Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're discussing making work a smaller part of
Speaker 1: your life with money pro Tanya hester that's right, Joel.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be an episode of talking about our
Speaker 1: attitudes towards work, and we're gonna talk about retirement as well.
Speaker 1: It's just some different types of retirement. And I'm glad
Speaker 1: that we have our five minutes segment with Tanya to
Speaker 1: get us thinking about that a little differently, Joel. But first,
Speaker 1: I wanted to run a frugal versu cheap by you man,
Speaker 1: I got I got one for you bring a buddy. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I applied for a new credit card because I
Speaker 1: was wanting to get that sign up bonus. This is
Speaker 1: a sign up bonus. Yeah, it's a It's a pretty
Speaker 1: good one. And here's why I want to talk about
Speaker 1: this is because a lot of times people talk about
Speaker 1: not opening new cards for bonuses like that because it
Speaker 1: dings your credit. Yeah. I think we had a recent
Speaker 1: discussion in the Facebook group about that. Man, It's kind
Speaker 1: of a constant sort of topic, right, Yeah. But so
Speaker 1: my question is is it being frugal or cheap to
Speaker 1: sign up for a new car to get that bonus
Speaker 1: when it hurts your credit score, what do you think? So?
Speaker 1: I think it depends on your specific situation. If you're
Speaker 1: applying for a home loan or a car loan like
Speaker 1: literally next week, then it's it's cheap. It's a bad
Speaker 1: idea to get that five bucks and doing your credit
Speaker 1: score and potentially hurt these interest rates that you're going
Speaker 1: to have for a long time on while you're paying
Speaker 1: down a car or a home. But if you're not
Speaker 1: in that situation, if you're not looking to finance anything
Speaker 1: in the near future, I say, doing your credit score
Speaker 1: and take the cash. Yeah, man, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's your credit score for? But use it?
Speaker 1: I think what happens is a lot of times folks
Speaker 1: view their credit score as this indicator of just how
Speaker 1: good they are with money, or maybe their success or
Speaker 1: just a number of things. But that number is there
Speaker 1: for you to use it if you have a great
Speaker 1: credit score, and you can use that to to get
Speaker 1: great financial products, whether it be a new credit card
Speaker 1: or especially owns. But in my case, I'm using it
Speaker 1: to get new cards to get the sign up bonuses. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not looking to have a perfect credit score just
Speaker 1: for the sake of someday achieving eight fifty like a
Speaker 1: gold star on a test. Yeah, Like, what's it really matter?
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter, you know. What matters is the
Speaker 1: bottom line for me right now. That's not getting a
Speaker 1: great rate on a new mortgage, because I'm not looking
Speaker 1: to get one of those anytime soon, like you mentioned.
Speaker 1: But the dollar amount in my pocket, Like, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm looking at. And in our case, we already had
Speaker 1: a big expense coming up literally this morning. We actually
Speaker 1: just paid for our new baby all right at the
Speaker 1: person center. I told you about that you gotta wait
Speaker 1: on your delivery for a while, exactly. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: an expense we knew was coming up, and so why
Speaker 1: not put that on a card and we're gonna pay
Speaker 1: it off at the end of the month and get
Speaker 1: that five off. That's a that's a great deal. But
Speaker 1: like you said, if you're going to be applying for
Speaker 1: a mortgage anytime soon, you might want to hold off
Speaker 1: and know yourself as well. If you think that applying
Speaker 1: for a new card might cause you to spend more
Speaker 1: than than you really should be spending, well, don't. Don't
Speaker 1: do that if you know that you'll be tempted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna pay for the baby anyway, right, certainly. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think too, to your point about how people view
Speaker 1: their credit score, Matt, there's some people that are obsessed
Speaker 1: with hitting the eight hundred credit score number, or or
Speaker 1: even getting above that, and they're like, why isn't my
Speaker 1: score perfect? And there are all these little things that
Speaker 1: influence your score. And if you're in that seven sixties,
Speaker 1: seven seventy or above range, you're in amazing credit territory.
Speaker 1: And if you're above seven forty, you're in super super
Speaker 1: solid territory. And and so I think just kind of
Speaker 1: look at where you're at. If you have a credit
Speaker 1: score of seven ninety eight hundred, taking advantage of a
Speaker 1: new credit card deal with a sign up bonus is
Speaker 1: going to cost you, in all likelihood ten maybe twelve points.
Speaker 1: It's not that big of a deal, and it still
Speaker 1: keeps you in pristine credit range. So don't overthink it,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. So it's important to know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that your credit score is is helpful for so many things,
Speaker 1: but it's also something that you can use to your benefit,
Speaker 1: like you're doing right now. Yeah, so it's important to
Speaker 1: not get too bogged down with the details when it
Speaker 1: comes to your credit score. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: our beer today that we have from land Grant brew Company,
Speaker 1: uh and they are out of Columbus, Ohio. Matt. This
Speaker 1: is a beer in their Quadra Hopic series of I
Speaker 1: p A S and this one features force specific hops
Speaker 1: And this was sent to us from listener Kayla, who
Speaker 1: works for land Grant Brewing. And you know we're always
Speaker 1: down for a good I p A. So thank you
Speaker 1: Kayla for sending this one out. We're having some SIPs
Speaker 1: of this right now, but we'll talk more about this
Speaker 1: beer at the end of this episode. Yeah, Matt, so
Speaker 1: onto the subject at hand. The topic of the day
Speaker 1: is making work a smaller part of your life, and
Speaker 1: we're bringing money pro Tanya Hester on to to talk
Speaker 1: about this. She blogs and a blog called Our Next Life,
Speaker 1: and she recently wrote a book called Work Optional, And
Speaker 1: if you stay tuned to the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: we're actually gonna give away a few copies to listeners. Um.
Speaker 1: She also, by the way, hosts the Fairer Sense podcast
Speaker 1: and she's done so much work which is kind of
Speaker 1: a funny thing to say, because she's talking about work optional.
Speaker 1: She's done a lot of work to think through this subject. Well,
Speaker 1: she has afforded herself the opportunity she and her husband
Speaker 1: to make work a completely optional part of their life,
Speaker 1: and they can work however much or however little they
Speaker 1: want to based on the way that they've saved and
Speaker 1: invested and thought about money for a number of years.
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited to see how we can take
Speaker 1: this subject with Tanya and make it applicable to listeners
Speaker 1: no matter what their current financial situation is. Yeah, Joel,
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I love about Tanya's story
Speaker 1: is she's talking about this from a standpoint of authority
Speaker 1: because she has achieved financial independence, she's retired early, but
Speaker 1: she wasn't always set in life. She mentioned in her
Speaker 1: book how until her late twenties she had a negative
Speaker 1: net worth just from some dumb financial decisions that she made.
Speaker 1: She wasn't one of these high school grads where straight
Speaker 1: up high school theas she started like an app or
Speaker 1: you know, she wasn't a genius in college to where
Speaker 1: she had companies on Wall Street making her amazing offers.
Speaker 1: She worked for MPR. And I don't know if you've heard,
Speaker 1: but NPR asked for a lot of money because because
Speaker 1: they're not very well funded. Yeah, people in radio, I
Speaker 1: can attest to this, don't typically make too much money.
Speaker 1: And I guarantee you most of the folks at NPR
Speaker 1: aren't making tons of money either, so exactly, And so
Speaker 1: I love though that she started at that point, um,
Speaker 1: and I think that's incredibly relatable to anyone. And we'll
Speaker 1: hear Tanya's five minutes of distilled wisdom about this in
Speaker 1: one second. But really quick, let's talk about the problems
Speaker 1: that people have with work, Matt and and we address
Speaker 1: this a little bit in episode fifty of our show
Speaker 1: about what a proper view of work should look like.
Speaker 1: We mentioned that work is a wonderful thing, but work
Speaker 1: isn't everything. And those two views have been the main
Speaker 1: ways that we've categorized work in our culture these days.
Speaker 1: And Americans work way more than they did in the past,
Speaker 1: and far more than other countries. So it's no wonder
Speaker 1: that we are looking for ways to work less and
Speaker 1: enjoy our work more. And so Tanya isn't approaching this
Speaker 1: because she hates work, and we don't either. We think
Speaker 1: work is an important thing and a meaningful thing. We
Speaker 1: think that she's kind of helping us find out how
Speaker 1: to do meaningful work from a position of strength, and
Speaker 1: having strong personal finances is crucial in that equation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just not being stressed while you are working. She
Speaker 1: also mentions how like her and her husband are both
Speaker 1: on boards and they're pretty much busier than ever right now.
Speaker 1: But what they are doing is they're spending their energies
Speaker 1: and their time working on things that they actually truly
Speaker 1: care about. And when they don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: the money, well it becomes a joy. It's it's sort
Speaker 1: of this passion pursuit. And how much more fulfilling is
Speaker 1: that when you're able to work on something because you
Speaker 1: believe it, not because you know that. Well, that's how
Speaker 1: I get the best paycheck. Um, And that's where she's
Speaker 1: operating from, and I know I want to operate from
Speaker 1: that standpoint, and I think a lot of our listeners
Speaker 1: I would agree, and that resonates with them as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So just a quick reminder that the way these money
Speaker 1: Pro episodes work is that we bring on our money
Speaker 1: Pro for five minutes of distilled wisdom, and so, without
Speaker 1: further ado, here is Tanya's five minutes on avoiding burnout
Speaker 1: and making work a smaller part of your life. K
Speaker 1: Matt and Joel, thanks for having me on to talk
Speaker 1: about how to make work a smaller part of life
Speaker 1: even if you never plan to retire early. First, let's
Speaker 1: talk about why it behooves us all to act as
Speaker 1: if we're going to retire early, even if early means
Speaker 1: fifty or fifty five, not forty or thirty five, depending
Speaker 1: on how the survey writers ask the question. We know
Speaker 1: that somewhere between one third and two thirds of people
Speaker 1: retire before they intend to for a whole host of
Speaker 1: reasons poor health, badly time, layoffs, needing to care for
Speaker 1: a sick loved one, that kind of thing. We also
Speaker 1: know from New Urban Institute and pro public analysis that
Speaker 1: more than half of workers over fifty are laid off
Speaker 1: or let go in ways that irreparably harm their financial health,
Speaker 1: maybe making the type of retirement they had hoped for
Speaker 1: impossible more than half more than half of workers over fifty.
Speaker 1: And of course we all know that automation, outsourcing and
Speaker 1: shifts within industries aren't ever present threat to long term
Speaker 1: job security. What you do now simply may not exist
Speaker 1: as a job by the time you're fifty. So even
Speaker 1: if you love your job and have zero desire to
Speaker 1: leave it before your sixties, you may not ultimately have
Speaker 1: that say, And you're so much better off if you
Speaker 1: can give yourself the financial flexibility to weather any setbacks
Speaker 1: that come your way. But ultimately we're talking about making
Speaker 1: mandatory work a smaller part of life, which feels like
Speaker 1: an almost revolutionary thing to say. In our seven hustle culture,
Speaker 1: the hustle culture that puts virtually all the power in
Speaker 1: employer's hands, that puts most of the productivity gains into
Speaker 1: shareholders hands, not workers hands. The work culture that has
Speaker 1: us working on average for full time weeks worth of
Speaker 1: hours more per year than workers did forty years ago.
Speaker 1: The culture that has most of us checking email on
Speaker 1: vacation and when sick, if we even take any sick
Speaker 1: time at all. This is at hustle culture. It's burnout culture,
Speaker 1: and it's killing us. But it's possible to fight back.
Speaker 1: In my book Work Optional, Retire Early, The nonpenny pinching Way,
Speaker 1: I outlined three possible paths that you could follow to
Speaker 1: make mandatory work a smaller part of your life. First,
Speaker 1: there's full early retirement, which is what I did along
Speaker 1: with my husband Mark, saving enough so that we never
Speaker 1: need to earn another dollar, meaning any work we do
Speaker 1: is now entirely on our own terms. There's also semi retirement,
Speaker 1: in which you save fully for your traditional retirement and
Speaker 1: then work just enough in your semi retired years to
Speaker 1: cover all or part of your living expenses. And finally,
Speaker 1: there's career intermission, in which you save enough to be
Speaker 1: able to take a year or two off from work,
Speaker 1: or perhaps a year every decade, or six months every
Speaker 1: five years, whatever feels right to you. But the truth
Speaker 1: is that you don't even have to achieve any of
Speaker 1: these levels of financial independence to make work more optional
Speaker 1: in your life. When we got to a point in
Speaker 1: our savings that I knew we could both get laid
Speaker 1: off and be unable to find work for a full
Speaker 1: year and still be okay, it was incredible how my
Speaker 1: whole view on work changed suddenly. That daily stress affected
Speaker 1: me less, the NonStop travel felt less grueling. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: felt powerful. I knew I didn't need the job, and
Speaker 1: while I stayed with it, for several more years, and
Speaker 1: honestly loved it until we'd saved enough to quit entirely.
Speaker 1: Knowing I could quit and be okay was one of
Speaker 1: the best things I've ever felt. It also changed the
Speaker 1: whole dynamic I had at work. Most of us have
Speaker 1: this massive power imbalance with our employers. They have the
Speaker 1: money and we want it, so we'll do pretty much
Speaker 1: whatever they ask of us, even if it's unhealthy and unsustainable,
Speaker 1: even if it destroys our relationships and gives us no
Speaker 1: time outside of work to pursue our own passions. When
Speaker 1: I knew I didn't need my job anymore, it flipped
Speaker 1: how I saw the whole arrangement. It was no longer
Speaker 1: me speaking to an omniscient being who held my fate
Speaker 1: in its hands. It was too economic equals. We each
Speaker 1: have something the other wants. I want your money, and
Speaker 1: you want my skills and talent. Knowing I could walk
Speaker 1: away was what made it possible for me to eyes
Speaker 1: to that equal position in the relationship and to push
Speaker 1: for what I wanted, like better projects and teams and
Speaker 1: better terms for those working under me. I didn't have
Speaker 1: to get anywhere near early retirement levels of savings and
Speaker 1: investments to feel that power just enough to know that
Speaker 1: I could quit any time, and that's something that's within
Speaker 1: reach for most of us. So where to begin. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of starting by mapping out what your
Speaker 1: ideal life would look like, both so you know what
Speaker 1: it costs and so you have a vision that will
Speaker 1: motivate you to save over the long term. Then get
Speaker 1: tactical track your spending, figure out how much you can
Speaker 1: currently afford to save and how you expect that to
Speaker 1: grow over time, and then put automated systems into place
Speaker 1: to help you save, like having your paycheck split so
Speaker 1: a portion goes to savings without you even seeing it,
Speaker 1: or working toward maxing out your I RA A or
Speaker 1: four oh one K. I offer a saving sequence in
Speaker 1: the book that helps you think about tackling a bunch
Speaker 1: of financial goals in sequence, whether it's paying off debt,
Speaker 1: saving to buy a home, or saving for early retirement,
Speaker 1: or some combination of all three. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be a super saver or a high earner to give
Speaker 1: yourself the power to live a work optional life. You
Speaker 1: just have to be willing to get started. I hope
Speaker 1: this has giving you something to think about. Thanks for
Speaker 1: letting me share my thoughts guys, Tanya, thank you. This
Speaker 1: is awesome. There is clearly such a wealth of wisdom
Speaker 1: that Tanya has, and it's no wonder that she's written
Speaker 1: multiple books stroll um. I'm looking forward to diving into
Speaker 1: all that she had to say right after this break.
Speaker 1: All right, Matt, we'll back and man, I so love
Speaker 1: but Tanya had to say and the perspective that she has,
Speaker 1: like where she comes from. One of my favorite things
Speaker 1: that she said was at the beginning of For five
Speaker 1: Minutes when she said that it's better to act like
Speaker 1: you're going to retire early, even if you don't think
Speaker 1: that you're going to. And that was such an awesome
Speaker 1: and powerful thing for me. And I think the reason
Speaker 1: why is because many of us think that we control
Speaker 1: our own fate, that even if we're a good employee,
Speaker 1: that we're assured of a job in the future, and
Speaker 1: especially in today's corporate culture, that's just not the case.
Speaker 1: And I love the idea of acting and treating our
Speaker 1: finances like we're planning to retire early, saving a whole
Speaker 1: heck of a lot more than we are now, even
Speaker 1: if we don't necessarily want to to quit work at
Speaker 1: an early age. I think that's so powerful and so important. Yeah, Joe, because,
Speaker 1: like she mentioned, there's a whole host of reasons why
Speaker 1: you might actually have to end up retiring early, whether
Speaker 1: they be personal or industry specific, depending on the industry
Speaker 1: that you're in or your specific company. Um, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: with you though. The fact that she mentioned focusing on
Speaker 1: doing that early, it's sort of this overachiever mentality, and honestly,
Speaker 1: that's just a better way to live life. I'm not
Speaker 1: habitually late by any means. I don't think I am
Speaker 1: am I late all the time? No, not usually, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. But I can probably count on my
Speaker 1: hand the number of times I was early to something
Speaker 1: last year. But when you are early to something, just
Speaker 1: think about how much better of a position that puts
Speaker 1: you in when it comes to the quality of life
Speaker 1: that you have. You're just less stressed. You're not rushing
Speaker 1: around to make sure you're there on time. When it
Speaker 1: comes to opportunities, like you show up early someplace, you're
Speaker 1: just kind of hanging out, like you can find ways
Speaker 1: to help out. You have more options when you have time.
Speaker 1: But then also like the quality of your work improves.
Speaker 1: Imagine showing up to an interview ten minutes earlier versus
Speaker 1: right on time. You're probably gonna perform a little bit
Speaker 1: better if you had ten minutes to sit there and
Speaker 1: think about it. So, just in general, when it comes
Speaker 1: to your finances and reaching a point of financial stability,
Speaker 1: a little ahead of time, a little bit early in
Speaker 1: a similar way that you see that benefiting you in
Speaker 1: real life, like social or work situations. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of aspects of our life, Matt, that we
Speaker 1: don't have control over. Right We might, like Tanya said,
Speaker 1: have some sort of bad health outcome or or get
Speaker 1: laid off, even if we've been doing a good job,
Speaker 1: and there might be a need for us to care
Speaker 1: for somebody else in our life. Maybe somebody else that
Speaker 1: we love and care about deeply get sick, and who
Speaker 1: knows what that may bring to your life time wise
Speaker 1: and money needs. So even if you love your job,
Speaker 1: even if you think and you plan on working till
Speaker 1: age sixty five or seventy, well, unforeseen circumstances could prevent that,
Speaker 1: and you just have to be prepared. And Matt, for example,
Speaker 1: the company I work for my day job they have
Speaker 1: announced that the radio station I work for is for sale,
Speaker 1: and that could mean a whole host for sale. By
Speaker 1: like there's a sign off front there is yeah, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'll buy it, and they're like, you
Speaker 1: don't have enough. I'm sorry you can't, but yeah. So
Speaker 1: there's such an element of fright in the building when
Speaker 1: an announcement like that gets made, and you can just
Speaker 1: tell that so many people haven't thought at all about
Speaker 1: what life might look like if something like that were
Speaker 1: to happen. There's just been zero planning. And I understand that,
Speaker 1: like I have pity for that, Like I I completely
Speaker 1: know that there are so many other things to take
Speaker 1: over our lives from just the day job, the grind
Speaker 1: and and kids and all the other things that are
Speaker 1: going on in our lives. But if we don't pay
Speaker 1: attention to our finances, an announcement like that gets made
Speaker 1: and people are freaking out. And for me, I mean,
Speaker 1: I like my day job, it's really fun, I like
Speaker 1: the people I work with, I like what I do.
Speaker 1: But I also know that when this announcement got made,
Speaker 1: not much changed in my mind because I know where
Speaker 1: I'm at financially. I know that I have the ability
Speaker 1: to weather any storm like this, and that just gave
Speaker 1: me a lot of confidence that I don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about what happens if they call me tomorrow and
Speaker 1: say it got sold, and we don't need your position anymore.
Speaker 1: Like I'm in a position of length to be able
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, I can take a year off, or
Speaker 1: I can work to find something else as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: But I just don't have to fret about it. And
Speaker 1: that is such a nice place to be. And I
Speaker 1: know that that's just a rare position for people, but
Speaker 1: it's an important one to think about now before that
Speaker 1: announcement gets made at your work, right. I love that
Speaker 1: you are in a position of of strength to a
Speaker 1: certain extent. Here is not to say that you're financially
Speaker 1: independent right now or that you're you know that you've
Speaker 1: retired early, but you have, but that I could because
Speaker 1: I can't. Yeah, but you do have some margin, you know,
Speaker 1: I've we've talked before and you've mentioned how you could
Speaker 1: maybe take a year off, and you know you could
Speaker 1: get by things will be all right. We're maybe in
Speaker 1: a similar position. I don't think we could take a
Speaker 1: full year off, but that's something that we're working towards
Speaker 1: to have that financial margin to be prepared to whether
Speaker 1: the different storms like that. And again, it's not saying
Speaker 1: that we don't enjoy work. We're just looking at ways
Speaker 1: to make mandatory work a smaller part of your life.
Speaker 1: And so in order to do that, though, you have
Speaker 1: to push back against the standard work culture where the
Speaker 1: power is in the hands of employers and time you
Speaker 1: mentioned that, because when you're overworked like that, that's what
Speaker 1: leads to the and out, when you feel that you
Speaker 1: have to say yes to every single thing that's being
Speaker 1: asked of you. Sometimes it may not even be the
Speaker 1: most upstanding request, but you think, oh, we'll shoot, I'm
Speaker 1: counting on a paycheck to come in next week. Kind
Speaker 1: of held to this carrot, you know, being dangled in
Speaker 1: front of you and there's a requirement of you to
Speaker 1: perform to a certain extent. And that's the view and
Speaker 1: attitudes towards work that we're trying to get away from. Matt.
Speaker 1: Let me give another just quick example. And part of
Speaker 1: the reason that I've created this level of financial security
Speaker 1: in my life comes from what I experienced as a
Speaker 1: kid in childhood and my dad lost his job when
Speaker 1: I was pretty young, and he had this great middle
Speaker 1: management job, and my parents were kind of living at
Speaker 1: this place where where they could meet their monthly obligations,
Speaker 1: but they weren't putting anything aside for the future. And
Speaker 1: I guess the assumption for them, just like so many
Speaker 1: other people, was that things would continue on the way
Speaker 1: they were indefinitely. And so when when my dad's company
Speaker 1: got bought by another company, he was laid off, and
Speaker 1: that created immense amounts of financial tumult in our lives.
Speaker 1: And I love what Tanya is talking about with making
Speaker 1: work a smaller part of our lives, because even when
Speaker 1: you lose your job, if you don't have a small
Speaker 1: amount of financial security, if you're living paycheck to paycheck,
Speaker 1: you don't have any options when it comes to your
Speaker 1: next place of employment. To a certain extent, you're pretty
Speaker 1: much at the whims of whatever the market has to
Speaker 1: offer at that moment in time. Okay, let's talk now
Speaker 1: about how Tanya that she mentioned how there are three
Speaker 1: possible paths towards working less in your life. There is
Speaker 1: full early retirement, and you know, that's financial independence where
Speaker 1: all work is optional. That's sort of the pinnacle of
Speaker 1: when it comes to retirement and your savings. And really
Speaker 1: that just means that whatever you have in investments, whether
Speaker 1: its torntal properties or uh in your retirement accounts can
Speaker 1: cover your living expenses so that you don't have to work.
Speaker 1: That's right, man. And the next she mentioned semi retirement
Speaker 1: or partial retirement, and this is where you can save
Speaker 1: fully for a traditional retirement, but then you continue to
Speaker 1: work some to cover your day to day living expenses.
Speaker 1: You know, honestly, I think this is a great option
Speaker 1: if it's hard for you to imagine life without work personally,
Speaker 1: Semi retirement or partial retirement is my goal because I
Speaker 1: just see work being a large part of what I do.
Speaker 1: I I want to continue to work. I want to
Speaker 1: be able to continue to create things. You know, we're
Speaker 1: working hard at creating this podcast. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun and for our family as well. I know what
Speaker 1: the next eighteen years are gonna look like. It's gonna
Speaker 1: look a lot like that prototypical American family where the
Speaker 1: kids go off to school in the morning, they come
Speaker 1: back in the afternoon, and and we're gonna have dinner
Speaker 1: together as a family. You know, Kate and I have
Speaker 1: talked about how that's a goal of ours, like we
Speaker 1: want to sort of create this maybe overly idyllic sort
Speaker 1: of life, but that's the kind of life that we
Speaker 1: want to lead right now at least. And so because
Speaker 1: of that, work fits into that very well, Like there's
Speaker 1: a reason maybe why kids go off to the school
Speaker 1: while your parents are off working. It just kind of
Speaker 1: fits together. And so for me to feel less stress
Speaker 1: about my job to where I feel that it has
Speaker 1: to be able to produce a certain amount of money
Speaker 1: every single month because I'm on a variable monthly sort
Speaker 1: of income, that would be amazing. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: draw of something like semi retirement is kind of like
Speaker 1: you were saying, that you can get in a nice
Speaker 1: full day's work while the kids are at school, and
Speaker 1: then when they come home, there's no more work, right,
Speaker 1: You only have to work that night if you want to,
Speaker 1: and you can work on the things that you're interested in.
Speaker 1: And that is such a super cool thing. And we
Speaker 1: realize that that's that's a hard thing to come by,
Speaker 1: that's not an easy thing, Like that's my goal, that's
Speaker 1: a goal for future for us, right, and even if
Speaker 1: you don't have kids to be able to work while
Speaker 1: your friends are working, because it's hard to live a
Speaker 1: sort of quote unquote normal life where your friends are
Speaker 1: working all day and then sometimes even into the night,
Speaker 1: and for you to maintain those friendships, right, Like, how
Speaker 1: do you maintain in a friendship or how do you
Speaker 1: maintain sort of a regular life when when your friends
Speaker 1: are working all day and you know you're kicking back
Speaker 1: because you're basically, you know, fully retired. Well, that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of difficult. Instead to be able to continually challenge
Speaker 1: yourself to to create new things, or to challenge yourself
Speaker 1: to learn a new skill, finding ways to contribute, Like
Speaker 1: all these are great reasons to continue to work, but
Speaker 1: just without that stress. Yeah, and I think that ideal
Speaker 1: of semi retirement allows you to Let's say you are
Speaker 1: pulling ten hour days right now. Let's say you're a
Speaker 1: prototypical American and you're working more than forty hours a week,
Speaker 1: because most Americans are, There's there's just a lot of
Speaker 1: work going on in our society. We've become highly productive people.
Speaker 1: We we get a lot more done with a lot
Speaker 1: fewer human resources. Each individual American is so much more
Speaker 1: productive than they used to be. Thirty years ago, but
Speaker 1: we're working a lot more in order to make that
Speaker 1: happen at the same time, and so we we feel
Speaker 1: that pole that we can't go on vacation, we're gonna
Speaker 1: let our co workers down. We feel the poll that
Speaker 1: we can't take time off or even calling sick because
Speaker 1: there's too much to be done. And the great thing
Speaker 1: about aiming for something like semi retirement is that you
Speaker 1: can cut back, and you can cut back to the
Speaker 1: point that feels reasonable and normal, because, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I would imagine a lot of you feel this pressure
Speaker 1: out there who are listening that you can't miss a
Speaker 1: day and that the demands in your daily job are
Speaker 1: just a lot. And having this kind of goal set
Speaker 1: out to reach something like a state of semi retirement
Speaker 1: where you can make some income from the stuff that
Speaker 1: you care about, uh, and the rest of your income
Speaker 1: is covered because let's say you've invested well in rental
Speaker 1: properties and you have great recurring monthly income from a
Speaker 1: few of those uh, something like that. It kind of
Speaker 1: changes the game and it changes our goal. Is our
Speaker 1: goal is not necessarily to retire from the company we're
Speaker 1: working for at the age of seventy with like a
Speaker 1: gold watch on our risk. But our goal is to
Speaker 1: exit earlier than that and be able to do more
Speaker 1: of what we care about, you know, Joel, I'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and readily admit though that this approach, like the
Speaker 1: semi retired or the partial retired life, might sound a
Speaker 1: little boring to some folks to think that, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: my goal is to live a standard average American life,
Speaker 1: at least on the service, right, Like, obviously there's much
Speaker 1: different things going on underneath the service when it comes
Speaker 1: to the finances of it. But maybe on the service,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, he takes his kids to school and
Speaker 1: he works all day and then he picks his kids up, Like,
Speaker 1: how is that that different? I think for a lot
Speaker 1: of folks that might not be very sexy, right, And
Speaker 1: so for those folks. The third approach that time you
Speaker 1: mentioned taking a career intermission. I think that's an incredible
Speaker 1: path and approach if you are more of maybe a
Speaker 1: high octane person, like where you're used to working hard,
Speaker 1: earning a lot of money, but you don't exactly know
Speaker 1: what you want to do with yourself once you achieve
Speaker 1: financial independence. In creating these these intermissions, these sabbaticals throughout
Speaker 1: your career that allows you to take some time off
Speaker 1: and think about what it is that you do truly
Speaker 1: want to do, Like, what is it that I really
Speaker 1: do want to do when I don't have to work anymore,
Speaker 1: when I don't have to clock in every single day.
Speaker 1: Those periods can give you some time to meditate. It's
Speaker 1: like creatively brainstorm, you know, like be creative, like think
Speaker 1: about the things that truly make you happy. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a way to kind of enjoy I think the fruit
Speaker 1: of your labor now as opposed to continually saying that
Speaker 1: you're going to do it when you eventually retire. And
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people, retirement is this
Speaker 1: vague notion pie in the sky thing. I know it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen someday, but why am I saving all this
Speaker 1: money for the time when I'm seventy and not living
Speaker 1: life now? And I think, you know, that's what we
Speaker 1: stress in this show to Matt is Toliver rich life
Speaker 1: now on less money and a career intermission is kind
Speaker 1: of a cool way to do that. And so two
Speaker 1: quick examples. I kind of took one of these really
Speaker 1: really early on in my career. I took three months
Speaker 1: off I had in turned at a radio station, and
Speaker 1: then I got my first job at one and I
Speaker 1: worked there for five months. And it turned out, uh,
Speaker 1: and you got burnout and you're looking for a break, right,
Speaker 1: It wasn't It wasn't quite that bad. It wasn't burnout,
Speaker 1: but just wasn't the right fit for me. In particular,
Speaker 1: I knew that that wasn't a place where I wanted
Speaker 1: to spend any more time, and so I gave plenty
Speaker 1: of notice. But what I ended up doing, I had
Speaker 1: saved five thousand dollars, which was a high savings rate
Speaker 1: for me at making very very little in my first job.
Speaker 1: I'd saved a bunch of money. And I bought a really,
Speaker 1: really old station wagon with my best buddy, Travis. Sorry
Speaker 1: you're my best buddy now, but yeah, old buddy, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: still a good friend. Though. We loaded up. We we uh.
Speaker 1: We drove across country for three months. We saw the
Speaker 1: coolest stuff. For instance, we had a beer recently from
Speaker 1: tell Your Ride and I talked about going to tell you.
Speaker 1: I saw so much of the country doing this. It
Speaker 1: was so wonderful and it was worth the thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars I had set aside to travel the country for
Speaker 1: three months. I knew that it was a brief career intermission.
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't going to be extended, one because
Speaker 1: I didn't have the money to make it an extended one,
Speaker 1: and two because I knew I wanted to get back
Speaker 1: to work. I was young in my career, but I
Speaker 1: knew if I took three months there, that I didn't
Speaker 1: have too long of a gap in my resume, and
Speaker 1: that I could have the most amazing time and see
Speaker 1: the most amazing things that I wouldn't be able to see.
Speaker 1: And then if I waited until I was seventy and
Speaker 1: did the normal thing and funneled that five thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: let's say into my four oh one. K I know
Speaker 1: that's going to grow, and I'm missing out on compounding
Speaker 1: growth and all that stuff, But it wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: the same. And so I would suggest a career intermission
Speaker 1: to lots of folks. For instance, Matt, we had Chad
Speaker 1: Carson on our show about small time real estate investing,
Speaker 1: and he and his family took seventeen months to go
Speaker 1: to Ecuador. That was a career intermission for him. But
Speaker 1: such an amazing experience and so wonderful to hear the
Speaker 1: way he recounts it. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people can aim for something like that that seems doable. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the benefit of a sort of career intermission
Speaker 1: like that is you're able to prove it to yourself
Speaker 1: that that is actually what you're gonna do. Like you
Speaker 1: said earlier, Joel, like, how there's this pine in the
Speaker 1: sky goal, this lofty pinnacle of financial independence, and once
Speaker 1: I achieve that status, then I'll take the vacations. Then
Speaker 1: I'll do this thing that you know I said I
Speaker 1: was gonna do. But having these sort of breaks in between,
Speaker 1: it really does give you a chance, not only maybe
Speaker 1: to prove it to yourself, but me to prove it
Speaker 1: to your family. If you are just constantly being frugal
Speaker 1: and finding ways to be smart with your money and
Speaker 1: sacrificing now with the promise, oh, someday we're gonna do this,
Speaker 1: or you know, we're gonna do this vacation and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be amazing, or we're gon we're gonna travel the world. Well,
Speaker 1: being able to stop right now and to actually try
Speaker 1: it out and to prove it to yourself that you
Speaker 1: are willing to do it. I think it's huge. It's
Speaker 1: and and it's a huge learning opportunity as well, because
Speaker 1: you might have in your mind that you want to
Speaker 1: do all these things, and you know what, you might
Speaker 1: try it for six months and you may not like it,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you know, your cheese is moved.
Speaker 1: What's my new goal? If that's no longer what you're
Speaker 1: seeking after? What is your new goal? What what is
Speaker 1: the new thing that you're gonna strive after? Because there's
Speaker 1: a huge paradign shift that's just happened. I feel like
Speaker 1: you're giving a mouse Trappic reference here. Well there's a
Speaker 1: book as well where it's, uh, you know who moved
Speaker 1: my cheese? And it's all about goal setting and figuring
Speaker 1: out what it is that you're actually seeking after. And
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of touching on that briefly, but like,
Speaker 1: that's what's happening when it comes time to taking those
Speaker 1: breaks and if you realize that you're not cut out
Speaker 1: for that sort of lifestyle, well you need to figure
Speaker 1: out what will truly motivate you. And so after the break,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to sort of the way that you
Speaker 1: think about work and how that can change your attitudes
Speaker 1: right now, as well as the steps that you can
Speaker 1: take to start working down that path towards working less
Speaker 1: in your life. All right, Matt, we're back and today
Speaker 1: we're talking about making work a smaller part of your life.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of funny how when you start to
Speaker 1: think about work in a different way and creating a
Speaker 1: financial support system to make sure that work isn't the
Speaker 1: end all be all, how it can actually make the
Speaker 1: outlook on your current work change the current job that
Speaker 1: you're doing right now and the way that you view
Speaker 1: it when you walk into work at nine am on
Speaker 1: a Monday, or you know, whatever your schedule is. It's
Speaker 1: amazing how having your financial ground game together can change
Speaker 1: everything in that way. Yeah, so when you are financially stable,
Speaker 1: that power dynamic, but you know, and your options like
Speaker 1: that changes. When you don't need to have your job anymore,
Speaker 1: you have that confidence to ask for what you want
Speaker 1: and time you mentioned, you know, working on projects that
Speaker 1: you really care about or advocating for it is under you.
Speaker 1: Like those that work for you, you can work for
Speaker 1: better options for them. Man, it just gets me pumped, right,
Speaker 1: What an incredible way to put together a team where
Speaker 1: you can fight for not only your own pay and
Speaker 1: your own salary, but but those who are working on
Speaker 1: your team. You know, and you can't do that if
Speaker 1: you're in a position of weakness when it comes to
Speaker 1: your own finances. When you're set financially and not set
Speaker 1: as in you can retire. But you know, when you
Speaker 1: have some margin there, when you are in a healthy position,
Speaker 1: you can go to bat. You can make these requests.
Speaker 1: And yeah, certainly that power dynamic has completely flipped. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I think when you have a decent amount of savings
Speaker 1: built up, when you have started investing well and you
Speaker 1: kind of begin to see your net worth kind of
Speaker 1: boy a little bit, right, it grows. It gives you
Speaker 1: that confidence to one I feel like, ask for pay
Speaker 1: according to what you're worth. It gives you the ability
Speaker 1: to be a little more bold in the request that
Speaker 1: you make when it comes to how you spend your
Speaker 1: time at work. And I feel like also it gives
Speaker 1: you the opportunity to kind of explore ways that you
Speaker 1: can be more creative in your job that might benefit
Speaker 1: your employer, but that you've been nervous to ask about.
Speaker 1: To to use your skills in kind of a different way.
Speaker 1: I think your whole outlook on work changes, not just
Speaker 1: from the potential fear of hearing that the business that
Speaker 1: you work for is closing its doors or selling to
Speaker 1: another business, or if the economy takes a nose dive,
Speaker 1: you know your job might be at risk. It certainly
Speaker 1: helps you in those scenarios as well, but it helps
Speaker 1: you in the day to day to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: how you can hone in on making your current job
Speaker 1: a little more of what you actually wanted to be
Speaker 1: versus just going in and getting the work done. And
Speaker 1: so I think, yeah, your savings has an impact on
Speaker 1: what your job looks like right now, which is kind
Speaker 1: of cool where even if you're in a situation man
Speaker 1: like I am, where I'm self employed, I don't have
Speaker 1: a boss, you know, I am my own boss. Like
Speaker 1: there isn't that omniscient being where you're kind of going
Speaker 1: to battle against like Tanya mentioned, but there's even still
Speaker 1: a similar dynamic when you have enough savings set aside,
Speaker 1: you can take risks when you see an opportunity and
Speaker 1: something that might be perceived as slightly more risky, well
Speaker 1: that's something that you can go for or even if
Speaker 1: it's as simple as raising your rates. So I know
Speaker 1: in the past, when Kate and I were considering raising
Speaker 1: our rates, if we weren't in a healthy position financially,
Speaker 1: that would have been a much scarier proposition because we
Speaker 1: would have been asking ourselves, well, what if no one
Speaker 1: hires us? What if the what if the emails start
Speaker 1: drying up? And then these are fears that you kind
Speaker 1: of have regardless when you own your own business, But
Speaker 1: you know what, those things are amplified when you are
Speaker 1: in a position of weakness when it comes to your finances.
Speaker 1: And when you're in a position of strength, you feel courage.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a little bit of runway there
Speaker 1: to try something new, You have a little bit of
Speaker 1: cushion to kind of fall back on in case things
Speaker 1: don't quite work out. Yeah. I love what Tanya said
Speaker 1: that once she and her husband had built up that
Speaker 1: one year mark, you know, getting to that one year
Speaker 1: mark of savings, And I don't even think you have
Speaker 1: to get to that extent. If you have three months
Speaker 1: worth of savings, that can be huge in the mental
Speaker 1: battle of how you approach your daily job. But the
Speaker 1: fact that you know Tanya is at this point where
Speaker 1: she's financially independent, but even just getting to that one
Speaker 1: year mark was this big mental sigh of relief that
Speaker 1: she said, you know what, I can approach my work
Speaker 1: in a completely different manner. Now I can make it
Speaker 1: more of what I wanted to be. And I felt
Speaker 1: the same thing at different small points along my career
Speaker 1: path that when I had a certain amount of income
Speaker 1: coming in from rental properties that assured me that I
Speaker 1: could cover some extremely basic needs, it made me think, Okay, cool, Well,
Speaker 1: I love my job. I want to keep going, but
Speaker 1: I feel like I can ask for more responsibility or
Speaker 1: more money, or an ability to take on something that
Speaker 1: I wasn't previously allowed to take on, or a team
Speaker 1: that I wasn't on before. It just gave me that
Speaker 1: ability to ask, and I think I wouldn't have done
Speaker 1: that if I had not had some of that financial
Speaker 1: security coming from somewhere else. Awesome, Joel, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: kind of are gravitating towards that one year thing, right,
Speaker 1: because I see that as an amazing stepping stone towards
Speaker 1: financial independence, Because honestly, as great as financial independence can
Speaker 1: be for somebody, it is such this large, massive thing,
Speaker 1: and it's really hard to identify exactly how much do
Speaker 1: you really need and what's the market going to be
Speaker 1: doing down the road, and there's just a lot of considerations,
Speaker 1: so where it's this really fuzzy thing that you can't
Speaker 1: quite grasp. But you know what, it is very easy
Speaker 1: to figure out what you're annual expenses are. Just look
Speaker 1: at last year, you know, and you can quantify exactly
Speaker 1: how much it's gonna take to live for a year.
Speaker 1: And because of that, it's a very clear goal. And
Speaker 1: we all know that clear, identifiable goals are going to
Speaker 1: be able to be achievable, right, And so I love
Speaker 1: that she felt that power shift even when she did
Speaker 1: have that one year's worth of expenses saved up. I
Speaker 1: love that it's measurable and it's attainable, whereas financial independence
Speaker 1: can sometimes feel like this massive elephant. Well, that first
Speaker 1: one year's worth of expenses like that's that first bite
Speaker 1: of that elephant. And I think that's an incredible goal
Speaker 1: for folks to have. Just don't bite an elephant. They
Speaker 1: can really upset. And yeah, it's awkward, but let's talk
Speaker 1: about the how two's matt When we are trying to
Speaker 1: kind of get started, and we've got, of course, just
Speaker 1: a lot of previous episodes where we tackle a lot
Speaker 1: of specifics when it comes to cutting your monthly bills,
Speaker 1: saving on your cell phone plan. That's what this podcast is, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of those nuts and bolts, right, And this
Speaker 1: is kind of a little higher level, like we're thinking,
Speaker 1: we're trying to reframe the way that we view work
Speaker 1: and how can we actually make it where we are
Speaker 1: able to work less our lives and not just when
Speaker 1: we hit the age of seventy. So, Matt, how do
Speaker 1: we practically start to change some things so that we
Speaker 1: can actually start heading down that path towards making work
Speaker 1: a little more optional in our lives. Yeah, well, before
Speaker 1: you get too into the nuts and bolts of it,
Speaker 1: she still starts out pretty big, and she says to
Speaker 1: start by mapping out your ideal life. Again, this kind
Speaker 1: of goes back to the whole idea of thinking about
Speaker 1: retirement that can be so overwhelming because you don't exactly
Speaker 1: know what you want to do in retirement, but instead
Speaker 1: map out your ideal life. And for me, what that
Speaker 1: means is starting with like what do I want my
Speaker 1: days to look like? Because Once you can start identifying
Speaker 1: what you want your days to look like, well, then
Speaker 1: you can start putting your weeks together. Weeks, you know,
Speaker 1: lead to years, and all of a sudden, you have
Speaker 1: an ideal life in your mind that you're trying to
Speaker 1: design like a lot of this comes down to designing
Speaker 1: what you want your life to look like and being
Speaker 1: intentional and proactive with your own life. And for most
Speaker 1: of us, a certain amount of our life is when
Speaker 1: we do map out what our ideal life looks like,
Speaker 1: is gonna look kind of like work. It's gonna look
Speaker 1: like something like writing or serving other people, and there
Speaker 1: are ways that you can do that right in the
Speaker 1: more profit and the nonprofit sector of our society for sure.
Speaker 1: Just know that this is not an effort. While you're
Speaker 1: mapping out your ideal life to probably just binge watch
Speaker 1: Netflix eight hours a day, it is likely going to
Speaker 1: look like some amount of doing something productive. And that's
Speaker 1: why we're not saying the goal is to get away
Speaker 1: from work. It is truly just to make work a
Speaker 1: little more optional in your life, not to kind of
Speaker 1: get rid of it all together. The next step, then,
Speaker 1: and how to, is to get tactical track you're spending,
Speaker 1: and Matt, we have mentioned that before. It's such a
Speaker 1: crucial part of starting to get your money game together.
Speaker 1: Even if you feel like you do have a good
Speaker 1: savings rate, but you want to get to a place
Speaker 1: where work is a little more optional more quickly, Well,
Speaker 1: you need to track your spending. You need to know
Speaker 1: what's incoming, what's outgoing, because there might be auto pay
Speaker 1: bills or ways that you're spending your money that don't
Speaker 1: necessarily align with your goals and that are preventing you
Speaker 1: from making work a smaller part of your life. And
Speaker 1: that might be a bigger goal that you have that
Speaker 1: seems like it's going to take longer than you want
Speaker 1: it to, and that's probably because you're not tracking your
Speaker 1: spending very well. And so that is one way to
Speaker 1: start in order to kind of find out how much
Speaker 1: you need to save in order to make this a
Speaker 1: possibility and in what time frame schedule and that time frame,
Speaker 1: like that's so incredibly important, right because you are trying
Speaker 1: to achieve something within a set number of years most likely,
Speaker 1: and what you're looking at is performance. And so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna analogy I'm gonna use is like running sure you
Speaker 1: can go run because you want to stay fit. You
Speaker 1: enjoy it, fresh air, stress, relief, right, all the different
Speaker 1: things that comes with running. But if you have identified
Speaker 1: a goal and say with for running, maybe that's running
Speaker 1: like it's in k and forty five minutes or something,
Speaker 1: you start timing yourself if you're going to run, because
Speaker 1: if that's the goal you're trying to achieve, you can't
Speaker 1: just run willy nilly and expect to maybe hit that. Well,
Speaker 1: sure you might if you run hard enough, but if
Speaker 1: you don't have those numbers, if you aren't able to
Speaker 1: quantify it, well, you don't really know where you are
Speaker 1: before you get to that point. And guess what, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at retirement or semi retirement, you need to
Speaker 1: know the numbers. You have to know what your expenses are,
Speaker 1: you have to know how much money you've saved up
Speaker 1: until that point, because from there you can make confident
Speaker 1: decisions based on the numbers that you've been tracking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one of the practical tips that Tany gave that
Speaker 1: I think is so freaking helpful for people is to
Speaker 1: automate it. To start splitting your paycheck maybe and taking
Speaker 1: of that and having it automatically funneled into another savings
Speaker 1: account that you don't really think about basically paying yourself first,
Speaker 1: and a forced method of that is to automate it.
Speaker 1: Most of us, once the money hits our bank account,
Speaker 1: we are not very good at parsing it out and
Speaker 1: funneling it towards our retirement accounts, and so finding ways
Speaker 1: to make it easy and to prevent yourself from even
Speaker 1: touching it in the first place is huge. Broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: on this show, every week we we were either talking
Speaker 1: larger concepts like this where we're broadly sort of thinking
Speaker 1: about money differently, or we're diving into the nuts and bolts,
Speaker 1: right We're like, we're finding ways to widen that gap
Speaker 1: between what you're earning and what's going out your expenses,
Speaker 1: and then with that difference of money between your income
Speaker 1: and your expenses, making sure that you are investing that money,
Speaker 1: that you're allowing that money to grow into the full
Speaker 1: potential of what it could be by the time you
Speaker 1: do reach retirement, regardless of what type of retirement you're
Speaker 1: seeking after, whether that is full on early retirement or
Speaker 1: you're considering, you know, a partial sort of retirement that
Speaker 1: would allow you to switch to some work that you
Speaker 1: would find more fulfilling. So, Matt, I feel like, actually,
Speaker 1: kind of what we're going through right now are kind
Speaker 1: of our final thoughts. Those are our final thoughts by
Speaker 1: by default, right. So one last thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: say though, was that it's really important to at least
Speaker 1: save just enough to give you that extra boldness to
Speaker 1: know that if something does happen at your work or
Speaker 1: in your own business that you owned and run, uh
Speaker 1: that if if you have a bad month or your
Speaker 1: employer does have a round of layoffs, that you're not
Speaker 1: completely nervous because you have no level of financial stability.
Speaker 1: So get started and save enough to make sure you
Speaker 1: have a certain level of confidence and boldness to be
Speaker 1: able to make decisions that are going to benefit you
Speaker 1: in the long run. That is how you're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to make work a smaller part of your life,
Speaker 1: maybe now, maybe in the near term. But it also
Speaker 1: gives you that kind of light at the end of
Speaker 1: the tunnel that you don't have to work like most
Speaker 1: Americans do so much of their work week can assistantly
Speaker 1: you can actually cut back and spend more time on
Speaker 1: the things that are more meaningful to you. That's Rachel.
Speaker 1: Let's now go ahead and get back to our beer
Speaker 1: this week, which was the Quadra Hopic series. I p
Speaker 1: a thanks again to Kayla for sending us this beer.
Speaker 1: It's got four different hops. This is getting kind of nerdy,
Speaker 1: but I love the names of the different hots. Dude, Columbus, Simcoe, Amarillo, Chinook.
Speaker 1: They're all hops, but they all they've all got like
Speaker 1: the different cool names, and I like seeing them all
Speaker 1: written here on this can. Yeah, and they've all got
Speaker 1: different flavors. So I was at a bar the other
Speaker 1: night and I had a single hot beer and it
Speaker 1: was really interesting because you really do taste like, for
Speaker 1: for instance, this beer Quadropic, four hops from Land Grant Brewing.
Speaker 1: By the way, this beer was really cool. It had
Speaker 1: flavor notes from each one of the hops. I'm certainly
Speaker 1: not an expert enough in hops to know what each
Speaker 1: one tastes like, but it was really interesting. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get there. I want to get that good someday.
Speaker 1: We will. But yeah, I had one the other day,
Speaker 1: like I said, that was a single hop and it
Speaker 1: was really fascinating to taste that one and see what
Speaker 1: the flavor profile of that one hop was. And I
Speaker 1: feel like I got to know that hop a little
Speaker 1: bit and it was yeah, kind of intimately nice, just
Speaker 1: a one on one you and that hop exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's cool. And this this beer, the Quadra Hopic
Speaker 1: series I p A from Lame Grant was was really nice.
Speaker 1: So I enjoyed getting to know the four hops at
Speaker 1: one time. To me, this one drink more like a
Speaker 1: West Coast I p A kind of had more of
Speaker 1: that sort of great fruit bitterness going on, where's delicious
Speaker 1: and juicy, but at the same time it drinks like
Speaker 1: pretty dry, which is which is a nice change of base.
Speaker 1: We've been drinking a lot more the New England style
Speaker 1: I p A s lately, where it's very cloudy and juicy.
Speaker 1: It's almost like you're drinking orange juice. It's good to
Speaker 1: go back to more of a West Coast I p
Speaker 1: A and to enjoy one here that's a little more traditional, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but still lots of happy goodness. All right, And since
Speaker 1: we already did our final thoughts, Matt let's piece out
Speaker 1: of this episode, all right, Thanks again to Tanya for
Speaker 1: coming on the show. We really appreciate it. If you
Speaker 1: want to find out more about her work, you can
Speaker 1: check out her blog Our Next life dot com and
Speaker 1: you can check out her new book Work Optional and Matt.
Speaker 1: We're going to give away four copies of this book.
Speaker 1: All you have to do to enter in for this
Speaker 1: book giveaway is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: and if you're not an Apple user, you can leave
Speaker 1: a review on Stitcher. Either way, that's totally cool, and
Speaker 1: then just send us an email at how to Money
Speaker 1: pod at gmail dot com with the user name that
Speaker 1: you left your review under, will enter you in and
Speaker 1: give away some of these copies this coming week. Just
Speaker 1: make sure to send us that email by Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1: We'll close off the entries Friday at five o'clock. As always,
Speaker 1: you can find our show notes up on our website
Speaker 1: to all of our episodes at how to money dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, Man, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,