The Third Option Between Working and Retiring

Summary

Podcast Summary: Afford Anything with Paula Pant

Episode: The Third Option Between Working and Retiring
Date: September 26, 2025
Guest: Andy Hill (Marriage, Kids and Money)

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Overview

This episode explores a “third option” between the binary of full-time work and complete retirement. Host Paula Pant talks to Andy Hill, who—after achieving financial stability with his wife—chose a middle path: both parents working part-time instead of grinding to full early retirement. Andy shares a detailed 10-step framework for achieving what’s often called “Coast FIRE”—a financial position where you work less and live more—along with the personal and family dynamics involved. This episode is rich with practical advice, introspective moments, and honest reflections on identity, money, parenting, and lifestyle trade-offs.

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Key Discussion Points

Defining the Third Option: Beyond Work vs. Retirement

• Binary Retirement Cliff: The standard approach in the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) community largely moves the retirement “cliff” to an earlier age. Andy and his wife challenge this with a tapering, balance-focused life path.
• Family Dynamics of Part-Time Work: Both parents working part-time allows for shared parenting, stronger relationships, personal space for goals, and family presence during key moments.
  Quote (Andy Hill, 03:40):

  “There was a point in time where my wife and I were both working in our corporate careers. We were pretty unfulfilled... as we got closer to our 30s and we started to have other pieces of our identity... the corporate world was grabbing a lot of our time, and that was feeling a little claustrophobic for both of us.”

The 10-Step Framework for Owning Your Time

1. Define Your Dream

(14:43–18:20)

• Goal setting starts by dreaming of the ideal life, then writing and sharing those dreams.
• Use thought experiments like the “$5 million mailbox question” to clarify what activities you’d quit first and what anxieties you want to eliminate.
• “Happiness through subtraction”—what can you remove to make life better?
• Quote (Andy Hill, 15:55):

  “What is the first thing that you stop doing immediately in your life going forward at that point? ... For me, that financial anxiety... said to me, well, then you need to pay off that mortgage as fast as you can, man.”

2. Commit to Living Debt Free

(18:22–20:36)

• Eliminate consumer and high-interest debt to free up your budget and mental space.

3. Protect Your Family

(20:37–22:23)

• Combine emergency fund, insurance, and estate planning as defense against life’s risks.
• Quote (Andy Hill, 21:40):

  “Once we had our three to six month emergency fund, anytime my kids would break something, I felt a little bit more calm as a parent knowing that I had that money set aside…”

4. Invest to Reach Coast FIRE

(25:25–27:25)

• Coast FIRE means investing enough so that compounding growth will fund retirement even if further contributions stop.
• Rule of 72 to estimate when investments double.
• Quote (Andy Hill, 25:25):

  “If we did not contribute anything else going forward... we could expect north of $2 million by the time we retire at 60.”

5. Pay Off Your Home (If Homeowner)

(27:25–31:56)

• Lowers expenses and increases flexibility; not necessary if renting, in which case focus on flexibility and autonomy.

6. Stockpile FU Money

(34:36–36:48)

• Build liquid savings to create a bridge for transitions and give yourself negotiating power and peace of mind.
• Use this to enable part-time transitions, career shifts, or “walk away” funds.

7. Design a Three-Day Workweek

(43:44–46:16)

• Intentionally structure your week to maximize time for rest, relationships, and hobbies.
• Be vigilant about respecting your own boundaries, especially if full detachment from work culture is difficult.
• Quote (Andy Hill, 43:44):

  “Why do we work five of them and only get to relax for two of them? It just seems unbalanced, right?”

8. Intentionally Design Your Four-Day Weekend

(52:54–55:39)

• Avoid letting free time get sucked back into busy-ness; revisit original dreams and aim for holistic well-being.

9. Simplify and Resist Lifestyle Creep

(58:29–63:14)

• Monitor for consumerist pressures; focus on living within your values and continue regular check-ins with your partner about what matters.

10. Show Your Kids the Way

(64:46–69:08)

• Model and teach sound financial habits, including a 60/40 rule for money (spend/give/invest/save).
• Help kids internalize values around money, time, generosity, and opportunity cost.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the transformation of family life:
  “With both parents working part time, both parents could be present for school pickups... and for those small daily moments of quality time that matter most.” (Paula Pant, 00:35)

• On career ambition versus presence as a parent:
  “I leaned so far into growing my career that I was working too much, I was traveling too much. So it's almost these extremes that we both chose that said to us, like, wow, wouldn't it be nice if we had something in the middle…” (Andy Hill, 07:25)

• On the psychological impact of financial security:
  “If we had the money set aside, I'm feeling a little bit more calm in my parenting, knowing that these little mistakes are just little mistakes and they don't really matter in the long run.” (Andy Hill, 21:40)

• On how to talk to kids about money trade-offs:
  “We could have a sport court in our basement. But you know what that would do? That would require dad to go back to his corporate life... Would you like that? And he said, oh, no, no, I love being with you.” (Andy Hill, 62:46)

• On resisting lifestyle inflation:
  “We do love vacations, which is a lot of fun... we do a little bit of credit card hacking or travel hacking to make that process a little easier. And that can be compliments to this coast fire lifestyle as well.” (Andy Hill, 52:51)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00-05:25: Introducing the third path, Andy's family background, why they made the shift.
• 14:43–18:20: Step 1 – Defining your dream and the “$5 million mailbox” exercise.
• 20:37–22:23: Step 3 – Defense: insurance, emergency fund, estate planning.
• 25:25–27:25: Step 4 – Reaching Coast FIRE, Rule of 72 explained.
• 43:44–46:16: Step 7 – Designing the three-day workweek.
• 55:39–57:31: Step 8 – Designing your four-day weekend for health, friendship, and wellbeing.
• 62:46–63:14: Practical parent-child conversation about money trade-offs and its impact.

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Key Takeaways

1. A Middle Path Is Possible and Powerful
   You don’t have to choose between “grind until early retirement” or “work forever.” A phased, balanced approach—such as both parents working part-time—can radically transform family dynamics and overall happiness.

2. Start with Defense, Not Offense
   Emergency funds, insurance, and debt elimination do more than protect against disaster—they also build calm and confidence, changing how you parent and approach life transitions.

3. Teach Through Transparency and Trade-offs
   Modeling opportunity cost and making financial trade-offs clear to children creates financial wisdom and gratitude. Open, honest conversations about choices, not just limitations, lead to deeper understanding and family harmony.

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Further Engagement

• Guest Info: Andy Hill – host of the Marriage, Kids and Money podcast; book: “Own Your Time” (pre-order available).
• Host Info: Paula Pant – affordanything.com for newsletter, community discussions, and free resources.

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The episode's tone is honest, practical, and encouraging, with an emphasis on intentionality, family, and long-term well-being. Andy and Paula offer realistic hope that financial independence isn't an “all or nothing” leap—but a spectrum that can be reached step by step.

Transcript

[A]

Imagine you're 40 years old, you've built a $500,000 investment portfolio and you've paid off your home. Now, you could grind it out for a few more years and then take a total early retirement, but you decide not to. Instead, you choose a balanced path. You see, most of us in the financial independence community are familiar with the classic framework of early retirement in which you work full time, you save aggressively, and then you hit that magic number, that fire number in which you can retire completely. It's an all or nothing approach. You're either working or you're not. And so the notion of early retirement holds to the cliff framework of traditional retirement. You're working, working, working, and then boom, now you're retired. Early retirement simply moves forward that date to a younger age, but it holds to the binary of full time work until you hit the point of full time retirement. What if there's a middle path? What if you could taper into retirement rather than hit a cliff? Today's guest, Andy Hill, built that life for himself and his family. By the age of 40, he and his wife had built a $500,000 investment portfolio and had paid off their house. But instead of continuing on an aggressive path towards full early retirement, they made a different choice. They decided that they would both transition to part time work. And this decision allowed them to become equal partners in parenting to their two kids, which Andy describes in our upcoming interview as absolutely transformative for their family dynamic. With both parents working part time, both parents could be present for school pickups for one on one time with the kids, and. And for those small daily moments of quality time that matter most. In our upcoming conversation, Andy walks through his ten step framework for how you can do the same. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything. This show covers five financial, psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's double eye fire. Today we're talking about moving beyond the binary of work versus retirement towards something that's more nuanced, an alternative to the all or nothing approach. To describe this and to describe the 10 steps required to achieve it, here is Andy Hill. Oh, and by the way, this interview was recorded live at fincon, which is a conference for personal finance educators and creators. So you'll hear the ambient sounds of the conference buzzing in the background. Enjoy. Hi, Andy.

[B]

Hi, Paula, how are you?

[A]

I'm great. Thank you for joining me.

[B]

Thank you for having me on your show. Appreciate it.

[A]

Andy, you and your wife have a really interesting arrangement, one that I've actually never heard of before. First, would you tell the audience how many kids you have and how old they were five years ago.

[B]

Ah, yes. When this all started, I have a daughter, and five years ago she was. And I have a son. And so math is good. He's six. He would have been six. He's 11 now. So yes, my wife and I have two kids.

[A]

So you've got two kids, and five years ago they were eight and six.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And the reason I'm asking about five years ago is because that's when a big change happened. And it's a family structure that I think is fascinating. And I've never heard of anybody who I know of who has done this. You and your wife both work part time?

[B]

Yes. Tell me about that. There was a point in time where my wife and I were both working in our corporate careers. We were pretty unfulfilled. You know, we fell into these jobs outside of college, and we needed the money. And we followed other people in their footsteps in the advertising and marketing world. For me it was corporate event marketing, and for my wife it was digital advertising. And it was fine in our 20s, but as we got closer to our 30s and we started to have other pieces of our identity that we wanted to experience. You know, being in a marriage, being parents, also staying in contact with our friends, we saw that the corporate world was kind of grabbing a lot of our time, and that would. That was feeling a little claustrophobic for both of us. So when my wife and I were getting together and building our relationship together, we both had discussions of how long do we need to be doing this? How long do we need to stay within this corporate world and give them most of our time? And then our relationship gets the scraps, our kids get the scraps, and then even our health and time with our aging parents, things that are important for us as different identities in our lives. And so with those dreams of not doing this corporate thing forever, we started to work on our financial situation together and say, hey, if we continued to save a good amount of our money, put it away towards our investments, as well as a nice fu money kind of pile of money to say goodbye. We'll be able to maybe not transition to full retirement in our 40s, but maybe some semi retirement, maybe working part time in our 40s, wouldn't that be nice? And that dream, that conversation for both of us became pretty inspiring. And so that motivated us to move towards these goals of ours.

[A]

You've actually broken down the process into 10 steps.

[B]

Yes, right.

[A]

And it's 10 steps towards owning your time. It's 10 steps towards getting to that, that Coast Fire lifestyle. I want to ask about those steps so that the people who are listening have an actionable plan.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But first I'd like you to elaborate on the structure that you have right now. With both parents working part time and then both parents also being part time with the kids. What is that experience for you and for them?

[B]

Yeah, sure. Right now, our current situation is my wife and I are both working part time about 20 to 25 hours a week. Individually, my wife works Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. And so on Mondays and Wednesdays she has days off. So she's working, hanging out with the kids, spending more time at home, meeting up with friends after the kids are off to school. Obviously it's a little more time for herself. And then I've structured my week to be more centered. So I end my work week on Thursday and then I start it Monday afternoon. So that way I can spend a little bit more time with my wife in the morning. On Monday when the kids are off to school, we can spend some time together focusing on our relationship and then obviously other goals that are important to us. So our health and then spending more time with friends and oh man, God willing, some hobbies as well.

[A]

Outside of parenthood, is there time for friends? I mean, are friends super busy since, you know, most people are working?

[B]

That's a great question. Yeah, I think that Nicole and I have both pursued this lifestyle. That doesn't mean that our friends are now available on Wednesday morning to play pickleball.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

But no, we do make time for them. That can be Thursday evenings or on the weekends. But if we're not packing together our weekends full of all the other to do's that we need to do in our normal life, then we actually have time to get together with our friends because we have kids activities, we have a house to take care of. But now we're able to do more of those things during the week and then free up more of our time for fun and for connection with our friends as well.

[A]

What do you think the experience for the kids is like in terms of having equal time with both mom and dad?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's been important. And I did not experience with my wife early on in our relationship. It was one of those things where we went pretty traditional, you know, I was working 50, 60 hours a week in corporate America and event marketing. And then she did the stay at home mom route for a little while. And both of Those roles both felt a little bit uneasy for both of us. She said, oh, well, I really did enjoy doing the stay at home mom thing, but it was just so stay at home mom, where it was like, all I know is kids and all I know is kids TV shows and all the activities that we're supposed to do, I miss. She craved time at an office to drink coffee and type on email, you know, and me, on the other hand, I leaned so far into growing my career that I was working too much, I was traveling too much. So it's almost these extremes that we both chose that said to us, like, wow, wouldn't it be nice if we had something in the middle where we both worked a lot less? And for our kids at that time, around 2020, when we did this, my, my daughter was 8 and my son was around 6. These are pretty pivotal moments to be able to spend time with both parents. My son really loves and craves time with his dad, and it's a big portion of his life because he has a lot of questions for me. He has. He wants to see me after school and tell me how his day was. So the fact that I was able to be there and pick him up on those important days, especially in the tough days, was a really great thing for him. Same thing with my daughter. We've had a lot of connections through her sports and the ability for us to do one on one time together as she was growing up. These are great memories that I think hopefully will be core memories for her as she gets older. Now she's 13 at this point, so she really wants nothing to do with dad because she's very engaged with her friends right now. But during that core period of time, I think it was really great for our relationship.

[A]

You know, you've put all of this effort into being available for your kids and then your kids, at least the oldest one now hits adolescence and wants less to do with mom and dad at this stage. How do you handle that?

[B]

It's an introspective moment for me, really, because a part of my identity that I really felt so great about was being a present dad. And so this is in a moment right now where my daughter's like, I liked all that present dad stuff, but, you know, I really just want to spend more time with my buddies. So for me, it's a moment where I'm reflecting and saying, okay, well, I'm glad I've invested in these other buckets of my life instead of just, I'm a dad. And that's all I do. And that's my only identity. I've leaned into spending more time with my friends. I've leaned into my solopreneur business. I've leaned into taking care of my health more. So when I have free time, it's not one of those things where I'm looking around saying, what is my life? Who am I? It's like, no, I've got these other identities that I can lean into more and create a more well rounded life. So for me, of course in the beginning when she didn't run up to me at the door anymore when I got home from work, that was a big difference, obviously, because she always used to do that. But over time I've gotten to realize that this is just a natural way of life and she is an independent girl and these things are great. This is, is exactly what we wanted for our children as they get older. And for me, that took a little time to realize and not be heartbroken for. But I'm realizing this is a blessing because I get to lean more into the things that make me a great person.

[A]

I want to go back to. You and your wife previously had a very traditional structure in which you were working 50, 60 hours a week. So I'm guessing you didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with your kids at that point.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then your wife was a stay at home mom, so she was spending all of her time with the kids. So it was very imbalanced in that manner from other people that I've talked to. You know, my parents had that same structure as well. My dad worked around the clock, my mom was a stay at home mom. But other parents that I've talked to have often expressed the idea that as a man, once you have children, you have this very, very primal drive to make sure that they are taken care of. And that makes you go to work and want to be at work and want to just drive that career forward so that you know they're going to be secure. Did you experience that?

[B]

Absolutely. Yeah. That's a very real feeling, especially for me as a man. But I think that I got to a point financially where I said, hey, we've done, done all that hard work. We've built the million dollar plus net worth. Shouldn't we be able to enjoy more of our time? And if one of those things that I care about most in my life is time with my family, shouldn't I be able to buy that with all the hard work that we've done together as a couple and the Answer was yes, and it continues to be yes. Like even investing to the point of sitting coast fire at 40 with. With about $500,000 invested. We slowed down our contributions or even stopped our contributions. And that amount is $800,000 today with no further contribution. So it's like that hard work of putting all that front loaded money in is doing work for us afterwards. So instead of me saying, hey, I need to grind and keep working and grow this thing, it's doing it for me, which is great. It's building wealth for me so that I can lean back into the things that matter most in my life.

[A]

Were there like psychological challenges in leaning back though, because of what has been described to me as that very, very primal drive to just keep working?

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. I think I experienced a different relationship with my father when I was growing up. I love my dad and he came from. From a poorer background. And for him to be the first one to graduate from college in his family and have the opportunity to get that corporate job, he leaned into it hard and he helped our family do amazing things and move forward on our wealth journey. But that sacrifice was him being gone a lot and him spending a lot of time out of the house, international trips, a lot of during my childhood. And I think that affected me a little bit as I was growing up. I'm very proud of all that he did for me and all that he did for my siblings. But his presence would have been more important to me than the additional growth that we had as a family. And so I'm leaning into that now with more of my time. I'm spending a lot more time with my dad now in his later years. And we're connecting a lot more than we probably did during my childhood. And so thinking about those types of situations has been pretty pivotal in the decisions that I've made on how I want to show up as a dad. And I think there's a balance of being able to work hard as a man and earn for your family, but do it in a way where you're owning more of your time in the process. And so I'm trying to find that balance of what it means to be a man, but also what it means to be a present father.

[A]

So let's talk through the steps that you took, the actionable steps. You've got a ten step framework for anyone who's listening, who wants to be able to take on that Coast Fire lifestyle so that they can be more present for their family. Yeah, let's start with step One, sure, yeah.

[B]

Step one would be really to take some time to actually dream about what that lifestyle is. You know, we obviously, obviously with financial podcasts, we like to dive into the numbers right away, but a lot of times we don't take time to really think about what we're even shooting for. We got to shoot for the why, really in the beginning. And so taking time, especially if you're married or you have a partner that you really care about, taking time to think about what your dreams and goals are, your dream life, and then writing them down physically and then sharing them with your partner and asking them to do the same, because you might find that you might, might be able to support each other with those goals. You create these combined family goals and then you really have a starting point.

[A]

In that first step. What if you don't know what it is you want? Or what if you and your partner are on different pages?

[B]

Yeah, I think for the personal side, if you don't know what you want, sometimes people have difficulty with goal setting or deciding what your dreams are. I like to use these sort of big questions to kind of spur people, people and their thought. So for example, let's say you walk to your mailbox next week, Paula, and there was a five million dollar check in there. It's written to you, no strings attached, no taxes, any of that type of stuff that we'd have to worry about. And you get to deposit this into your account and it's going to take care of all of your needs going forward. What is the first thing that you stop doing immediately in your life going forward at that point? Is there something that you're doing today that you ultimately don't find value in anymore?

[A]

The laundry.

[B]

There you go, the laundry.

[A]

The laundry.

[B]

Exactly, exactly. So this is time spent doing something that doesn't bring you joy that you can pay money to get rid of. Sometimes for people, that answer is like, well, I would immediately quit my job or I would immediately say, hey, I can't do this job anymore. I can only do it part time, time. Sometimes those types of things. What, what would you want to remove from your life? Can also be the goal, you know, or can be the situation also fear. You know, some people have fear based goals. What are, what are, what are you worried about? What are things that you are constantly thinking about? Maybe some people have financial anxiety out there and they're thinking about something over and over again. What can those fears say to us about how we can move forward with our financial lives and then erase those things, you know, for me, for a long time, one of my financial anxiety points was I always want to make sure that my family has a place to live and nobody will ever take away our house. And sometimes having a big old mortgage in my life would make me feel like, wow, I'm, I'm attached to this corporate job and I'm not sure my family's always going to be protected. So for me, that financial anxiety that I continued to, to think about, I tried to try to not think about it, but it's just something mentally that I couldn't get past said to me, well, then you need to pay off that mortgage as fast as you can, man. And that became a goal of ours as well. So I think if, if it's difficult for you to dream and just say, what do I want to do? Or where do I want to go? Thinking about what you'd want to remove from your life, or thinking about things that you're fearful of, those can also be great starting points to help you move in the right direction for you.

[A]

Hmm. What would you not do?

[B]

Yeah, exactly. What would you take away? I mean, I love that quote Bruce Lee quote. You know, it's not the daily increase, but the daily decrease that matters. You know, hack away at the unessential things like that you have in your life that aren't really moving the needle towards where you want to go. So what can you do to eliminate those things?

[A]

A mad fientist also talks about happiness through subtraction.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great way to think of it.

[A]

Right. All right, so that is the first step.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What about step two? Where do you go from there?

[B]

Step two for me and in our journey, it's committing to living without debt in your life. And so this is a lot of high interest debt that we're talking about, you know, not the mortgage and things like that. That was a personal thing for us. But really being able to make that decision that, hey, the things that I want in my life, let's make sure that I can actually afford them to buy with money that I have currently in my life. Because those commitments, those, those decisions make everything easier going forward. The things that I value, I'm starting to put those at the top of my budget. The goals that I have, I'm starting to put those at the top of my budget. Obviously, if you're looking at your budget and debt payments are on there, that's one thing you're like, well, I never want to have that. That's the way down at the bottom. So if we can work on eliminating that and then making that commitment that you'll never go back into it for any consumer specific thing. I know if we're talking about, you know, real estate investing or even low cost mortgages or things like that, that's a whole different situation. But for high interest type of consumer debt, that's, that's really where we're talking.

[A]

For, for step two, credit card debt, maybe car, car. I mean car loans tend to be low interest, but still a consumer debt.

[B]

Absolutely. Yeah. It's just, it's just making a commitment saying, hey, this is the money I have coming in in my life. I want to be able to make sure that I'm using real money to actually pay for it going forward.

[A]

And you would put that a step too ahead of because I'm sure retirement planning is somewhere on the street.

[B]

Sure, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

[A]

Would you, you would prioritize debt payoff?

[B]

I wouldn't say any sequential nature is needed for it. Obviously if you have a corporate job, taking advantage of a 401k and the match that comes with it should be a high priority as well. This is a great place to start. I think sometimes people have a mental block within their financial journey to saying, what is it? Simple step that I can take advantage of right away and sometimes attacking that debt, especially if it is financially anxiety debt, that can really motivate you to move in that direction. And sometimes if people are carrying credit card debt of 20%, 25%, you're immediately going to make a lot more by paying that off than you would in the market. You know, depending on obviously the market time frame. But yeah, taking advantage of those high interest debts, especially ones that exceed like the, you know, total average return of the stock market is a great place to start.

[A]

All right, so what's step three then?

[B]

Step three is working to protect your family and different ways that you can do that. So having conversations around estate planning, conversations around building up an emergency fund that will help you to put away money to take care of the unexpected, you know, job loss, anything that is associated with your home that you might have all those whoops. Moments that will help you to become a more present parent and a little better parent. You know, for example, once we had our three to six month emergency fund, anytime my kids would break something, I felt a little bit more calm as a parent knowing that I had that money set aside instead of saying, oh, why did you do that? You know, money is a scarce asset, you shouldn't do that. That, that's an opportunity for me to put fear into their brains right away at a young age. So if we had the money set aside, I'm feeling a little bit more calm in my parenting, knowing that these little mistakes are just little mistakes and they don't really matter in the long run. So putting away money to protect your family from the unexpected and the little emergencies is great. Obviously insurance is in there. You want to make sure you're protecting your family from the unexpected big things. But then the short term things. Things are that savings in an emergency fund. So in that, you know those three steps we just talked about, you're developing a dream. You're moving forward on that dream by planning, eliminating your debt and then protecting your family.

[A]

What's interesting to me about step three is that insurance, emergency fund and estate planning all get combined into a singular step.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Under the umbrella of protection, more of.

[B]

Like, hey, this is an area where I need to be full. Focusing on how can I put my defense up before I go on full offense and build wealth is a great place to start because that way you're protecting your family from the unexpected moving forward.

[A]

And debt payoff to that extent is also a bit of a playing defense.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's your defensive step. Obviously we're dreaming and then playing defense immediately. And some of those things can be easier quick wins than when we're talking about investing. Obviously that's an important thing to do for a long period of time. I'm all about long term investing, but the quick wins with hitting some of those goals can happen earlier on the debt payoff journey. And then after that it's hey, what can we do to build wealth going forward?

[A]

Excellent.

[B]

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[B]

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[A]

Ask your doctor about epglis and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979. Alright, let's move to step four then.

[B]

Yeah, step four. Four is exciting for me because I really think that there is an opportunity for people to set a specific goal with investing and that is to me, hitting coastfire. So once you start investing and move towards this goal and essentially Coastfire is invest, it's essentially just front loading your investments. So you get to a point that you've invested so much that that amount of money will grow with time and compound interest and eventually get you to the goal that you have for retirement in your 60s. So for example, my wife and I invested around $500,000 by the time we were 40. If we did not contribute anything else going forward from there for the next 20 years with, you know, regular market return and inflation, we could expect north of $2 million by the time we retire at 60. That's pretty comfortable for what we need in our lives. And all those situation that we've built and then our kids moving off and not really needing the bank of mom and dad anymore. And when you're doing that process, try to make it as simple as possible. Utilizing index funds and investing for the long term. Taking advantage of tax advantaged accounts like your 401k, your IRA, even your HSA can make the process really easy. Even a taxable brokerage account so you can consider even early retirement options moving forward in that journey.

[A]

So just to explain the math to the people who are listening who are wondering about how 500,000 turns into 2,500,000 by the time that you're 40. Now there's this thing called the Rule of 72, which means that 72 divided by the rate of return is the amount of time it takes your money to double, roughly. So if you assume a 7.2% return as a long term annualized average, that means your money would double every 10 years. So 500,000 when you're 40 doubles to a million when you're 50, which doubles to 2 million when you're 60. There you go, that's the math behind it. And that's 2 million at the age of 60 with a fully paid off house.

[B]

Absolutely, yeah. And you've just led to step five after that, after you've really hit that Coast Fire moment. There are important reasons to invest after that, but really the main purpose for, for a lot of people for investing is retirement. So once you check that box of Coast Fire, I move towards paying off the house. And the reason that I move towards paying off the house is that you are lowering your expenses by quite a bit and allowing you to make retirement even easier, allowing you to not need to make as much money in the today. And by decreasing those expenses you can make some drastic decisions in your lifestyle that will allow you to say, wow, maybe I don't want to work my full corporate job anymore. Maybe I want to go part time. Or at least one of the partners can go part time to start. So by doing that Coast Fire first, then mortgage freedom, it allows you to check that box that your retirement is set. And obviously you know, nothing said or guaranteed with investments of course, but you know, average market returns. And then with paying off your mortgage, you're drastically lowering your expenses. For me and my wife, our principal and interest payments were around thirteen hundred dollars. So once we got rid of that, that was that. I'm going to do some bad math, maybe $15,000 back in our lives that was decreasing our expenses that much. That Makes retirement easier. That makes just living life easier after that point. So that would be. That would be step five.

[A]

Right. Do you still choose to keep homeowners insurance on your home? Because technically that's not required once you've paid off your home.

[B]

Yeah, we choose to keep homeowners insurance on our home. And I'm sure I'm. I'm very glad that we did, because just last year, we had a flood in our house. It was a very bad winter storm, and some pipes froze in our kitchen. Nicole and I woke up to three in the morning in January. Very cold feet in our kitchen full of water. And I'm very glad we had that homeowners insurance because they took care of everything. They cleaned it, and it even helped us to get a nicer, newer, modern kitchen afterwards. So homeowners insurance, definitely worth it.

[A]

Excellent. Step five is pay off your home. But what would you say to anyone who's listening to this, who is working through the steps, but they're currently renting?

[B]

Yeah. Oh, that's a. That's a great position to be in, too. I think there's a lot of advantages to renting over actually owning a home, and people are making that decision right now. Is it worth it or not? For me, in my 20s, I really regret buying a home as early as I did. It made me feel very locked up in a decision that I didn't really want to have committed to. That early in my life, I wanted flexibility. I wanted Autonomy. In my 20s, I'm single. I want to make some decisions on where I want to be in the country. Maybe I don't want to live in Michigan. Maybe I want to move to Chicago. But I was locked up in a house and the market wasn't doing all that well, so it was even difficult for me to sell the house. When I had a family, I really wanted to have a stable place for them to be. School system, a house that they always know. But some people choose to rent, and I think that is fantastic because it gives you that flexibility. It gives you that autonomy to say, hey, if I'm ready to move or if I'm not liking the situation, that's fantastic. It also, depending on your landlord, of course, can reduce the amount of work that you need to do living there. You know, like, my wife and I are constantly taking care of our lawn. Constantly, you know, fixing things, repairing things. If you got a good situation with your landlord, that can be even more relaxing. So if we're on this process and you are renting, you can skip right over step five and continue moving forward with creating the time freedom that you want.

[A]

Well, what if you're on step five? You can currently renting, but your goal is to eventually buy a home?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

You know, with that, how does that fit into this framework of reaching Coast Phi and trying to create additional time freedom and maybe going part time? What I'm sensing here are priorities that really get juggled.

[B]

Yeah. I would say depending on your priorities. And those conversations need to happen between you and your spouse or your partner. And just say what is most important to. To us right now? Is it investing so much that we hit coast fire and then we can consider maybe working less? Or is it, hey, do we need to double down on building up enough of a down payment where we can get into a house and create that home that we live in for a long time? And I know that's a big deal for a lot of people who are looking for homes in this very competitive environment and higher interest rates than they have been in the past. So I think having those conversations and discussions, deciding what's most important to you and then prioritizing those dollars to make.

[A]

It happen before I move on, I want to circle back to that $2 million by the age of 16. How do you know that that's enough for you in retirement?

[B]

Yeah, so for me and my wife right now, we currently live comfortably on around like $75,000, and that's with two kids in our house. And so we're paying for things that we won't be paying for for when they're older. Now, I know inflation is a big thing, but a lot of the calculations that we're talking about really do factor inflation in there. I don't think I'm only going to earn a 7.2%. I think that's really may probably factored in with the growth of inflation too. Just based on past market returns and how we're investing, I feel confident that we'll be able to get there. So really knowing what we're spending today is a good indication of where we might be in the future. Future as well. This is also not including benefits like Social Security. I know that there it's. It's a big influx kind of moment right now for Social Security. But I really do believe that we'll get 80% of what's there. 70% of what's there. And that's not a small amount of money for two people that worked in corporate America for a while. And my wife and I looked it up and we're Both potentially due around $3,000 each by the time we hit 62 and move on. So that's not going to be a small amount of money to support our goals during that time frame. So we're. We're more than set, I would say, and we'll probably have enough to enjoy our time. Also, a lot of these calculations are really dependent on people living a full 20, 30 years after 60 years old. And with the average age of people passing away in our country around 78 and unfortunately, 75 for men. Sorry, fellas. We really have to make sure that we're not over indexing on having too many millions in our later years and not being able to enjoy enough of it today. So I know that's. It might be a countercultural message to say, hey, enjoy. It's not a YOLO message, but it is a little bit of like, hey, yeah. How do we find that balance of enjoying today and liking our lives? Because it is important to like your life and having a safe tomorrow.

[A]

We've now wrapped step five.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And let's just very quickly go over. Step one is to really articulate what that dream is.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Define that dream. Step two is pay off all of your debt. It's a defensive step.

[B]

It is.

[A]

And then step three is also a defensive step and it's protect yourself, estate planning, insurance and emergency fund.

[B]

You got it.

[A]

Step four is to invest enough to reach coast fire. And then step five is to pay off your home if you're a homeowner.

[B]

Yes. That's it. You got it. Nice recap.

[A]

Very good.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

With that recap in place, then let's move to step six.

[B]

Awesome. Step six is a really fun one. It is called stockpiling that fu money. So with this money, this is liquid cash and in a high yield savings account, this gives you that confidence, that power, that ability to decide what you want to do in the next chapter of your life. Is this money that will allow you to be a bridge to take you from a place of maybe you're not comfortable with your job right now. Maybe you're uncomfortable with who you're working with, or maybe you're just working too many hours in that place. Can this money be a bridge for you to go from a place of hardship to a place of peace and prosperity? Now, just up and quitting your job with no money in the bank account can be quite a dangerous thing to do, especially in this marketplace that we're in right now. But if you create a plan where you are moving towards a life that you're more interested in or even a part time work life, you can use this, this money to support that transition, whether that's a thousand dollars a month or a couple thousand dollars a month in order for you to get to a better place. Now, when we're speaking to couples or people who are living together or you know, combining income, this doesn't all have to happen at once. One partner at a time is a pretty good step for this. So if you are working, let's say an extreme version, right? Let's say there are both working full time jobs and then one of them even has a little side hustle to, to make things happen. So it's really two and a half full time incomes, right? Could this bridge money be at a minimum allowing you to say goodbye to that side hustle? Or at another level, could this allow us to go to 1.5 incomes in the house? So 1.5 household income? That way you're making a step process towards working less and enjoying more of your life. So looking at it in that fashion, using this money as the ability for you to walk towards a better life can be a great thing to do. So again, it's part security, but part empowerment.

[A]

I've heard many salaried knowledge workers who move to part time say that often when they attempt to move to part time, what actually ends up happening is their scope inflation in the amount of responsibilities that are handed to them and they functionally end up working full time but for a reduced pay.

[B]

Yeah, that does not seem like a very good situation.

[A]

Exactly, exactly.

[B]

If you had to look at that movement from what is the ideal situation for you to move into? If you had a good situation with your employer and you had advanced conversations with them, they're already paying you money having that conversation. To say, do you know other people within our ecosphere here that are working part time or three quarter time or something like that? Is that a possibility here at that or at this organization? If you have a good relationship with your manager, they could be very honest with you and just say, nah man, that's not this environment. That would not happen well here. And that's something for you to be aware of. So whether that's your manager or somebody that you know like and trust within the corporate environment, that would give you that information. Maybe that's more of a colleague league, you'll have to make that decision. But some people do work in a situation where that is encouraged. Instead of losing this person with all of their knowledge and Their ability to help move the business forward. Being able to work three days a week, two and a half days a week could still be great for the business and it could still be great for the individual. So being able to have those conversations could be great. And I think if you're talking about being able to move to part time, this would be the easiest route because there are already paying you. They know you're a good employee and they want to retain you, but they don't want to lose you. Obviously this depends on your relationship that you have with your employer, but this could be the best situation. It's always easier to get paid where you're already getting paid, as opposed to being like, I'm going to start a brand new business today. You know, like that. That's a drastic step. Really stay where you're getting paid. Maybe you can just work fewer hours.

[A]

In terms of the people that you've talked to who have taken a step like this, has there also been a benefits reduction?

[B]

Yeah. Depending on how many hours you take, sometimes you're stepping into an area where you are losing those benefits. So again, the first best step in that scenario is if your partner has benefits, obviously taking advantage of those. Now, if your partner's in a situation where they don't have benefits, this becomes one of those situations where people say, well, if I don't have healthcare, then I can't do this thing. But as you know, and maybe you do know, I don't know your situation with healthcare care.

[A]

I buy my own.

[B]

Exactly. Go out into the marketplace. It was super scary for me originally. I'm like, wow, what a mystery question. You know, I have to have this job, so I have my health care. But really I went onto the marketplace, I found the exact same high deductible plan that I had within my employer. I just pay for it. Now, right now we pay about 700 bucks to have that plan. It's reasonable. It ends up being something that I just. I funnel into my business as a business expense because I'm the only employee of my business. It works out just fine. My wife at the time didn't have healthcare options to lean into. So we said, hey, this is how much it costs. And in order for us to have that, it's income and revenue that we need to generate in order for us to pay for it. So it exists. I think it becomes a very fearful moment for a lot of people, especially in our country where healthcare feels so confusing because it really is. It's not set up very well for humans. To understand, but it does work. And I can tell you from experience, from somebody who's been using the Marketplace for the last five years, it's super easy. The website's pretty intuitive and it just gets paid every month. And it's the same insurance that I had before.

[A]

Yeah. I've been buying my own health insurance since 2010.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Yeah, since 2010. So it was actually pre ACA. So even. Yeah.

[B]

Was it a lot more back then?

[A]

No, it was a lot less.

[B]

A lot less.

[A]

So much cheaper. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it was like 100 something a month. Like literally 100 and something per month.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So, yeah, significantly, significantly cheaper. It did not cover as much, though. So the ACA compliant plans have 10 particular points that they are required to cover by law. Those plans back in 2000, they were a lot cheaper, but they had less coverage.

[B]

Yeah, that's a lot of changes in that number that I shared with you, everybody. So that's. That's covering four people. So it's. It's me and my wife and my kids. So if 700 seems like a lot, it's because there are. There are four of us. So obviously the more people you have within your network, that. That could raise the price or lower the price.

[A]

Yeah. Well, it also varies a lot state by state. So in the state of New York, it's just. It's over $700. Just for me.

[B]

Ah, okay. That's good perspective for me. Thank you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'm in Michigan, everybody. Just for help. Flare.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. So. And in the state of New York, you cannot actually buy through healthcare.gov. they portal you to a separate site that is a New York specific site. Got it. So you mentioned earlier that the website is very intuitive. That website is not available in all states.

[B]

Oh, very good.

[A]

ACA compliant plans are available in all states, but you can't necessarily buy them through healthcare.gov in all 50 states.

[B]

Got it. Yeah. So there is a cost, but it is possible. Sometimes it just feels like I won't be able to get it. You will be able to get it. Just there's a cost to it, so it's important. And as I was saying goodbye to my corporate job, this is something I was researching a lot, looking at the prices and making sure it was something our family could handle.

[A]

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[B]

Event invites and pin messages so no.

[A]

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[A]

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[B]

Excellent. Well step seven, since you've built up that FU money and you're interested in creating a part time life or one that you at least own more of your time, this is your opportunity to create your ideal three day work week. I think this is cool because if you look at the calendar, there are seven days, right? Why do we work five of them and only get to relax for two of them? It just seems unbalanced, right? So this is an opportunity, at least one that I'm proposing that we flip that script and say let's enjoy four of those days and work three of those days. And hopefully you pick work that you do enjoy so that you're enjoying all seven days. But I think sometimes, at least in my experience, sometimes I over index on work because I get excited about it or I get in sort of a flow that I start forgetting about my other identities that I've talked about caring about but I'm not actually putting any action towards. So for me, maybe it's a mental thing where I just say hey, I am done working at this period of time that helps me to turn my brain off. And I don't know if you ever feel like this Paul, or at least I did in the corporate world. I would finish my workday on Friday, but my brain Wouldn't turn off from those assignments until like whatever, Saturday at like 6pm and then on Saturday, Sunday, I'm starting to get the Sunday scaries again and I'm starting to think about it. So really my time for relaxation outside of work was maybe like eight hours and work was just consuming everything for me. So in order for my brain to calm down a little bit, I really need to make a buffer of time so I'm actually able to enjoy my weekend. So for me, I'm trying to just not work on Fridays at all. For me, I'm not doing the full four day weekend yet. That's like a long term goal for me. Right now I'm working a half a day on Monday. But long term I would love to experience that three day work week and four day weekend. So at this point, this is an opportunity for you to design whatever works well for you. If you never want to work on Fridays again, if you never want to work on Mondays again, this is your opportunity to be the best boss you've ever wanted to be in your life. You know, like when you had that boss that said, hey, you can't travel on this day or you can't take this time off or make sure you're checking email even and on Saturday it's like if those things that you never want to do again, this is an opportunity for you to decide to say, this is the kind of life that I want to live and I'm going to help myself be that boss, you know. So this is different. Obviously if you own your own business versus maybe working part time for some business. But by designing your life in a part time fashion, you're creating some separation from your work life and your home life.

[A]

I think a lot of people would say, you know, if you're working for another company, that the issue is that that company just does not respect those boundaries.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So I think that comes into a situation where you need to continue to ask yourself, what am I hacking away at that helped me to feel more comfortable? Does it still feel comfortable today? Do I need to find a different situation that would feel more comfortable? But with that FU money, I think that gives you the of kind confidence to start nodding your head and saying I can take some bolder steps here to continue moving in a direction that feels right for my situation, my family, my marriage, and take advantage of that. So for my wife and I, we built up about 12 months of expenses in an FU fund for us to make that transition away from my corporate career into a solopreneur life. Now, I didn't use all of that in the first year, even though there was a global pandemic that came through. But I was very glad to have it because there was a lot of income changes that happened in 2020 and 2021, but that thing really trickled for another two or three years. That helped me make some smart decisions on people that I wanted to work with or clients that I wanted to say no thanks or hours that I didn't want to work. So this allowed me to have that bridge to a place that I feel a lot more comfortable. And for my wife, it was the same thing. She was working in corporate America and was sick of it. And she said, man, I've always wanted to work with my hands and get out of the email grind. I would love to go back to trade school and become an esthetician. And we had enough FU money for her to do that. We said, hey, we got $30,000 over here. Why don't you go and do your trade school? Take complete time off. We'll use that money to pay for our lives a little bit and pay for your school costs. So she did that. She made, went back for, I think it was about six months of a program, learned the trade, and now she's been working as an esthetician at a dermatologist office for the past two and a half years. She likes the quick part time schedule. When her day's over at 5, there's no email to check and make sure the clients are bugging her. These are decisions that she made for the betterment of her life. Now, are there income hits when you say, hey, I'm going to move from corporate marketing to becoming an esthetician? Of course. And same thing for me, I'm going to move from being a director and sales and marketing to a podcaster. There's going to be income hits. But if you're not investing for your retirement anymore, you don't have a mortgage payment, you've eliminated all your debt, and you've got money set aside for any things that might go wrong in that situation, you have some flexibility. You really do.

[A]

What you just described is complementary to, but technically separate from Coast Fire.

[B]

Oh, tell me.

[A]

Because Coast Fire, as you defined it earlier, is knowing that you've got enough investments that you could never put another dollar into a 401k again and you'd be good. So functionally, if you imagine that your retirement contributions are, quote, unquote, a bill, you have just eliminated a huge bill from your life. Absolutely and so if you pay off the mortgage and you eliminate your retirement.

[B]

Bill, then this could be 70, $80,000 depending on how many, how much people are putting in.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, if you've got two higher income earners or two individuals making $100,000, this could be a lot of money. If you had a high savings rate, maybe 30% savings rate and you eliminate that savings rate because you don't need any more, that's a lot of money, that's $60,000, $70,000 back in your life to say, oh, maybe I don't need to work as much.

[A]

Right. So the value in coastfi and the essentially the cash flow that that gets freed up by eliminating the retirement bill is quite substantial. But then when you talk about taking the income hit, you know, both you and your wife went from much higher paying occupations to much lower paying but more flexible and more enjoyable occupations in doing so. What strikes me as I hear you talk about that is that while coastfi helps with that, a person who has not necessarily reached Coast Fi but who has eliminated their debt, has some savings, they've protected their income. Like a person with essentially good financial hygiene could still be able to do that.

[B]

Absolutely, absolutely. I think it's mentally one of those things for me, what is saying, why do I have this job? Well, I have this job to make good income and for the benefits. And so once you say, okay, well the benefits of this 401k have been fantastic, but I don't really need that benefit anymore. Or the healthcare has been fantastic, but I can pay for that with the growth of my small business. Or in a different fashion, the benefits of staying there start to fade away and you're like, what am I doing here? Well, the high income is really great, it helps me to enjoy life, but I'm actually saving a lot of it. Maybe I don't even need the high income part anymore. And then you say, well, what do I need this corporate job for anymore? So being able to do, do some of those things helps with that mental decision of well, I do have those golden handcuffs. I'm just going to stick around a little bit longer. So mentally, if you start to tick off these boxes, it just becomes an easy thing for you to nod your head and say, yeah, why am I here?

[A]

How do you resist lifestyle inflation, particularly when you have more time on your hands, which means you have more time to spend money.

[B]

Yeah, I think this is something that we've struggled with too because when we had more time, we had more opportunities. Opportunity to say, well, why don't we do that? Why don't we vacation more? Why don't we sign our kids up for summer camp? Why don't we sign them up for travel soccer? And these types of things started to eat into our budget a little bit more. And this was a moment for my wife and I to say, well, do we want to be working more in order to pay for these types of things? Do we want to work more and grow my business or grow your business and do that? And then over the past couple of years, we've had some moments where we said, well, what do we care about more? Owning more of our time or our daughter playing at a travel soccer league or our son also playing at a travel soccer league. These things became very easy decisions for us to say. Our kids are not going to the Olympics, man. Our kids are not even going to probably even play in college. I'm not even sure they care about soccer as much as we're putting it on them. Let's start to pare back some of these things that we thought as nice luxuries in the parenting department and start to say goodbye to them. Some of those things were even summer camps. We make those decisions. We say, what do we care about more? Do we want to, do we want to work more in order to pay for these things or are we happy with the lives we have? So we've had to have some of those moments between our marriage and just say, what do we want to pare back or what do we want to do to increase our income? And a lot of the decisions have been easier just to pare back. We do love vacations, which is a lot of fun. So sometimes as a part of this process, we, we do a little bit of credit card hacking or travel hacking to make that process a little easier. And then that can be compliments to this coast fire lifestyle as well.

[A]

Let's move to step eight. What happens next?

[B]

Well, step eight is to intentionally design your four day weekend. We've talked about how you're going to work for those three days. Now you have four days. Sometimes this can be like a, whoa, what do I do with my time? And then the first instinct, because we've been doing it our whole lives, is, well, I could just double down on my work, or I could just grow my business, or I could do this.

[A]

Start a new project.

[B]

Start a new project, right? I could become more busy. And that's, it's very common and very, you know, normal for a lot of people. But I think if we go back to that dreaming portion and saying, well, what did I want to do now that I have this free time? I need to dial that back and say, what? What did I say I was going to do? Did I say I was going to take my health for? Did I say I wanted to live a long life and be able to be a present father and do things with my kids? Did I say that I wanted to volunteer more in my community? Did I say that I wanted to learn the guitar? It's like, are these things that you're actually going to start doing on your four day weekend to take advantage of life and create those multiple identities? I loved having a conversation with Simone Stolzoff who talked about that important portion of you're not just a worker, you're not just to create economic value. You are a father, you are a son, you are an athlete, you're a musician. Like, this is an opportunity for us to lean into those different identities and create the life we've always wanted. If you want that relaxation piece and you need that for a couple months where you're saying, man, I've worked forever, I just need four day weekends to do nothing, that's fine, lean into relaxation, that's okay. But then after you've relaxed for a little while, I think maybe some people you've talked to in the financial independence community community find that time for a breather. And then they say, okay, now what am I going to do? So taking that time is good, but really starting to say, what can I do to take care of my health so that I am a great husband, take care of my health so that I have a full cup, so I can actually support my kids and their goals, take care of my health so that I can spend time with my aging parents, spend time with my friends, create hobbies, create development in the community where I'm connecting with real humans. Because a lot of the conversations that I know we have on these shows is about happiness. And a lot of that happiness comes from making real human connections with people and creating relationships that last. So this is our opportunity to do that, to create that sustaining happiness that will take us onto our retirement years so that we don't just automatically turn 60 and then say, huh, now that I'm not working, what do I do? Because I've heard that a lot of people who get to retirement age and they don't have that direction all of a sudden have this quick depression that hits them, well, I'm not a worker anymore. Who am I? What is my identity? This is our Opportunity to test out those identities and say, who do we want to be? What do we want to do? And now you have four days on a weekend to do that.

[A]

We touched on earlier the fact that even though you're less busy, your friends aren't necessarily less busy. Given that you don't have the social interaction of a workplace, how do you fill your space with people outside of your family in that four day weekend, in that abundant time?

[B]

It's still something I'm working on because I didn't calculate that when I said, hey, I'm gonna take my Fridays off and I'm gonna take my Monday mornings off and I want to connect with more people. But I have found my buddy will be like, nah, dude, I have a shift today, you know, I'm working or no, I can hang out on Saturday. And I'm like, okay, all right, so what else can I do during those hours when my friends are typically busy to fill my cup. And a lot of the things I've been leaning into lately are taking care of my health. And I have not been the best at it over the past, say five to 10 years. And I know the importance of taking care of your health will help you to have those long years, help you have that longevity. So I can actually enjoy maybe a 30 year plus retirement. So I've been trying to take that spare time on Monday and Fridays to really do that. And as a dad and as a husband, there's a lot of things that are happening around the house that I can do to help out with. I think in the past, maybe more traditionally, my wife was making more of the meals, my wife was making, doing more of the housework. Because of the stay at home mom situation versus me being in the corporate life, I've tried to be a better husband to say, hey, what can I do to make dinner a few nights, week during the week? What can I do to clean the house up on Friday so that when you come home on Friday, you're coming home to a clean, simplified house so you're not looking and turning into some chaos here. What can I do to do the yard? Just little housework takes up time and as you see, you start to free up that time. There's a lot of these things that you were packing into your weekend. And now when you do have your weekends come up, it is totally free to spend time with those friends when they are available.

[A]

You say that you haven't been taking care of your health, but I remember going to a restaurant with you in I think it was 20? No, it was. It was 20. Well, it couldn't have been 2020 because that was a pandemic. So we couldn't have gone to a restaurant.

[B]

We could have gone to a restaurant. Yeah.

[A]

So I guess it must have been 2019. And you were on some. Were you gluten free and keto or something?

[B]

Maybe. I read that Tim Ferriss book and it was like I was like less carbs and fasting. Fasting. And yeah, yeah, you were like intermittent.

[A]

Fasting, but also gluten free and maybe also a little bit keto.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And you had like all of these food restrictions. I was like, I don't know what this guy eats.

[B]

Yeah, so.

[A]

So you like boiled chicken and broccoli is apparently.

[B]

I think I have been doing well with. But the exercise piece I had not been been dedicating enough time for. So I'm very happy that I have a lot more time now to be doing that. But thank you for that compliment. I appreciate, I appreciate it.

[A]

All right, so we've covered step eight.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Lead us to step nine.

[B]

Yeah. So step nine is really leading into simplifying your life as you alluded to, I think in one of your previous questions. Sometimes you might feel a little bit of a lifestyle creep. Sometimes you see people maybe with that bigger house than you, better car than you, whatever, more expensive car than you. So now that you have some free time, you start to see, wow, there's a lot more marketing messages out there that are saying I need to do these things to have the trappings of a good life. Or I'm going online maybe more with my free time and I'm seeing, oh wow, you know, I should probably have a bigger house or I should have that better car. This is an opportunity for us to recognize that when we have free time, sometimes that can get swallowed up by the consumeristic culture that we have or people who are just interested in grabbing more of your time. This is an opportunity to continue to say, I would like to have a simple life. I would like to continue on this path and say yes to the things that matter most. And it's going to be tough because you're going to have more time and potentially have more money depending on how things go for you. But it is important to continue to say, what are those values and how can I simplify things? If you're doing things within your schedule, if you're spending money on things that still don't matter, continue to have a check in process with yourself, with your spouse so that you're on the same page and you're eliminating the things that don't really matter for you. Now that can be different depending on which spouse you're talking about. Some things that really matter to me, my wife doesn't really, really think they matter to her and vice versa. But we have those conversations. We set a time in the morning for important conversations over coffee or we go for a run on the, on Monday mornings. And we kind of lean into some of those things that are important to us right now. So part of our plan as a family is we continue to eliminate things that don't matter, continue to simplify things. So I think it's important for you to have those introspective steps at that point. Once you've built your four day weekend and you're saying, hey, how do I maintain this? How do I make it consistent? A part of it is not going back into that lifestyle creep, not going back into things that don't really matter. And my wife and I find ourselves in those conversations. Sometimes we're like very comfortable right now and we make enough money to live well. And sometimes in our brains we're like, should we get a bigger house? Should we get a bigger house? Man, that would change everything. Do we want to start back at step one and get our full time jobs again in order to have that bigger house? And then we both look at each other and say, nah, we're fine. This is plenty of space for four of us. It's an opportunity though, because it constantly hits your brain where you're saying, should I have bigger, better, should I have more? And sometimes less is more.

[A]

How do you deal with your kids asking for things?

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah. We live in a nice community and there's a lot of families that have, I would say, a visually more affluent, affluent lives than us. So for example, one of my good friends that I coach my son's flag football team with, he's a very successful business owner. He's done very well for his life. We go over to his house and he has a, a full sport court in his basement. So like a whole basketball court in his basement. My son goes over there, who's 11 years old and has a great time, and he comes home and he goes, dad, why don't we have a sport court and our basement? So this is an opportunity for me to have some conversations. Exactly like what we're talking about, buddy. We could have a sport court in our basement. But you know what that would do that would require dad to go back to his corporate life, continue to grow my income and travel a lot more and be gone a lot more than I am right now. Would you like that? And he said, oh, no, no, I love being with you. You know, I love having time for with you and knowing the trade off of being able to keep grinding and grinding for a sport court or whatever it is. You know, there's always going to be more things or more stuff. And even if we have the multimillion dollar house, then we're going to look at the family that has the jet or whatever. You know, there's always going to be more wealth than you. So you have to find that moment of contentment and then do your best to share that with your kids too. Because if you're discontent, then your kids will be discontent as well. So a lot of that comes with just practicing gratitude for what you have. Being able to physically write that down a couple of times a day just to say, here's the things that I do have that I'm happy with, and then things that I'm craving for or wanting more. And if you can instill those things into your kids, I think that is a lot easier for them to see than for you to tell them, saying, hey, you should be more grateful. It's like, I need to express that and show them how to do that. And it becomes a little easier to find contentment as a kid as well.

[A]

Many years ago, when I worked at a newspaper, I had an editor who told me the story. He said he had a daughter who was about three at the time. One day his daughter turned to him and was like, daddy, when are we going to have a lot of money? And he was like, oh, don't worry, we'll always be okay. Okay. We'll always have a roof over our head. We'll always have food. Don't worry. And she was like, yeah, but when are we gonna have a lot of money? And he was like, well, you know, we've got more than many other people do. You know, we're good. And she was like, but when are we gonna have a lot of money? And he was like, well, Ani, to be honest, I don't think we're ever gonna have a lot of money. And then she said, but then if we did, you could spend all of your time with me.

[B]

Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's interesting.

[A]

And he was reflecting on it. He was like, I must have told her at some point, like, hey, if I had all the money in the world, you know, I'd spend all my time with you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So then she was reflecting that back. She was like, well, when are we going to have a lot of money? Because then you could spend all your time with me.

[B]

I love it because a lot of the time the kids here, well, I got to go to work because I need to make the money, or I got to go to work because I got to pay that mortgage. This mortgage bill isn't going to pay itself. So they keep hearing that over and over again. Well, what if you didn't need the money? Then you could be with me all of the time. Right? That's not where I thought you were going with the story, too. That's a good story. I like that.

[A]

So we've wrapped step nine, so now we're on to the final step, Step ten.

[B]

Step ten is to show. Show your kids the way. So this is an opportunity for you to instill these generational wealth habits into your children as early as possible. Of course, not to cram it down their throats, but to show them the way. Obviously, through your actions, through step one through nine, hopefully your kids are there. Maybe they're not following along at every element of the process, but they're watching you as the parents going through this and seeing how much work that you went through to pay off that debt, to make those plans together, to invest for your retirement, to slowly say goodbye to a job that isn't serving you anymore. They're watching you put your family first. And these lessons are being imparted to your children so that they can learn how to own their time in the future. And a lot of that comes with our kids being able to practice with money themselves and have money in their lives and being able to utilize it in an early portion of their lives and then break it into fashion. So I like to say, when you have kids as early as possible, if you can start to instill some of these things with what I like to call the 60, 40 generational wealth plan. Any money that's coming into their lives, whether that be money from a generous grandma or the lemonade sales stand or their first, like, teen job, 60% of it should go towards spending on the things that they love. The motivation for them to actually want to work, do things that they like, whether that's buying Roblox or candy or, you know, clothes. My daughter's very into clothes right now. It makes her happy. If at an early age, you can say at least investing 20% of that money at an early age gets them into the habit that they are using that investment to buy back the their future time can be a very smart thing for you to do early on. So investing 20% of that, saving 10% of that, and then giving 10%, the giving portion can be any way that you feel generous. This can be giving to friends. This could be, you know, buying grandma a birthday present. This doesn't have to be charitable. This doesn't have to be house of worship. But if you're into those types of things that that's how you want to give, that's fine. I don't think there should be any sort of restriction on how. How you give. I think the idea is just to be generous with a portion of your money because there have been so many studies on what makes for a happy life, and a big part of it is being able to give and serve others. I know you do that just through your medium here, Paula. Like, I know you get a lot of joy just helping people with their financial situation, giving them that financial independence. This is a great way that you're serving. And obviously, if you can teach your kids those lessons with even just a portion of their income when they're young now, this can be a tough sell for kids, obviously. But honestly, as a parent, there's a lot of tough sells. Getting my kids to brush their teeth daily twice was really, really tough. You know, you're gonna have to do this so you don't get gab. I don't want to do it. It's like, well, there's a lot of that type of stuff that you don't want to do even in your adult life. If you start to do them now, hopefully by the time they're 18, maybe they won't stick with the whole 60, 40 thing by the time they're 18, 20. But they'll at least remember those lessons that some of my money needs to go towards investing, saving, and giving. That will help me have a life of generosity and over a short period of time, maybe a life of freedom where you can decide how you want to live your life. We've been doing this with our kids for quite a while. They've had an opportunity to work within our family business, so we've been able to pay them an earned income and contribute to their Roth IRAs. My daughter is close to $10,000 in her Roth IRA. At 13, her net worth is like $12,000. My net worth at 28 was negative $50,000. So the fact that my daughter has a $12,000 net worth at age 13 is going to put her a leg up much further than where I am. So that's My goal personally with my family and other families out there is, hey, what can we do to help our kids start this as early as possible so that they can, you know, maybe live without debt, hit coast fire early, maybe buy a home, pay off their mortgage, and then decide what work feels good for them? Maybe that is working in the corporate world and working for a company that you really feel passionate about and working 40 hours, that's their decision. But if it is owning their time, owning their own business, and being able to structure their week how they want, that's what I'm hopeful for.

[A]

That's beautiful. Well, Andy, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they'd like to learn more?

[B]

Absolutely. Well, I have a podcast called Marriage, Kids and Money and a whole book about this conversation that we're having right now is called Own youn Time. You can pre order that before January and it's available in January. You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

[A]

Wonderful. Thank you, Andy.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you, Andy. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, being imbalanced in either direction. Whether it's too many hours at work or not enough capacity to be able to explore things outside of the house, that imbalance in either direction can make people unhappy. And his honesty about that common dynamic and the way that it affected his family, that began a road to a more balanced middle path.

[B]

She said, oh, well, I really did enjoy doing the stay at home mom thing, but it was just so stay at home mom, where it was like, all I know is kids and all I know is kids, TV shows and all the activities that we're supposed to do, I miss. She craved time at an office to drink coffee and type on email. And me, on the other hand, I leaned so far into growing my career that I was working too much, I was traveling too much.

[A]

Think creatively about that third way. That is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two. Even before we get to some of these advanced financial concepts, like Coast Fire, before any of that, something as simple as an emergency fund, three to six months of expenses saved can fundamentally change how you react to everyday family chaos. I know there are going to be many people who are listening to this who think, wow, I'm. You're talking about Coast Fire. You're talking about a half million dollar investment portfolio. That's great. I am nowhere close to that. If, if you're feeling that way, that's okay. Because just starting with an emergency Fund. That alone can remove a lot of anxiety around minor mishaps and accidents.

[B]

For example, once we had our three to six month emergency fund, anytime my kids would break something, I felt a little bit more calm as a parent knowing that I had that money set aside instead of saying, oh, why? Why did you do that? You know, money is a scarce asset. You shouldn't do that. That's an opportunity for me to put fear into their brains right away at a young age.

[A]

That is the second key takeaway. Finally, key takeaway number three, teaching kids about financial trade offs. Money trade offs can create wisdom at an early age. So Andy talks about how his son was. Was expressing this Keeping up with the Joneses kind of desire. Oh, these other kids in the neighborhood have this really expensive, tricked out basement with a full basketball court in their basement. How come we don't have that? So it was like keeping up with the Joneses. Why can't we spend as much as the other families? Andy didn't say no. He didn't say we can't afford it. He did not put up that barrier. Instead, he said, you, you know, we could, we absolutely could, but these are the trade offs that would be required. These are the real costs of doing that. And he explained those costs in terms that his son could understand. The result shows how kids can grasp complex financial concepts. They can grasp opportunity cost when it's presented honestly and it's presented with the framework of this is a choice, buddy.

[B]

We could have a sport court and in our basement. But you know what that would do? That would require dad to go back to his corporate life, continue to grow my income and travel a lot more and be gone a lot more than I am right now. Would you like that? And he said, oh, no, no, I love being with you. You know, I love having time with you.

[A]

Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Andy Hill from the Marriage, Kids and Money podcast. Thank you so much for being part of this community. If you enjoyed today's episode, if you got value from it, thank you. Please share this with the people in your life. Your friends, your neighbors, your family members, your siblings, your cousins. Share it. You know what I'm gonna say with that neighbor who has the expensive tricked out basement, the one with the big basketball court. Share this with them. Share this with the Joneses who you're always trying to keep up with, and with the Kardashians, because we're keeping up with the Kardashians too. Share this with the co workers who you think would enjoy going part time. Share this with the boss who you think might never let you do it. Share this with the people in your kids sports leagues and share it with the friends who are never free to play pickleball on a Wednesday morning. Share this with all the people in your life because that's how you spread the message of fi r e. If you want to discuss this episode with other members of our community, head to affordanything.com community and please subscribe to our newsletter. Affordanything.com newsletter. All of it is absolutely free. Thank you so much for being part of this community. Paula I'm Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast and I'll meet you in the next episode.