Speaker 1: Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast, show number 323, where we interview Jess from the Fioneers and talk about Coast Fi and designing not only your post financial independence life, but also your life along the journey.
Guest: You don’t need to stay in your toxic job for another 10 years just to like get to this point of eternal bliss, right? Because it’s not, it’s it’s not actually going to turn out that way. Um, right, and so I needed to hear those messages to say, okay, I can do this, but I can take a different path that focuses on both getting to financial independence and financial freedom in the long term and designing my life.
Mindy: Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my stunningly bearded co-host, David Pere.
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Mindy: David, I am so excited to talk to Jess today because she has a different perspective. We’ve never really featured Coast Fi on our show and I really like what she has to say about it. The Coast Fi ideal is uh not this just hard and fast, furious, how do I get to financial independence as fast as possible? It’s more enjoying the journey along the way and I think that uh, I wish I would have read this, heard about this before we started our path to financial independence, my husband and I.
Scott: Yeah, I think it’s a good way to try to find some balance, right? Throughout uh, a financial journey, right? Because a lot of people try to either compress it as quickly as humanly possible and they they, you know, hate themselves for all the years they’re doing it or they don’t do it at all and they get to retirement and go, oh crap, hopefully my kids have money to support me. So I like the, I like the middle ground there. I think it’s good. I think a little balance is good in life.
Mindy: I do like the balance. It’s a balanced approach to financial independence. That’s a great way to phrase it. Joining us today is Jess from the Fioneers. Jess lives in a van down by the river, hoping someday to be unemployed.
Guest: Well, Mindy, that’s not exactly true um because I do hope to do work that I love forever. Um so I don’t ever actually plan to retire early and I don’t quite live in a van down by the river. I do have a van that lives in my driveway that I take out for short and long trips over the course of the year.
Mindy: Okay, so I am super excited to talk to Jess today because we’re going to hit a lot of things. We’re going to talk about Coast FI versus Slow FI, and Camper van life. We’re going to talk about the journey to financial independence, not just the end. And we’re going to do all of these things today with Jess from the Fioneers. So Jess, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast.
Guest: Thanks so much for having me.
Mindy: So let’s jump right into it. Let’s start with Coast FI versus Slow FI. What’s the difference?
Guest: So Coast FI is a specific number where based on your age and your spending, here is the amount of money that you need saved and invested so that you can not add any more money to your retirement accounts, but it will grow, right? To provide you with a comfortable traditional retirement at the age that you choose, 60, 65 or earlier. Um, so it’s a, so basically, once you reach Coast financial independence, this means you could scale back and only cover your actual costs of living with active income. So that gives people a lot of freedom and flexibility to be able to do work that they enjoy more and to do less of it.
Scott: So it’s, it’s kind of like, um, instead of like a lot of people, like they’re fire, right? So their numbers, let’s say their number is $40,000 a year and at the 4% safe withdrawal rate, they’re like, hey, I need to have a million dollars saved by, you know, the time I’m 30 so that I can retire. And you’re saying, well, if the million dollars is is your goal, then maybe by the time you’re 30 or by the time you’re 25, if you have 250 saved, you could look at the math and go, by the time I hit retirement, that’ll be a million, so now I can enjoy life.
Guest: Yeah. So I actually have a Coast FI calculator that I just pulled up, and so for someone who spends $40,000 a year, their larger FI number eventually is 1 million. At the age of 30, they would only need $181,000 invested toward their retirement. Which is still a lot of money, but nowhere near the 1 million that they would eventually need to have. Um and so, giving it time to to grow in the market really can benefit people.
Mindy: And that’s assuming you’re not putting any more money into the accounts. I would, the frugal investor saver in me would like to encourage you to continue to put money in those accounts, although maybe not at quite the same pace that you were before. I love a good 401k match and I love a Roth IRA max and listen to the nerds that we are here. I love HSA maxing for all the things that, you know, life can throw at you. But I like this idea too where, you know, if you’re just learning about financial independence, there’s, I say this all the time and people make fun of me and that’s okay because it’s my show, I can say what I want. But personal finance is personal and you don’t have to do it my way. You can do it Jess’s way or David’s way or you can combine all of our ways and do it your own way. If your name’s Bob and you’re listening, you can do it Bob’s way. You know, it can be your own, you know, choose your own adventure, remember those books? You can choose your own adventure and, you know, as long as you get there, it’s it’s really just getting people thinking about their money because we’ve all seen those studies where, you know, 40% of Americans can’t pay for a new tire on their car. They can’t, you know, float a $400 emergency or a $1,000 emergency and that’s just sad. That gives me like, breathing problems when I hear about that.
Guest: Yeah. I definitely agree with you on the Coast FI front that many people would benefit from continuing to save at least some. Um, I I just think once you get to that point of Coast FI, you have so many more options, right? So I I think of it as like there’s three main options. One is, you can continue to save at a high rate and now you know that every dollar you save and invest is going toward an early retirement. It’s no longer going toward a traditional retirement. Um, the second option is scale back completely, right? And only cover your actual costs. So if you only spend 40 to $50,000 a year, you could only generate 40 to $50,000 a year. And if you come from a higher income earning profession, you could do that doing consulting work or, you know, doing contract work for your former employer or working part-time, you know, that that kind of thing. Or, and this is what I’m doing, the third option is saying, I’ve reached Coast FI and I’m going to use that to give me a feeling of freedom to start making significant life changes, right? So for me, that gave me the feeling of freedom to take a six-month career break in 2018 to deal with a mental health challenge. It gave me the feeling of freedom that when I went back to work, I decided to go back to work three days a week, right? And when I had an opportunity to increase my hours, I decided not to because I loved the like, the super chill schedule that I had. Um, and then it gave me an opportunity to start a business, um, and then that business then allowed me to be able to quit that part-time job, right? And so it it it enabled me to do all of these things and we’re still saving, right? We’re not saving at the same rate that we were previously around like the 50 to 60% mark. Um, but but it also enabled us to say, we’re going to only save 20% this year because we’re buying and building out this camper van, right? And so we got to choose also to spend quite a bit more money for a short period of time as well.
Scott: You just gave a whole bunch of things I want to unpack. So, let’s, let’s rewind to 2010, 2012, 2013 and talk about where you were saving at, where, well, actually, let’s, lets, you decide where we start. When did you discover financial independence?
Guest: So I actually didn’t discover financial independence until about 2017. But my husband knew all about financial independence from like 2010 onward and every year we would sit down with our anti-budget and he would say, let’s just save 5% more. Like, let’s just, you know, every year. Um, but it wasn’t until 2017 that he gave me your money or your life um in like a book swap. We each gave each other a book to read. Um, just, you know, he was saying, I just want you to understand my perspective. Um, and then from there I was in it.
Mindy: Yeah, that’s a great book. That’s a wonderful book. And it’s not even about financial independence, it’s just about trading, trading your time for money. Um, okay, so your husband knew about this and you so you were savers?
Guest: We were savers. Yeah. So, so yeah, if we go back to like the 20, the early 2010s to 2015. So we had just graduated from college in the middle of the recession and started out with extremely low incomes. Um, so he worked part-time at a university. I did a year of Americor where I made $11,000 a year before taxes. Um, and we lived in Northern New Jersey, so right outside New York City. So we had a combined income of like less than $30,000. Um, and we were just, you know, we had to have our finances on point because it was out of necessity, right? And so, and and we had a commitment, I think and and I think it came from our upbringing that like we were going to do everything we could not to go into debt. Like that wasn’t a thing that seemed like an option for us. Um, and so that was our like our introduction to finances generally. And so when my husband learned about financial independence, he was like, oh well, this isn’t really for us. We make too low of income, we work in nonprofits, but some of the ideas resonated and so when we did start to grow our careers and make a little bit more money, you know, he was like, okay, now we can save a little bit, right? We can save, you know, now that we’re past subsistence, right? We’re able to, you know, I it’s funny, I have a budget back from like 2011 or 2012 or something where he like earmarked the entire rays to go toward savings and investments. And I was like, no. We’re, no we’re not doing that. We’re like do, we do nothing. Like we spend no money right now. Like we are going to like get a better apartment. We are going to like not have to go to the laundry mat, something that has a washer and dryer and like we’re going to go out to dinner once a month. Um, you know, and so we definitely had that push and pull of like, I want to spend more, I want to spend more and have like a better life and him wanting to just save every every penny of it. Um, and so, but then over time our income did increase. Um, and so, but we had a really solid foundation and not a ton of lifestyle inflation because in those early years we, you know, had to really cut those expenses quite a bit.
Scott: So obviously there’s a benefit to the fact that in 2010 like the market’s seen a great run-up so even if you’d only contributed a little bit to investing, you know, you’ve done pretty well with it. But everybody listening right now is going, how in the world did they save any money on $30,000 a year in one of the more expensive places in the in the nation, right? Like that’s, that’s bonkers to me. So I’m curious.
Guest: We didn’t. So to be clear, that year we didn’t.
Scott: Okay, okay. I was like, man, what percentage were you guys? Like even even like 5% at that point would be impressive.
Guest: No, we at that point, we were just trying to be in the black, right? Like we, like that that was our goal at that point in time was just not go into debt. Um, with the income that we had. It took us increasing our income um to be able to start saving and investing. But then that’s when my husband then would see, oh we would take like a pay increase and he would, you know, make the new budget and earmark all of it towards saving and investing. Um, and so that was the, you know, the situation. So down, so, you know, so two to three years in when we were starting to make a little bit more.
Scott: I would definitely be on your side. Like, no, man. We are going to go eat a cheeseburger this month. So 75% is going to the budget. Or savings.
Guest: Yeah. And we did eventually get to a a good place where we were able, you know, where we were spending more and improving our quality of life and saving more. Um, right, but you know, at that time we were saving, you know, 10% and then maybe it increased to 15% and then 20%. You know, and then by 2016, I don’t remember the numbers exactly. There’s a, we have a chart of it on our website. But by like 2015, 2016, we were saving maybe 33% of our income then like 45, then 50, right? And so we were able to continually increase that overtime as we increased our income.
Scott: Anything over 10% is, I mean, you know, impressive, right? Anybody listening to this who’s thinking like, oh, I can’t save 50, 60%. Like, okay, first off, they built into that. And second, like if you’re saving more than 10%, I mean that’s most people don’t do that, right? Most people don’t even do like 10% tithe, right? Like they’re like, you know, I’m super religious and I don’t do that because I can’t afford to, right? Like I I hear that. And so, you know, saving 10%, you know, richest man in Babylon or whatever, like that’s enough. If you, if you’re consistent with that, that can be enough. Um, but definitely the more you crank that up, the faster things go.
Mindy: So what sort of income are we talking about in 2015, 2016 and where are you living? Are you still in Northern New Jersey?
Guest: We actually moved to Boston, Massachusetts in late 20. It’s a cheaper place. It was actually more expensive. Um and I’m trying to think around that time, neither of us was making six figure salaries, um but combined we were in the six figures at that point.
Mindy: Okay, so there’s much, much more room here to breathe. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then saving, I don’t want to belittle what you’re doing, but saving 33% when you’re making $30,000 living in New Jersey is like, okay, we got to get tips on that. Um so where were you investing this money when you were, when you were saving 33% and 50% which and I agree with Dave. I think that we don’t do enough of celebrating. Yay Jess, that’s amazing. Saving, I mean, honestly, I’m going to go further than David and say saving anything is fantastic because so many people in America are like, oh, I’ll do that next year. I’ll do that next year. And next year never comes. I mean, next year always comes, but the I’ll do it next year part never comes. So, saving 33% is fantastic when this isn’t really what people are talking about and saving 50% is even better than saving 33%.
Guest: Yeah. So we were saving and investing it mainly in our employer retirement plans. so our 403Bs or 401Ks depending on where we were at the the any given time, um and then into Roth IRAs um at the time. I don’t I don’t think you know, we we worked up to being able to max those plans out, um but it took years, right? To be able to get to that point, especially since we, you know, started and spent most of our careers, both of us, my husband and I in non-profit organizations.
Scott: Yeah, that’s kind of what I was talking with Mindy before we recorded. Um, she I mentioned CoastFI and I was like, never heard of that, what’s that? And and uh, she gave me the like super quick rundown and I was like, oh, okay, I kind of tell service members a very similar thing. It’s like, look, when you first join the military, if you can max out your TSP, right? And and that’s not an easy thing. But if you can that’s our our 401K. Uh, but even if you can’t max it out, if you can like just contribute the most you possibly can. And if you do that for three or four years, then, you know, I’m not to say that that means when you’re 65, you’ll never have to work again because it’ll be enough, right? And you should continue to invest at least the matching contribution. But if you do that for those first three or four years, I’m a big real estate guy. You can’t really invest in real estate your first few years for various reasons, right? Not having a housing allowance, probably stationed overseas, whatever. Uh, well then you’ve done that for three or four years and now you’ve got a safety net that allows you to take a few larger risks because you know that you’re not going to fall flat on your face. And uh, so that’s kind of what I like about this is like, you’re like the matching like employer like tax advantage matching contributions like people, to use the hipster word, the cool kid word, right? People sleep on matching contributions because they’re like, oh well yeah, it’s only 5%. Yeah, but that is a guaran like if you put 5% in and you get a 5% match. That is an instant guaranteed 100% return on investment and essentially a pay raise that you’re missing out on if you don’t take it. Like, you know, and I love the whole tax advantage thing, so I like it.
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Mindy: Yeah, my husband wrote an article for his blog called Death March to FI, and I’ve mentioned it a few times on the show before, but we had this epiphany just like you. Wait, I don’t have to work till I’m 65. I could become financially independent and quit my job. Great, I’m going to do that and just focus. We focused on that and we stomped down that path and we got there and then he didn’t quit because he wasn’t sure. Because even though it’s just a math number and the 4% rule says you can do it, we got to our fire number and we’re like, he said, I was like, yeah, you can quit now and he said, well, maybe one more year. He didn’t he did one more year and he’s now been retired for five years and like the day after he quit, he’s like, oh, I should have done this years ago.
Guest: And the, his, actually his article that he wrote about that was one of the things that inspired us to take a different path. So I think we were getting into the fire movement. I’d say if it’s been five years, that’s probably been around the time that he wrote that article. I think it was like 2016 or something. Um, 2016, 2017 that he wrote that. And I when I first learned about fire, I then was starting to see all of the like OG fire bloggers and content creators start talking about how they went too fast and they went sort of like too hard and like the Death March to FI and like Mad Fientist was talking about that and JD Roth was talking about how reaching FI didn’t fix all of his problems and, you know, all of that. And so I actually needed to hear those messages from people to say like, you don’t need to go all in on this. You don’t need to stay in your toxic job for another 10 years just to like get to this point of eternal bliss, right? Because it’s not, it’s it’s not actually going to turn out that way. Um, right, and so I needed to hear those messages to say, okay, I can do this, but I can take a different path that focuses on both getting to financial independence and financial freedom in the long term and designing my life along the way so that it matters less whether I reach FI really quickly.
Mindy: I think that our journey could have been significantly better without being significantly longer. We had this goal and, cuz when we started this, nobody was talking about the journey. It was always the end result. So, I love that you took that, I want to tell him. Did you tell him that his, okay, I wanted I wanted to make sure that he knows that that uh, article helped shape your path because yeah, that article is not fun to read. It’s, it’s kind of uh depressing to read. I’ll link to it in the show notes so everybody can read this horrible all, I mean, he’s like lamenting this journey and and it’s really, he was really kind of sad about it when he stopped to think about it and he wrote like, it’s not a happy lighthearted article.
Scott: You know what’s funny about that? So I mentioned that this is something like so Mindy you’ve heard me and Alex talk about it, right? Like, well, I achieved whatever and now what, right? Like I I was talking to someone just yesterday about this because I had uh Mike McCarthy on my podcast and we we kind of talked similar, you know, like once you get to a point and you’re like, holy crap, I let all these other things go. It’s I always I always said it it’s akin to like when service members get stationed on Hawaii, right? They get stationed there for two years, three years and a lot of them don’t like it because they’re essentially trapped on this island and things are expensive and, you know, if they’re not a big beach person like what else. And I was like, yeah, every time I heard someone complain about that. It’s like, dude, just like there is not a single person stuck in Missouri or Arkansas or Utah who cares to hear you be like, oh, I got stationed in Hawaii, this is terrible. And it’s kind of like the same. It’s like this unspoken thing because it’s like I achieved complete and total financial freedom, freedom, I’m a millionaire, I’m, you know, all these buzz words, whatever and it’s not as great as I thought. Like everybody who hasn’t achieved that yet is just going to be like, oh, that sounds so terrible that you don’t have to work anymore. And so uh, it’s it’s cool to hear that he he went through with that because it it does it doesn’t get talked about enough and it’s a very real problem where people reach financial independence and go, I don’t have a hobby, I’m, you know, you know, whatever, right? Like whatever that thing is, like they somewhere along the way they stopped enjoying life and then it’s not like this light switch where you’re like, now I can enjoy life again. Like it it’s it’s a lot harder than you think to, like once the money problem’s solved, you realize there’s a lot bigger problems out there. And it’s uh, it’s an interesting conundrum that’s hard to say publicly because nobody cares.
Mindy: Mindy, you said something a second ago that I want to follow up on. You said, I think we could have made a bunch of changes on our journey to make it better that wouldn’t have increased the timeline. And I think that’s something that I have experienced and that I see so often among people who are taking a slower, happier path to FI, right? So for example, for me, so I took that six-month career break and then I went back to work part-time and we assumed, right? So I have an article on the website that I wrote that like the assumption was this was going to add two to three years to our five timeline, right? For to make this decision, but it was worth it because I’m buying some of my time back now, right? And a year later, come to find out, our savings rate was exactly the same because it had actually just reduced the stress and anxiety that was causing us to overspend in the first place on things like convenience, escape, you know, like we were able to make more of our own food at home, like we didn’t get take out as much. We didn’t have to buy the super expensive like pre-made stuff at the grocery store or we didn’t feel like, oh, I’m going to take this expensive vacation because I deserve it. I’m going to check for the travel deals because now I have an extra 20 minutes to like sign up for a new credit card or something like that, right? And so we we started, when we looked back at it, we realized we were saving like $1,500 a month or not spending $1,500 a month on things that would fall into the buckets of convenience and escape. Um, and so our FI number didn’t change at all. So it was like, okay, well, I guess we can just like keep going on the path and like making the changes, right? And so once we realized that, it was like, okay, so there’s no need for me to try to work more and increase my hours at my job. Um, and then I started thinking about, okay, people who reach financial independence, they often still do work, right? They often do work that they love and they find and they often still get paid for it, right? Somehow, some way, right? Um, and you know, it seems like the the majority of people, especially if they’re, you know, people who are ambitious enough to reach financial independence, maybe they need a period of time to destress and, you know, get through the burnout and all of that. But after a while it’s like, okay, great. Now I’m ready to like do something, like some sort of creative thing, right? And so I saw that amongst people who had reached FI, right? And so I and so I I was asking myself, how can I then, how can I figure out what is the work that I would love to do after reaching financial independence, like all of these people are doing, but and but can I figure out if there’s a way to generate income doing that work so that I could just transition to doing that long before FI so that I don’t have to wait the 10 years just to make more money and then over save for retirement. Um, and so it was the the lessons that I learned from from Carl and from, you know, so many other folks in the space that made me say, okay, let me then use this extra time and energy I have now to figure out the business that I would want to start even if I didn’t need to generate any money doing it.
Scott: So what was your financial position before you took your six, let’s call it a six-month sabbatical. Before you took your six-month sabbatical, what was your financial position in terms of your coast five number.
Guest: Yeah. So I, so I didn’t know about Coast Fi at that time. I don’t think we were quite there yet. I think we were close. Um, but definitely had a good amount of emergency savings that allowed me to be able to say like, okay, I’m, you know, just not doing this anymore.
Scott: And in terms of your husband’s income, what percentage of that were you spending?
Guest: Yeah. So we, so collectively our incomes were at that time about the same. Um, and we were saving about 50%. Um and so total, right, of combined. And so we then during that period we’re spending about, close to 100% of his, of his income. And then I did receive a short-term disability insurance, um, because it was a mental health crisis issue. Um, and so, yeah, so I received 60% of my salary, so we were actually able to save that portion. Once it actually came in because it took, you know, months and months for them to actually approve it and pay it.
Scott: Wait, insurance wasn’t immediate? Shocking!
Guest: And did that insurance was that for an entire six months when it eventually came in or was it for a shorter period?
Guest: It was for five of the six months.
Mindy: For five. Okay. Okay. Um I don’t know how that insurance works, so, uh just, so that’s good. There was a bit of a cushion, but even if there wasn’t, you could have quit that job, taken. Now, I called it a sabbatical. Did you ever go back to them or did you completely cease employment with them?
Guest: Yeah, I completely ceased employment with them. Yep.
Mindy: Did when you took your sabbatical, did you have a plan to take six months off or were you just going to stop working until you had recovered?
Guest: Yeah, so actually, I did not have a plan at all. It was, so I, I actually talk a lot about mental health on on my blog. Um, but I actually just started having severe anxiety and panic attacks and just couldn’t go to work. Um, and assumed it would be like a couple days, then a couple weeks, and then it turned into about a six-month period of time and then decided to not return to that employer afterward.
Scott: Okay, but you started off with the idea that you would go back?
Guest: Yes. Yes.
Scott: I also like that you mentioned the piece about being able to start a business that you would like to and enjoy without like, it having to make money right away. And I just want to hone in on that because there’s this, I always jokingly call it the BMW phase below minimum wage and like everybody I know who started a business for the most part hasn’t made money in the first little while, right? People assume, and they, I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are ways you can franchise, you can buy into a business, you can do whatever, but if you’re building something from scratch, especially something like a a blog where there’s a content piece, like you are going to be paying to build that for the first little bit, right? Like I don’t think I saw a month out of red for the first 18 months and then it was, you know, kind of mediocre for the next six. It wasn’t until like two years, two and a half years in that I was like, hey, I’m getting paid to do this and I enjoy it. And so I think it’s uh, you know, like that’s the best time, right? When you can say, hey, I can afford to do this from a time perspective and a money standpoint, like it’s not going to break the bank for me to put some work into this thing and and if it works great and if it doesn’t work, I’m, it’s not going to put me on my butt. Like I just wanted to, I thought that was we kind of grazed over it, but I was like, there’s a lot of business or entrepreneur or side hustle minded people on here who probably should at least hear like this is why that cushion’s nice because you can afford to take a little bit of risk without it being the risk of ruin.
Guest: Right. And I I actually really loved and would highly recommend if it’s possible for people to start a business while they’re working part-time and have a have a stable income because I did feel like that allowed me to make decisions in the business of like that that were like long-term strategic. Is this what I really want to be doing kind of decisions rather than the short-term what’s going to make me money immediately, um, kind of choices, right? And so for me, I think that actually helped me to grow the business more quickly to a point that I was able to become a, you know, become an entrepreneur and quit the part-time job. Um, because I had that long-term perspective and was able to say like, am I running this in a busi? is business in a way that like feels like how I would want it to feel if I was FI, right? And I would not have been able to approach it in that way and I don’t think I would be enjoying it as much as I currently do, if I did not have the cushion to be able to approach it that way.
Mindy: So you started your digital marketing business while working part-time for another business. Not competing businesses, correct?
Guest: No. I was working part-time for a nonprofit organization.
Mindy: Okay. I just want to throw that out there. If you are already a digital marketer, don’t start a digital marketing side business. Your boss may find out, your boss will find out and then we’ll get very angry with you. So what did that look like starting your own business?
Guest: Yeah. So, so actually, I, so I worked with a non-profit organization and I actually started my blog in 2018. Um and so my work has historically, like my career background has been in in human resources and organizational development and training and adult learning and and and that sort of thing. And so when I transitioned my blog into a business, I decided to do lifestyle and career coaching. Um, so using all of those skills that I had built to run group programs focused on helping people design lives that they truly love, that they wouldn’t want to retire from. So like all of these things that we’ve been talking about, um, on the podcast, so bringing people, you know, in a in a group context with a supportive community through a lifestyle design process to figure out what is it that I want, like, how can I then dream even bigger and then start to experiment um and and sort of take steps toward those things that I want, right? And and continue that cycle.
Mindy: How long did it take you to get your business up and running before you felt comfortable quitting your job completely?
Guest: Yeah, so it was about nine months. Um so it happened actually a lot more quickly than I expected. Um, I was, you know, sort of thinking when I started the business, I was like, well, maybe this will generate me a little bit of income that will let me like semi-retire in like three to five years or something, right? So that was my initial plan with it. Um and then realized like, oh, no, I can make like real money doing this. Um and so I was to a place where I was replacing my income from my part-time job. Um, so, but I wanted it, I I I wanted it to be like it could cover our full expenses before quitting. Um, it didn’t get there, but there were like a few frustrations at work and I was like, it’s replacing my income. I don’t need to put up with the BS at work anymore. Um, and so it it definitely gave me the freedom to to leave and I would say I several months earlier than I was even expecting to after I had figured out, wow, this is a viable, you know, this is a viable career option now.
Mindy: And how many hours were you working at the job versus how many hours are you working now at your own company?
Guest: Yeah. So, so at the time, I was working 24 hours a week and commuting, so I was on site, um, but like a half hour commute each way. um so I was working three days a week. And then I was working on my business the other days of week, sometimes in the evenings, sometimes the weekends, you know, I I would imagine I was putting in like 20 hours a week into it. Um and now I now work like 25 to 30 hours a week total, um just on my business. So, um, so I I haven’t actually, like I have a lot of free time, which I absolutely love. That’s part of building a business that I would want to, like that’s sort of, is the vision of what it would be even if I didn’t need to work for income, right? It’s can I and and I think that’s the question that I’m asking myself is, can I run this business as if I’m financially independent and still generate the income that I need. Um, and I think that’s what I’m talking about going back to your comment Mandy about how people could make changes and still work toward financial independence in a similar time frame. I see people making changes like this, like transitioning to self-employment or going freelance or going part-time or, you know, different options and oftentimes it doesn’t change their timeliness all that much because they make a little bit more money than expected or they spend less money than expected. Um, right, and so I think people can make shifts a lot earlier in their path to FI and I think that’s what, that’s what I want to use my experience to help more people understand. Um, because it seems like in the FI movement, sometimes we don’t realize that we can use our freedom along the way.
Mindy: Absolutely. I think there’s not enough people talking about the journey can be enjoyable and I love the tip to start a business if that’s something that you want to do post-FI, start it pre-FI and start it while you’re still working and generating income because then you’re not relying on just this one thing. Um, you could, I don’t know if you know this, you were working like 40 hours a week, 45 hours a week. You could work 45 hours a week now and make even more money. You said you have all this free time.
Guest: I could if I wanted to.
Mindy: If you wanted to. So what does your future look like? So, and and in terms of your coast fi number, where are you right now?
Guest: Yeah, so we have reached coast financial independence. If we were to scale back completely and not add another dollar to our retirement accounts, we would be on track to retire early in our 50s. Um, yeah, so so we are a little bit past that coast5 milestone. Okay. Um, and to full financial independence, we’re 42% of the way there. Um,
Scott: Oh, nice. Okay.
Guest: Yeah, it but and so then in the in the future, so I think that’s a great question because we’re still, you know, in some ways figuring that out. So my my husband is still working in his full-time job. He actually really enjoys it and I’m like getting ready for him to be done. So it’s good right now, right? that he’s doing that because we just had a couple high spending years where we bought our camper van and we paid to build it out and like do all of those things. So because of those things our savings rate for last year and this year are going to be around 20%, um which was down from like the 50 to 60%, the few years before. Um, and so for us, my what are the the path that we’re thinking of now is though if we can scale back the work that we’re doing to cover our costs and to save, you know, 10 to 20% a year, that would allow us still to retire sometime in our mid 40s. Um, and so that’s the the plan, right? So we’re not we could, right? There could be certain years where we only cover our actual costs or where we use some of the money from our emergency funds depending on if we want to do less work that year and and that kind of thing. Um but I do expect that like we enjoy saving. Like we kind of get a rush from being able to save. I imagine like most people who are pursuing FI do, it’s like kind of like a little addiction. Um, and so it’s it’s hard to completely scale back and I don’t expect that we will scale back completely that will likely continue. Um and then my husband will quit his job, hopefully within the next couple of years. Um, he knows right now that he’s doing it because he wants to, not because he has to. So I think it sort of changes the perspective too, um, for him. And he’ll join me doing some kind of entrepreneurial type work and we’ll be, you know, fully location independent, traveling around the country in our camper van.
Scott: The crazy part about all this, like you mentioned that if you guys just scaled back and stopped right now, you’d probably be able to retire at 50, and you know, people joke about compound interest being the eighth wonder of the world, but like to put in perspective what you’re actually saying is that you’ve doubled your fire number if you stayed until 60, right? Because over that from 50 to 60 compounding even at just a normal 7% interest, like that whatever you’ve got in that account would have doubled, right? So to be able to say, well yeah, if we keep going a little bit 10 or 20%, you know, we’ll reach it by 40, like, okay, well now you’re talking four times what you need at retirement. So it’s like the math is there that says if you wanted to, you could never save another dollar and 50, but if you save 10 or 20% going forward like that’s still a hefty amount of savings and you don’t necessarily need it, which is a great spot to be in financially because it gives you peace, which ultimately like financial independence, if you ask me my definition is to do what I want, when I want, how I want. Nobody else can dictate whatever that is. And so you, you know, congratulations. That’s, I mean you guys have done awesome.
Mindy: Okay, I have one last question before we get to the the uh famous four.
Speaker 2: Famous four.
Mindy: Okay, so in terms of annual spending, what amount of income does your business generate right now?
Guest: I would say it close to covers it. So I would say my business income could cover about 75% of our annual spending right now. Um, however, if my husband quits, we will have much higher costs because of health insurance. Oh, good point. Um and so, and I’m accounting for that in, you know, needing to generate more, um, you know, a higher higher amount for for future spending.
Scott: Yeah, but that’s 75% on, I know you mentioned you’ve kind of designed it around FI. How many hours a week do you think you’re putting in on that?
Guest: Oh, it’s like 25.
Scott: Yeah, see that’s awesome.
Guest: Mhm.
Scott: That’s a great spot to be.
Mindy: Okay, Jess, this has been such a fun episode. I really appreciate your time, but we’re not done. We still have our famous four.
Speaker 2: Famous four.
Mindy: Okay, what is your favorite finance book?
Guest: So, I actually recently read Cashing Out by Julien and Kiersten, um from Rich and Regular. It was the absolutely best argument for FIRE that I have ever read and I’m not even like for the retire early piece of it. Um it was an incredible book. It was incredibly inspiring. Um and I think is going to reach a lot of new people that FIRE has not reached previously.
Mindy: That is awesome. I have a copy. I it is next on my list of books to read. I’m super excited.
Scott: All right, what was your biggest money mistake?
Guest: Um, let’s see. I would say the biggest money mistake that I made was not being involved in my finances with my spouse in my 20s. Um, so I I I didn’t I had no interest in being involved. I didn’t want to think about money. I had, you know, some limiting beliefs about how, you know, having money like makes you a bad person, like that kind of thing to work through. Um, and so as a result, I didn’t realize like how much money we had or what it meant. And so got to a place that my job ruined my mental health. Um, even though I probably could have quit or scaled back and used the cushion that I had built earlier, but didn’t realize that that was an option.
Mindy: What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?
Guest: So my advice for people just starting out would be to save as much as you can early within reason, right? So you don’t need to, you know, get an increase in salary above $30,000 a year and put 100% of it into your 401K, right? You can do 75. You can inflate your lifestyle a little bit. Just focus on inflating your lifestyle on the things that really will add significant value to your life and then bank the rest of that raise because if you can reach coast financial independence by 30, right? By, you know, saving maybe less than 200,000, that’s going to give you so much more freedom and flexibility for, you know, the next 70 years of your life.
Scott: What’s your favorite joke to tell at parties?
Guest: Um, so I actually recently burst into my husband’s home office earlier today to tell him that I saw a video um from with Jennifer Lopez that she did on Tik Tok that said adulthood is the worst hood to live in.
Mindy: I agree. Adulthood. Oh, she’s right. Oh, it is. That’s the second jab at adulthood with me on the show. Oh, Peter Peter Pan at heart. Oh. I had a van life joke ready, I’m going to tell it anyway. What are van lifers favorite music bands? Van Halen and Camper van Beethoven.
Speaker 2: Hahahaha.
Mindy: Okay, Jess, where can people find out more about you?
Guest: Uh, people can find me on my website, it’s thefioneers.com. Um, and then I’m on the socials, so Twitter and Instagram at thefioneers. Um, and then for people who are interested in lifestyle design and you know, living a intentional and designing your life along the path to financial independence, um I run a Facebook group called slow fi enthusiasts and you can find that at thefioneers.com/fb for Facebook.
Mindy: Awesome. And I assume because you invented the word Fioneers, you are the Fioneers everywhere, which is awesome. Just like the mad Fientist, he’s like, I made this word up so nobody else has it.
Guest: Yes, we did make that word up.
Mindy: That’s a great word. We were sitting around trying to come up with a name for our blog and, all these clever people and we’re like, 1500 days.
Scott: Okay, Jess, thank you so much for your time today, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Guest: Thanks so much for having me.
Mindy: All right, that was Jess from the Fioneers. David, what’d you think of the show?
Scott: That was a great show. I I think we uh, you know, I think Coast FI is everything that we thought it would be, wanted it to be and I think she’s got a a good head on her shoulders and I like the fact that they’re already living a much more relaxed lifestyle than that than a lot of people their age, right? Like they’re already uh able to take the foot off the gas a little bit knowing that their future is secure and be able to stop and smell the roses along the way. And I think that’s I think that’s a very beneficial way to live life.
Mindy: I really wish that I had heard about Coast Fi many, many years ago. I have peripherally heard about Coast Fi. We have reached financial independence about five years ago before they started throwing all of these different FI terms around and Coast Fi seems like something that is kind of beneficial. It’s like the best of all worlds. You’re still reaching financial independence, you’re still enjoying your life while you’re doing it, you’re setting yourself your future self up for success, but your current self is also still having a good time. It’s just when I first heard the term coast fi, I thought it was having enough money to live on the coast. But like super fat fire. Yeah, yeah.
Scott: No.
Mindy: No, it’s it’s you’re coasting to financial independence and you the the concept that you are going to just stop contributing after you’ve hit a certain number is honestly, I think is kind of false. I think if you have you have the ambition enough to contribute to your 401K and contribute to your retirement accounts and your post tax investment accounts, once you get to this Coast fire number, I really don’t see a lot of people stopping completely and then just being like, I’m just going to spend every dime I have now. I think they’ll continue to at the very least get the match, do the Roth IRA contributions and maxing that out, do the HSAs if that’s something that’s available to them. You know, they’ll they’ll just continue on with that part of it because that’s just kind of what you do. And it doesn’t, you know, if you’re already used to it, it doesn’t really make a big dent a lot of times to to just continue on.
Scott: Yeah, at that point you’re you’re really only contributing to either shortening the timeline to retirement or to live a more luxurious lifestyle in retirement or I guess ultimately to pass more on when you depart, you know, the earth. So, uh, but it makes it really easy to scale back significantly and enjoy your present life, but every little bit that you help is just a bonus because you already got the numbers down.
Mindy: Get money out of the way so you can lead your best life.
Scott: Yeah. Absolutely.
Mindy: Okay, should we get out of here?
Scott: We should.
Mindy: From episode 323 of the BiggerPockets Money podcast, he is David Pra and I am Mindy Jensen saying catch you on the rebound. A B
