More Money Podcast - 260 Designing Your Freedom Years - Stephanie Myers & Gillian Batt, Founders of Our Freedom Years

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

Happy New Year! And welcome back to the Mo’ Money Podcast! After taking a few weeks off to rest and recharge, I am so excited to be back to drop Season 12 of the Mo’ Money Podcast today. Not only that, I thought I’d start with an episode that will get you excited about the future again! 2020 was rough on us all, some more than others, and we’re still in the thick of it. But I’ve got hope for 2021. And when you’ve got hope, you can make plans for better days to come. That’s why I’ve got the wonderful Stephanie Myers and Gillian Batt from Our Freedom Years on the show. I’m a big fan of their YouTube channel, and not only did they achieve financial independence and retire early in their 30s/40s, but they are also Canadian! I haven’t had many Canadians FIRE people on the show, so this is a big treat. And I sure asked them all the questions I know you would have asked yourself, like what to do with taxes when you’re a nomad, how much to save, how to ensure you won’t run out of money, and does FIRE mean you don’t ever have to work again (since so many people who achieve FIRE seem to continue working?). I know you’re going to love this episode just as much as I enjoyed recording it. And don’t forget to check out the link below to sign up for their free e-course! For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the Mo Money Podcast. This is episode 260, and I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back to the show. And welcome to season 11 of the podcast, which is insane. I'm so excited to basically not ever talk about 2020 again because it's over. It's done. It's in the past. It is officially in the past because we're in a new year, 2021. Oh my gosh, this year has got to be better than last year. And let's just not count the first week of January where there's all the stuff going down in the US and COVID numbers are still continuing to rise in the world and everything's still the same, but it's not. It's not because it's a new year. And I always like to think that the new year is a great time

to turn the chapter. Oh, I literally almost turned a page over here. Because I'm a hand talker. You may not know this because it's a podcast. So you can't see me. It's a great time to just turn the page, turn the chapter, fresh start. I put that on Instagram, probably a little bit too soon, because I think I put it on like, you know, January 2nd. and then, you know, the attempted coup in the United States happened. I'm like, okay, so maybe not. It's not a new year, fresh start quite a thing. But that aside, I still am very hopeful and excited for 2021. I think this is going to be a good year because anything will be better than 2020. There's only up from here. And I think there's lots of exciting things to look forward to.

There's the vaccine coming. And hopefully, the COVID numbers will go down. And we will, once again, be free to travel because, man, do I miss my family. Literally, I've not seen them in a year. Going a little crazy over here. And also, with my next guest on this episode, we talk about travel and it really, really makes me want to travel so bad. So speaking of some exciting things, I've got an amazing roster of guests for this season that you're going to love. And I'm starting it off with something I think a little bit exciting, something just to get us excited about the future and going back traveling and just living a better, different life. And so I have Stephanie and Jillian from Our Freedom Years on the show.

They were both able to achieve financial independence and retire early in their 30s and 40s. And they're Canadian, which is very exciting because I feel like a lot of the guests I've had on my show to talk about fire are American, which is great. But as a Canadian, and a lot of my listeners are Canadians, it's nice to hear from a Canadian perspective, how were you able to do this? What were the steps that you took? And what are you doing right now? So right now, they're actually, I believe they're in Turkey.

Well, I record this right before Christmas, so I think they might still be there. But yeah, they're just kind of funny timing. In October 2019, they started their kind of world tour because they're financially independent. They're just going to travel the world. Yes, October 2019, and then the world got a little crazy. So they're still able to do slow travel safely. And they were in 2020 and continue to do so. So we talked a little bit about that. So lots of exciting things we're going to discuss in this episode. So I'm very excited. But before I get to that, let's just let's get to it. Just a few words about this episode's sponsor. This episode of the MoMoney podcast is supported by the Canada Deposit Insurance

Corporation, CDIC. Have you seen those commercials about CDIC and wondered, who are they? Why do they exist? And why do they advertise? Well, those are some good questions. First, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, or CDIC, is a federal crown corporation that protects your savings at their member institutions. Basically, this means that you won't lose your money in the unlikely case of a bank failure. Well, that's reassuring to know, but could a bank in Canada ever actually fail? You may be surprised to know that they can, and they have. Since its creation in 1967, the CDIC has handled over 40 of these failures, but the good news is no one has ever lost a penny of their savings under CDIC protection. Oh, and to answer the third question, CDIC advertises because public awareness has a

direct impact on financial stability. In other words, when Canadians know about CDIC, they can make more informed decisions about their money. It's as simple as that. So make sure to visit cdic.ca to see how you're covered. Once again, that's cdic.ca to learn more. Welcome, Stephanie and Jillian to the show. This is actually the first time I've ever had two guests on at once. Oh, wow. Happy to be your first. Yes. And we're also a package deal. So it works out. Yeah. So this is fun. Yeah. This will be interesting. Now we're getting like three voices virtually. So I'm so excited to have you on the show because you're, well, A, you're Canadian. Yay. And B, you were able to retire early and we're in this pandemic. So we have a lot to talk

about. So I'm so happy to have you on the show. And I feel like I discovered you in the, maybe in the spring. I'm sure, I know you've been around for longer than that, but that's when I'm like, oh, I think I discovered your YouTube channel first and foremost, because I was starting to like look for like, what are, where are some YouTube channels out there? And I love your content. And I just, yeah, I love your story. I think it's very fascinating, especially from the Canadian perspective, because I've talked to a lot of people who've achieved FIRE, and a lot of them are American. And I have a lot of listeners being like, I'd like to know what that's like if you're Canadian, though, because I feel like it's just maybe a different situation. But before we get to all that, I want to kind of find out how are you guys doing? Because I know, you know, you're

in Turkey right now. And you're locked down. Yes. So despite the fact that there is a global pandemic going on, and we do need to be very careful. We have maintained our life of travel. So we, like the rest of the world, we ran home in the springtime to wait out the global travel bans and the big lockdown. And then we were able to resume our travel when Europe opened up in August. So we've been in Greece, we've been in Croatia, and now we're in Turkey.

So we're trying, we're doing it. We're trying to make our early retirement life of travel happen, even though obviously it's much more challenging than we ever expected it to be with COVID and all of the restrictions that are growing around the world. So what's that feel like, continuing on this journey of just traveling around the world. So what's that feel like? Continuing on this journey of, you know, just traveling around the world and kind of being nomadic during, you know, a global pandemic that clearly wasn't in your plans? Like, I don't think it was in anyone's plans. How is that? How is it different than I guess, before the pandemic travel? What are some things that you have to kind of think about?

So we, when we headed out for our life of travel, we always had the concept to do slow travel where we would stay at least a month in each place and really soak things in. And so that has meant that in a way, it's been a little bit easier for us to carry on with the lifestyle that we had in mind. That said, definitely it has had an impact. Obviously, as Stephanie mentioned with the lockdowns, we can't just choose anywhere in the world to go to. We have to look at where we can go and obviously where it's safe to go as well. We're not just like, okay, anywhere, it doesn't matter regardless what's going on. So we have to put a lot more careful consideration into where we're going. And we're also slowing

down even more. We are still usually moving once a month, but we're spending longer in each country. So we were in Greece for a couple months, we were in Croatia for three months. So we're slowing things down even more. And kind of feeling things out as we go and staying on top of the news and seeing what makes sense. The other significant change is when we began our journey, we planned so far out and we were so excited about doing the planning because we love planning. We love getting out the details and thinking about the routes and all the places we wanted to go. We stopped planning in advance because the global situation is so dynamic now. We don't know, you know, one month a country could be open, the next month it's closed. So we've just stopped planning so far ahead and we're trying to be a lot more flexible

and a lot more spontaneous. And I feel like that must be, I was just thinking about that. I'm like, that sounds fun, but that also seems, I don't know. Do you ever kind of crave like a home base, like a permanent place? Or are you kind of used to being nomadic and just, you know, doing this slow travel? Well, we've really only begun our slow travel journey. So we actually just left Singapore where we were working as expats. We just left Singapore in October of 2019. So we had really only just started our new lifestyle when the pandemic hit. So we're envisioning that we want

to continue with our travel for at least a couple more years, like we really just got going, and then maybe consider a home base. But because we were expats for six years living in Singapore, we knew we wouldn't stay in Singapore long term. I think we were sort of more comfortable with not having a place that we think of as a home base. So even while we were there, we had a few different apartments, we did a lot of traveling. So right now, like, there is nowhere where I mean, of course, our friends and family are in Toronto, and it will always be, you know, home in quotes, but I don't know that we see ourselves are actually living in Toronto again. So yeah,

it's a bit of a paradigm shift. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, if I had, if I was like completely financially independent, did not have to work again, I probably would live in Toronto. I get that. I don't know if I'd live in Canada, quite honestly. Do you ever like kind of talking about planning? I know it's hard to do that right now. But think about like, if we did want to just settle in one place for like a year or two, you know, for a longer period of time, where would that be? So many exciting places to choose from. I mean, we have this list that keeps growing all the time. We've talked about France, we've talked about Portugal, we've talked about Thailand. I think this whole process is kind of us trying on different places on first size, you know, settling in for a month, getting a feel for things

to see where are the places that we might want to return to for a longer stay. But at this point, we're still enjoying the novelty of, you know, new places and new experiences and yeah, not ready to be settled quite yet. So I kind of want to talk about the money situation since that's, you know, what my show is all about when you're considering like, okay, maybe, well, first let's talk about like, you know, if you are considering, you know, down the road, staying in one place for like, you know, a longer period of time, how important is it for that place to be just like economical, like for you to be able to stretch your dollar? Um, so we have a budget that, uh, you know, there is some flexibility

throughout the year. So like if we, um, stay, you know, travel through somewhere that is less expensive than we know in subsequent months, we can kind of spend a little bit more. There would be some changes to our budget if we were ever in a place longer term, because some of the things like accommodations would actually cost less if we were staying longer term. So somewhere that might be a little pricier to travel through for just a month might be a little bit more affordable once you're living like even more like a local. So I don't think we would let the cost determine the place, but we would certainly have to, you know, look at our budget and figure out how to make the

place that we want to live work for us. So let's talk about your budget a little bit. So well, maybe let's go back a little bit because I feel like some people need some maybe context or whatever to figure out how did you get to this point? Because I feel like I've had a lot of guests on the show share their experience. And it's very exciting, but also kind of intimidating. And lots of people are like, that just seems so out of reach for me. How were you able to actually achieve this and retire early? I mean, I know, like, in what age did you guys retire officially? So we retired when Jillian was 38. So she's just turned 40 last month. And I was 46. So in our late 30s and mid 40s. So still feeling quite early.

In terms of how we arrived here. So, I mean, there are a couple elements to the story. The first is just the common sense stuff. We had a lifetime habit of saving and investing. So I think certainly when we each kind of started our first jobs, we were already, you know, squirreling money away, good practices every month. Jillian was able to graduate debt free by going to the Royal Military College in Canada. So that was, I think, that was a huge help. Yeah, to graduate debt free. Yeah. So. Yeah. So that was all the basic stuff.

But mid-career, we decided to chase a dream that I had had for a really long time, which was working overseas. And that was the thing that actually really pushed us over and accelerated our journey. So we left Canada and made a new home in Singapore. We both did all the hard work of finding jobs. No company transferred us. So we had to build networks from scratch, but we were able to move to Singapore. One of the privileges of being from Canada is that we were able to cut our residency ties and therefore benefit from a much lower personal tax rate in Singapore. So that helped us accelerate our savings and investment by quite a bit. Interesting. So you want to kind of explain that for people that may not understand.

So you moved to Singapore and you cut your residency ties. So that means you weren't paying any Canadian tax. Do you want to kind of explain that? Yes. Yeah. So if you move away from Canada, you don't automatically become a non-resident. You need to make sure that you tick certain boxes that make you qualify as a non-resident. So probably the most important thing is if you own any property in Canada, you either need to sell it or rent it out at arm's length. So it can't just be like a family member staying there. And then there's certain other things like closing, you know, getting rid of your health card,

not having like selling your car, not having really any belongings in Canada. Just basically, it needs to look like you're severing your ties with Canada. You're not going to ask anything else for Canada. Therefore, you don't need to pay any more taxes to Canada. So the huge benefit to that is we were only had to pay tax in Singapore, which has a very low personal tax rate. So we were just able to save more of the income that we made while we were there. Do you ever kind of, well, that's like, that sounds like a big decision, kind of cutting your residency ties. Do you ever kind of think like you'll never move back to Canada? Is that kind of part of your decision? You're like, that's okay. Well, it won't surprise you to know

that Canada doesn't mind you becoming a resident again, very easily. You just have to move back and say, hey, here I am. I would love to pay some taxes. And they will just welcome you right back into Canada. So that's the good news on that one. That's good. Yeah, I feel like I get a lot of questions about, you know, if I do want to, you know, travel the world for an extended period of time or live in a different country, what are the tax implications? I'm like, I have no clue because I'm like, I am not a tax expert in other countries. So that's fascinating. I've never actually talked to anyone about doing what you did, but that makes a lot of logical sense, especially if you're like, we have no immediate plans to move back to Canada

because we're going to be traveling the world. So it doesn't quite make sense for us to keep that tie, but very well, you could, I guess, reinstate it in the future if you the world. So it doesn't quite make sense for us to keep that tie. But very well, you could, I guess, reinstate it in the future if you want to. So it's not like a permanent thing. Yeah. And so because it is so easy to become a resident again, we do have to be a little bit careful. So as we were mentioning that we had to come back to Canada for a few months over the summer at the beginning of the pandemic. So we were actually in Canada for four months. So if we had stayed more than six months, then we would have automatically become residents again. So that's something we just have to watch, you know, if as we go forward, maybe there's times we do want to spend longer, we'll have to be, you know, mindful. And if we

decide to stay, like make sure it's a proactive decision that we're making rather than sort of accidentally, suddenly being in the boat of paying taxes all over again. Exactly. So who, where are you a res, are like, are you a resident of Singapore? Like what's going on? You know, like, are you just, you know? So, well, the fact is we, we basically, we, we pay taxes wherever they're due. So we do have some investments in Canada. And then in Canada, the returns on those investments, we are taxed as non-residents. So technically, we're not really residents of anywhere. We just pay what is owing based on wherever the money is invested.

So that's kind of how it works out. That is so interesting. Residents of kind of nowhere. That's so crazy. I'm like, I don't get it. That's crazy. That's awesome though. Oh, wow. So going back to your journey, you both moved to Singapore and that was maybe kind of the first dream of like, you know, just working and living somewhere totally different. When did you decide, let's save up and then eventually quit our job so we could just travel full time? So that was a decision that was made over the course, very slowly over a few years. So when we first arrived in Singapore, six years previously, we were so excited to be there. And yes, we were working,

but we were also discovering the whole region. It was a really exciting lifestyle. It was so wonderful to be able to find all these cultures and visit places and open our minds and just have a really interesting time. Then as the years rolled by, we realized we're doing all that great stuff, but you know what? We're also still working. And actually our jobs are really hard and we're really stressed out. So the stress kind of built up over the years and eventually it moved from stress to actually being burnt out. And that's when we were finally ready to talk about it more seriously. So this idea of retiring early was something I had thought about many, many times over my working years. And it wasn't until I stumbled on this whole financial independence retire early

community that I realized there were many people who had this dream and there were some rules of thumb and other people that we could relate to, which actually, I think the relatability was a big thing. I started showing Stephanie some of these blogs that we'd found and it wasn't, it became not just this crazy idea that Jillian was talking about to actually something that real people were doing, people that we could relate to. So I think that was the thing that really finally tipped Stephanie over and we were able to start then really talking about like, what are our dreams for the future? And you know, what can we do to get there? That's so interesting. What did you guys do for work? It sounded like you had some pretty

intense jobs. Sure. So I did a few things in the area of marketing and digital marketing, but eventually was doing like customer experience for an insurance company. And my career was in healthcare. So as Stephanie mentioned, I went to Royal Military College. I started out as a healthcare manager in the army, and then eventually was working in public healthcare doing quality improvement. Wow. So that's really cool that you were able to stumble into the fire community because I think that's how lots of people really kind of get into a thing. No one's just like, oh, I just figured it out on my own. Did you find though that, is there a lot of Canadians in the community? Or I don't know, it's just from my perspective, it just seems like it's

very American. I think there is a, it's proportionate to the size of the country, but yes, there's a small yet lively community there. So definitely there are lots of bloggers out there. And there are some of the, you know, sort of popular online communities on, you know, within Facebook. There are definitely some Canadian niches. So they're there if you're looking for sure. Okay. And so I'm curious, what are some things that you guys had to do to prepare to eventually quit your jobs and travel full time that, you know, as a Canadian, you need to consider and maybe different than if you were to live in the US or some other country? I know just like coming to mind, like healthcare care is a huge component in the U.S. Was that a big thing that you had to kind of think about and be like, how are we going to pay for this?

You know, we feel very fortunate and privileged to be Canadian citizens and know that the health care system will be there for us when we need it. You know, as we grow older and our needs change. So we would certainly come back to Canada for anything serious. In the meantime, while we're traveling and on the road, we have global health care coverage that we're quite comfortable with and is likely a lot less than what most Americans would be paying. Because of course, we have healthcare that we can choose from all over the world versus very expensive American healthcare. I'm just kind of curious, how does that work? Do you get healthcare in whatever country you're in? Or is it this global healthcare? And where do you get that? So it is, it is basically, um, uh, you, if, if something

happens where you are, then you go and you seek out care where you are. Um, there are some policies where you might, you know, get, get, uh, evacuated back to your home country. It really depends on the coverage that you choose. But, um, to be honest,. But to be honest, we meet a lot of people who feel very worried about, oh, you know, do you feel safe getting care in these countries you're in? Actually, like the standard of care in basically all the places we are traveling to, and in many, many places in the world is just as high as you might find in North America. So, you know, we've had quite a few good experiences and are certainly much less expensive than they would be. You know, if we were back in Canada right now, actually, we would be paying out of pocket because we don't have the coverage. So we've been very happy to be seeking care, you know, getting our, for the most part so far, it's been, you know,

your preventive care, but it's like very inexpensive to go get your teeth clean, get your annual checkup. So that part of things has been really quite great. That's good. Well, that's good to know. Because I feel like that's always sometimes a big thing. Like you said, a lot of people are just worried about, you know, something happening and then them, you know, you always hear the stories, but it's typically like a Canadian goes to America and then something happens. They don't have travel insurance. Now they owe $10 million for going to the hospital. So yeah, that's always like, I think people's fears. Yeah. I definitely wouldn't want to go to the States without coverage. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Basically the tip is always have coverage, never not have

coverage. I'm curious when you were starting to kind of make your plans, your kind of exit strategy, how did you determine this is how much we need? This is a sustainable number that we can continue to live off of. And do you actually have any, well, let's answer that, but then I'm going to talk to you about like, do you have any plans to work again? Because I know lots of people that I talked to on the show, they're like, I'm retired and I see them working and making money, which there's nothing wrong with that. But it is kind of confusing for people that are like, I thought the movement was to not work. Yeah. Sure. Happy to talk about that. So coming up with that number of how much would be enough and what an annual

budget might look like was a really interesting process. In the very beginning, I remember saying to Stephanie, well, what do you think? How much do we need? And she would begrudgingly say, if we have $10 million, we need $10 million and we'll retire off that. I don't know where I got that number from. I mean, to be fair, you could definitely live forever off $10 million. I'm sure that's... Yeah. So of course, that was before we had discovered some of these 25 times your annual needs or 30 times your annual needs, these kinds of rules of thumb. But so the next thing we needed to do was really think, okay, like, what is the lifestyle that we're going to live? Because right now, right then we were living in Singapore, and the cost of living was very high in Singapore. So

it wasn't really a good point of reference for us. So we started researching, well, first thinking where we wanted to be spending our time, kind of starting to get a grip on what our future costs might be. But at the same time, we were realizing actually our current costs in Singapore were a lot higher than of really trimming back our current expenses, getting our current budget under wraps so that we could really have a better projection. And then for the categories that we knew would change, like we knew accommodation would be less, we knew food would be less in many of the places. So we were able to kind of find a budget that we thought would be workable for us in the future. And,

and then just kind of do some research into what sort of, what is our risk level like? You know, are we comfortable with that sort of 4% rule? Or do we want something a little bit more, a little bit more cautious, which we did choose to do. And that's kind of how we came up with it. Interesting. Yeah. So did you do something like a 3%? Because I feel like I've been seeing a lot more conversations about the 4% rule and other people are like, oh, you need to be more conservative. That's not enough. And I feel like I even saw an article from the guy who coined that term being like, no, you can actually take out more. And so with all those options, a lot of people get confused, be like, well, what do I do? Yes, yes. We fall into the very

conservative camp. So we did not feel comfortable just saving up 25 times our annual expected expenses. So we actually are below 3%. And that is something that feels good to us now. So we envisioned our retirement as sort of, you know, a two or three phased approach where in the early years, when we're off, you know, gallivanting around the world and trying on new lifestyles and new cities and new countries, we would have a more frugal approach. And then over the years, as we are seeking a bit more comfort or maybe our health requirements are a little more complex, then we would be happy to do a higher withdrawal rate. But right now we've based everything around very conservative, less than 3%. Yeah, that makes sense because it's like as you're younger, it's just, you know, you can live your life for less money, but it's good to think into the future. As we

get old and maybe there's more healthcare issues or our needs and wants change, then our budget's going to change too. I think this is so important for people to think about is a budget, no matter what it looks like, is supposed to be adjustable and it doesn't stay the same. I feel like a lot of people in the fire community just talk about the 4% rule. Like this is it, that is it. And that is all we do. It's like, well, I'm sure it's going to change. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, that's, I think that's super helpful. Is there any, um, cause I always get questions, people asking like, where do I start or what kind of tools, was there any tools or did you just like take some of this information that you kind of gleaned from the internet and make some spreadsheets and kind of do it yourself?

Or were there any kind of online tools that kind of helped you figure out how much do we need? How do we save and all that kind of stuff? We cobbled together all kinds of information. We looked at tons of blogs. We had tons of discussions, we did a lot of research. And so it was a real, you know, sort of trial and error and, you know, created our own little spreadsheet to sort of test some things out ourselves. And what we have found since is that there are so many people with the same confusion that we had. So we, we had in the end, kind of documented all the steps that we went through so that we can, you know, as we have our YouTube channel, we can share with people, you know, here are some tips and some pointers,

because it is very confusing. And it's often hard to know where to begin. And even to know for yourself, like, what is most important? Is it better for me to be 100% conservative and make sure that I have every eventuality taken care of? Or am I someone who's more free and flexible and can retire sooner, but maybe work again later if need be? So yeah, it's a very confusing world out there. Yeah. And I mean, I guess it's confusing because there are so many different ways to do it. And I think that makes sense because we're all different people, different needs and wants. And well, you know, if you retire early, it's going to look different than someone else's

early retirement. But that also leads to a lot of confusion being like, what is the right path? Because I mean, you know, people want just like step by step guide. And that's not quite that doesn't quite exist. So it's kind of doing things a little bit differently. Yeah, exactly. I did want to tackle your question about whether we need to work again. So the...

Or need or even want. Like, I don't know if that's something that you're talking about. Like, we never want to work again or like we're open to it. We'll just see what happens. So the good news for us, we never have to put together another resume. We never have to go to another job interview. So we don't need, because of our financial situation now, we don't need to take on another job. That said, we are really strong believers in people taking this huge amount of time that they've opened up in their lives once they've retired early to explore all the projects they've always wanted to do or all the hobbies. And, you know, if some of

those evolve into something that generates an income, well, that's fine. It's not the income is besides the point. I think most importantly is that people feel that they're plugged into their own lives and they're feeling productive and getting a sense of accomplishment if that's important to them. Yeah, no, for sure. I think, yeah, just, yeah, some of the feedback I've gotten from people that have, you know, been on my show and, you know, getting feedback from listeners is I think they always question because, you know, this person achieved financial independence, but is now earning income from talking about being financially independent? Are they really retired earlier? I guess they're kind of questioning the numbers.

They're like, or do you need the income that you're earning from the content that you're creating based on that? I'm not saying this about you, but this is just the feedback I get, which I'm like, I get it. So I think that's a lot of people that are like, I don't have an audience or I don't have a blog, but I definitely want to retire early. Is this possible for me or do I need to create a blog or something like that to sustain my financial independence or whatever? But that's not the case because you're part of those communities. I would recommend nobody rely on any kind of blog or YouTube income because even when you monetize, like it's, it's going to maybe buy your coffee. So that's nice. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's for sure. And also like,

since you've been in the community for so long, I'm sure you've seen so many different examples of people doing it differently. I'm curious, can you share any like, you know, kind of insight into what some other people are doing since you probably talk to these people and have a sense of what others do. Like in terms of how they shape their early retirement. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Let's talk about like, yeah. What do people do with their time? Because a lot of the conversations I feel like I see online is people get into the fire movement mainly because they hate their job. And I think that is their, the, the, the solution. Like I hate my job, so I'll just save up a ton of money and quit my job and then everything's great.

But, I mean, I'm sure, like, you guys, you probably, you maybe liked your jobs. You just wanted a different lifestyle. What are, yeah, some other things that, or maybe reasons why someone would want to work towards achieving FIRE? I mean, I think the most common reason we hear is probably for most people because they don't like their job or that they do have a passion that they want to follow. I think that the range of things that people do is like so wide. We happen to come in touch a lot with people who are doing some have some of the same similar interests as us just

by the nature of like the reason we're in touch so we meet a lot of people who have taken this opportunity to travel um and so we're in touch with them and then as well a lot of people who've taken on some sort of blog or or some way of you know expressing themselves and connecting with others but i think you know, we have found each other just because we're having those similar interests. I think there are as many people and more who are doing all kinds of things, whether it's, you know, going more into a particular form of art or learning a language or going back to school. I really think the sky's the limit. And I think like the first thing when people are thinking about FIRE, like before they think about the money stuff, I think this whole we say the why of FIRE, like that's the most important thing really.

Because that's the thing that's going to give you the motivation to pursue your goals. And hopefully what you're working towards is living that fulfilling life, whatever that looks like to you. However it is you want to be spending your time that you can make that a reality. I'm curious, do you have any, and this is kind of the other side of fire that I've been seeing a lot in the media, I'm sure you see the headlines too, of people achieving like really early retirement, like in their 20s and 30s. What are your thoughts on that? Because again, the feedback I get from like regular people is that sounds so unachievable. The only concern would really be that they haven't lived enough of their life to know how their tastes may change, how the requirements may change in the later decades. So we know that for a fact, we are not 20-something-year-old backpackers, for example. So that's not a lifestyle that we would want to budget around. You know, we were professionals before we had a comfortable apartment. And that's

the lifestyle that we want to replicate in our early retirement. So we knew that and we budgeted for that. So I think that would be our only note of caution is that, you know, when you are someone in your mid 20s or your early 30s, just to maybe think a bit further ahead and how your life needs may change over time in possibly unexpected ways. Yeah. I think, yes, sometimes we get too focused on what we want right now, but it's like in five years, you're not going to want that possibly. And that kind of knowledge comes with, yeah, life experience. Like you said, I'm like, there's no way you can pay me to go backpacking. There's no way. I'm. Like you said, I'm like, there's no way you can pay me to go backpacking. There's no way. I'm one of those people. I'm like, I need a hotel.

Well, to be fair, I knew that in my late 20s when I went to Thailand with my husband. I'm like, yeah, I can't. We need to stay at some nicer places. He was cheaping out on me. He's like, we don't need a fan. I'm like, we need a fan. We need a fan. So just to save like $30. Yeah, we need a fan. So yeah, I think $30. Yeah, we need a fan. So yeah, I think that's so, so important when you're seeing all these stories of young people. You know, it's like, well, again, we don't know what they're really thinking or what they're doing, what their plans are. So it's so, yeah. I mean, as I get older, not that I'm like that old and wise, but I'm like, I'm in my mid-30s.

And I'm like, yeah, oh my gosh, I'm so different than I was in my twenties. You know, life changes. It really does. So it's good to have that life experience to give you some perspective. I will say like most of these younger people who reach financial independence, at least that's how they feel at that point. Most times they're like really industrious young people who probably aren't going to just live off the amount that they have earned the rest of their lives. They're going to go on to do other things. So I think of it more like financial independence at that point. And then to see, you know, if they want to undertake different endeavors, things that maybe they feel more passionate about than the initial way that they achieved FIRE. Or maybe they even achieved it doing something they're passionate about.

But it's sort of like reaching that point where they feel they can give themselves permission to kind of shift, shift gears and, you know, have a new trajectory. So I don't see anything wrong with that. But it's true. Yeah.

Maybe at some point they might choose to like top it up a little bit just to have that added comfort for those later years. And I guess that comes with like when you're making your kind of fire plan is to have, well, maybe a plan B if your, your wants and needs change, but just like being open to, to being flexible, right? Because things, I mean, you guys had to be really flexible with the pandemic because you clearly, you know, that no one saw that coming. I'm curious when everything did happening. So we were really sort of the second place out of the first place out of China to really have things go haywire. And so when when when Italy went into a lockdown, we quickly booked a flight to try and get out. And then our

flight was cancelled overnight because all the countries around had also locked down. And we were kind of stuck. So we ended up staying in Italy for a little while longer to sort of assess the situation, and just kind of breathe and decide what we wanted to do next. And that's when we ended up heading back to Toronto. But it definitely has helped us to, you know, make flexibility, like a core part of our, our plans going forward, which actually was something that we had already realized. As soon as we started traveling, we knew like, we didn't want to be locked into rigid plans, because we never knew how much we would like a place or, you know, if we would find out about somewhere that we hadn't thought of, you know, stay longer here, do this, that. So that just

really helped us to onboard that flexibility as the core principle of our travel. Definitely. And I feel like if you can manage what you're doing during a pandemic, then it's the rest of it, once we're out of this situation will be so much easier. You know, like if this is the, you know, the worst, then you're like, oh, that's fine. We got this actually. We made a pretty solid plan, I guess. Yeah. It's, you know, it's those days when we've been looking at the list of where Canadians can currently travel to, and it gets shorter and shorter as the weeks go by. And we think back to the glory days of just booking a flight wherever you want it in the world, because that's where you felt like going.

No. So I'm curious, before I let you go, what are your future plans? I mean, again, we don't really know what's going on, but there's some hope, there's some vaccines coming. What are your plans for the, I guess, the coming months into 2021? So originally, when we were still trying to plan things a little bit, we had in mind to be in Portugal around this time. We thought it's like the perfect, you know, warmer place in Europe that we could spend the winter. Of course, things locked down.

So our plan B was we came to Turkey where we were actually here last year and loved it. Soon after we made those plans, we found out that the rates in Turkey were suddenly skyrocketing and things have been locked down here. So we thought probably the best thing for us to do next is we're going to carry on to somewhere even a little bit warmer than Turkey. We're headed to Malta. So that's our current plan. We will see, you know, these flights and things change all the time, but that's our current plan. And that will take us through January and for February, we'll see what happens next. See what happens. Well, hopefully things will improve. But yeah, I'm like, well, I'm in Toronto, we're locked down. So yeah, we have no complaints, honestly.

You know, we're super grateful that we're even able to still be, you know, slowly and safely exploring. So yeah, nothing but gratitude. You mentioned your YouTube channel, Our Freedom Years. Do you want to kind of share a little bit about that? What kind of stuff do you talk about on your channel? Sure. So on our channel, we're basically sharing what life looks like once you have retired early. So we do share a little bit about how we got to financial independence. So we have a lot of

tips and insight on what that journey looked like. But we're also showing what happened after we finally quit work. So we said goodbye to the lives we've been leading for so long, hopped on a plane and headed off to Europe to begin our life of travel. So we share our cost of living in the different countries that we're visiting, which our viewers find very helpful because a lot of the people who follow our channel are quite interested in following a very similar path of retiring early and finally getting in all that travel that they've always wanted to do. Especially now, I feel like that's all I'm thinking about. I'm like, I can't wait till I can travel. Because honestly, before all this happened to me and my husband, our plans for 2020 was like, we're going to go to Italy. It's my, you know, one of the bucket list countries on our list. And well, that clearly didn't happen. So I feel like your channel will

be some nice, nice escapism for people. 2021 could be the year. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So before I let you go, so where can they find your channel and you also your website and where can they find you on social media? Sure. So we're our freedom years on YouTube, on Instagram, and also our blog. So anyone can reach out to us there. So lively community and we love hearing from people. We have a lot of people sharing where they're on in their financial journey. And it just, it really inspires us. So yeah, we love it when people say hello. And I know just a little promo, you have a free seven day course to help viewers design their freedom years on your website. Where can they find that? Sure. So it is almost on every

single page of our website. And it basically, you know, we had a bit of a messy journey but when we looked back we we actually identified some key steps that we followed and we have heard from so many people the same kind of frustration and confusion not knowing what to do where to go thinking through so we've compiled everything into a very easy sort of seven day taster. And it includes also some of the blogs and other resources that we found really helpful along the way. And some of the, you know, tips and insights to keep in mind as people are thinking through how much money do they need? How should they plan their time? You know, what are some of the tactics they can use to get to financial independence faster? Amazing. Awesome. I think

that's a great, you know, starting point for people. They're like, I need, I need some sense of where, where to get going because yeah, like you said, there's just a, there's a lot of options and a lot of information and that can be kind of overwhelming. So I'm so glad that you have a, a resource and a YouTube channel that shares all of this great stuff. Thank you so much, uh, Stephanie and Jillian for joining me on the show. It was a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. All right. That was episode 260 of the Mominy Podcast with my wonderful guests, Stephanie and Jillian from Our Freedom Years. You can find them at ourfreedomyears.com. And their Twitter is ourfreedomyears. Their Instagram is also our freedom years and on YouTube, wouldn't you guess it? It's also our freedom years. So I'm going to include all the

links in the show notes. So you can easily click them. Just go to JessicaMoorhouse.com slash 260. And that is where you can find, you know, if you go to JessicaMoorhouse.com slash podcast, all the episodes I've ever released are on there. If you ever want to find out the show notes for a particular episode, you just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash whatever the number of that episode is. Oh yeah. I also want to remind you because they mentioned at the end of the episode, they do have a free seven day course on their website at once again, that's ourfreedomyears.com that you can sign up to. It's all over their website, so you won't be able to miss it. But it's a great way just to get started to see what's going on, see if this is something that maybe you want to try out for yourself.

I mean, I have a love and hate relationship with fire, which sometimes you may be able to tell from the podcast. I find it super exciting and inspiring and sometimes super unrealistic and demotivating. I think that really just depends on who you're talking to. This is why I really like talking to Stephanie and Jillian because they're like, no, like what they achieved seems like, okay, that sounds realistic. Whereas someone who achieves, you know, retires early at 25. I'm like, when did you start working? Like I legit started working at 23. There was no, I could, what did you save for two years? How much are you earning? It's

just a different experience from my experience being literally broke throughout my whole 20s. And just finally feeling like I'm kind of getting my footing and, you know, a little bit more financially secure now that I'm in my 30s. So it really just depends. That's why I want to have a lot of different people on the show also to different perspectives. I think it's very, very important to have. So hopefully you enjoyed this episode. I have a lot of things to share because hi, I've been off for a few weeks and I want to talk. So before, I mean, stick around, stick around. But you know, just just, you know, for a second, I just have a few words to share about this episode's wonderful podcast sponsor.

This episode of the Momany podcast is supported by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, CDIC. Did you know that CDIC protects up to $100,000 per category per member institution? Let's break that down, shall we? First, if you hold savings in cash, GICs, or other term deposits, or even foreign currency at a CDIC member institution, those deposits would be protected up to $100,000. And if you have joint deposits with someone else, those deposits would also be covered up to the $100,000.

Same goes for deposits in your RRSP, TFSA, RRIF, and trust accounts. Each would be protected separately up to $100,000, and that is at the same institution. Now, if you bank with more than one CDIC member institution, the situation repeats itself. So if you've had $300,000 spread evenly across three different banks or categories, your entire $300,000 would be protected. See what I did there? It's important to know this so you can maximize your deposit insurance coverage. To learn all the ins and outs of how CDIC works so you can feel confident about the safety of your savings, make sure to visit cdic.ca. Once again, that's cdic.ca to learn more. Okay, okay, okay. So I hope you had a wonderful holiday. This is because this is the first time I'm talking to you since the holidays.

I literally, I was shocked, took like two to two and a half weeks completely off. Um, not that I did anything exciting. It's just me and my husband at home. Um, but like we baked, we played some games, we took naps, we watched a lot of TV. Let me, like, I really did watch a lot of TV, um, read books, did some yoga, did some walks, lovely walks in the snow. It's not snowing now. I'm surprised that there's no snow on the ground in Toronto. It's very odd for January, I feel like, but I'm sure we'll just get dumped with snow in February.

So we just chilled and it was so wonderful. We even kind of looked at each other. We're like, I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying this kind of staycation. So that even kind of looked at each other. We're like, I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying this kind of staycation. So that's kind of why my next little bit of news isn't a big surprise. I definitely thought I would have my investing course ready to announce on this episode, the first episode of the season 11. No, sorry. It's going to be another week or so. I am literally working my butt off to get this done, but I also needed to honestly take a chill pill in and just relax for a few weeks. Cause I was going a bit crazy, just need some time off. Um, but I'm actually so fricking excited to share

this investment course with you. Um, because as you may remember, um, I've been doing so many different kinds of discovery calls, um, kind of discovery calls with listeners like you, people that are familiar with me. So I can gauge like, what do you want to learn in an investment course? And I've been making specific videos and lessons on those things. And so I'm so excited. Basically, this is actually going to be the course that I wish existed when I started investing because I made so many mistakes. And I did so many things that were totally wrong. I'm like, oh, what was I doing? So I'm so, so excited. So I'm hopeful that I'll have some better news for you next Wednesday. But right now, just sit tight. And also make sure to

sign up to my email list, jessicaborehouse.com. Subscribe. That's where you're going to find out first when it's officially ready to be announced. I will let my email subscribers know first. Also, a reminder, make sure to follow me on Instagram because I'm spending a little bit more time there actually than say Twitter just because I mean, Twitter has just changed. I feel like such a, I've tried to unfollow a ton of people because I feel like it's kind of become a negative space. So I feel like Instagram is a little bit happier and lighter and nicer. So follow me on Instagram at Jessica I. Morehouse. There's also an Instagram for this podcast at Mo Money Podcast, where if you just want to kind of stay in touch with like, what are the new episodes? That's how you can get in

touch with like, oh, new episode drop. I should probably check it out. So that's kind of the big news. And then with that, because I also have a second course my financial planning course that is also not going to be ready for a little bit um I think I was saying end of January let's we'll see what happens as we recording this uh outro it's January 11th we'll see what happens so I'm just we. We'll see what happens. So I'm just, we're going to see what happens. We're going to just see what happens. But yeah, so that's, I feel like that's kind of it. That's kind of all I got going on right now. Just trying to get back in the swing of things. And I hope you've had a wonderful holiday. I hope you're doing all right.

And thanks for sticking around, listening to the podcast. Got an amazing episode next week. I'm going to tease it because I'm really actually excited to share it. It's one about kind of getting back into the workforce. It's a really exciting and inspirational podcast I find for anyone who is either contemplating taking some time off or has taken some time off and wants to get back into the workplace and doesn't know where to start, what to do, or even if you can, you're not going to want to miss this episode. So that is it. Thank you so much for joining me. I will see you back here next Wednesday with a fresh new episode. Have a good rest of your week. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network

find out more at women in media.network