More Money Podcast - From the Archives: Relistening to Stephanie Myers and Gillian Batt Share How to Design Your Freedom Years

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

What do your freedom years look like? Because too often we are so focused on our day-to-day, we don't leave much space to reflect on "But what are we working towards?" That's why I wanted to re-listen to this episode with Stephanie Myers and Gillian Batt from Our Freedom Years. After years of saving and investing, they were able to quit their day jobs, retire early, and spend their days travelling around the world while documenting it on their YouTube channel. In this interview, they share the steps they took to achieve this big milestone, how to account for things like no longer having a permanent home and paying taxes as a nomad, and the biggest question people ask: "How do I not run out of money?"This episode originally aired on January 13, 2021.To find the original show notes for this episode, visit jessicamoorhouse.com/260Follow meInstagram @jessicaimoorhouseThreads @jessicaimoorhouseTikTok @jessicaimoorhouseFacebook @jessicaimoorhouseYouTube @jessicamoorhouseLinkedIn - Jessica MoorhouseFinancial resourcesMy websiteMy bestselling book Everything but MoneyFree resource libraryBudget spreadsheetWealth Building Blueprint for Canadians course Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, Lulu, and welcome back to the more money podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Moorehouse, and we're doing another re-listen episode. Gosh, we're going back all the way to January 2021. My gosh, that was a different time. And I had the pleasure of interviewing Stephanie Myers and Jillian Batt for episode 260, talking about, they have kind of a brand. They have a YouTube channel called Our Freedom Years. They followed the fire movement and retired. super early and have been traveling the world. I'm going to check them out. What are they up to now? I think they're still living their best lives, actually. So if you want to check them out, they're still living their best lives. They are on Instagram. They're on YouTube. I should really, yeah, pop over and give them an email or, you know, DM to be like, hey, how are you? I should do that for all of these real estate episodes, but it's too late now. I just got the idea right now. so too late now. But we talk about their journey to, you know, they're working regular jobs and we're able to work together to retire, you know, in their, I think they're 40s, early 40s,

and then planning what that kind of looks like and, you know, making that big shift. And they're also Canadian. And I feel like often when we hear about people in the fire community, they're mainly American and sometimes, you know, it's just a bit different for us Canadians, different structures, different, you know, investment accounts and things like that. So we really get into the nitty gritty about how they were able to achieve this really crazy, big, lofty goal. So you're going to, you know, you feel kind of inspired. Even if you don't want to do fire or retire significantly early, still some of the things you can apply to your life so you can, you know, reach financial independence or, you know,

just have more options, have more options to maybe leave that job that you can't stand or just take an extended break before you get another job or whatever the case. So you're going to love this episode with Stephanie and Jillian. So with that, let's get to that interview. 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 this 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 look for like, what 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 for. from the Canadian perspective, because I've talked to a lot of people who've, you know, 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. 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 to be with COVID and all of the restrictions that are growing around the world. So what does 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 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, oh, okay, anywhere 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 sewing 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 roots 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 and 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 ever actually living in Toronto again. So, yeah, it's a bit of a paradigm shift. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, 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 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 for 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's 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? So we have a budget that, you know, there is some flexibility throughout the, you year. So like if we stay, you know, travel through somewhere that is less expensive, then 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 priceier 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 that I feel like some people need some maybe context or whatever to figure like, how did you get to this point? Because I feel like I've had, you know, 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 were 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. Gillian was able to graduate debt-free by going to the Royal Military College in Canada.

So that was, I think, a great... That was a huge help, yeah, to graduate debt-free. 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. So you want to kind of explain that for people that may not understand. So you move 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 residence 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, to 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 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 where are you a resident? 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 basically, 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, you know, wherever the money's invested. So that's kind of how it works out. Yeah. 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 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 um full time so that was a decision that

was made over the course very slowly over 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. 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, you know, there was, there were many people who had this dream and there were, you know, 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 Gillian 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

tips 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 health care manager in the Army and then eventually was working in public health care doing quality improvement. Wow. So that's really cool that you're able to stumble into like 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, is 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 U.S. or some other country? I know just like coming to mind, like health 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 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 health care. How does that – I'm just kind of curious. Like, how does that work?

Do you get health care in whatever country you're in? Or is it this global health care and where do you get that? So it is basically – if something happens where you are, then you go and you seek out care where you are. there are some policies where you might get evacuated back to your home country. It really depends on the coverage that you choose. 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 checkups. 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 um i'm curious when you were uh 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 to live off of and 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 about 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.

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, you know, like, well, what do you think? How much do we need? and she would begrudgingly say, you know, if we have $10 million, we need $10 million and we're retired 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, you know, 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 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 they really should be. So we went through a few year process of really trimming back our current expenses, getting our current budget underwrapped 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 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 is 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. Like as we get old and maybe there's more health care issues or our needs and wants change, then our budget's going to change too. So it sounds like, and 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. And 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, because 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 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, 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, you know, 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 because everyone's kind of doing things a little bit differently. Yeah, exactly. I did want to tackle your, 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 or, you know, I guess they're kind of questioning the numbers. Or do you need the income that you're earning from, you know, 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, you know, people that are like, I don't have an audience or I don't, you know, I don't have a blog, but I definitely want to

retire early. Is this possible for me or do I need to, you know, create a blog or something like that to sustain my, you know, 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 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, like, 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. 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 they think that is their solution. Like, I hate my job. So I'll just save up a ton of money and quit my job. And then everything is great. But I mean, I'm sure like you guys, you probably, you may be like 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, 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. 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 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 is 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 will always 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, 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. People achieving like really early retirement like in their 20s and 30s. What are your thoughts on that? Because again, the feedback I got from like regular people is that sounds so unachievable. Well, I think sometimes we, one of our concerns when we hear that someone fairly young has retired with maybe what sounds to some people,

like a limited amount of money, 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. Like I think, yeah, 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 that kind of knowledge comes with, yeah, life experience. Like, like you said, I'm like, there's no way you can pay, you can pay me to go backpacking. There's no way. I'm one of those people. I'm like, I need a hotel. And I even, 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 cheapen out on me. He's like, we don't need a fan. I'm like, we need a fan. We need a fan. We need a fan. We need a fan. We need a. a fan um so just to save like 30 dollars yeah we need a fan um 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 think or what 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 my 20s 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 you're wants and needs change, but just like being open 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 start happening, what were your, you know, how did you have to change your plans? that so um it is we were actually in uh Italy in February last year when everything was happening so we were really uh sort of the second place out of the first place out of China to really have things go haywire and so when when when when Italy went into a lockdown we quickly booked a flight to try and get out and then our flight was canceled 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 wanted 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. 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 is all I'm thinking about. I'm like, I can't wait to like and 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 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. Yes. I say hello. A 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. can I find that? Sure. So it is almost on every single page of our website. Okay. Can't miss it. And it basically, you know, we had a bit of a messy journey. But when we looked back, 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 there like I need I need some sense of 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 resource and a YouTube channel that shares all of this great stuff thank you so much Stephanie and Jillian for joining me on the show it was a pleasure chatting with you thank you so much thanks for having us and that was my re-list episode with Stephanie Myers and Gillian bought original episode numbers 260 recorded it back in January 2021. I did a little Google to be like, hey, what are they up to? And yeah, they're still putting out videos on their YouTube channel. Our Freedom Years is where you can find them on YouTube. And man, they're going everywhere. They're going to Georgia. They're going to the Coswolds. Oh, okay, fun. Lisbon, Transylvania, Budapest. Where haven't they been?

Slovakia? Man, they're everywhere. Good for them. Man, I'm jealous. Or I just need a vacation. So you can check out the original show notes for this episode if you want to kind of stay in touch with them and then see some links that I included, including, you know, their Instagram, YouTube, their website and things like that at Jessicamorehouse.com slash 260260. And yeah, get inspired and maybe learn a little bit more about, you know, fire for Canadians. And fire, I feel like I didn't say this at the beginning of the episode, but we talk about this in the interview. Fire means financial independence retire early. And just, you know, kind of see, hey, is this for me? Or, you know, could I apply some of this to my life and see, see how it goes? But hopefully you really enjoyed this episode to tease next week because we are getting to the end.

Actually, next week is the final week of the podcast, rather, to wrap up this season of season 22 of the more money podcast before we go on holiday break. And then I will eventually come back in at 2026. I don't know what the schedule is. I will, you know, put out a little episode when I know that. some time in the new year. But I've got two guest interviews, two brand new guest interviews next week. I'm going to be interviewing Amanda Holden, friend of mine. We were writing her books at the same time and hers is finally coming out, which I'm so excited about. And you're going to love the title. It's called How to Die a Rich Old Lady. Only Amanda would do like a title like that. And it fits her

perfectly and it fits the tone of the book perfectly. You're going to love it. All about investing. And then to cap things off, I've got Gillian Johns read on the show. She has a a podcast called Retire Often and now a book coming out called Retire Often. And we're going to discuss many retirements. So I'm kind of in line with this re-listened episode in that she talks about not so much retiring early, but how can you kind of take some of the elements of fire and take, you know, some sabbaticals because maybe you don't want to retire, you know, at 40 or 50, but you will love to take a month or two off every year. Wouldn't that be nice? And so she talks all about how she's been able to do it for, I think, the past 12 years, she said or something like

that. And she has like six kids. Amazing. Amazing what people can do. And so we talk all about that. So you're going to love next week's two final episodes with that. Thank you so much for listening and supporting this show as always. I will see you back here next Wednesday for the season finale episodes of the More Money Podcast. See you then. The More Money Podcast would not be possible without the amazing talents of podcast producer Matt Riteout, who you can find at MRABCanada.com.