Scott:
Today’s guest, Regina Moore, hit millionaire status before 35, but not by following the typical FIRE playbook. In fact, as a pharmacist, she was able to earn very high income, keep her expenses low, pay off her house, and reach a million dollars in net worth before age 35. But those plans were derailed by a diagnosis of cancer on their two-year-old son. Today’s episode is going to talk about her journey to FIRE and the preposterous situation that she and her family were placed in due to subsidy cliffs.
This is a major issue for the FIRE community and has elements of political discussion around it. We’ll try to grapple with those as best we can in a moderate side that presents both sides of the issue while presenting Regina’s story and her positions on it.
Mindy:
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my not-slow-fi co-host, Scott Trench.
Scott:
Thanks, Mindy. You put on a clinic with these introductions. You’ll get that later, guys. We are so excited to be joined by Regina Moore today, co-founder of Women’s Personal Finance. She has an amazing FIRE story, which we’re going to be talking about today. Without further ado, welcome, Regina.
Regina:
Glad to be here. I feel like I’ve been wanting to get together with you all for a long time. We finally made it happen.
Mindy:
We did finally make it happen. Shout out to FinCon for finally connecting us. Let’s go back to the beginning of your FIRE journey. When did you discover the concept of financial independence and early retirement?
Regina:
Probably at about when I graduated from pharmacy school with a story that I think many people will share. Someone gave me a copy of Dave Ramsey’s book as I was graduating. And I was, I was interested and I skimmed through it and thought like, oh, well, yeah, of course people pay off debt. And that it seemed like a good intro, but like not the full story. And pretty quickly from there, I dived into reading personal finance blogs and I remember one of the main ones that I found first was Mr. Money Mustache. So I spent a lot of my first year out of pharmacy school when I was sometimes sitting late in the evening on slow hospital pharmacist swing shifts, diving deep into all that stuff Pete wrote and kind of branching off from there and deciding that I would find a way to be able to retire early someday. And I had never had a dream job. I did a job that I knew would have a decent paycheck, but had never really considered that I wouldn’t have to do it forever. So that was my jumping off point.
Mindy:
Can you tell us a little bit about that journey? Like how, how did things go? What did you, what did you do to pursue FIRE and how, how did, give us like a couple of key milestones along that journey.
Regina:
Yeah, so I graduated as a pharmacist pretty early. I was the youngest in my class. I graduated at 23. And I was pretty low-debt to begin with. I had about $30,000 in loans. I had some help from my father with tuition and scholarships. So I came into things doing pretty, pretty well. And actually my first year out of, out of school as a pharmacist was my highest earning year in my career. Um, or I should say like my first full year working, I made about $180,000 that year, which seemed like such a huge amount of money to someone who, you know, had just been kind of a broke college student prior. And decided really quickly to pay off all the debts that I had. I ended up having to buy a new used car that year, paid that off, and just really kind of grasped that if I started saving, I would be saving a lot of my, my income, I would be in a really good spot.
Initially, I was focused more on, because I had some of that kind of Dave Ramsey influence, on not having any debt and being able to potentially pay off a home that I bought at some point. So I funneled a lot of that, um, that income into uh, home purchase savings. And in 2013, um, moved to another state and ended up buying a house with, I think we put about 50% down on the house and ended up paying that off in under two years. Um, so I owned my home outright and, uh, let’s see, that would have been, I think, early 2014 that I had the house paid off.
And I had been investing like in my 401k. I had opened up a uh, an account with a robo-advisor because I didn’t really feel comfortable with investing on my own. I didn’t really trust myself that much. But once the house was paid off, I realized that I needed to, um, kind of step it up. And that’s when I started to read, read a lot more personal finance, um, content, uh, dive in again with a lot of the blogs. Shortly thereafter, I started my own blog, and I’d say that was really when, when I started to get going on the kind of pursuit of FIRE versus just kind of a, I’m going to try to not have debt. And, um, yeah, I’ve stayed heavily involved since then and have a whole, a whole timeline of events.
Speaker 2:
We’ll be back with more right after this short break.
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Mindy:
Let’s jump back in. So, why did you pay off your house so quickly? A really quick Google search says that mortgage rates in 2013 were like 3 or 4%.
Regina:
Yeah. So, I, I don’t actually remember what the interest rate was, but it was not high, nothing like it is now. And, if I was to do things over again, knowing what I do now, I probably would have chosen a different path and probably would not have paid off the house. But, it felt like something that bought me a lot of peace of mind at the time, a sense of comfort in knowing that I wouldn’t ever have to worry about making a house payment. I’d only have to worry about, you know, covering my property taxes and maintaining a home.
And that decision was made a lot earlier on in my personal finance journey, so I did not know all the things that I do know now. And I still, I’m still happy with the decision. Um, you know, you can’t know what the future is going to look like and it’s possible that, um, you know, the markets would have taken a different turn. Um, but, uh, we had some big struggles with my family where I was not able to have consistent income for a while due to some, um, major medical issues. My son was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, and I think one of the, the saving graces for my sanity through that process is that I didn’t have to worry about liquidating money from my 401k or something to keep paying, uh, paying the mortgage while we went through that process. So the math says it’s not ideal, but it, it really did work out for peace of mind for me and my family and was the jump start to the rest of the process for us.
Mindy:
Okay, so a jump start to the rest of the process. How long did it take you to become financially independent?
Regina:
I still feel like I’m really working on what that number means for me. And, um, if I, if I want to say I’m financially independent, it largely depends on my mood that month. Um, I’m pretty comfortable saying that I’m lean FIRE. I would say I’ve been there about two years. So, wait, let me do the math. I’m 30, yes. Um, so about two years, actually two years this month in December. So, my initial number that I had aimed for, for considering myself financially independent, because the house was paid off and that wasn’t part of the calculation anymore, was a million dollar net worth. And I hit that in 2023 in December.
Money nerds stuff and the 4% rule. I had worked out that our basic needs for the family were, um, at that point about $40,000 a year. Um, so nothing extravagant, but you know, we could eat and we could stay in our house. And that’s kind of been, I’m like a, I’m a worst case scenario type of planner. Um, so that was my initial goal that I wanted to achieve. Now that we’ve hit that, I’m a little more flexible in, in how I think about financial independence numbers because once, once I knew I had those basic needs met, I allowed myself to start thinking more about what I want, not just what I need.
Scott:
You live in Oregon. Which part of Oregon do you live in?
Regina:
Yeah, I live out on the Oregon coast, so pretty, pretty small communities. I’m about three hours from Portland.
Scott:
And would you say this is a high-cost, medium-cost, or low-cost of living area given that you spend 40 grand and have a paid-off house?
Regina:
This is such a hard question to answer anymore because everywhere feels like a high cost of living area. Um, I, I would say it probably is in the medium to high cost. If I had to pay for housing, that would, uh, that would be a different discussion for me. There’s like a three-bedroom apartment, uh, in the town next for me renting right now for $2,800 a month. So I, I think that’s on the high end of things, but, um, I admit to being a little bit out of the loop on that and that the, the housing part of that equation is really skewing things for a lot of people. And because, uh, because I bought my house in 2013, I’m a little bit protected from that.
Scott:
And so you earn this, you know, this, this, this very high income your first year and this kind of 60 to $70,000 equivalent, you know, inflation-adjusted equivalent over the ensuing years. What, what did you invest in in order to build this million dollars in, in wealth outside of your primary residence? It sounds like you bought a primary residence, put a lot down, paid it off. Where did the rest go?
Regina:
Let’s see. So when I was working, I was always, from the minute I was eligible for my 401k, I was using my 401k and, um, and investing at least up to the match on there, often quite a bit more. Um, and then at multiple times in my working career, I also had access to an HSA account. So my HSA has about $100,000 in it, which is invested in whatever the closest to a total stock market fund was.
I did, I tried to, I tried to spread things out. Um, and so I have my HSA, 401ks, and IRAs, and was typically investing in those every year. Um, I usually maxed out my HSA account and, uh, have, have been trying to track my expenses in a way where I can potentially reimburse myself later, um, or have access to that money if I need it, uh, you know, for healthcare spending.
And with my 401k for the first few years at least, probably the first three to five years, it was probably in a target date fund. I didn’t really start to change things around until I started taking into, um, the, the personal finance sphere, uh, around 2017 or so. And at that point, I think I’ve transitioned, I’ve transitioned some of my investments into things like VTSAX, and most of my new investments, um, when I had income to put into those, uh, went into things like that as well.
And with my older accounts, um, the things that are in the 401ks, some of that is just, um, whatever it was in when I rolled them over from the employer funds, they’ve been performing pretty well, and I haven’t really wanted to, uh, dig into sorting out, um, strategies around, um, transitioning those into more, uh, simple, simple investments as long as it stays within the 401k. I’ve just kind of left it alone. But yeah, mostly, mostly for things that I’ve had my own hand in, it’s mostly been like VTSAX or VTI. I can’t even explain why one versus the other. That was back when I was reading all those great blogs of the people who really like to get granular and dig into things and it made more sense at the time. And right now I just know they perform pretty well and keep growing and that’s a solid strategy for me.
Speaker 2:
This will be our final ad break and we’ll be right back after this.
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Mindy:
Let’s jump back in. I have several questions regarding healthcare and your HSA. You, you really glossed over this cancer diagnosis in 2018 when you were telling your story, and I want to come back to that because this healthcare is a big hot topic right now and specifically, that’s like in the middle of your FIRE journey. Your son got diagnosed with cancer. Um, how old was he when he was diagnosed?
Regina:
He was two, almost three years old.
Mindy:
A child’s cancer diagnosis is traumatic, but he’s a baby getting this diagnosis. How did that affect your FIRE journey?
Regina:
Well, I thought the FIRE journey was over when we first got the news. Um, and, you know, you hear so much about financial toxicity with major medical issues and family and especially with cancer diagnoses that I just assumed, you know, if he survives, I’m sure this is going to drain us and we’ll be starting over from, from square one.
I believe at the time he was diagnosed, I had a net worth, not including the house, and just to be clear, like when I talk about my, my net worth, I generally don’t include the value of the house in that. Um, it’s easier for my brain to think about, um, numbers of money that I can work with. So when he was diagnosed, my, my net worth outside of the house was about $400,000. Um, and that was at the end of 2018. Actually, we were admitted to the, to the hospital with suspicion that it was cancer on Christmas Eve 2018. So December is an interesting month for me emotionally.
But, um, I remember, uh, because that was also like, right at the height of when I was, I was starting to blog and really get invested in this community, I think it was in January of 2019 that there was a very small dip, a little micro crash. And I definitely thought, thought it was all over for us financially.
What ended up happening was, I already had a very strong frugal streak. You know, my, my blog back then was that frugal pharmacist. Um, and it’s um, a skill or habit that me and my husband both share, and we just really shut down spending as much as possible while my son was sick. Um, we mostly lived at Ronald McDonald House. We didn’t spend much of anything if we could avoid it. I ended up being able to work a little bit as a pharmacist, um, uh, I think maybe, maybe three or four days a month, I would find a shift about two hours away, maybe not two hours, maybe an hour away. So I drive and I’d work a pharmacist shift and then I’d come back to the hospital and share the bed with my son.
And by whatever luck and, um, you know, navigating on our part, we didn’t end up any worse off by the end of his cancer treatment. Um, if anything, the markets had started to pick up and we were doing better off by the time he was done, even though I had worked significantly less. And that was pretty eye-opening for me, um, and definitely inspired me to, uh, shift gears a little bit, um, with an intention to not go back to work full-time.
Mindy:
Did you have an HSA during your son’s cancer treatments? Or did you have traditional health insurance?
Regina:
I had, um, I had an HSA, so a high deductible plan. Um, and, uh, if I remember right, the, um, the out of pocket maximum was about $12,000, um, which is not nothing, but, um, but if you’ve budgeted and saved for that, it was something that was manageable, especially because we had been saving money in the HSA account already. Um, so the, the, when he was initially, initially diagnosed, that was in December, um, we hit our maximum out of pocket for that year based on, on the process leading up to him being diagnosed.
And then we also hit the maximum out of pocket in like January of the first full year he was sick, 2019, just due to the expense of cancer treatment. Um, partway through 2019, I think it was probably in like July or August, um, based on that I wasn’t working much, um, he was able to qualify for Medicaid under the CHIP program, the, I forget the acronym, but, um, it allows children to access Medicaid, although the parents don’t themselves qualify, so at a higher AGI, the kids can get it. And he’s been on CHIP since then.
Scott:
What is the requirement? How do you, how does one, um, become eligible for CHIP?
Regina:
CHIP eligibility is, it’s uh, it’s based on your adjusted gross income and I believe for a family of three, it was around $70,000 a year, AGI. Um, so we have stayed underneath that every year since 2019 and he’s been able to, to, you know, effectively have free, free healthcare. There’s some extra hurdles to navigate with that because specific providers aren’t accessible and things like that, or take more effort to get to, but, um, for his, all of his main needs, it’s been, um, been fine for us.
Scott:
That covers 100% of healthcare costs for him?
Regina:
Pretty much. I mean, there are, there are certain things that, um, would be qualified as not, you know, if it’s not considered medically necessary, like if he went to the dermatologist and had a wart that wasn’t bothering him or something, like they might say that it’s not medically necessary to remove that, and he might not be able to get that done. There’s that type of thing can come up from time to time. But as a kid, um, who doesn’t really have any cosmetic concerns, um, we haven’t run into anything like that.
Mindy:
I was going to ask, how long was he in treatment?
Regina:
He, so my son was in cancer treatment from, um, the end of December 2018 until mid-January of 2020. So we went home right as COVID started.
Mindy:
And he is now in remission.
Regina:
Yes and no. Different types of cancers have different, um, ways that they qualify it. He’s, um, his does not have something they call remission, they just say no evidence of disease. But he’s, um, officially five years off of treatment as of this summer. So more or less considered cured and it’s assumed that this cancer wouldn’t come back. Um, cancer treatment does make you more susceptible to other forms of cancer like leukemia. So that’s something we’ll have to monitor for and then long-term, um, health effects from that treatment which is very intense. Um, but yeah, I think we’re, I think we’re in the clear with his specific cancer diagnosis.
Scott:
It’s just awful that you guys had to go through this. I’m glad that, uh, we’re in a great spot now, it sounds like, and, and and, uh, doing much better. Um, can you, can you just let us know from a, for the story around, around finances, it sounds like this treatment did several things, um, this diagnosis and the treatment did several things. One is it, um, it for, it, it had you stop working or stop working a considerable amount, reducing those hours a considerable amount for a very extended period, um, at least the next year, probably presumably up until 2020 and then thereafter as well. Is that correct?
Regina:
Yeah, um, I, I worked between like one and four days a month through his treatment. And I think even the first three or four months, I didn’t work at all. And then I, uh, I went back part-time, um, when we were able to come home, uh, because I needed time off for ongoing appointments. He still had a lot of visits that we had to go to three hours away and overnight stays. So I tried to work part-time for a while. Uh, so I would have gone back to work in, in, in January or February of 2020. Um, I ended up taking a leave of absence by May of 2020, um, with everything going on with COVID and being a pharmacist in a retail pharmacy, kind of front lines there.
Um, I, uh, I was very, very stressed out. Like it was not working out well for my health. I was having migraines sometimes daily, um, super stressed. Uh, and also none of the, the, the restrictions with things like, you know, mask mandates or anything like that had come into effect yet. And I had already been masking before the pandemic because he had had a bone marrow transplant. Um, so some of the things that I had already been doing to kind of protect the health of my son became extremely politicized, and luckily I was able to, um, to get unemployment which was not a lot of money, but it was a little bit. And I took three months off, uh, at the height of COVID, um, as a caregiver. So I got, I got approved for it, um, because of being a caregiver of someone who’s high risk.
And, um, I tried to go back to work after that. And this is when, uh, everything was very much a mess with the, the healthcare industry. Um, a lot of understaffing. Um, pharmacies were closing. We had lines of, you know, patients out the front door of the building. And they were scheduling everybody at least at 40 hours a week and most people were getting significant overtime just trying to cover all of the needs at the time. Um, and because of that, I ended up leaving altogether. They had told me that I didn’t have a choice in choosing to work less while they needed me to work more. And I said that didn’t work. And I am now a per diem employee. So, um, I work just a little bit. Um, they’ll ask me if I can help out from time to time and if I’m available, I can go and choose to take a shift, but I don’t have any obligation to come in.
Scott:
In 2018, we get the diagnosis in December. In 2019, we step back and have greatly diminished hours. This extends through 2020 when we get good news that that things are in a much better place for your son. But we also have health risks from COVID that are particularly acute for your family. And that continues to disrupt your ability to generate income, uh, in various ways due to your your very reasonable lack of comfort with returning to work in these in that in that environment. And so this is a multi-year, six, five, six, seven year disruption to your income flows, this this healthcare event, um, and its ramifications down the stream on the income side. What were the costs? How, how do you think about the cost? And one of the things I think that’s particularly top of mind for people right now is, is fire and healthcare is a particularly, um, acute challenge for people to grapple with here in 2025, especially in the context of ACA subsidies going away, or or, you know, uncertainty around ACA subsidies. How does one think about that? If you’re giving advice to somebody else who’s thinking about fire, has young children, and this could happen to them in there, you know, God forbid, but how do you, how does one think about that in the context of, of this risk, this healthcare risk that is so clearly delaying and damaging to your fire journey? How do they think about it in the context of today?
Regina:
Unfortunately, I think healthcare is the number one factor that’s the wild card for anybody planning to potentially retire early. Um, factoring in how we’re going to manage that is, is definitely my biggest ongoing struggle. Um, I think one, one thing to keep in mind if you’re wanting to potentially retire early is being really cognizant of what you feel like you need to live a good quality life, um, and how, how expensive that really needs to be. Um, so I, I come at a lot of this from that frugality angle, thinking about what my minimal needs are, and then just building on that as I reach certain goals. And for, for a lot of people, if you have a hope of retiring early, if, if healthcare spending for individuals and family doesn’t change very soon with some sort of major healthcare reform, it’s making it feel less and less achievable and accessible.
Um, that being said, if you decide to, uh, be content and live a lifestyle that can be had at a lower income, you do potentially open up some of those subsidized channels for yourself. So, um, like I said with my son, um, he’s been on the state, uh, Medicaid program with CHIP since 2019. Um, that’s definitely made things a little bit easier. Um, and we have been, uh, on a marketplace plan with the ACA subsidies for, uh, jeez, what would that have been? 2022 probably. I don’t remember the exact year, but that’s when I finally got kicked off of my employer health plan. And then actually just this last year, uh, mid-2024, um, we, in my state of Oregon, they expanded the state Medicaid program, so they increased, um, eligibility levels. And when we applied for our ACA plan, where you go in and plug everything in, planning for it for 2025, we actually got kicked over to the, the state Medicaid program too. So for 2025, we haven’t paid anything for healthcare.
However, it puts me in a really unique situation now as someone who is still earning some income, um, which obviously is nice to have, in that I have to be really, really thoughtful, um, about, uh, if increasing my income is actually paying off for my family because we’ll hit that subsidy cliff and, um, you know, potentially be out 15 to 20,000 minimal between, uh, deductibles and premiums for insurance for me and my husband at the very least.
Scott:
So this is like, this is a central issue, right? Like, like if your fire number is, you know, uh, uh, 1.5 million bucks, $60,000 a year in annual spend, for example, and this number is either zero or it is $20,000 a year, that’s the difference, right? That this cliff effect is, is, is so real and so acute. Is that literally the difference here? If you go over the $70,000 limit and household income, and that, that incentive, you literally drop your, your coverage and have to spend this amount more starting next year in 2026, if subsidies expire, or or how does that work in your situation here? Because it seems, it seems so preposterous this situation that that you are in right now based on the rules of healthcare in this country.
Regina:
Yeah, it’s a completely ridiculous situation. So, um, for the family of three, um, in Oregon to qualify for this, um, extended Medicaid program, the AGI is right about $50,000 a year. Um, and then for children or a child to qualify in my family of three, it was about 70,000. I don’t know exactly because it’s been a few years since I looked at that number. So, um, my household AGI is under 50,000. Um, and some of that is, um, is achieved by, uh, moving money from my brokerage accounts into, um, traditional IRA savings, um, you know, so that our AGI stays at a certain level.
Uh, but, but yeah, I mean, between the premiums and then, you know, my, my husband has chronic health needs and I, I figure with medication that he needs, that would probably be, you know, $500 to $1,000 a month. Um, between the medications and doctor’s visits and co-pays and all the deductibles and everything, um, yeah, I estimate that it would probably be about $20,000 a year. So I’m, I’m forced to make decisions around working less, um, because it wouldn’t just be $20,000 that I would need to to earn to offset that. You know, it’s an additional because there’s taxes and whatnot.
And, um, to consider if earning that additional income provides any benefit to my family because I’m also not home as much, I’m not available for childcare, etc, etc. And it’s unfortunate because like with the, the career that I have, being a pharmacist, there’s another developing pharmacist shortage, and I have capacity and interest in potentially working a little bit more. I don’t ever want to go back full-time or even at a steady part-time rate. Um, but you know, if there’s a couple weeks here and there where there’s something going on and I can go in and work, I’m not opposed to, to helping, helping my, my colleagues out so that things aren’t as chaotic at the pharmacy, but I really can’t make that decision and, and maintain things where they need to be for my household.
Scott:
This is, this is so freaking stupid. This is so dumb. Like what you just, like you just said here about the system. What you’re doing is, is perfectly smart, what the situation that you’re in is preposterous. This is ridiculous. You, you are, this, let’s, let’s lay out what what is happening here. You went on a FIRE journey. Your goal was literally to become a multi-millionaire, financially independent retiree in your 30s or 40s. You did pretty good on that journey. You paid off a house, you built a lean fire, a barista fire portfolio. Then tragedy struck and your kid got a horrible illness that took years to treat, was very expensive, and it forced you to basically live on a poverty level income or realize poverty level income across your portfolio so that you could qualify for Medicaid Chip in your state across that plan. You also, it sounds like have, your husband, I think, has some chronic health issues that require treatment, uh, to a lesser degree on an ongoing basis as well. Is that, is that right?
Regina:
Yep, that’s accurate.
Scott:
You are, you are a highly qualified, capable worker who could make, command a very high wage, but you can’t do that because the choice is either, uh, work full-time and go throughout the year, pay full taxes, um, you know, pay, pay taxes in a much higher tax bracket, and pay for an insurance and healthcare costs, you know, overall healthcare costs, that would cost you $20,000 more overall, which is just not worth it. You might actually come out, you know, might, might come out worse off by working 40 to 50 hours a week across a year at your highly paid profession than by just staying at home and not doing that. That, that’s the effect of this cliff situation in the healthcare system. And it’s not like you want this. This is not like something you, you like. This is, this is what you are stuck in because of the preposterous absurdities of, of healthcare in this country in your situation and that that requires, that requires really complete coverage for really devastating health health health situations that are not your fault, that are not, that are not, that are, that are completely just bad luck. Is this, is this the correct way to frame the situation? Am I doing right in my, my rant here, Regina?
Regina:
Yeah, more or less. I mean, I don’t know exactly what the full repercussions would be. I haven’t quantified that, um, but you know, the the thing you didn’t add into that is also that then I lose my time and my time with my family, and probably come out somewhat on a, you know, in a worse situation financially right now. Um, that might mean that I have significantly more money in my retirement years, but I’m not really concerned about that. At this point, I’ve, I’ve dialed in my pre-loading on my investments in a way that I’m not concerned with my retirement income or retirement savings. Everything that I’m doing right now is, um, just navigating living over the next, you know, five to 10 years. And, yeah, I don’t, um, I don’t feel like I have the flexibility I would like to be able to go out and earn more money. Um, and it’s, it’s not just about the money, right? Like I’m okay with where I’m at, but if I’m going to do work, I want to be compensated for it, obviously. Um, and I don’t have the flexibility to make decisions about working a little bit more, um, without having major financial ramifications.
Scott:
You’re in a, in a crazy situation here because like, like we said, this cliff has to be front and center and there’s no, there’s no real world where you would work the full-time because that wasn’t ever your plan. You, you, you’ve pursued fire so that you would have flexibility, but you would work more, possibly above this cliff if it didn’t have such immediate and devastating consequences for your ability to qualify for, for healthcare, um, from, from the state essentially. I can hear, Regina, some people, let’s acknowledge that you had a son with cancer at two years old, terrible tragedy, nothing you can do, not not your fault, okay? But I, I can hear some people, you know, and they’re shouting at the their podcast feed on their, their car player or their phone or, or watching here on YouTube and, and they’re saying, hey, this, this is not how the system was supposed to be designed. You know, why is the, why is this multi-millionaire paid off homeowner receiving Medicaid Chip for their family and how does that work and, and how, you know, how do you think about that? How, how would you answer that challenge from somebody, you know, who, who, who maybe doesn’t like that that situation is unfolding to a certain extent?
Regina:
I mean, for one, I would say, none of this system is how it was supposed to be functioning. I think if you ask most average people, um, I don’t think any of us expected that, you know, 20 to 30% of our planned spending should be going towards maintaining healthcare. So the system’s not working for anybody, really. Uh, you know, I, I paid fairly significant taxes for a good portion of my career when I, my short career, when I was working full-time, um, you know, I didn’t have a child and it was just two, two adults earning. Um, so I’ve paid into these systems and I am, um, using them fully as they’re designed based on the income limits and, and all of those things. Um, and I am a proponent for things like universal healthcare. Um, I am not opposed to paying more taxes on what I do earn so that more people, myself included, have access to more affordable healthcare.
Uh, I wouldn’t mind having a system where, um, my annual taxes were higher and I didn’t have to do so much long-term planning about budgeting and planning to afford healthcare. Um, I would prefer to just have that taken as some percentage of my income and know that the bulk of our medically necessary healthcare is going to be covered, perhaps with some low co-pays or things like that. Um, and based on the way I’ve had to set up my situation, I continue to put money into my tax-deferred accounts, um, which uh, I will likely realize some pretty high taxes on by the time I do retire and start to tap into those because I won’t, um, have a child that I is factored into my, um, my annual taxes owed. Um, my husband’s a bit older than me, so it’s possible that I’ll be a multi-millionaire with, um, RMDs that are pretty significant when I’m in my 70s and I’ll be taxed at a pretty high, high rate then. And if that high rate means that people are having access to healthcare and I still have a pretty good income that makes me comfortable enough to live off of, I’m okay with that. Like taxes aren’t necessarily the worst thing. Um, I just want to make sure they’re going towards actually helping people who pay them to live better lives.
Scott:
Yeah, I think it’s a really tough subject here and, and this is what we tried to debate this, uh, or tried not to debate this, we tried to frame it with a representative from KFF, um, I think last week. When did that come out? That came out on, on Tuesday, November 25th, and it’s a really, it’s a, it’s a really hard and interesting and discussion you know, debate and discussion for America at large and particularly acute in the FIRE community because the healthcare strategy in the FIRE community is so heavily dependent on on realized income, right? Whether that qualifies you for Medicaid Chip or whether that qualifies you for what subsidies for ACA plans and how much, how many in the form of those subsidies that you’re getting. And I think that’s a really challenging political issue for this country right now. And your situation is, it brings it to, to just stark reality because of the tragedy that struck your family and how you were forced to navigate it based on the way the current system is set up. And so thank you for sharing it and, and taking on some, some hard questions about that, um, about that situation here today.
Regina:
Yeah, I hope most more people are willing to be outspoken in some of these things and, um, dig into those conversations a little bit more deeply. Um, definitely, definitely is an area that, uh, maybe a lot of people haven’t put much thought into, um, and should think about a little bit more.
Scott:
Hopefully this conversation will, will spark debate and thought about it inside of the FIRE community as well, because I think it’s just such a, it’s such a challenging issue. And, and I just admire and appreciate you sharing your story and how you’ve handled things. And I’m glad that the system was there for you in this, you know, in this really challenging time, personally.
Mindy:
Regina, thank you so much for your time today and thank you for sharing the story about your journey with this, this navigating the horrible healthcare landscape that we find ourselves in right now. Where would one find Women’s Personal Finance? Because you used to be a Facebook group and that has since closed.
Regina:
So Women’s Personal Finance, um, we have a website. Uh, we don’t do a whole lot with it, but womenspersonalfinance.org, um, or womenspersonalfinance.org/socials, um, has links to pretty much everything. We are most active on Threads, which is like Meta’s version of Twitter, um, but we’re also on Instagram and, uh, on Facebook and TikTok. We’re on all those things. Uh, we did have a very large Facebook group. We closed it in December of 2024. So just now coming up on a one year anniversary of closing that 82,000 member Facebook group, um, so that we, we had more time to dedicate to our, uh, to our private communities and just we’re feeling a little bit of burnout with the Facebook thing. So it’s a little bit more fun being able to just manage, um, social media instead of such a large Facebook group. But yeah, if you’re interested in any of this, come check that out. We also have a weekly newsletter that goes out and, um, you can find a link to that on that womenspersonalfinance.org/socials link as well.
Mindy:
All right, Scott, that was Regina Moore, and that was quite the wild ride that she had. Um, I just want to take a moment and say that I don’t think that healthcare should be a political issue. Literally everybody needs healthcare. For exactly Regina’s story, you can be fine. They were in Hawaii before he got his diagnosis. And all of a sudden, Christmas Eve, you have a childhood cancer diagnosis and a 14-month treatment plan ahead of you, and your life completely changes in the blink of an eye. That’s not political. That’s a basic human right to be able to take care of your children. So for this, like, she is faced with a bunch of really bad options, and she has chosen the option that is like the least bad for her.
Scott:
Yeah, I, I think it’s a really tough situation, and I think that folks with different political views will view this situation differently, right? Some folks who lean left will view this situation as healthcare is a right and this is, this, this should not be a burden unfairly placed on this family that just had bad luck and tragedy strike for a two-year-old getting cancer. And I think other folks on the other political side will say, this is a person who’s capable of working and commanding a high income and they should pay taxes into that system or pay for their own healthcare if they’re capable of doing it since she has a million dollar net worth. And I think that that’s the crux of the political debate around healthcare in America today. And I don’t know what the right answer is. I just think that this story highlights that problem really acutely here. And the challenge that those confusing conflicting viewpoints will have in, in agreeing on a way forward, um, in a situation like this.
I also think that it’s really instructive in the FIRE community in particular, because the FIRE community right now has a lot of particularly good options that may not be available to the rest of the public, right? Option one, go back to work and get a health insurance plan if tragedy strikes. Option two, control your income and qualify for Medicaid or CHIP or or get heavy, heavy subsidies from an ACA plan. And option three, um, being to do some sort of alternative to health insurance or either pay the premiums or get some alternative to health insurance like health shares. And I think that those options are excellent for the FIRE community and potentially going to be controversial as the debate around healthcare continues in this country. And I think that, um, you know, the challenge for the FIRE community will be thinking, you know, planning around that. What are healthcare costs going to look like once you hit early retirement and have the option to control your, to control your income? What can you actually count on in the future, in the decades into the future as you approach traditional retirement age. That’s going to be the challenge. And I don’t think we have a good answer for that right now. And I think the only real answer is be conservative with it and be ready for those costs to go up, whether that forces you to go back to work or whether that forces you to build a more conservative portfolio to potentially cover those healthcare costs in early retirement.
Mindy:
Or medical tourism, alternative options for insurance include the, you know, the health shares, self-insuring, doing the concierge doctors. There’s a lot of different options, but when you have a catastrophe like this, you need a catastrophic plan that helps you, helps cover the, the costs. And yeah, I, I am looking forward to a really great alternative program to health insurance, but I’m not hopeful that I’m going to see it anytime soon.
Scott:
Yeah. Health insurance will always suffer from this problem, right? Because, because again, it’s, it’s capitalism is the allocation of scarce resources, right? That’s all it is in there. And, and, and it’s, it it works in a lot of different categories. The debate about whether it works in healthcare is again a very political, political issue, um, because healthcare can often mean, you know, the allocation of resources, that can mean life or death for people. And so it’s a really challenging, uh, concept here and that again, I think the two schools of thought are, we’re all in this together and everybody’s insured, and then who pays for it and how do we encourage more, um, more responsible behavior, more cost conscious behavior inside of the healthcare system in this single payer system. And the other alternative is allowing the free market to work. And the free market working will pull together people with lower risk profiles like, for example, potentially my family, and pull together people with higher risk profiles like Regina’s family, and shift those costs potentially unfairly into people that have pre-existing conditions away from people who don’t. And that’s, that’s the challenge with healthcare, right? And I don’t, again, I don’t know what the solution is. All I know is that for me, in the FIRE journey, that means be conservative, right? Make sure that there are these other options available and that you’re planning on the worst-case scenario or ready to handle the worst-case scenario if it comes up with plan B or plan C.
Mindy:
All right, Scott, should we give out our email addresses in case anybody wants to send us emails?
Scott:
Oof, not on this one. You want my, my email addresses, go listen to other episodes of the podcast where we put them out there pretty frequently, but uh, this one’s so political that I feel, I feel like we’re going to get some, uh, some interesting ones, um, from, from folks who actually want to go hunting them down.
Mindy:
I would encourage respectful emails, but I know that that’s not what’s going to happen. So, uh, yeah, I’ll be in my inbox.
Scott:
Let us know in the comments. Um, you know, assuming that you’re not a hardcore cheerleader for the left or the right, how did we do today? On this? Did we present it with with a reasonable neutrality of really hard issue or do you have any coaching points for us that are, that are helpful and not um, not provocative or trashing, um, things because we won’t, we won’t tolerate extreme political views.
Mindy:
That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Mindy Sense-it. Did I just mess up my name? I don’t just get my husband’s name wrong. I sometimes get my own name wrong. That wraps up…
Speaker 2:
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Mindy:
This episode of the BiggerPockets Money podcast, he is Scott Trench, I am Mindy Jensen saying, “Don’t pout, sauerkraut.”
