How to Reach Coast FIRE (The Relaxed Way to Retire!)

Summary

Podcast Summary: BiggerPockets Money Podcast

Episode Title: How to Reach Coast FIRE (The Relaxed Way to Retire!)
Date: January 9, 2026
Hosts: Mindy Jensen & Scott Trench
Guest: Andy Hill, author of Own Your Time: 10 Financial Steps to Put Your Family First and Escape the Corporate Grind

---

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode explores the concept of Coast FIRE—a personal finance strategy that allows individuals to step away from the rat race long before traditional retirement age by accumulating enough investments early on. Once the Coast FIRE threshold is met, one can stop or reduce aggressive investing, work less, and let compound growth carry their portfolio to a fully-funded retirement. Guest Andy Hill shares his journey from corporate marketing to full-time entrepreneurship, illustrating how Coast FIRE gave him the freedom to redesign his life and prioritize his family.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Andy’s Journey to Coast FIRE and Solopreneurship

• Background:
  • Saved aggressively while working in corporate event marketing, amassing $100K in liquid savings (“FU money”) and $550K in investments by late 30s (03:00–04:42).
  • Paid off his mortgage and lived on ~$80K/year with a family.
  • Left corporate job right before the pandemic; used FU money as runway to try entrepreneurship, supported by his wife’s encouragement.

    "The worst case scenario is you got to go back to a corporate job. And that was the best words that have ever come out of my wife's mouth. Besides, 'I do,' of course."
    — Andy Hill (03:57)

2. Coast FIRE Defined

• Coast FIRE means your invested assets will grow to fully fund a traditional retirement without any further contributions; you just "coast" (04:47–05:48).
• Andy’s calculations: $550K invested at age 40 would become $2M+ by retirement via compound growth, even with no new contributions.
• He continued to work but vastly reduced hours and stress.

3. Transitioning Amidst Uncertainty

• Andy’s leap coincided with the pandemic, which decimated his initial business contracts and income and delivered a major emotional challenge (07:00–08:16).

  "After I gave my notice, two months later, a global pandemic came through ... by March I wasn't feeling so confident. ... I was feeling quite depressed, like, 'hey, you made a horrible mistake.' Those voices in my head, they wouldn't stop chirping."
  — Andy Hill (07:12)

• Despite fears, reflected he likely would’ve lost his corporate job anyway as his replacement was let go within months (11:13–11:50).

  "You were ready to go, so you did. ... I think that really changes your perspective when you leave on your own versus somebody else says, yeah, you're going to leave."
  — Mindy Jensen (12:09)

4. Building a New Work Life & Avoiding Burnout

• Andy spent 4 years building his side business (podcast, content creation) before quitting; first full-time year earned ~$71K (19:33–20:00).
• Faced initial burnout from trying to "do everything" (21:07–21:58).

  "I tried to do everything within that 168 hours per week. ... You can't stretch beyond that. There is no going over budget with your time."
  — Andy Hill (21:31)

• Gradually refined his schedule to a 20–25 hour workweek, working Tuesdays–Thursdays, focusing the rest on health, relationships, and family (24:42–27:31).

5. Entrepreneurship: Conservative & ‘Slow FI’ Style

• Chose not to take on debt or outside investment; scaled up income slowly from $70K to over $200K (30:52–32:29).
• Stressed benefits of a “low capital, slow growth, high flexibility” model versus the high-stress startup archetype.

  "I wanted it to do it in more of the slower pace. ... I would feel so much mental stress and pressure to perform that I feel like I would be buying myself an even more stressful job, honestly."
  — Andy Hill (32:08)

6. The Illusion of Job Security & Need for Flexibility

• Both hosts and Andy reflected on how “safe” jobs—even government, education, or tech roles—vanished quickly in the pandemic or with technological disruption (13:33–17:00).

  "You think that what you're doing at your job is safe over long periods of time, but it's just not. ... The theme is going to be disruption. It's going to create massive opportunities for the prepared ..."
  — Scott Trench (13:33)

• Emphasized the value of savings, a cash runway, and options.

7. Practical Coast FIRE Numbers & Systems

• Stopped all retirement contributions after hitting Coast FIRE; net worth still grew from ~$1M to $2M in 5 years on market gains (42:46–44:59).
• Has not contributed to IRA/retirement accounts since leaving job, but portfolio continues to grow.
• Advises leveraging tools and frameworks (e.g., Full Focus Planner, EOS, 4 Disciplines of Execution) for productivity and business clarity (24:42–27:31).

8. Defining Your Version of FI

• Step 1 in Andy’s book: "Define the Life You Want to Live"—the why before the how (32:29–34:17).

  "Get a goal, get a dream. So you actually have something that you are pursuing, not just growing your net worth, growing your savings rate. The numbers thing, I think we get fixated on."
  — Andy Hill (35:48)

• Encourages experimenting with new work arrangements (part-time, consulting, etc.) rather than binary “work or retire” mentality.

9. On the Word “Retirement” and Identity

• Andy (and the hosts) prefer not to use the loaded term “retired”; identity is more than just work status (46:07–48:45).

  "I don't want to be the person who only focuses on what I do as my work, as who I am."
  — Andy Hill (47:52)

• Suggestion to use “FI” (Financial Independence) as the umbrella term, with others like “Coast FI,” “FIRE,” or “semi-retired” as fitting.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On FU Money and Spouse Support:

  "Why don't you just give that a go? ... Use this hundred thousand dollars of FU money as your bridge to give it a try ... And the worst case scenario is you got to go back to a corporate job."
  — Andy Hill (03:38)

• On Real Estate Not Fitting:

  "We both looked at each other after looking at a few ... and said, I don't think either one of us wanna do this and that's okay."
  — Andy Hill (03:09)

• On Job Security:

  "In every state but Montana, your company can come up to you at any point and just say, 'hey, thanks, bye.'"
  — Mindy Jensen (15:54)

• On Coast FIRE’s Appeal:

  "You can make the choice, do I continue to contribute or do I not ... If you continue to contribute, you're just marching your retirement date back. If you choose not to, you are understanding that you will have a funded retirement at traditional retirement age."
  — Mindy Jensen (51:52)

• On the Real Power of Financial Independence:

  "The flexibility of having some wealth that is gradually expanding ... and that liquidity, and that Runway in the cash position ... makes everything much more achievable."
  — Scott Trench (51:04)

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:00 — Introduction; what is Coast FIRE?
• 02:37 — Andy’s pre-pandemic leap to entrepreneurship; use of “FU money”
• 05:48 — Expense breakdown and Coast FIRE math
• 07:00 — Pandemic impact & initial business challenges
• 11:34 — Would Andy have lost his job anyway?
• 13:33 — The illusion of job security & need for flexibility
• 17:48 — Redefining “employer security” in an at-will nation
• 18:07 — Building side hustle to full-time business over 4 years
• 21:07 — Entrepreneur burnout and time management
• 24:42 — Systems and routines for solopreneur productivity
• 27:31 — Creating firm work/life boundaries
• 30:52 — Growing a business the “relaxed” way vs. high-stress startup model
• 32:29 — Define your ideal life first
• 42:04 — Net worth growth after Coast FIRE; stopped all contributions
• 46:07 — Reflections: is traditional FIRE “dead?”; what do we call this?
• 49:17 — Where to find Andy: Marriage, Kids and Money podcast and book

---

Resources Mentioned

• Andy’s Podcast: Marriage, Kids and Money
• Andy’s Book: Own Your Time: 10 Financial Steps to Put Your Family First and Escape the Corporate Grind
• Productivity Tools:
  • Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner
  • EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)
  • Four Disciplines of Execution

---

Final Takeaways

• Coast FIRE offers a flexible, realistic off-ramp from the relentless grind toward FIRE, freeing you to redesign your work and family life years before “full retirement.”
• Real security comes not from a job, but from building up a strong savings rate early, controlling spend, and creating options (via skills and business or part-time work).
• Business-building doesn’t require a high-octane, high-risk approach; side hustles and iterative growth are valid, sustainable paths.
• The FIRE movement is evolving—focus less on the “RE” (retire early), and more on FI and owning your time.
• Define what kind of life you’re aiming for, not just your net worth target—and revisit that vision as life changes.

---

For those seeking a nuanced, actionable pathway to more freedom without the extremity of “FIRE or bust,” this episode provides both inspiration and pragmatic, real-life wisdom.

Transcript

[Mindy Jensen]

What if you didn't have to choose between working full time until 65 or saving aggressively to retire at 40? What if there was a middle path that gave you freedom now while still securing your future? That's exactly what Coastfire offered today's guest. By his late 30s, he'd saved enough that his investments could grow into a full retirement without adding another dollar. That freedom allowed him to leave his corporate job at 40, shift to part time work and completely redesign his life around what mattered most, all while supporting a family. If you've ever felt stuck between grinding for fire and staying in the rat race forever, this episode will show you there's another way. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me, as always, is my owns His Time co host, Scott Trench.

[Scott Trench]

Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here. Excited to clock in today and talk about coastfi and Andy's journey. We're so excited to have Andy Hill back on the BiggerPockets Money podcast. Andy was on the podcast five years ago. He's written a book about this story called Own youn 10 Financial Steps to Put yout Family first and Escape the Corporate Grind. And we'll be talking about what inspired him to write the book and about his journey here. So welcome back to BiggerPockets Money.

[Andy Hill]

Thank you so much, Scott. And thank you so much, Mindy. I appreciate it.

[Mindy Jensen]

It's good to see you. I last saw you at fincon where you hosted. Very nice. What's been going on since we last talked to you five years ago?

[Andy Hill]

Oh my gosh. Five years ago. Wow. It's. Time flies. I think that conversation was during the pandemic too. It was one of those moments like, hey, did you make the right decision with taking the corporate leap? And it was right around that time. And so at that time I was juggling. Okay. Did I make the right decision? This is a big moment. This is a big year. And yeah, jumping into solopreneurship in a global pandemic was definitely difficult. And there was some mistakes and some learnings during that process, for sure.

[Mindy Jensen]

Yeah. Oh, you made mistakes, huh? That never happens as soon as you jump into solopreneurship. I believe we recorded right at the very beginning of the pand pandemic too. And we. That was a big, like all star episode, episode 119 where we had you and the mad scientist and Doug Nordman and Amy and Tim from Go With Less. We had all these different people on the show to talk about how the pandemic was affecting them specifically. And you know, because they were all in different, different parts of their, their life. So let's talk about that a little bit. Remind us you left your job right before the pandemic started.

[Andy Hill]

Yeah. So right before our conversation, I saved up a whole bunch of money. And in the biz we like to call it FU money, right? We had $100,000 saved up. Originally we were going to go down the path of, okay, we're going to use this money to buy a rental property and start to build our portfolio. So we have some great income coming in. Outside of my 9 to 5, my wife and I started looking at rental properties locally here in metro Detroit. We both looked at each other after looking at a few of them and said, I don't think either one of us wanna do this and that's okay. You know, some people wanna go down the real estate path and it works really well for them and some people don't. And in our situation, it's something we decided not to do. So that left us at an impasse. We're like, okay, well I still don't wanna work in my corporate job forever. It's kind of driving me nuts. I am traveling most weeks and weekends because I worked in corporate event marketing. So it was one of those things where it's like, hey, the events are happening in the evenings and they're happening on the weekends and I was missing my kids lives. I was like the guy who called himself a family guy but wasn't really around to do a lot of the family stuff. So I'm like, okay, this is not fitting. How can I change my situation where I feel like I own more of my time? And if it's not real estate, if it's not rental properties, then what is it? So a couple years before that, I had started a podcast, I had started to create content, online financial education content. And my wife looked at me as we were finishing looking at these rental properties and said, why don't you just give that a go? You're making some money from it, from your side hustle. Why don't you really give that a go? Use this hundred thousand dollars of FU money as your bridge to give it a try to really do it. And the worst case scenario is you got to go back to a corporate job. And that was the best words that have ever come out of my wife's mouth. Besides, I do, of course, which is also very important. But. But it was a fantastic blessing that she gave me. A pat on the back to say hey, man, go for it. And that's where we stopped with our conversation around January when I told my boss, I'm going to go for this.

[Scott Trench]

So was there just $100,000 and no other income? Your wife wasn't working? That was it?

[Andy Hill]

No. Right around that time, we had $100,000 of fu money, so liquid money in a high yield savings account. We had also built up our investable assets to around $550,000 at the time. So we had done the math and said, okay, honest. We just stopped contributions or drastically slowed them down. This will still take us to a point in our traditional retirement years where we're going to have plenty. We're going to have 2 million plus. By looking at those Coast Fire calculations and realizing we had already hit that mark, having the FU money on the side there, and we had paid off our mortgage as well. Our expenses were low. My confidence was high because my wife gave me the pat on the back and we had some confidential money that helped us to build that confidence to say, hey, go for this. Those three things probably around at that point, close to a million dollar net worth as well. With all those things combined, it felt good to say, hey, let's give this a try.

[Scott Trench]

Awesome. What was your expense rate at that point in time? Was 100 grand going to last you a year? A little more than a year? A little less than a year?

[Andy Hill]

Great question. Yeah, I think about 100 grand at that time would probably last us a little bit more than a year. We probably spent maybe $80,000 a year as a family at and, you know, going into a year of solopreneurship, we would say, okay, let's live on that. Let's see what we can do. Hopefully we won't have to touch that money, but let's see how it goes.

[Scott Trench]

There's a lot of talk about how entrepreneurship, you know, businesses fail and all that kind of good stuff, but I have a really hard time believing that those statistics on entrepreneurship fail for someone who has accumulated a million dollars in net worth in their 30s with a family who has $100,000 in the bank and is. Is excited about the next endeavor that does not require a large capital commitment and is willing to put in most of the labor into the enterprise that they're starting up in the first place. I get that there's statistics out there about business failure rates, but was that all going through your mind? That it was pretty likely that whatever you were about to undertake was. Was going to have a good shot at. At not being a big zero over the next year.

[Andy Hill]

I agree, Scott. I would say I'm a pretty conservative guy when it comes to those because just my personality is a little bit more conservative. But I also have two kids at home, I've got a wife. You know, these things. I didn't want to make this decision lightly. So preparing financially beforehand and having the money set aside made the possibility of failure a lot less. That being said, after I gave my notice two months later, a global pandemic came through and really impacted these contracts that I had set up for my small business. A big contract that I had completely went away. The advertising dollars that I had set up through my podcast and my other platforms dropped dramatically. So by March I wasn't feeling so confident. I think I was on your show between that January through March timeframe and I probably seemed like very confident and maybe even a little cocky about my decision saying, oh, this is the best thing. I wish I would have done it earlier. But March, April, May, I was not feeling as confident. I was feeling quite depressed, like, hey, you made a horrible mistake. This is something that is going to impact your family. And those voices in my head, they wouldn't stop chirping. And so that was a really low point for me during that timeframe.

[Mindy Jensen]

Okay, we are going to be right back after this quick word from our show sponsors.

[Scott Trench]

Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, your net worth and future planning together in one dashboard on your laptop or on your phone. Start your new year on the right foot financially and get 50% off your monarch subscription with the Code Pockets. With automated weekly money recaps and tracking progress toward future financial goals, it's easier than ever to stay financially fit in the short and long term. Monarch helps me be proactive instead of just reactive with my finances. Its AI tools are built on Monarch intelligence and get it right most of the time when auto categorizing or most of my expenses. Monarch is the all in one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Use the code [e-mail] that's 50% off your first [e-mail] with the code Pockets.

[Mindy Jensen]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers, growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds you a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.combpm and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.combpm paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures did you.

[Autotrader Announcer]

Know that you can buy your car completely online on Autotrader?

[Andy Hill]

Really?

[Autotrader Announcer]

Just visit autotrader.com, filter and search through dealer listings for the car you want. Make, model, color and all the features that matter to you. Go ahead, get picky. Whether you're into subcompacts with heated cup holders, crossovers with all wheel drive pickups with kicking sound systems, or SUVs that can survive whatever chaos your kids unleash, just drop in your info and you'll only see cars in your budget. Really? Once you find your one and only, you can do the whole deal online and have the car delivered to your driveway. Or you can pick it up at the dealership and drive your new ride.

[Scott Trench]

Right off the lot.

[Andy Hill]

Really?

[Autotrader Announcer]

AutoTrader makes it easy to buy your car online because the whole process is designed around your wants and must haves. Autotrader Buy your car online?

[Andy Hill]

Really?

[Mindy Jensen]

Welcome back to the show. Let's reframe this a little bit because if I recall correctly, you were doing events, right? Corporate events, yes. So that would have dried up right around the time when we had that no travel and nobody can go anywhere and six feet of social distance and all of that. So would you have had a job anyway?

[Andy Hill]

I don't know. But I'll tell you what I do know. There was a woman that I worked with at the time who took over my role after I left. She was let go about six months later. So to your point, I might have not had a job as well, so this move might have been required.

[Mindy Jensen]

You did the work, you set yourself up, you left on your own terms and then something happened that was outside of your control. Yada yada I think that that's. It's a really powerful position to be in, leaving on your own terms. You were ready to go, so you did. The same thing happened to my husband, not like the Global pandemic, but when he quit his job two weeks later, his entire project was canceled, so he would have been without a job anyway. And he was a contractor, so they didn't have severance. And it would have been just mentally. I think that really changes your perspective when you leave on your own versus somebody else says, yeah, you're going to leave.

[Andy Hill]

And the motivation to make it right was really high at that point. Like, okay, things aren't going well. What can you do to pivot and fix this situation? Because that was my main motivator. And with that motivation, as well as my wife's support, she was very supportive during this time. It wasn't like, oh my gosh, how did you do this? You know, it was nothing but support. I had great words of advice from my father and my friends, some good voices around me to say, hey, you got this. You can figure it out. And then obviously, another great friend during that time was that a hundred thousand dollars of FU money that helped bridge the gap between me figuring things out as a solopreneur and then getting back to normal. And that took probably about three months. So really, all in all of that $100,000, we probably used about 30,000 of it to fix the situation for me to pivot and understand my business a little bit better. But outside of that, we ended up having quite a bit of money for fun at that point.

[Scott Trench]

I just think, Mindy, your comment's so insightful, right, because you think that what you're doing at your job is safe over long periods of time, but it's just not. And that's going to be increasing. We just did a discussion about AI the other. The theme is going to be disruption. It's going to create massive opportunities for the prepared and the folks who have $100,000 in cash. And the several months to figure out whatever that new application of it is. And it's going to threaten the jobs of those who have one skill that have been doing that for a very long period of time. And there's no choice but to move along the spectrum, I think, to financial freedom as fast and aggressively as you can in order to be ready for the threat and also ready for the opportunities that are coming here. And I'll use another example of this for. In my life, my wife Virginia was a teacher, and she took a job at a full time year round for a summer camp program that taught students how to code. And she took that job in 2019. And guess what? The first year where revenue is going to come up is 2020 at that new job for that new business. And there is no revenue at all for a business that does summer camps. When a pandemic hits unexpectedly and you lose your job and you think you're doing the same thing, right? You think you're doing the same thing by, by sticking with this. And it's, and it isn't always the case. And I think that that's something that people really got to get in their, their heads. Here is, is this flexibility component and being ready for all these different opportunities. So I think that was a really insightful observation, Mindy. Like, well, what happened, what would happen.

[Mindy Jensen]

If you stayed while you were saying that, Scott? I looked it up because I have worked in two states, Illinois and Colorado. And in, in both of those states, during the onboarding process, I got a comment. Illinois is an at will employment state. Colorado is an at will employment state. So I went to my best friend Google and I said, how many states are at will employment states? Because it sounded like there was the option to not be an at will employment state. And Google says all US States except Montana operate under at will employment as the default. So long it's not illegal like discrimination or a breach, breach of contract, union agreement, something like that. So in every state but Montana, and I don't know what Montana does different, but in every state but Montana, your company can come up to you at any point and just say, hey, thanks, bye.

[Scott Trench]

It's kind of crazy because like people think like a job is this safe, secure thing in there and it just, it just is not. Then that's why I think financial independence is becoming, you know, so much more popular. But this is not Europe, right? Like, this is not a, like you, this is, this is the United States of America. And it is, it is at will, right? Like it is not. There is no, there's nothing there. Now I think there is an implicit thing here where if you have an employee as a business, there's a little bit more of like we're going to try not, we're going to try to do many other things that we can before we let go. But eventually, no, it's a business decision at the end of the day whether to keep people's jobs or not. And I think that that's, I don't know, I think it's just a really interesting dynamic here. Because we get some pushback here at BiggerPockets money for being a little more entrepreneurial. Not everybody's this entrepreneurial around that, but I think, like, that's a limiting belief set. You have to be entrepreneurial at some point if you're interested in financial independence and really just to survive in the economy over a long period of time. Right. Like this stable employment over a long career is going to increasingly be not really an option for people in this country.

[Andy Hill]

I would agree too. And especially as you get to a point where you're making a good amount of money and they're looking to save a lot of money with all of the heads that have been whacked this year in 2025 and leading into 2026, I mean, that's a great way for companies to save money is to get rid of those six figure positions, especially if there's a lot of them and if AI is coming in to make things a lot more efficient. So it's incumbent on us to create our own, you know, salaries and our own six figure positions. Because like you said, might not be there.

[Scott Trench]

Yeah, I mean, you thought government jobs were safe going into this year.

[Andy Hill]

What a year.

[Mindy Jensen]

I mean, what job is safe? So, Andy, now that you're an entrepreneur, are you gonna fire yourself and not give yourself any sort of heads up?

[Andy Hill]

No, I would never do that. What I would do is try to be the best boss I've ever wanted in my entire life by giving myself all of the benefits that I never had and a flexible work week that I've always wanted that fits around my lifestyle and my family. That is the kind of boss that I want to be.

[Mindy Jensen]

How long were you working on your side hustle before you quit your job?

[Andy Hill]

That's a great question. And I think this is important too. I started it in 2016 mostly as a hobby. Honestly, I needed just something outside of my corporate job and I had a four year old and a two year old at the same time. So it was like all hands on deck at work and then come home and all hands on deck at home. So I felt very consumed and did not own any of my time. So I needed a little outlet. Podcasts were really popular around that time. And I said, well, you know what, why don't I just try to do one just for fun, connect with great people, learn something and just share our financial story at the time. And I absolutely loved every single minute that I could do it in the early, early morning or the late, late evening in order to fit that into my Schedule at the time, it was like the nectar that I needed to keep going on. And eventually I learned to make a little bit of money from it. You know, somebody approached me and said, could I sponsor? I'm like, I don't even know how to charge for something like that. Sounds great, you know? And then I figured out little things over time, little experiments, like little 1% improvements as far as the business was concerned, Things that I felt comfortable with. But, yeah, it was about four years of me hobbying it, side hustling it before I said, okay, let me go for this full time as a. As a business owner.

[Mindy Jensen]

And how much money were you generating at the time that you quit?

[Andy Hill]

Honestly, my income in 2019 from my business was just $25,000. So it wasn't enough for my family to say, hey, go for this. But with what 2020 was about to bring, I had contracts that would help bring that to $100,000 in 2020. But that's where those contracts kind of went away with the global pandemic. So that was a little scary.

[Mindy Jensen]

Yeah. What did your income end up being in 2020?

[Andy Hill]

In 2020? Oh, man. I think it was. Ended up being about $71,000. So not too bad for a tough year. But I definitely wanted more than that, especially since my corporate gig. I was making $180,000 as my salary, so this was a big change. But the fact that we were having, like, a 40 to 50% savings rate for a good decade, and then all of a sudden, this started, and we're like, all right, what if we just paired that back to a 0 to 10% for a little while just to see how this goes? It didn't really affect us all that much. This was something we were kind of used to living on, and so this was a new adventure.

[Mindy Jensen]

Okay, so you were spending about what you were making then.

[Andy Hill]

Exactly.

[Mindy Jensen]

That's the power of not spending every dime and living paycheck to PayCheck. Because at $180,000 a year, you could still live paycheck to paycheck pretty easily.

[Andy Hill]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. For sure.

[Mindy Jensen]

Okay, so you no longer have a job. Now you're working for yourself. What does your day look like? Because I've heard some quote that's like, entrepreneurs are the only people who will quit working 40 hours a week so they can start working 90 hours a week or something like that.

[Andy Hill]

Yeah, I was very concerned about that happening because I was so excited about my small business that when I left my corporate career, I said, okay, well, I want to do so many things that aren't just my business. I want to be a better father. I want to be a better husband. I want to take care of my health more. I want to be a better son. All these different identities that I really wanted to wear and own, and then I tried to do them all at once right when I left in January through March, during that timeframe. And I massively failed because I did not manage my time very well. I said, oh, I want to be the best business owner with this whole thing. So I worked too many hours. I want to be a great husband, I want to be a great father. I want to be at all the events for my kids. And so I did all those things. And honestly, after about three or four months of that, I totally burned out. I totally burned out because I tried to do everything within that 168 hours per week. And it became obvious to me that you can't stretch beyond that. There is no going over budget with your time. It is like, it doesn't work like that. You got to borrow it from somewhere. So there were some failure moments in the beginning with my time, but over time I was able to right size that schedule and kind of make it fit for a life that I've always wanted. But that did come with, you know, year one, full time, all the way to where we are now. I think this is about year six of my solopreneur venture.

[Scott Trench]

I think one of the things that I need to, like, be grateful for is the opportunity I had to run bigger pockets, right, like as a CEO, get feedback from Josh, who is just a. Josh Dworkin, who is a fantastic entrepreneur and just got on the ground, the ground floor with him as the third employee. Worked alongside this guy for years. And he was just brilliant and practical and straightforward with how he. How he did things. And I got to do all of the pieces of running a business along there. And then when we transitioned to a private equity firm, I had this mentor named Mike Zawalski, who was a consummate business professional with 30 years experience being a board chair or president of businesses. And so I just adapted these playbooks over time. And that absolutely warps my, like, oh, entrepreneurship is pretty straightforward, you know, for these. But it'd be like the equivalent of if you're like trying to do some sort of. Of athletic training and had been coached by a professional for a great quarterback, how to throw the football for many years and then had this great quarterback coach for the next 10 years. So I think there's a Little bit of a component there that I need to acknowledge that warps my thinking when I encourage people to go into entrepreneurship. But I will say that I think that a very basic starting point is this concept of. And I'll use another analogy to working out.

[Andy Hill]

If.

[Scott Trench]

If you are trying to get in shape and you just go balls out for three days in a row, working out four or five hours, you're going to just completely destroy your body, get nowhere, get injured, and get set back on there. You have to follow a program on how to do that. And the business is a solved problem to a large degree for a lot of entrepreneurs. And two systems I would recommend for folks we have no affiliation with either of these are traction, which is to going called, you know, entrepreneur operating system. That's what we used at BiggerPockets. That's what we use at BiggerPockets money when we're. When we're doing sub goals here at BiggerPockets Money. And there's another one called the Four Disciplines of Execution, which is a very similar type of style. Run a business and pick one. You know, there's more out there too. But if you use one of those, your odds I think of succeeding are so much higher. These are free, by the way. You can do free versions of these, right? You can also pay thousands of dollars for coaches if you have a large business. Did you do something like that, Andy, to get your business off the ground, or did you wing it?

[Andy Hill]

So I did a combination of winging it as well as adopting some tools. One of the big tools that I use is a planner. I just use this planner from the Michael Hyatt group called the Full Focus Planner, and it helps me to, again, not affiliated with them either. I've used it for the past five years. It helps me align what my week looks like, what my goals are for the week, and it really helps me stay focused. If I don't put it down and I say exactly what I'm gonna do, I'll find myself drifting off on some social media rabbit hole. And I'm like, where the heck am I right now? What am I supposed to do? And then I look back at it and I say, okay, this is what you needed to get done today in order to actually move forward with your goals. So having some systems, some voices out there that help with this process, as well as some, you know, some great resources and tools can really make this possible. And it helped me to focus. And, you know, I've transitioned from that sort of scattered moment of my life Where I was trying to do way too many things to being more realistic with how many hours do I want to work, how many hours do I need to work in order to make the income that I need for my family and find that balance. And over the last three years we found that balance for both my wife and I to be around 20 to 25 hours per week. This allows me to still do all of the other things that I want to do in my life, those other identities I talked about. And a big part of it, to your point, Scott, on exercise and being an athlete, is being an athlete like spending more time at the gym, spending more time going for runs. And if I can combine that with my time with my wife because she's a runner, it's like a win win for our family at home. So, so trying to combine all these goals. But my work week is now centered between Tuesday and Thursday because I've always wanted that. I always thought it'd be so cool to have a four day weekend. It's sort of this middle ground of complete financial independence where I don't need to work anymore. And this corporate life where I needed to work five days, maybe six days plus. And the reality with the corporate life is that my brain never really slowed down. You know, I'd work five days and then I'd be emailing until 5 or 6pm and then I'd be thinking about all those work things until Saturday, even when I woke up. And then on Sunday I'd start to think about, oh my God, work is coming up on Monday. So it's like my brain never actually relaxed throughout those seven days. So did I even get a day off? Not mentally. So with this new structure that I really like, I get this sort of ramp down of stopping thinking about work on Thursday. At the end of the day I can focus on my friends, my family, my health, and then just enjoy a longer weekend. And then I'm ready and excited to start working again late Monday, early Tuesday.

[Mindy Jensen]

To get things done 100%. I can't tell you how many times I would, oh, I'm just gonna pop on and check my email, see if that guy responded. I wanna make a note really quick so I don't forget. And then you're on your computer for an hour and a half, half that morning and you're like, oh, I didn't mean to do that. And then on Sunday you're right, you're like, okay, what do I have to do this week at work? Work is at work and home is at home. And the pandemic did not help. I remember, oh, I can work right up till 5. I don't have to drive home, I just have to. My commute is like 17 steps, so this is awesome. But then I would work until 5:30 and oh, I just have one more thing. And then I'm at six and then I'm getting up in the morning and I have my. Every morning I get up and have a cup of coffee. Oh, I could do that in front of my computer. And it became this like. And then my kids were being homeschooled and it was a horrible experience. So I'm like, I'm just gonna go to work now. And yeah, you're right. It's not your time. You never have your own time.

[Andy Hill]

Absolutely. And it was those little things, those distraction moments that I started to pay attention to. And I said, okay, what can I do to eliminate more of those so that I don't fall back into that? And a big one for me. I don't know how it is for you guys. My phone is super distracting and I had these apps on there, the Instagrams, the Linkedins, whatever, all these things. And I would just reflexively try to go look at it to see, oh, I posted something, let me see what people said about it or how many likes I got or whatever. So I decided let me delete these things off of my phone completely in order to help my brain relax. Because if I keep saying that I want to be an athlete or a better father or a better, better husband, that I need to actually do that and let my brain transition out of work mode and into the life that I wanna live. So I deleted those apps probably two or three years ago. It's been very helpful for me. What I also do is at the end of the day on Thursday, I'll go into my phone and turn off my email for my work and my personal so that again, I don't reflexively look at it. Do I mess up every once in a while? Of course I do. I'm human. But if my intention is to start there and that's like my North Star, then I do it more often than not, for sure. So those types of things, I just find those things that were distracting me and try to chip away at them.

[Mindy Jensen]

I love that.

[Scott Trench]

I want to go back to this concept of building a business is really hard. If your plan is, I'm going to raise a million dollars in venture capital from friends, family and a few professional investors, and then I'm going to hire a couple of people. And I'm going to burn through that in the next 12 to 18 months. Months. Try to stand up a product and figure out if it works and it is almost inevitably going to succeed. If I could last 10 years, if I never make a dollar from this business and I'm going to do something I enjoy and see if I can make my first dollar and then my second dollar and then my first 10,000 over the course of the next few months. Has that been your experience to a larger degree? Is that kind of like what you're seeing and do you know other people that are kind of finding that same like it's just enjoyable that way too, too. I think compared to the entrepreneurship of the pressure cooker that I think most people think of when they think of these entrepreneurs that emerge victorious from years of battle at a very brutal competition.

[Andy Hill]

Yeah, I wanted it to do it in more of the slower pace. Also the ability to not need a ton of money in order to make my business a business, I think that was a huge advantage. Yeah. Did it make me a lot less money? In the beginning? Yeah. But over time I've learned a lot over the years. You know, in the beginning, like I said, I was making $70,000 in income my first year. This past year was well over 200,000. So now I'm able to pay myself a salary of about $100,000 as the only employee of my business and I'm able to work on a part time basis. But that didn't happen in the beginning. You know, it was a lot of experimentation, a lot of, A lot of figuring things out. But over time I had that North Star of like, yeah, increase your income, but mostly figure out how to own your time and so you could work less and enjoy more of your life. And hey, if you're able to make more while carrying that, you know, FI type schedule, that's fantastic. So let that be your North Star. But I had difficulty with taking on any sort of debt or ownership or borrowing a big amount from a bank or getting venture capital or anything like that. I would feel so much mental stress and pressure to perform that I feel like I would be buying myself an even more stressful job, honestly. So I wanted to create my ideal work situation. And it wasn't what you were describing with trying to, you know, get a million dollars of capital from. From borrowed sources in order to try to build something.

[Mindy Jensen]

So, Andy, your book is called own youn Time 10 Financial Steps to put your family first and escape the corporate grind. But chapter what part One is commit to a better family life. And chapter one is define the life you want to live. I love that you start here. You're not just saying, oh, yeah, be debt free. Of course you talk about that, because that's very important. But even before you get into the finances, you're talking about defining your life. So many people start this fire journey, oh, I want to quit my job. I hate my boss. Okay, what are you going to do?

[Scott Trench]

I love that as a motivator, like, you don't have to have it all figured out.

[Andy Hill]

That's a great.

[Scott Trench]

I just want people to achieve financial dependence. And then because I want to call out something here, that what you just described there. I love it. But defining your life is a privilege for people who have the opportunity to pursue financial independence and the option to do so. And it's like we can get all philosophical. What's the best life here? Do you really want to chase another five years at the corporate job there? Some people don't have a choice. They must do that to sustain the basic situation, the lifestyle that they desire for the current set of circumstances, for their family, or forced to, because it's the bare minimum to survive. But we in the financial independence community can choose that option. And I think it takes time to realize that. It takes a surplus of several years, I think, before you can really wake up and say, there's more to just escape than escape. Shaping this job, I hate there's actually a fulfilling life out there anyways. I get on my high horse on that because I think that it's so healthy for a lot of people to realize the unhealthy dynamic of their job and the total power an employer can have over you. If you live paycheck to paycheck and want to fight out of from that before, kind of realizing now I can actually design what I want.

[Andy Hill]

Do you think there's a middle ground, though, there, where I could say even just spending five to 10 minutes outside of work, outside of your family commitments, to just sit there and write down, what does your dream life look like? What does your ideal week look like? Honestly? Like, how would you plan your perfect week? And that can take five, 10 minutes. It might not take years. It might not take that long at all. And then I think some people also have trouble, Scott, to your point about coming up with that dream life, there's so many consumed by their job or so consumed by stress that they can't even think about what a better life might even look like. So you could look at it from the opposite side of things and use experiments like, hey, let's say you go to your mailbox and There is a $5 million check in there written out to you. No taxes, no crypto scam like this goes into your account. What is the first thing that you stop doing tomorrow? Like, okay, well, I hate my job. I hate my boss. I would call him immediately and say, I am out of here. Okay, that is your goal. That is your. Now you are motivated to make that happen. Or you might say, well, I like what I do, but I don't want to do it as many hours as I'm doing it right now. I could do it like 10 to 20 hours because I enjoy the work, but it's just so overwhelming. I want to do other things in my life. Great, now you have a goal. The point is of this first chapter or this conversation is like, get a goal, get a dream. So you actually have something that you are pursuing, not just growing your net worth, growing your savings rate. The numbers thing, I think we get fixated on. I know I did. I would speak to my wife in a fashion of like, hey, our Savings rate is 40%. And she'd look at me like, who cares? Or, hey, our net worth is crossed over a million. Great. What does that do for me? And the do for me is the part, right? It's like, get those dreams, get those goals aligned so that you can use the numbers to help you get to those goals and dreams and keep moving forward and realign those goals and dreams over time as well. So I think it's a combination of both of what you said.

[Scott Trench]

I just think some of us are wired different. At 23, I couldn't have done what you just did. I couldn't have done it. I could do components of it, but that wasn't how my life was structured at that point. I like to go out with my friends on the weekend and play rugby. And I was doing those things, but it was more like, I don't like not having independence. Like, that was it. And so that got me started. And then, you know, now at 35, I can be very prescriptive about what you just said there and say, here's what I want to move towards. It's not about moving away from something, but I also think that, like, for some, maybe people like myself, like young men like that, are not clear on what this is going to look like, what life could look like in the future. There is a. It's just the pursuit of accumulating some wealth begins to ground you to some degree. Right. Like if you have a couple hundred thousand dollars in wealth, wealth as you're emerging from your 20s, which is possible but hard for a lot of people all of a sudden, you're very unlikely to be as disillusioned perhaps as many of your peers out there around things as negative toward the world. You're much more likely to begin being receptive to this kind of thing of like, there actually are possibilities out there. The world is not totally rigged against me and I have the opportunity to go and pursue that life I want. So anyways, I completely agree. I just wanted to say if you're out there and you're like, I don't like the woo woo goal setting stuff, I didn't either. At some points with the life visioning component, it's okay to just want to escape from something, but just know that just put in the back of your mind that one day that will reframe to the life I want.

[Andy Hill]

I completely agree. And I think that there's something about hitting those number focused goals that gives you a sense of confidence that is fantastic in the world because that can allow you to do things that you do want to do, that can allow you to, to have the confidence to maybe speak to your boss about a better working situation. And it doesn't always have to be like, hey, I'm working in this corporate job or I'm completely out of here. There are middle grounds too. And maybe you don't want to be a solopreneur or a business owner. You maybe have built up enough confidence based on what Scott's talking about here, to approach your boss and just say, hey, is there any situation where I could work part time here, you know, or is there situations where other people have done this at the company where I could continue to contribute, but I could work half the time, Maybe you pay me less, maybe you pay me half the money, but I can have more of my time. So there's sort of good middle grounds that could be discovered there. Maybe that's freelancing in the industry that you know really well, or consulting in the industry you know really well, or jumping ship and going to a competitor that might allow you to work part time that wants your information and your knowledge and the ability for you to, you know, kill it like you have at your current company. So I think investigating those middle ground areas could be really important for people, especially as they're deciding what their version of financial independence is.

[Scott Trench]

All right, we're going to take a small business break and we'll be right back with more after this. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting accounts and investments, your net worth and future planning together in one dashboard on your laptop or on your phone. Start your new year on the right foot financially and and get 50% off your monarch subscription with the Code Pockets. With automated weekly money recaps and tracking progress toward future financial goals, it's easier than ever to stay financially fit in the short and long term. Monarch helps me be proactive instead of just reactive with my finances. Its AI tools are built on Monarch intelligence and get it right most of the time when auto categorizing most of my expenses. Monarch is the all in one tool that makes proactive money management management simple all year long. Use the code [e-mail] that's 50% off your first [e-mail] with the code Pockets.

[Mindy Jensen]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds you a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.combpm and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.combpm paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures did you.

[Autotrader Announcer]

Know that you can buy your car completely online on Auto trader Autrader?

[Andy Hill]

Really?

[Autotrader Announcer]

Just visit autotrader.com, filter and search through dealer listings for the car you want, make, model, color and all the features that matter to you. Go ahead, get picky. Whether you're into subcompacts with heated cup holders, crossovers with all wheel drive pickups with kicking sound systems or SUVs that can survive whatever Chaos your kids unleash. Just drop in your info and you'll only see cars in your budget.

[Andy Hill]

Really?

[Autotrader Announcer]

Once you find your one and only, you can do the whole deal online and have the car delivered to your driveway. Or you can pick it up at the dealership and drive your new ride.

[Scott Trench]

Right off the lot.

[Andy Hill]

Really?

[Autotrader Announcer]

Autotrader makes it easy to buy your car online because the whole process is designed around your wants and must haves. Autotrader buy your car online?

[Andy Hill]

Really?

[Scott Trench]

All right, welcome back. I want to go back to something from a few minutes ago here. You jumped ship right before the pandemic. Had a okay first year, right? 60% drop in income. But hey, sounds like that covered your expenses or came pretty close. And then you had I guess the glide path to entrepreneurship over the last couple years where you have a thriving business that provides for all you need and more, probably allows you to throw a big surplus on the investment pile and allows you that four day weekend and flexible work schedule. How has your net worth grown and have you begun to use the tools of many entrepreneurs like the Solo 401K or these other tax advantaged retirement accounts that allow you to sock away way kind of an unfairly large amount more than employees can in most cases?

[Andy Hill]

It's a great question and I will tell you that I have fully embraced this concept of Coastfire. We slowly decreased our contributions and then eventually stopped our contributions. And so no, I haven't contributed any more to a Roth ira, traditional ira, since we said goodbye. And that has not been a bad thing. Our $550,000 investment level has now grown to around $900,000 through time and compound interest. The market has been fantastic, of course, over the past four or five years. That's not going to be forever. That's not an always average type thing. But this stuff works this time. And compound interest on big money on top of big money. That being said, our home value has grown, our investment balance has grown. So when we were around a million dollars about five years ago, when we talked, talked, we're around $2 million now where we're talking today. So I've decreased the amount of time I'm working. I've decreased my salary in turn, but we've still grown our net worth by a million dollars in five years.

[Scott Trench]

That was exactly the opposite of what I was expecting you to say with the $200,000 in income or so from the business. In terms of that sounds like you are generally speaking either paying. So do you pay the tax man just straight up on all of that and then add it to your after tax investment pile or do you spend it on your lifestyle currently?

[Andy Hill]

So I have an s cor with my business and I am the only employee of my business. I pay myself a salary and with that I pay just the general taxes that I would as an employee of my business. As far as investments are concerned, we have just not added to the pile right now. Over time, if we make more money, which I hope to, I will probably get back to investing more. But for this period of time where coast fire has been a blessing for us, looking at the those projections of what $900,000 will do over the next 17 years, by the time I want to touch it when I'm 60, it's looking like 2 million, $3 million, you know, and that's going to be plenty for us when we're older because we spend around 6 to $8,000 a month right now. And that's plenty because we are mortgage free and we're not piling a bunch of money into our investments because we've hit coast fire.

[Mindy Jensen]

Do you think traditional fire is dead?

[Andy Hill]

I don't think traditional fire is dead. I think the tenants of all these we're talking about are born from the original financial independence fire movement. They are just evolving into different versions of what works for different people. I would say for parents, for people who want to own more of their time and spend more of it with people that they love. I think coast fire is a great iteration of the fire movement because it gives you more of that time back sooner than if you were okay, let's say you're making $100,000 as a single person and you're trying to pursue fire, but then you feel like, oh my God, this is too much restriction for my wife and I. This is going to be one of those situations where something's got to give. Either I'm going to get divorced or, you know, I'm going to force my spouse to go on this path with me, I'd hate for that for family. So if there's a middle ground where it works for both parties and you can still achieve the type of independence that you want to have. I love that there are multiple versions of fire out there that people can experiment with.

[Scott Trench]

Do you consider yourself fire or do you not even use that re part to describe what you're doing?

[Andy Hill]

I think the word retirement is so loaded within our community that people just jump into it too much. I really try to wear the hat of a small business owner. I like to wear the hat of a solopreneur and say, that's what I'm doing now. I hit to a point, point where I felt financially confident to start my own business, and that's what I'm doing right now. So I don't think there's anything wrong with people saying they're retired or even me saying I'm retired. It's just such a loaded word that. And through conversations like this, I think you nailed it.

[Scott Trench]

I think it's the word retire. I. I think there was universal acceptance of, yeah, they won.

[Andy Hill]

That's what.

[Scott Trench]

That's what I want out of my life. I want that outcome that they have here, that option. But there was rejection of the word retirement. Like, for example, I think this actually stems back from one of the OGs in Mr. Money Mustache. He has no bones about it. There is no room for debate. There is no disagreement. He is retired. And this was in response to people talking about, hey, you run this small business of your blog, essentially, where there's a couple of affiliate links and he's like, no, I'm retired here. It doesn't preclude that. And I think some people, like, half the community accepts that and the other half rejects it. And I think that's where this comes.

[Andy Hill]

From that's so interesting. And maybe it also comes from horrible stock images of showing people who are retired just sitting in chairs or sitting on a couch. That's what retirement means. As opposed to exercising, spending time with your family more, maybe working on a passion business and growing it. So it's even more exciting. I think the definition of retirement could evolve, maybe if these stock images would change.

[Scott Trench]

Well, anyways, I think it's a great discussion there, but it sounds like you just don't use that word to describe.

[Andy Hill]

I just don't use that word. I don't have any problems with it. It's because I'm excited about what I'm building here, but it doesn't consume my entire life. It's almost as if the equivalent of saying, I'm an employee or I'm a worker. Like if you went to a party and you said, I'm in corporate event marketing. That's who I am. And now you finish doing that. Now you say, I'm ret. It's like that's the only identity that you say that I. That you are. It's so tied to work that I have trouble with that. I would rather. And it's difficult to introduce yourselves as five different identities. But I don't want to be the person who only focuses on what I do as my work, as who I am. So if I were to say I'm full time employed or retired, I'm still adopting that worker mindset and that's something that I, I don't want to do.

[Scott Trench]

I resolved this for myself by adopting the new title on LinkedIn of Semi Retired Podcast Co Host. That's how I describe what, what I do these days.

[Andy Hill]

Semi retired is a great way to say it. I mean, could, could, could the people in the comments tell us if semi retired is okay?

[Scott Trench]

That acknowledges all of the mixed views on whatever the heck it is I'm doing right now.

[Mindy Jensen]

Okay, Andy, you have alluded to this podcast and this online stuff. What is the name of your podcast and where can our listeners find more about you online?

[Andy Hill]

Absolutely. Well, my podcast is called Marriage, Kids and Money, and I named it that because that's mostly what I think about all the time and I want to improve all in those areas. So yeah, you can find that anywhere. Podcasts are, are out there.

[Mindy Jensen]

And do you also have the marriage, kids and money.com?

[Andy Hill]

Absolutely. Marriagekidsandmoney.com is where people should go to learn more about the podcast, YouTube channel and more. My book, which is out now, Own youn Time, where you can find it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and any support there would be fantastic.

[Mindy Jensen]

Own youn Time 10 Financial Steps to Put yout Family first and Escape the Corporate Grind by Andy Hill. Everywhere books are sold. All right, Andy, thank you so much for your time today. This was a lot of fun catching up with what you've been doing over the last five years and I really appreciate you. Have a good day.

[Andy Hill]

Day. Thank you, Mindy. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate it.

[Mindy Jensen]

All right, Scott, that was Andy Hill and that was a super fun conversation about the concept of getting ready to leave your job and then actually leaving your job so you can own your time. What did you think of the conversation?

[Scott Trench]

I just think it, it's another reflection of the, the spectrum for entrepreneurship. I feel like many people listening to this podcast would be very uncomfortable leaving their job with a million dollars in net worth worth with two kids and a family spending seven or eight thousand dollars a month with 100 grand in savings. I think he's on the more entrepreneurial end of the spectrum in terms of people who generally speaking, will pursue financial independence. And I think though, that more people should really take a lesson from what he's done and how he lives his life and consider it. And it all stems down from a relatively low spending level and a relatively large cash position or Runway. It just increases the options or looks like, makes all these possibilities emerge in a way that if you don't have those savings, if you don't have that liquidity, if you don't have that passive income and you spend nine or ten thousand dollars a year and you have a job that pays you 150, $160,000 a year, it seems really terrifying, right? Probably everything seems fairly terrifying or fairly stressful in your life because you're also worried about the very real risk of even one or two bad weeks or if you stop showing up for work or things, whatever, you could lose your job. You could lose your job even if you're doing a pretty good job, depending on how company performance is going. And I think it just comes back down to this low spending, this, this abundance mindset and. And the flexibility of having some wealth that is gradually expanding. And that in particular that liquidity and that Runway in the cash position, I think, I think it makes. It makes everything much more achievable.

[Mindy Jensen]

Yeah, absolutely. That is my favorite thing about coast Fire is that that your traditional retirement will be taken care of. And then you can make the choice, do I continue to contribute or do I not continue to contribute? If you continue to contribute, you're just marching your retirement date back. And if you choose not to, you are understanding that you will have a funded retirement at traditional retirement age. I mean, that's what the majority of Americans are doing anyway. And if you like your job, there's nothing that says you have to retire higher.

[Scott Trench]

I think I'm going to start using language a little bit more precisely here or in a way that is generally more accepted here. And I'm going to start calling it Coast Fi. Personally, everyone has their choice. But I think that the concept of he does not describe himself as retired early. And I think that that's the way that that term for me is going to be used going forward. I think to discuss this, there's coast fi and there's traditional fire. And I know some people who are. Are fire. And I know some people who are financially independent and I know some people who are coast fi. But I don't know anybody who is coast fire that I have met so far. Let me know what you think in the comments here on YouTube and let me know if you think that that's the right way to use that term going forward.

[Mindy Jensen]

Yeah, and Scott, I'm gonna go you one better. I think we should stop using the term fire and just start saying, saying FI because we want people to have options, and one option is retiring early. One option is not retiring early. And. But we still want you to get to financial independence. So this is now a FI show.

[Andy Hill]

Yeah.

[Scott Trench]

I think I'm going to use financially independent as the default here and then fire where appropriate. Right. I think we could have described many of the situations we've had in the show where people have been fired and then decided to do some kind of part time work as financially independent. And I think I'm going to continue to view them as fire in my mind. We're going to use the term financially independent to avoid confusion here.

[Mindy Jensen]

That sounds great. All right, Scott, should we get out of here?

[Andy Hill]

Let's do it.

[Mindy Jensen]

That wraps up this episode of the Biggerpockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen. Saying goodbye, Ryder.