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Afford Anything | Make Smart Money Choices
MadFientist: The Hardest Part of Early Retirement Wasn't the Money
01:02:57
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- [00:06]
Paula Pant
Today is November 5th, and we know what that means. It's Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes Day commemorates November 5, 1605, when a man by the name of Guy Fawkes, who was a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives beneath the House of Lords in Britain. So Guy Fawkes Day is a holiday, a celebration marked by bonfires and explosives across the UK. November 5th is memorialized through the rhyme, Remember, remember the 5th of November. When I opened this episode and I said, Today is November 5th, I have.
- [00:55]
Brandon Ganch
To assume that you expected me to.
- [00:57]
Paula Pant
Follow that up by immediately discussing the uk.
- [01:00]
Brandon Ganch
Right? Right.
- [01:03]
Paula Pant
Why is anything else happening today? Anything?
- [01:08]
Brandon Ganch
Anything at all?
- [01:10]
Paula Pant
I can't think of anything else that's happening today. Guess it's a slow news day around here. Well, with nothing going on in the US today, we turn our attention over.
- [01:22]
Brandon Ganch
To the uk Specifically to Scotland.
- [01:28]
Paula Pant
Home of the mad scientist. Now, who, pray tell, is the mad fientist? Well, the mad fientist fi intest is the mad scientist of financial independence. He is the scientist who has discovered hyper optimization in our financial accounts. He knows how to hack your hsa. He knows how to execute a backdoor Roth conversion, he knows the most intricate of hyper optimization details, and thanks to all of that, he was able to reach financial independence in 2016.
- [02:16]
Brandon Ganch
So the mad scientist, who is 42.
- [02:18]
Paula Pant
Years old, has been retired for eight years already.
- [02:23]
Brandon Ganch
He lives in Scotland and his real.
- [02:25]
Paula Pant
Name is Brandon Ganch. Brandon, welcome. Thank you for joining us on such a momentous day.
- [02:32]
Brandon Ganch
And by a momentous day, I mean Guy Fawkes Day.
- [02:35]
Of course, thanks for having me. And yeah, especially on Guy Fawkes Day. That's fun. The explosions in fireworks should start going off fairly soon, but not yet, thankfully.
- [02:44]
Paula Pant
Well, before we start speaking, I think.
- [02:47]
Brandon Ganch
I should formally do the intro to the show. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice carries a trade off and.
- [02:56]
Paula Pant
That applies not just to your money.
- [02:58]
Brandon Ganch
But to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention to any limited resource that you need to manage. The show covers five pillars. Financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double I Fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. With me today is the mad fientist himself. For those listening who don't know you, your writings on financial independence were some of the original writings, some of the most formative writings in the modern financial independence movement, where you have cracked the code on hyper optimization of everything from maxing out your HSA account to very advanced investing strategies, backdoor Roth conversions, all of the above. We'll link to a bunch of your articles in the show notes so people who really want to dive down that rabbit hole can do so. But, Brandon, you retired in 2016. I mean, will you sort of briefly go over that story and then we'll lead into what your Life is like, eight years into retirement?
- [03:59]
Yeah, in 2016, I probably wouldn't have quit, but at the time I was working remotely for a American company and I was working from Scotland. The company was quite happy with that. It was a big university. And as I started to force myself to pull the plug because I was definitely going to be in one more year syndrome just because it was such a good gig. It was, yeah, doing what I liked to do, which was coding. And I was able to do it remotely and on a different time scale because I was in Scotland and they were all in the States. So half my day I could just do coding without any meetings or emails or anything. And there's no commuting or any of that. So I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I did when I was in the office. I probably would have kept doing it, but I kept trying to push the boundaries as far as what I could ask for since I didn't need the job and I was sort of 50, 50, whether I would quit or not. I just kept pushing the boundaries. So I just kept asking for more and more things. And one of the things I asked for was to go to a 1099 contractor. So rather than ask my bosses about that, I went to HR first to see if it was even possible. When I did that, I guess HR wasn't really clued up on the fact that I was in Scotland. So like I said, all my colleagues and my bosses were happy with me to work from Scotland. But when I contacted HR and was like, hey, since I work in Scotland, I want to go to a 1099 contractor because there's tax optimizations I could have done. And that's the reason I was asking for it. So then, like a few months later, my bosses were like, yeah, HR said you can keep working for us, but you have to come back to the States or we'll just end in six months. So that was the push I needed because like I said, I would have probably just kept doing one more year syndrome because it was too easy not to. So that was 2016. And, yeah, I haven't looked back. It's been a wild ride. My life is drastically different than what I thought it would be like at this stage, my post fire Life is probably 180 from what I would have expected it to be. It's been amazing and I am so thankful for all my past financial decisions.
- [06:04]
Paula Pant
Wow.
- [06:04]
Brandon Ganch
Okay. So there are several follow ups that I can pull from that. The first thing that I heard in that story that you just told is that when you have financial independence and therefore have a position of strength, you can actually negotiate for more. You can get more money, more perks, because you are willing to walk away.
- [06:27]
Absolutely. So, yeah, the longer story is two years before that date in 2016, we had saved up a bunch of money and I was probably lean FI at that point. We decided that we needed to move to Scotland because we were living in the woods of Vermont at the time and I was like aggressively pursuing FI and also just recently got a free master's degree as part of my employment. And anyway, we decided we wanted to move back to Scotland. So I said, hey, look, moving back to Scotland and thinking that was going to be it. And yeah, they came back and said, well, hey, don't, don't do anything silly like, why don't you just keep working for us? I got a raise and I didn't have to commute and all this sort of stuff. I mean, that's not the first time that happened. Even though earlier in my career I wasn't full FI or anything, I had a bunch of savings. So there are two other times in my career where I had the power to quit, which I wrote a whole article called the Power of Quitting. And it just talks about how being in a position of strength drastically increases what you can get at work. And the first time it happened, I was moving from Scotland to America and I would beg and plead for a 3% raise and usually would get 1 or 2% every year at my annual review. But when I said I was moving to America, I got a 25% bump. And then I was working remotely full time, which I would have never been allowed to work remotely one day a week when I was in Scotland. So that was the first time the power of quitting actually gave me a huge bump in salary. The second time was same situation. I was working for a company in Boston. We decided we wanted to move up to Vermont. I was working through a recruiter at the time and I said, you know, I'm moving to Vermont. And she came to me directly and said, well, hey, how about you just work directly with us? And they gave me a 50% raise. And again, I was working full Time remote instead of having to dress in a tie and go into downtown Boston every day. And then when I got the job at the university in, in New Hampshire, same thing I said, I got the job in university. And then she increased my salary again in an effort to try to keep me. And she's like, hey, look, you don't have to stay, but here's more money if you do stay. So I got to have even more money there for the last little bit of my time for that Boston company. So the power of quitting is unreal if you're in a position of strength and you know you could find another job or not need to find another job. And it's something that it was the biggest impact on my actual working career as far as perks and wages.
- [08:52]
There's this concept that our mutual friend J.L. collins talks about. It's the concept of F you money, which is having enough money to tell your boss, hey, F you. What you're describing with the power of quitting is the same concept, but applied to wanting to stay at your job. It's the same concept of having FU money being. Having that walk away money, but wanting to stay at your job. And so you then are in a position of strength to be able to get higher pay and better perks.
- [09:24]
Absolutely. And yeah, I love jail's FU money. And yes, I've used FU money a lot in the past and using it in like a no thank you way is has been what was most successful for me. And I think the fact that I was leaving on good terms and I wasn't going to a competitor or anything, I was just like, hey, I'm moving to this new area. That really helped. So it's worth mentioning that because it made the negotiation and everything so much easier and it just made them want to keep me. Rather than me saying, give me more money, I'm going to your competitor, it was me like saying, hey, I love working here, I'm really sad, but I'm moving to X. And that introduced a whole other conversation. So yes, even though I had FE money, I was using it in a more like no thank you money, which ended up benefited me a lot as far as just being able to maintain those relationships and negotiate higher pay and better perks.
- [10:17]
So F you money to no thank you money.
- [10:20]
Paula Pant
Yeah, F you money. Thank you money.
- [10:23]
Brandon Ganch
Yeah, but you need to have the.
- [10:24]
FU money or no thank you.
- [10:25]
Yeah, the no thank you money. But you need to have it because you need to have that confidence and the power to walk away if they don't give you something. So, yeah, always having that confidence was great just to be like, yeah, well, I'm leaving no matter what, so if you want to keep me, you got to make it worth my while. And that worked out well. So, yeah, it's incredibly powerful, and it's something that people on the path to FI should take advantage of, I think, because it's easy to be like, okay, I'll just grind it out at this job I hate for another 10 years, and then I'll be fi. But I think you should be using that power. It may not be FI money, but it is FU money, or at least no, thank you money. So you could be using that along the way to make your life better on the path to fi, but then also shorten that path to fi, because you could potentially earn more money.
- [11:06]
When you reached FI in 2016, how did you calculate that? Was that 25 times your current cost of living as of 2016?
- [11:16]
Yeah. Yeah. So I just kept tracking it. It wasn't until probably 2010 that I realized Fi was possible. And that's when I stumbled upon Get Rich Slowly and Early retirement Extreme and things like that. So, yeah, I've always had a FI spreadsheet. Once I realized that was the goal. And then it was just monitoring that back in 2016, it would have been a really lean FI based on the 4% rule. And it was based on half of our expenses. My wife and I, we got married in 2012. So, yeah, it was my wife and I at that time.
- [11:48]
Okay. So it was calculated based on 25x year current spending as of 2016.
- [11:54]
Yeah. Because we didn't have any rental properties or anything. So it was all just index investments in the 4% rule. That was it. And that's still what my spreadsheet calculates like. We still don't have any rental properties or anything that's throwing off any income.
- [12:07]
Your expenses, how have they changed between 2016 and now, by the way? Actually, before you answer that question, just to anchor you, for the people who don't know you, how old Were you in 2016?
- [12:18]
2016, I was 34. Now I'm 42. Okay, that's so bad. I still feel like I'm 22, which is very annoying. And to answer your expenses question, they really didn't change much until maybe two or three years ago. The only thing that's changed recently is that I'm trying to spend more, which has been a key focus on the blog. Which sounds crazy, because to non 5 people spending more seems like it would be an easy thing to do. But for people like us and people like in my audience who have spent decades saving and optimizing expenses and things like that, it is a big change and a big switch to flip, really. When I started talking to Ramit Sethi on my podcast, that was when I started really thinking about this. Because exponential growth is hard to really grasp mentally. But I've read about this stuff enough to know, and I can have projected enough to know that the portfolio is just going to grow out of control based on our current spending. So it was to sort of look into ways that, okay, I'm not used to using money to improve my life. I'm used to using money as a last resort and starting to think about ways to actually use money to improve our quality of life in ways. So I would say we probably in the last three years we've successfully doubled our spending, but still, it's not even what the 4% rule should say. We can spend. And that doesn't account for any income coming in, which I've had income coming in since 2016 and before. So I still have a lot of work to do in that area. But it's been one. It's been a lot of fun, a lot more fun than I thought it would be. And I think I'm making progress. And I don't feel like I'm getting out of control or now I'm keeping up with the Joneses or I'm a crazy spender or anything like that. But all the changes I have made, even though they've been slow, they've. They've been positive. And I think that's a good way to do it because the slower it is, the more enjoyable each step of the way is. And I don't feel like it's like I'm getting out of control or anything.
- [14:27]
What I'm hearing is that your portfolio has grown seemingly exponentially. It's grown beyond anything that you could ever hope to need. Do you think that that is due to a miscalculation early on? Do you think that that's due to the fact that we've lived through a prolonged bull market? Do you think it's due to the fact that you had more income coming in after retiring?
- [14:51]
Exactly.
- [14:52]
What are the facts?
- [14:53]
Primarily the latter, the last one. So obviously when I was planning for fi, I didn't calculate any sort of income coming in, but since 2016, since I've left my full time job and even before then, which made leaving the full time job Even easier was some of the side income from some of the web apps that I made. Even prior to the mad fientist, they started bringing in money. It's brought in more money than we've spent in a year. So I haven't even tapped into the fi portfolio, which is why all the articles I had planned on writing about withdrawal strategies, I haven't written yet, because I tend to only write about things that apply to me because that makes me more interested in and it makes me write better stuff. I had planned a lot of articles about withdrawal strategies, but I haven't done any of that yet because the income that I have coming in is still greater than our expenses, which is again, why me trying to spend 4% of our portfolio every year, considering any additional income is still very conservative. So that's why I have that as my goal every year, which I've never actually hit that goal, but I'm getting closer, which is progress.
- [15:55]
Your goal is to withdraw 4%?
- [15:58]
It is, yeah.
- [15:59]
It's a good problem to have.
- [16:00]
Yeah, no, exactly. And I realize how crazy it sounds, but based on all the readers on my blog who email me and say they have the same exact problem it is, it's not a unique problem to me. I think it is something that a lot of people, especially readers of my site, who are very analytical and optimizers, definitely struggle with. But I do understand it's a ridiculous thing to call a problem. It is not a problem. It is just a fun challenge to take on at this stage of my life. Definitely.
- [16:31]
You said about three years ago is when you intentionally decided to double your spending. Your son, wasn't he born around three years ago?
- [16:40]
Yeah, he was in July of 2022. So just over two years ago. So, no, it actually wasn't related to that. It was just the fact that by that, let's just call it 2020, by then I'd have had four years of earning income that I didn't expect. And the income had always outpaced my expenses. So the portfolio, especially after the COVID crash and recovery after that started coming back, the income kept coming in, even though I was not doing any sort of work. It just made me realize, like, okay, we've been spending considerably less than what the portfolio could provide, and yet income keeps coming in. So it was then that I thought, I need to think about it. Actually, since my son arrived, I'd say our spending has decreased. Like all the stuff we used to spend on before has decreased anyway, like travel, restaurants, all that sort of stuff. Because all the parents with young kids will know that that stuff gets a lot less fun when you have a screaming 2 year old with you. So all the things that we used to spend on, I say have decreased dramatically. The one thing that has increased and helped us increase the spending is we bought a house that is related to the kids because we were living in just like furnished rentals in Edinburgh. We'd live there for a year and travel for three months and then move and then come back to a new place. So obviously with a kid we wanted a bit more stability and have some place that we could just make a home. So those are really where the majority of our expenses come from now. And that is, I guess, a direct result of having a kid.
- [18:12]
Travel and restaurants, anything else that's decreased.
- [18:15]
That was really it. Like that's all we did. We just ate out. Oh, like beer. Like I used to love craft beer, but now with a kid it just like makes me so tired. I'm already tired, so I want to. I wouldn't want to drink a beer and then fall asleep earlier. So yeah, I guess pre kid life, it was all about going out to dinner, going traveling and seeing new places and then. Yeah, having like a beer out every now and then or a couple of beers out. Like good craft beers. Those things. Yeah, those have all drastically decreased and now I just have a house that I have to maintain and fill with stuff, which another surprise. Like I said earlier at the beginning of this thing, my life is drastically different from what I envisioned envisaged when I thought about post my life. I used to hate stuff and now I love stuff. It's wild. Say I used to avoid stuff at all costs because we were moving like every year. So any stuff I got, I'd have to move it and it would make me mad. Whereas now it's like we have a house and I've thought long and hard about things that I want over the last 10 years and now I get to get them. And yeah, it's been good. It's another surprise is that I do like things. Again, I'm not going crazy. Like, these are things that I thought about buying for years and now I'm getting to and I'm really enjoying using them.
- [19:23]
Paula Pant
Hmm.
- [19:24]
Brandon Ganch
Your daughter was just born a couple weeks ago.
- [19:28]
Just over a month ago. Yeah.
- [19:29]
Congratulations, first of all.
- [19:31]
Thank you. Thank you.
- [19:32]
Do you have a sense yet of how spending might change or lifestyle might change with two kids rather than just one?
- [19:40]
Yeah. So the first way that's changed is we had to get a Bigger car. So our other car is a Honda Jazz which is I think like a Honda Fit but smaller because it's over here in Europe. So yeah, just a small Honda Jazz 2012. I think I bought it for like £3,000 back during the pandemic and I just wasn't going to fit to these big car seats that we now have. As far as other spending really? No, not really because all of Jill's sisters have kids so we've got so many hand me downs of everything. So really that's the only thing we've bought as a, as a car that would fit the two car seats and the strollers and all the crazy amount of stuff you have to take everywhere with you. So far, that's it. The things that are going to change are travel costs. So now my son's older than two so now we have to pay for his ticket and then we'll obviously have another baby that's going to be turning 2, not too long and, and we do like to go back to the States at least once or twice a year to see my friends and family. So that's definitely going to increase travel costs. But really my son really hasn't increased our costs too much. We live in a walkable village with tons of kids stuff going on all the time. So we really just stay in our village most of the time. Jill's family come and visit us here, our friends come here to visit us. We occasionally go into the big cities for random things every now and then. But the amount of money we're saving on restaurant and bar fees that we were racking up when we were in Edinburgh definitely compensates for any of like the kids classes we pay for or like swimming lessons and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, so far kids have not been that expensive, especially since over here we get free healthcare so it was free to have the babies and all the follow up care and all that sort of stuff. So I would say they're decreasing our day to day spending and like I said before, the increase in spending is mainly coming from our choice to buy a house which at this stage of our life is a pure luxury. We've owned two houses in the past and I definitely shouldn't have bought houses but in the past because they stress me out too much as a hyper frugal person trying to save every penny for fi but now I'm enjoying homeownership for the first time in my life in this third house just because I don't let it stress me out. I know that there's going to be expenses, and I'm not hyper focused on saving every penny, so that definitely helps.
- [21:58]
Do you regret having been hyper focused on saving every penny when you were younger?
- [22:05]
My only regrets on my entire path to FI is I missed out on a couple bachelor parties in my 20s because I lived in Scotland and my friends were getting married and the wedding was like the next month. So I was like, there's no way I'm going to spend two transatlantic flights a month apart just to go and get drunk with my friends. Now I'm 42. I wouldn't want to do that. But I would like to be part of those memories that my friends had. And so that's really my only regret. A slight regret that I took it too far when we lived in Vermont because I really got into deprivation and neither my wife and I were happy. And that's why we decided to move back to Scotland. There was a pretty dark period as far as just not being happy and not really seeing that I wasn't happy. But at that point, I was also really focused on getting my master's. That's when I was really writing the most for the Mad Scientist. And I was still working full time, so it was a busy time. So I did get a lot done, but it wasn't a very fun or happy time. So I probably could have eased off the gas then. But as far as having any regrets for saving that much, no. I've never been more appreciative than I am now. Having two kids. I don't know how working parents do it. I don't. I can't even fathom how single parents do it. But to be able to just spend as much time as I. As I want or can with both the kids is just such a great gift. And to be able to nap anytime that their napping is so nice and not have to worry about being at work or taking time off to do that. So I definitely don't regret any of those decisions. But, yeah, I could have probably taken my foot off the gas. Well, of knowing what I know now, I could have definitely taken my foot off the gas a little and not skipped out on some of those things that I would only want to do in my 20s. Which is why the Die With Zero book is something that I keep harping on about over the last few years after I read it, because it just makes you realize there are seasons in life for certain things. And like I said, I wouldn't want to go and have a drunk weekend right now in my 40s with my friends. But I'm sad that I missed that in my 20s because it would have been a lot of fun and we'd have great stories to tell. Now that's making me more conscious now of like the example I've been using is like I love skiing and I can see myself having a mountain house one day and maybe us living in the mountains and being able to ski with my kids and play ice hockey on ponds and things like that. Old me would have just saved up a bunch of money for the next 10 years and then bought the big mountain house, whereas new me is like, okay, maybe in my 50s. I'm not going to be, my body's not going to feel like playing ice hockey. So don't put that off. And dedicate some of your spending now to doing that, even if it's on a, you know, two week or a month long basis. Do that now while your body's still is up for it. Cause you never know. In 10 years maybe I won't be up for it. So yeah, I could save a bunch of money and then buy this perfect mountain house in 10 years, but maybe I won't want to have as much fun skiing or playing ice hockey and things like that. So that's been a big, a big lesson learned. But, but yeah, that's a long answer to your question. That's the two things that I only regret are maybe doing a little bit too, too hard on the gas and yeah, missing out on some like just random 20 year old stuff that I can't get back.
- [25:14]
You mentioned the book Die with Zero.
- [25:16]
Paula Pant
And I want to ask about that.
- [25:17]
Brandon Ganch
Because that has swept the financial independence community. I have probably not since J.L. collins published the Simple Path to Wealth have I heard of any one particular book that is just overwhelmingly talked about by nearly everyone in the FI community. We're going to take a short break right now to hear from the sponsors who make this possible and when we come back, I've got some followers up questions for you regarding how DAI with the Zero has changed your mindset.
- [25:56]
D
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- [26:55]
Paula Pant
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- [29:28]
Brandon Ganch
Welcome back. So first of all, can you quickly summarize the thesis of Die with Zero for the listeners who are unfamiliar with it?
- [29:36]
It was best summed up, I think, by a quote that I heard when Bill Perkins, the author of Die with Zero, was interviewed on all the Hacks podcast. It's just the question he kept asking Chris was when's the party? And I keep saying that to myself because it's true. He's like, there's going to be a party eventually. So you're saving up all this money and there's going to be a party. You're either going to die and then it's all going to go to charity and they're going to have a party, or you're going to give it to your kids and they're going to have a party. But when's the party? It made me realize like, okay, yeah, I could save up all this money and let it grow and then it'll go to my kids or go to a charity when I die. But it'd be a lot more fun to be part of that party. So thinking about giving to charity now, or thinking about how I can make my kids lives better with the money now than just letting everyone else have this big party after I go. That's the phrase that keeps going through my mind. So in his book he's saying you should plan to die with zero. You should plan to either give it all away or give it to your kids or do everything while you're still alive and not just accumulate and accumulate and then just die and not do anything with it. So that's the main thesis of the book. But the die with zero, that's not what appeals to me. It's more the discussions, like I mentioned before, of how there is a season for everything. And this is the biggest takeaway that I took from the book, was you don't maximize for net worth, you should maximize for net fulfillment. Like I mentioned earlier I missed out on some of those things in my 20s. Whatever my net worth was in my 20s, I could probably now have 20 more of those trips or something like that. But for net fulfillment wise, it would have been way better to take one of those trips when I was 20 than to take 20 of them when I'm 40. So it's just changing what you're optimizing for. And that was the big takeaway for me was my entire life I've been optimizing for net worth, just chucking money on the pile. And yes, it did give me freedom, which is invaluable, and I am so grateful that I built up enough to have that freedom. But now chucking more money on that pile doesn't make sense and I should be deprogramming my brain that's so used to optimizing for net worth and instead start optimizing for net fulfillment. And if that means spending some money now rather than spending 3x that money later, then that makes a lot more sense. To go back to my mountain example, I could save a bunch of money and have a beautiful mountain house when I'm 50. But I think net fulfillment wise, taking a trip every winter that's a month long in a beautiful place with friends and family and my kids, and when I'm still active and enjoying all these winter sports, I think that's going to potentially have a lot more net fulfillment. And yeah, maybe not as great of an investment and maybe my net worth will take a ding because of it, but now it's a case of optimizing for something else. So those are the main things I took away from the book. And yeah, the phrase that keeps ringing in my head when I make decisions is like, when's the party? And trying to figure out ways to bring the party into our lives now and to our near future rather than just having a huge party after I go. It was definitely one of the most impactful books I've read. Definitely the most impactful one I've read. Post five. So if you haven't read it and you're like me and you are just on autopilot chucking money onto a pile, it's definitely worth a read. I would recommend it.
- [33:07]
What was it about that philosophy that got through? Because as I'm hearing you talk, I'm thinking about the many people over the years who have often said some variation of yolo or some variation of, you know, you could die tomorrow, you can't take it with you. I mean, we hear that over and over. But somehow it has always seemed historically like the YOLO crowd and the fire crowd have been at odds with each other. And I think you really saw this in 2020 during the pandemic when there was a big YOLO crowd that then translated that into Robin hood, YOLO crypto, AMC GameStop meme stonks. Right in the financial world. The YOLO crowd was really going in that direction. The fire crowd was going in a different direction. It seemed as though these are now two very different forks, like different branches of people interested in personal finance. And then die with zero seemed to be the convergence of these philosophies. What was it about the restatement of essentially the YOLO philosophy that got through?
- [34:18]
Yeah, it's an interesting question because, yeah, I feel like I'm so far away from the YOLO crowd, even though I'm making progress on the spending front, it feels like a very different idea. But you're right. Effectively it's pretty similar in the fact that you're just, you're going to die one day, so you might as well spend it. It's a lot more measured and thought out, I would say. But it was just the messaging that was just like, okay, money. You don't win the game just by having the biggest pile of money at the end of your life. It's a tool to do stuff with. So, yes, saving it is important because it does buy freedom and things like that. But at a certain point you do need to use it. I mean, my brain, it still seems very different from the YOLO thing, but that, that's interesting you brought that up because it is similar in that sense that, yeah, you're, you're going to die, so you might as well enjoy it. Maybe since he's a successful investor and he's talking more on the long term investment side of things, like planning for your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and like, okay, yeah, in your 70s you may want to have a travel fund, but in your 80s, you may not want to. And you may want to, you're probably not going to use that travel fund. So maybe you're going to buy the nicer house and just stay put. Or it seems like, I don't even think that was an example in the book, but in the book he was talking more long term. So it wasn't like, all right, just blow all your cash now and enjoy it. It was more like, don't just get on autopilot. Snap out of your autopilot and actually plan for how you're going to Use the money rather than just chucking more money on the pile, which is something me and I know a lot of other five people do, because it's what we've done for decades and we're good at it and we get joy from seeing that pile grow. But it was more just saying, hey, you need to use the pile, because the pile is meaningless at the end of the day.
- [36:07]
I think movements are often defined by their extreme ends. And so in its early days, the fire movement was highly defined by Early Retirement Extreme, who, for the listeners who are unfamiliar, it was a blog written by a guy by the name of Jacob who lived on $7,000 per year.
- [36:32]
Paula Pant
In the United States.
- [36:33]
Brandon Ganch
San Francisco.
- [36:33]
Yeah, in San Francisco. And that was in the early 2000s. So I mean, okay, adjust your $7,000 for inflation, but still, even $7,000 in the year 2000 in San Francisco is absolutely insane. But he truly was extreme to the extent that movements are often, especially in their nascency, are often anchored by and moved by the most extreme practitioners. We saw, I think in the fire movement, the iteration from early retirement extreme to Mr. Money Mustache, who is by mainstream standards still very extreme. He lived on what, $26,000 per year. He and his wife combined lived on $26,000 per year, and that was in $2010. Over time, as the movement grew, it sort of grew towards more of the center. And I think if you look at extreme yolo, you can see countless examples of the Lamborghinis. On social media, you see these countless examples of extreme yolo, consumerist, credit card debt fueled living. But in the same way that a movement starts at the extreme end and then over time matures into people who can practice it in a more moderate and nuanced way, the concept of die with zero might simply be that moderate, nuanced approach to YOLO living.
- [38:12]
Yeah, definitely. I still find value in the extremes because it does snap you out of your default thinking, which I owe everything to Early Retirement Extreme. And Jacob, just for the math that he provided and the fact that I never thought to use my money to buy freedom and it never crossed my mind. I thought retirement was an age, not a function. And when I realized it was just a math function, that just changed my entire life. I never ever wanted to live on 7,000 a year, especially in San Francisco. So I think that's the beauty of finding different voices, is that you can take the extremes and just pick parts out of it. Just like, I don't want to die with zero. I value the security of knowing That I have a chunk of money there and I want to still have a chunk of money there when I'm on my deathbed because that'll mean that I haven't worried about unexpected expenses or anything that's cropped up. So I definitely don't want to die with zero. Getting these alternate voices and some of them extreme or more moderate. They help push you and help your, help you adjust your thinking and you know, both early retirement stream die with zero and like her meets writing and things like that. It all helps me form my ideal which I'm constantly tweaking and adjusting as my life changes into my goals change and yeah, my circumstances change.
- [39:32]
Do you still get joy out of hyper optimization? I mean you were for years Mr. BackDoor Roth conversions, Mr. Here's how to hack your HSA. You know, when it came to using very, very sophisticated tactics on tax advantaged accounts, right. You were at the forefront of that. Is that still a hobby? Is that still something that brings you joy?
- [39:58]
No, no, not at all. It's something that I'm actually actively trying to suppress a little bit because I'm optimizing for the wrong thing. My whole life has been optimizing for efficiency, whereas now I should maybe optimize for something else which is free time maybe or time with my kids or a clear mind that I can devote to something else. So I'm actively trying to stop my hyper optimization in all my areas of my life and especially my finances because it's time wasted that doesn't need to be wasted on something like that. But it's hard. Old habits die hard. My brain loves that stuff. So even on my to do list today I have a note to switch up one of my investments so that I can get more tax loss harvesting done. And it's still there and I'm gonna, it's gonna stay on my to do list and I'm gonna eventually do it. Even though the time it takes to set up a new account and move the money is time wasted. In my opinion at this stage, I'm still going to do it because old habits die hard and I need to scratch that itch a little bit. So yeah, so I still do some of it personally. But yeah, as far as researching ways to really optimize certain aspects, I haven't done anything too interesting recently. Although there's a few things on my list that I have to look into and they may see the light of day as if they do turn out to be interesting. Now I don't have the drive that I had back in early 2000 and tens when I was really diving into this stuff.
- [41:25]
Wait, what are the things that are on your list that may prove to.
- [41:27]
Be interesting, like estate planning. Now that I have two kids, I really need to think about where everything's going for when I do kick the bucket and optimizing that. So that still gives me a little bit of interest as far as like actually wanting to do it. Because then it's not my money anymore, it's charities or my kids or my families. So there's still a desire to optimize a little bit there. So that's one of the big things that's on my plate and on my to do list to look into. And again, it's for a personal reason. So that's why I'm still into doing it. And hopefully it would end up being a really good mad finest article because it's always the ones that I am personally interested in that turn out to be the best. So that's a big one.
- [42:07]
The last time that we talked you said that you were pursuing passion projects that could also provide an income stream, such as music. Can you give us an update on that?
- [42:17]
Yeah, that was the ultimate dream of Five was to be able to pursue my childhood passion of writing music and releasing music. And just last week was the final thing that I really wanted to tick off, which was to play a live show of all the songs that I wrote with my brother on drums, who's a professional drummer. Amazing drummer. He's currently on tour with a traveling Broadway show around the States. Yeah, he was over here after my daughter was born to meet his new niece. And while he was here, I was able to organize a show we played just last week. It was amazing dream come true. Just playing songs I wrote to an audience that was really enjoying them and have my brother back there on drums. So that's still going strong. I hope to write and release another album by the end of next year. That's something I'm going to start working on once I realize how to actually get things done with two kids. So far we haven't figured that out yet, but hopefully soon. It's a dream come true really. It's something that I'd hoped FI would allow me to do and it has. It's only something that I realized post fire that it wasn't money that was holding me back prior to fi. It was just a lot of self doubt and being scared and not wanting my dream to die and not thinking I could do it. So it wasn't actually fi that made it possible but five did take away all my other excuses so that I had to actually face all those other challenges. And yeah, it's still my greatest accomplishment because I know how hard it was and how many things I had to battle through and how much I had to learn and so much self doubt to get through. So it's not a masterpiece by any means, but to me it's the thing that I'm maybe most proud of just because I know what I had to go through to finish it. Being able to play those songs live last week with my brother Bashanoy on drums was really a dream come true.
- [44:11]
Paula Pant
Wow.
- [44:11]
Brandon Ganch
Congratulations again.
- [44:13]
Thanks.
- [44:19]
Paula Pant
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- [47:05]
Brandon Ganch
I want to dig into something that you said, what you reflected, which is I reached FI and then I started pursuing this long held dream and I realized after I had reached FI that it was never the money that was holding me back. J.D. roth, the author of Get Rich Slowly, has said exactly the same thing. He has talked about how prior to the age of 35, he was broke, he was in credit card debt. And he talked about how during those years he always thought that lack of money was the reason that he was overweight because he couldn't afford a gym membership. Lack of money was the reason that he had a job that kind of sucked, or that he wasn't happy in because he had to go to work to pay the bills because he was in credit card debt. So how could he improve his life when he was just trying to, you know, not dig the hole any deeper? And once he got out of all of that, once he started a business, it blew up. It became wildly profitable. It kind of caught him by surprise how profitable it became so quickly. And it allowed him to not just become debt free, but actually to become a millionaire, you know, a multimillionaire in very, very short order. And when that happened, he took a look at his life and realized, I'm still overweight, I'm still out of shape. None of these problems that I'd previously blamed on money have been solved.
- [48:39]
Absolutely. It was the biggest shock. And that's why in recent years, especially last five years, when it was only the pandemic that actually allowed me to accomplish this goal because we were in lockdown, I had nothing else to do. And there are no more excuses because I up until that point I had four years of postfi life that I did nothing towards the goal because again, I had all Those same I was scared and I didn't want to try and fail. Ever since actually trying to pursue this goal since 2020, I've talked about that a lot is you need to start living your post fi life pre fi and you got to do as much of it as you can. Because it was a shock to me when I had nothing else to blame that I wasn't making progress on this stuff. And it's tough, especially when money's not a motivating factor anymore for anything to motivate yourself to do these hard things. So I wish so much that I'd started pursuing these things prefi. It would have made postfi transition a lot easier. Postfi life would have been a lot more fun and I would have accomplished some of this stuff a lot earlier than I did. So, yeah, my job was absolutely not the reason I didn't pursue any of that stuff. Prefi because if you have time to watch Netflix or if you have time to surf the web, you have time to do those things that you think you're going to do. Post fi. Anyone out there on the journey to financial independence, start living your ideal post fi life now as much as you can. Because one, you may find out you don't like it. Which we also found that out, like traveling the world. I thought I was going to travel the world non stop. I could just be on the road all the time, seeing new places. But we took like a three month trip and by the end of the third month I was like, this is tiring. I want to just settle down and get some stuff done or see some friends or it wasn't what it was cracked up to be or what I thought it was going to be. The more you can live your ideal post phi life pre phi, I think the better off you'll be.
- [50:33]
Let's use travel as an example. To what extent could a person practice that if they have two weeks of vacation a year? I mean, how do you live that post fi life in the constraints of a 9 to 5?
- [50:46]
Sure, yeah. Obviously you'll be taking your two weeks off and doing it there. I think sabbaticals are a great idea. Like I said earlier, having a nice way to quit is a great way to negotiate a better thing. So if you save up a bunch of money and you can afford a six month trip, use that as your opportunity to nicely quit.
- [51:05]
And no thank you money.
- [51:07]
Yeah, no thank you money. Use your no thank you money to say no thanks to this job for six months and may surprise you by either letting you work part time remotely, or they may offer you the job back when you get back or say it's waiting for you. Those are the ways to do it is to either call it a mini retirement or a sabbatical or whatever. If you think travel is what you want to do full time, then do it for a long time and give it a shot. And you may find out, hey, actually a month is good and maybe I can organize that with my job to take a month off every year during the summer when things aren't as busy. And now I get the best of both worlds. I get money coming in and I'm not rushing to five, but I'm living the travel lifestyle that is actually ideal for me, not the thing that I think is ideal for me, and that's drastically different. There's so many instances of that where going back to my desire to try to spend more on things that improve our lives. Getting to fire I definitely deprived myself, so I tested the lower limits, but post fire, I've also tested the upper limits and spent more than even made us happy. So now when we don't travel as much and we don't eat out as much, it's not that I feel like we're depriving ourselves anymore. I feel like actually that's the sweet spot. Because I know eating out more, I just feel nasty and bloated and not healthy. Traveling more, I get bored of it and I don't look forward to the trips as much. And I'm not getting that fun anticipation that you get before a fun trip. So, yeah, so testing the upper boundaries of what you think you want to do is great. So yeah, if you're still working, taking little sabbaticals or in between jobs, really try to live that life because you'll probably find it's not as ideal as what your vision of it is, because life is often different and we're pretty terrible at knowing what we actually want until we try it.
- [52:52]
How does a person even know if they want fi? I'm imagining some subset of people who are listening to this, who are perhaps wondering do I want to retire early or do I simply dislike my current circumstances? Perhaps they're overworked or they're in the wrong profession. How would a person work through whether or not early retirement is even for them?
- [53:23]
I think retirement, as far as having money work for you instead of you work for you, is something most of us will all need to do because eventually there'll be a time we can't work. So that's Obviously, standard retirement. I think having your money working for you while you're working is something everyone should strive for. It gives you so much more power to improve your current life, even if you're not interested in retiring in your 30s, 40s, 50s. Accumulating money so that it works for you and gives you the power to have choices and make difficult choices and say no to bad situations is invaluable, I think so. I think it is the goal for everyone whether or not you want to actually call it quits. That's a whole other can of worms. And I definitely don't recommend it for most people because going from working full time to not having to work at all is very disorienting. Something I've struggled with is not having money as a motivating factor in my life anymore because I'm inherently lazy. I'm a productive, lazy person, which is why I got into like coding. So I'm like, oh, I'll just program the computer to do stuff for me so I'm not like video game, just sit on the couch lazy. Overall, I'm constantly battling to counteract my laziness and do stuff. So not having money motivate me anymore has made it difficult. Because money was such a motivating factor in my life. Going from working hard and striving and being productive and trying to accumulate as much money as possible to then not having to do anything or earn anything. It's still something eight years in, I'm still trying to grapple with and I still struggle with sometimes. That's the additional benefit of actually using my money now, rather than just chucking more in the pile is that I'm starting to find more value and money again, which is nice. So it's motivated me to keep my website up and running and keep the web apps working that I wrote back in 2010 or whatever. So if you don't think FI or early retirement is for you, then I agree with you. It's not for everyone. But having that money and having that power is so valuable. So if you aren't happy and you think you want to retire early is because you hate your current job or you're overworked or some of the other things you said, then use that money, use the power of quitting and work your way into something that doesn't have all those downsides and enjoy your life now, because sticking out for a decade or more just so you could quit altogether, I don't think is a good solution at all. Because you have so much power way earlier in your journey, you should use it.
- [56:04]
I want to wrap up by completely changing topics to ask you about your thoughts on AI.
- [56:11]
I am so thankful that I don't have to work for money anymore because who would have thought, a software developer. I always said that was always my thing. Like when I was early in my FI journey and people were like, well, what happens if this happens? Or what happens if this happens? You have to go back to work. I'm like, yeah, I'm a software developer. I'll just pick up work. I can work for anyone at any time and anywhere in the world. Of course I'll just pick up work. And yeah, now with ChatGPT, like, I can. I still do a lot of coding for just like personal projects and for all the web apps that I maintain that I built before and I'm ten times more productive. So if I was still in the Office, me with ChatGPT could replace nine developers. If I was relying on that work to survive for the next 30 years, I'd be freaking out right now. And instead I am on the other side of the coin where I invest in all the companies in America and most of the world and I'm going to benefit. They're going to be able to do the same thing for a lot lower costs with the help of some of this technology that's coming in. So me as a shareholder could drastically see increased profit margins as this stuff starts getting integrated into the workplace. I'm still scared of what that means. Culturally, a lot of people losing their jobs is beneficial as a shareholder because then the profit margins are higher. But for a society, I don't know what that means and it's scary. So on a societal level, I'm scared of the changes that are coming. As a shareholder, I'm excited. Personally, I'm relieved that I was able to work when I did and build up this portfolio that will hopefully allow us to continue our lifestyle as it is without the need for finding work in a new industry potentially. So that's my brief summary of it, but it has been a lot of fun to use and try out and mess around with on a personal level. And it's just. It's amazing how much it's progressing so quickly. So it's going to be a wild decade.
- [58:13]
I think what I'm hearing in that answer is that AI perhaps even underscores the importance of financial independence in that it underscores the importance of moving from being an employee to being a shareholder.
- [58:27]
Absolutely, yeah.
- [58:28]
At least being an employee who requires the job in order to eat right.
- [58:32]
Exactly. I am so thankful that I saved up when I did and what I did because, yeah, a lot's going to change. It's not all doom and gloom. There's going to be some amazing things that come from it, but a lot of things are going to change. And I would have never thought that a software developer job would be something that could be, could be taken away by a machine so easily. But it has and it is. So it's wild to watch, but I think it makes saving and having that pot of money there even more important.
- [59:02]
What language do you code in?
- [59:04]
All of the stuff that I wrote for the web is Ruby on Rails. That's what I used at my last job at the university. I loved coding in it because it was so quick. It could just whip up something really quickly and it's so easy to use and it all just really makes sense to me. I don't have my finger on the developer pulse these days, so it's probably considered like an old antique language that nobody uses anymore. But it still allows me to get things done quickly and that's all that matters. So that's still just what I use because I have no desire to just learn a new technology for the sake of it. If this thing can help me build a web app, then that's all I needed to do.
- [59:40]
Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they would like to learn more about you and your work?
- [59:46]
Madfientist.com and I'm still on all the social, but I don't really do too much on social these days. MadFientist.com is the main place and if you want to learn about the music stuff, I think you can go to matfientist.com album. You can find all the Spotify stuff there, which is really the only thing I care about these days, to be honest. There's Spotify followers on the music stuff. The podcast is still going. I rarely put an episode out. When I do, it's usually something I'm really interested in. So yeah, the podcast is still everywhere you find podcasts and that's just the financial independence podcast. And yeah, I think that's it. Matt Fists. That's. That's a made up word. So it should only be me everywhere on the web.
- [60:27]
Paula Pant
Awesome.
- [60:28]
Brandon Ganch
And we will link to all of that in the show notes as well, particularly the album.
- [60:32]
Nice. Thank you.
- [60:33]
Yes.
- [60:34]
And hopefully there'll be another one out in 2025.
- [60:36]
Nice and happy. Guy Fawkes Day. Do you have any Guy Fawkes Day plans?
- [60:40]
No, it's probably just hoping that the fireworks don't wake up any of the kids. We'll just be sitting there just hoping that nothing's too noisy. Besides that, I think that's how we'll be celebrating.
- [60:50]
Paula Pant
Nice.
- [60:50]
Brandon Ganch
So happy Guy Fawkes Day to you, too, and thanks for inviting me on this special holiday.
- [60:55]
Absolutely. We should make this a Guy Fawkes Day tradition.
- [60:58]
That sounds good.
- [61:02]
Paula Pant
That's our show for today. Happy Guy Fawkes Day to everyone in the UK for those of us in the US which is 90% of this audience, if you are eligible to vote, I hope that you have cast your vote, and I hope that we can unite no matter what happens next, no matter what happens tonight or in the weeks or months to come, that we can remain united and not judge one another based on how our friends and neighbors vote. I hope that we can avoid the vitriol and the name calling that so often clouds important conversations about the future of our nation. And I hope that we can think and interact more from our prefrontal cortex and less from our amygdala. I hope we get out of our echo chambers and we recognize the validity of the multitude of emotional experiences that people across this nation have. It is hard and messy to have such a big, multicultural, multifaceted society. And the American spirit is innovative and optimistic. It's the reason why my family chose to come here. I was not born here. I'm a naturalized citizen. And I firmly believe that my most valuable asset is my US Citizenship. There is nothing that I own that is more important than that, because it is the foundation of all the opportunity that has come my way and all the success that I have been able to achieve. And the strength of a democracy comes from its civic participation. So if you are eligible to vote, I hope you do. I plead with everyone. Regardless of what happens tonight on election night, and regardless of what happens in the days and weeks and potentially months to come, I hope that we can remain unified and not judge one another based on how we cast our ballots. It is through the reduction of polarization that we will flourish. Thank you for being part of the Afford anything community. No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you believe, we as a community believe in the pursuit of financial independence. It is the common thread that unites us all. Well, thank you for being part of this community again, and I'll meet you in the next episode.
- [63:59]
Brandon Ganch
Silence. Game over.