0:01

there are so many people who are good with money, but then they kind of just

0:04

follow along in the standard American way of living, which is pretty bad for you.

0:09

And that starts to catch up with you, the older you get.

0:11

So I would encourage you to find a fun and sustainable way to become a health nut.

0:17

And like, I think everybody should be, in the top 1 percent of their peer

0:23

group for healthy habits, which usually results in healthy results as well.

0:30

I was trying to get specific on all the categories of expenses that a typical

0:35

middle class family has because the problem I was finding is like, why does

0:40

everybody have a pretty low savings rate?

0:42

And why does everybody paycheck to paycheck regardless of their income?

0:46

And the reason is because Their day to day spending is just kind of thoughtless

0:50

They're like well I get my groceries the way I do it and I have a car and I need

0:54

my car and my car has certain expenses With it and they're not digging into

0:58

enough detail to get these costs down

1:02

I'm so business oriented too. And it's also why I'm so anti Bitcoin, anti crypto.

1:07

It's because that's not a business, right? Like Bitcoin is a belief system and it's not actually producing anything.

1:13

And I would much rather own like a farm or a rental apartment than a piece

1:19

of algorithm and data, which is like a Bitcoin because it's not actually

1:24

doing anything and it depends on other people buying for me at a higher price.

1:28

So that's why I'm so kind of like if you read Warren Buffett's belief systems,

1:32

it's pretty much exactly how I feel. All right.

2:04

Hello. And welcome back to catching up to five.

2:07

I'm here today with Jackie Cummins Koski, and we have a very special guest for you

2:10

today, all the way back from Phoenix, Arizona, just back home is Pete Adney.

2:16

We'd like to welcome Pete to the show. Right, Jackie.

2:19

Yeah, we are excited to have Pete today and I am definitely looking

2:22

forward to this conversation. Over the years, I've seen the evolution of Mr.

2:27

Money Mustache and it's been pretty interesting to me.

2:29

So this will be a great conversation. He really doesn't need any introduction because in the FI world he's known as Mr.

2:35

Money Mustache. He retired, and I didn't know this, in 2005 at age 30.

2:40

He published his first blog in 2021.

2:43

When people discover FI, they go down the rabbit hole of information overload,

2:47

drinking water from the fire hose. Invariably, the journey starts with blogs like Pete's.

2:52

One cannot help but read many of his iconic articles and be inspired and

2:56

informed on the mindset, mechanics, challenges, and joys of life of financial

3:00

freedom and lifestyle, which is a big topic for him is engaging, humble, and

3:05

self deprecating humor and profound insights have helped countless people

3:09

in their journey to fi we late starters are honored to have him with us on

3:13

catching up to five, Pete, welcome. Hey, thanks.

3:16

Wow. I didn't know you were gonna have this nice poetic, like start of a

3:19

book intro for me, but thank you. It's quite an honor.

3:22

And also Jackie, congratulations on taking over the show.

3:25

Yeah. Thanks a lot. Look, we're not too shabby around here.

3:27

Are we? Yeah.

3:29

Very pro very pro not used to that.

3:33

Well, our audience is late starters and they obviously know you.

3:37

All of them seem to have gone down the rabbit hole and found you as

3:41

you and Simple Path to Wealth just keep coming up over and over again.

3:45

You didn't start Mr. Money Mustache until six years into retirement.

3:49

what were the origins of that? How did this get started?

3:52

Was it just a, I'm just going to do this for myself.

3:55

And you had no idea it would turn into what it did.

3:58

Well that was the origin of the retirement, basically I wanted

4:01

to be retired in order to start family and now we have that 18 year

4:05

old, almost adult, cause it was the retirement was that long ago.

4:09

The blogging was totally separate. I just, I did that out of frustration because I thought that this stuff that

4:15

I was doing was just obvious, right? Like if you make more than, let's say 20, 000, then of course, everything

4:20

above that is going to be surplus. So should you save that or should you just waste it on like more cars and stuff?

4:26

So I did that just coming up as like a less wealthy, my own upbringing

4:31

was less wealthy, so I didn't even know how to spend a lot of money.

4:35

So I thought I was doing great already. And then the excess money just got saved.

4:39

Eventually it got invested. And when it became enough to cover our expenses forever, then I declared

4:45

retirement and it was only six years after that, that I saw the

4:48

friends still working, my colleagues sometimes even paycheck to paycheck

4:52

on these big engineering salaries. And that's what led me to realize, Hey, I should try sharing this.

4:58

Information in case anyone else finds it useful.

5:01

Well, it rapidly became. An iconic blog and, in our space, you're famous.

5:08

I mean, everybody feels that they know you because you've

5:12

been so personal in your blog. Has the fame and the iconic nature of your blog changed your life at all?

5:19

No, thankfully the only thing that changes life is it's allowed me to

5:24

gather more people in my real life. Like for example, co starting this coworking space with Carl, Mr.

5:30

1500 and Mindy and another friend.

5:33

So it allows us to have more friends in real life.

5:35

That's the only thing that's really genuinely different and better, of course.

5:39

It turns out being internet famous doesn't really mean anything.

5:41

It just means that more numbers appear on the stats of your website or more

5:45

comments appear on your Instagram account or whatever, but there's no real impact

5:50

in real life because internet famous is so different than real famous, like, an

5:53

actor or a pop star or something where people recognize them in real life.

5:58

I'm also thankful that that doesn't happen because.

6:01

From the very small experience of like being well known, at a blogger conference

6:06

or something, it's actually not very fun because people are just coming up and

6:10

kind of interrupting your regular life. And you're trying to have dinner with your friends and like, can

6:13

we take some selfies with you? And so I can only imagine how that would not be fun for an actual celebrity.

6:19

So I'm lucky that I'm just in this nerdy niche of personal finance.

6:23

But yeah, it's enough connection that you can, you can meet genuine friends that

6:27

you want to spend your real life with. Yeah. And Pete, you were at Economy I think last year, and I remember I did go

6:34

to your breakout that you did here in Cincinnati and I didn't get a chance

6:38

to meet you 'cause, you draw a crowd.

6:40

So I hate that I missed you then, so I kind of get what you're saying.

6:43

But did I catch, did you say your son was 18?

6:47

Yeah. Turned 18 a couple months ago.

6:50

did not know he was already 18.

6:53

I have a 20 something year old now, but they, they grow really fast.

6:56

So almost the entire time you were writing the blog, you

7:00

had your son during that time.

7:02

Yeah. Yeah. I bet he learned a lot during that time.

7:06

Sort of whether I had the blog or not, he probably would have the same upbringing

7:11

other than the fact that he knows that I have this funny internet hobby.

7:14

But but yeah, we grew up with like a pretty low key nature based, not

7:20

super consumery childhood for him. And it was still pretty luxurious, because it's.

7:24

It's, it's the U S and his mom and I had great salaries back when we were

7:29

working and then good savings to live off of, and yeah, it was totally fine.

7:34

Well, how is retirement 19 years later?

7:38

I mean, I'm 58. I'm still a working stiff.

7:42

I'm in the chair. I didn't get it right. I woke up late at 50 and you got it completely right.

7:47

Retired at 30 and you've been retired almost as long as I've been working.

7:52

So you got to tell me, what was it like to start retirement that early?

7:56

And how does it feel now, 18 years later?

8:01

It was always great. I've never had any problem with not having that particular job

8:06

because I really enjoyed my job.

8:08

I was a tech worker, like a software engineer.

8:11

The only reason I needed to quit is because I felt it was sucking up all my

8:13

time and I always felt like the weekends were the fun times because I was engaged

8:18

with a lot of stuff that I wanted to do. And then even though the job was good, it was always like, Oh, this

8:22

job is taking on this valuable time.

8:24

And I'd be walking, our building was in Boulder, Colorado with these

8:28

beautiful, like hallway of glass.

8:30

Every time you walk from one meeting room to another, or like

8:32

the laboratories, you're walking, looking over this entire like

8:35

mountain range and the city below you. And I was like, why am I in here and not out there?

8:40

So that was the real motivation. It's just the free time.

8:44

And I just try to use my free time for things that I'm interested in.

8:48

So I'm still always kind of working on something.

8:50

It's just that it doesn't have to make money now. And yeah, I'm just a very precious about not wanting to waste my time.

8:56

And I know we only live a certain number of years, so so far so good.

9:01

Wow, it's incredible. you may not like the word retirement, but you wrote an article called, and this is

9:08

one that everybody reads, the shockingly simple math of early retirement.

9:12

I'm sure you've talked about it ad nauseum, but it's such a pivotal article.

9:16

And it was so crucial to me because it says, this is how

9:19

long my journey is going to be. If I do this, how did you come up with this idea?

9:24

And, how did it start?

9:26

And how did you figure this out that it's just a matter of time and savings rate

9:32

and you can control your life and control your time if you pay attention to it.

9:36

I mean, that's just basic math, right?

9:38

It's just you. It seems obvious that the more money you save, the faster you save, the faster

9:45

you're going to have a lot of money. Right. And that's what you need to retire.

9:48

But I was just always trying to find simpler ways to express it.

9:52

And then I remember my article isn't really particularly groundbreaking because

9:56

I remember Jacob Frisker had a similar thing in his book called early retirement

10:01

extreme, and I think it might've even had similar things way back in your

10:05

money or your life, which is just a graph that says the same idea, like savings.

10:10

Rate versus how long you have to work.

10:13

So the only good thing about my article is just that made it simple, like the

10:16

language in there, like there's no math. It was just trying to beat people over the head with these very simple

10:22

concepts because it is shockingly simple and, I'm glad it caught on.

10:26

I'm not like a mathematical innovator for coming up with that.

10:30

I just made it into a really pretty chart with a good font and good colors.

10:33

And, that's really what it takes to make change actually, because like all

10:37

the answers to living a good life in all dimensions are already out there.

10:41

And one of the main reasons most people lead a pretty bad life, pretty inefficient

10:45

life is just they haven't learned. And that's because it's hard to learn.

10:48

So my job with this blog is mainly just to take really obvious stuff and make it feel

10:53

as obvious as it is so that people can benefit from learning, even if they don't

10:57

have a lot of time to commit to reading. Yeah.

10:59

And Pete, I think the simplicity part is a really big deal because the financial

11:04

industry doesn't make these things easy.

11:06

So since the beginning of time, I don't know, 50 years ago, the financial

11:10

planning industry hasn't really come up with a simple way when people ask that

11:14

question, how much do I need to retire? They'll start to run charts and graphs and just make it so complex.

11:20

And I think that's something that attracted me to the fire community

11:24

and this particular article that you wrote, especially is the simplicity.

11:28

That was the first time it ever made sense.

11:31

And I was saying the same thing as you, it's just math, and it

11:35

shouldn't have been that difficult, but this, it made it click for me.

11:39

And simplicity, there's just so much beauty there and you put it together

11:43

the way that obviously millions and millions of people found very simplistic,

11:47

we're finally is getting through.

11:50

So, Well, Hey, thanks.

11:52

Well, the numbers itself are really impressive. People talk about, Oh, when you start your career, save 10%.

11:57

But if you look at it, how long are you going to work?

11:59

That's like 40 years, maybe even longer.

12:02

And for me, when I caught up late, it's like, okay, you got

12:05

to save 40 or 50 percent in your journeys, depending on market.

12:09

12 to 15 years, and we want people to wake up to this fact early on.

12:15

I mean, I've said for physicians, especially where burnout so high work,

12:19

20 for the money and the rest for joy in five years, pay off your debt and

12:22

then in 15 years, save half your income, live on one income and you're free.

12:27

And then you can do. Medicine is better for health care for physicians to be financially free.

12:35

I think they deliver better health care when they're not worried about the

12:39

massive student loan debt burden or, high lifestyle that a lot of physicians lead.

12:45

It's just so telling that, work 20 for the money and the rest for joy.

12:51

And that, and your graph says exactly why that works.

12:56

I mean, 20 is an awfully long time to have, any kind of us doctor salary.

13:00

I'm still glad there's a slogan like that, but, but yeah, physicians and maybe some

13:04

other high income professionals are kind of notorious for being bad with money,

13:08

even though they're good with learning a lot of stuff about the human body.

13:12

Right. I mean, the whole fact that doctors think they have a lot of student loans.

13:15

It's kind of hilarious because one year of your salary would pay

13:18

it off as soon as you get to a full time, out of your residency.

13:22

So, $250,000, even though it's like $500,000, that's two years

13:26

of just like live like a normal person instead of a doctor.

13:30

And then you put the rest of that money into the loans and then they're gone.

13:34

So I really am glad that there are people in medicine who are reading

13:38

fire blogs, because like you said, they're going to lower their stress.

13:42

That'll be able to do. More medicine and less billing.

13:46

And I kind of like how the direct primary care movement has come out of

13:50

this a little bit too, where doctors are trying to create a more of a lifestyle

13:54

business where they're connected to their patients instead of trying to run

13:57

a huge office with insurance companies fighting and a lot of complexity.

14:01

yeah, Pete, can you talk a little bit more about the direct primary care?

14:05

Because I've heard you mentioned that before for somebody

14:07

that hasn't heard of that. Tell us how you're using that.

14:12

Yeah. Well, it's just a subscription based doctor.

14:14

Sometimes like people call it concierge medicine, which is like a

14:17

little bit pretentious sounding, but all it really is you pay a flat fee.

14:21

For me, it's 107 a month. And in exchange for that, I just have access to a medical office.

14:27

It's right here in my town. It has a few primary doctors now that work there as well as like

14:33

nurse practitioners and other people. So it's very efficiently run.

14:37

And if I don't do anything, if I don't need any care, which is most months

14:41

that I still pay, which is why they're able to offer this service so cheaply.

14:44

And then when I do need something, I get really good service with no copay.

14:48

Right? So for example, last fall, I cut my toe pretty severely on a construction site.

14:54

And it was so such a relief that it didn't have to go into an emergency

14:58

room and have somebody check it out. I've just like text messaged my medical office and they said, yeah, just come on

15:03

in to the office and we'll take a look. Turned out to be a lot less bad than it looked.

15:07

So the guy just gave me some antibiotics and like cleaned up the wound a

15:11

little bit, but that's an example. And there was no bill because I'd already been paying my subscription for that.

15:16

Did they get you in pretty Oh yeah. Like when you need the care, you typically get it the same day because yeah.

15:21

They have it all set up. Like they have a certain number of subscribers.

15:24

They don't go over what they can handle. And everything works out well.

15:29

If you want to get those bigger numbers too, it becomes pretty predictable.

15:32

How many times people are going to come into the office versus

15:35

how many doctors you have. So everybody ends up getting great service.

15:38

And yet the doctors don't have to work too hard. And they get a nice salary and their offices funded without a bunch of churn

15:45

through the medical bills and stuff. Oh, I love that. So, so no insurance involvement at all.

15:51

Right. And then this is separate. You can still have a catastrophic plan.

15:54

Yeah. That would cover like a hospitalization, things that your doctor can't handle.

15:59

So the direct primary care is typically cover all your normal stuff, like

16:03

stitches even as included and all the blood tests and diagnosis and coaching.

16:07

But if I get something that needs a surgery, they don't have that in their

16:10

office and I would, they would just refer me to a local hospital or something.

16:14

And I would have to pay that bill on my own. they do that, they have a connection where they say our clients will come to you

16:21

and you kind of promise the hospital kind of promises to charge a reasonable cash

16:25

pay rate instead of the inflated starter opening bid for the insurance company.

16:30

But some people still can't afford that. So there's still catastrophic insurance, which you can get through the normal.

16:36

what is it called? Direct? the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare.

16:40

Yeah, Yeah. Okay. To me, that's a great combination there.

16:44

So Yeah, it is. So I got one of these

16:47

catastrophic, Is that how you manage your health care?

16:49

Because people talk about how do we manage health care in early retirement.

16:53

how have you really done that other than the direct primary care?

16:56

What has been your way of ensuring against the issues that, early

17:02

retirees really worry about? Because they've got a long glide path to Medicare.

17:07

How have you managed it so you can tell our folks how to do it?

17:11

Yeah. That's why I wrote an article about this.

17:13

And if you look up two years without health insurance and now what I, or what

17:17

I'm doing now, or you can just look up Mr. Money mustache, direct primary care, just Google for that and you'll get, it.

17:23

This article I wrote. So if you get affordable care act insurance, that's full insurance and it's

17:28

not as expensive as most people think. Everybody thinks your insurance is going to be like a thousand dollars a

17:33

month per person or something like that. And therefore I have to stay employed in order to get this, to

17:38

keep this insurance that I need so much, but it's not really like that.

17:41

It's like more than the hundreds per month range.

17:44

And it goes up with your age, but, and then there's also health share

17:48

things, which were in the past only religion based and now there's.

17:52

secular one. So I, I'm subscribed to one that's called Sidera.

17:56

And I mainly did that just because I want people to see the alternatives and

18:01

I've tried a bunch of stuff that thing for me though, I'm not a good test case.

18:05

Cause I've never had any medical needs. I've just been lucky.

18:08

I've never had to go to a hospital or a doctor for anything other than, strep

18:11

throat once or something like that. So there's other people who deal with more complex medical needs and their

18:17

blogs or podcasts or websites, I mean, or YouTube, they're probably better than me.

18:22

I'm just like an example of what to do.

18:25

If you are lucky enough to have a pretty average healthy situation.

18:30

And the other thing is the more you save up, like the bigger

18:33

your retirement stash is. The more you can afford to self insure and that's if you live conservatively

18:39

and continue to do so after you retire, you're probably going to keep

18:43

saving up more and more and more. And then the cost of a medical procedure become less and less of a worry.

18:49

I mean, if you think about it, Bill Gates doesn't need medical insurance, right?

18:54

Like no matter what happens to him. It's going to be a negative, like a negligible thing for him to pay the bill.

19:01

And for fire people, you might start out where that, where that's not the case, but

19:04

you gradually move towards that if you're doing a good job managing your money.

19:09

Cause people do tend to get wealthier even after retirement.

19:12

And that's because they've baked a lot of safety into the retirement plan.

19:15

So you get to worry less and less. And that's really what my whole thing is all about.

19:19

It's not worrying so much. I would agree with that, Pete.

19:22

I my net worth has gone up. I've been retired for, I'm going on my fifth year, so I'm not quite up with you

19:27

yet, but yeah, I, it kind of surprised me that it has gone up because I've started

19:32

to draw down a little bit, here and there.

19:34

And, five years later My net worth has gone up.

19:37

So I don't worry quite as much and that's that's kind of reassuring to me.

19:40

So to your point, yeah, I've experienced the same thing.

19:43

Yeah. Well, that brings up actually another point, because I don't know that

19:47

I've heard about what you invested in to get financially independent.

19:53

And, have you had to draw down or does your side hustle take

19:57

care of your average expenses? It's been different throughout the retirement.

20:03

So when I first retired I started a really foolish house building

20:07

company that lost a bunch of money. It was just before the housing crisis.

20:10

So that was an example where I did draw down.

20:13

I had to sell shares of my index funds in order to cover living expenses

20:18

and the losses through this company.

20:21

And then things went better in the later years, after the crisis, a few years.

20:25

And then I had rental houses for a while that were paying the bills.

20:29

And then, but the real answer is I think the simple path to wealth Jim

20:33

Collins, his book is really the best answer for most retirees, which is

20:38

you could pretty much buy one exchange traded index fund, which is VTI.

20:43

And that would already be great, cause you're holding the whole us index.

20:47

You'll also get some dividends. It's super stable because it's thousands of companies that you're owning slices of.

20:52

And that's what my savings are mostly in now.

20:56

I have pretty much all us and international index funds held

21:00

just between like a Vanguard account and a Betterment account.

21:03

But if you look inside, they're both kind of holding the same things.

21:06

And a lot of that is just VTI and there's VXUS, which is basically the

21:10

rest of the world in another index fund.

21:13

And very stable grows along with the world economy and, and then you

21:18

just don't have to worry about it. You don't think about it. Do you own bonds or do you have a high risk tolerance?

21:23

Yeah, not really much bonds. I think when you look at The overall performance, the

21:27

higher the stock allocation is, the better you do over time.

21:32

And I'm only interested in the long run. So yeah, you'll get more fluctuation if you have an almost all stock portfolio,

21:38

but it comes back really quickly.

21:40

So unless you were, look at the stock market every day and say, Oh no, I lost.

21:45

3 percent of my savings, which is a foolish way to think about your money,

21:49

you can have a higher percentage and because you're withdrawing, like even

21:54

if you're fully retired and let's say you're in your sixties and seventies,

21:57

you're still just taking a tiny, tiny amount out of your portfolio.

22:01

Each year. So the fluctuations don't really affect you as much.

22:06

So yeah, pretty low on the bonds. They're probably better now with interest rates being higher than

22:11

they were a few years ago, but I still, yeah, I guess you could say

22:14

I have a high fluctuation tolerance.

22:17

I don't really call that risk, but I have a high tolerance

22:20

for fluctuating stock prices. Yeah, I don't necessarily have that.

22:24

And our late start audience would be interested.

22:26

we know there's no magic button, but do you have any specific advice for

22:30

portfolio construction for, say, somebody that started in their 40s or at 50?

22:37

If you want to do it yourself, you'd probably want to like read a book on

22:42

it or something, but you can also get a target date retirement fund, which

22:47

all that really means is that you have a higher percentage of bonds.

22:51

As you get closer to your official retirement date, Vanguard has a bunch of

22:54

these betterment has different modes for that too, if you want them to do that.

22:59

But yeah, I don't know. I really don't think about portfolio too much because if you really

23:05

understand what the stock market is.

23:08

You can have an all VTI that's a portfolio.

23:10

Like VTI is one fund, but it's also a portfolio.

23:14

So I really don't get too complicated with like, especially not with the

23:17

whole permanent portfolio stuff. If you heard of that, some people think you hold some gold in there

23:23

as well, and fixed income things.

23:26

I'm much more of a pure stocks person.

23:29

And I just prefer it. Maybe it's because I'm so business oriented too.

23:33

And it's also why I'm so anti Bitcoin, anti crypto.

23:36

It's because that's not a business, right? Like Bitcoin is a belief system and it's not actually producing anything.

23:43

And I would much rather own like a farm or a rental apartment than a piece

23:49

of algorithm and data, which is like a Bitcoin because it's not actually

23:53

doing anything and it depends on other people buying for me at a higher price.

23:57

So that's why I'm so kind of like if you read Warren Buffett's belief systems,

24:01

it's pretty much exactly how I feel. Just read all of his annual letters to shareholders and then

24:06

you'll see why I'm so pro stock.

24:09

And you. can't argue with Warren Buffett.

24:11

And also Pete, you wrote the forward to JL Collins book,

24:16

Simple Path to Wealth, right? And that pretty much has the same philosophy about, back to the keep it

24:21

simple, he talks about VTSAX, but that's just the mutual fund version of VTI.

24:27

And yeah, it could be just that simple. Yeah, right.

24:31

The more complex you make it, the less well you do usually.

24:34

And you also just think about it and worry about it more. And I was talking to somebody from my headquarters, a coworking space yesterday.

24:41

This person is into, all the crypto stuff and ETFs and airdrops

24:46

and trading stuff back and forth and individual stock ownership.

24:50

And it just sounded like, , was open to listening, but the conversation led me

24:55

back to where I already was, which is the more you understand the fundamentals of

24:59

what a stock really is, the less you want to invest in all this alternative stuff.

25:05

And people are just thinking of it as a gambling and speculative

25:08

way like, Oh, I'm going to wait until it goes down to buy it.

25:10

And I'm going to. Trade it off for something else when it goes higher.

25:13

Those are all speculative and gambling ways to think about asset ownership.

25:18

And I really discourage that. Yeah.

25:20

And I agree with you on Bitcoin. I'm completely on board because it's really the greater fool theory where,

25:25

there's no cashflow and no dividends and it's all, I'm going to buy it and I expect

25:32

that somebody is going to buy it at or I'll be able to sell it at a higher rate.

25:36

And there's just no guarantees. And it's so volatile that I don't have any Bitcoin in my portfolio.

25:41

I have no FOMO in that regard. And I completely agree with you.

25:45

Yeah, and so I've written about this before and the people who

25:48

like Bitcoin write me They're like, oh, you just don't understand.

25:51

Like, I thought you were smarter than that, but, and then if it goes up They're

25:54

like, look how much money you lost your readers because Bitcoin's higher

25:58

now than when you wrote that article. Nobody has provided an actual, real justification for why is

26:05

it good to speculate on this. And I've read all the stories.

26:07

The thing about Bitcoin is there's all this lore that comes with it.

26:10

Like, the government is corrupt, and the Federal Reserve Bank is just

26:13

printing toilet paper, and everything's gonna be inflation and destroyed

26:16

without this being saved by this coin. but it's, like, without that lore which is really, really like a

26:22

religion, It all falls apart. So the people who really believe in Bitcoin, they're either totally into

26:26

gambling or they totally believe this is mythical belief system, but zero

26:31

people have actually ever explained.

26:33

And I've read so much and watched so many YouTube videos to see if

26:35

there's anything behind like the curtains or the emperor's new clothes.

26:38

And there's just nothing there. Like Bitcoin is really just a crazy belief system.

26:43

And it blows my mind that it. It keeps going, but I can't predict a it's collapsed because if people

26:48

keep believing it, they're going to keep buying it from each other.

26:52

So I can't predict the behavior of people like that.

26:56

Well, I think the worst part is that they have an army of scammers

26:59

that seem to be connected with that. Industry and that doesn't help anything either.

27:05

So Pete I wanted to ask you about, so I think it was 2022 where

27:09

you were a part of the Netflix documentary get smart with money.

27:13

I really love that. So I'm curious, why did you say yes to that project?

27:17

And what was your experience like? Yeah, I wrote an article about that.

27:21

I think I called it get smart with money day in case anyone's really curious,

27:25

but the reason was really just. Because I thought it would be a good way to get the word out of like this,

27:31

the concepts I'm trying to spread. It would be better to spend that effort with this super talented filmmakers.

27:38

And it's going to go to the Netflix audience and spending the same

27:41

number of hours of me just typing stuff into the computer again.

27:44

So very like kind of self interested in that way.

27:46

Like I was like, Hey, if you're going to put a certain amount of hour into the Mr.

27:50

Money Mustache stuff, why not work with the Netflix production?

27:54

And then to be honest, like the experience of doing it, I never find

27:59

camera work to be fun, especially for anything that's scripted.

28:03

Like the Netflix movie was not scripted, but it was a little bit.

28:09

Like you had to repeat yourself sometimes if they didn't catch your lines.

28:12

And to me, that feels very unnatural. It was like a pretty well produced show.

28:17

So they have like a million cameras and lights all around you.

28:19

And they're like, okay, now Pete, talk to Don and Kim.

28:23

Those are the names of my coaching clients. Like talk to them about the retirement account and the fees they're paying.

28:29

So then we have to have this sort of natural, but sort of artificial

28:32

conversation about something. And to me, that's not me.

28:35

I just like stuff to be natural and real. So it was hard, but I, I did it and I'm happy with how the movie came out and

28:42

it definitely reached a lot of people. So that's a huge win and it was great because it wasn't just me.

28:47

It was Paula and Tiffany

28:50

Rossman. yeah. If anyone hasn't seen the documentary on Netflix is we'll link to it, but it's get

28:57

smart with money and it was wonderful.

29:00

I love watching it. And I'm sure there's people that may not have seen it yet, but

29:03

it's definitely worth the watch. I loved it and I was just curious about, kind of how you felt behind the scenes.

29:08

I always loved it behind the scenes. So, Yeah.

29:11

The thing I liked is that the people I was able to pick as my clients,

29:15

they were really, really nice, genuine people and a young family, and they're

29:18

exactly who I like to try to coach. Which is high income, high spending people who could be really getting

29:25

ahead quickly, but aren't just because they're spending so much.

29:28

And I feel like John and Kim really made a lot of changes during that year.

29:31

We worked together with the cameras there occasionally, and they have

29:35

much better life because of it. And I wanted that to be an example to other people who are in that situation.

29:40

Because it's just kind of my target market is like, your engineers and doctors and

29:45

other high earners and trying to get them to not be so consumption oriented.

29:49

yeah. So you got to pick the client.

29:52

Yeah, it was super fun. It was kind of like a casting call where we put out what we're offering, like the

29:57

coaches and I, like Paul, I had her video. I had my video and then people submitted little, just turned on

30:03

the webcam or whatever and said, hi, like, where are these two people?

30:05

We live in Denver and this is our life situation.

30:08

And this is why we think we would be good coaching clients.

30:10

And I, it was kind of heartbreaking, almost like that show, the bachelor

30:13

where I was like, Oh, I really want to work with these people, but

30:16

then you only allowed to pick one. And there were like six for me to choose from.

30:19

And I wanted to have them all as clients.

30:22

it was unpaid, but they're still kind of clients. And.

30:25

Anyway, we ended up picking Johnny Kim just for, they were just really,

30:28

really perfect and very camera friendly, to be honest, too, because

30:32

they're good looking people and they have these super cute little kids.

30:34

So everyone's going to want to watch them on the Netflix movie.

30:38

Yeah. Well, don't short sell yourself, but it really did come out great.

30:42

I couldn't wait to watch it. And I thought it was awesome.

30:44

Bill, you got to watch it, right? Did you watch it yet?

30:47

I haven't yet, and I will. The thing that's interesting to me is, lot of FI people are natural introverts.

30:53

It seems to be part of the personality of the FI folks.

30:57

And, you're a very humble reserve private person.

31:01

I applaud you for overcoming that and becoming, a film star, so to

31:06

speak, you've been in other films as well, and I can't imagine doing that.

31:09

Although we need a late starter out there that sort of, kicks ass.

31:13

And tell us other late starters that they can do it.

31:16

Bill, that's calling your name. That's calling your name.

31:21

Can do another movie where you're my coach and you help us

31:24

make what we've already done. We've gone from an 8 percent savings rate to 40 to 50.

31:29

So we've, we've done a good job following your I just wish I'd done it earlier,

31:33

but that's what every lay starter says. They wish they'd done it earlier.

31:36

And just. Start now and work hard too and that brings up actually another article I

31:42

love the one where you said how to go from middle class to kick ass And this

31:47

is one that we want our audience to read because it's perfect for late starters.

31:51

You talk about Streamlining your expenses.

31:54

Can you can you address that article a little bit and tell folks what you

31:58

were trying to reach and what you were trying to do with that article, because

32:01

the late starters need to read this one.

32:04

right. That one's from quite a while ago, so I don't have it in front of me, but I

32:07

just remember it was, I was trying to get specific on all the categories of

32:12

expenses that a typical middle class family has because the problem I was

32:16

finding is like, why does everybody have a pretty low savings rate?

32:20

And why does everybody paycheck to paycheck regardless of their income?

32:24

And the reason is because Their day to day spending is just kind of thoughtless

32:28

They're like well I get my groceries the way I do it and I have a car and I need

32:32

my car and my car has certain expenses With it and they're not digging into

32:35

enough detail to get these costs down So I wanted to be more specific of like,

32:40

the average us family for example has, If they're buying a new car, it's really a

32:45

$48,000 pickup truck or really big SUV.

32:49

And they just do that because that's what everyone else on their street, because

32:51

they're probably in a nice neighborhood. Everyone does that. Everyone gets a loan for it.

32:54

And I wanted to like challenge these default assumptions and say like, guess

32:58

what, you could do it another way. You can have a car for $17,000, which is still a lot, but it's

33:03

three times less than the average. And then this is the difference it makes every 10 years for making these decisions.

33:09

And like groceries actually just got back from the grocery store before

33:13

like tuning into podcast here. And I just shop at like Sam's and Costco.

33:17

And that's just the habit I'm in. It's a closest grocery store and I just know where to get all my stuff.

33:23

I still buy like the best quality, healthy food.

33:25

But it saves me probably like 3, 000 a year just by not going to the regular

33:31

Kroger grocery store that's across the street from there or the Whole Foods.

33:34

And I use Whole Foods when, when I want like the gourmet particular small things,

33:38

like certain hot sauce or whatever. But that's my habit, right?

33:42

Like I have a habit of doing things a certain way.

33:45

And then now that that's locked in, my expenses are still

33:48

only like 20, 000 to 30, 000. A year when they could be double that or triple that, and in my

33:54

life, it really looked the same too. So that's what that article was about.

33:57

It's like challenging assumptions, lock in new ones that just

33:59

happen to be more efficient. And then suddenly you've got a huge surplus.

34:04

Well I'm curious, Pete, most of the time that you were retired, you had your son

34:09

and how does a kid change your finances?

34:11

We have a lot of people in our community that do have kids.

34:14

And sometimes that's part of the reason why they feel like

34:16

they got in a late start. How did that change for you from the time you were single before you retired

34:22

and all that, but then you retired even with a kid and it was okay.

34:26

So how does that change the economics and the whole approach to fire?

34:30

Yeah, I love that question because people, kids are a big chaotic element in your life

34:37

and everybody thinks they're expensive. Which means it's a ripe ground for optimizing, right?

34:43

And trying to find a smarter way to do it. It's more joyful as well.

34:46

So, first of all, the interesting thing is when you look at a chart of

34:50

like how much does it cost to raise a child, it's like depends on the income.

34:54

So people with low incomes, it costs very little to raise a child.

34:57

People with high incomes, like, oh yeah, it's a $30,000 per year per

35:01

child for these extra expenses. So that's like a little red flag right there or a little clue.

35:06

I just found it cost just about nothing to raise our child because he had a lot of

35:12

needs needs for attention and didn't like the kind of stuff that adults like to do.

35:17

So because of that, it did a lot less travel and restaurants once

35:20

he was born and just hung out and did natural stuff instead.

35:24

So like going for walks and playing in the Creek and still

35:26

did a reasonable amount of travel. And I don't want people to think it's like this really like living in a tent

35:32

lifestyle, but I really think it's just.

35:36

The number of activities and prestigious stuff you sign your kids up for that

35:42

scales up the cost, especially if you're signing them up for things that require a

35:45

lot of driving, because sometimes people will burn through entire multiple cars.

35:50

If you think about the lifespan of your kids, you're just driving, driving,

35:53

driving, and then that car is destroyed from high miles and keep going.

35:57

So keep it local and natural. And the other thing is.

36:00

Child care is sometimes the very highest expense for a child, so if you can have

36:07

the kid at home more and have less child care, which, in other words, you cut

36:11

your other expenses, let so much that you don't need a second income, and

36:15

then one parent can stay home with the child, then suddenly there's another

36:18

2, 000 a month that comes back to you. So you're really kind of saving double by getting that other

36:24

set of expenses optimized. Yeah, so we had pretty minimal childcare expenses, put him in

36:29

daycare or like a preschool, I guess you call it for a little bit just

36:33

because he's an only child and we wanted them to have more socializing

36:36

before he started kindergarten. And then I went to a public school that was a really, really nice

36:41

one right in the neighborhood where we were able to walk to.

36:44

And so there was never any driving to kids around, even to school situation.

36:50

And because of that, he just grew up, we never wanted, never

36:53

had a shortage for anything, but it just didn't cost very much.

36:56

And then I was, I was hoping he, my son would go to college and I had,

36:59

obviously the money set aside for that. But he's chosen a different path.

37:03

He's too independent for that, like more entrepreneurial or oriented.

37:07

So there's not going to be any money spent on college tuition, but even that is not

37:12

all that expensive relative to the type of income and savings you can have as a fire

37:16

person, especially if you encourage your kid to go to school in state, if that's

37:23

what it takes for your budget, many people assume you can just go to any school

37:27

and you shouldn't consider the cost. And I fight back against that.

37:29

You should. You should think about what your family can afford and don't just

37:34

pretend that all education is worth it, regardless of the price.

37:38

I agree with that 100%. I have a daughter that's 20 something and definitely there's like so many

37:44

options for going to school and what we can contribute is not just monetary.

37:48

Of course, it doesn't surprise me that your son wants to be an

37:51

entrepreneur and he's very independent. look who his dad is, but that means so much more to him.

37:56

And that was a route that you pointed that, maybe not, directly,

37:59

but indirectly you probably show that, Hey, this is a great life.

38:03

And I'm sure he took some of that away and he's going to be amazing

38:06

at whatever he does, whether he goes to college or does whatever he does.

38:10

So we can't wait to see, what he ends up doing.

38:12

But it's, it's kind of neat to watch that as a parent.

38:17

Yeah. Yeah. What isn't all unicorns and rainbows for you?

38:22

Because, and this happens a lot to our late starter audience where the

38:26

financial shock of divorce causes.

38:30

The late start and regrouping your divorce did not go that way, though, and you wrote

38:34

an article on this and I was fascinated by how amicable and low cost it was.

38:40

Can you take us through that? And how you did it? Yeah.

38:43

And so that's one of the biggest. Pieces of good luck is like the person I married was wonderful to be married

38:50

to and we were together for over 20 years before we eventually split up.

38:54

And she's also a wonderful person to be an ex husband too, because we're

38:57

still great friends and collaborators and on the same team and raising

39:02

the child who's now almost done. So the better your relationship, then the better a separation is going to go because

39:09

nobody wants to fight the other person. but we found that being financially independent.

39:13

And so not worried about money that really lowered the stress

39:17

level of the separation. Because a lot of times when people split, if they feel a shortage,

39:21

then they're going to want to fight like, no, I need more of our share.

39:24

No, I need more. So, and then since they're both clinging to a feeling of shortage,

39:30

they're going to strike and lash out at each other because they want more.

39:33

And I try to encourage people, like, first of all, it's never worth being mean

39:38

to somebody that you have to especially if you're still raising a child with

39:42

them, like it's better to lose money than lose relationship in that situation.

39:46

So even if it feels unfair, then suck it up and just earn more money afterwards.

39:50

But secondly yeah, the more plentiful the money is.

39:53

And if you've led a frugal non consumerist lifestyle up until the

39:58

time you need to separate, then it's going to make the whole process easier.

40:02

So we just split up our savings. She kept the house.

40:05

I bought a new one, which I'm in now. And then we were both still retired afterwards.

40:09

Like we still had enough. Cause our expenses dropped as well.

40:12

Right? Like it's true that we added the house, like I had to get another house, but.

40:16

The rest of your expenses cut in half when you separate a couple.

40:20

So you don't need as much to remain financially independent.

40:23

So yeah, I've kind of become an accidental like men's divorce counselor after that.

40:28

Cause like sometimes blog readers especially if they live nearby,

40:32

they'll say, Hey man, I think I might be going headed for a divorce.

40:35

Can, can we talk it through? Like, I'm really scared and I'm not sure if I'm going to be, if my family's

40:41

going to be hurt or my job as a dad, so we'll like go for a walk and walk

40:45

around, the trails for a couple hours and talk through all this stuff.

40:48

And then, cause someone did that for me when I was going through

40:51

the divorce and it was really, really helpful to remind them like,

40:53

Hey, it doesn't have to be scary. And the outcome is actually a good thing.

40:57

I mean, for people who split up, that was the right choice.

41:00

So you're doing a hard process to get through to the right choice.

41:04

So there's no reason to be ashamed or afraid of that.

41:06

It's actually something to be proud of getting through and accomplishing,

41:11

especially if you come through it with your ethics intact and you

41:13

weren't a mean person in the process. You actually filled out the paperwork yourselves.

41:20

And can you tell our audience how much it costs to get divorced?

41:23

Well, this is in Colorado and Boulder County, and I think it's somewhere in the

41:26

200 range for like the various court fees.

41:30

It's still a bit of a hassle and you have to go back, I had to go back a few

41:34

times and I was actually kind of pissed off at like the government was taking

41:39

such an app, like meddling so much.

41:42

I'm like, these are two people that are voluntarily separating.

41:44

why do we even have to ask your permission? So I felt a little bit sour about that, but, but yeah, it was 250, a

41:51

few visits to the local courthouse. Not super hard to do.

41:55

And even if you do hire a lawyer to do it, it should just be like a few extra

41:58

hundred dollars for that person's time.

42:01

The key is you never want to use a lawyer to fight.

42:05

That's like, it's ridiculous, especially in the types of, of asset levels that

42:09

we're talking about with, The average couple, they might just have a few

42:13

hundred thousand or, a million or 2, like lawyers are good for like, if

42:19

Apple has to fight Microsoft over the right to make something big, but like

42:23

individual people should not be using lawyers to fight over their grocery money.

42:26

Cause that just makes the whole thing worse.

42:30

Oh, well, I clearly did it wrong, but My divorce, which I really appreciate

42:35

that you wrote that article, Pete, even though I was like more than 10 years

42:38

post divorce, it was very meaningful to see how open you were about it.

42:42

And for you to talk about it with us today at the time, I

42:45

definitely felt a lot of anxiety.

42:48

I was a little shamed about it and things like that.

42:51

But Your article, I think was very, very helpful to share

42:55

some of the behind the scenes. And so I, for one, appreciate that.

42:59

And like I said, my divorce was my wake up call.

43:02

So my financial independence happened after, I got divorced, but there

43:06

is financial independence after divorce, I think that's kind of the

43:10

summation here and, hearing it from you and writing it on a blog that's

43:14

so popular where so many eyes will see that will help a lot of people.

43:19

Yeah. I hope so. Cause I want to take the shame and blame out of it, like a little bit, do my part.

43:24

And also the thing that's interesting is once you're divorced, like the

43:27

important part is get out of the conflict stage as quickly as possible.

43:29

Be nice. And then it's just you and guess what you can run your financial life the way

43:34

you want at that point, which means you can work really hard and earn and save

43:38

and live however you like and quickly, very quickly recover financially because

43:43

you're no longer like a lot of divorces even have a money component in them.

43:47

So you're not subject to that other person's whims anymore.

43:50

So yeah, I did a little bit of that just for my own, like kind of feeling like

43:56

I wanted to be purposeful after that. So I, I made a point of saving some extra money after that and wanted so I

44:03

could be extra comfortable and just feel like there now there was no downside,

44:07

not even financial to the divorce. that was awesome.

44:11

All right. There's a couple other articles we want to get to before our

44:17

hour here, and you've gone it.

44:19

A little bit potentially off the reservation from the Fuglify.

44:24

And, you, you're a very green person and you were very conflicted for

44:28

a while about buying the Tesla.

44:30

You just drove back to from Arizona and the Tesla people have had a lot

44:34

to say about that in the community.

44:36

And we've started to see Tesla's popping up, Mr.

44:39

1500 and other folks with all the green electric vehicle approaches.

44:43

Can you tell us your thought process behind and around, because

44:48

you had years of conflict over it before you finally made the leap.

44:52

Oh man, that's funny. Yeah, people they were kind of egging me on a long time.

44:56

And just buy the Tesla, you deserve it.

44:59

And it's silly because there was, for me, there was no conflict.

45:01

Like I just always think about, is there anything that I'm missing in my life?

45:06

That would actually make my life better. And if so, I consider, should I buy this thing?

45:11

So I've always liked Tesla cars for a long time, but I chose not to

45:17

buy one because I wasn't doing much driving at that stage of my life.

45:19

Like my son wasn't really into road trips very much.

45:22

My life is all local here. Like it's mostly bike based.

45:26

And then last year, 2023, that changed.

45:30

And I had some interesting stuff going on elsewhere in Colorado, like some projects

45:33

and some friends had mountain houses and also my son was turning 18, which meant

45:37

I'm going to have more free time to be away because we were on this one week,

45:40

one week parenting schedule until then.

45:44

So I thought, Hey, I think I actually have a use for a really nice car now.

45:49

So I just bought it. No big deal.

45:51

And the thing that's interesting is the reason I wrote about it is, First

45:55

of all, because some people are being cheap with themselves, with stuff they

45:58

genuinely want, and even if they have a lot of savings more than they need.

46:03

So that was one reason I wrote that article. It wasn't really about Tesla specifically, or it wasn't

46:07

really supposed to be about me. And the other thing is, yeah, I do have a, A secret mission with

46:13

my blog, which is try to get the world a little bit more sustainable.

46:16

And despite all the silly controversy electric cars are way less bad than gas

46:21

cars, even though they're still bad.

46:23

there's still a lot of metal and stuff getting mined to make these things.

46:27

So if you're going to drive anyway, which I am, I, you might

46:30

as well have an electric car. And I wanted to point out to my readers that Tesla's are actually

46:34

like nowadays, they're the same price as a normal car, like a Tesla model.

46:39

After the tax credits and stuff is like 40, 000.

46:42

And people pay that much for a Subaru, which is a piece of junk

46:45

compared to the Tesla Model Y. Like Tesla does everything way better.

46:48

It's four wheel drive. You can sleep in the back.

46:50

It's like everything that a Subaru wants to be just better.

46:54

So I wanted to get that, that out too, because I am like a technology guy and I

46:58

like to be technology forward in my life.

47:00

And then it's just part of my little brand is I like to share what gadgets

47:04

and what inventions are useful. Maybe if you haven't already gotten into them yourself.

47:09

Well, isn't FI greener?

47:11

I mean, isn't being financially independent and appropriately

47:15

frugal a greener way of life?

47:18

You seem to espouse that. Oh, yeah, definitely.

47:21

Like that's the whole, the biggest reason I write my blog is, is because

47:25

I want to appeal to high income people who have a lot of consumption power and

47:30

give them an incentive to consume less.

47:33

So so yeah, the reward is you get to retire earlier and have

47:36

more time with your kids and everything, but it's also a reward

47:40

to everybody else because everything you buy comes with an incentive.

47:43

A footprint, like every time you buy anything, you've left a giant

47:47

smoking crater in the earth for what had to be mined and processed

47:52

and burned to create that product. So I want people to still enjoy like the modern things of life,

47:58

but just waste a little bit less. And so I encourage people to cut down on their waste, be more efficient by,

48:05

by things that you only genuinely use.

48:08

And especially like burning, not wasting fuel when you don't need it.

48:12

So yeah, cleaner, greener and money, those things all go together.

48:16

And that's why it's worth it to me to put this information out there.

48:20

Cause otherwise, like, why do I care if other people retire early, right?

48:22

Like that's not really, I'd rather just be retired rather than putting the work

48:28

into writing this, this blog and stuff.

48:31

But my incentive is that if I can get thousands or millions of people to

48:35

consume less, natural resources, then that's better for everybody, right?

48:39

Because we have less pollution and the world's going to flood more slowly.

48:43

And it's just a bit of a way to do some good.

48:45

I think, Well, bill, we got to get in asking Pete about the Arizona experiment.

48:54

I listened to a podcast that you did and it sounds amazing.

48:58

Is it called the cul de sac? yeah, that's the name of the neighborhood that I met the last four months living in.

49:06

And the podcast you're talking about is probably the big super

49:10

group podcast that we have with like, Mr.

49:13

1500 and Paula Payne, Brad Carson, and Brad Brad from Chooza 5.

49:20

And yeah, it was really, really fun that they all came to

49:22

visit me in this neighborhood. And I was there as my first experiment in snowbird type situation, right?

49:29

Where I left Colorado and went to a warm place for the winter.

49:34

But it was also cool because the neighborhood I'm staying in builds

49:37

itself as a car free community.

49:41

And I really liked that, right? Because I think the U S is way too car focused.

49:45

And anytime you can give people a way to walk around and bike around more in their

49:49

life, then everyone has a more fun life.

49:52

So I just checked out the project and it was nice.

49:54

I mean, It's still in the early stages.

49:57

That's my main caveat. It's like cul de sac is going to be a 1, 000 person community with like all these

50:03

plazas and parks and stuff like that.

50:05

And but it's going to take a couple of years to build out.

50:07

They've only been building for about a year so far.

50:10

So I still enjoyed it though. And like, really, really nice.

50:13

The people who work at cul de sac, the team is really the highlight so far.

50:17

Cause they're just. They're so committed and they're really trying to make it happen.

50:21

They're being nice. everyone, they're really encouraging.

50:24

If you live there, the residents can meet each other and do stuff together.

50:28

So I enjoyed that aspect as well, but I just enjoyed Arizona as well.

50:32

Like just mountain biking and trying out new areas and learning about

50:36

the big Phoenix metro area, which is way nicer than people think it is.

50:40

Like it's Phoenix has a lot of really good nature right in the city.

50:43

Yeah. that was great. But, what it taught me most is how much I love it here in Colorado.

50:48

It's like, I came back to visit a few times throughout the course of the winter.

50:51

And I reconnected with my friends and my house, which I really like.

50:55

And I just realized, Hey, I was taking this place for granted before, and

50:59

now I appreciate how great it is.

51:02

So now that I've moved back, I just got back last week.

51:06

I'm a kind of double committed or doubling down on, on Longmont and Colorado.

51:10

And I'm happy about that too, because I appreciate my life even more.

51:14

Yeah. I was wondering if you were going to be trading in Longmont for Arizona.

51:18

So yeah, you got nostalgic for it, huh? I mean, I'd love to.

51:22

Yeah. I'd love to visit that place in Arizona, a Carlist community.

51:25

And I think that would work so great for me because I, Drive about, it's

51:30

only like three minutes, maybe a couple of miles from where I live,

51:33

this park that I love to go walking. Well, I don't, it's not pedestrian friendly, so I have to drive.

51:38

But if I was in a community where I could get my walk in because there's

51:42

not cars everywhere, I don't want to be smelling fumes and all of that.

51:44

I want to be somewhere nice and fresh air.

51:47

So I think that's on my list of places to visit.

51:50

What about you, Bill? Well, it is too, and Brad Barrett was really, at Economy, Talking

51:58

about Waymo, because Waymo comes to this community as well.

52:01

And I think he took it to the airport and he was over the moon about Waymo.

52:05

Did you try that out too, while you were there? Yeah.

52:08

Yeah. It's really fun. So for people who don't know, it's just like Uber and Lyft,

52:11

except there's no driver. So it's a project run by Google.

52:16

They take these nice Jaguar electric cars, and then they add a whole bunch

52:19

of sensors and computer and stuff. And they've been working on it for like a decade.

52:23

So at this point it drives as well as a skilled human taxi driver, except the

52:28

steering wheel is just like spinning by itself, like a ghost in there.

52:32

And you got control over the music.

52:34

You typically sit in the back and it feels very futuristic,

52:37

but they drive really well. And for people, like, of course you can already have a person

52:41

driving around with Uber and Lyft. But there's a novelty to having a robot do it.

52:45

And it's also kind of nice if you don't want to have to make small talk with

52:48

the driver, or if you want to be able to have like a private conversation

52:51

with your friends, or even just like party and play the music really loud.

52:54

Waymo is a neat invention and eventually these things are going to become a

52:58

lot cheaper than human driven cars because you're not, you don't have

53:02

to pay a hourly worker, of course, they'll have to find another job.

53:06

That's a whole separate issue, but yeah, it's kind of a neat thing.

53:09

And it does allow you to. Reduce the amount of human drivers in a city and reduce traffic because,

53:16

and especially reduce parking lots, because with an autonomous car, it can

53:20

be working all day for a lot of people instead of everybody owning their own

53:24

car that sits there parked for 22 to 23 hours every single day, wasting space.

53:30

And so cul de sac is really into alternatives to car lifestyle.

53:35

So they give you an e bike when you move in there, it's right on the light rail.

53:38

They have a shared electric car fleet where you can just walk up and

53:41

unlock it with your phone and use it for those times you do need a car.

53:45

And, and then of course they push they encourage people to try Waymo as

53:48

well, and there's like a nice Waymo pickup area in the neighborhood.

53:52

And all that is really great because yeah, if you're going to get Americans

53:55

to use cars less, you have to just.

53:58

ease us off of it. we still need the car access, but maybe just take some of

54:03

the, the worst parts of it out. And then that's a big step in the right direction.

54:09

Well, it sounds like you're a big proponent of 5. 3. 0, which is in many ways, as you espouse the cure to global

54:16

warming and reducing our carbon footprint and reversing the trends.

54:22

So financial independence has so many benefits beyond The monetary.

54:27

And I think your blog does an excellent job of telling us about all of them.

54:33

So I applaud this, your lifestyle and approach to health, whether

54:38

it be physical health, financial health mental, social health.

54:43

Your blog is so much more than what people might think it is.

54:48

Just looking at the simple, not the simple path to wealth,

54:50

but the shockingly simple math. You take it so much beyond the math that I would encourage everybody to read it for

55:00

those details, as opposed to just figuring out how to work the numbers to retire.

55:06

Wow. Well, yeah, thanks. I agree.

55:09

Yeah, and and let me add this also, Pete, I just subscribed to your newsletter.

55:13

So I really appreciate you doing that. So every Monday, I just got an email from you this morning from the newsletter.

55:19

So that's another way to kind of get this each article to you or the ones

55:24

that you deem to be most impactful, you get it right to your inbox, and

55:29

we'll include a link to that, Pete, so that people could sign up and that.

55:34

I enjoy getting it every Monday versus, continuing to go back

55:37

to the blog because something inevitably seems to interrupt me.

55:40

But if I have it right there in my email, I usually will go ahead and

55:42

read through the whole article and you do updates and things like that.

55:45

So I appreciate that you started that newsletter.

55:50

Yeah. That's hopefully other people understand that too, that are

55:53

watching, listening right now. So I, you can read the blog if you're hardcore, if you

55:57

want the whole 500 articles. If you just want the easy beginning, just look for the bootcamp, which like you

56:04

said, you'll see it in the show notes, or you can just look me up on Instagram.

56:08

And like I have a pinned post that tells people how to join the bootcamp too.

56:12

It's just like any other newsletter. You type in your email address and click subscribe, and then you

56:17

make sure you got the test email. But I'm kind of proud of that because I took like, I kind of rewrote the best

56:23

50, it's really 55 articles and made them up to date for like the 2020s.

56:29

And now people, all of these people are on an automated sort of like self guided

56:34

path where regardless of when you sign up, you'll get the first email, immediately.

56:38

And then you'll just get one per week for a year.

56:41

And I figured that's enough time for people to soak it in slowly

56:44

and try some of these changes. Yeah, I cleaned out a lot of junk in my email just to be

56:48

able to make sure I got yours. So that takes priority in my email box.

56:53

It's a great way to parse down, like you say, 500 blogs.

56:56

Where do you start? the decision fatigue, the overwhelm, and then it's hard to binge you anymore.

57:03

You people used to, and maybe some people still do and become the 500 reader.

57:09

And maybe you should have a club for people that have Yeah.

57:12

binge through all 500. But, I enjoy it as well.

57:15

I subscribe to the email and it helps me catch up on, your top 50 points.

57:22

Yeah. And together they're about the length of a book.

57:25

It's just that you're reading the book over the course of a year, which I think.

57:28

Let's people soak it in a little bit more.

57:31

So Well, there, that brings, that brings up the question, Jackie,

57:34

I was about to say any, Where is, the

57:37

book? we're dying to know.

57:41

Yeah. I don't have any plans to publish a book.

57:43

I like the idea. What I wish I was someone who has already published a book, like I want to have

57:49

a book in my name, but I don't want to do the work just because it feels like

57:52

a lot of homework and I already did that to make the bootcamp email series.

57:56

And of course that series could just be kind of squished together into a

58:00

book, but I just don't really see the point because you can, there's other

58:05

ways to get the information already. Yeah. And yeah, I'm just, I'm enjoying my free time too much to put

58:11

the work into editing a book.

58:13

I know there's a way, if you get a Ghostwriter, there's some people

58:16

who are really, really great. Ghostwriter slash editor.

58:19

I never considered that as long as I didn't have to do the work.

58:23

Okay. That's fair. Yeah, outsourcing.

58:26

Well, we're, we're coming to the close of things here, and we respect your time,

58:29

but we do have a few listener questions. We put it

58:32

out to our Facebook group, and we said, we get to talk to Pete Adney, Mr.

58:37

Money Mustache. What do you want to know? So we have, we had to pick a couple of questions that our listeners came up with.

58:43

Leanna. And my biggest question is, Any regrets on where this path has taken him?

58:51

Would he go slower or do it differently if he could do it all over again?

58:55

What does he wish he'd have done sooner or waited a bit on?

58:59

I can, I can parse that down, but basically is, do you have any regrets

59:03

and would you do it differently? Yeah, that's really interesting.

59:06

Definitely no regrets on the retirement to me.

59:09

It happened as quickly as it needed to, like I still worked a 10 year

59:12

career, which is enough to have some nice experiences and, some fun

59:15

business trips and learning didn't need to work any longer, but I don't

59:19

regret working as long as I did. And then next step was having a child.

59:23

Definitely don't regret that. Super, super happy that we got that opportunity and that he.

59:29

It's coming out nicely and he's a happy young man.

59:31

And then the other part, I mean, you only get to live once, right?

59:36

At least in my belief system. So I think retirement is a really, really good option to feel like you're

59:43

getting the most out of life and to reduce regrets because you can do so

59:48

much more if you're not selling all your time to an employer and that, the

59:53

older I get, I'm 49 now, and I really.

59:57

Appreciate all the different random crazy things that I've gotten to do

1:00:01

because of not having a job and all the time I've been able to spend with

1:00:05

my son, like every day of his life, pretty much, I've had a chance to just

1:00:10

hang out and go for walks with him. And I've never, I've been the least absentee dad that I possibly could be.

1:00:17

And that's something that, when I die, I'm going to be really,

1:00:19

really happy about that too. So yeah, it's like a retirement.

1:00:23

If you're, if you're purposeful with all the free time that results, it's

1:00:26

the best way I think to live a full life and make sure you have fewer

1:00:31

regrets and I'm super grateful for that.

1:00:34

And therefore I wouldn't change anything.

1:00:37

Yeah. don't, you don't talk to people very often that, you got it right from

1:00:41

the beginning and not having any regrets, you must have read without

1:00:45

reading it, Taking Stock by Jordan Grumet, because he's all about that.

1:00:50

Right. Yeah. It's interesting. I did read that book and I enjoyed it and I like his approach of

1:00:55

interviewing people who are in the end of their lives so that we, who are

1:00:59

hopefully in the middle of our lives. Can still have a lot of runway to do meaningful stuff.

1:01:04

But the thing is like, even if everything's perfect, like on paper, my

1:01:09

life is kind of like ridiculously good.

1:01:11

Like sometimes I joke that I'm in man heaven because it's implausible

1:01:15

that all this good stuff would be there, but I still have terrible days.

1:01:19

I still have days when I just don't feel like doing anything and

1:01:22

I feel like I'm wasting my time. And in a way, the opportunity makes it even worse.

1:01:27

And I'm like, how could you not be happy? Even when.

1:01:29

You have so much good stuff in your life, but you have lots of time to work on that

1:01:35

in the, in the context of retirement, and read the right books and practice the

1:01:38

right mental health and physical health things, and then get over the slump and

1:01:43

learn more about yourself as a human. And so it's a way I wouldn't have the time to, to make these improvements if

1:01:49

I was too busy or stressed in a job.

1:01:52

So it's retirement. It's not a guarantee that everything's going to be perfect.

1:01:55

It's just. And gives you more options to do your best to make the most of your life.

1:02:00

But it's also a big responsibility because you're the one

1:02:03

responsible for your own time. So it is possible to totally squander it.

1:02:07

Right. And just, get into drugs and alcohol and TV watching and just not, not do anything.

1:02:12

And, those, for somebody who's going to do that, it would have been better

1:02:14

off just staying at the job because at least it would keep them out of

1:02:18

the trouble of self destruction.

1:02:21

But I'm, I'm very self driven.

1:02:24

And I think that's the one reason I sought retirement so much.

1:02:27

It's like, there's no such thing as too much free time for me.

1:02:30

Like, I just have a huge list of things I want to do anyway.

1:02:32

Yeah. And it's just a matter of keeping myself on the go to do all these fun things.

1:02:38

Yeah. I'm, I'm figuring all that out too, Pete. Well, you said you were 49 and I can do math, but I'm like, you definitely

1:02:44

don't look 49, I would say not a day over 35, but they have to watch the YouTube

1:02:50

in order to see that, but we have one other question that we'd like to ask.

1:02:53

And this one comes from Kyle. Kyle says, given his interest in the environment and an interest I hold

1:03:00

as well, And now that you can get low cost index funds that are socially

1:03:05

responsible, has he thought about switching to those types of investments?

1:03:11

Yeah. It's a great question. I actually wrote an article on that too, believe it or not.

1:03:15

My blog is kind of like the Simpsons where every subject

1:03:17

has been covered at some point. So yeah, I wrote a blog called socially responsible investing.

1:03:23

Is it also more profitable or some title like that?

1:03:26

And really what happens is you can buy funds that include certain

1:03:29

companies and exclude other companies. Definitely not perfect.

1:03:33

And it gets lots of flack in the news because, sometimes there's some

1:03:36

glaring examples where they make dumb choices, like they might include

1:03:40

Exxon, but not Tesla because of, their metrics aren't very accurate but in

1:03:45

general, I think it's a good start.

1:03:47

And if you take the average ESG fine, like again, there's one that Vanguard offers.

1:03:52

And you carefully look at what companies you're investing in.

1:03:55

It'll be a little bit better than, , full index and it might help the

1:04:01

environment a little bit, might not it's, it's worth a try, but it's not

1:04:05

like a magic savings of anything. Cause there's, there's other weird things about the mechanisms.

1:04:11

Of investing in a company. And are you really, are you really hurting Exxon by not buying their shares?

1:04:15

For example, I think a much bigger effect you can have is not buying

1:04:20

the products as much, right? Like not buying as much gasoline as a big thing.

1:04:24

And having a house that's more efficient and not having more house than you need.

1:04:29

And that would be if you care about the environment and consuming

1:04:32

less meat, especially beef, that's another example of a pretty big

1:04:35

environmental impact you can have. So understanding what really wrecks the earth really helps like dig into those

1:04:41

details and then take those actions I think would be best, and I kind of pushed

1:04:45

the electric car situation because. Everybody I know, like a lot of people still have gas cars and they

1:04:51

drive a ton because when you're retired, you can just do that, right?

1:04:55

Like I'm going to pop down to Texas for the eclipse and stuff like that.

1:04:59

And it's very few people really care. So I, I'm thankful for this person who wrote the question because.

1:05:04

I'm glad to hear that there are some people who care and they're going to

1:05:06

at least try to make some differences. For sure.

1:05:12

That's a long answer. No, that's okay.

1:05:14

We've really enjoyed the conversation. I mean, thank you so much for taking the time.

1:05:19

We've learned a lot. I mean, you, you're a philosopher, you're a FI philosopher and you

1:05:26

have, A lot to educate us on that has nothing, like I said before, nothing

1:05:31

to do with the mechanics of FI.

1:05:34

That's actually probably your strength, is your philosophy.

1:05:38

And I really appreciate that. We've gone through a lot of that today.

1:05:41

Jackie, do you have any final questions for Pete?

1:05:44

Or actually, the one we usually like to ask is, are there any specific

1:05:47

questions for late starters, or help we can give the late starters?

1:05:51

Yeah, that's our community. So any words of wisdom, Pete, we'd love to hear it.

1:05:56

well, tricky one. Because, as you said, the mechanics are only a little bit part of it.

1:06:01

So make sure you understand those. But Maybe make sure that you're thinking about your personal health more.

1:06:08

This is my, one of my side things I like to nag people about is there are

1:06:11

so many people who are good with money, but then they kind of just follow

1:06:15

along in the standard American way of living, which is pretty bad for you.

1:06:19

And that starts to catch up with you, the older you get.

1:06:21

So I would encourage you to find a fun and sustainable way to become a health nut.

1:06:27

And like, I think everybody should be, in the top 1 percent of their peer

1:06:33

group for healthy habits, which usually results in healthy results as well.

1:06:39

And yeah, I see not, not a high enough percentage of fire people

1:06:43

are really into that stuff. And. it doesn't have to be a competition and it shouldn't be about vanity, even

1:06:48

though it will make your, your life better if you're in some areas as well,

1:06:53

but just yeah, just get into it, man. Like, cause money and your brain are only part of it.

1:06:59

Like your body kind of feeds into how your brain works and how much you're

1:07:03

going to enjoy the money that you do earn.

1:07:05

And we need to talk about that more in the, in the fire community.

1:07:08

I think there should be like health should be one of the pillars.

1:07:11

It's more of a big thing than it is.

1:07:14

Well, you speak our language because we actually had an episode, maybe I would

1:07:18

encourage you to listen to it by Dr. Bobby Dubois that goes through healthspan and what can we do to

1:07:23

improve our healthspan because you may have a financial span, but if

1:07:27

you can't live the natural length of your money, it's just not worth it.

1:07:34

Right, and the new Peter Atiyah book is, is pretty thorough on that too.

1:07:38

It can be a bit of a thick listening experience, or reading, but if you

1:07:43

can even understand half of what's in that book, it will give people a lot

1:07:46

of tools for better living, I think. All right, Jackie.

1:07:50

Any final questions before we let Pete go today?

1:07:52

No, but this has been so amazing, Pete.

1:07:55

Thank you so much for joining our Catching Up to FI community.

1:07:59

You've dropped some really good information and just to kind of

1:08:03

get the behind the scenes straight from Pete was just awesome.

1:08:07

So, so we loved having you and you're welcome back anytime.

1:08:12

Right on, thanks! Well, and thanks for the patience. I know it took a long time to set this up, because I was traveling.

1:08:17

So it feels good to get the job done, and I'm glad that we

1:08:20

have this episode in the bag. Yeah, well, we're honored to have had you on the show.

1:08:24

I think our audience will get, real value out of this.

1:08:27

And they're just curious. They're curious to see you.

1:08:29

They're curious to meet you. And I feel very fortunate to have done so today.

1:08:33

Thanks again, and you have a great day.

1:08:36

Yeah, you too! See you guys.