Mindy Jensen: Everybody’s financial journey looks completely different, yet it’s easy to assume that there’s one right way to build wealth. Today, we’re talking about why comparing or judging someone else’s FI journey can distract you from building the life that’s right for you. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my Judgy McJudgers and co-host Scott Trench. Just kidding, Scott. You’re one of the least judgmental people that I know.
Scott Trench: That was a pretty good intro, Mindy.
Evan Lawler: Pretty good.
Scott Trench: All right, let’s get into it here. And let’s start off by talking about the episode you did with The Money Guys, which I think this episode concept kind of stemmed from. That episode went viral for us, like over 100,000 views in the first week. And there are 800 comments on there. Most of them are very positive and thanking you for really wonderful transparency and honesty about your position. But there’s a couple of pretty clear criticisms from the thread. The ones that deserve a response, I think, are in these 3 buckets. One is your concentration in individual stocks, 85% concentration in 5 companies and 70% concentration in just 2 Elon Musk-backed companies at this point. The next criticism was you’re really, really wealthy and you’re not spending like you should have. Mindy, you went on Ramit’s podcast and he told you to lighten up and go enjoy your life. You’re rich. Why aren’t you doing that? And then I think the third criticism was, what are these people doing? Just pay the taxes and move on with your life in that context. And I think you’ve been very gracious and really responded to some of those and talked about those. And I think you had a great update with Carl, but I wanted to stick up for you here on this podcast and say, here’s my opinion to this and my stance to these naysayers, some of whom were kind of mean to you, if that’s all right.
Mindy Jensen: I will allow you to say that, Scott, ’cause I agree with you. But these 3 points are pretty valid with regards to the individual stocks. There was a really great comment. Somebody said something like, oh, this is like finding out that Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger actually made all their money off of crypto. And I’m like, wow, you think I’m like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger?
Scott Trench: Yeah.
Mindy Jensen: That’s what I took away from that comment. I didn’t think that I had made a secret of the fact that Carl and I have most of our money in individual stocks. We do have index funds. When we started investing in like 1995, ’96, we didn’t actually know that index funds existed, but we knew that stocks existed. I don’t know if you know this, Scott, in the newspaper they used to print out the closing price of every single stock on the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ or something like that in the newspaper every single day in the business section. So I was aware of all of these. I followed Berkshire Hathaway, and they didn’t print out the individual closings of index funds as far as I can remember. And I don’t think they do it anymore at all, but individual stocks is how you invested according to my brain, according to Carl’s brain. So when we discovered the concept of index funds, we did start moving money over into these index funds. But I had always thought I was more transparent than apparently I am with the fact that the bulk of our wealth is in individual stocks.
Scott Trench: There’s 2 sides to this that are fair, right? First, one is you said this dozens of times, you literally post your net worth and maintain a blog over 1,500 days that has discussed this at length. This has been a years-long phenomenon. Anyone who follows the BiggerPockets Money Podcast closely will know that. And if you don’t follow the BiggerPockets Money Podcast closely, or you listen, tune into it all the time, we are champions of index funds as well in there. And so that could be legitimately confusing. So I think that you have been very defensible about this and very open about this. There’s no secret here. And anyone who wanted to research that could find that out. And also, if you weren’t doing casual research or just finding BiggerPockets Money, that may be confusing to you if you hadn’t caught one of the dozens of episodes that you do. Well, at the beginning of this, Scott, you said Mindy invests in individual stocks.
Mindy Jensen: 85% of her net worth is in 5 stocks. What does that say, Scott? Does that say risky portfolio or does that say super safe portfolio to you?
Scott Trench: That says risky portfolio. But let’s talk about this real quick, because we talk a lot about FIRE portfolios, and I can’t tell you how many people come on the show here and we talk about a portfolio that has a little bit of real estate, you know, a pretty passive broad-based index fund portfolio, and they’re on the cusp of FI and looking to cut back from work or those types of things, and that’s great. That is a core way people get wealthy in this country on a middle or upper middle class income and build wealth over a few decades and then actually live out an early retirement. But I will tell you that overwhelmingly, when we talk about portfolios that are much larger than that, right, that eclipse well past $5 million to $10 million, $15 million plus, when I look at those portfolios, overwhelmingly, at least the initial story is one of concentration. The investor got there because they have employer stock that took off. How many Nvidia or Apple or Tesla stories have you heard where that’s a core holding someone has because they joined the company and had the employer stock? Right. That’s a very common outcome. How many times has somebody come in and said, hey, I’ve got this rental property that I inherited or that I bought 25 years ago in San Francisco, and a third of my net worth is in this one property or this one structure? I talked to an investor that had, you know, a nearly $20 million net worth, vast majority of it, $15 million in real estate in one geography, very concentrated position. So it is relatively common among the ultra-rich, you know, which I include you in, right? Not middle class here, but among the top 1%, especially for those who get there early in life, for there to be a concentrated position that got them there. And then the question is, when do you move on from that concentrated position to a more diversified portfolio? And I think that’s where we have, on the one hand, very reasonable path to some construct, very common path to take a lottery ticket on Tesla with $2,000. Oh, you put all your money into Tesla. You put $2,000 into Tesla. That was your basis in this. And it’s worth what, millions now? Hundreds of thousands?
Mindy Jensen: Millions.
Scott Trench: Millions in one stock. So you’re going to say, oh, Mindy was reckless by putting $2,000 into Tesla? Okay, like that doesn’t make any sense. It’s very reasonable, very common in the investor population for a small sleeve of a portfolio to be on these types of investments. I do this with certain syndication investments. I’ll invest up to 1% of my net worth, my financial portfolio, into syndicated investments in various cases, and I do that with a small sleeve, like 3% to 5% of my portfolio, like 5 active syndication bets right now. The rest of my portfolio is in more traditional stocks and real estate. So anyways, I wanted to come in here and say that is not crazy. And I think where the criticism does land a little bit is, when is it time to move from this concentrated position to a more diversified portfolio? And it’s arguable that time was last year or the year before or whatever, and now it is time to begin thinking about that. And that’s where I think that lands. But I think it’s very short-sighted, or you just don’t know what you’re talking about, if you say that this is a crazy or unique situation. This is not a very unique situation for the top 1% of wealth holders in America to get there on these tailwinds. You can call it luck, you can call it unrepeatable or whatever, but it’s not uncommon in that cohort in my experience.
Mindy Jensen: Another similar vein criticism was that I’m telling people to invest in index funds and I’m not doing it myself. I think somebody said, rules for thee and not for me. These are highly risky stocks. If I was to sit here and say to our vast audience, you should be 27% in Tesla or 70% in Elon Musk-owned companies or Elon Musk-controlled companies, are people going to take that advice? No. So why would I say that? Also, that would be very irresponsible of me. First of all, we don’t give advice. This is information only. But I think it’s really irresponsible for somebody to put that much money into one stock when they’re not ready for that type of risk. Now, the reason that we have so much money in this account, like you said, Scott, is that the appreciation has been ridiculous. We started investing in Tesla in 2012. That’s 14 years of appreciation. I didn’t just put $1 million in Tesla, but I’m comfortable keeping it in there because I’m comfortable with the risk.
Scott Trench: With respect to the SpaceX investment, I believe you did put a larger amount down, but still a single-digit percentage of your financial wealth at that point in time, which has grown significantly from there. Is that correct?
Mindy Jensen: We have a total of $500,000 in SpaceX over 2 different entry points. The first time was $250,000, and I think our net worth was like $5 million at that time. And then the second one was an additional $250,000, and I think our net worth was more like $7 or $8 million at that time.
Scott Trench: Okay. At that point, you had 5% to 7% of your wealth into that stock, right? So that’s on the aggressive end, but still dramatically different than the context of your current portfolio, right? So you can make an argument, hey, that’s still an aggressive side bet here. It’s not really a side bet, it’s actually a meaningful position in your portfolio, but it’s not nearly as crazy as people are making this out to be in the anonymous comment section there on the YouTube channel. So I think that that’s an important nuance here. Now it’s a very disproportionate part of your portfolio, and I think the Money Guys were right on to say, probably time to move on, and hopefully it doesn’t, you know, continue going down between now and August when your lockup ends. I wanted to start with this individual stock concentration because that seems so crazy to people who have never been there, but it’s actually not an uncommon phenomenon at all among the 1% who get there very early in life, because it’s almost definitional that these tailwinds are the things that rocket you to success if you’re not a very high-income earner. Doesn’t mean that it’s the best practice. There’s probably lots of losers out there for each of the winners like you. That’s a real pushback from people. But I think this is a pattern that I have seen many times. So that’s the first point here. The second point that I think people were making, were bringing up from a critical perspective, was Mindy doesn’t spend money and she went on Ramit’s show and she hasn’t learned at all from it. And this one I want to call bullshit on, because I know Mindy. I hang out with Mindy a lot. Mindy is literally in the process of constructing her dream home. Right? It’s on a freaking golf course, and she doesn’t golf. So I’ll do that with you. I don’t really golf either, but I will. I enjoy it occasionally and having several beers. But you’re literally just building a home, a dream home. You’re going to move in next week. This is a million-dollar home, right, in a very nice area near Boulder, Colorado. Like, are you kidding me here? That is direct derivation from the Ramit Sethi Show. Now, knowing you, you have a little bit of difficulty thinking of yourself as a wealthy person. You didn’t enjoy your fancy restaurant experience very much because it didn’t feel right to you.
Evan Lawler: That’s okay. You can’t—
Mindy Jensen: You went to the fancy restaurant.
Scott Trench: And didn’t like it.
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, for the most part, I am spending a lot more than I used to. You should see my Monarch account. Monarch pulls from my bank account, which is where I write checks to the builder. So it looks like I’m spending, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, which I actually am, but that’s not my living expenses, that’s the building expenses. So anybody who says that I’m not spending money, I might not spend money like Ramit spends money, but we have different goals and we have different values. And he really likes spending money on travel. He doesn’t have any children.
Scott Trench: Where have you traveled in the last year, and what’s your upcoming trips?
Mindy Jensen: Well, I have been to Amsterdam this year, and I’ve been on a couple of cruises, and coming up, I’ve just got conferences, but we’re going on a cruise for Christmas. The girls and Carl and I are going on a cruise for, I wanna say, 10 days around the Caribbean. And next May we’re going to Japan, and I am flying first class from LA to Japan, which is a lot of money. But also, like, have you ever flown first class? It’s really awesome. And I don’t even have long legs. Scott, you have long legs. How do you fit in like an economy seat?
Scott Trench: I’ve never flown first class, although that’s— I have this problem more than you do. And I do not have the frugality identity problem that you do, you know, at this point in my life on here. But like, this is the problem here. You went on the show, but you were like, we have this huge problem of living our life. Like, my life is living here. What are you talking about? That is absolutely bonkers from my seat. You have a rotation of friends coming through at all times. Your girls are happy and healthy and thriving in their school and college. You are going on trips all around the country on cruises with your friends. You have people over, you’re drinking craft beer. You prefer craft beer over, from what I understand, over fancy bourbons or whatever. So do you have to drink the $150 bourbon instead of the $8 craft beer? No.
Mindy Jensen: I would drink the $150 bourbon.
Scott Trench: Okay, well go get your bourbon then. But like, from what I can tell, like, this is crazy feedback. You know, when we meet up, you show up in your freaking fancy sports car. What is that thing? It’s like a Toyota?
Mindy Jensen: It’s a 1987 Toyota MR2, but that was my high school dream car. And I was sitting around talking to Carl last year, and I said, you know, I think I wanna buy another one of those. This is my third one. I think I wanna buy another MR2. He’s like, okay, fine. I go online, I find this car instantly. It’s in Utah, so I bought it. Carl flew out there to pick it up, and then I went to a wedding and then flew out there to like drive it home with him. It’s just a fun little car, and it’s not an intelligent purchase, but that’s okay. Do I wanna say intelligent? It’s not gonna like get me anything. I could have definitely used the money on something else in a better way, but it made me happy, so I did it. And the house that we’re building, Scott, I paid $500,000 for the house that was there and then scraped it. And I’ve paid— I think this build is going to end up costing us $1 million. So that’s $1.5 into this house. I would say this house is worth $1.2, $1.3 if I wanted to sell it right now. Okay.
Scott Trench: Like, Ramit worked. Thank you, Ramit. Like, that’s the thing here. Like, again, this is where I come back to, like, I want to defend Mindy and Carl here, because you went on the show. So to the commenters, in fairness to some of these commenters who are, you know, some of them were reasonable, some of them were nasty. They can go suck it. But the ones who were reasonable, they’re coming in and saying, well, it didn’t work, there’s still this mindset issue where there’s a scarcity mindset in there, and there’s a little bit of truth to that here, and it does not really reflect the reality that I see in your life here, right? Like, sure, there is opportunities to spend more, but like, that has clearly worked, and your lifestyle is unimaginably different, I think, today than it was 6 years ago for the Jensen family. So that has largely been addressed, and it will be an ongoing challenge, but like, man, that is just untrue, that you are living like a miser at this point, even if that is a little bit in your head.
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, I mean, this is a lifelong mentality. My parents are very frugal, probably bordering on cheap, and it comes from their growing up. Their upbringing was— my dad’s one of 7, my mom’s one of 8. There was never enough money for all those kids. Having them grow up like this, they have passed that on to me with their frugality. I don’t know if that’s like a nature versus nurture thing, but it’s definitely in the nurture. It’s just not my mentality to spend all that I can. And what is my 4% rule, $400,000 a year? I don’t think I could do that. There’s just not things that I want. I don’t deny myself anything. I used to have a neighbor. All the ladies in the neighborhood were— I wasn’t there that night. They were all playing the, oh, which one of our husbands would you be with if it wasn’t your own husband game, which is a dumb game to play, but whatever. And she said—
Scott Trench: This is a game people play?
Mindy Jensen: I don’t know. It was— they were having this conversation anyway. One of the girls said, oh, I would be with her husband because he lets her spend whatever she wants. I would never be with Mindy’s husband because she can’t spend any money. And then, of course, another one of my friends tells me this later. I’m like, what are you talking about? I could spend all the money that I want. That’s my problem. It’s— and Carl’s problem. But it’s like, my problem is I don’t ask Carl for permission to spend money. It’s just not something that comes easy to me. It’s not something that comes naturally to me, but I’m getting much better at it, Scott.
Scott Trench: The third thing that was criticized here, I think we’ve put this one to bed, right? Yes, there’s a mentality thing here that I think will be a lifelong thing to work on, but it’s not like this is not translating. The wealth and the feedback you’ve gotten is not translated to clear changes in your spending pattern, and you are clearly enjoying the fruits of your wealth, even if it doesn’t register always in the way that you present it to yourself to some degree. The third criticism was, why don’t these people just pay taxes and move on with their lives, right? And the core issue, again, is that you have this huge concentrated position in SpaceX in your IRA, right? And so how do we move our IRA in general, which is very large, and this position out into a post-tax situation. And this feedback, I think, is just nuts. What are we doing here, right? You’re already building your dream home. You’re already doing what you need to do in terms of spending. Why on earth would you not optimize your tax portfolio over the next few years if that is not in fact conflicting with your lifestyle and your desired target portfolio allocation? Obviously, you’re going to do that. If someone has a problem with that, then we’re clearly the wrong podcast for you, because this is not what we’re going to talk about here. It’s like, “just pay the taxes inefficiently and move on with it.” But we’re going to make an educated guess about what is the right way to play this game from a tax-efficient standpoint, right? Maintain and grow financial freedom. And then if that’s maintained, figure out the other things you want to do with your wealth. But surely that’s not pay taxes to the government at the maximum level. Of course, you’re going to optimize your strategy for that approach, as long as it is not also constricting the other parts here. And again, I think that that is a fair criticism. So there’s the part of, “what’s wrong with these people? Why don’t they want to pay taxes?” Okay, that’s bonkers. You’re not going to like the show if that’s your feedback. But “the fear of paying taxes is preventing me from living my life,” that is a more valid criticism. But I think also debunked when we frame your life as exactly what you want for the most part at this point in time.
Mindy Jensen: One comment that I saw in there is I said, “I’m a better steward of my money than the government is.” And somebody was like, “oh, what, do you provide Medicare and Medicaid? Are you supplying the war and all of this?” I love this Robert Fulghum quote: “It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and our Air Force has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber.” I don’t like war. I would love it if all of our military was out of business and world peace prevailed. I’m not going to say that that’s ever going to happen, but it sure would make my heart sing. That’s what I was saying, or trying to say, when I made that comment on the show. Carl and I have talked about the tax issue, and we have set ourselves up with a pretty hefty tax bill. So I would like to mitigate RMDs. RMD stands for required minimum distributions, because I want to pull that money out on my timeline, not on a timeline that somebody else dictates. Not paying attention to it doesn’t help you do that. All of a sudden you’re like, “oh, I’m 73 and now I’ve got RMDs. Crud, I meant to do something earlier.” So I wanted to bring up the whole tax thing. And if you are listening to this show, like you said, Scott, you’re probably looking to optimize your taxes and optimize other things. And if you want to optimize your taxes, there are plenty of years past that I could have topped up my current tax bracket. Is it 22% or 24%? Or maybe even 12% in some years, I could have topped it up by doing a Roth conversion, or by selling some stock in my after-tax portfolio, taking advantage of the 0% capital gains tax, long-term capital gains, that I never did. So I’m glad that they brought up different ways to optimize taxes. But this whole show is about optimizing all of your money in every single way, and taxes is one of those ways.
Scott Trench: That’s right. Again, just to sum it up, I think it’s a very valid critique if people walked away thinking these people don’t want to pay taxes and their fear of paying taxes is preventing them from living their lives. And to be fair, that is how some of it came across at times in those two episodes. But to me, that’s not reflective of reality. And if we accept that premise, then of course you’re going to try to minimize lifetime tax burden for you and your estate with this large amount of money. And that’s absolutely the right move for you to make in your context in this situation. So I wanted to put that out there. So those are the three criticisms. Now I want to transition to this talk about judging other people’s financial independence journey, because we’re going to talk about the Trench family financial plan in a few weeks. And I think mine is going to be much more boring than yours. Sneak preview, I have real estate, I have a stock portfolio, I have a cash position that’s very much in line with what the Money Guys recommended for you. And I have a small sleeve, less than 5% of my net worth, worth in side bets. That excludes my equity interest in BiggerPockets and other private investments there. So I have a very conservative interpretation of my net worth, and it excludes my home and cars and those types of things. So that’s my portfolio. It’s probably the whole show there, but mine’s very boring. And it is also almost an opposite conviction to what you’re doing here, because I am very skeptical of the ability of Elon Musk’s companies, Tesla and SpaceX, to meet targets from here. I don’t think they’ve really actually met their targets over the last five years. I think they’re just trading at enormous multiples in a general sense, and it hasn’t really reflected the promises coming to fruition, although he has produced undeniably clear, valuable technology in the rockets and the cars and the batteries, among other things. I can hold those things at once. My portfolio actually has a little bit more of a tilt towards the value side and away from these parts of the market in my equity sleeve.
Mindy Jensen: So Scott, have you done any research on Tesla or SpaceX and how they do their business? Do you do any sort of reading about them, or is it more like just in passing, “oh yeah, I know they exist”?
Scott Trench: So at biggerpocketsmoney.com/megacap, I have done a pretty solid overview of the 11 publicly traded AI-related mega-cap technology stocks, which I include Tesla and SpaceX in because of Grok, and part of the thesis for SpaceX is not just Mars exploration, but the space AI data centers. So that’s a big component of it. I combine all these together, but no, I’m not an expert on SpaceX and I’m not an expert on Tesla. I’m much more grounded in, I think, valuations matter. I don’t know who’s going to win or not, but there seems to be clear evidence that there is some factor premium at extreme valuation. And so I reflect that in my portfolio. And you can disagree with that. People are going to judge that, right? That’s not a pure S&P 500 or VTI portfolio, but that’s what I’m comfortable with based on my research. And it’s almost the exact opposite expression of your bet.
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, which is fine. We are very different people, Scott. You are not married to Carl, who does all this research.
Scott Trench: Yeah. And I have a rental property portfolio that’s very conservatively leveraged. And I’m like, I’m going to rely on rental income.
Mindy Jensen: Which I don’t have. And that’s fine. The point I’m trying to make is you don’t have the same level of historical knowledge of the company that Carl does, who then shares it with me, and I learn it regardless of whether I want to or not.
Scott Trench: I’m not as well-versed in Tesla or SpaceX as Carl. Absolutely not. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who is.
Mindy Jensen: So you don’t want to invest in this. You are not spending any time reading about it. That’s perfectly valid. There are a lot of companies that I am not invested in. I mean, clearly I only have five, right? There are a lot of companies I am not invested in, and that’s okay. I don’t want to be in them. There’s lots of investment types that I am not in. You are comfortable with real estate, Scott, so that’s where you’re making your bets. You are comfortable with index funds, that’s where you’re making your bets. You’ve got private companies that you own portions of, that’s great. That’s your wheelhouse. I think people should stick to their wheelhouse. And if they don’t have a wheelhouse, that’s when we go back to the index funds. What is it, “set it and forget it,” VTSAX and chill?
Scott Trench: Yeah, so I think that’s right. We’re going to do mine, and people are going to beat it up because it’s there, even though mine is probably much more boring in a general sense. And my spending pattern is much more boring than yours. I don’t have any particular crazy things going on in recent months, right? So it’s very streamlined, but I love my life and I’m happy with my portfolio, and I sleep well at night, and that’s what matters to me. And I feel like I’ve got a good, defensible intellectual position for what I’m doing. So this brings me back to another problem in the financial independence, in the personal finance space in general, which is this judgment about how other people are either living their lives or designing their financial portfolios. And in some cases, this develops into a worldview that is opinion-backed, right? So one example of this is there’s a sect in the financial independence community that does not want to ever earn another dollar of income after they achieve FI. And we know that BiggerPockets Money listeners, 50% of you, we just did this poll on the YouTube channel, actually I’ll pull it up here so we can look at it, we just did a poll, but 50% of the BiggerPockets Money audience intends to earn active income after achieving financial independence. “Do you earn, or do you expect to earn, some form of active income to at least some degree after you FIRE?” is how we worded this. Includes side hustle, part-time work, business activities, or managing a rental portfolio. And I also explicitly gave a carve-out for people who said, “I’m not really going to be active,” but semi-passive rental income, that’s where I’m at. But 51% said “definitely yes,” 20% said “perhaps,” another 6% said “not really.” Only a quarter of BiggerPockets Money respondents said, “no, we are not going to earn any active income.” And so that immediately elicits judgment from a section of the FIRE community who’s like, “well, you’re doing something wrong. You’re not really FIRE. You’re not really living your life the right way,” is the implication, because you intend to work after achieving financial independence. “I can’t imagine doing that.” That’s your projection, dude. That’s not a real thing here. This is what people want. People want to get to financial independence, and then they want to do something. And for some of them, that involves work. And this is a real problem in the space here. Like, we’re not going to be for you if “this is the right worldview” is your position. It’s awesome either way. It’s awesome if you want to stop working entirely and draw down the portfolio, and it’s awesome if you want to keep working. But you don’t have to judge. You’re not morally superior for doing it one way versus somebody else’s preference. That’s a ridiculous position to take, and I think that it’s too common in the community.
Mindy Jensen: There was a really great post, I think maybe even in a ChooseFI group, or just on Facebook, she’s a friend of mine, her name is Tanja Hester. She wrote the book “Work Optional.” And if she didn’t write this, I’m sorry, it’s been a long time. But she said, “I find it so interesting that in the FI community, there are certain expenses that are valid and certain expenses that are not valid.” Like, buying a brand new car is not a valid expense, but buying a craft beer at the local brewpub is totally a valid expense. And going on vacation is a valid expense, but first class is not a valid expense. And she’s like, “why are we so judgy about all of these? And who made the rules?” That post kind of lives in the back of my mind. Who made the rules? If you want to be financially independent, the traditional financial independence means that you don’t have to work. That doesn’t mean you can’t work. I’m a real estate agent. I’m probably going to be a real estate agent forever because I like doing it. I host this podcast. I have no plans to stop hosting this podcast. And last week you heard my net worth. I like hosting this podcast. I like talking to Scott about money. I like talking with you guys about money. I don’t see that changing. Financial independence gives you the freedom to do what you want. Well, this is what I want to do.
Scott Trench: And I like judging the judgers. I think you’re wrong to judge in these cases. And I will also say, there’s evolution on this point. I’m sure, I cannot remember specifics, but I’m sure I’ve judged plenty of times in the past on this in various things. And I think that that’s an evolution in the FI space, right? Because when I’m 24 and I’m pursuing FI with hardcore frugality in my duplex and riding my bicycle to work, I know I’m judging the other people who are not doing it, because it’s like, “why aren’t you doing the same thing? This is crazy.” Or whatever here. I can evolve out of that worldview from 24-year-old Scott to now at 35 with a family, and then that’s okay. But I think that’s a lesson learned for me. I don’t have those specific quotes, I’m sure somebody can find them in there. But that’s a real thing here, I think, when you get this bug for FI, it seems obvious, like “why isn’t everyone else doing this?” And then you start looking for this when you settle on an investment approach, or you decide never to earn another dollar again. That’s a very high-conviction position to take. It becomes very difficult to get that challenged by somebody else, especially if that’s your shtick, like “I’ve got this portfolio, or this view on life, or this type of thing here, and I’m doing it, and it involves these trade-offs.” It’s very hard, you get anchored to that position. It’s very hard to move off of it at that point. It’s been very hard for me at various points in the past, and the more I study this, the more I learn from people, the more I’m moving off of these anchor points as, “this is the right way to do it, this is the answer for all these things.” And I’m introducing more and more questions. So I think that’s been a fun part. And it’s also resulting in me doing a lot less judging, right? Like, a great example, we get asked, “I’m on the path to financial independence, can I buy my dream home instead?” Well, if you buy your dream home and you take the $7,000 mortgage that goes with it, or the $5,000 mortgage, or whatever it is in your situation, that thing is going to delay your FI journey.
Mindy Jensen: journey, right?
Scott Trench: That is a big opportunity cost on the investment portfolio. And you’re going to have to generate income, one or both of you if you’re a married couple in there, but you also get your dream house for the years the kids are growing up. I think that would have been something I would have judged five, six, seven years ago, when I was right about everything on the FI journey. And I think it’s something that I have much more nuance about in my life now, right? It’s not really a judgment about whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s a consequence. There’s going to be a consequence to it, and a trade-off that’s involved.
Evan Lawler: And that’s it.
Scott Trench: That’s the word, trade-offs. What trade-offs you’re willing to make. And I think that’s where I’ve evolved to.
Mindy Jensen: I think I also would’ve judged that same position, but you evolve and grow. And the more people we talk to, the more explanations I hear for “oh, this is why I want to do this.” And there’s some deep-seated explanation that makes this a really, really valid thing for them. Great. Everybody has a different journey. They have different goals, they have different starting points, different portfolios, different risk tolerances, different rules that they’re playing under. If somebody’s on the path to FI, I’m excited for them.
Scott Trench: Another part to this is, I think portfolio construction and withdrawal sequencing is probably the number one thing that triggers people emotionally in the financial independence space. Here’s the problem, right? We’ve talked to Frank Vasquez, who has a very strong opinion and stance on this topic. We’ve talked to Karsten Jeske, who has a very strong opinion and stance on this topic. We’ve talked to Ben Felix, who gave us an opinion on this topic. We’ve talked to Bill Bengen, the original creator of a lot of withdrawal research. We’ve talked to Paul Merriman, noted investor. We’ve talked to many others in the space, and they conflict. So what is the expectation for the investor in today’s world? It feels sometimes like you need to have an academically sourced argument for every single component of your portfolio, or go with a broad-based index fund, or go with a 60/40 fund, or go with an 80/20 fund, or go with the risk parity portfolio, or go with one of Paul Merriman’s multiple portfolios with various factor tilts, including the ultimate buy and hold, or whatever, or attempt to recreate what Ben Felix has done based on what you can guess from public portfolios, like exactly what that composition looks like at PWL Capital. I don’t know. These are all challenges that people face. I think that all you can do is learn to understand how these things interplay and what you’re going for from a portfolio construction standpoint, and build the best you can with the most defensible things that you can find out there. And I think Paul Merriman, Big Ern, Frank Vasquez, Ben Felix are great places to start on that journey. And maybe you choose a blend, maybe you mix and match as part of that. Maybe it’s hard. We’re not going to judge you for what you do here. There’s a number of defensible schools of thought.
Mindy Jensen: I want people to listen to this show and we introduce them to Ben Felix, and they’re like, “Oh, I like what he has to say. I’m going to go learn a little bit more about that.” And then we also introduce them to Paul Merriman, and they’re like, “Oh, I like what he has to say. I’m going to learn more about what he has to say.” And if you’re a DIY investor, you should have an investment thesis that you can follow, that you can defend. Why are you putting money into these individual stocks or these index funds? Why are you following this portfolio makeup? What is it that’s driving you there? And, “Oh, I heard it from this one guy,” I don’t think is a good reason to put your money into that trajectory. I want people to listen to what other people say. This is why we’re sharing all of these money stories. I want you to listen to what they say and learn from their mistakes, learn from their successes, and apply that to your own situation and your own goals.
Scott Trench: One last gripe I have with the world here right now in the financial independence space is I think that there’s a divergence in the financial independence community shown right there in my poll — for those who want to continue earning more money or are open to continuing to earn more money, and those who want to live off of a portfolio entirely. That is a judgment call. And I think that the portion of the community that feels that you should just live off the portfolio has a purity mindset that I think needs to be dispelled. They are not morally superior. They are not better. They’re not worse. They’re making a different choice than people who want to continue earning money. And that choice matters greatly in how we construct a portfolio, how vigorously we hold on to certain investment beliefs about the portfolio, how aggressive the portfolio is constructed, how carefully spending needs to be managed in early financial independence, and many other items there. And I think that that’s very hard to digest if you’re in the camp of, “I never want to earn another dollar,” because there’s a large number of things that go along with that. And that may be different from folks who are open to earning another dollar or definitely intend to. And I would just say that the — again, the answer comes down to not judging. Not judging, just knowing you’re going to have to do something different. And the other person is not better or worse than you because of your personal choice on how you want to spend.
Mindy Jensen: Exactly. Look at what you want to do and get inspiration from other people for your personal FI journey. But we’re all pursuing the freedom to do what we want. So let people do what they want. All right, Scott, this was a fun conversation. Thank you so much for defending me. I feel so honored.
Scott Trench: It’s like unbelievable. Hey, Mindy and Carl are phenomenal investors and produced a $10 million net worth without ever earning a truly elite income at any point in their journey. Oh, what are they doing? They’re so reckless and silly here. Oh, Mindy and Carl would like to minimize lifetime tax burden with their $10 million portfolio. What is wrong with you? Oh, Mindy and Carl are just building their $1.3 million house on a golf course here. Like, come on. It’s just very easy to defend you on this particular situation.
Mindy Jensen: Who wants to maximize their lifetime tax obligation?
Scott Trench: That’s a different podcast.
Mindy Jensen: All right, Scott, I appreciate this conversation very much. I had a lot of fun talking to you, but we should go.
Scott Trench: Let’s do it.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, before we go, I want to send you over to our website, BiggerPocketsMoney.com. We have a blog, we have a ton of resources. Scott spends all day, every day thinking up new things he can make for our resources page. I’m talking calculators, I’m talking financial plans, I’m talking templates and worksheets. He loves this stuff. So hop on over to BiggerPocketsMoney.com/resources or BiggerPocketsMoney.com/blog, where I talk about a variety of financial independence topics that are relatable to you. All right, Scott, that wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. You are Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen, saying stay on track, don’t look back.
Scott Trench: That makes building a ladder genuinely fast.
