Is the all-out pursuit of financial independence really the best approach today? Or is Coast FI a better evolution? Today is going to be a fun discussion and hopefully, you’ll walk away with a better understanding of which might be the best for you when we contrast my all-out pursuit of financial independence at age 25 compared to Evan’s pursuit of Coast FI at age 25.
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. My name is Scott Trench and, not with me as always, with me for the first time, is Evan Lawler from the Financial Foundation. He’s working towards Coast FI, and he is the perfect person to beat up or at least contrast, you know, my approach, my all-out approach to financial independence at an early age. When I when I was 25, I was doing things a little differently than Evan. There’s overlap and there’s differences. And I think Evan has a really, really healthy evolution of the approach I was taking 10 years ago now, towards my my version of financial independence. So without further ado, Evan, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I couldn’t be more excited to have you guest host today with me and uh, hear your story and your tweaks to financial independence.
Evan: Thank you so much for having me on, Scott. I am extremely excited to be here and jump into the details and see how our different approaches have evolved over time.
Scott: Awesome. Well, hopefully, this episode is applicable to everybody and anybody. But Coast FI, I think is most impactful for people who start out early in their careers. The earlier you get started, the sooner you can coast, of course. But before we get into that, can you maybe define what Coast FI is for us, Evan?
Evan: 100%. Yeah, Coast FIRE I like to think of kind of a hybrid form of financial independence because it’s really FI not RE. So financial independence, but not retiring early. It’s front-loading your retirement investing such that you reach a point that your investments are projected to grow, such that when you reach retirement age, your portfolio should be able to sustain you in retirement. So you actually spend a lot of your time coasting to retirement where you just cover your day-to-day expenses, but no longer need to invest towards retirement.
Scott: I think that there’s a lot of appeal to that, right? Hey, I have my retirement’s done. I’m actually set. As long as I can just figure things out, you know, you maybe you can get there by 35. I can figure things out for the next 30 years and just kind of relax a little bit from a money perspective, maybe not take the most demanding job or be there for my family if that’s something that I’m aspiring to have at some point.
Scott: But from a skeptic’s perspective, does it really result in time freedom? I can hear somebody saying, FIRE is about actually being able to retire early, and this is not it. What would you say to somebody with that perspective?
Evan: I would understand. I think you have to start with the end in mind and I think that if you’re a FIRE purist, then I would agree with you. I think that yeah, you are not going to be retiring early if your goal is to pursue Coast FI. However, it does offer a ton of flexibility. And I think that as the FIRE movement has kind of grown and matured, we can stand on the shoulders of the giants before us and say, lots of people reach financial independence and then they find themselves working, you know, they pursue these hobbies and one day someone starts paying them for it. And so I think Coast FIRE acknowledges the reality that for many people, especially people who are ambitious enough to pursue financial independence to begin with, will probably be earning money even after they reach that FI number.
Scott: I think financial independence or the pursuit of financial independence is a spectrum. And as we move farther along that spectrum, we gather power back into our lives and take that power away from, for example, the local employer who pays the highest wages in our profession. And I think that’s what a lot of your stuff on Instagram in particular seems to talk about. I saw one the other day it was like, you know, how how much my savings account impacts my ability to take my lunch break uh on my terms or whatever. And it’s the same, it’s the same concept here applied across the spectrum. I think Coast FI is for many people on the the journey to financial independence, the first milestone where there’s a little bit of that sigh of relief like, I have power over my boss now. I don’t need the highest paying job in order to retire, or you know, I I can begin to expand my my viewpoint and maybe begin to take more risk or take a little bit more time back in my day. Is that is that the right way to think about it?
Evan: I think that’s completely right. And and the skit you’re mentioning, yeah, I put those together because I think it acknowledges the reality that having money or having investments or a portfolio is not just a number on a screen. How does it actually impact your day-to-day life? And I think you’re exactly right that Coast FI is really probably the most significant milestone outside of someone who who first gets an emergency fund or something like that. For financial independence, Coast FI is really that first milestone that I think for a lot of people, they can kind of look around and say, hey, I’ve bought myself in a way, a traditional retirement, and I no longer have to contribute to that. Is this what I want to continue doing? Do I need to keep earning 100k, or is there something that I find more fulfilling at 50k or 70k?
Scott: I’ll also call out that I think your journey and mine are very similar if we roll back my, you know, my age to, I think you’re 26, 27 right now?
Evan: 25.
Scott: 25. Okay, yeah. So if we roll roll back my age to that point, you know, I’m doing many of the same things you’re doing. And I’ll also call out that at 35 now with two kids, those activities are very unappealing. Some people with families that are that are married with kids, you know, under under five, are still able to house hack and live and flip and do the things needed to move towards financial independence, but it’s a lot less appealing. And I think that there’s a reality in the world of financial independence that it just gets harder in that middle period, especially as the kids when the kids are below school age. And Coast FI might be a great proxy target to, you know, just take the pressure off. Like, hey, we don’t need to like race towards true and lasting two and a half million permanently sustainable financial independence with our young kids. We can just be like, are we on track to get to Coast FI pretty soon, or are we there? We can take a breather and then resume that journey to finishing the play to true, you know, total financial independence, maybe once there’s a more reasonable set of life conditions that come about. So anyways, all this to preface, I think that Coast FI is a great goal here. It’s a wonderful starting point, one that many never reach, but a huge milestone that feels much, much more attainable, especially for young people than um, moving to a 2 and a half million traditional $100,000 a year annual spending FI number here.
Scott: So, let’s talk about how to get there as quickly as possible, making $75,000 a year. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about this is because I have a very strong opinion on this, or had a very strong opinion on this, and wrote down exactly how to get to a version of this in Set for Life, which I think you’ve read here. And I think that after 10 years, the world has changed and there’s inflation and there’s different opportunities and different challenges that people face. And so I’d love to hear your take on that. Like, how does one get to Coast FI as quickly as possible in their 20s in today’s world?
Evan: Yeah, 100%. And just clarify, I have read Set for Life and I absolutely loved it. So if I can just throw that out there, I think everybody should read it.
Scott: I think it was almost 10 years ago now, I came up with a hypothesis for how to pursue FIRE, financial independence, or a version of that, get get approach that first million dollars in net worth for somebody starting out in their 20s. And I broke down this ride to financial independence into three buckets, right? The accumulation of the first $25,000. And to get there, I figured, hey, you know, if you’re if you’re 25 and you have already taken the highest paying job that’s available to you, there’s not really much leverage on the income front. There’s nothing to invest. So how are we going to get ahead? We’re going to maybe take a side job, maybe try to generate a little bit of extra income, but really, we’re going to cut expenses. And we’re going to cut expenses by focusing on the big three expenses, which is not your daily latte, it’s your housing, transportation and food costs. And you keep those costs low by getting a roommate or living in a very cheap place relative to your income. You drive a beater economy vehicle or ideally bike or walk to work. And then you pack lunch most of the time. And that’s how you save money. And and the entertainment budget, I’m very jealous of you living in Philadelphia. You know, Eagles games, I still have to go to my first Eagles game in the link. I’ve been to a bunch of away games, but I’ve actually never, my whole life, not never gone to a Eagles game at home. And that’s not the thing to cut, right, in your budget. That’s the thing that life memories are made out of. And that’s where we’re going to spend a little bit of extra actually because the costs in those big three are really low. That’s going to enable us to accumulate a lot of cash.
Scott: And then we’re going to use that cash. I’m a big advocate of accumulating that cash after tax the first few years and foregoing the tax advantages of retirement accounts for a number of reasons. One, when we’re in this early part of the journey, we’re going to be earning much less most likely than we are later in the journey. And so the tax opportunity cost is very low relative to doing this, you know, for example, in your 30s or 40s when your career earnings may be much higher. Cash in the bank relative to low expenses is what enables opportunities. That’s what allows you to start a business or job hop or take a a job that offers much lower base pay but offers equity upside at a company or a job that is mostly commission-based or entirely commission-based. These things can really ramp your income, but they’re unavailable to somebody who spends almost all of their income and must continue to collect that salary to sustain their lifestyle.
Scott: Okay. So, so we have our tackling the big three expenses, accumulating cash in particular for the first couple of years, using that to jump to an opportunity that can really turbo charge our income. And then last, we have the long slog of investing accumulation here, right? So as part of that investing accumulation, we have our housing decision. I’m a big fan of the house hack. Um and I I know that’s one that has particularly fallen off in the last 10 years. It’s not as easy and obvious an analysis as it was for me as a a 23, 24-year-old in 2014. That was a very easy analysis. Now it’s a little harder. Maybe it’s easy in in Pennsylvania, I don’t know. Certainly harder here in Colorado. And then from there it’s index funds, you know, the traditional the traditional best practices for investing. Now we’re going to go through the tax advantaged order of operations once we’ve accumulated that first few hundred grand or so outside of those, we’re going to go through that traditional stack and we’re going to grind it out um until we get to true and lasting financial independence. So, that was a lot, right? That’s my my monologue. I condensed book’s worth of information into that. But that’s the approach I I laid out. I think you’re pursuing a version of that with a with a new twist or different flavors of it. Can you tell me where things have evolved, or at least in your mind, for how you’re going to approach things personally?
Evan: 100% and I absolutely loved that breakdown. I loved it in Set for Life and I think that a lot of the same lessons still apply and people could definitely go pursue that. Me personally on the coast FIRE journey, there’s a lot of similarities and some subtle differences. So I think first off, frugality, just like you said in the book and said here, there’s no getting around it, right? And I love the way you described it in Set for Life that it’s, you know, every dollar that you save is like a dollar and 15 cents or a dollar and 25 cents in increased income because that is real savings in your pocket right now. And I completely agree with your approach that tackling the big three, housing, transportation and food are going to really move the needle and smaller kind of entertainment purchases probably won’t move the needle as much. And I think that that’s really exciting for young people because they often feel like, well, if I save money, that means I can never see my friends or I can never have a fun experience. And that’s simply not the case. And I would even go beyond that that I think people that find themselves deep in the weeds of cutting small expenses are sometimes kidding themselves because, you know, maybe you have your you’re living in a big place with two guest bedrooms and each day you’re miserable on the way to work because you don’t stop for a coffee. And sure, yeah, you’re saving $5, $7 each day, but you’d be far better off probably just cutting those big expenses down a little bit and then enjoying those small luxuries to enrich your life. So frugality, 100% agree.
Evan: The first difference that I think for the traditional FIRE approach versus Coast FIRE is really taking advantage of those tax advantage retirement accounts. I think that Coast FIRE itself because all of the money is being earmarked for a traditional retirement age, at least past 59 and a half when current tax law says that we can access those tax advantage retirement accounts. The advantage in my eyes is that you can really be tax optimal. So you can max out that 401k, obviously getting that full company match, IRA, HSA, and for I think a lot of young people pursuing Coast FIRE, that will be all the money that you invest in that year going into those tax advantage accounts. But I will fully acknowledge that you do give up some of that flexibility, whether or not you’re aiming to to start a business or something like that.
Scott: Awesome. And so do you personally do that? Do you put everything into these retirement accounts and the goal is racing towards the Coast FI number and then kind of pop it up and saying, what are the next options from there?
Evan: Exactly. Yeah, that’s my current approach. I I started this journey with only my W2 income and I had my emergency fund, I had some operating cash just in my checking account, and then every other dollar was going into my tax advantage retirement accounts. I didn’t have any money in brokerages, I wasn’t putting any after tax money at all.
Scott: You’re talking about that in past tense. What’s present tense?
Evan: As I’m kind of starting these side bets that that we’ve talked about before. So, you know, working on my social media campaign and and stuff like that and additional income is coming in. Now, I have money in excess of what I can put into these tax advantage retirement accounts. Now I am starting to build a bit of an after tax position, which again, that’s why I acknowledge, right? If your goal is to to do to start a business or to go into a different direction, a non-traditional direction, then building up that cash or cash equivalents is very important.
Scott: So tell me about how are you feeling about your journey with money at the beginning of this this process and have you achieved Coast FI? How how are you feeling as you approach or or get past your Coast FI number?
Evan: Well, I think that it’s exciting because it’s a spectrum on the way there and each milestone you’re building either a larger retirement income or you’re pulling your retirement age, your coast fire retirement age forward. So currently I have about $200,000 invested, which puts me I think around 65 in the $100,000 per year income range, inflation adjusted income. And so that is exciting to me because then I know like, all right, well, even if everything went wrong right now and I could only my savings rate went to zero, I could only cover my day-to-day expenses, when I get to that retirement age, I already can count on a projected retirement income of $100,000 in inflation adjusted retirement income. So it’s really exciting to me and it gives me a lot of peace of mind.
Scott: How much do you have in your retirement accounts right now that would lead to this 100,000? Can you walk us through the math you just shared?
Evan: So currently, I have about 200,000, I think it’s $198,000 invested in my tax advantage retirement accounts. And that’s basically all the money I have outside of some savings. And so if I were to stop today and allow that money to grow over time, then it would put me around $3 million or something like that. And that would put me in the 100k range for withdrawal rates. And so my goal is to instead continue to grow from 200,000 to 500,000 by contributing about $3,300 per month. At 30, with 500k, that money’s projected to go to $5 million at age 65, which would yield me a $200,000 per year in inflation adjusted retirement income.
Scott: That’s awesome. I want to go back a moment here and talk about real estate again because I think that that’s the biggest change here. Not real estate specifically, but the I’m going to max out these retirement accounts and get to this Coast FI number and then kind of pop up and look at these next set of options. It sounds like there’s actually a little bit of an evolution in your particular story from that where there is a little bit more of a prioritization of after tax investments or liquidity because of that optionality that that’s uh starting to come into your life already. But in my case, the the rental property math was overwhelmingly powerful. It was way better than than, you know, in any average condition than these 401k or tax advantaged accounts at that moment in time, right? Because I put down $12,000 on a $240,000 duplex here in the Denver area. I got a 95% leveraged mortgage. The payment I I’m now I’m reaching, what was the heck was the payment? It was somewhere in the like $1200 range. I’ll have to go look that up. I I’ve talked about this a million times and I’m forgetting the number now. And then the other side rented for about 1,100 and I had a roommate paying some money. And so that that becomes very compelling math, right? I think it was like 1400, 15 1550 somewhere in that range, all in for the the payment, property taxes, insurance, all that kind of stuff. So, that that’s a really compelling story for financials, right? That offsets rent. That’s a direct cash inflow. There’s amortization going on, there’s appreciation that’s highly leveraged, it’s less risky. To me, Philadelphia today, the greater Philadelphia area today, offers the same if not better opportunities on paper that Denver offered in 2014. And yet, that is not a priority for you. I think you mentioned you’re actually going to um right before we were talking about this, you mentioned you’re you’re living in an apartment right now and you’re going to rent another apartment. You’re going to upgrade a big upgrade, going from a one bed to a two bed, 600 square feet to 7750 or so, right?
Evan: Yeah.
Scott: Classic FI FI approach there. Walk me through, why isn’t real estate appealing to you and a lot of other Gen Zers right now?
Evan: I think we’re told and we’ve been hearing a lot that like real estate is really expensive, and I think that you’re right that there is opportunity for real estate investment. I think that it’s just not quite so obvious and maybe I I think I would have to develop a certain level of expertise in order to pursue those opportunities. and it’s not quite so clear cut as maybe it was in the past. That’s just my perception. I don’t I don’t have like substantial data to back that up, but I think for me personally, the answer is just simplicity. That it’s I’m putting money in broad market, index funds, they’re in tax advantage retirement accounts. I’m doing simple math, living in a cheap apartment. I’m not dealing with tenants. I’m not working with loan officers. I am just doing the simple things as best as I can and that is really appealing to me. And I think that real estate could be an exciting opportunity in the future, especially because when you get into this FIRE world, there’s so many people that are so passionate about the way that real estate can cash flow and lower your expenses. But I think for me personally, just as someone getting involved in it early on and for a lot of my peers who are young people starting to get interested in the ideas of financial independence, there’s something so exciting about the fact of just earning a W2 income, going through a series of investment steps, savings, investing, certain accounts, and just following that path forward, never having to deal with those physical assets or anything like that. Just living in an apartment wherever you want to live. It’s exciting.
Scott: Awesome. Love it. I guess the question then would comes up is, are there going to be any side bets in in your case, you have a Instagram and and other things you’re working on, which I think were for a while very popular but not generating any income. Maybe they are generating some income now that’s beginning to be more interesting. Walk me through, what is the the side hustle or the opportunity that is accessible to someone who’s 25 today more broadly, if not the real estate? Because surely folks that are pursuing FIRE want some other outlet beyond their their day job and the investment approach in many cases. What do you think are the the places to go and look for those opportunities?
Evan: Yeah, that’s such a great question because I think so much of someone’s financial independence journey is dictated by their savings rate and we talked about the frugality size of things, cutting expenses, but the other side of that same coin is growing income and I think a lot of people, it’s not talked about enough. And so something that’s exciting about today’s economy versus when you were talking about your starting your journey in 2014 is that you have such a large gig economy today. So I know lots of people who do like side hustles, whether it’s Uber or something like that, and they can earn income that way. But I think also something that’s really exciting is freelancing. So one of my friends is a video editor and she is constantly getting, you know, requests from different people. She has a portfolio, it’s out there on her LinkedIn, and she’s a very talented video editor and there is such a desire for people to edit a couple videos here or kind of be a part-time video editor. And I think that that applies to a lot of different roles, whether it’s consulting in your professional role, that that has really evolved in a lot of ways, especially with virtual work. So I think for young people, there’s there’s a lot of opportunities to seek out those extra ways to earn income, which can really supercharge your financial independence journey.
Scott: I think that makes sense. It makes intuitive sense to me like in 2014, those opportunities were there. They were just a little harder to access, a little like the infrastructure was not quite in play to make it very efficient or easy to translate additional time into money. And I tried multiple times. Maybe I was just bad at it. That’s another possibility, right? I was bad at those things and and better at the the real estate component. It seems like it’s believable to me that today that infrastructure is so much better developed in the gig economy that that’s just the play. It’s just so efficient to turn time into reasonably high high output dollars per hour, if that’s what you want in addition to your your W2 job, making real estate, for example, maybe a little less appealing for a lot of folks. There’s many more options that are at your fingertips, I imagine, you, Evan, right now, than than buying a a duplex. That’s one option, maybe even an attractive one, among many other attractive options for generating additional income.
Evan: And I think it’s never been easier also outside of just applying your existing professional skills that if you’ve ever wanted to start a business, it’s never been easier to put together a website, develop a a set of skills that you’re interested in putting out there in the market. It’s so easy these days to do that. As I started to do it for my social media platforms, I’m constantly encouraging my friends now that if you have something that you love to do, that you come home, you can’t stop thinking about it at work, you’re doing it a little bit at lunch and you’re just enjoying it so much, try to make that a business. There there’s so much opportunity to do that now and it’s really never been easier.
Scott: Okay. So I have another question here about Coast FI, right? We talk about the middle-class trap, you hear on bigger Pockets money, which some people take issue with middle-class trap. It means that it’s it’s not really a middle class thing. It means that you have a lot of your wealth in your 401k or your tax advantaged accounts. You have your home equity and that’s the vast majority of your wealth. Maybe maybe you only have a few thousand dollars or could only could only last a few months without uh wage paying work without having to tap into those areas. That’s a real problem for a lot of people who listen to personal finance podcasts, right? I’ve done everything right. 15 years have gone by and I’m a millionaire or close to it, but it doesn’t feel day-to-day like I actually have this optionality in my life. And there’s many ways to escape this, right? There’s uh psychological reset, like of, oh, I’m a millionaire. I can just move to Coast FI. There’s mechanics like accessing, you know, uh money via 72T or SEPP, substantially equal periodic payment distributions or Roth conversions, for example. But in practice, we also find that those are very unappealing in the moment in many real life situations, right? So yes, you can do a Roth conversion or a substantial equal periodic payment, but if you do, you’re going to be taking that 72T for decades, and that’s going to limit your optionality actually, especially if you want to stay under modified adjusted gross income clips to qualify for health care subsidies, for example, or, you know, the Roth conversion or the those uh 72T distributions are unappealing if, for example, one spouse is still working and doesn’t quite cover the bills. Have you thought about this? Is this where you from a Coast FI perspective as a limiting some kind of options at that point in your life?
Evan: I think that that’s a very real risk. I’ve heard you guys talk about that a lot and I think that it’s super interesting. I think that Coast FI, like you mentioned, is kind of like a psychological reframe that people maybe do have more flexibility than they’re acknowledging. And if they put together all their retirement investment assets and did the math on their Coast FI number, they would realize, well, you know, my savings rate could be hovering around 5% or even zero, all the way down to zero and I would have plenty when I reach retirement. And I think that psychological reframe could help a lot, but I’d completely agree that sometimes that’s easier said than done, even for myself. And I think that the simple answer to that is kind of like this, in my mind like a super optimal allocation, you know, is that you have you’re maxing out these tax advantage retirement accounts and then you’re also building up like a large financial runway, a big cash, cash equivalent, high yield savings account bond, something like that that you can access immediately and that gives you that flexibility in addition with the psychological understanding that you’ve already bought your traditional retirement income.
Scott: I also think like Coast FI is I I I got to just keep grounding myself here. It’s just a milestone, right? It’s like, it’s I would imagine almost nobody stops entirely at Coast FI, right? It’s just and then I’m done. It’s a, it’s a milestone. I’m going to keep accumulating. I have the option at least to take my foot off the gas, pursue other things, take additional risks, begin doing doing things differently. But I know that I’ve checked that box for retirement. I think we have to keep grounding it in that context. And I think that many people, actually Ramit Sethi had a great post on this the other day uh that I felt I thought was fantastic. It was about a couple that was like, we live paycheck to paycheck as a high income earners, but they also maxed out two 401ks, did two backdoor Roth contributions, maxed out the HSA, they just didn’t accumulate anything else beyond that. And they they were like, I live, we live paycheck to paycheck. And that’s America today for the community of people who listen to personal finance podcasts, whereas other folks in this country who are are struggling, they truly do live paycheck to paycheck. And that that perception of your reality is really different from person to person when it comes to money, which I find I find fascinating.
Evan: Yeah. And and you mentioned Scott that it’s a milestone which I agree with in some ways and I think that if you’re on this path and you’re enjoying your your path to financial independence, it could be a milestone where you reach Coast FI and then you’re like, okay, well maybe I want to pursue traditional financial independence and retire early and start to build this after tax position and I’m going to do that from the job that I’m working right now, but I don’t necessarily think that will be the case for everybody. That I think that when you do reach that coast fire number, you can say, all right, I’ve been earning $10,000 per month and I’ve been investing four to $5,000 worth of that. But now that I’ve reached this Coast FI number and I no longer need to contribute to my traditional retirement age, can I go earn 5,000 on my own? Can I go start my own business? Can I go take a different job? So I think it is a milestone in some ways, but it also could be kind of a fork in the road for some people where they truly do take a different path now that they’ve reached this.
Scott: Awesome. So, tell me about what your lifestyle looks like day-to-day as a as someone journeying to coast FI.
Evan: For me, like we talked about, I really aim in tackling kind of the big three expenses that I have and I try not to worry so much about the smaller things. So, I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia. There’s lots of great suburbs with exciting towns. I live in one of them. Me and my girlfriend share a really small, really old apartment. You know, it’s got different issues. It’s got no amenities. We have a communal laundry room. None of that bothers me. I have a 2015 Nissan Sentra.
Scott: Nissan Sentra is a rookie move. The Corolla, the OG vehicle.
Evan: Time will tell. But the car squeaks as I leave the parking lot. Don’t care. Air conditioning doesn’t work. I occasionally bring an ice cube that I keep in my cup holder to rub on myself to keep cool. So, none of that bothers me. But, you know, my friend has a birthday party. We have no problem going to the birthday party, bringing presents, going to out to the bars, hanging out with friends. So those things we don’t worry about so much. We go to the Philly’s games, but the big expenses we try to keep as low as possible because I found that really moves the needle. And in addition, like we discussed, I’m working on my side hustle and also trying to grow my W2 income.
Scott: So day-to-day life looks pretty good except for the commute in the summer.
Evan: Yes, yeah, the commute in the summer is pretty brutal.
Scott: Is it bikeable?
Evan: It’s not bikeable.
Scott: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. So, I mean, it sounds pretty good. And I I will say that, you know, those are the things that really matter. A lot of the stuff that I find the best from you though is that you seem to cost out the everyday expenses better than almost anybody I’ve ever met. You know, for example, you’ll say, have a low-cost breakfast with me and you’ll cost out the per egg cost, the the slice of cheese, the bagel. Tell me about what what got you into into doing that analysis.
Evan: Yeah, so I I make these little videos are about a minute long where I’ll share, spend a low cost morning with me and everything that I’ll do, I’ll break down down to the penny, which I really started more as kind of an exercise, right? To kind of show people like what do these things actually cost that you’re consuming each morning? It’s not something that I’ll do, you know, like a Sunday morning, I’m taking a bite of an apple and I’ll think, got six cent bite there. It really has been very eye opening to me, especially comparing like the cost of eating at home. You know, you you put together like a delicious breakfast at home. It might be $4 at most, like $6 compared to eating out could be $20. And so, in my mind, it gives people something to think about. It gives them a way of considering their own costs, even down to the minute detail.
Scott: As a parent now, you there’s like a different math. I haven’t really thought about this, but I have to think about like, okay, the banana here has gone three quarters of the way down my infant’s, you know, mouth in there. I guess I’m having the last, you know, third of of this thing. Here’s a pancake that’s mostly eaten. I guess that’s, you know, that one’s for me there. So I have to I have to cost those out with my family. It probably be fairly entertaining a little video like yours.
Evan: Yeah, it’s tons of fun. You’re like the cleanup crew.
Scott: Okay. So, I thought it’d be fun to end today’s episode by highlighting the similarities and differences in our two approaches to moving toward financial independence at age 25. And so I’ll I’ll go first and I’ll say, when I was 25, I was pursuing all-out financial independence. It was an all-out pursuit of financial independence. And I did that by focusing on the big three expenses: housing, transportation, and food. I took that to the next level by focusing on house hacking, accumulating almost all of my wealth after tax so that I could buy a duplex and get my housing costs to zero or as close as possible to zero. I was actively exploring side hustles and alternative income streams. I focused on growing my main income source, not by increasing my salary, but by joining a startup and seeking at risk compensation including equity and sales opportunities. I was reading dozens, maybe approaching 50 business books a year and networking as much as I possibly could in the pursuit of luck, opportunities that would uh come my way as a result of that. But I also made time for plenty of hobbies. I played rugby and uh, frolicked, uh, as the word I’ll use, around Denver doing 20-something things with this kind of work hard, play hard mentality. So, Evan, how does that contrast or compare to your situation right now, as a 25-year-old in Philly?
Evan: I think like we said, there’s lots of similarities, but there’s also some differences. So my approach is definitely more reaching that coast FI milestone and then enjoying that financial flexibility and allowing it to help me pivot. So totally agree first off on focusing on the big three expenses. Those are the things that really move the needle, housing, transportation, food. The difference, I think initially, is that as the housing market has changed a little bit, I’ve chosen to pursue more of a super cheap apartment, living with my girlfriend, splitting those expenses versus the house hack with the roommates. I also focused on growing my W2 income, two sides of the same coin there, expenses and income increases that savings rate. As we discussed, building a large cash position while also pursuing that Coast Fire gives kind of that immediate flexibility and that financial runway that we’ve talked about. Also, pursuing plenty of hobbies. I I haven’t heard that frolicking before, but I really like that. I used the term meandering the other day or stopping and smelling the roses. So, totally agree there. You have to balance enjoying today with preparing for tomorrow. And with the goal of then reaching that Coast FI milestone and allowing that to be a crossroads of either starting a business or doing a job pivot. But altogether focusing on prioritizing flexibility with the goal of achieving a modest level of financial flexibility rather than that true financial independence.
Scott: Awesome. And I love your approach. I have so much respect uh for for this evolution and this and this tweak on it. That’s why I was so excited to invite you on the show to co-host with us today and and share this. The differences and the way we’re approaching things are just wonderful and you’re you’re absolutely crushing it and have are contributing a tremendous amount to the financial independence world with the example that you set here at 25. So, congratulations on everything you’ve achieved there and I love the the contrast and the different approaches, the different right answers to this challenge.
Evan: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. and I totally agree. I love all the different flavors of Fi and I think that they can apply to a bunch of different people and the bigger we can make the community, in my opinion, the better.
Scott: Awesome, man. Well, where can people find out more about you, Evan?
Evan: You can find me across all social media platforms at the_financial_foundation where I share my frugal living, my pursuit of Coast FIRE, and all the things I’ve learned about personal finance.
Scott: Well, Evan, thank you so much for joining us on BiggerPockets money. I think this is the third time you’ve been on the show. Hopefully more to come. So, really appreciate it and uh have a wonderful rest of your week.
Evan: Thanks, Scott. You too.
Scott: All right. As always, we have a budding website. I think that’s the right word, budding website at biggerpocketsmoney.com. I am building a big chunk of this with a couple of helpers here and having a blast doing it. It’s still under construction, but every week we’re releasing new cool things. We’ve got a couple of calculators there. One of the ones that I did last week that was actually pretty cool was a budget calculator. Not like a random spreadsheet where you put numbers in, but I actually went through and compiled a bunch of databases and I tried to get a picture of what people like you spend, people of your same household, your same income quintile, the location that you live in, geography. I went to great lengths to get child care costs if you have child care to help you understand if those are reasonable in your location. So, check that out at biggerpocketsmoney.com/budget and uh tell me what you think about that and give me any feedback for evolutions or the next steps on it. I think it’s pretty cool, and it’ll be pretty helpful. That’s just one of many tools that I’ve been hard at work building and having an absolute blast building.
Scott: All right, we’ll see you guys Friday. That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. He is Evan Lawler, and I am Scott Trench saying, let’s fly, pie.
