Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - The Current State of the Financial Independence Movement

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

We all want to eventually get to the point when work is optional. But some people make it a goal to get there much sooner – perhaps even by their 30s or 40s. One fellow who knows a lot about how to do it is Brad Barrett, the co-founder of the ChooseFI website and the co-host of the ChooseFI podcast. In this episode, Robert Brokamp spoke with Brad about:-The evolution of the financial independence, retirement early (FIRE) movement, and why many have dropped the RE and focus on the FI.-The savings rates and spending mindsets that are the foundations of financial independence-Identifying the “why” that motivates you to make sometimes hard choices-The flourishing FI community that crowd-sources ideas and provides support when living a somewhat counter-cultural lifestyle Send your financial planning questions for our upcoming mailbag episode to [e-mail]. Host: Robert Brokamp, CFP®, EAGuest: Brad Barrett, CPAEngineer: Bart Shannon Disclosure: Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. We’re committed to transparency: All personal opinions in advertisements from Fools are their own. The product advertised in this episode was loaned to TMF and was returned after a test period or the product advertised in this episode was purchased by TMF. Advertiser has paid for the sponsorship of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Catching up with a leading figure in the financial independence community this week on the Saturday personal finance edition on the Molly Fool Hidden Jams Investing podcast. I'm Robert Brokamp, though my nickname around here is bros and don't be surprised when you hear people call me that. And you know, we all want to eventually get to the point when work is optional. But some people may get a goal to get there much sooner, perhaps even by their 30s or 40s. And one fellow who knows an awful lot about how to do it is Brad Barrett. Brad is a CPA and the co-founder of the ChooseFI website and the co-host of the ChooseFI podcast. Brad, welcome back to the show. Oh, bro, it is so good to see you. It's been a number of years. So this is great.

It's great to see you. It'll be great to catch up. You have been on the show a couple of times, but it's been a while. So as a refresher for newer listeners, give us the brief version of your financial independence story. Okay. So brief version. I graduated from college in 2001, which makes me pretty old at this point. I went to work for one of the biggest accounting firms in the world. I was the CPA. Arthur Anderson. Enron scandal happened.

Arthur Anderson didn't exist nine months later. So craziest thing that had ever happened. And I realized how impermanent work could be, even when you go to work for what's the biggest and most acclaimed accounting firm in the world. So I just realized they're at that young, tender age, even though that was a bad thing that happened, it actually turned into something really positive

because it made me realize I need to take matters into my own hands. And the only way that I knew how to do that at the time was to save money and just live below my means. And without any knowledge that other people were doing this, without any knowledge that there was an end point to saving, that there was some financial independence number. I just saved my money. And I basically just, like I said,

live below my means for about 12 to 50. 15 years. But while still living a normal middle class life, I had two daughters, lived in a nice four-bedroom house and a great part of Richmond, Virginia. But yet I was saving probably somewhere, depending on the year. And again, you know, life intervenes, but 30 to 50% of my income. And when you do that for an intermediate amount of time, there's no get rich quick scheme. But when you do that for an intermediate amount of time, you wake up and that money is compounded into something significant. So, you know, that was my kind of standard path to FI, but then my journey got inextricably linked with entrepreneurship

and I built some websites around travel rewards, which are using credit card rewards points to travel. And that's a fun way to save money also, not on not having to spend many, many thousands of dollars a year on travel. And yeah, I started this podcast about a decade ago. So it's been, it's been an interesting journey of chapters. So if I remember correctly, you gave your letter resignation in 2015. And you were first on this show in 2018 and again in 2019. And back then, maybe a few years beforehand, my impression was there were a lot of stories about the fire movement, fire standing for financial independence, retire early. I think to a certain degree, society was kind of fascinated by it. But nowadays, you don't hear quite as much as you used to.

And like your podcast and website, many people seem to have dropped the RE and are focusing on FI. So what would you say is the current state of sort of the financial independence universe? Yeah. I think people were equal parts fascinated and equal parts appalled by the fire acronym. And I think, I think frankly, that's why a lot of us, and Jonathan and I, I'm my co-founder of Jusivai, we realize this pretty early on that the RE wasn't what we were aspiring towards. We were aspiring for something. We weren't running away from a life that we hated, we're trying to build a life that we loved. And I think the financial independence aspect of that is what's so important. So, yeah, it's interesting because over the last decade, certainly

probably since Mr. Money Mustache came around in the early, I think, 2013 thereabouts, so we're coming up on 13, 14 years. The community worldwide has grown dramatically. So you don't hear as many stories about it, but honestly, I think it's because it's not as sensational anymore. It's much more mainstream to a degree about, okay, look, for most middle class people, these are not people with silver spoons, these are not people making millions of dollars. For most middle class people, there's precisely one way to get ahead financially. And it's to live below your means. And obviously, as Molly Fool knows, it's to invest wisely. And I think for a lot of us, that's low-cost, broad-based index funds, but of course, it can be individual stocks, it can be real estate,

whatever, but there's a pretty prescribed path. So it's not as sensational anymore. I think a lot of people have heard of financial independence. People have heard of our podcast. They've heard of Mr. Money Mustash. And even people like Brmeet Sati, who on the face of it seems to hate the fire community, but it's more clickbait than anything. He's of the same ilk. He really is. And even though I don't know that he would say that if you asked him. But I think it's that it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. I mean, we have our own children. News of I, we have 300 local groups in 300 cities across the world with people getting together in real life, hundreds of people in many of these chapters. And it's just an unofficial thing.

But they're getting together and living lives that we used to be these kind of frugal weirdos. And we're not so weird anymore. That's the great thing. I think on a lot of levels, this is a fundamental truth of life is you're going to live paycheck to paycheck and be stressed all the time if you don't live below your means. It's actually pretty simple. And obviously to do this, you probably have to have an above average savings rate, especially when you consider that according to the Federal Reserve, the personal savings rate in the U.S. now is 3%. Most experts recommend that you should be saving 10 to 15%. I think a lot of people struggle to do that. You mentioned your savings rate. Is that about the range of the rates you see

in the FI community, acknowledging that there's probably a lot of variability there? A lot of variability for sure. And yeah, we're not like, we're a very big tent. community here. We're not, uh, if you come in and your net worth is in the red and your savings rate is zero effectively or negative, you're not excommunicated. It's not like you're not welcome, right? It's like we're all just trying to live better lives. I think that's, that's the biggest thing. And you make changes one at a time. And it's amazing, just like how, how your investments compound, it's amazing how these little changes compounds. So, um, but yeah, I mean, I think realistically to reach financial independence in that intermediate amount of time, which to me is,

15, 20 years. Like that's a pretty abbreviated career for most people. Most people would be thrilled, obviously, to have a 20 year career. Yeah, I mean, you're going to need to save 30 to 40% of your income. So I think, yeah, that 30 to 50, I think is a sweet spot. Now, again, that might be unrealistic for a lot of people who have fancy expensive mortgages, have the big cars, but, you know, you can make changes over a period of time. So yeah, I mean, I think I think you're going to see people and the sensational headlines, bro, of course, is that person saving 87% of their income and they're living on rice and beans. You know, that's, that's the nonsense. But realistically, these are mostly just normal middle class people who have just made a series of changes over, over many years to

get to that point where they can save probably 30 to 50% roughly. I say to save more, you have to spend less. And I think a lot of people conceive of folks in the FI movement is, you know, living in cardboard boxes and eating rice. But it's not true from what I have seen, but it does require making choices. And you've talked about this in terms of a term using, like, as being a valuist with your spending. Explain what you mean by that. Yeah.

It's a funny term, but I've had it for about a decade now, a friend of mine who I met through our community, actually. That's the beautiful part. coin this. And yeah, it's it's spending on what you value, what you value critically, not on what society values. So it's not to say, and I hope people understand by now that that being, pursuing financial independence is not about being a miser. It's not about living a bad life. I mean, who would sign up for that, right? Like, especially when you're talking, like I said, there's no get rich quick. So it's, it's 10, 15, 20, 25 years. This

is not an overnight thing. Like, I don't think anybody would sign away 20 years of their lives to living miserly just so they can have maybe an extra decade or two of freedom. That seems like a bad bet to me. So for me, it's, it's, you have to understand there's finite resources, right? Like, every decision is made with finite resources. And I think a lot of us just go about life saying, hey, I earn $8,000 a month. I'm going to spend $8,000 a month.

and yolo it, you know, or whatever nonsense terminology they use. And I just think that's a bad bet. So for me, it's, all right, there are things that I value. And I really do try to scrutinize every purchase. I don't just do things because that's what everybody else does. So cars for me are things that I value zero. I mean, bro, I was driving a 2003 Honda Civic through like 2019 until the doors stopped working. essentially. And, you know, I'm driving a 2020 Hyundai Alontera now. I mean, this is that I got from

Hertz rental car. So, I mean, we're talking like ridiculous things. But yeah, I value my health significantly. And I spent, I just flew to Utah to get medical testing done, very specialized medical testing done. So it's not about, and that was just, just to get ahead, to get a baseline. There's nothing wrong. But I think that that kind of illustrates, okay, here's somebody who's not spending five to $700 a month on cars, who's not going out to eat all the time. I think my partner and I have lived in our place for about a year. I think we've gone out to eat three times. And all three were to either like Chipotle or Kava, basically. So, and it's just because we really value cooking at home. We love cooking. We love healthy meals.

that we get to make. So it's not about being miserly. It's about really scrutinizing what you want to spend your money on because let's be honest with ourselves. You have to make decisions based on finite resources and understanding that the first thing for most people in the five community, if financial independence is really important to you, the first line item is savings. So you have to deal with finite resources. You just found out that your sales team is at risk of missing quota. Don't panic. Just ask Rippling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people and business data, Rippling AI can pull metrics from Rippling and Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota attainment, headcount plan, and monthly revenue to quota by region. In seconds,

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Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on Espresso.com. You've talked on the show how you took your daughter on essentially a roller coaster road trip, which sounded like a lot of fun. And, you know, I thought recently about how my wife and I had a yard sale. Our kids are mostly adults now. Our youngest is her last year in college. And we got rid of a lot of junk. And frankly, a lot of stuff that we just looked at. And like, there were so many better ways we could have spent our money. And some of it was gifts for the kids.

And we've already talked about how we're going to change this year's holidays based on like less stuff, more experiences. Because we think at this point, that'll be more valuable. Yeah. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, you look around your house and we just recently went to an estate sale. And it's, those kind of things are, they're sobering, right? This is someone who, who unexpectedly passed.

And all of their stuff is basically worth nothing. And you then extrapolate to, oh, if all of their stuff is worth basically nothing, all of my stuff is worth basically nothing. Right. So like, why am I accumulating this garbage? And yeah, I mean, I just don't think, I think if most people are honest with themselves, they don't value the random chachkas that they have lying around their house. It's just, and that's not to say don't spend.

If you're into, a friend of mine is into barbecuing. He's from Kansas City. Like, he has the fancy Trigger and probably more. He'd probably kick me for saying it's just a trigger now. And it's like, do that. If you're going to lovingly enjoy things, do it. But like, don't just waste money. And yeah, to your point,

and yeah, I'm so impressed with how deep you dove on what I've been up to lately. And yeah, I've been doing these roller coaster trips with my older daughter. And I think that's also like an interesting part about life is like, and having kids is really dive into the things that they're interested in. And like, I've this. 18 year old daughter who it's kind of an odd thing to be a massive roller coaster fan. And they call them they call themselves roller coaster enthusiasts. But I mean, I probably know more about roller coasters than anyone on earth who is not a certified roller coaster enthusiast.

Because I've listened to her talk about them for hundreds of hours. And we've went to, she's, she's, uh, ridden, I think, 222 different roller coasters in the last five years. And most of those have been with me. And it's just what a cool thing that we get to do. And yeah, I love that you're doing that with your family as well. Since you brought up Chachkes, I'll remember another quote from one of your recent episodes. It was actually from one of your guests who's trying to do this in Los Angeles. And he said, essentially, we're in the era of

peak crap. Which I think, you know what? That's true. And it probably applies to all the stuff in my garage and in my closet. Yeah. Peak crap. And they had a cool quote. They said, the alley will provide, which is a little sensational for most of us. But the concept was everybody has so much stuff.

They've reached peak crap, right? Like you can get stuff if you're willing to be a little bit smarter. And I think that's another one of the hallmarks, maybe of that valueless thing that you mentioned before, but also it's like, how can you live the same middle class lifestyle as everybody else around you but get wealthy at the same time? And it's really, it's not that hard.

And it's a fun game. I know I've been up to the Molly Fool headquarters back in the day, and played board games with David Gardner and it's like living life like a board game, right? It's just like, oh, what are the little strategies that I can use? Like, hey, you shouldn't be spending. We probably talked about this in 2018 and 2019 when I was on your show. Like, you shouldn't be spending $100 a month on a phone anymore.

You should be going, you should go to Mint Mobile. I have no affiliation with them, to my knowledge, but go to MinMobile and spend $15 to $30 a month. Like, that's simple. It's simple, right? You can buy all of things, all these things used. I know my daughter just found this on her own. She loves, she's a spender on clothes.

She shops at Lulu Lemon. She found a place called, I think, D-pop or something like that. And she's like, this is the greatest thing ever. I'm able to buy these basically new things, just slightly used. The shorts are $15 instead of $79 or whatever. And it's like, oh, isn't that more fun? Isn't that just a fun way to go through life? It's like, how can you get the same stuff, but just pay a,

fraction. It's just, it makes life more interesting to me, bro. A common point that you make and that it doesn't necessarily require huge changes. It can be many small changes. And you frame it as a term, the aggregation of marginal gains. Explain what you mean by that. And you've given some examples, but are there some other ones you think people should know about? Yeah. Yeah, it's a framework that I think I heard reference to like the British Tour de France team way back in the day. And it was just, all right, what are these tiny little things that we can do that when we add them all together compounds into something extraordinary? And I know James Clear talked about this in his book, Atomic Habits as well. I can picture the visual. It's like raised to the power of 365 or something.

It's like, okay, what will this compound to? And I think with the British cycling team, it was even, hey, when you travel, when they travel, they bring their same pillows with them instead of being at the whim of what the hotel is. And if you know, if you're a side sleeper or a stomach sleeper, you need a real thin pillow. If you're a back sleeper, you need a thick pillow. These things sound silly, but when you go through life, and this is not to have a negativity bias, but when you go through life, looking for little things that you can improve one time that all of a sudden get better. and that's fixed forever. And then again, you start compounding these, like one, two, five of them a week over months

and years and into decades, your life is radically transformed. It just simply is. So that's not just personal finance, though obviously that's a real easy way. But like health is a big thing that I've tried to change for the positive over the last really 15 years of my life, but it's accelerated more recently. And it's just what are the little things you can do to make your health better? And I think one thing that a recent guest done on my podcast talked about, and it was interesting how he linked health and financial independence.

And it was basically each of them, good health and solid personal finance, they both give you more years of freedom. And I just thought that was so beautiful and poignant that really like, I know I look at my parents' generation and my dad specifically, and it's like, when I'm his age, I want to have more freedom than he has health-wise. And he's made a lot of choices. And I'm trying to make radically different choices. And I think when you start adding those together, like, again, trying to optimize your sleep, trying to optimize your even just getting out and walking, getting sunlight, like these tiny, tiny little things, not eating as many processed foods, cutting down

carbs, increasing protein. Like, you know, I could go on and on and on. We only have 20 minutes, but nevertheless, it's like, how can you look for these little things and just start layering them on? And you'll be shocked at how it changes your life, absolutely floored. There is a very close connection between personal wealth and physical health, right? There's some delayed gratification. You have to make some choices, giving up things that you may, you know, prefer to do, doing things you may not want to do. And it's always important then to think, why are you doing this?

And you talk about this on your show a lot. The importance of identifying your why. You also frame it as, you know, what am I optimizing for? So given that you know a lot of people in the FI community, what do you see as some of the common whys that get people to make these often less, let's say, fun decisions for some payoff later in life?

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. And I do like your framing on that because, because yeah, like, obviously in a perfect world, I mean, you could take that to the endth degree, right, if you want to really play out the fun decisions. But then we start getting into some dicey territory legally and otherwise. But, but yeah, I mean, we all have to make decisions with, with the future in mind in some regard. And I think, I think a lot of people look at life. And it, and it, it. it really gets into, gets pretty deep pretty quickly. And it's like, do I want to sign up for the societal contract? Is this serving me? Is working from 22, or potentially 18, but 22 if you went to college, to 67, all right. If I get maybe eight decades on this planet, nine if I'm really lucky, just signing up for 45 years of going to an office for eight plus hours, driving to and from, you know, this is a nine, ten hour, ten hour a day minimum,

if you only have a nine to five. He's signing up for that for 45 years, really my best bet. I think for a lot of us, we look at it and we're like, I would love to find a better way to do this. I would love to have more years of freedom on my side of the ledger. And if that means, again, like using my framing of living a little bit below your means, but trying to look at life as a game and not sacrificing, not living a bad life, just being a little bit smarter. And that's going to get me a couple decades more freedom.

Like, that to me is a no-brainer. So I know that was part of my why. I think a lot of people just, I think another, if I can go back to one of your very first questions about the fire was, I think it became such a caricature because I don't know anybody, anybody to one single person who's sitting on a beach and sipping umbrella drinks as their goal of financial independence. It's just the people who have the ingenuity and the hard work and the foresight to reach FI, it's almost impossible to believe

that there's just going to sit around idle. So these are people who, again, the aforementioned Fritz Gilbert, who I just talked to on the podcast, him and his wife started a foundation for actually helping dogs, like building fences for dogs. I think they call it Fences for Fido.

Like, what a cool thing. They get to spend more time with their grandchildren. I think he said he's 63 years old. And they were able to build out a gym, a six-figure gym in their house, like, because they have financial freedom. Like, that's wonderful. A lot of people want to spend more time with their young kids and be there when their kids get off the bus every day. That sure beats stuff, doesn't it? Like, bro, I mean, who in their right mind?

Like, when you actually put this on paper, like, or, I'm talking about it. It's like who in their right mind would pick frivolous stuff or a fancier car over having years of freedom to spend with their kids or themselves or loved ones or doing important things in the community or just being able to explore all those hobbies and interests that they never had time to because they have to go to an office. Like that is the height of insanity. I just I can't even fathom somebody arguing otherwise. Like it's totally implausible. It's just, I mean, Frank, you can hear like I get a little agitjadjy. about this because it's ridiculous on its face, but yet that's the normal culture, and our

community is the counterculture. It's like, what bizarreo upside down world are we living on? New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function, and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you.

Discover coffee plus on espresso.com. To me, one of the most compelling reasons for why everyone should be embracing the principles of the five movement is, there's this dichotomy like you're pursuing it or you're not. But the truth of the matter is, we may not work as long as we would like to. The evidence is clear that the majority of people retire sooner than they expected. Sometimes for good reasons, you know, they bought in video earlier or something like that. But sometimes for health reasons or job loss reasons, and given the uncertainty for me of like how AI is going to change careers and career trajectories,

I think it makes sense for all of us to arrange our finances, are spending and are saving it away such that you'll be okay if you can't work until your 60s. yeah, why would you want to outsource that to somebody else, to some other they, right? You always hear people talking about like, they are impacting me. Like, why wouldn't you want more control over your life? It's just, yeah, I mean, as you framed it, it's beautiful. Like, I just think, I think you'd rather have that power on your side of the ledger and not be beholden to, I mean, most people live on the edge. As you said earlier, like a couple percent savings rate.

If you're lucky, there are obviously tens of millions of people. with credit card debt. And it's like, you're living on the edge constantly. And for what? For just junk lying around your house? I mean, most people don't have anything to show for it. So what are you doing? I don't ever get judgmental.

That's not how I roll at all. But like, really, like when you're faced with that choice, it's pretty self-evident, which is the better path, in my opinion. And I think just frankly, like none of us get financial education, which is why people like us do what we do. And, and, and, and it's not to castigate people. I, I got no financial education. I knew nothing. I just, I learned it all through hard knocks. And I've made countless mistakes. I mean, catastrophic mistakes. Let's be clear. We could, we could spend hours talking about that. So there's no holier than now here. Believe me, I've learned,

learned on the fly. But it's just something, I mean, I've spent a decade doing Chusify now after I don't really need to. And it's just because I'm really passionate about it. I think it can change a lot of people's lives. Thankfully, it has changed a lot of people's lives. And I just, I think it's worth some time for if you're listening to this and, and you've never heard of this before, I suspect most people have on some level, but that are listening to your podcast, let's be clear. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's something really valuable. Being intentional about, not only about your spending, your saving, but what you're going to do once you reach financial dependence and retirement, you've been exploring this yourself with what.

what you call your Tuesday project. Tell us about that. Yeah, this is one of the most interesting and fun things, thought exercises that I've had just this past year. It's really 2026 thing. I realized, yeah, my daughters are growing up. And my youngest one just entered high school, and I basically have four years until I'm not geographically bound.

I'm not bound by anything, essentially, at that point. And it's how do you design a life? that you really want to live every Tuesday. And that's why I'm calling it the Tuesday Project. Like, what creates a beautiful, great life that you want to live every Tuesday, every Thursday,

every Sunday? It's, uh, and it's clearly going to be different for everybody. So this is not saying my way is the best or is even applicable to one other human being on earth. But, but I'm just,

my partner, Aaron and I go through and we're like, this is a fun thing that we constantly update. And it's, okay, what would make a great Tuesday for us? We suspect we're going to travel, but we don't have to. It's, again, like being able to walk for us, as an example, it's being able to walk places. We want to be able to walk to, and with the advent of AI, we're able to really kind of drill down on like, what would this look like somewhere in the world?

So three to five minute walk to a market, sub ten minute walk to a gym. Ideally, our area is not bound by any major roads or highways. We have water or mountains or hiking trail within 20 minutes. We, you know, all of these little things. And we want to live in a country or a place that has high social trust, has great public transit, has interesting. You know, all of, I could go down the whole list. Of course, we don't have time for that. But, but again, it's not building a, I want to climb Kilimanjaro.

and then go to the Great Barrier Reef and then go to Machu Picchu. Those are wonderful and those can be highlights of a year. But what about the other 51 weeks then? And I think most of us should be designing a life for those 52 Tuesdays. And what do we want that to look like? And that's an iterative process over years and decades. And it's not to say my Tuesday project idea right now in 2026 is going to be the same even in 2030 when my daughter graduated high school. I have no idea.

but that's part of the fun of it is just updating that constantly. And then we get down until like little things like, hey, we don't want to, we both have allergies. Like, we don't want to live in a place that has allergies, you know, allergy season. So you can follow the seasons. You can follow all of these fun things you can do. And again, that's my Tuesday project. But yeah, I would really advise everybody like sit down and really brainstorm that.

Because I mean, bro, I'd love maybe we can go over email sometime. But like, I really think you'd have fun with that as a thought exercise too. Yeah, I am at that point. In fact, I'm the type of person who thought I would never retire. But now that I have reached age 57, it's just really recently in the last year or so. And like, it's, it could be sooner than I thought it would be. And it's the type of thing I need to think about. My wife and I just really, in the last year, have begun to talk about, well, what is retirement going to look like for us?

So I'm going to have to bring up the two. project to her and see what we come up with. Let's get to the last question here. And you've touched on the fact that to a certain degree, this sort of financial independence lifestyle is countercultural. Right. And I'm sure many people who pursue this lifestyle have come, you know, into situations where people are like, why are you doing this? You'll never be able to do it. they might be, you know, friends with other folks who are still spending a lot of money, still going out to eat a lot, which could feel sort of isolating. Fortunately, though, there's a pretty extensive financial dependence community

that does a couple of things, right? There's, first of all, the crowdsourcing of practical ideas, but then also just a community in general. And you've been a part of creating that. So tell us about the Phi community. Yeah, the fight community is amazing. It's broad and it's worldwide. It really never ceases to astonish me that when I went to Singapore,

we had a meetup of 10 people who were part of the five community, just on a random Saturday morning and almost everywhere I go. And it's not just me, of course, it has nothing to do with me. It's these people have in real life meetups on a constant basis in really hundreds and hundreds of cities across the world. world. A lot of them happen to be under the banner of this Chusa Phi podcast, but it's the fight community. Let's be clear. It's just that, you know, we happen to start these things a decade ago. But it extends way beyond that. I love seeing all of these events that are popping up now.

There are international events. I'm going to Australia and New Zealand next year. I actually met my partner at a Phi event in Bali a couple years ago, which was amazing. Camp Fies exist all across America that there are these weekend gatherings and and yeah it's it's you don't have to be this little island unto yourself i think a lot of us in the in the old days of phi we were just like I said and I say this kind of stripping the sarcasm we were the frugal weirdos that that just felt really different from everybody else but but it's been astonishing to see these communities grow and thrive and we have people leading their own these groups again and in and hundreds of cities and just get, I'm blown away, bro, by the presentations on FI 201 on taxes.

And they had 70 plus people show up for this meeting in St. Louis a couple weeks ago. We had, I think it was our Los Angeles group decided to sit down and have an investor policy statement writing meeting. That was what they got together to do. They wrote their investor policy statements because they all wanted to do it. But they needed the accountability and just the impetus to do it. Like, what a cool thing. And then I know here locally, a bunch of our people in the fight community of friends of mine have a Tuesday and Thursday walking group.

And it's not like hard hitting personal finance. It's a group of people getting together and just spending time with each other. So I've noticed just so many kiddred spirits, so many. These are interesting people. These are people who are some of the, again, they're living counterculturally, even though I think it's, as they said before, kind of pretty, pretty. obvious way to live once you're presented with it. But nevertheless, these are people who are doing things a little bit differently and they're fairly interesting. So yeah, if you're out there listening to this and want to join, you can find it. Certainly our events at chooseavada.com slash local. And

again, they're all of these events all across the country and world. And they're just, you've found your people. And I think a lot of, a lot of Molly Fool listeners can can find their people there as well. Well, Brad, thanks again for joining us. As always, having you on the show is both educational and inspirational. Bro, I really appreciate it. This is a blast, as always. And that, my fullest friends, is the show. Thanks so much for listening,

and thanks to Bart Shannon, the engineer for this and every Saturday episode. As always, people on the program may have interest in the investments they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell investments based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards. It is not approved by advertisers. advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes.

I'm Robert ProCamp. Full on, everybody.