More Money Podcast - 163 How to Achieve FIRE in Your 20s - Gwen Merz, Blogger at Fiery Millennials & Co-host of FIRE Drill Podcast

Episode Date: June 13, 2018

For this episode, I talk with Gwen Merz, the blogger behind Fiery Millennials and the co-host of FIRE Drill Podcast. As you may have guessed, we go in-depth about FIRE, chat about Gwen achieving financial independence in her 20s, and some terms you may not have her of from the FIRE community. Long description: For this episode of the podcast, I chat with a new friend I made recently at an event called Statement. It was a women in business retreat for women in the financial blogging space, and I can’t even tell you how life changing it’s been. But that’s not what I want to share anyway. I want to share that at this event, I got to meet the amazing Gwen Merz who was able to achieve something not many 20-year-olds can! I’m talking about achieving financial independence. We chat in-depth about what that actually means, and no, it doesn’t mean she’s retired. For her, it means she saved up enough money to afford to leave her corporate job, move cities and then focus on her blog (Fiery Millennials) and podcast (FIRE Drill Podcast) full-time. It also means she saved up enough money that by retirement age, it will have grown to an amount she could easily retire on. So I know I’ve had a lot of guests on the show in the FIRE community that have been able to achieve financial independence and retire early, but Gwen’s story might actually be a bit related. She didn’t save up a million dollars and is now living an easy life. She was able to save up $200,000, bought an income property for about $80,000, but still intends to work to earn a living. She’s set things up so in the future she will earn passive income from your property and her $200,000 will have compounded into a way bigger amount she can live off of in retirement. But, she still needs to earn money for her present needs. For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/163 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to episode 163 of the Mo Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jess Morales. Thanks for joining me for another episode. This one is a good one as per usual. Don't put out crap now, do I? This one is featuring my new friend, Gwen. She can be found at her blog, FieryMillennials.com. She's also the co-host of Fire Drill Podcast. And if you haven't guessed, she's all about fire, fire, fire, financially independent, retiring early. It's not a new movement, but new-ish to me in the past year to know it existed. And now it seems like everyone's talking about fire because it's kind of an exciting movement. It's all about, you know, hustling and working hard today, saving up your money, investing your money strategically so you can

become financially independent and retire early. And by early, it's not like, no, I want to retire by 15. No, no, no, no. Like retire in my 30s or 40s or something exciting like that. And then you can do whatever the heck you want, because you have money in the bank to fund your life. And one of those people who is part of this movement is Gwen. And she recently did something really cool. And we're going to talk about that in the podcast where she had a really awesome job, but she, you know, wanted to kind of explore her options. She's young, she's only 27. And she wanted to basically be able to quit her job, move cities, and, you know, explore the world and explore some entrepreneurial kind of exciting things that she's doing. So she quit her job, but she was able to do that because she was, you know, living really frugally, invested her money,

saved a ton of money and was able to afford to do that. So we kind of talk about what it means to be financially independent, how, you know, one does this and the difference between there's, I mean, there's so many different things in this fire community. There's something I just found out called lean fire. And then there's a big fire or fat fat fire that's what it's called fat fire so we talk all things fire in this podcast and uh get to know gwen a little bit more because she's a very interesting story because she's only 27 and yeah it's it's incredible so uh anyways i'm gonna get to that interview with gwen in just a hot sec but but first, just a few words about this episode's sponsor.

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get higher rankings and more traffic not to mention canspace offers award-winning support 99.9 uptime and a very generous 30-day money back guarantee if you have a website already they'll even help you set up and transfer everything for free. So if you're itching to get started, go to canspace.ca slash Jessica M and enter your email address to get the $10 off coupon. Once again, visit canspace.ca slash Jessica M and enter your email address to get the $10 off coupon. Hey, Gwen, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast. So excited to have you on the show to talk about FIRE. Yeah, Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun. It is going to be fun. And also, I think it's gonna be more fun because we were able to,

you know, actually really get to know each other more in person a few weeks ago at a retreat that we went to. So that always helps to kind of really get in the zone. So now I kind of have a better idea of what I'm going to talk to you about. Yeah. It's always good to get to know somebody on a two hour van ride when you're crammed up next to each other. Yeah. You get to know each other real quick. That's for sure. So your story is very fascinating to me because you are still in your twenties, but you are, did you consider yourself financially independent or cause I read it like I, and you could correct me, uh, on some of this. Cause I was looking at some of the articles that you've been quoted in on in the

media and a lot of them do call you, Oh, you've retired early. Do you consider like, or have you? So if anything, I would consider myself financially independent. I am definitely not retired. I have a bit of a nest egg saved up, but I don't have enough to live off of my life. So right now, as our friend Paulette says, you know, I've got my F-off fund saved up. And so I was able to quit work and move up to a different city to move in with my boyfriend, which I definitely loved exercising that option. But I have enough to get me started in this whole entrepreneurial freelance life, but definitely don't have enough to live off for forever.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I feel like a lot of when I do kind of read articles and stuff like that where it's like this person is so young and look at what they've achieved. I feel like a lot of media get the – they get confused by the terms financial independence and retire early. And this is only something I feel like recently as I've talked to more people in the FIRE community that there is a big difference.

And even when we also met again when we were in New York for another meetup with Tanya Hester from Our Next Life, I was talking to someone who she said there's actually two types of financial independence, which is news to me. She's like, there's a thing called lean fire and fat fire. Are you aware of this? I don't know. It's the first time i heard about it yeah so there's like there's like lean fire which is bare minimum like bare bones you have paid off as much as possible and you're living a very frugal lifestyle you know you're in a low cost of

living area um you're on low cost cell phone plans. You know, you batch plan your meals. Like you just live, your expenses are as low as humanly possible. And then fat fire is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum where you've saved up your 25 times your expenses and then added like, it's more like 30 times or more. You know, you've got a big cushion. You can live it up. You can fly to go to vacations and you don't have to credit card turn for them. You can afford to send your kids to private school or bankroll their college education or, you know, like whatever, whatever comes up, you have more than enough cushion to handle it.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, when I was talking to her, I'm like, okay, because from what, you know, lots of the conversations I've had with people in fire, it seems like typically if you have a million dollars in the bank, you're pretty much financially independent. That's kind of the, I don't know, just like the number that keeps getting thrown around. I'm like, okay, it's a good number to have in mind. And she's like, oh, yeah, well, that's kind of more lean fire. For me, I'm looking at more like seven million. I'm like, okay, it's a good number to have in mind. And she's like, oh yeah, well, that's kind of more lean fire for me. I'm looking at more like 7 million. I'm like, oh my gosh. Well, to be fair, she lives in New York, so she probably does need 7 million. Like it's expensive to live there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, oh wow. Okay. Good to know. Good to know. Like, I don't know if I'll

be able to do fat fire anytime soon, but I like that there's a, not only is there like this whole, I mean, honestly, like this fire community is very, I feel like new to me. I like, I've known about financial independence and right to hire early. I didn't really know it was a kind of a movement or a kind of a community until, I don't know, maybe in the past six months. And then to know that there's so many intricate kind of categories within that is so fascinating. I'm curious, like what inspired you to kind of get into the fire community or, you know,

especially since you're so young and it's like you have your life ahead of you. You had a really great career. Like why did you have the goal in mind to reach this, you know, goal of financial independence? I just threw it all away. Threw it all away into the garbage. So I'd always been pretty good with money. My parents taught me a lot about finances. So they taught me, you know, low interest on your debt. If you have to take any, avoid debt as much as possible. They co-signed my first car for me. And he was asking me, my stepdad was asking me, like, oh, what terms did you get?

And I said, 18 months at X percent interest. He goes, good, good, good. Short-term loans are better. Paid off as quick as possible. And so I had really good guidance from my parents. And then I went to college and they told me, listen, you're on your own for paying for college. We're not. We're not paying for state school. We'll pay for two years of community college.

But I was like, yeah, not not happening, not going there. So I had to figure out how to pay for college. And I ended up getting a full ride scholarship for academics. And based off of my resume for all the activities I did in high school. And so that was like huge relief, you know? So there I am, you know, I don't have a ton of debt in college. I joined the military as backup plan. So I have plenty of extra money on the side for, you know, one weekend a month. And, um, I'm just sitting there, you know, bored on the internet and I was on stumble upon,

do you remember that site? I remember. Is this still around? It's still around. It's still around. Believe it or not. So there was a stumble upon and, um, this site came up and I started reading and I was like, this is the next step for me. Like I was good with money already, but then what do I do with those money skills? And then this guy named Mr. Money Mustache popped up and was like, this is what you should do. Retire early.

Don't, don't waste your time and crap. And I was like, this guy's a genius. Done. And so that's how I got started the whole financial independence movement. It's actually really interesting because a year later or so after I graduated and got a job, uh, I was looking for blogs, like people like me, you know, young people to start their career, women preferably. And there weren't anybody blogging at that time that fit that profile. So I was like, well, guess I'm going to be that blog that I want to see.

Totally. I started my blog and got actually, you know, interwoven into the community itself. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. I mean, that's, I think why a lot of women actually specifically start their own blogs are like, I was trying to find something and there really wasn't anything that was, you know, something I could identify with. So I just started my own, which I think is great. That's like the best reason to start something because if you're looking for it, someone else is looking for it. And yeah, when I think of how many fireblocks do I know from like younger millennials, people in their twenties? Um, yeah, I can't think of any besides yours. I mean, yeah, that was three years ago when I started and there was like, there was Aaron

broke millennial and that was about all I found when I was Googling. And so, but now, three years later, the community has just exploded. It has. There's tons of blogs all over the place. And so, I think it'd be very easy now for somebody to find somebody that they align with. Yeah. Why do you think the FIRE community is exploded? Because I feel like, yeah, for me, I feel like all of a sudden I'm like, oh, wow, there's this whole world that I had no idea it existed.

And it's like massive and super like these people are like diehards into like they really and I don't know too many. I'd say like the only thing that's comparable is like all the people that are really into debt payoff. There's a lot of debt blogs and they're really passionate about it because it's a huge goal, and they know it'll really change their lives once they pay off their debt. And everyone has debt, it seems like, so it's a huge community still. And then I don't think there's too many people really that excited about budgeting.

Couponing is a pretty big one. That's a whole other specter, and credit card churning. And then it seems like fire is like just massive or just people are just really, really passionate about it. Why do you think that is? Well, it gives you a purpose in life, you know, and everybody wants a community that they're a part of and wants to feel like they belong. And it's hard to do that when you're so focused on money, which is especially taboo in both Canadian and American society. Nobody talks about money.

So then you find this group of people that not only want to talk about money, but encourage it and obsess over it. And talk numbers. And talk numbers. Yeah, they get into the nitty gritty and they talk about everything and they're optimizing things and coming up with new strategies. And it's just a really, really great feeling to know that you're with people that get you and understand you and aren't going to be like, I don't talk about money. What? Go away. You know?

100%. You mentioned something earlier that I do want to kind of just like talk a little bit more. You mentioned that you were in the military. That's pretty amazing. How long were you and what did you do? So I joined straight out of high school and deferred my training for after my first year of college. So I was in the Air National Guard and I picked the, what was my job? Client systems technology was my job and 3d 1x1 for anybody who understands that um and i chose it because they offered a bonus i got twenty thousand dollars just for signing up

it was like done this is awesome you know like as a 19 year old with no money i was like i'm so rich yeah this20,000 is amazing. And then I figured out later that you don't actually get all $20,000 at once. You get the first $10,000 after a year in, after you finish your training, and then you get the last part of your bonus after three years. Oh, okay. You kind of spread it all out so you don't just make it rain, which is unfortunate.

But then I was in the local guard unit for six total years. Wow. That's amazing. That's really, yeah, I don't, again, I don't know any real, I don't think I know any women that were in the military. And I think it's kind of amazing because it does seem like it really did help you on your, your path for, you know, paying for school and staying out of debt. Yeah, no, definitely. It didn't, it was there in case I lost my scholarship, which made me feel a lot less stressed out and anxious about my grades, which was really helpful. But then also like they paid me, what was it, about $900 a month while I was in college for one weekend's worth of work. That's not bad. No, that's a pretty good return on my time.

Yeah. So, and I was living on campus. I had all of my expenses paid for. So basically all I had to do was pay for my car if I had a car payment, which most of the time I didn't. And so my cell phone and any extra activities that I wanted to do like movies or go out to the bars or whatever,

like that's more than enough to live off of. Yeah and I mean this is probably just how much I little or how little I know about the military but I was kind of assumed when you sign up it just means that I don't know you have to go to war I didn't realize there are other options and avenues if you want to join the military yeah there's there's the Air National Guard for the Air Force. And there's also Air Force Reserves, which is like the federal side of that. Those you are on a cycle, a deployment cycle. So if your slot comes up, and there's a need for your specific career field and stuff, you can get deployed. So like, that's definitely an option. But it's not pretty much guaranteed, like if you're active duty or something. Oh, okay.

Good to know. Cool. But the funny part is, is that I actually got out of the military because we didn't do anything. All we did was like do these two weeks practice trainings in the summer and like we would drive to Wisconsin or whatever. And it's like boring. You know, I signed up for adventure. Like give me something to do. Yeah. And I got out of the military.

And then a year later, everybody in my unit was deployed overseas. Wow. Wow. That's crazy. I just didn't wait long enough. Yeah. And here I am complaining about not getting deployed. It's like, you know, it may have been a good thing.

I don't know. You know, depending on, you know, what you want. Wow. That's amazing. That's awesome. You get activated, uh, to active duty status and all your pay is tax free and you get lots of other pay on top of that. Um, and then that qualifies you for other benefits. So because I never got deployed, um, I basically don't have any veteran benefits. Right. I can't get the VA. I can't hardly do anything. Like I can't even get a license plate anymore that says I served because I don't meet the qualifications.

How ridiculous is that? I didn't know that. I didn't know. I had no idea. the only thing that my service got me was a footnote on my resume and the ability to use the VA loan for buying a house, which I did use. Yeah. Cool. Wow. So speaking of like buying a house, I know one of your, the things that you were able to do to kind of help you in your journey to financial independence is you bought an income property to rent it. Yep. Yeah. So I bought a 1910 formerly single family house that got converted into a triplex for about $85,000 or so, which is a pretty good deal. It's a really good deal.

Well, especially coming from Canada. Yeah. But I'm assuming if it was really old, did you have to do a lot of work on it? Yeah. And I knew that there was going to be some work that I needed to do on it, but I actually underestimated how much work was going to be needed on it entirely. And it's just been a huge financial drain, actually. Right now, I'm about $6,000 in the hole from it. But I did live for free for a year. So that helped offset it a bit. And also, it's like a long-term investment. So eventually, you will get that kind of money back as you continue to rent it out. And it'll pay for itself, right?

Please, please let it stop. Exactly, Exactly. So you rent that out, but you yourself don't own your own home that you live in. You rent, I'm assuming. Is that correct? Actually, so my boyfriend owns his own house and we live in his house. Ah, okay. Cool. Which he used to have house hack as well. House hack. I like that house hack. He did a different version of it where he bought one property that was a single family house and then rented out rooms to people. In this case, his college buddies. That's smart. Yeah. That's actually, I think what recently had Scott McGillivray on the show from HGTV. And that's what he did too with his first income property. He bought a place and just rented

out the rooms while he was in college. And that's how he actually, I think, made enough to put himself through school and own a home. Very smart guy. Is your plans to continue to, I guess, accrue more properties down the road? I don't know. I kind of decided since I quit my job,

I don't really have a fire hose of income stream coming in anymore. So I can't really afford to buy a of income stream coming in anymore. So I can't really afford to buy a house right now. But maybe in the future, you know, if all of my online entrepreneurial endeavors take off, and I start making the big bucks again, maybe we'll get back and do it and buy more. Yeah. So I want to do talk about a little bit about okay, so you mentioned, you know, you went to university, you got a really good job after university working for a fortune 500 company in it, which awesome. You worked there for a number of years, and then you decided to

quit your job. And this is recently that you decided to quit your job. To what, like, what was the thing behind that? What did you want to do? Like, why did you want to leave your job when it seemed like you were on an upward trajectory, a really good career? Yeah. So I did an internship with this company in college, which is how I got in with them. And I did a really good job and they invited me back full time once I graduated, which was six months later. So I went straight from college to working. I had like two weeks off and that was it. And, um, I loved working for this company. They treated me incredibly well.

They paid me well. The benefits were great. I had a pension, which is amazing these days. So, um, yeah, I, I was doing pretty good. Um, they had this three-year program called the Early Development Program. So it's two 18-month rotations within the company. So you, like, figure out what kind of aspect of IT you want to work in. So for me, I figured out that I'm absolutely terrible at working with, like, hardware and code and stuff. I just don't have a logical turn of mind for that. But I'm really good at understanding what's going on and then explaining it to people in like real English. So that's definitely a skill that was needed.

Um, but I started savings from such an early age that when, uh, I started dating my boyfriend, we lived six hours away and long distance is super tough, you know, driving 12 hours to see each other on a weekend. Like that just takes up a ton of time. And so we were like, well, if this is going to work out, which we really want it to, uh, something's going to have to change. And so we were like, well, you can move here because you could just take your job and move here. But it was a smaller town and I don't like living there and he didn't want to live there.

And it was away from his family. And he has younger siblings. So it was like really important to him to be around. And I was like, well, if I move up there, I'm moving to a major metropolitan area, which, you know, Minneapolis, Minnesota is a huge city to me. And then, you know, there's all kinds of IT jobs around. So if need be, if I need to go back to work, I'll be in a hot market and I can find a job like that. Totally. So the decision was made to quit my job.

Plus, I have somewhat more of a healthy savings account than he does because I'm slightly older than he and got started earlier and had different priorities. So I could afford to take the risk and move up here and get started and see if I can make it work on my own. Here's a new term for you though. Coast FI. What's that mean? So it means that I have saved up enough. So when I quit my job, I had $200,000 saved up. And over 30 years until I'm 59 and a half, that's going to compound into more than enough that I need for retirement. So I don't need to save another penny for retirement. I have enough money already. I need today money, not tomorrow money. Okay. So you're saying you saved $200,000.

You put that in investments. You're not going to touch it and you'll be fine with that chunk of money. It'll continue to grow. So you're actually set for retirement with that chunk of money. Yeah. So that's, that's like another layer of complexity that I don't have to deal with as an entrepreneur. Like, you know, I don't have to worry about setting up a solo 401k and putting extra money aside for that. Like any money that I earn goes to taxes and living expenses. So that's, that's super helpful to not have to worry about, Oh, you know, what am I going to do when I worry about oh you know what am i gonna do when i'm 60 you know it's like i'm good for this so you're you're basically set for retirement but you're again do you have plans to retire early or are you actually like more interested in just

kind of being able to do what you want with your life now and then and then dip into that kind of retirement money when you are like 60 or 65? So it shifted definitely because when I first started saving, I was all gung-ho and like, save as much as possible. Go, go, go. Stock it all away. Retire at 35. And then I was like, well, maybe. And with the market keeps going, I'm like, I can retire at 30 and I can do whatever I want. I don't have to worry about money and that would be awesome, which is more of a lean thigh at that point. But then I started thinking like, do I really need to wait that long and save up that much money? If I'm going to be doing activities when I retire that aren't going to earn me money, why don't I just quit working and do those activities now and just make a little bit more effort to focus on making money.

Interesting. And so what are your, I guess, plans to make money now that you're financially independent, but you need to obviously fund your present needs? So my friend and I started a podcast, which are so much fun, as you know. Yes. And what is that podcast called so people can check it out? It's called Fire Drill Podcast drill podcast yeah i like that to play on the whole fire thing i like it a lot that's great yeah so we we talked to a bunch of really interesting people about their various side hustles and things that they do to earn money on the side which is super fun because we talk to people who like build hobbit holes and then put them on Airbnb and romance novel writers. Oh, that's my dream. That's one of my secret dreams. You should listen to that episode.

Yeah, I'll listen to that episode and see how they did. Yeah, she like walks us through the entire process and like how to, like what kind of framework to write about, like what's the usual path for a romance novel, and then how to promote it to people in the industry and how to get it published on Amazon and just walks us through the entire process. Oh, that's amazing. It's super fascinating. We made lots of awesome jokes, which I love.

Yeah. So, yeah, so that's fun, and we're doing really well at that. So we're going to monetize that hopefully soon. We're in talks with several different ad agencies to start bringing in the money, which is going to be exciting. And then through that, we've also done some different courses kind of where we like start something together. Yeah. So this last mastermind course that we did was on creating an Etsy digital download shop. So we all picked something that we wanted to sell that could be just, you know, digitally downloaded and sent to your email and created a shop around that and like supported each

other through the process. And people paid us to join the group for six weeks. So that's a viable way to bring in money, which is exciting. And then, uh, I run my own blog called fiery millennials, which, um, at some point I will be able to monetize as well. Hopefully, um, I kind of resisted at first and now I've shifted that. And then I also do stained glass. Wow. That's cool. So that's why I really was excited to quit and have time to focus on this is doing all this stained glass stuff. Because I want my mental energy to go towards things that I want to do and I find interesting. It's hard to come up with enough energy and focus after an eight or nine

hour workday. You're just like, oh, I don't want to do this, but it's fun, but it's not fun. But now it's fun because I have all this mental energy that I can put towards whatever I want. Exactly. And yeah, I feel like I read that on your website where you kind of talk about why you started all of this is you felt like you were kind of in this cycle of getting up, going to work, getting home, eating, going to sleep, and repeating. And I think a lot of us can relate to that. That was certainly, I feel like, my life for the last seven years. And you feel like, oh, no, this is normal. This is what everybody does. But if it doesn't make you feel good, even if you – I mean, maybe it's different if you really love your job.

I don't know if I've ever really had one of those jobs. But you just kind of feel like, why am I in this kind of – yeah, I think you mentioned like the rat race or whatever. You're just in this kind of like spinning wheel, just turning those wheels. It's like Groundhog Day. Yeah. And I'm like, when is this going to end? And then it's like, oh, this is maybe going to end at 65. Oh, my God. I cannot. I cannot. Yeah. It's not going to end? And then, you know, it's like, oh, this is maybe going to end at 65. Oh my God, I cannot. I cannot. Yeah, not going to happen. So I think that has got to be a reason

why a lot of people are kind of turning to this idea of FIRE. I mean, that's why I think I'm so interested in talking to people more about it because even though I think I'm not necessarily, I don't think I'm technically financially independent because I still have to make my money. But I almost feel like I sort of am because this is probably the first time in my life I've been able to actually do what I want to do. Like, yeah, I have to do different things to make money, but those are choices that I'm happy to make and work I'm happy to do. So I don't know. It's an exciting thing. I really like that you're like,

it's about purpose. And I'm like, that's exactly the core principle of it, isn't it? And I love that. Yeah. You got to find your why. That's it. Find your why. Yeah. And once you really, yeah, take a minute to like, think about that, which is why I've got like my super nerdy dream board or vision board right in front of me. I do. I need to create one. I really do. You know, it's, it's, it's helpful though. I do find this year specifically, especially after our retreat, which is really about talking about like, what's your why and like, what do you want to do? I'm like, I think I need to actually update it and take some things off and put some new things on. Um, but anyways, that's a whole other thing. But yeah, no, I think that's a big reason

why lots of people are into fire, including myself. And it's inspirational. It gives you hope. I think that's the other thing too. It's all about hope and giving you a reason to do things, to live really frugally and lean because you know it's temporary and eventually you'll be able to kind of change your lifestyle in the way you like. So before I let you go, what, what are some, uh, I think key things that people need to know if they do want to get on this kind of fire journey? I was going to ask people like, what's a good resource that really helped them get started? Cause I think that's the biggest thing. People are like, ah, yeah, I'm sold. You don't have to sell me. How do I get started? Uh, well, I think, um, the way that I found it was going through some blogs, which is very helpful.

So Mr. Money Mustache is super helpful. But if you don't like the way he comes off, because he has kind of like this whole persona online, then somebody like JL Collins is going to be super helpful. And even another podcast slash blog is The Mad Scientist. It has really great tax optimization and stuff. So those blogs are something that I found helpful. And then also my blog is also very helpful if people want to hit that up. And your podcast because it's talking to people that are doing it. Yeah.

And the podcast, we're talking to people who have either done it or who are well on their way. And then J.L. Collins wrote a book called The Simple Path to Wealth. And I think that is very helpful. He kind of distilled all the ideas in his blog into one cohesive message. And then the classic Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robbins. That is a classic. So pretty much everyone I talked to was like, end this book. I'm like, yeah, we get it. Well, I mean, it's really helpful for framing decisions made in every day. Like, is this tube of lipstick worth an hour of my time? Yeah. And it makes you question everything

instead of being on autopilot, which is incredibly helpful. So important. Cause I even find that, you know, usually I'm pretty good, but sometimes you just kind of find you're on a slippery slope and you'll realize why am I on this website, online shopping? Like, why am I here right now? I don't even know how I got here. It's good to get that kind of like, I don't know, a check yourself moment. Definitely. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Gwen, for chatting with me. Where can people find more information about you? They can get ahold of me on the podcast, firedrillpodcast.com. And our email is firedrillpodcast at gmail.com if they want to email us uh and then my own personal site is fiery fiery millennials that's f-i-e-r-y and millennials has two l's and two n's it's true there's a time

where i cannot remember how to write millennial like how many l's and how many n's two that's the answer to that yep and then um i'm also available on like Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and all those other places. Awesome. Perfect. Well, I throw up options to hit me up. Yes. And hit her up. She's a wealth of knowledge.

I love talking to people. Yeah, you do. Because you're talking to me. And you have your own podcast. So I know you love talking to people. Well, thank you so much, Gwen, for taking the time to chat with me it was uh so uh awesome uh picking your brain about fire one of my favorite topics these days thanks for having me on and that was episode 163 uh of the moment podcast make sure to check out the show

notes jessicamorehouse.com slash 163 and of course check out out Gwen's awesome blog, fierymillennials.com. And also check her out on iTunes. Fire Drill Podcast is the show that she co-hosts. And she has some amazing guests that are doing amazing things to reach this fire dream. Yeah, lots of cool things. Lots of other cool things to talk to you about. but you're just going to have to wait two hot seconds because I'm going to talk a little bit about this episode's sponsor first. This episode of the Mo Money Podcast was brought to you by CanSpace.ca. If you're a Canadian business owner and want to boost your rankings in the local search results and build a brand Canadians trust,

you need to invest in local Canadian web hosting. And CanSpace is Canada's favorite provider. Otherwise, you'll be missing out on more traffic, which means you'll have less money to put towards early retirement. When you're ready, head on over to canspace.ca slash Jessica M and enter your email address to get the coupon. They're kindly offering $10 off to all Mo Money podcast listeners. Once again, visit canspace.ca slash Jessica M and submit your email address to get the $10 off coupon. All right. Well, first off, if you missed the special Facebook Live I did with Chris Gilbo, who's a New York Times bestseller and author of the book Side Hustle. He was also a recent guest on the show. Definitely check out that episode.

But you missed our Facebook Live last Wednesday. That is okay. You can still watch the replay and see what we talked about and see what questions we got and what answers we gave out. You can find it either on my Facebook page or on my YouTube channel. Speaking of my YouTube, I started kind of a new series I'm calling Day in the Life. I do a ton of Instagram stories lately and I thought, well, I don't like them just like going away after 24 hours and disappearing into the, I don't know, abyss. So now my best ones I'm kind of compiling into fun little, you know, day in the life videos of me and putting them on my YouTube channel. So if you're not already subscribed to my YouTube channel, check it out. Uh, Jessica Morris.com slash YouTube will redirect you right there.

And last but not least, I still, uh, I'm still taking entries for my book giveaway. I'm going to be continuing to accept entries until the end of this season. And the end of this season. And the end of the season is actually imminent. It is, how many episodes do I have left here? Oh my gosh, only two. Only two more weeks. And then I'm wrapping up for the summer. I'm going to take a summer break and then I'll be back here in September with some other fantastical episodes. So you've got basically two more weeks to enter to win one of the books that was featured on this season of the show. There's a ton of awesome books. So go to jessicamorehouse.com book giveaway to learn more and to enter to win. Now to leave things off,

I've just got a few podcast shout outs from some people that have sent me some iTunes reviews. So let's get to it, shall we? Let's start off with Elysian78976 from USA. Finance in a language I can understand. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you think so because that's literally the reason I wanted to start a podcast because there's a lot of crap out there, a lot of jargon, a lot of people trying to make finance seem complicated when it really shouldn't be because we all earn money. We all spend money. We all manage money. So we should all understand money. So thank you so much for giving me that review.

Next up, I've got A Forbes 13 from Canada. They say this podcast is amazing. It has always been difficult finding a lot of good Canadian content in the personal finance space. And Jessica does an excellent job at finding and speaking with interesting guests about current trends, as well as discuss good basic habits, skills that we should all know. The casual conversation style that Jessica brings to the table also helps make the podcast episodes more relatable. And the Facebook group has also been an excellent resource to timely events with like-minded people. Great work. Oh yeah. Shout out for me to shout out. I don't know

what I'm talking about. Anyways, if you're interested in getting into my Facebook group, if you're not already in there, get in there. It's free. It's awesome. It's a space where you can ask any question. There's no dumb question. There is basically a bunch of policies. So there's no jerks in there. There's no judgment zone. It is called the Money Life Balance Community. And you can find it at facebook.com slash groups slash money life balance. And you can start going in there. There's already I think over 1400 people in there. So a lot of good people and a lot of good minds in there. Next up, oh, look at this. A three-star review.

Last week, I got a four-star. This week, I got a three-star. Still got to give this person a shout-out because they spent some time giving me a review, and it's not super nasty. There is without a doubt that Jessica takes the time and effort to bring guests in for a good solid interview. But if I were to get a nickel for every time you know comes up in an episode, I would have $10 to put into a savings account every week. It's very distracting. Radical personal finance is many times cleaner in comparison. Well, Cooper Don, if that is your real name. Yeah, you know, you know, you know, you know, I don't really know what you're talking about. I like never say, you know, just kidding. Yeah, I probably do say that.

But guess what? I'm a human and I say things over and over. That is what I do. I've been doing this podcast for a while now, dude. So if you are a dude or a dudette, I mean, it is what it is. Sorry, I distract you, but I don't really care. You should probably just listen to Radical Personal Finance if it's cleaner. Okay. Okay. Thanks for the review though. Bye. Okay. Last, and this is a good one because it's five stars. Limon or Lemon from Canada. Jessica, thank you so much for your podcast. It makes

learning about the various areas of personal finance very approachable. And I appreciate all the angles you cover, such as money mindfulness, tips for investing, steps to get started, et cetera. Most of all, I look forward to learning something new each week and have actually started utilizing your tools and tracking my spending, which makes me feel way more in control and mindful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Lemon, lemon, lemon from Canada. I appreciate your really nice positive review. So thanks everybody for leaving me a review. If you haven't left me one, please do so. Even if it's a four or three star, I'll still read it out. I may just get a little salty. That's no big deal though, right? And yeah, that's it. That's it for me. I'm going to shut up now. I'm going to let you get on with your day. Thanks for listening

to me. And hopefully you'll want to listen to me again next week. I'll see you back here next Wednesday for another episode. All right. Bye. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.