better

or you just generated income through having this side hustle kind of thing? It was both. So as I was reading and writing about money, I was definitely applying the principles and I didn't change overnight. I don't want to pretend that I did and I don't want to pretend that I'm perfect now because I sure as hell am not.

But I gradually started applying the things that I was learning. I was like, Oh look, the advice works. If you just follow the advice instead of trying to look for shortcuts, it's like, Oh, these things work.

It takes a little time. But, uh, but at the same time, because I was managing my life like a business, the blog turned into a business. And it ended up making, when I started it, I thought, oh, it'll make a few hundred dollars a month and that'll help me get out of debt. And that's exactly what happened at first. But then the few hundred dollars a month turned into a few thousand dollars a month. And then even more than that. And I was like, holy cats. Uh, so eventually I, I was able to sell the site for a large sum of money. And, uh, that vaulted me. I would, I was on course

for financial independence within a few years anyhow. Uh, but that vaulted me there right away. Yeah. That's awesome. You talk about financial independence. Your listeners are familiar with the concept. Yeah. So I've had a couple of guests on already, but still, I feel like before, honestly, I'd even say six months ago, I didn't even know there was a difference between financial independence and early retirement because people use them kind of interchangeably. I think they're the same, but you can get into some big arguments with people. Yeah.

It's a whole, I didn't even know fire was a thing. It's a very community that I didn't, it was a secret club that I wasn't invited to. I just found out about it by stumbling upon a couple people. So yeah, I would actually love to know what your definition or what does that mean? What does financial independence mean to you? Oh, that's a great question. I take a little different viewpoint than some people. I really do think that what people refer to as financial independence is the same as early retirement. Mr. Money Mustache calls some people the early retirement police, and these are the people who are out there saying that, oh, if you work at all in retirement, you're not retired. I think that's why we use financial independence as a term is so that people don't

just bristle at the idea that, oh, well, you're working. So we talk about financial independence and it's okay to work. And so we just avoid early retirement. But most of us who are financially independent, we consider ourselves retired. We're just doing stuff we love instead of stuff we have to. But for me, for me, I don't think financial independence is any one place. A lot of people get it in their head that in order to be financially independent, I have, I need to have a million dollars or I need to have saved 25 times my annual spending. But I think there are different levels of financial independence. And when you look at it like that, it's more like a journey. It's not a one place you're trying to reach. It's a whole progression. And, uh, when you get out of debt, that's one degree

of financial independence. When you have enough money saved that you can quit your job at a moment's notice and not stress about it, that's another degree of financial independence. So there's a whole range. I love that. Yeah. I was actually just on Get Rich Slowly and reading that in general rule of thumb is to have saved 25 times your expenses or to be safe for 33. And so I calculated how much I have and how much I need. And I've got a ways to go. Like, oh, that's a lot of money. Damn it.

Really? And the thing is, Jessica, I mean, a lot of people get focused on just that number. And their work is on, they think, oh, once I reach that number, everything is going to be awesome. My life will change. I'll be happy. I'll be set. And I think that's a mistake. I think the real thing to do is figure out what do you want to do with your life both before and after you reach your financial goals and then build your life

around whatever that purpose or goal is. And in my case, I like to write about money. I thought I didn't like to. That's why I retired in air quotes. Air quotes. But turns out I do like to do it. And that's what I want to do even in retirement or financial independence. And because I'm clear on that, it helps give me direction in life. And so I think knowing what direction you want to go can help you achieve happiness. And I think it's a healthier thing to focus on than a specific financial goal or a specific number. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's interesting that you kind of mentioned like, you know, financial independence. That could mean, you know, leaving your job if you're not happy to do something completely different, which is my experience.

And one of the things that is interesting, I went to a panel at FinCon that was, I think, on fire. And a lot of the younger people on the panel talked about how, you know, they really just look forward to being able to quit that job to just do whatever they want with their money, which I get it. That's probably most people's perception of financial independence. But as someone who was able to quit my corporate job to start my own business, it was cool for a second when I, you know, handed him my notes like, bye suckers. And then the next day you're like, now what? Like I didn't really have a plan. My plan was to leave. So I think that, like you said, having just the plan to like reach financial independence and then to, you know, quit your

job, you're like, I've got enough money to do whatever I want and then not know what to do. You will struggle and maybe get a little depressed because it's kind of anticlimactic. You know, people don't realize how anticlimactic achieving something so big like that is without having a plan after. And the same with getting out of debt. Yeah. A lot of people, they get out of debt or say losing weight.

I mean, it's the same psychological principle. You set this goal. you have this target, you're working toward it, you're very excited. And all of a sudden you reach 150 pounds or you get out of debt or whatever your goal is. And then you're left going, well, what's next? Yeah, now what? And so for me, I think if you're clear

on what your purpose is and why you're doing it, then you can keep doing the things that help you succeed. So for me, I don't like people to focus on getting out of debt or achieving financial independence because I say those things are side effects. What I want people to do instead financially is to focus on their saving rate or it's like profit for a business, right? Yeah. Your saving rate is your difference between your income and your spending. And if you will just focus on increasing the gap between your earning and your spending, that will get you out of debt.

That will get you to financial independence. And then you don't have to worry about this huge deflation because you've already achieved a different goal, a better goal, which is creating that gap. And, you know, from my experience, fitness coaches say the same thing about losing weight. They say, don't focus on this target weight, focus on building healthy habits. And if you can do that, you will lose the weight and you don't have to worry about what your weight is because the pounds will come off eventually if you're doing the right thing. Absolutely. So is that kind of your experience that you were working towards financial independence? Because you said that you retired and then you sort of unretired.

Yeah. What happened there? Well, part of it was as much as I preach about finding a purpose and knowing what your personal mission is, I had failed to do it myself. So when I sold Get Rich Slowly, when I achieved financial independence, I thought that I wanted to travel the world. And I do. I mean, I really enjoy travel. I thought I wanted to – well, I didn't really have a clear idea what I wanted to travel the world. And I do. I mean, I really enjoy travel. I thought I wanted to – well, I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted to do. I wanted to experience a bunch of stuff and then make a decision. But as time went on, I realized that I really enjoy talking and writing about money.

And for whatever reason, people enjoy reading what I write and listening to what I say. It helps people. And it occurred to me after about four or five years in this retirement state that, you know, that's actually my purpose. So maybe I should continue to pursue that. And that's when I started a new site called Money Boss. And Money Boss was an outgrowth of me saying, you know, I'm just going to give in and realize that my vocation, my calling is helping people with money. Yeah. And you do it very well. Like it's true. Like I read a ton of stuff and talk to a lot of guests but just going on your website today just kind of reading a couple random posts i was like i was just like in it like i got

real deep i'm like yes yes yes yes it's fun for me because i like to tell stories and i not just my own stories but i like to tell other people's stories it's it's fun when i'm out and about i do a lot of of speaking gigs and I travel to events. And so I'm always hearing people tell me their stories and I'm like, wow, I want to share that with my audience. And it's just fun. I think people learn so well through hearing other people's stories because they can identify with things in the story or they can say, oh, I'm not that dumb. I'm better than that person. Stories help so much because so much personal finance advice

is just dry and dull and boring. Yeah. And I feel like that information, those tips, advice or whatever, they don't sing in unless you have something to relate it to or you have some context. And that's why I like to talk as if it's just like a regular conversation. I'm not

just like, what are your five tips for blah, blah, blah. Cause I don't care. People listening don't care. No one cares. Like they just want to know what your story is, what your path was to see if like, Hmm, that sounds like a, maybe a path I want to go down or, and, and then you kind of learn from them by their experience. I mean, that's how I've been able to do well with my... Just by talking to people and literally what they do. It looks to me like you're drawing on your film school experience too. Is that right? It is. Ooh, someone did their research about me.

Oh, hello. It was actually kind of fun to do the film. I watched Catechism. I thought that was pretty fun. No, you didn't. Oh my God. You're so funny. That's like you and my parents. You're the only. That's like you and my parents. You're the only people who probably watched it. No, your audience has to have watched Catechism too, right?

Oh my gosh. You guys should all go watch Catechism. Oh my gosh. It is on my YouTube channel, but it is very different than what I do now. It's so funny watching it. And you're like, it has nothing to do with what I'm doing now. It is literally a short film comedy about virginity. But you know. It's awesome oh my god that is so funny a glimpse of your sense of humor and i really enjoyed it that it's pretty much that yeah but and i i mean i can see how you could draw on

your experience i mean you spent five years in film school? It was four years, but it took me five years to do my degree. But yeah, four years. I mean, see, for me, when I write at Get Rich Slowly, I'm drawing on all my experience. I'm a total nerd, computer nerd. Yes. So drawing on all that, I love to write. I was deep in, I mean, I just draw on that experience. And it looks to me like you're drawing on your experience. And I think that's awesome because it plays to your strengths and it plays to your experience. And I think too often people come into the personal finance space and they try to be somebody they're not or try to act as if they're an expert when they're not. Instead of just doing, being who they are and trying to reach an audience that can relate to them. So I think you're doing a great job with that. Well, thank you. That is so nice of you to say. So glad I got

you on the show. But yeah, I, well, for me, I think the big reason why I have kind of drawn from that, I mean, I did four years, I got a degree or whatever, is because I didn't want it to be like, oh, that was a regret. I never want to regret anything in my life. And I've tried a lot of different things. And so I think, you know, just try to take bits and pieces from whatever you have done in your life, whether you think it's completely irrelevant, and you may surprise yourself, be like, actually, I can totally put that experience to this use or whatever. I mean, I never thought growing up that I would work in any kind of personal finance capacity. And then somehow, I kind of turned the things, my experiences, film school, working in marketing to do this.

So you just never know where you'll end up. So never think that whatever you do, whatever experience is irrelevant. I agree with you. What I say is that I am a personal finance blogger. And if I go back to when I was in college 30 years ago, there is no way I could have predicted that I would be a personal finance blogger. First of all, blogs didn't exist. The internet didn't exist. I sucked with money. Nothing could have made me plan for this. So I think that it sounds like you and I have both kind of not necessarily just surrendered and given into life. But we've paid attention to where life has taken us and we've taken advantage of the situation. And I think it's awesome that, and I think other people can do this too. You can just look at what your experience has built up to and just go with it, I guess. Just go with it.

I know. I think that's like, especially for me, who's someone who is like, I mean, if you watch Catechism, you'll know, I used to be like super uptight and everything had to be like, this is how life is supposed to be. And that's, oh my gosh. Yeah. You just can't, you'll just hate your life. If you try to basically force a certain plan. Cause you know what? I forget the saying, I'm also terrible with sayings. My husband laughs at me forever, but it's like, what is it? It's like when you make plans, God laughs or something like that. And that's kind of how I go. It's like something like that. I could just be made like, I am the worst at saying it's like, I'll always get it a little bit wrong. Um, but yeah, it's just, I, I, I've learned as I've gotten older, just let things go and just kind of go with the flow and don't be

afraid to say yes or say no. Um. I think both of those are so important. Saying yes to opportunities that come along. Don't be scared. Just go with it. Yeah. My girlfriend and I did a 15-month RV trip around the United States. And she's always been a go-with-the-flow person, and I've been more rigid. But on that trip, at first we had plans, and we learned very quickly that no, no, no, no, no. On an RV trip,

on a 15 month RV trip, you just got to surrender and go with the flow. I mean, you want to exercise agency. You want to be pushing yourself in a direction, but when something happens, you just go with it and you adapt. You need to be adaptable and resilient, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Oh my gosh. So adaptable. Otherwise you'll just like be pulling your hair out and just be like, why? Um, oh my gosh. Yeah. Um, so I ask you a question. Yes. We're going to go into something completely off tangent here. So when I met you, you had just finished your race. I did. And you lost to somebody using Bitcoin. I don't understand.

And you know what's crazy? And you lost to somebody using gold. How did that happen? I was fourth. I beat the guy who did contactless or tap because he had to pull himself out of the race. Do your listeners know all about this race? I've mentioned it, and it is on my YouTube channel. I am still – actually, that reminds me. I need to contact the racers who I talked to.

I'm like, I need to get you on the show because there are so many – even though everyone documented their own journeys through video, so many stories did not make the cut, and there's some crazy stories. It was just a five-day or seven-day journey or whatever. Yeah, that's right. That's when I met you. I was like out of my mind, sleep deprived. Yeah, you were very sleep deprived.

But I had so much fun. Did you start in Toronto or where did it start? I started in Toronto and then I made my way to Cleveland and then went to Denver and then Las Vegas, then the Grand Canyon and then back to Denver. Or no, back to Las Vegas. And you were using chip and pin the whole way, which seems like it should be good. And I don't understand how the hell somebody using Bitcoin is able to make that work. And what I'm thinking too, and I definitely do want to talk to her about it, because I feel like right after a race, then everyone started talking about cryptocurrency.

And, oh my gosh, people are getting rich off this and stuff. And I actually asked... It's because of her. It's because she won the race. It's because she won the race. Absolutely. Uh, but what's crazy is, so basically we were given a budget and basically whatever we didn't use, we were allowed to keep ourselves. And so I asked him like, if she doesn't use her Bitcoin, could she keep it? Yeah. I'm like, Oh my God, I wonder how much she made. Like what's the value on that Bitcoin budget now? Wow. I for her yeah she was yeah i i sorry i took you off it no no it's it was a i mean it was an awesome crazy experience but that's also like

another you know talking about saying yes and no uh how that crazy experience happened was a weird email came into my inbox from from someone from UK. I'm like, I don't know. It's a spam. And then I emailed them back like, do you want to talk on the phone so I can verify if this is spam or not? And then it was legit. And they said they asked a few other people and they all said no. I'm like, I'll do it. And then it was a real thing and it happened and I did it, you know?

Wow. So it's one of those things. Everyone else said no. I'm like, I'll try this. This seems really unlike me. And I did it and it was a really, really awesome experience. That's fun. It's awesome. Crazy. Yeah, I know. I should probably do a special episode about that, quitedeprived. But it was so nice to actually finally meet you after seeing you walk from afar but never got a chance to say hello. Okay, we're kind of getting to the 30-minute mark, I think.

So before we wrap up, though, there's two things that I definitely wanted to mention. You have a book, Number one called your money, the missing manual. I do your money, the missing manual. I wrote this in 2009. It's targeted at us audiences. That's okay.

It might be, you know, out of date. It's not really out of date. I mean, the material in there is, is really good. And the thing I'm proud about the book for is I could have just taken

everything that I had written for Get Rich Slowly and dumped it into the book. And while I did use some of the material, it's all, I'd say it's 80% totally rewritten, totally new. And I feel like it's really valuable stuff for people trying to get their life figured out with money so it's called your money in the missing manual and it really is like a manual for how to handle out money my gosh yeah allow money which is something i feel like everyone needs my god when i was in my early 20s i'm like can someone just give me a manual on how to do adulting and money and things because i don't know what to do. I actually Googled it. I didn't find anything. How to be a grownup. And then you also released a course in 2014 called the

Get Rich Slowly course, which I'm probably going to buy because I want to know. Yeah. And so, okay. So there's actually this logical progression to everything that I've done or am doing. So although I don't set out with a plan to make it work. So when I wrote Get Rich Slowly originally back before I sold it, I didn't know what I was doing with money. I was just muddling through it. And so there was no rhyme or reason or set philosophy or set path. Your Money in the Missing Manual, which I think was published in 2010, actually. This was my first time trying to take everything I'd learned and put it into some coherent.

Yes. And so there's some structure there, but it's not the best structure in the world. In 2014, my friend Chris Guillebeau, who writes a site called The Art of Nonconformity, he approached me and he said, would you be interested in doing a course under my unconventional guides brand and do a course about money? And I said, sure. And so I got permission from the people who had bought the Get Rich Slowly website and we made the Get Rich Slowly course. And this was me taking, five years later, after having written Your Money, The Missing Manual, taking the same ideas,

but trying to give it some more cohesiveness and applying this idea that you can manage your life like a business. Because not everyone understands how to save money, but they all understand that businesses have to make a profit. And what I've learned is the same idea applies to your personal life and people get that. And so that's what the Get Rich Slowly course was.

And then the next year I started Money Boss because I was like, I love that idea. Let me run with the whole managing your life like a business. And then last year in 2017, the people who bought Get Rich slowly from me back in the day came to me and said, do you want to buy it back? And I said, okay. So now I,

I have get rich slowly back and, uh, I'm writing there and I'm building on this framework. I mean, it doesn't look like it right now because there's so much work to do to get it remodeled and back in shape. But, uh,

my plan is to build on this entire framework that I've been developing and help people at all stages of financial independence, the people who are just starting to get money figured out and the people who are approaching early retirement, both. I want to provide information that's valuable to everybody. Totally. Awesome. And you put out a ton of content on Get Rich. I'm like, do you write every day? There's a new post every single day, if not more. Yeah. Well, this is going to be for 2018. So back in the day, again, in the olden times, when the world was young, from 2006 to 2012, roughly, because even after I sold Get Rich

Lowly, I stayed on and I was a primary writer. I was publishing around 500 articles a year. Wow. So at Money Boss, I didn't do that. I couldn't make that work. But as a challenge to myself and to kind of let people know that Get Rich Slowly is back. Yes. I said in 2018,

I want to publish 500 articles again. So that is the pace I'm shooting for. And so, yes, I might not be creating a new article from scratch every day, although I am most days, but I'm publishing at least one or two articles a day. And those could be guest articles, or they could be, uh, me going back to the archives and saying, you know, I don't think this way about debt anymore. Let me polish this up and give a different spin on it. I love that. I love that. Especially for people who haven't gone to your site before and it's totally new for them. So they may not have read your archived article. So it's nice to have an update. But actually, when I was looking at it, I really did like some of the, what is it called? Money jerk or something

like that where you, yeah, I loved those stories. Those were so great. Oh, I love it. Yeah. That was a very popular feature when I was doing it before. On Sundays, I would share a story from somebody in the community and people loved it. Love it because people love knowing what other people are up to. I do. I love getting in there and like, what are you doing with your money in your life? I want to know all the details. That's amazing. Well, I'm so glad that you did buy Get Rich Slowly back because it is very much you, your voice. So I'm excited to see when you do upgrade or have the new design to reveal. I'm very, very excited for that. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. Thanks for having me on the show. It's fun. It was so fun. You're welcome back anytime.

Awesome. Excellent. I'll see you tomorrow. Okay. All right. Thanks, JD. All right. Thanks, Jessica. And that was episode 148 with the great JD Roth. Make sure to check him out at getrichslowly.org and moneyboss.com. Isn't he the loveliest? Wasn't he so great? Maybe I'm just flattered because he actually watched my graduation film. I'm just like, wow, that's awesome. You are a star in my books, JD. Make sure to check out the show notes, jessicamorehouse.com slash 148. Going to put

lots more info about what we talked about, some links to some of my favorite articles that he's written in there. So make sure to check out the show notes, jessicamorehouse.com slash 148. A couple extra things to chat with you about, so don't go away. But here's just a few words about this episode's sponsor. Support for this episode comes from Nest Wealth. Want to start investing for your future? Luckily, nowadays, it doesn't mean you have to make an appointment with some suit in an office.

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the show notes or visit jessicamorehouse.com slash nestwealthreview. All right, first things first, I want to remind you all that I've got a Facebook group. It is called the Money Life Balance Community. And I started about, I guess, a year and a half ago as a way to have some sort of online-based community for us all to get together. It's kind of a support group, really. And it's just for you to come in

there, ask your questions, see what other people are doing with their money, talk about what's going on in the financial news, and just become more educated and more informed about what's going on in personal finance. I love having this podcast and having guests share their ideas, but I wanted to have a space where people can actually ask questions to people and find out what people are doing. So if you want to join us, it's a ton of fun. Make sure to go to facebook.com slash groups slash Money Life Balance and join us. I think there's about 1,200 over 1,200 people in there now. And the best part is really is because, well, A, I monitor it like crazy, but also it is a no-jerk zone. I wanted to create a safe, comfortable space for people

to feel, well, not judged when they have a quote-unquote dumb question. There's no dumb questions. If you don't know the answer to something, it doesn't mean it's a dumb question. It just means you don't know the answer yet, right. And so that is what it is. So I, you know, make sure it is a space that is completely positive. There is no trolls. There's no jerks. There's no people in there trying to sell their crap because I don't got no time for that. The people that do that, they get blocked and kicked out. Okay. So if you want to, uh, you know, join in the fun and, uh, you know, you know, just feel kind of more empowered with your money, this is the place to do it. And just go to facebook.com slash groups slash money life

balanced to get in there. I've got a bunch of other kind of exciting things in the queue coming up, but sometimes I record these episodes in advance. So the best place to always keep in the loop with what I'm doing, whether it's, you know, my next book club, my next event, um, new courses that I'm putting out, all that kind of stuff. Make sure to get on my email list. Just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe to, uh, get on there. Once again, that's jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe and uh yeah you'll you'll be on my weekly newsletter list you'll know what i'm up to and what cool things i've got in the queue but uh yeah i just want to let you know get on the list just do it it's

you know it's a cool thing to do that's all i'm saying um i uh do not have another episode for you tomorrow i have another episode for you next wed I have another episode for you next Wednesday, though, and it is with the wonderful Liz from Frugalwoods. She has a book coming out, and I read it, loved it, and we are going to talk all about it next week. So do not miss it. Make sure to subscribe on iTunes, YouTube, Stitcher, wherever you're listening, and I'll see you back here next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.