Scott Trench: Evan is 25. He’s extremely frugal and he has no intention of living like this forever. So instead of pretending that his spending is never going to change, he’s actually building lifestyle inflation into his Coast FI plan. And in this episode, Evan and I are going to talk about why spending more over time does not have to derail your financial independence, how it’s predictable, and how he’s going to plan for that increase, and why being intentional about future lifestyle inflation might actually make his financial independence plan much more realistic. What’s going on, everybody? I’m Scott Trench, host of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, and here today with me is my co-host Evan Lawler. Evan, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast.
Evan Lawler: Hey, Scott. Thank you so much for having me on. I am so excited to talk about this today.
Scott Trench: I love it. Just to frame this from my personal perspective, when I was 25, I was spending probably two and a half, three grand a month living for free in a house hack or whatever, and I was like, my financial independence number is easily $40,000 a month in spending. And that was a true answer at that point in time. And today, with a family, I would almost certainly not be spending $2,500, $3,000, or $4,000 or $5,000 even adjusted for inflation today in the greater Denver metro area. So is that kind of, at the highest level, how you’re thinking about this? How do you think about lifestyle creep with respect to your Coast FI plan?
Evan Lawler: Yeah, that’s 100% true. And I’m in the exact same boat as you were, that I’m spending $3,000 a month on the upper end, probably on average I’m closer to $2,700, $2,600 a month, but I get the opportunity to learn from other people in the financial independence community. And the fact that I’ve seen lifestyle kind of grow over time, we can call it lifestyle inflation. And so I’m just building that into my plan, understanding that that’s likely to happen and I’m okay with it.
Scott Trench: Let me ask you about lifestyle inflation in the context of a 25, 26-year-old right now. What would spending more look like in terms of bringing happiness or fun into your life right now? Like, what if you had imagined you upped your budget by $1,000 bucks a month—what would you actually get out of that in today’s context at this age?
Evan Lawler: Today’s context, if I were to spend $1,000 more per month, maybe I would upgrade my apartment. Maybe I would potentially upgrade my car, or just spend more with my friends and family, going out more, going to more concerts and events, things like that.
Scott Trench: Okay. Do you feel like you are explicitly not doing the concerts and events in order to save money right now in particular?
Evan Lawler: I would say I limit them, and I’m definitely conscious when I’m considering what am I going to do this weekend. But I try not to exclude them entirely. I’m in Philadelphia. I’ll still go to a Phillies game. We went and saw the Flyers last year, maybe even an Eagles game, but that would be a splurge.
Scott Trench: Okay. So does it feel like a sacrifice on a regular basis?
Evan Lawler: It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. I think that it feels like a balance. And there’s certainly times where I have to step back, especially with our apartment or something like that. But it doesn’t feel like an explicit sacrifice, that each month I’m like, oh, I wish I had done more. Definitely not.
Scott Trench: I thought it might be interesting to just check out the numbers for the greater Philadelphia area for a single person aged 25 to 34 and see what that person spends basically on a monthly basis here, and see how you are doing compared to that.
Evan Lawler: That would be awesome. I’m definitely interested in hearing that.
Scott Trench: Okay, so this is a budget calculator I built. I merged various datasets. Some of them are old datasets, so I’ve applied inflation adjustments depending on how old the dataset is. I’ve merged childcare and all that kind of stuff, but in the greater Philadelphia area—let’s do Philadelphia, Camden, Wilmington, Pennsylvania—in that area, a single person aged 25 to 34, you’re on the young end of that, so you’d probably be at the lower end of this range, is spending about $4,800 per month across all of the consumption categories that we track in the middle income quintile. The bottom income quintile is spending about $2,500 a month. So that’s right about where you’re ending up with your spend right now. Note that this does include FICA, so Social Security, Medicare tax, so I have the option to exclude that. Let’s exclude that for these purposes because you’re probably paying more than that given your income. But that’s about $2,500 a month. You’re spending like someone who’s earning in the bottom fifth of earners in the greater Philadelphia area right now. Is that about how you would perceive it?
Evan Lawler: Yeah, that’s spot on. That’s basically exactly what I spend on average. Some months are a little higher, some months a little lower.
Scott Trench: Okay, awesome. So one question I’d have is, let’s say that, you know, 10 years go by and you get married and have 2 kids. You’re still in the greater Philadelphia area. Do you think at that point you would continue to spend in the bottom quintile per month? Your spending is going to go up because there’s more people in your household, but I think you’d spend—I think you’d move towards the median.
Evan Lawler: I think that I would begin to move towards the median, because my spending now is totally intentional to build more financial freedom and flexibility in my ability to spend more. And I think that, on average, if you’re earning a lot of money, it can be tempting to want to spend more of that money. So I would expect that as I get older, I’ll be spending more and moving up in those quintiles.
Scott Trench: Okay, awesome. So let’s move you into that quintile right now. Have you ever done this before? Have you ever actually done it?
Evan Lawler: I’ve never done this before, so I’m very interested to see what this is going to be.
Scott Trench: Okay, now I’m making you a couple with kids. I’m going to make you age 35 to 44 because 10 years have gone by, right? And we’re going to put you in the middle quintile. Now we’re spending $7,200 per month.
Evan Lawler: Oh my gosh.
Scott Trench: That’s the challenge, right, in a nutshell, because I think many people begin their financial independence journey in their 20s, right? Single in their 20s, very early in the journey. And what you’re doing is very reasonable. I was doing the same thing, adjusted for inflation and location, in Denver at age 25, right? Spending in the bottom quintile for my age bracket while earning as much as I could across that time. And then, you know, it changes. You just move towards the median.
Evan Lawler: That’s amazing. And Scott, I’d love to ask you, as you have pursued financial independence, someone who started in their 20s and is now in their 30s, have you seen your expenses grow over time and have you moved up those quintiles? Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Scott Trench: Yeah, absolutely. So my journey took place in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metro. And at age 25, I was probably spending similarly in your ballpark, somewhere in the $2,600, maybe up to $3,000. So maybe just above that bottom quintile in spending, back in 2014, 2015, that kind of range. And so that’s where I started. And then now today, I look at a couple with kids, a 4-person household, age 35 to 44, and, in the middle quintile, now that spending is $7,800 per month. Oh, and by the way, if you both work and put your kids in daycare, that spending number jumps—at least during that period, that number is $11,600. Sorry for those who are listening to the podcast that I did not read this number. So that’s a huge jump, right, to go from $2,500 a month in spend to $11,600 as a median spending profile for a household of 4. I think you’re going to have much cheaper daycare in the greater Philadelphia area than we do out here.
Evan Lawler: I think so.
Scott Trench: But let’s turn that on for you. So your spending will go, if you have a similar journey and move across this, somewhere from the $2,600 a month ballpark to $9,400 per month, inclusive of childcare, which is about 40% cheaper than it is in the greater Denver area. So how do you think about those numbers? What’s your reaction to this?
Evan Lawler: I’m so lucky because I get to see what is coming out of the financial independence movement—people like you who have started your financial independence journey and saw how even someone as disciplined as you, and someone as motivated as you to achieve financial independence, is not going to try and maintain a $3,000 per month spending category. And it’s a natural thing to want to increase your lifestyle over time, especially someone who is high earning, who is achieving financial independence. Great, you have all this independence—what do you want to do with it? What kind of hobbies do you want to pursue? What kind of events do you want to go to? So I’m so lucky that I get to kind of see that, because then I can build it into my plan from the beginning and realize that lifestyle inflation is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just something that you need to manage and potentially plan for, if it’s something that you expect to happen.
Scott Trench: What is fun about building the datasets here is because you have your own view of how things ought to work when you’re in the journey, especially I think early in the journey, right? Like at 25, I was so sure about it—it was like, everyone should be doing this, I don’t get it, you know. Now I’ve had the privilege of talking to almost 1,000 people just on this podcast about their journeys, and you can see it’s just different depending on what your circumstances are, right? So if you start in the bottom quintile, Evan, and let’s say you weren’t going to get married or have kids, right—you’re, let’s say you’re just going to be a single guy for the next 20 years, next 30 years, or your whole life, your whole adult life—well, now you’re spending, even if you move to the middle quintile, will go from $2,500 a month to $4,700 a month, right? That’s not that large of a jump. I mean, it’s an 80% increase in spend over that time, but that’s much more manageable. And the concept of lifestyle inflation seems very, very—that you could be flexible, right? It’s one thing if things don’t go well, or the journey gets harder than you think, just to keep spending at the bottom quintile for yourself. It may be an entirely different decision for you and your spouse to take your 2 kids and spend at the bottom quintile when the cost of moving to the middle quintile is simply delayed financial independence. That’s, I think, the challenge that people go through in life here. And that’s what the data can help you plan on, right? You have a very clear financial independence journey or Coast FI journey at this level of spend. And I think you intuit this dataset very nicely into your plan, based on what I understand in terms of thinking, yeah, my spending is going to go up. I don’t know exactly how, but I’m going to plan on this number increasing drastically over the course of my adult life.
Evan Lawler: I think I’ve seen that a lot in different people that I hear from who are starting out to pursue financial independence. They’re kind of starting with the end in mind, as far as, okay, I’m spending $30,000 now per year, but when I’m 50 or 60, or even in my 40s, if I’m working towards financial independence, I’m planning that I’ll spend much more. As someone who is deeply ingrained in the financial independence community, 10 years ago, was that the case? Were people planning ahead in that way, or was lifestyle inflation seen as something to be avoided at all costs?
Scott Trench: Great question. My recollection—this is hazy, we’re looking about 10 years back—but my recollection is there was a lot more pride in maintaining a low number across the entire journey, almost like a worldview and a point of identity inside the financial independence movement. And I think that that has evolved, and very painfully so, for many people who basically—I think of myself as a minimalist or as someone who is very frugal. And now, as a multimillionaire, I’m grappling with several pressures at once. The realities of supporting a family in a median spending context in a major metro is one. Two is I have—it actually worked. I built wealth over the last 10 years, and now there’s a really good body of discussion out there saying you should spend more, right? The goal is not to die with the maximum possible pile, so I should spend more. And the next is, I don’t really identify as someone who is very well off, and feel very uncomfortable with very lavish expenditures. So I think many people in the financial independence world are going through some combination of those and other feelings about this dynamic. I think one of the more common ones I see from people my age, in their mid-30s with a young family, is just the total disbelief about how much more they’re spending per month than they did at the beginning of their journey. I also think that many people on the FI journey—not many Americans, many people on the FI journey—can handle that. They’re still uncomfortable with it, but they can handle it because they did put in that work over the last 10 years, or get to have the luck of starting that journey in the last 10 years, or however you want to phrase it.
Evan Lawler: And I think that element of hyper-frugality is so practical when you’re starting out in the financial independence journey. It’s something that I’m doing now, but I think the level of difficulty and the amount of work that it takes to be in that hyper-frugal category, even if you’re someone who’s predisposed to be in that category, is that it does become a part of your identity. And I think that you characterized it really well, that there are people in the FI community—even Mindy, for example, has talked about this—like, you work all this time to become financially independent, and you’re rich, and you look down and you go, okay, well, am I going to do the same things that I’m doing before? Am I going to skip guacamole when I go out and get a bite to eat, right? Because I’m hyper-frugal. So I think you captured it well.
Scott Trench: One other thing that I think is interesting on this is, this is a perspective problem. You’re 25, I’m 35—that’s this part of the journey. But I think a number of people I talk to on BiggerPockets Money come in and they say, I’m a couple with kids spending at the middle income quintile, but in a few years, I’m going to be a couple with no kids and my spending’s going to go way down. How do I think about that and bridging those last few years to that gap, or transitioning there? So I think that’s another component that you start to become aware of. Like, you’re thinking, I’ve got to get way ahead. My spending is probably going to go up. I should be concerned with these numbers to some degree at least, and planning around that, because there is a real case that that could happen in my life. It could also not happen. But then I think there’s the other part of it, which is, that’s 20 years, but my life might be 60 more years where I don’t have to support that level of expenditure. So I think that’s an interesting one, which I have not yet fully grappled with, for myself or for the community here. All I think is the beginning of answering this question starts with data and averages, because I think it’s too large a bet for many to bet that you will spend in the bottom quintile your entire adult life. Not for everyone—some people really know that, and that’s great for them, they want to be there. I think that that is the implicit bet many make, and I think that that’s a very dangerous one to be all in on, unless you’re one of the people who are very sure about it.
Evan Lawler: I totally agree, and I think it’s dangerous, and I would also say it’s tempting in a way, because when you’re running those financial independence numbers—whether it’s traditional FI, lean FI, fat FI, Coast FI, whatever it is—if you can reduce your expected retirement spend, we all know what that does to the numbers, right? If you can shave off $50,000 from your expected spend, then you can really make a huge impact on how far forward you can pull your FI number. But I think that you’re totally right, that you have to make an informed decision there. You have to make an assumption. If I could assume now that I’ll continue to spend an inflation-adjusted $36,000 for the rest of my life, I mean, I’m way ahead of the game here, right? But I think that that’s not a fair assumption. And I completely agree, it’s too big of a bet.
Scott Trench: Yeah. Let me ask you this, Evan. More nuances in the data here that I think are interesting for the application to the financial independence community. Let’s say that you do get married and have kids and you’re 35—do you think that you will spend $1,300 a month, which is the median for this household, a 4-person household, on transportation costs? Or do you think you’ll drive a car that is significantly cheaper than that and keep that cost much lower?
Evan Lawler: I don’t think that I will be spending $1,300 a month on transportation. Knowing myself and knowing my situation, I would imagine even as my lifestyle inflates, I’ll still be driving a very reasonable car with a lower cost than that.
Scott Trench: That’s a great one to go line by line through data averages and say, you know what, the average household with kids in daycare in Philadelphia, middle income, is spending $9,400 a month, or $110,000 a year. And by the way, you’re probably underwater, because the median income, I think, is going to be slightly lower than this. I think that’s why this is among one of the hardest stages, I think, for people, especially if you have kids in daycare, because of that daycare expense. And in these years, I think a lot of people really struggle. I think it’s really hard on a lot of families. But anyways, in that period, that’s where you’re going to spend. And I think that the FI community is very unlikely to move into that period spending the average on cars. I think it’s a very avoidable expense that probably doesn’t have the same impact on your lifestyle. You may want a safe car, or something that’s not too old, but I think you can get there for much less than $1,300, which is a really high number to me.
Evan Lawler: I totally agree. And I think that as we’re looking at this data, and as you mentioned, this is a difficult time as far as spending for someone in the financial independence community. And this is one of the most compelling cases I see for a Coast FIRE approach rather than a traditional FI approach. Because it lends itself, I think, well to the human condition, right? Like when you’re first coming out of school, at least in my case and the peers that I see around me, if you went to college and find a good job that has a pretty strong starting salary, then you can put away lots of money and keep your expenses super low. Me and my friends call it living like a college student, right? Like, we ate ramen for four years straight, so why can’t we keep doing it now? Right. And even if we build in some slight lifestyle inflation, even now enjoying some things in our 20s and late 20s, by pursuing Coast FIRE, you’re allowing more spending flexibility at this crucial time when you potentially have far more expenses because you’re married and have children.
Scott Trench: I feel like at 25, the utility of moving from Natural Light to Coors Light was very high. The utility of moving from Coors Light to craft beer was actually quite negative. I’ll leave. I’ll just leave that one there. But I think there’s like components of that. Like, what is it needed to have a great experience at 25? It’s not a huge level of spend. It’s proximity to the people that you like hanging out with and the ability to do those things, whether that’s board games or bar crawls or sporting events or concerts. There can be expensive or cheap versions of those, but that’s where money should be spent in my view. And I think that I did not miss the nice apartment at 25. I think I might miss that a lot at first grade for my little ones. That’s a values thing. Everyone’s got different values. Let me ask you about Coast FI with the data here. How did you back into your Coast FI number, the number in inflation-adjusted dollars that you want at traditional retirement at 65? How did you come up with that?
Evan Lawler: I’ll tell you that, and I’ll give a little bit of context if someone hasn’t heard it before. My goal— I’m 25 now— my goal is to have $500,000 by age 30. And that’s projected to grow at a 7% real growth rate to $5 million by age 65, which using the 4% rule would give me an inflation-adjusted $200,000 per year in retirement income. That number was not a data-informed decision necessarily. It was more so looking around at the people that I know who are at or around that age and trying to understand a general level of where they may be spending, right? Like, you know, I see their houses, I see their cars, I see the travel they’re doing, the things that they’re pursuing. And I kind of estimated that it was somewhere between $150,000 and $250,000 potentially in income. There is also something to be said about the actual spending, but a tool like this one that you’ve built, Scott, is super helpful for really kind of grounding that in data.
Scott Trench: You are obviously not married right now, but I think a reasonable plan— earliest at 25, I would plan on that being a possibility. So my Coast FI number would have surely been at least what a couple with no kids at age 65-plus is spending in the middle quintile. I think that’s a reasonable starting point for a Coast FI number for your situation here, 40 years from now.
Evan Lawler: Definitely.
Scott Trench: That household is spending about $5,300 a month, or what is that annualized here? About $63,000 per year. So that’s about a $1.5 to $1.6 million FIRE portfolio, is what that implies. The top 20% of spenders in the greater Philadelphia area at that 65-plus— this is not the top 1%, it’s top 20%, right? Top 20% is spending about $128,000 per year. So $128,000 times 25 is going to be $3.2 million. So your retirement is going to be at least in the top 20% of income earners. Your spending is going to be equivalent to the top, you know, 20% income brackets at age 65, if not well into that threshold. What’s your thought process on that?
Evan Lawler: Sounds awesome. Sounds like a great time, right? I mean, if we can imagine that that top 20% is living a great rich life, then I’m perfectly comfortable being at a higher level. I think also, you know, the truth is that that builds in a bit of conservatism into my estimations, right? I use a 7% real growth rate, which is historically informed, but maybe it’d be six, maybe it’d be five and a half or something along those lines. But it does make you think. I will admit, because I’m already above that number— I think by my estimations, my current portfolio, which is in the $220,000 range, puts me at $130,000 per year. So it does make me think. Am I overshooting what my lifestyle inflation would be? Am I overestimating how much I would want to spend in retirement?
Scott Trench: Yeah. Or is there a way to use those funds at other times, like in that period? Maybe if you get married and there are two little kids, you know, is there a way to slow things back, or, you know, pull back? That’s what Coast FIRE is. But maybe even use some of that surplus in that period. Maybe that’s powerful. That’s what I think is interesting about the data. I don’t have these answers right now. I just have averages, and I’ve made decisions about how to model this, right? So you could find a different dataset or disagree with any of the numbers. I just tried to be reasonable in compiling this by location, but that’s what I’m seeing here. A couple with kids aged 35 to 44 in the top fifth of spenders is spending $201,000 per year in the greater Philadelphia area. So that’s a big difference. There’s a piece to that story somehow, Evan, that plays into where you’re going. Maybe the 60th to 80th percentile income earners— they’re spending about $140,000 per year. Interesting. Those are, I think, the things to plan on here, like lifestyle inflation. We can actually quantify it to a certain degree, I think, with reasonable assumptions in many places around the country.
Evan Lawler: 100%. Yeah. And I think that this is an element of financial independence planning that really is still in development, right? I think that like a lot of people would be benefited by more tools and conversations just like this, because I think, like we discussed earlier on, the earlier financial independence community wasn’t necessarily planning for these things. So I think that these are really, really fruitful conversations.
Scott Trench: One thing I’ll call out is the healthcare piece is kind of a wild card, and I have a healthcare projection tool, but I have not yet mapped that to this dataset. There’s like a little bit of complexity of doing that. So these are just averages for each of these ages, but you can get even more precise by plotting that number across these time horizons into your spending profiles. But I think that the highlight here, Evan, is that I think the reason why I love your approach of just getting to that Coast FI number and then kind of seeing what the options are is because of that flexibility component. And I think that there’s just way too much time spent on 4% rule portfolio discussions, all that. I’ve gone down that rabbit hole myself. And I think the thing that is much, much harder to predict is spending. Half of the BiggerPockets Money audience, by the way, in a poll said that they’re not comfortable in their spending number because they get this. And I think the other half, I would challenge— if some of them are going to be overconfident that they know their spending that well, their future wants themselves, and what the data says people like them tend to do across a lifetime with their personal spending. So that’s the real challenge: what are you going to spend? And that’s where I think flexibility and being open to stuff is so important across the journey.
Evan Lawler: I completely agree.
Scott Trench: So do you think that— in your view right now, you know, I— yes, I think that there was a hyper-frugality focus 10 years ago that was a virtue in the FI community. What’s your take on it? What do you see?
Evan Lawler: I think that there’s definitely a more tempered approach to hyper-frugality. People talk about kind of balancing investing for tomorrow while living for today. It’s a big part of kind of what I talk about in the financial independence community. And I think that you really hit the nail on the head as far as saying that it seems to me that in the past it was a virtue, right? It was seen as not only a practical tool in your toolkit, in your approach to FI, along with a sound investment strategy and house hacking or real estate investing, it was seen as something that was good, right? And I think that we may have stepped back from that a little bit, and kind of— it’s a practical thing: if you can save a lot of money, if you have a really high savings rate, we all know the math on how that can be applied towards your financial independence goals. But you also have to balance that with enjoying today and spending some of that money.
Scott Trench: Evan, when do you think your ramp towards the median level of spend in your age bracket and household type is going to begin, if you had to guess?
Evan Lawler: Meaning, when will I begin to substantially increase my spending as it aligns with the average spending data for my age group?
Scott Trench: Yeah, I don’t think you are going to, over the next five years, jump from one level to the next. I think it’s going to build bit by bit. That’s my guess. What do you think is going to happen though in your situation?
Evan Lawler: I think that that’s true. And I think that based on what I’ve seen in the experience of the other people in the community, knowing myself, I think you’re totally right that for the next five years, seven years, I think that I’ll still be in the lower end of that spending spectrum. But I believe as I reach that Coast FIRE number, and I assess the situation as far as what’s my next financial independence goal, or what do I want to do next, then I will begin to see a slight increase in spending over time. If I had to project that, I would imagine that would be in my mid-30s, mid to late 30s.
Scott Trench: Do you think that it’s a good safe bet? Do you think, like, would you agree with me with the hypothesis that you will at that point approach the median for your age bracket, but probably not go too far beyond that? That would be my best guess for you.
Evan Lawler: I completely agree. I think that that’ll absolutely be that I will slowly creep towards the median over time.
Scott Trench: And then I think at that point in time, you’ll buy a lot of Disney stock.
Evan Lawler: Yes. Yes. I think I’ll buy a lot of Disney stock.
Scott Trench: The reason is because you got to take your— I have two little girls. We have a huge closet full of princess dresses.
Evan Lawler: Oh, oh, yes.
Scott Trench: It’s very hard to say no to the Disney princess dresses. It’s very hard to cancel the Disney Plus subscription. And you just know that Disneyland and Disney World are gonna get us at some point in the next few years. And you’re like, if you’re anywhere on the FI journey, you’re like, well, I’m gonna end up at 65 here with a huge pile of money if I keep this up. That’s like a big one. Like, do I go to Disneyland or not? That’ll be the crux that a lot of families have in this situation. And it’s a real challenge because it’s so expensive.
Evan Lawler: I think you’re totally right. If you’ve got a closet full of Disney dresses, then that’s enough of an investment thesis for me.
Scott Trench: Whatever it is, you know, everyone— every family is different there with those. Of course, but those are the— some version of that, travel sports, you know, I hear is now like a private equity-backed world at this point, but I can imagine that being pretty expensive in Bucks County there. Absolutely. So Evan, you know, putting a pin in this, how do you think you or other people like you should handle the concept of lifestyle inflation on the journey to financial independence?
Evan Lawler: I think lifestyle inflation should be something that you manage, but not something that you should try and avoid entirely. You shouldn’t expect that your spending as a hyper-frugal 25-year-old will be maintained for three to four to five to six decades. It’s something that I think we’ve seen time and time again, that people’s lifestyles grow over time. And like I said, it’s something to be managed, something to keep an eye on to make sure that it doesn’t get completely out of hand and blow up your financial independence goals. But it’s something to acknowledge as a reality, and I think to plan for diligently, just like we plan for anything else.
Scott Trench: I think that there’s a healthiness to the discussion of, oh, my FI number has increased, therefore I’m going to increase my spending. That’s a really healthy part of financial independence. I think there’s an unhealthy part, which is: I’m frugal and I’m going to be that way forever, including after I get married and have kids. I think that more people should bias to bumping up their spend towards, if not all the way to the median, at least a little up from the bottom quintile in many cases, as they approach their financial independence journey. I think that’s a better planning assumption for many, not all— you know if you’re different from that. And I think data is a really good place to start, because it’ll help you, one, feel better about those changes if that is in fact what you’re seeing in your life. If you’re evolving from being very frugal, like Evan right now, to a median spender in your area, that’s not super unhealthy. That’s normal. That’s what at least the data says. And I think the data will also help you understand if you’re spending in a way that’s out of control in one of your consumption categories. And you can say, you know what, we’re actually spending way more in this particular category than even people in the fourth or the top quintile in some months. And I think that’s where data can really help you: it can ground you in what other people like me are doing at this point in our lives, and maybe help you make a little bit better of a planning assumption. I don’t know how that maps to withdrawal research for very early retirements. I don’t think that that has been answered satisfactorily in the FI community. And I think that that’s a danger that people should be thinking about, where there’s room for a margin of safety, which is why I really like your approach. You don’t have to go all the way to that $5 million at 65, adjusted for inflation, mark, but by getting a little bit ahead of it at this point in your life, I think that will give you better options in your 30s, even if you begin to draw down on some of that to some degree to make some of the harder parts a little smoother.
Evan Lawler: Absolutely. Yeah, I totally agree with you.
Scott Trench: Well, cool. Well, should we get out of here, Evan?
Evan Lawler: Absolutely.
Scott Tr
