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Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,

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Speaker 1: and today we're talking about growing up on forty four

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Speaker 1: cents today to becoming a world traveler with Christie shn Yeah, Joel,

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Speaker 1: Christie shn Man. She has an amazing story. She actually

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Speaker 1: grew up in China and her family survived on since

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Speaker 1: the day, but somehow she managed to become financially independent

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Speaker 1: at age thirty one, becoming Canada's youngest retiree and now

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Speaker 1: having a chief financial independence she and her husband Bryce,

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Speaker 1: they travel around the world. Christie writes about money on

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Speaker 1: her site Millennial Revolution, and shares her story in the

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Speaker 1: new book she wrote with her husband called Quit Like

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Speaker 1: a Millionaire. So Christie, thanks so much for joining us

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Speaker 1: on the show today. Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: All right, ChRI Is, see every week on this podcast,

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Speaker 1: Matt and I drink a craft beer because it's meaningful

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Speaker 1: to us. Today on the show, we're drinking something called

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Speaker 1: blood orange goes up by Drop Works and a listener

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Speaker 1: raising it to us. So I wanted to ask you

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Speaker 1: because we intentionally drink a beer on every episode. We're

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Speaker 1: saving for the future but also prioritizing the Here and now,

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Speaker 1: what's your splurge, what's your beer equivalent and something that

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Speaker 1: you're willing to spend a little bit more money on

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Speaker 1: today even while prioritizing saving for the future. That is

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Speaker 1: a really good question. I would have to say massages.

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Speaker 1: And the funny thing is, when I come back home,

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Speaker 1: massages are more expensive. It's like a hundred bucks an

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Speaker 1: hour or whatever it is. But the funny thing is,

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Speaker 1: I just realized that when I go to Thailand, it's

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Speaker 1: not even a splurge because massages are ten dollars in Thailand.

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Speaker 1: So I would say massages when I come back home,

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Speaker 1: because then you know, you get addicted to massages and thailands.

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Speaker 1: You can't not have them once you go back to

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Speaker 1: visit family. So that that's my advice. Yes, So I

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Speaker 1: visited Thailand a couple of years ago, and I completely agree.

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Speaker 1: I was there for a week and I think I

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Speaker 1: got five massages. They were literally like seven or eight

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Speaker 1: dollars apiece. It was incredible. Totally jealous of both of

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Speaker 1: you right now, because I think that's something if I

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Speaker 1: was like uber rich, I would totally have my personal

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Speaker 1: misuse that would show up every more. Use kind of

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Speaker 1: woke up or didn't wake up, because I think massages

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Speaker 1: put me to sleep. You have not lived until you've

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Speaker 1: had a two hour massage. Oh my gosh, I have

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Speaker 1: not lived then because I have not had one of those.

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Speaker 1: There's something about the time massage too that I appreciate

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Speaker 1: so much. They're stretching you at the same time, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of it's it's just this amazing thing where they're

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Speaker 1: hitting the pressure points, they're stretching you out nicely. It's

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Speaker 1: better than just a table massage that I've had in

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Speaker 1: the States by far. So Yeah, definitely missed entirely in

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Speaker 1: right now totally. Yeah, And we've gotten massages in other

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Speaker 1: parts of Southeast Asia. It just does not compared to

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Speaker 1: time missuses. I think just the way that they're trained.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty consistent. You can go to any massage place

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Speaker 1: and it's pretty similar in terms of quality. That's what

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Speaker 1: I found. One interesting tidbit about time massages when we

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Speaker 1: were in cheng Mai. They have a few different locations

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Speaker 1: where you can get massaged by a former prisoner. It's

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Speaker 1: this kind of rehabilitation program for for former tie prisoners,

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Speaker 1: and they're giving out pretty inexpensive Massagiest, but they're really good.

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Speaker 1: It was the place to go. Plus I'm sure those

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Speaker 1: guys have like really big strong hands, right it was

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Speaker 1: actually it was actually Thaie women prisoners. But yeah, all right, Christie.

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Speaker 1: So we need to start out by hearing about your childhood.

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Speaker 1: You grew up vastly different than than Joel and I did.

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Speaker 1: For example, you were buying legos or troll dolls from

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Speaker 1: the toys r Us down the street, right, that's not

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Speaker 1: what you were doing. I was like, what is a

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Speaker 1: toys r Us? Yeah, we'd love to hear more about

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Speaker 1: your childhood for sure. Okay, So I grew up in

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Speaker 1: a village in China, and back then, at one point

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Speaker 1: my family moved onto cents a day, And apparently that's

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Speaker 1: actually not that uncommon in my village because back then China,

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Speaker 1: they was it was just climbing out of the cultural

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Speaker 1: revolution that my parents had gone through, and so of

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Speaker 1: the population was actually in poverty, defined as being able

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Speaker 1: to only spend less than a dollar US a day.

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Speaker 1: When you wash yourself, it's basically a bucket of water.

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Speaker 1: There's no toys or us. Your toys are basically just

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Speaker 1: digging around like I was digging around in the medical

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Speaker 1: waist keep with my friends and we found a bunch

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Speaker 1: of elastic bands and we made a Chinese skipping rope

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Speaker 1: and it was super fun. And I didn't realize there

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Speaker 1: was anything wrong with that because that's what everyone else

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Speaker 1: was doing. And I tell this to my friends now

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Speaker 1: and then they're horrified. But my parents just think that's absolutely,

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Speaker 1: just completely normal, because to them, you know, the worst

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Speaker 1: thing that could ever happen. For example, my dad went

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Speaker 1: to a labor camp for ten years and he lived

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Speaker 1: through a famine. So to him, yes, we were living

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Speaker 1: in poverty, but poverty was kind of the least of

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Speaker 1: his problems. Because he always tells me whenever I have

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Speaker 1: a problem, he's like, hunting, don't worry about it. It

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Speaker 1: could be so, so, so much worse. So that's kind

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Speaker 1: of the mindset that I've been taught growing up. When

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Speaker 1: I first came to Canada and immigrated, I was amazed

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Speaker 1: by everything. I was amazed by running water. I was

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Speaker 1: amazed by hot showers. I was amazed by toilets, flushing toilets,

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Speaker 1: going to the grocery store and being able to pick

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Speaker 1: up any you know, fruit or vegetable that you wanted.

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Speaker 1: So growing up in that background, even though my friends

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Speaker 1: think it's horrible to me, it gave me this amazing

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Speaker 1: perspective that I think a lot of immigrants have, just

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Speaker 1: because you when you live in another country, you see

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Speaker 1: all the advantages that you have now once you're able

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Speaker 1: to immigrate, and you become very, very grateful for everything

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Speaker 1: that you have. Yeah, it's almost like, from my experience,

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Speaker 1: immigrant families seem to understand the American dream or the

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Speaker 1: Canadian dream as it was for your family more deeply

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Speaker 1: than traditional American families. They just kind of grasp the

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Speaker 1: idea that you can achieve something that seemed impossible, and

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Speaker 1: most of us here that are grown up in America,

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Speaker 1: grown up in the States, in a normal suburban community

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Speaker 1: or something like that, like it's something that we don't

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Speaker 1: really understand very fully. Oh yeah, And my teacher was

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Speaker 1: was pretty surprised at me too, because whenever I drew

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Speaker 1: a crayon drawing of like the sun or the sky

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Speaker 1: the sky, I would always color yellow and then she

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Speaker 1: be like, no, this guy is blue, and I'm like, really,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I remember the sky as being yellow,

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Speaker 1: and she's like, go look outside. I look outside the

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Speaker 1: skis Well, I'm like, ha, that's interesting. It's not thick

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Speaker 1: with the smoke of progress, which is what I remember

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Speaker 1: from China, right, because that that's just like that's your

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Speaker 1: normal and it it kind of made me realize that

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Speaker 1: poverty is relative. Everything is relative, and when you're not

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Speaker 1: even aware that you know there's amazing things outside that country,

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Speaker 1: when you immigrate, then you end up really being grateful

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Speaker 1: for everything. I think of these stories as just like

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Speaker 1: very amusing stepping back from it, and I feel like

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Speaker 1: it really gives me a perspective like whenever I run

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Speaker 1: into any obstacles, I just think of what we actually

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Speaker 1: lived through and how much my dad had it even worse,

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Speaker 1: and how other people in the world have it so

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Speaker 1: much worse. It kind of retrained my brain into thinking

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Speaker 1: of obstacles as challenges rather than obstacles. Well, you just

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Speaker 1: mentioned your dad, and I think you're talking about what

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Speaker 1: your dad went through as being even more severe. Thank

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Speaker 1: kind of what you experienced, which from our perspective is

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Speaker 1: just incredibly severe, right, growing up on forty four cents

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Speaker 1: a day, finding toys in a in a medical waste dump.

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Speaker 1: But you said at one point in your book, you

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Speaker 1: said my dad mentioned that his only wish was to

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Speaker 1: be full when he talks about living under Male's regime.

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Speaker 1: So what was it like for him seeing it through

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Speaker 1: his eyes as you guys went from living in just massive,

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Speaker 1: intense poverty in China to living in a first world

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Speaker 1: country like Canada. Oh yeah, So my dad has this

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Speaker 1: very gritty type of attitude that whenever there's a problem,

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Speaker 1: it's really not a problem. To give it an example, Um,

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Speaker 1: the high school that I went to, at one point

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Speaker 1: during an exam, somebody was suspected to have brought in

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Speaker 1: a gun, so they actually shut down the school in

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Speaker 1: the middle of exam and they had everybody evacuated. They

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Speaker 1: even had the swat team come in and kicked down

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Speaker 1: the doors and secure the building. Yeah, and have us

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Speaker 1: wait outside in the school parking lot to make sure

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Speaker 1: everyone's safe. And then when I actually called my dad

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Speaker 1: about it, he's like, is the exam on. If the

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Speaker 1: exam is still on, you shouldn't leave. You need to

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Speaker 1: stay there, right. So his mentality, and you know, even

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Speaker 1: at work a couple of years ago, when there was

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Speaker 1: an earthquake in the city that he worked in in

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Speaker 1: Ottawa and then everybody else like ran away, which is

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Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do. He actually ran back into

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Speaker 1: the building because he needed to finish his work. So

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Speaker 1: my dad is really abnormal and how he deals with

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Speaker 1: problems and the way that he thinks about life. And

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Speaker 1: part of the reason for that is because he at

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Speaker 1: one point was put into a labor camp for ten years.

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Speaker 1: He almost died multiple times because he was rolling these

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Speaker 1: boulders uphill and then one rolled back down and nearly

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Speaker 1: killed him. And then before that, he lived through a

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Speaker 1: famine in which millions of people starved to death, and

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Speaker 1: the fact that he was even able to survive the

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Speaker 1: famine was just a miracle and of itself. So his

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Speaker 1: view of problems is not really like a normal person's

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Speaker 1: view of problems. He's just kind of like you're You're

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Speaker 1: not like immediately dying. Okay, that's not really a problem,

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Speaker 1: then tough it out. What parture though, right from what

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Speaker 1: he was experiencing and what you experienced there in China

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Speaker 1: compared to the first world essentially in Canada, you know,

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Speaker 1: and you mentioned some of the things that sort of

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Speaker 1: surprised you, you know, when you did come to Canada,

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Speaker 1: just being able to buy fruit any time of the year,

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Speaker 1: at any time of the day, just going, you know,

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Speaker 1: into the store. Do you remember any other things like

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Speaker 1: that that stood out to you that were sort of

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Speaker 1: parts of culture shock as you immigrated to Canada. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: just like freshly mode lawns. How much space each person had,

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Speaker 1: because in China is lots of people sharing one room.

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Speaker 1: We kind of did more of a communal living thing

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Speaker 1: where you have a lot of families, they're all sharing

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Speaker 1: one bathroom, they're they're sharing like it's not even a

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Speaker 1: kitchen because there was no fridge. Like a fridge was

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Speaker 1: just like you put stuff in cold water and that's

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Speaker 1: how you keep it fresh. And just how much space

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Speaker 1: there is per person was mind blowing. I couldn't speak English,

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Speaker 1: so and the thing is Chinese culture makes it so

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Speaker 1: that you need to save face, so you shouldn't. You

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Speaker 1: don't want to be embarrassed that you can't speak the language.

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Speaker 1: So I didn't understand half the things that people are

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Speaker 1: saying to me, but I would not and pretend to understand.

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Speaker 1: And there were times in which there was like a

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Speaker 1: fence that said no climbing. I couldn't understand that somebody

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Speaker 1: was telling me not to understand not to climb it,

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Speaker 1: and I said, I understand because I didn't know what

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Speaker 1: that meant, and then I just climbed it. So just

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Speaker 1: like completely disregarding of rules and uh because I didn't

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Speaker 1: understand English, but I had to pretend that I did

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Speaker 1: understand it in order to save face, right, So that

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Speaker 1: was like a big culture shop, like admitting to your

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Speaker 1: fault and admitting that you have a weakness is actually

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Speaker 1: a strength and Western culture, but in Chinese culture that's

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Speaker 1: actually looked upon as very negative. It's very embarrassing and

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Speaker 1: should you should be hiding all your weak points and

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Speaker 1: any kind of problems that you're having, you should be

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Speaker 1: shoving under the rug. So that was very difficult for

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Speaker 1: me to grasp. And then just learning how to use

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Speaker 1: a toilet, I kid you not I in the airport,

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Speaker 1: I was scared of going into the stall because I

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Speaker 1: thought I would not be able to ever come out again.

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Speaker 1: It's not taking up how to use it because you

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Speaker 1: know where I grew up, it's basically just a hole

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Speaker 1: in the ground like that's you know, farm living, and

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Speaker 1: everybody had that kind of background. And then cleanliness and

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Speaker 1: you know, food safety all those things. I had no

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Speaker 1: clue what that was. Like. I was like, oh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the water doesn't have to be boiled before you drink it,

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Speaker 1: and you know you're not supposed to mix the meat

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Speaker 1: with the vegetables. Like I had no clue any of

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Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, so that that was quite the culture

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Speaker 1: shock and pretending to speak English. That got me into

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Speaker 1: quite a bit of trouble. So so it's interesting that

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Speaker 1: you went from this completely different life in China to

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Speaker 1: life in Canada. But you you mentioned in the book

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Speaker 1: that you were grateful for the way that you grew up.

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Speaker 1: You're grateful for those difficulties that you experienced in your

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Speaker 1: early childhood. What makes you say that you're grateful for that.

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Speaker 1: I am certain that there's no way I would be

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Speaker 1: retired and traveling the world right now and being a

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Speaker 1: millionaire if I didn't actually had if I didn't grow

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Speaker 1: up the way I did, because I was able to

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Speaker 1: see everything with a different perspective of that a lot

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Speaker 1: of my peers didn't have. So if I didn't have

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Speaker 1: to struggle for money, I wouldn't have made the decision

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Speaker 1: to pick a career that actually supports me. I would

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Speaker 1: have just blindly followed my passion. If I didn't have

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Speaker 1: this drive to be able to be independent and make

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Speaker 1: money something that is really precious and make strategic decisions,

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Speaker 1: I would have just said, oh, you know what, if

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Speaker 1: it doesn't work out, my dad will come save me,

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Speaker 1: or the government will come save me, and it's all

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Speaker 1: going to work out in the end. From my perspective,

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Speaker 1: it's not going to work out. You have to make

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Speaker 1: it work out because coming from that background in China,

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Speaker 1: the government is not there to help you, and you

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Speaker 1: don't have a safety net, and you know, you don't

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Speaker 1: want to drive your parents back into poverty if it

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Speaker 1: doesn't work out, if you get the wrong degree. So

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Speaker 1: I think that mentality, the scarcity mindset that I developed

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Speaker 1: out of that attribute a lot of it to where

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Speaker 1: I am today. Without that kind of mindset, I would

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Speaker 1: have just blindly done whatever it made sense, which is

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Speaker 1: going into the creative writing and writing a novel, and

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Speaker 1: that would not have worked out so well because, as

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Speaker 1: I found out while I was doing that on the side,

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Speaker 1: when I was an engineer, that maximum I would have

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Speaker 1: been able to make maybe five thousand dollars a year

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Speaker 1: because of books published in the US sell less than

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Speaker 1: a thousand copies. It's it's a very sad statistic, but

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Speaker 1: it's the truth. Well, so, Christie, do you have thoughts

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Speaker 1: then on how folks that grew up with so much

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Speaker 1: more than you did, Like, how can they how can

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Speaker 1: we write cultivate maybe more of a scarcity mindset and

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Speaker 1: use that to to get ourselves ahead. Yeah. I think

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Speaker 1: part of it is just being aware you actually have

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Speaker 1: it easier if you, you know, had a leg up, because,

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Speaker 1: as I talked about in the book, the scarcity mindset

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Speaker 1: does have downsides later on when you are going into

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Speaker 1: investing and then fear holds you back. Right, So the

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Speaker 1: fact that you don't have that fear gives you a

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Speaker 1: leg up. But in the book, we talk about understanding

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Speaker 1: invisible waste, right, like how many things people just like

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Speaker 1: a lot of fruit and vegetables get discarded every year

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Speaker 1: just because they're misshapen or they're discolored. And then people

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Speaker 1: buy a lot of clothes in their closets that they

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Speaker 1: don't wear. And one of the exercises I talked about is,

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Speaker 1: you know, take a take a hanger to put a

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Speaker 1: piece of tape on it, and every time you wear

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Speaker 1: something in your closet. Put it to the right of

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Speaker 1: that hangar, and over time you'll be able to see

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Speaker 1: how much of your closet you don't actually wear. Uhause, Statistically,

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Speaker 1: I think seventy of closets are just clothes that people

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Speaker 1: buy and forget about. So there's so much waste that

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Speaker 1: people are not realizing. And I think being aware and

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Speaker 1: having these constraints, I mean, it's not about deprivaty, it's

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Speaker 1: about having constraints to be more creative, right, And one

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Speaker 1: of the things that helped us a lot. And you

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Speaker 1: know I'm not I'm not perfect either, despite growing up

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Speaker 1: in poverty. I did have something I like to call

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Speaker 1: the immigrant rebound effect, which is when I started buying

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Speaker 1: coach versus and I started thinking, like, you know, I

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Speaker 1: have money, now I have you know, I need to

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Speaker 1: have status and you know, more about that safe face

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Speaker 1: thing that the Chinese culture thing that I was talking about.

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Speaker 1: But then I realized over time that that was just

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Speaker 1: not the happiness level over time. It's the hedonic treadmill

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Speaker 1: that you don't really become happy after the fifth bag

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Speaker 1: as much as you but when it was like the

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Speaker 1: first bag, right, So realizing that a lot of this

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Speaker 1: waste can be mitigated if you set constraints. So you

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Speaker 1: know now that we travel with two bags and around

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Speaker 1: the world, that that is a really good constraint because

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Speaker 1: we only bring along a week of clothing, Like that's

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Speaker 1: all we own a week of clothing, and I'm perfectly happy,

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Speaker 1: like I don't need any more of that. And it

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Speaker 1: actually helps me have a mental space because now I

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Speaker 1: don't have to think about what to wear as much.

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Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about maintaining it, I don't

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Speaker 1: have to drive, clean it, all those things. So sometimes

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Speaker 1: constraints can actually be very very helpful. It's just if

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Speaker 1: you are using the constraints too much later on that

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Speaker 1: you know, you you become like too worried about fear

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Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So scarcely mindset created that constraint

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Speaker 1: and it allowed me to be more creative, but then

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Speaker 1: over time you need to switch over to the freedom mindset.

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Speaker 1: M that's really good stuff. Yeah, And I think scarcity

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Speaker 1: mindset can kind of have a negative connotation in our

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Speaker 1: current culture, and so I appreciate that that there is

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Speaker 1: something good in your opinion and that you can bring

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Speaker 1: to the table because I think for for all of us.

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Speaker 1: Cultivating a little bit more of a scarcy mindset can

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Speaker 1: be helpful, but maybe just up into a certain point

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Speaker 1: like you mentioned. Right. Um, so all right, so Christie,

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Speaker 1: we've got some more questions for you. In particular, Christie

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Speaker 1: has some really interesting analytical thoughts about how you pursue

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Speaker 1: higher education. And we're gonna get to more with Christie

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Speaker 1: right after the break. Al Right, we are back for

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Speaker 1: the break, and Christie, let's talk about first world problems.

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Speaker 1: There's a Reddit post recently where an Iowa couple they're

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Speaker 1: making five thousand dollars a year and they were having

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Speaker 1: trouble sticking to a budget, which sounds obviously that sounds

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Speaker 1: kind of silly. But you have folks reaching out to

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Speaker 1: you for advice and they think that, you know, they

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Speaker 1: don't spend very much. You know, they say, like, I

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Speaker 1: can't think of anything that I can cut back on.

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Speaker 1: What is your reaction to those folks? What do you

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Speaker 1: say to them? I call them giant babies. And then

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Speaker 1: I never talked about it. Now, See what that made

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Speaker 1: me realize is that again everything is relative. Right, Like,

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Speaker 1: even though I grew up in poverty, my thought was,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, it's so much worse. At least I

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Speaker 1: didn't have to go to a concentration camp and I

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Speaker 1: didn't have to go through famine. But then other people

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Speaker 1: who could be earning five hundred thousand dollars year, they're

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Speaker 1: looking at their peers and they're like, well, I'm not

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Speaker 1: earning a million dollars, and those people are better off, right,

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Speaker 1: I don't have a private island yet, yeah, exactly, private

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Speaker 1: islands like that's where you've got it made. So it

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Speaker 1: really is relative. And the thing that we're trying to

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Speaker 1: help people understand is that just because you're an expensive

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Speaker 1: city doesn't mean you have to retire in in an

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Speaker 1: expensive city. Right. So there are people, um that we've

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Speaker 1: helped readers that you know, there's a couple that worked

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Speaker 1: in San Francisco, where everything is notoriously expensive, and their

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Speaker 1: rent was over two thousand dollars, But when we talk

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Speaker 1: to them, we found out that they can actually work

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Speaker 1: remotely and one of them doesn't even have to go

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Speaker 1: into work more than once or twice a year. One

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Speaker 1: of them even speaks Spanish. So I was thinking, well,

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Speaker 1: you guys like to try level What if you guys

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Speaker 1: moved down to Wahaka, Mexico. Like, what if you became nomadic,

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Speaker 1: your boss wouldn't even notice because the time zone difference

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Speaker 1: is really not it's like only an hour or two apart,

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Speaker 1: and you'll be able to bank the difference because now

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Speaker 1: your cost of living is significantly lower. And they were like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's interesting. So they tried it out and they reduced

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Speaker 1: their rent down to four hundred dollars a month in Wahaka,

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Speaker 1: and soon afterwards, I think around two years after that,

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Speaker 1: they've actually both become financially independent and they're doing what

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Speaker 1: we're doing, which is packed everything up in two bags

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Speaker 1: and they're traveling the world. So it really is about

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Speaker 1: opening your mind up, right, because it's all relative. Poor people,

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Speaker 1: they say that if you make, you know, three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year, but you're in a neighborhood that's

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Speaker 1: like million dollar earnings, you feel poor. But if you're

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Speaker 1: a neighborhood maybe maybe making fifty thousand dollars and everybody

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Speaker 1: else is making thirty thousand dollars, you feel incredibly rich. Right,

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Speaker 1: So it really is about your perspective, and everybody thinks

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Speaker 1: of it as being relative to everyone else. So whenever

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Speaker 1: people right in there, like I get to cut a

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Speaker 1: single thing. First of all, I tell them, you know,

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Speaker 1: it could be so much, so much worse. Usually that

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Speaker 1: doesn't help because they're like, you know, my problems are

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Speaker 1: my problems, doesn't matter whether it can be worse or not. Right,

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Speaker 1: So then you kind of work with them to say, like,

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Speaker 1: what else can you do? Right? Do you have to

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Speaker 1: actually retired in this same city, Maybe focus on the

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Speaker 1: three most expensive categories, which is housing, transportation, and eating

401
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Speaker 1: out right, rather than just spending on everything, like I

402
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Speaker 1: have to have the best of everything, optimize what's important

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Speaker 1: to you. And then the other thing is maybe they're

404
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Speaker 1: not so important. Maybe you don't have to have a

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Speaker 1: Netflix account and a Hulu account and Hbo and every

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Speaker 1: single type there is just watching one at a time,

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Speaker 1: just like mine. Are things like that? And why are

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Speaker 1: you paying so many bank fees that that doesn't really

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Speaker 1: add to your to your happiness. And when we go

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Speaker 1: down that route, people start realizing that, hey, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I have just been turning my brain off and following

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Speaker 1: everybody else. Maybe if I just become more efficient with this,

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Speaker 1: I'll actually find a way out, And they do. That's awesome. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: By the way, the funniest line of the book I

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Speaker 1: think was when you you wanted diabetes? Can you tell

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Speaker 1: ours why that? Right now? I sound insane? Thanks for that, guy. Hey,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna read the book anyway, they would have. That's true. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the insanity will all come out later anyway. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: my mom when I was growing up, she worked as

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Speaker 1: a dishwasher at a restaurant. So one of the things

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Speaker 1: she would do is this was this was a buffet,

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Speaker 1: so they would throw out these like giant buckets of

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Speaker 1: peach syrup, you know, those like canned peaches, like like

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Speaker 1: Delmonte peaches or whatever it is, right, it's like more

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Speaker 1: sugar than peach, but like the liquid part of it.

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Speaker 1: Because they would put that into the buffet and then

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Speaker 1: they would dump out the liquid part because nobody's drinking that.

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Speaker 1: That's going to give you diabetes. And then my mom,

429
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:45,679
Speaker 1: My mom would always bring that home because she's like,

430
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:48,720
Speaker 1: that's such a waste, you know, like back in our village,

431
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:50,240
Speaker 1: we would think that this is the best thing ever.

432
00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 1: We would give it to all the kids. So I

433
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:53,680
Speaker 1: was really happy that she brought that home because I

434
00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:55,800
Speaker 1: just started drinking that all the time, Like that was

435
00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 1: my favorite treat because it was free and it was delicious.

436
00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:02,240
Speaker 1: Because to us, it's somebody who can afford, you know,

437
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:04,680
Speaker 1: a lot of sugar and things like this must be rich.

438
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:06,600
Speaker 1: Because back when I was a child, I thought a

439
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:08,600
Speaker 1: can of coke was the most amazing thing ever because

440
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:11,120
Speaker 1: that's not something that my village could ever afford. That's

441
00:21:11,119 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 1: something that rich people drank. So I was thinking like, oh, wow,

442
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to drink all the sugar

443
00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:17,480
Speaker 1: like rich people, and then one day I'll have diabetes

444
00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:19,240
Speaker 1: and then I can go back to my village and

445
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,800
Speaker 1: people will be like, whoa, wow, she's really made it.

446
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:25,320
Speaker 1: She has diabetes. You know how much money you have

447
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:28,359
Speaker 1: to have to buy sugar and drink coke to get diabetes.

448
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 1: So so that was my childhood dream because I'm a

449
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:34,400
Speaker 1: your kid. I mean, that just said something about consumption

450
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:36,760
Speaker 1: in the world that we live in and in the

451
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:38,639
Speaker 1: first world that we live in, right, and not only

452
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 1: you know when it comes to consumption, just the amount

453
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:42,960
Speaker 1: of money we spend on it and the amount of

454
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:45,399
Speaker 1: money that we go into debts in order to achieve

455
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:48,199
Speaker 1: that sort of level of consumption. And so on, not

456
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:50,399
Speaker 1: not How did growing up in China for you shape

457
00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 1: your view towards debt specifically. You know a lot of

458
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 1: people write into us about debt, student debt. That's one

459
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:59,639
Speaker 1: of the worst things, especially for Americans, consumer debt, mortgages.

460
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:02,680
Speaker 1: The worst is consumer debt because that's the highest interest

461
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:05,639
Speaker 1: rate people right and they have there they're paying interest

462
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 1: rate of fifteen for consumer debt. And I usually tell

463
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:12,639
Speaker 1: them kill that debt asap. It's like a vampire. It

464
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 1: will suck you dry. And the thing that happens, so

465
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:19,479
Speaker 1: to compare and contrast between my Chinese culture and Western

466
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:22,080
Speaker 1: culture is that growing up, I had never seen a

467
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:25,040
Speaker 1: credit card. There was no such thing. I think China

468
00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 1: didn't even have credit cards until like much much later,

469
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:30,640
Speaker 1: like many many years later. And so when you actually

470
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 1: want something, you have to work for it, and if

471
00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: you don't have the money for it, you can't buy it.

472
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,160
Speaker 1: So there's one upside to that in that. Um, what

473
00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: debt does is it distorts the connection between time and money.

474
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:46,399
Speaker 1: So what debt does is it doesn't make you realize

475
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 1: this is how many hours I had to work for

476
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:51,360
Speaker 1: this thing. You just think about, oh, that's future mes problem.

477
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: That's like me down the road five years from now,

478
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about that. And then what

479
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: it ends up happening is you just dig yourself deeper

480
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: and deeper into a hole because that interest keeps impounding. Right,

481
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 1: it's the opposite of investing in that that interest works

482
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:07,280
Speaker 1: against you and compounds continuously as you, you know, just

483
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 1: pay the minimum and you don't actually pay off the debt.

484
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 1: So growing up without access to debt help me realize

485
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 1: that when money is related to time, if you don't

486
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 1: put in the time to earn the money, you won't

487
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 1: realize it's real true value. So this is why I

488
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 1: tell our readers pay off the highest interest first, because

489
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: mathematically that's going to hurt you a lot if you

490
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: don't pay that off, and it's it's a vampire. You

491
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: really need to get off. Get that vampire off your back,

492
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: because there's no point in investing and getting let's say

493
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:39,880
Speaker 1: a conservative six percent return over ten or fifteen years.

494
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:43,199
Speaker 1: If your credit card debt is it's like trying to

495
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 1: swim and you've got this giant boulder on your like

496
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:48,439
Speaker 1: driving me down and you're drowning. It doesn't help at all. Yeah, No,

497
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 1: that makes a ton of sense. I wanted to ask

498
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: you kind of pull a Guy Ross question here from

499
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:56,719
Speaker 1: how I built this For some reason, I want to know,

500
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,159
Speaker 1: based on all you've said, there's so much hard work involved,

501
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,359
Speaker 1: there's so much self discipline. What role do you feel

502
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: that luck played in your family getting out of difficult

503
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 1: situation in China and then getting ahead in Canada. Do

504
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: you think luck was involved in any way former fashion

505
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,680
Speaker 1: here or is this purely kind of a hard work

506
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 1: story in your opinion, I think everybody who is living

507
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 1: in the Western world basically have has luck. Right, Like,

508
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,679
Speaker 1: if you're born in the you're born in Canada, US, Europe,

509
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: you you basically won the lottery because so many other

510
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: people in the world can't make it this far. And

511
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: I do think that one of the reasons we were

512
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: able to get here is because my dad was able

513
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: to immigrate to Canada. And Okay, there's actually a weird

514
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 1: story behind this too. So originally my dad visited Canada

515
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 1: as a visiting student and he was expected to come

516
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: back home and me and my mom was kind of

517
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,959
Speaker 1: held is like, we're kind of seen as de facto

518
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 1: hostages in China because China wants students to go back,

519
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 1: collect the knowledge and come back and make China better

520
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: country and use that knowledge for ourselves. So he was

521
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: always expected to come back to China because his family

522
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: is there, so you know, if you don't come back,

523
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:03,360
Speaker 1: something that's going to happen to them. And so it

524
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: wasn't until tim and Square happened that he was actually

525
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: able to stay in Canada because during tam and Square,

526
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 1: there's a lot of press there and when they killed

527
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 1: three thousand students for protesting, the world knew about it,

528
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: and a lot of students said, I'm not going to

529
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: return to a country in which the government can just

530
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: kill me at any point for saying, you know, for

531
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: protesting and having my rights. So then at that point,

532
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 1: because so many people around the world knew about this incident,

533
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,199
Speaker 1: they dropped it and they let him immigrate to Canada.

534
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: So that is definitely luck based because a lot of

535
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,719
Speaker 1: people were stuck in China and they weren't able to immgreate.

536
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:36,719
Speaker 1: And then, like, what are your thoughts as far as

537
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: luck though once you arrived in Canada, because I go

538
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 1: ahead and stay, Like the subtitle of your book involves

539
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: the word luck. You know he says no luck said, certainly,

540
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 1: there's a portion of your story. I guess where we're

541
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:49,919
Speaker 1: luck is involved. Absolutely. I mean it seems like you

542
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: credit hard work. What are your what are your additional

543
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: thoughts on kind of getting ahead. Yeah, So when I

544
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: say no luck, like everybody had some sort of luck. Right,

545
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: if you were born and born without any kind of

546
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: disability or like mental disabilities or like you know, abusive

547
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: parents or any kind of addiction and things like that,

548
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: then yeah, you you definitely have to have a little

549
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: bit of that in order to get to financial independence.

550
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 1: But when I say no luck involved, it means it's reproducible.

551
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 1: If it's not reproducible. For example, if somebody started the

552
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: next Snapchat, I'm not going to be able to go

553
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 1: start Snapchat. It already exists, right. And if I if

554
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 1: somebody bought apple Stock back when it was you know,

555
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: ten dollars five dollars and they made it through that,

556
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: that's not reproducible. That is based on luck because there's

557
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: no skill involved. It just happened to have the right timing.

558
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: So when I say luck, it doesn't mean like no

559
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,679
Speaker 1: luck whatsoever. I mean just being able to immigrate to

560
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 1: Canada and being you know, a sound mind and not

561
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 1: being born disabled. That's already luck. But the no luck

562
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,479
Speaker 1: part refers mostly to the fact that you don't have

563
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: to hit a home run with the stock market or

564
00:26:52,240 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: or the housing market, and you don't have to have

565
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,880
Speaker 1: started a company that just happened to take off. It's

566
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: a reproducible formula that people can follow regardless of what

567
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: economic background they started with, because I started at the

568
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,439
Speaker 1: bottom one percent of the world, and then I became

569
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 1: the top one percent. Courcy, I love your thoughts on education.

570
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: You're super, super analytical about how you approach decisions on

571
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: further education. So how did you choose a career path

572
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: that you thought made the most sense for you. You

573
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that you kind of wanted to become a writer,

574
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: but you ditched that because it just didn't make financial sense.

575
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: So fill us in for sure. So I always liked writing,

576
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: and one of the reasons for that is I went

577
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: to the library a lot because my parents couldn't afford cable,

578
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: So I developed a love for reading and I developed

579
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 1: a love for writing. So it was kind of my

580
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 1: childhood dream to become an author. And then when it

581
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: came time for me to pick a career. I really

582
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 1: needed to sit down and think about this because my

583
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 1: parents were still supporting people back home, our family, and

584
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:51,920
Speaker 1: I didn't want to, you know, have it not work

585
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 1: out and then have to live at home and have

586
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 1: them pay my bills. So I looked at three different

587
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: career choices. My number one choice was creative writing because

588
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: that was my love, and then my second one was

589
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: computer engineering, and the third one was accounting. So I

590
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: did something I call in the book called pot score,

591
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: which is the pay over tuition. And what that means

592
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 1: is you take how much you would get paid over

593
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: the minimum wage, and you divide that by how much

594
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: tuition costs, and that will give you a return on

595
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 1: investment for the money that you're spending on this degree.

596
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: So for every dollar that you put in, how much

597
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: X will it be able to return with this degree.

598
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: So a creative writing was actually horrible. You're not actually

599
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: getting paid that much over minimum wage. But then the

600
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: the degree itself was still quite expensive. So when I

601
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: did that analysis, computer engineering came out to be on top.

602
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: So I knew that even though it was not something

603
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: that it was going to come naturally to me, I

604
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: was going to have to work way harder than if

605
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: I had gotten a create a writing degree. It was

606
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: definitely the best choice because afterwards I would be able

607
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: to pay off any student loans I had, and I

608
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: would be able to have a leg up to be

609
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: able to make money right away and support myself. So

610
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: that's how I made the decision to pay computer engineering.

611
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 1: And the thing is that doesn't mean you have to

612
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: just give up your dreams, because that's horrible. It means

613
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: that you don't have to like it doesn't make sense

614
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: to follow your passion blindly. It's about following your passion,

615
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: but not yet. So I followed the money first, and then,

616
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: crazily enough, after we became f I the writing part

617
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: came on its own. So we started writing the blog,

618
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: We started helping people, We started running a free workshop

619
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: on how to invest, and then an editor from Penguin

620
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: actually came to us to write a book because she

621
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: was a fan of our blog, which is unheard of,

622
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: because what when we were writing the children's book, we

623
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: got two hundred rejections from literary agents. There there's no

624
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: way that the publishing industry comes knocking at your door.

625
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: I thought, it was a scam at first. Can you

626
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: first send five thou dollars to Africa please? Yeah? Exactly,

627
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: I was. I was stalking her on LinkedIn, I was

628
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: googling her name. I was like, there's no way somebody's

629
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: playing at Joe on me. But yeah, this actually came about.

630
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: This Penguin book deal came about because the editor actually

631
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 1: thought that we were being very helpful and she thought

632
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: that this information would be very helpful for other people.

633
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: So that goes to show that if you follow your

634
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: passion blindly, it's not a strategic decision versus if you

635
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: do the pot score and you follow the practical decision,

636
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: and it doesn't even have to be you know, it's

637
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: not about earning the most money. Because when I did

638
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: that analysis for doctors in terms of pot score, it

639
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: was actually pretty bad because you have to go to

640
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: school for ten years and you do make a lot

641
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: of money, but not that much more than engineers. Looking

642
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: at a plumber, for example, who only has to go

643
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: to school associate's degree for two years, and they're coming

644
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: out ahead of the doctor because plumbers can make, you know,

645
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: six figure salaries in big cities like New York and Chicago,

646
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: and they can get to FI a lot faster. So

647
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 1: this strategic decision is one of the key points in

648
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: how we actually got to f I because the money

649
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: that I put into the tuition, I immediately earned it back,

650
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: and then that helped us be able to bank a

651
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: good enough difference between how much we get paid and

652
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: how much we spend to get to f I. I

653
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, I love that you were able

654
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: to find something that worked for you where you you

655
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: saw after something made sense, that was practical, but that

656
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: you know you are in a position where you can

657
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: incorporate your passion. I mean, like passion it's such a

658
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: hard thing to quantify, right, Like you've got your your

659
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: pot your pot score. It's super tangible. You see a number,

660
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: you rank all the numbers. Passion is incredibly abstract. What

661
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: if somebody is trying to find their passion, pursue that,

662
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: but at the same time be practical here and now.

663
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: Do you have any advice for folks who are trying

664
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: to essentially find that balance? Oh? Yeah. So one of

665
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: the advantages of working on a passion project on the

666
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: side or doing some sort of side hustle is that

667
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 1: you know you look at so the things we talked

668
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: about in the book is the four percent rule, which

669
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: is like you take your expenses and you multiplied by

670
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: the inverse of four percent, which is to figure out

671
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: what your what your FI number is the number that

672
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: states that you're financially independent, and then you can live

673
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: off the portfolio. Right. And the thing is when you

674
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: have a side gig that's making money, a passion project,

675
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: you can actually reduce the size of that for LEO.

676
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: So for example, when I said, oh, writing will make

677
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: me five thousand dollars a year, if I can earn

678
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: that every year, that actually reduces the portfolio I need

679
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: by a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, right, because

680
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: now I don't need to passively generate four percent, which

681
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: is five thousand dollars a year, because that's actually what

682
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 1: I can do with my passion. So you can actually

683
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: use the passion project on the side to get to

684
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: FI faster, and that can actually be something you love

685
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: to do afterwards. Right. Another thing I could have done

686
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: is do some sort of writing thing, but then more

687
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: practical like technical technical writing. Maybe it wouldn't have paid

688
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 1: as much as computer engineering, but it still would have

689
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: been practical that would have taken a bit longer, but

690
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: maybe that's a way to go to five, right, So

691
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: you can pivot your passion towards something that's more practical

692
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: but still allows you to do that. Or you could

693
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: use the pot score to figure out the career and

694
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: then do a passion project on the side to get

695
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: you to fi faster and have something to do in retirement.

696
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: I love though, that anybody who's thinking about this at

697
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: least and thinking about their education in terms of cost

698
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: and pay off, that there's a simple formula to figure

699
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: that out that you kind of created. So that's really helpful. CHRISTI.

700
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: After the break, we really want to ask you in

701
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: particular about your travels and how you're able to travel

702
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: basically across the world full time on the cheap, and

703
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: we'll get to that right after the break. All right,

704
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: we're back from the break. We're talking with Christie chen

705
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: who it's just this amazing story that we've been diving into.

706
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: And Christie, in your book, you outline how you were

707
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: able to amass basically a small fortune a large fortune

708
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: to a lot of us really by investing, and you

709
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: even lay out your precise strategy in the book, which

710
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the exact funds you used kind of

711
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: how you've done this everything. So from the beginning of this,

712
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: did you just want to be able to quit work

713
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: early or did you have like a bigger goal in

714
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: mind while you were doing these years and years of

715
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: saving and investing intentionally? Yeah, so, uh, my original plan

716
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,479
Speaker 1: before we did this whole f I thing was actually

717
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: just be like everyone else, which was get the you know,

718
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: get the job by the house, work until you're sixty five,

719
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: and retire with a pension, because that's the script that

720
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: everybody follows. But then you didn't quite work out that

721
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: way because houses were way too expensive. Um, people are

722
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: getting let go left and right at my work, so

723
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: it wasn't exactly stable. And then just watching everybody work

724
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: so hard, it really wasn't the path that we decided

725
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: to go on. And then after we behame f I,

726
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: it was just something that completely unexpected. We did the math,

727
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 1: we learned about investing, and then we actually were able

728
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: to retire in our thirties. And then after we retired,

729
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: I thought we would just do some sort of you know,

730
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 1: victory lap around the world because we never had a

731
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 1: gap year. So I figured we would travel for one

732
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: year and then come back and settle somewhere in Canada

733
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:47,359
Speaker 1: or the States. What I didn't realize was that I

734
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: thought we were going to spend seven seventy five thousand

735
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: to a hundred thousand dollars that year. We ended up

736
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: spending forty dollars traveling the world. And the big reason

737
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,800
Speaker 1: for that was that when you actually go on vacation,

738
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: you're tied to having to, you know, buy an expensive

739
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: vacation package because you don't have time to think about it,

740
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: and then you're doing these touristy things that everybody else

741
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: is doing. But by living like a local and we

742
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:15,320
Speaker 1: stayed in airbnbs, we took local transportation, we did local

743
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 1: things and hanging out with our airbnb hosts, uh, it

744
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: actually helped us save a ton of money. And it

745
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: also taught us that not every country is created equal

746
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: when you travel. If you balance expensive places like the

747
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: UK with inexpensive places like Poland or Portugal or Thailand,

748
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 1: for example, it allows you to kind of life hack

749
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 1: travel so that your expenses are within forty So to

750
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: give you give you an example of Portugal. When we

751
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: used to go on vacation we only knew about Lisbon

752
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: because that's where all the tour uh the you know,

753
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: like the cruise ships went and that's where everybody was going.

754
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 1: So with a vacation package with a cruise, we would

755
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: spend close to two thousand dollars for a week for

756
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: two people, so that was quite expensive, and that's not

757
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 1: including flight. And then when we actually went back, um,

758
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: we discovered other places in Portugal that I had never

759
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: even heard of, like Coembra or a Vero, or Porto

760
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: or Lagos, and it was actually very inexpensive. Like we

761
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 1: rented a condo that was just fifteen minutes from the

762
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: beach in Lagos and it only cost us around nine

763
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: u s dollars for the month. And when I actually

764
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,280
Speaker 1: did some research, I found out that the average salary

765
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: for the Portuguese was just a thousand to fifteen hundred

766
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: euros a month, right, so people actually have to survive

767
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 1: on their earnings. So locals actually don't live lavish lifestyles

768
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: and it doesn't cost them, uh you know, a thousand

769
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: dollars a week. It's more like a thousand dollars a month.

770
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: So it really is about opening your eyes up when

771
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: you actually travel and realizing that travel is less expensive

772
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,720
Speaker 1: than staying home. And that completely blew my mind because

773
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 1: there's no way I would have ever thought that was possible,

774
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: even if you had told me straight up back when

775
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 1: I was traveling for the first year. I had to

776
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: actually go to the countries themselves and then live that

777
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 1: there like a local, and then track my expenses and realize, hey,

778
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:10,879
Speaker 1: we could travel the world forever because this is much

779
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,760
Speaker 1: less expensive than actually going back home. Yeah, that's amazing.

780
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: So basically traveling like a local as opposed to traveling

781
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: like a tourist, it sounds like there's just an incredibly

782
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 1: massive difference in the amount of money that travel costs

783
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: you if you do that, Oh yeah for sure. And

784
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,240
Speaker 1: also going to the off off the beaten path places

785
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: instead of just going to London, Paris, New York like

786
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 1: everybody else where the prices are all inflated. You can

787
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:35,840
Speaker 1: discover places in Poland, you could discover places like Estonia

788
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: or Latvia or Lithuania in Eastern Europe where nobody is

789
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: really going, and then the cost of living is way

790
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,479
Speaker 1: lower and you don't have to deal with crowds. So

791
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: number one traveling like a local, and number two, balancing

792
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: expensive places within extensive places to make your budget so

793
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 1: much lower than it would be back home. Awesome. I

794
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: love that. That's a great tip, Christie. Earlier you mentioned

795
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: remote working for some your different clients and folks that

796
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: you guys work. You know, it's just so prominent these days.

797
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: Are you and Bryce? Are you working yourselves while you're abroad?

798
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: The funny thing is we're joking like we were retired,

799
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 1: but then because of this book, which came about because

800
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:13,399
Speaker 1: editor actually convinced us to write a book. At first,

801
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 1: I was like, this is going to be a lot

802
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: of work, and I was right, it's I joked that

803
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 1: are we really retired or just tired? Because there's just

804
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: so many interviews that we've been in recently that you know.

805
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:25,240
Speaker 1: I turned him and I was like, you know, normal

806
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: people actually get the weekend off, Like what's going on here? Right?

807
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: I think what happens in retirement is you end up

808
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: doing things you love to do, and you do it

809
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 1: for free, and then when you actually do it so well,

810
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,399
Speaker 1: people are actually throwing money at you to help them.

811
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: When I think about how this applies to regular people,

812
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: geographic arbitrage has opened up all these doors that we

813
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: don't realize, right, you know, when we're struggling with problems

814
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: like job insecurity, and we're struggling with problems with like

815
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: unaffordable housing, we don't think about this magical key that

816
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: could be used to open so many doors, like geographic arbitrage.

817
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: Because if you can find a way to you know,

818
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: do a side hustle or find a way to do

819
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: remote work, you can grow that gap between your expenses

820
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 1: and you're spending. Right, So a lot of people think,

821
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: I'm in a big city, I make a lot of money,

822
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:15,279
Speaker 1: but everything in, everything goes in, everything goes out. But

823
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:17,399
Speaker 1: if you can find a way to remote work, then

824
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,760
Speaker 1: you can have the system by moving to an inexpensive town.

825
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: And then that gap between how much you earn and

826
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 1: how much you spend is huge, and then that helps

827
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: you get to f I a lot faster. So when

828
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: when you meet fellow travelers, when you guys are abroad,

829
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: how do you find that some of those people are

830
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: making money as they are traveling. Well, there's actually a

831
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: group of people we met called the World Schoolers. This

832
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: was actually quite interesting because so we met this woman

833
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: who was traveling with her son, ten year old son

834
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: in um Toulou, Mexico. She was traveling in like in

835
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 1: February March, and I was like, wait, how are you

836
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: You've been traveling for over a month. How how did

837
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,319
Speaker 1: you take him out of school? This is not the

838
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: usual summer months. And she said, oh, we're part of

839
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: something called World Schoolers, And I was like, what that's

840
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: a real Oh my god, Okay, you have to sit

841
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: down and tell me everything. So she told us that

842
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: there was this community of forty people on Facebook that

843
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: they actually travel with their kids, and a lot of

844
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:14,840
Speaker 1: them make money online doing you know, programming or freelance writing,

845
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: or some of them are real estate investing, and the

846
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: money that they make, Like again, that gap between how

847
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: much they earn and how much they save is huge

848
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: because they're living in Mexico or you know people who

849
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 1: are in Australia. They're driving around and camping all over

850
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: Australia and they don't actually have a home. And the

851
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,359
Speaker 1: kids actually learn different languages. A lot of them are

852
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: multilingual because they've lived in so many different places. You know,

853
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 1: some of them know how to speak Mandarins, some of

854
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 1: them know how to speak Spanish, and a lot of

855
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 1: the learnings comes from outside of the classroom, Like instead

856
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: of learning about the Vietnam War, they actually went to

857
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: Vietnam and talked to a war veteran and found out

858
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:53,839
Speaker 1: that in Vietnam they don't call it the Vietnam War.

859
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: They call it the American War. Right, just like things

860
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:58,439
Speaker 1: like this that you would never be able to learn

861
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,240
Speaker 1: in a classroom, this isn't in higher community of people

862
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: who are using geographic arbitrage, who are making money online

863
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: and traveling with their kids, and then they're able to

864
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: spend all their time with their children rather than you know,

865
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 1: working stressful jobs and have to put their kids like

866
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: having somebody else take care of their kids. Yeah, Christie,

867
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 1: that you know, you talk about geographic arbitrage. It makes

868
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: me think of my father in law. Actually he I

869
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: don't know if he had a pamphlet or what, but

870
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: I know surely after he retired he was talking a

871
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 1: lot about Panama because I think Panama has is one

872
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: of those spots that a lot of retirees look at.

873
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: He was seriously considering doing something like that and talking

874
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: with the buddy of his from college. So yeah, I

875
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 1: definitely don't overlook that. But for you, you know what

876
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: has been the hardest thing about retiring early? Like it

877
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: all sounds like super nice and a quick Yahoo article

878
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: or something, right, but traveling incessantly and being away from

879
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: family and friends. Have you found that to be hard? Oh? Yeah?

880
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 1: I mean. The thing is when I actually gave my notice,

881
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:57,479
Speaker 1: I thought I would be ecstatic because at that point

882
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 1: I really hated my job and it was so stressful.

883
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: But I actually had a miniature panic attack after I

884
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: handed in my notice because I was thinking what have

885
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: I done right? And not just from a money perspective,

886
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: but from an identity perspective, Like you spend ten years

887
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: building up this identity as an engineer, then you think,

888
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: what am I going to do next? I'm going to

889
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 1: be a retiree, Like does that make any sense? It

890
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: actually took at least six months for me to decompress

891
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: and get out of that mindset of I always have

892
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,839
Speaker 1: to be doing something and I am my job. And

893
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: one of the things that actually helped was us packing

894
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: everything up into two backpacks and starting to travel. Because

895
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: other travelers never ask what do you do? They always

896
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: ask where are you from and where are you going?

897
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: So that kind of switched me from that mindset of

898
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: like yeah, right, like the go go go, you are

899
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 1: your job. They don't care what your job is. They

900
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: want to know more about you as a person. So

901
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 1: that really helped me shift from that identity crisis into like, oh, yeah, okay,

902
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: and you know, this is what the sunset looks like.

903
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: I actually know I've actually been able to see a

904
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: sunset for the first time in ten years, right, And

905
00:42:57,920 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: I can actually relax and I don't have to be

906
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: rushing places and and things like that. What was hard though, Like,

907
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: there's two things that was very hard. One was my

908
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,439
Speaker 1: family and friends were just didn't understand what we're doing,

909
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: especially my parents. The first year of travel, my dad

910
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 1: kept sending me emails with job posting saying, you need

911
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: to go back to work. This is not enough money.

912
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: How am I supposed to tell my friends what it

913
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:19,879
Speaker 1: is that you do? Like, I can't just tell them

914
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:21,919
Speaker 1: my daughter is a bomp, get back to work. Yeah,

915
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:23,839
Speaker 1: there's so much honor, right, Like that's what you're talking

916
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: about earlier sort of in the in the Asian culture.

917
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 1: I'm half Korean, and yeah, there's there's a lot of

918
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: pressure there behind what you do in your performance and

919
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: what kind of value that you bring to the world.

920
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: So I totally understand that. Yeah, and it reflects back

921
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:37,759
Speaker 1: on your parents, right, Like what you do it's not

922
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: about individualism in in Eastern cultures, it's about like the

923
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: collective whole. So what I do reflects off of my parents, right,

924
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: and you know their upbringing and all that. So they

925
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: were embarrassed and they didn't know what to tell their friends,

926
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:50,720
Speaker 1: and they were really worried about me running out of money.

927
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,720
Speaker 1: And then also, you know the friendships that you've built

928
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: over time, Like you're gonna be on the road and

929
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 1: building new relationships, but those have to end, right, because

930
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: you're moving from place to place. So what I found

931
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: over time in dealing with these two challenges. Number one,

932
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: the first year that we left, our family and friends

933
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: were like, Okay, we'll have fun in a year and

934
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: then come back and I'm sure you'll be begging for

935
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: your job back, right. And then the second year they

936
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: were like, wait, you're still traveling and you haven't run

937
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 1: out of money. Well, that's because the stock market is

938
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: doing well. It's just luck. And then the third year

939
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: it's like, what you're still traveling, MM, tell me more

940
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: about this financial independence how does that work? And then

941
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: the fourth year they're like, can you look at my

942
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 1: investments and my retirement funds? And they're like wow. So

943
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: what you do is you lead by example rather than

944
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: try to tell people what you're doing or preach at

945
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: them because it doesn't work right. And then with the

946
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,879
Speaker 1: friendships that you know, you develop friendships on the road

947
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:44,839
Speaker 1: and you have to give them up while you're traveling. Well,

948
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 1: what we've decided to do over time is that we've

949
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: actually slowed down. Initially, we were moving every two days.

950
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: You know, we wouldn't stay in a place for more

951
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,399
Speaker 1: than a week because we wanted to visit as many

952
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: countries as possible. But now that we've kind of gotten

953
00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: in the groove, we kind of have a system that

954
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: we put in. We tend to kind of go back

955
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: between a few countries in Europe, North America, and m

956
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 1: and Asia, and we've actually created communities that we visit

957
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: periodically throughout the year, and so the world kind of

958
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: becomes one city and that you're visiting some friends like

959
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 1: for a couple of months, like maybe three months and

960
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: another three months, so like every quarter you move and

961
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 1: then you have four different communities around the world that

962
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: you're actually keeping in contact with, and you see your

963
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: family every summer instead of freezing to death in the

964
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: winter when you come back to Canada. You know, there's

965
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,399
Speaker 1: a lot of challenges that come with traveling, but once

966
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:36,280
Speaker 1: you figure out your groove, it's it's amazing. That's so cool. Look, Christie,

967
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: this has been such an excellent conversation. We appreciate you

968
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: taking the time and sharing not only your story but

969
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: your thoughts on so many things with us and with

970
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 1: our listeners. And if they want to learn a little

971
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: bit more about you and what you're doing, where can

972
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: they do that? Yeah? Um, So, if you want to

973
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: find out more about our book, Quit Like a Millionaire,

974
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 1: which outlines exactly how we did this, you can check

975
00:45:56,040 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: out www Dot Quit Like a Millionaire dot com. And

976
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: you can also go to our blog where we run

977
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 1: a completely free workshop you just need to sign up

978
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: with your email that teaches you how to invest from

979
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: the ground up and shows exactly what we invest in.

980
00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:16,240
Speaker 1: And the blog is www dot Millennial dash Revolution dot com. Awesome,

981
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 1: and we will link to both of those things in

982
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 1: the show notes. And again, we appreciate your time. This

983
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:24,279
Speaker 1: was an awesome conversation. Yeah, Christy, thanks so much, Thanks

984
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: so much for having me. All Right, Matt, that was

985
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: such a good conversation with Christie. So what was your

986
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,839
Speaker 1: big takeaway from this conversation. Yeah, man, what I love

987
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 1: so much was her pot score or her pot score.

988
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 1: I feel that's just such an intentional and mindful way

989
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 1: to approach not only higher education, but your career for

990
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: years to come. And you know, she touched on a

991
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: little bit, but it's as simple as this. You take

992
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: the pay that you're going to receive above minimum wage,

993
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,399
Speaker 1: and you divide that by the tuition costs to get

994
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: the program that will allow you to get that job.

995
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: An example that she gave in the book was that

996
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 1: on average, up plumber will make about thirty eight thousand

997
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 1: dollars of minimum wage and that program will cost about

998
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 1: thirty to complete to actually become a legit plumber. And

999
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 1: when you divide that out, that pot score that you

1000
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: get is a little over five. Right, But she gives

1001
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 1: lots of other examples in the book as well that

1002
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 1: are a lot lower, and you'd be so surprised at

1003
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 1: some of the professions. We're talking doctors, you know, she

1004
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:20,839
Speaker 1: mentioned writers, which we're you know, really low. I think

1005
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 1: that was even below one. Yeah, doctors got thrown unto

1006
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 1: the bus for sure. With Christie's pot score. Yeah, I

1007
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: think it's helpful right to have some sort of way

1008
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 1: to quantify how good these particular college degrees could be.

1009
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:34,240
Speaker 1: And I don't think it means you have to forgo

1010
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: your passion. Christie always wanted to become a writer, and

1011
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: you know what, she's a published author now she has

1012
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: a blog, but she didn't have the major in it

1013
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: to get there, so I thought that was really cool.

1014
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 1: I think my main takeaway from from this episode, from

1015
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 1: this conversation was Christie talking about shifting from a comparison mindset,

1016
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: and she talked about scarcity mindset, but she just quickly

1017
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: mentioned shifting from this comparison mindset and just kind of

1018
00:47:56,520 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: doing a reframe. I'm thinking properly about what you actually need.

1019
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: And I think it's so easy for us to get

1020
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: caught up in what the people around us have, or

1021
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:08,479
Speaker 1: are buying, or are doing, and I know it's easy

1022
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: for me sometimes, So just that gentle reminder that looking

1023
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 1: around actually creates more envy, creates more desire to spend,

1024
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 1: and I need to put the kibosh on that by

1025
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: getting off Instagram from time to time. Right, So that

1026
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 1: was one of many awesome things I got out of

1027
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: this conversation. Nice man, that was a great tip. I

1028
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: want to get us back to our beer, which was

1029
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 1: a blood orange Goza by Draft Works and this was

1030
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: sent to us by listener Ray out there in Missoula, Montana. Joel,

1031
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 1: what were your thoughts on this delicious beer? Man? This

1032
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 1: beer was so good. It was very unique. It was fruity,

1033
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:42,879
Speaker 1: it was tart, it was kind of briny, a little

1034
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: bit of that sea salt goes a kind of style action.

1035
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: I love blood oranges. Blood oranges and a beer I

1036
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: think are typically magnificent, and this one pulled it off

1037
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: so well, so mad props to Ray for sending this

1038
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: beer out our way. It was unique and delicious. Yeah,

1039
00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more regarding the brininess. To me,

1040
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 1: it was almost less briany and more salts or sodium.

1041
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: And I don't think there's maybe a real difference there.

1042
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 1: I thought, that's what I guess, But I think briani,

1043
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. I hear Brianie and I think of

1044
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: the ocean. There's like a different quality there, whereas this

1045
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: to me almost tasted more like a nice stock, like

1046
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: a soup, like goes savory. Almost there was just a

1047
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 1: depth there that I was not expecting out of a goza.

1048
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 1: I'd say, it's enough fruit there to kind of brighten

1049
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: it up. But to me, I couldn't get past the

1050
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: fact that it almost felt like I was drinking just

1051
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:32,399
Speaker 1: a rich, really nice uh stock, like a nice soup. Yeah,

1052
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: once again, your palette never ceases to amaze me. I've

1053
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 1: never heard anyone describe a beer as being similar to

1054
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: a soup. So that's fun. No soup for you, Joel,

1055
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,440
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention to Ray. She sent us a

1056
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:47,920
Speaker 1: quick note mentioning how when she was applying for her

1057
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 1: grad program her graduate school, she got into all of them.

1058
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:53,280
Speaker 1: So Ray, congrats, that's awesome. You must be pretty smart.

1059
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: But she based her final decision her and her husband,

1060
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 1: they based their final decision on the beer scene, and

1061
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 1: they were attracted to Missoula because is of all that

1062
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: they had going on there. So I was really impressed

1063
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:05,360
Speaker 1: with her dedication to craft beer. Oh man, Yeah, I

1064
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: don't think I could live somewhere where there wasn't decent

1065
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 1: access to good craft beer. Right seriously? Yeah, smart move ray.

1066
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 1: All right, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode.

1067
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: Folks who want to check out the show notes for

1068
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: this one, you can check those out on our website,

1069
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: how to money dot com. And if you're enjoying what

1070
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Speaker 1: we're doing here at how to Money, we would really

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Speaker 1: appreciate if you left us a review over on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: So Joel. Until next time, best friends Friends Out, Best

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Speaker 1: Friends Out,