Episode Transcript
Speaker0: Hey, it's Doug, and I wanted to pop in at the beginning of the episode and just give a little extra disclaimer that this is not legal or financial or any kind of advice at all. It's just entertaining, and we're telling stories. I usually try to mention it in the episode, but sometimes I forget, and I think maybe I forgot today. So I'm just putting this here, and then we'll go ahead and send it to the episode now. So just entertainment, not actual advice or anything like that.
Speaker0: Hey what's going on welcome to the mile hi-fi podcast i am doug cunnington and i'm recording with co-host mr money mustache how are you.
Speaker1: Today hey thanks a lot doug um i'm spectacular and my calculations indicate that this might be like somewhere in my 20s or even show number 30 that i've appeared on i still wouldn't count myself as a co-host but i like to joke about that when people ask me what my job is i say co-host of mile hi-fi and they're like what do you mean
Speaker0: Yeah. And you, um, you were never an intern, but, um, you, you've never been paid. So recently I promoted, uh, I don't want to make you jealous, but I promoted Rusty to a co-host just, you know, in title, but he cares about that stuff.
Speaker1: Yeah. People like titles. Uh, maybe I could be vice president of co-hosting or something. So it sounds even more prestigious.
Speaker0: Yeah, yeah. Something about leisure, like a director of leisure activities or something.
Speaker1: Yeah, that's similar to my title on LinkedIn.
Speaker0: Which is?
Speaker1: Just leisure engineer.
Speaker0: You're not even the head, you're just a regular leisure engineer.
Speaker1: Yeah, I might change. Actually, I might give myself a promotion on LinkedIn. That's a good idea.
Speaker0: Yeah, you should. today we're going to talk about what is enough and we have a voicemail in, which we encourage if you want to send a voicemail and you could just record it on your phone with a voice memo you can send it to doug at mile hi-fi.com it'll be in the description and um yeah i think this is a, kind of a classic question there's a lot of details that we have, in the voicemail and uh I exchanged a couple emails as well from West Coast Rob. So before we get into it, Pete, you have done quite a bit of, while just talking with people that are interested in retiring early, you've done some coaching as well.
Speaker0: And I'm curious, like how many people end up running into this like general issue of what is enough? Is it most of the people that seek your coaching?
Speaker1: Well, it depends. Some people have a case of one more year syndrome in a really bad way where they keep moving the goalposts to expect to have more and more and more. And other people just have a whatever they have and they want to know if it's enough, like how many more years do I have to work? So it's more like a question rather than an insistence that they need to work more. And I've enjoyed both situations, seeing it from both sides, because that's why I kind of enjoy case studies and coaching nowadays because my favorite part is if you get to give somebody good news like just hopefully hopefully this isn't too much of a sidetrack but
Speaker1: i worked with a coaching client recent recently and she was fairly close to being able to retire and then we had our we had a talk like on the phone and then she goes oh yeah and my social security and i was like what you never mentioned your social security in the in the spreadsheet and this person is like in her 50s so when when i went back and changed that she's already like beyond retirement and she just had never thought about social security because you know like they stopped mailing paper statements a while ago or something so anyway it's like just kind of a cool thing um when you and when you're an
Speaker1: outsider it kind of helps to see the puzzle more clearly than someone who's in their own financial pile of stuff
Speaker0: It's tough when you're so close to you know i mean your own story that you're trying to figure out and your spreadsheets and all that.
Speaker1: Stuff yeah
Speaker0: All right Let's play this and then we'll dive into it. I did ask a few follow-up questions, which I can go over as well. But here is West Coast Rob.
Speaker1: Hey Doug, I really enjoy your podcast and I listen to nearly every episode. One of the topics you cover well is life after financial independence. My question for you is one I've been struggling with lately. What is enough? Some personal details. I'm 41 with a net worth of about $3.2 million. I have a paid off house with about $550K, $1.75 million in retirement accounts, $200K in cash, and $750K in stocks in my brokerage account. My expenses are around $60,000 per year. That's a 2.3% withdrawal rate. By all measures, I've won the game. I really don't like my job, but I keep moving the goalposts.
Speaker1: Every time I get close to enough, I find a new number to hit. I've started to recognize this might be more about anxiety and fear. I'd love to hear what you think about the psychological side of enough. How do you know when the number you're chasing is really about financial safety? Or is it about letting go of identity? changing of life structure or fear of the next phase of life did you suffer anything similar do you have any advice for anyone in my situation i appreciate the feedback and thank you for the great content west coast rob
Speaker0: And just as a, you know, a few more details, that's the first time you heard the voicemail, by the way, for the listeners, I did send you some other details. So you had like a lot of this background information. And I think, you know, we're mostly talking about mindset here. I did ask if Rob potentially had any expectations for expenses changing a lot in the future, you know, whatever, kids or parents or anything like that. I mean, he's going to move to a much more expensive place or anything. And no, he doesn't expect them to change too much. And I think that's important because if someone does have, you know,
Speaker0: something looming that we don't know about the opposite of this the social security thing where it's like well i know my parents are going to need some help or maybe there's some other relative or friend that they're gonna they're gonna whatever pick up financially so uh, some big big ideas around here what are some of your initial impressions.
Speaker1: I was imagining as i listened to that if if we were the dave ramsey show who does similar stuff he would have been like swearing and throwing pens and books all but you're already retired get out of here And then he would say some other stuff that i may or may not agree with but in this case i do agree with the fictional dave ramsey that rob is like way more than past the finish line and um in the stuff that i read from his in advance apparently like the reason he got so far is because he has moved the goalposts in the past and kept you know he was thinking of quitting a couple years ago and then he kept saving
Speaker1: and he kept saving but But where he is now, like, I think the real way to phrase it, to frame it is like the withdrawal rate. So we always talk about the 4% withdrawal rate as being like a good... Guideline and it's still fairly conservative like when people rework it they usually go up rather than down um so if anytime you're below four percent and like especially it kind of gets exponentially more safe as you have a savings that would allow you to spend at a less than four percent rate so three percent 3.5 is extremely safe like you know ridiculous you can be really sloppy and you can give yourself raises even in the middle of a stock market crash for multiple years.
Speaker1: And then 3% is like, shouldn't even be in consideration. Like that's, that's below even the lowest, most ridiculous, cautious thing that anybody ever forecasts. And then Rob is at 2.3%. So it's kind of, you know, it's so safe that he does, he could spend a lot more than he's spending and still be accumulating money for the rest of his life. So by any kind of logical thing, he's very very safe and wealthy which is great which does mean that You know if he's still working and he said he said he did not like the job very much so that's that's a very strange thing to put up with right and i wish we knew more i wish he was here so we
Speaker1: could um quiz him more on like what's going on what's this job like most important thing is what is his regular life like maybe he's afraid of what it feels like to not be at work like rob how are your weekends For example, are they fun or are they kind of boring and you wish you could just go back to work even though work's not fun? Either way, the problem is not the money and He's got to work on getting over the fear and building up the rest of his life and definitely quitting this job no matter what, even if he likes working for a living as a way of staying busy and having social life through your peers.
Speaker1: There's probably lots of other jobs he could work in that are more fun. And the good news is it does not matter at all how much they pay. So he could be like volunteering. He could work at Starbucks. He could work at Home Depot. He could just do anything. Go somewhere where there's pretty girls. Go somewhere where there's action-packed sports. Be a river guide. Like whatever you want. And that will, you know, that might solve the problem right away. So I feel like maybe we shouldn't even talk about the financial side so much just because it's so good. He's very safe. I mean, the only thing I wouldn't do is have $200,000 of cash
Speaker1: because like, what are you doing with that? It's not really much use, but.
Speaker0: I think, yeah. Yeah. From the financial standpoint, yeah. Like the numbers are far beyond. And he was like, I know with a 2.3%, which I was just double checking like the reciprocal of that. So that's like 43X your annual expenses, right? Yeah. And I mean, even if you just keep up with inflation, that's like 40 plus years of expenses, right? Even if it doesn't grow anymore. So just to completely illustrate the point that it's way over saved.
Speaker1: Yeah, like he could have it in inflation-protected treasury bills, like the most conservative thing in the financial world, and it would still last him until he's 82 at least.
Speaker0: Yeah. So from this perspective, 99% sure you and I didn't experience this sort of scarcity mindset, right? Just to confirm, you didn't have any of this, right?
Speaker1: I quit before the 4% rule was satisfied because I didn't even know it existed at the time. I was just like, enough.
Speaker0: It should work.
Speaker1: I kind of like my weekends. I want longer weekends. Let's go.
Speaker0: Yeah. Okay. And then, yeah, for me, I was in the same sort of similar boat where I didn't have any reservations, this scarcity mindset that he has pointed out. Or moving the goalposts, maybe just a touch. However, he mentioned one thing around essentially the withdrawal rate. So he was like, I was questioning, The 4% rule, this is when he moved the goalposts. I was questioning 4% and it was like 3% seems safer for someone in their early 40s, which is exactly what, my wife Elizabeth said when we were debating on like when to retire. And I was like, I think we're there. And she was like, I'm not quite sure.
Speaker0: And one thing that did help is talking to other people that had a similar conservative mindset is her and were able to arrive at the conclusion that they could retire early. So instead of talking to me where I was trying to show more spreadsheets, but she didn't agree with the assumption of 4% being safe. But she talked to other folks and then we got a financial advisor eventually, with even more due diligence. So it's like, we're a hundred percent sure that this is good, even with many conservative assumptions, which I would have rather had those longer weekends soon. I mean, I had long weekends all the time, so it was fine.
Speaker0: But I think that scarcity is the thing that gets people. And he has several different reasons why. We've had a great market for 15 years. What if that doesn't keep going? What is going to happen then? And I think, Like, you know, even with that mindset, like he still ended up with more. And even if he didn't have as good of returns, he still would also be fine.
Speaker1: Yeah. And you know what else Rob didn't take into account? Social security.
Speaker0: Social security, yeah.
Speaker1: Because if he's 41, he's worked a pretty long career. He's going to be eligible for pretty big benefits. And it's true, those are 20 years in the future, but they still have a non-zero value right now. They're probably worth about the equivalent of having about $200,000 more which he has so much that he would say that's not very much but for a lot of people knowing that you're covered from age 62 on with at least some kind of pension equivalent which is what social security is would be a huge help.
Speaker0: So we have a couple reasons why he moved the goalpost. So I think we could talk through that before we get to that portion. He did ask like why we thought people have a bit of an issue and maybe one more year syndrome or multiple more year syndrome. And they're just a little bit nervous to pull the trigger, even when they know that they've reached the goal that they've set previously, they move the goalpost. So I'm not, um, I think one thing is control. Like people want control and they want to, I mean, as much as they can, they want to know what is going to happen. And if they can save a little bit more, I think they believe they'll have a
Speaker0: little bit more control in the future, which might, I mean, they may have a little bit more control but at some point there's diminishing returns and it doesn't matter if you're whatever your, potential success rate is like 99.9% versus 999 like you're not really getting much from that extra work so I think it's a control um issue perhaps.
Speaker1: Yeah and in fact um When you have a job, you're also not controlling that because you can get fired. Or even if you have your own company, the economy can change and make your company kind of obsolete. So what we really depend on is our own resourcefulness in order to keep a job. And many times you'll have to hop from one job to another as companies fail or layoffs happen. It's not the same as the old days where you get a single job and you're guaranteed more or less to just do 40 years at the steel mill or whatever. So you know what I think it is, though? So it's fear usually rears its head when there's something unknown.
Speaker1: So people like Rob and everybody else who have a job, they know what it's like to have a job. So that's not scary, even though it is quite uncertain and it does depend on the resourcefulness to keep the job. They're like, yeah, but I know what that's like. And then they don't know what it's like to be retired and low off investments until they try it. And the interesting part is, I've seen some sentiment surveys on this, is before retiring, people are often nervous about like how does it feel what are the money situation going to be like and then after they have been retired for one year those fears
Speaker1: drop away pretty much to zero because they're like oh yeah i know what it's like i i buy stuff with my credit card and the bill gets paid automatically just like when i had a job like there's no difference yeah um and you know your accounts actually most of the time your accounts continue to go up because if you're living by the 4% rule, it's conservative enough that your savings, you're not even decumulating. You're basically spending a portion of the gains. But even if it were dropping, an experienced retiree is not afraid of that because they've done it before. It's not unknown. So the real thing is getting familiar with anything. And that's part of my talk
Speaker1: actually too, is the idea that action cures fear by making the unfamiliar into the familiar. Mm-hmm.
Speaker0: When you, um, what year did you retire?
Speaker1: 2005.
Speaker0: So a few years later, 2008, 2009, great recession. How did you deal with that?
Speaker1: Um, I was a little, I mean, I was nervous, but it was partly self-imposed because I had started this house building company where I had like borrowed money with a friend to build houses that we thought would be like a fun retirement job. But then the value of these houses we were building was dropping and dropping, and we were seeing, like, foreclosures all around us. So, I amplified my problems. So, you know, I still didn't have to worry. In retrospect, I still would have been fine even if I hadn't worried. And I think that might have actually helped me because everything since then, you know, eventually I sold the houses at a loss and no big deal.
Speaker1: I did do a bit of extra work to kind of rebuild my stash from that small amount of loss and But now I'm less afraid of market conditions because I'm like, oh, we got through that and I was doing something stupid. So now I'm not going to do anything stupid and it's going to be that much easier whenever the next major market crash happens. Right. And we've had a couple of little ones, like the COVID crash was over 30% at one brief moment for like a day. And I remember not thinking anything about that. I was like, ooh, exciting. And I happened to have a bit of cash because someone had paid me back for some
Speaker1: money. I lent them right at that time. So right on March 23rd, 2020, I got to like put a chunk of money back into my investment account. And it felt like, you know, I made a little profit off of the dip. Gotcha. But I wasn't concerned at all about the drop. And that's what I think happens to hopefully lots of early retirees once they get comfortable with the ideas.
Speaker0: Yeah. I think it's really good for people to hear because they know your story. But like, I mean, really like you, like you said, put yourself through a lot more stress because you had a business that was slowly failing, basically poor timing, like a lot of shit didn't work out. Which basically almost everything is like external factors and you can't do a fucking thing about it anyway. We can control how we react to stuff, but like you said, there might be a change in, you know, even if you're self-employed, a business model might change, which is exactly what happened to me. So I was doing like online business stuff and then SEO, AI, like a lot of things
Speaker0: popped up in the last few years. And then it just kind of became not viable. And I was slowly checking out of it anyway. And then it was like, I'll just shut this down.
Speaker1: Yeah. And then that felt good, right? It was great.
Speaker0: I love quitting stuff. it's awesome yeah.
Speaker1: Yeah i do have a short aside just because we're talking i was talking about that company and this just came up in my my email today so during the depth of the housing crash like around 2008 i was still stuck with this house i had it rented out but my tenants weren't that good either this is like this the final house that my house building company made and it's kind of like a modern nice house like 3 000 square feet lots of glass lots of solar eco-friendly stuff and then um so i remember negotiating with this english businessman who wanted to buy the house for himself and he had offered like 420 000 for
Speaker1: it at the time and our original plan was to sell it for 600 remember this is like 20 year ago dollars yeah yeah i was like oh that's terrible like that's less than it cost for like the materials alone i can't possibly sell i was like all insulted so i held on to it and kept it as a rental and Just recently, that house resold. It's probably sold a couple times since then, but it resold for $1.2 million. Wow. And I'm like, oh, finally, someone appreciates my work. I wish it was appreciated back then. But then, you know, somebody else made that profit, not me.
Speaker0: Gotcha. You built it. That's cool. And is it just like in town over here? I'll ask you off here so we don't reveal anything.
Speaker1: Yeah, it's in the modern neighborhood of Longmont.
Speaker0: All right. I'll have to drive by sometime. Just look from the street or whatever. So let's get into some of these different reasons to move the goalposts that Rob mentioned. So one is just large capital expenses. So he's like, oh, house will need a new roof soon. I'm going to need a new car in a few years. Lumpy expenses make me want to save a little bit more. How do you give someone advice when they're you know they're just like ah i don't know what a roof is going to cost in whatever five more years and cars might might be more expensive blah blah.
Speaker1: Yeah i don't i mean i advise people to not think about that stuff because at this level of wealth those are tiny expenses right like you have two million dollars a new new shingles for your house might cost like $10,000 for an average size house. So it's like, it's very, it's very minimal. Your budget's a little higher that year, but it doesn't, it averages out to nothing, right? Because you're, A roof lasts 25 years or more. And similar, like a car, a car is a little bit more expensive, but it's probably part of your spending estimates. I mean, with Rob spending $60,000 a year, I kind of assume that he had allocated something for cars.
Speaker1: But the real answer to this for other people is why not just annualize a bunch of stuff? If you really want to have an accurate budget to get out the lumps, you'd be like, well, I mean, I own a house. I want to be able to maintain it over time. So a rule of thumb for a house is to take 1% of the value of the house per year, if you're not like a handy person, because you're going to be hiring some of it out, and put that as your maintenance budget. So like a $500,000 house, you'd have a $5,000 annual maintenance budget, which will cover things like a roof every long time, a furnace every like 15
Speaker1: years, little things that might get damaged from a storm or something, paint, exterior paint. And that that smooths it out so you just add your five thousand dollars a year and that's good that's another incentive for being becoming like a bit more capable around the house because for some people 5k would make a big difference in their budget if you can learn to do some basic stuff like painting and whatever yeah and uh the same thing can happen like even if you have no health care expenses one year you might want to say like okay eventually i'm going to have some so i'm going to, I mean, assume I might have like a $5,000 incident every however many years, like five years.
Speaker1: So you'd say $1,000 a year for unexpected healthcare costs that might be like, You know, paying a bunch of deductibles, even if you have insurance and so on. And you can, you know, even if you don't know the exact numbers, it helps to just spitball some of them or look up online. And you can even learn about these expenses and put in the placeholders and then you'll get a nice, reasonably accurate budget.
Speaker0: That's exactly what we do so just quick example with uh, with a car i think we have it figured every seven years we'll spend like forty thousand dollars on a car funny enough we haven't bought a car in uh 15 years and then i sold my truck and we're down to one car so yeah that's a high.
Speaker1: That's a high car budget like assuming you're gonna buy a brand new pretty nice car and then just light it on fire after seven years whereas for me seven years is still a brand new car
Speaker0: Yeah well you know the thing is i had my truck for like 19 years and when i got it it was like 12 000 bucks like it was used already yeah so i'm like i'm gonna get whatever fucking car i want so so that's why it's high.
Speaker1: Yeah so you get giving yourself permission to buy a nice car
Speaker0: If i want yeah but i also you know it's kind of the opposite i'm like i could get a really nice car, but i'll probably get like some used pickup truck or something like that or, some used tesla perhaps you guys are the peer pressure is tough you know i'm like oh man you guys are driving around your cool cars.
Speaker1: Yeah especially with all the emotional bonding i've done by sleeping in my car i'm gonna have to i'm kind of stuck on nice cars but the good news is you can buy used ones now so i'm gonna replace mine whenever i do wear it out with just like a newer used tesla that'll probably be like 25 000 instead of 50 like like i had to pay for the new one
Speaker0: Yeah and And do all of the models have like the, you know, you were talking earlier, I think it'll be in the sound check. I can't remember when we were talking about it, but like you could set the climate control like while you're sleeping. But yeah, I assume there's like a pet mode, right? So you could like leave your dog in the car and like whatever, go to the store when it's pretty warm out.
Speaker1: Yeah, they all have that.
Speaker0: Okay. Yeah. That's pretty nice because like, obviously it can get hot in the summer and I try to bring, you know, Georgie everywhere if I can't, she loves the car. So, but in the summer, it's much more difficult.
Speaker1: Yeah, it is nice to, yeah, pet mode is a great invention.
Speaker0: Very cool. All right. One of the other things is around what other people think. So Rob mentioned many of us have boomer parents. To them, you don't quit high paying jobs. Like you just keep working. You don't save 50% of your income. It doesn't make sense to people in the world outside of the fire community. So,
Speaker0: I think Pete, again, you and I are kind of similar. I don't really care what people think too much.
Speaker1: I delight in those people having silly expectations and then me not following them. Like the crazier their expectations, the more I want to do the opposite.
Speaker0: It feels good. It feels good.
Speaker1: Right. I like being the millionaire middle-aged man that still rides his bike to Home Depot with a trailer and then fills it up with 100 pounds of drywall compound. And I'm like, squeaky, squeaky, like this trailer's all sagging and bouncing. I'm like, yeah, I didn't need my car for this.
Speaker0: It's pretty good. But I can't appreciate it. I think where it maybe can impact people a lot is their friend and peer group. So like, it's one thing with parents and everyone has a different relationship with their families and stuff, but that could be pretty tough if you're, you know, trying to navigate that within your family and then you become a disappointment of a child or whatever. But then if it's your peer group and they're like, oh, you don't have a job anymore. You used to be doing cool work and now you're just some loser who rides their bike to Home Depot. And I don't know, do you have any...
Speaker0: Tips for other people again you and i like don't we're just like i didn't even know that you were upset with me.
Speaker1: Yeah well it also doesn't happen in our group but yeah maybe i have to picture east coast situation where there are there is these like old traditions and there's this whole idea of like you know living up to the traditions yeah some hierarchy i think in that case like you should still do what you want and if you're confident about it then people are gonna respect that right people respect confidence and independence even on the east coast like you don't have to be this little cowering you know wearing your your tweed vest and at the law firm in order to like have people like you but you can always have it a little bit adapted right you can you can adapt
Speaker1: your behavior to be a little bit more like the people that you need to fit in with if you want if that's really important to you yeah or you can get new friends it's fun to get new friends as well.
Speaker0: Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one. And I mean, I think every, every person's a little different in their specific relationships. And, um, I mean, we're all just, we're trying to do our best.
Speaker1: So yeah, I think if you're nice about it, if you're kind in any of your things that you do, it generally keeps you out of trouble.
Speaker0: Next one is, I mean, to me, this is all about sunk costs. So Rob mentions work perks. So he has RSUs.
Speaker1: Restricted stock units.
Speaker0: And bonuses that we'll be vesting over the next couple of years, which a lot of times that's a lot of money. So I could understand why he says it's difficult to walk away from. And I, I think, I mean, for me, it's super easy to say on the other side, and I don't have the money on the line. So if I had like a lot of money on the line, maybe I would be like, okay, I will stick around. But at some point, again, the money has diminishing returns. So the fact is, let's say, I'm just gonna make it up. Let's say it's $250,000, decent chunk. You could at least go on one vacation and buy four cars with that. But...
Speaker0: If that's not going to change anything about your actual portfolio in the long run, if you're not going to do anything, if he's going to do something specific with it, if that money will mean something, then I think it could be worth it. But if you're just like, this is now a bigger pile of money, I don't think it's worth it to stick around. Even if it's an absurd amount of money that you would have just been absolutely amazed that you had the opportunity to even earn that money. But if you're not going to do something with it, then it's just a bigger pile.
Speaker1: Yeah, absolutely. I often try to remind people in this situation, would you keep doing the job if your pay dropped to zero? Because that helps people make a more rational decision. Sometimes the answer is yes. Like, oh yeah, I love this job so much, I would do it for free. Then you should maybe keep the job. But if they say, oh no, absolutely not. I really need to be compensated a lot to compensate for how crappy this job is. Then it's, and if you have enough money, because what happens when you have a lot of savings like Rob does, he's never going to spend this money. So any extra money he puts on the pile will also not be spent.
Speaker1: So really he's not getting paid. He's just adding to a pile that won't get used. With the exception, if he's like, if people are really excited about philanthropy and if the bonus is big, you know, like a million dollars coming up, then you might set a goal like okay the next six months is not for me it's for xyz charity and i'm gonna like earn this bonus i'm gonna give it away immediately and then i'm gonna still retire with my existing plentiful pile that could be you know kind of a badass life enhancing thing to do because then you'd get to remember it for the rest of your life you're like not only did i retire but
Speaker1: i did this huge right like went off with a bang and that'd be cool but yeah if you're just saving it To be even safer, that's kind of a cop out.
Speaker0: Yeah. And, I mean, have you run into anyone who actually is like, I'm going to work for another year to donate all of the income to that? I've never heard of anyone doing that.
Speaker1: I don't know anybody specifically, but I do know it's kind of common in people who follow, who are really adherent to the EA, the effective altruism method of giving and charity. The whole idea is like earn a lot earn as much as possible so that you can give more and then live like a moderate life yourself and the only downside is like when i say this now that the name has been somewhat sullied because uh sam bankman fraud um talked about ea a lot too and it turns out it was like a bit of a silver tongue devil like not really he was actually committing fraud all over the place and you know so now people associate that with him which is unfortunate because
Speaker1: the actual movement and the method of giving is really philosophically wise and i think it's super cool um and so in silicon valley there's like enough ea people that really do this like kind of young do-gooder people that i would say yeah it really happens but in our like low-key colorado community i've never met anybody who's doing it
Speaker0: Right very good all right we got a couple other quick um things to cover here. So he does mention like, what is next? And I think you alluded to this, and that's one of the people, or this one of the things that people are nervous about. If they're like, all right, I do have some identity tied up. And he mentions that maybe he would want to try to get his CFP and do it as a part-time activity. And he also has some concern that he might miss the job. We get recognition and social contact at work that we may not even realize that we need, and he knows he can go get another job, but he is slightly concerned around that. And,
Speaker0: So we can cover that stuff. But I was going to say, I'm curious how, your personal belief, how important do you think it is for someone to, like, actually be working and productive after they retire?
Speaker1: From a judgment perspective, not at all. You know, I think, you know, there's sometimes the internet retirement police will come and say, like, you're not contributing to society if you quit your job. That's like that's just bullshit you know everyone can decide for themselves but um if you're wired to enjoy being productive like i am i really like have better days the more i get done as long as it's things that i find useful and interesting so and and i have pretty bad days if i if i have too much time where i'm purely unproductive especially if i'm at home yeah it's different on vacation right? Sure.
Speaker1: But maybe Rob will feel the same way. And that is a great thing to realize about yourself because it's kind of an instant recipe for a happy retirement if you roll off the job and then you start doing things that feel productive to you. Like it could be learning, could be getting that CFP license he was saying, but it also might be... Creating things you know creating events or houses or art or whatever things you like creating preferably with other people involved too because yeah you know teaming teaming up with other people is why some jobs are fun and we do that all the time in our in our community here like we we work on
Speaker1: stuff we're making a in fact right now we're making a youtube video
Speaker0: Yeah, the um yeah and i go I kind of go back and forth because I hear people that, similar to what you said, just like coming at folks for not being productive and they're like, I want to be a contributing member of society. You can contribute in a lot of ways. And I feel like in the same way that I'm pushing judgment on other people through this whole podcast. I feel like they're judging other folks are like oh like we don't have corporate jobs we could actually, be even more productive if we had corporate jobs but that's not my goal and it's like a little unfair to put your goal on to someone else indeed um and i think you know the big thing
Speaker0: like you said working with other people on stuff is really cool it's one of the main reasons why i do the podcast so this is some kind of work creativity there's always admin stuff that you have to do which is you know, not the most fun thing but whatever your business you know some of your carpentry work and other stuff like you still have to whatever file taxes and do things that are completely unrelated to uh drywall or whatever yeah, um but the recognition portion is interesting because i have i mean some people like to get a gold star and they want to be recognized and if you're just working
Speaker0: on your stuff by yourself you don't necessarily get that, and i could understand like if that is something that, gets your motor running then you got to check it out are you like that do you need recognition or.
Speaker1: Uh no not from other people i like uh i mean i do like sharing what i've done with my friends like hey look look at this thing i built or let's let's have a party at the new house that we finished and yeah similarly when the things we do online like writing and podcast stuff that gets recognition in its own ways in terms of feedback from people. Right, yeah, yeah. So I like social feedback. Yeah, I don't need awards or first prizes from the queen or anything.
Speaker0: Yeah, and I think I'm probably the same because my initial is like, I don't really care, but I'm like, I wouldn't do this if no one listened at all, right? I mean, I would probably, I mean, there's some inherent enjoyment for us to be able to get together and do this and meet with other people and stuff. But like i don't need uh an award a gold star from like a greater uh power or whatever it's just like as long as some people find it useful or entertaining then like that's pretty good for me.
Speaker1: Yeah and the feedback like it's interesting how how valuable comments are on a youtube video comments or emails that you might get because it's like it reminds you there's real people there on the other side
Speaker0: Yeah yeah so this was a great question any other thoughts for west coast rob before we wrap this one.
Speaker1: Um, no, I think that we, we covered it. We walked all over it.
Speaker0: Very good. And I think my, my big thing is like, if you kind of don't like your job and you have enough to not do it anymore, like don't do it. You could do something else. Like if you still want to earn a little bit more money and you know, there's a number of reasons why you may want to keep working a little bit, just work somewhere else where it's a lot of fun.
Speaker1: Change is really good for you. It's going to make your life better. So sticking with a job that's boring but safe is a recipe for slowly dying on the inside. So everybody should switch jobs more often than they do. Like for the most part, people don't do it enough. And especially in Rob's case, where he's already got the money taken care of, probably the best thing he could do for his life. And it would also be like baby steps of getting over the fears, like switch jobs right now. And either quit totally or switch jobs right now. Either one's going to force a big change where you meet new people, you do new things, your daily routine
Speaker1: is broken up and that's really good for you
Speaker0: Yeah huge massive decisions and then from this walking away from the, rsus and those um you know basically walking away from money that's a very powerful decision that you could make where you're like wow i walked like i believed in the thing that i was going to do next so much, that i just walked away from this you know pile of money yeah that feels pretty good right,
Speaker0: Thanks for listening to the show. This podcast is not financial or legal advice. I hope it's entertaining, but I can assure you that it's not advice of any kind. The show is listener supported. So check out the buy me a coffee link. Supporters get extra content at least once a month. And it really helps out the show.
Speaker0: You just got back from Camp Fi Midwest. So you were one of the speakers. What did you talk about?
Speaker1: Yeah, I was. And most significantly, that was my first time attending Camp Fi Midwest. In fact, I got the shirt from it. They were giving out these nice black ones. Nice. And yeah, it was really fun, beautiful venue. And I gave a new talk that I was just made up. I'm still working on polishing it a bit, but I call it, for now, at least it's called Fear Versus Freedom and Fun in Fi. And it's about the subject of fear, loosely based on the starter question of like, is the AI bubble going to destroy our retirements or is AI going to destroy like our whole world or whatever? You know, the thing that, one of the things that people are afraid of right
Speaker1: now, but then I spun that off into a talk about fear in general and how it kind of wrecks everything and how to manage it and how to recognize it and lots of funny pictures in there as well.
Speaker0: And I guess... The thesis just to be sure uh ai isn't gonna wreck everything right.
Speaker1: Well you know how mr money mustache uh for everything's always the future is always bright in my forecasts and so far it has been true um like yeah i may be proven wrong but 51 years of good luck so far so
Speaker0: Yeah i think uh i listened to a podcast earlier today and the host was mentioning but like it's probably going to be okay it's going to be different than what we think like do you remember um, when the internet was getting bigger i guess when we were getting out of college and stuff yeah um people being scared of that like retail uh stores are going to be a thing of the past or or anything i mean do you remember just like people being scared of that technology.
Speaker1: Um i remember i was following it very closely because that was what i went to school in and worked in and i was i found it very exciting. I don't remember a lot of doomsday stuff other than maybe mass surveillance being something people were concerned about. Okay. Which turned out not to be much of a thing in the U.S. I guess it is used, internet's used for that in China more because you can kind of see what people are saying and judge their social worthiness if the government is watching everything you say.
Speaker0: Gotcha, gotcha. And then I've heard really good things about, yeah, the Midwest venue. And it's, I mean, I haven't ventured out to too many. I've been to the one in Florida. But yeah, I heard the Midwest is like pretty nice. And the weather must have been almost perfect or was it a little toasty still?
Speaker1: It was hot and humid, at least for the first day, but it kind of makes sense because the Great Lakes area, it's right near where I grew up. So it's still kind of like a steam bath mosquito forest, like anywhere around the Great Lakes until right around this time of year. And then that's when you start getting some relief.
Speaker0: Yeah. And then you did a road trip. So any highlights from, you know, the travels? You're an avid, like, you know, road tripper kind of dude, right?
Speaker1: It yeah it had been a while since i went for a trip in my car that was that long but i really liked it and uh it was fun because i camped out the first night at a rest stop just just because i really like sleeping in that car yeah uh just like this little the old school type of red stop not a truck stop but the old kind with the picnic tables and the trees and everything and by the time i got there everybody else who was parked was also camping there it was like camper vans suvs were the mattress in the back so i just pulled in it was like a hotel but without the and everyone was just in their cars, Motel, I guess.
Speaker0: That's cool. What state was that in?
Speaker1: Nebraska. Okay. It was actually Grand Island, Nebraska.
Speaker0: Oh, I've driven past there, I think.
Speaker1: Yeah. And it wasn't Grand, nor were there any islands of note. But it was just hot, humid, lots of mosquitoes. It was good to have a car with, like, being fully enclosed. And I had to run the air conditioning overnight just to, like, make it sleepable. But luckily, it was a battery-powered car. So, it didn't mind enough to run the engine.
Speaker0: And it's um it's quiet right when you run the ac basically you just hear the fan blowing gently or whatever white noise.
Speaker1: Calming yeah quite quiet
Speaker0: It's pretty cool all right awesome yeah i'll have to check out that camp sometime it sounds pretty good and then you're back for the fall for a little while.
Speaker1: Yeah i have no other oh actually i could reveal this i do have another trip planned that's part of the phiosphere so i'm going to be also speaking with that same talk, hopefully, at the Bogleheads conference. Oh, cool. Which is so rare for me. I normally don't go to do speaking things. Yeah. But a good friend of mine named Guri runs this Bogleheads conference nowadays. So he was really nice and invited me in the way he knew would pull me in. He's like, oh, it's so casual and it's at a beautiful resort and it's totally not on the strip. Yeah. And we're going to go hiking and there's really good food and there's pools.
Speaker1: I'm like, okay, well, and it's only an hour flight and I can go for free if I present which I'm ready to do. So like, why not, why not? Had nothing planned. So that's in mid November.
Speaker0: Okay. And that's in, it sounds like Vegas.
Speaker1: Yeah. It's like Henderson, Nevada, which is part of Las Vegas, but it's south. It's like the neighborhood that's south of the strip. Okay. So you don't have to go into the hell hole and get chewed up.
Speaker0: That's cool. Have you been to that conference before?
Speaker1: No. In fact, I always resisted it because I'm not really interested in talking about investing. And I assume that's what it's about. But that was the other thing that Guru said is, oh, no, we want to talk less about investing. That's why we're trying to get people like you to go and give talks on just life and happiness and living well.
Speaker1: I thought it would be all 60-year-old men who like to mess with spreadsheets. But it's um it's older than camp five but and also more male dominated but not as much as i thought so at least it'll be like somewhat of a you know potential socializing rather than just sitting there spreadsheets
Speaker0: They're trying to change their image yeah because i had that impression and when i've talked to a couple other folks they were like it was very deep and like ultra optimizing and like, i'm moving a little bit further away from that however i can appreciate that they're trying to like change their image and like do something a little bit different, more lifestyle ideas or whatever.
Speaker1: Oh yeah, like did you mean that for yourself? Like you're moving further away? Correct. Oh yeah, like I'm so far away from that. I don't think about money optimizing at all. I'm more like, you know, construction or trips or, you know, things to do when you're retired. The money is already in the background. So yeah, I hope it works out. It's my first time. So one of my rules for myself is try new things. So you might as well.
