← ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
Getting Personal with Personal Finance: Vicki Robin & Ginger | Ep 541
00:58:12
Embracing Aging, Community, and Financial Independence Episode Summary: In this enlightening episode of ChooseFI, host Ginger talks with Vicki Robin, renowned author of Your Money or Your Life. The conversation delves into the complexities of...
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- [00:00]
Brad
Hey, it's Brad. Before we get started with the episode, I wanted to pass along some incredibly exciting news in the Choose a Buy world. As we talked about on a previous episode, Jonathan has spent the last couple of years building something incredible and we actually just rolled it out. This is our brand new Choose a five member site. It's obviously entirely free to sign up for. We're hoping this will take the place of our Facebook groups, both for the main Facebook group and especially for our local groups. So how this is going to work, you just go to our main homepage, choosefi.com and and you will see front and center, register, sign up for an account log in. It's really, really easy. We made it as simple as possible. So right now, Jonathan is building this in public. Every single day he posts an update with the 20 or 30 things that he updated from the last day that people reported that. Hey, I want to see this. I'd love to see this new feature. How can we do this? This is the ultimate crowdsourced personal finance website and community. We finally built it. We've dreamed of this since 2017 and we finally have the technology. We are not beholden to Facebook anymore. We can actually send out events and you will get emailed notification of it. So it's not just the 1%. If you get lucky, that Facebook shows you the notification. Now, for your local groups, when you sign up, you tag, hey, I'm a member of this local group. And when your admin sets up an event, you will get email notified so you can't possibly miss it.
- [01:22]
Jonathan
This.
- [01:22]
Brad
This is so exciting. We already have thousands upon thousands of people that signed up just in the first three days and I expect there to be tens of thousands before very long. So I wanted to jot this off before the episode started. Go to chooseify.com, our main homepage, and sign up for an account today.
- [01:40]
Ginger
Hi everyone, it's Ginger. And I'm so excited to tell you that today I am chatting with Vicki Robin. Many of you have read her book youk Money or your Life. But even if you haven't, you know about this book. It's changed the way so many people think about work and money. So many that it has influenced the way you think about it, even if you don't realize it. I loved that book. And since reading it, I've heard Vicki on many podcasts and enjoyed seeing her in Playing with Fire, a great documentary that you should all check out. But I don't really want to talk to Vicki today about money. Or at least I don't want that to be the center of our conversation. I want to talk to Vicki about growing older. And even as I say that, I feel shy, like this isn't a phrase you're supposed to say in polite company. And I guess that's partly why I'm interested in aging, because it's not something we really talk about with real people. We talk about it theoretically, and we talk about the systems around aging, but in general, when it comes to people's experience of aging, we really kind of tiptoe around it. We tell everyone we're 29, and we tell everyone we think they look 29. But this is so misguided because it robs us of the opportunity to learn really, really important lessons. I'm so grateful that Vicky was willing to talk to me today about what this process has been like for her. So welcome, Vicki, and welcome young and old to choose Fi. Welcome, Vicki. You know, I'm thinking about all the things I just said and how it kind of taps into this myth that we have about aging, which is that old people are wiser people and that we should talk to them because we can learn something from them. But really, that's a way that what we're doing is we're objectifying you. Right. I wonder if that feels annoying in some way or what you think about that.
- [03:36]
Vicki Robin
Please objectify me. No. Half the older people I know are just sort of sitting, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for somebody to ask them something. You know, older people, we. They. We have stories to tell, insights about things, mistakes we made. I mean, not everybody is generous with their stories, and some people are more interesting with their stories than others. The other thing with older people is that very often the partner dies, the kids are gone. Older people are alone in their house and maybe have some challenge so that it's harder for them to get in the car and go someplace and, you know, go to the bingo game or the church service or whatever it is. So a lot of older people are quite lonely, you know, because they can't as easily put themselves in the flow of life. And, you know, I know plenty of older people who can't. They can't keep up with tech. I mean, there's like a ton of sassy older people, you know, sort of like me, who are delaying as long as possible the devolution. There's a feeling definitely this is an age of society where the youth culture is worshipped. And so as you lose your youthful skin, your youthful gait, access to words, one of the biggest pains is to feel irrelevant, like you have nothing to offer and invisible. You know, you can't muscle your way into a conversation like you could when you were 40, nor are you invited. Yeah, there is such a prejudice against older people. I mean, people in their 40s say they're already too old to get hired. So this is ageism. This is all sorts of fears projected onto older people. Or that you're in your second childhood and all you want to do is go on cruises.
- [05:37]
Ginger
You know, I wonder if this is something. If this is related. So this is partly why I wanted to have this conversation with you, because I keep trying to have this conversation with people my age. Like, we're talking about. And you know, in this community, we're always talking about the future and what we want to do now, like, so that we can set up a good future, what we can do to sort of set up a better older age. And when you talk to people my age about what it will be like to be older, we all do the same thing, which is we bring up, like, hey, I know this person. Or you know, of this person who is like, super fit, looks incredible, is doing incredible things. And then we think, so that will be me, because I saw this example of this really extreme person who we would say aged extremely well, which what we mean there is, like, not at all. And then when we see that person, it kind of. It lets us off the hook because then we don't have to think about any of those losses that are coming. We don't have to reckon with it in a way, because we're telling the story about, you know, like, it won't be that way for me, like it is for most people. I will be this person who is so cool when I'm 80, so youngish. And again, it stops the conversation because then we're not talking about what this experience is actually like. I think for most people, I will be this person who is, like, so cool when I'm 80, you know, and again, it just, like, it stops the conversation because then we're not talking about what this experience is like. I think for most people, I thought.
- [07:12]
Vicki Robin
The same way all the way up till when I was 78. Yeah, I mean, that was old people and I was hot and largely in the fire community. What I've noticed is there's a book called Die with Zero, I think that's very popular. And I looked at that book and he said, oh, don't worry about saving. Have all your experiences when you're young and healthy. And just get an annuity, that'll be fine. Dude, you know, that is such ageism. That's such prejudice against being older.
- [07:43]
Ginger
That's so interesting because I hadn't thought of it that way. But I think I know what you're saying. But would you say more about that?
- [07:49]
Vicki Robin
Well, I mean, when you're young and you're healthy, then you should have all your adventures. When you're older and boring and unable to go anywhere and disabled and drooling in your wheelchair or whatever the image is of capabilities of people who are older, you know, then just get an annuity, which is insufficient by the way. So yeah, I get what you're, you know, I hear what you're saying. I mean, you know, fire to me is quite, it has a tinge of libertarian, has a tinge of not caring about preferencing people who are mentally, physically, psychologically fit. And I don't think this is true of everybody, of course, in the Facebook group socially conscious fire. I find much more people aligned with my way of thinking. But I'll tell you a story roundabout. When I was 60, somebody who was my age showed me a picture of a, you know, paper skinned, pasty faced old woman with wispy gray hair sitting with a lap blanket, you know, in a chair. And my friend said, well, what are you going to do when you're 80, you know, so that's 80, you know, confined to a 12 by 12 room, watching television and unable to get up, you know, 80 in your wheelchair. And wherever the, you know, the aid puts you for the day, that's where you are for the day. And if they forget to respond to the bell, then you're stuck. And your depends, you know, it's like. And it was a vision of hell for me. And I hadn't even thought about it. I was already 60, you know, which used to be old. And it triggered something in me. Number one, what it triggered is, okay, I'm not her, I'm 60. Between now and 60, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna do everything I want to do just the way I want to do it. And there was a concept in sort of like Celtic philosophy or Wiccan philosophy of maiden, mother and crone, you know, the young woman, the mother and then the older woman. And I thought, nah, I'm not ready for that. And I found somebody who said maiden, mother, queen and crone. So I thought, yep, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be queen. And I had, you know, this has Been one of the happiest, most creative parts of my life. But then, as I say, I turned 78 and it was right toward the end of the pandemic. And we, you know, I live in a village where the median age is over 60 because we were able to buy in when real estate was cheaper. And we're hanging onto it, so we just are aging in place. And I looked around, I thought, I am living in a goddamn nursing home. I mean, that was. I was so anxious, I was like, I don't want to do this. Next thing you know, it's shovelboard. And I realized that I hadn't created any images for myself of what this part of life was about. It was like I'd always wondered, like you read an obituary of somebody who was prominent in some way and the last time you'd heard of them was maybe when they were in their 60s. And then, you know, 20 years later they're dead and you go like, what were they doing? What was that about? And I hadn't thought about it at all. I haven't identified with it. I didn't want to do it. I was like Peter Pan of the elder crowd. So that's when I dove into writing my blog, Coming of Aging, to write my way through this part of life, to discover what was there and realize I have internalized ageism. And many, many, many older people do. Many, many, many. So there's a suffering in that because it's loss, loss, loss, loss, loss. So what I did, you know, going back to that six year old, when I saw that picture, I, Vicki at 60 is going to support Vicki at 80, because I'm going to get there. And so I became more of a saver. I had my older life in mind and, you know, I could be in a wheelchair. Who's going to take care of me? I don't have any kids. You know, what's this all about? I don't want to, you know, I'm going to die in my house. I'm leaving here feet first. I'm not going into a care facility. So I think that that idea that you presented me with, of people refer to a very fit person and think they don't have to think about it. I think that's bs, you know, I think what you want to do is support the person you're going to be in an older body. You don't know what genetic disease is going to pop. You don't know whether you're going to break your leg in a skiing accident and not be able to walk. You don't know whether your wife or husband is going to leave you, and they were the one who made money. You don't know this. You don't know. And so part of going into the unknown of older age is preparation. And that's a better, very fi thing to do, you know, is to prepare for that part of your life. And the other part of it is surrender is like, okay, guess what? I'm going to be one of those people, and then I'm dead. So it creates a sense of. It can create fear, but it can create a sense of significance about this part of life. So that's a ramble. I don't know whether it fits whatever you said.
- [13:33]
Ginger
I want to go back to what you said about preparing, because like you said, it's a very phi thing. Right. And it's partly why we want to have these conversations is to think, okay, well, what did you do at 60 to prepare yourself for today that was helpful? I know you said you saved more money.
- [13:54]
Vicki Robin
I did. And my situation is a bit unusual because I'm the author of a best selling book that developed a new life in 2018. When I updated it, which I had no idea there was a fire community or anything, I was just updating it so that some of the antiquated hippie ideas from the 1970s, I could update those. I had no idea. And it wasn't until then that I met the fire community, which kind of came up under the book and lifted it. So that's part of it. But let's see, what did I do?
- [14:30]
Ginger
I interpreted that statement to mean you were going to continue to be an interesting person who had adventures. Right. When you were talking about like, that isn't the image of me. That isn't who I want to be when I'm 80, when you're looking at that picture. And so how did you make that happen?
- [14:50]
Vicki Robin
So between 60 and 80, I felt there's a lot of backstory here. I had cancer and it just gave me an opportunity to like, rethink my whole life. And that was when I was 58. So I moved to this small town. And one of the things I did was instinctually I knew that I needed to belong somewhere. We have the opportunity in this society to not belong anywhere or to think that we belong because we have Facebook groups or Reddit groups or whatever, but that's not belonging. Those are not the people who will emotionally or materially or physically care for you. And I don't mean like, you know, when you're in diapers and whatever that is when you're 100 but care about you. I mean, I think that's very important to think about. Yeah. So I instinctually came to live in a small village on an island where I knew a couple of people and built a life here. I resolutely, whether conscious or unconscious, made friends with younger people. I bought real estate here. You know, I know there's the fireway of real estate as you go, you know, you find something, it doesn't have to be where you live, it could be somewhere else. And you buy an apartment building and you know, it throws off 12%, you know, whatever. But that's not what I was doing. I was belonging and I've written quite a bit about belonging and I just wrote a blog post for my coming of aging blog about how to go local. So that's part of it. And that's a transition that can seem limiting, you know, like I don't want to live in a small town with a bunch of bitties who know my business, you know, which is, you know, ageism and that's one thing. And it's a maturation process of understanding that you are part of something larger and that you do owe almost your whole life to whatever that larger thing is, whether you call it God or the earth. You know, it's like the fire community. Not everybody is by and large individualistic. I'm going to get my together and excuse the expression and that's wonderful and that's a part of life. But if you develop that hyper individualistic mentality and you don't grow out of it, then you'll just be a selfish older person, you know, trying to figure out where you're going to go for your next trip. And maybe that's offensive to some people, but you have to learn, you don't have to. I learned what happened is this village sort of sanded the edges off my ego. You know, I came here with a lot more self importance than I have now by far.
- [17:51]
Ginger
But you got something really important that I want to dig into a little bit where you said how important it is to have people care about you and for you to care about other people. And I think for younger generations this kind of becomes, this is harder and harder. Like we are losing our ability to connect with people in that real way. And so even if you think about an action step that a younger person can take, right. If you say your life's task is to care about people and to be cared about, right. Like what do you do about that. It's really hard, I think, to figure out what to do about that. And partly it's what you said about we have these false sense of community online. That is not the same thing. That's not being cared for. Right. But it's adjacent. And so it feels good when someone writes something good to you in that form. Right. But it's not the same thing. And so I wonder, after having that experience many, many times in your life of connecting with people, what would you say to younger people about how to move in that direction?
- [19:04]
Vicki Robin
Well, number one, participate in real life. Irl. There's an aspect, you know, whether you're in a town or neighborhood, you know, everybody lives somewhere, or you're out in the thules, you know, and you've done the back to the land thing and so participate in real life. Like one of the things that I've done. I'm not saying this is the right thing. We used to have two great coffee shops in town. Now we have one. But I would take my computer down every day for three hours and be there. Show your face, go to the hardware store and buy something rather than buying it online. Forget hellofresh, Go to the grocery store, go to the cooking classes, you know, get in the bus and go up to the mountains for skiing with 30 other people. Participate in real life. Volunteer. You know, it sounds so basic, but I think that it's too easy for us. And now with the pandemic, I mean, I got so used to just being at home. Now we're talking to each other. I'm glad to meet you, but you're not in my village. That's fine. Go to the bank. It's like the consumer culture is now pushing us online. Everything. And online is completely controlled. And it's way more fragile than aero in real life, but we don't realize it. Work out at a gym, don't buy the peloton and just be home. Go to the gym, show your face. It'll take a while for people to notice that you're there. Yeah. Another thing that I learned very late was, you know, because I had an unusual life, and for many years, I didn't have to make friends with anybody. Number one, I was well known, so everybody wanted to be with me. So that was the excruciating process of trying to make new friends. Not even, like, dating, but just new friends. The vulnerability, that's big. So what I realized when I was here was, oh, people were inviting me to lunch and I didn't understand that that was a Step toward befriending me. I never go to the movies with somebody because I don't want them talking in my ear while I'm watching the movie. But that's something else people do. They invite other people to the movies.
- [21:30]
Ginger
Yeah, I think about that list of different things that you gave. And I was thinking, okay, well, why don't we do those things? And really all of them, we have this story about convenience, but really it's about taking a risk. And I think this is kind of funny in our community where we talk about risk related to money very easily. Right. But we don't want to admit that it feels risky to say hi to a stranger because they might not have the kind of response we want them to have that injures us in some way. We've become more fragile in that way. And so we, gosh, we're going to avoid all this risk under the COVID of our great convenient life. But you have to be courageous to accomplish this thing. I think that you're talking about.
- [22:15]
Vicki Robin
You know, I gave a talk recently that was just sort of my first effort at communicating this, but because I'm a big believer in relocalization, not just because it's fun to live someplace pretty, but because this. As the global systems become more fragile, as the rug gets pulled out from under entitlements that we didn't even know we had, we're going to be stuck out here with one another. And I've padded myself with investment so I don't feel vulnerable in that way. But I gave a talk on community as currency that through sociability you build wealth, you build, you know, there's like a collective pot of wealth that you're putting something into, just becoming a reliable face in a few in a church on Sunday. And it's not necessarily a direct one to one exchange, but it's building the connections in a community that build trust, that gives the community confidence that we can muddle our way through. It is so important to me, you know, and I said this in your money, you, life and other people have said it very well through permaculture. Money, what we call money, is only one form of currency, and relationship is another. You know, there's a current of love. Competency is another. Being able to, to do for yourself, not as a survivalist, but not to be so dependent on money alone to manage your life. Competency is another. Relationships is another. Belonging is another, Service is another. And so from a fire point of view, you could say that you're building an alternative Account, you know, you've built your money account and now you're building your community wealth.
- [24:25]
Ginger
Oh, I love that.
- [24:26]
Vicki Robin
And that, that's a task of fire. Yeah. And maybe after, you know, you reach your number and you go like, wee, I'm free. And all you are is out of a job, you know, so that's the period of time when you build. If you've ignored everything in service to your financial independence, that's the period of time when you build community wealth. Yes. You go on the trip to India with a backpack, you know, but you're starting to do that. You're starting. And in your money, you life we talk about work is just Money is a very small part of the notion that you work. Work is an expression of community, that you make yourself useful to other people and you build. The word that comes is integrity, but it's not really what I the word. I want you mature. So that's a task of fire. And not many people talk about it. They're all talking about money. The person I love who talks about this is Laurel Daney. If you know her, she is very prominent on the socially conscious fire and she's a permaculturist and she's extraordinarily creative and she's done a lot of research on investing with your values and on non monetary forms of exchange and currency. So anyway, I just highly recommend her.
- [25:53]
Ginger
Yeah, I mean, all these things are really important to the fire community because why do you want to quit your job? The idea is you want to have a life that you love, a life that you feel good in. And of course, in order to do that, I think you said something really interesting about being useful to people is a big part about how we're wired, like what makes us feel good.
- [26:17]
Vicki Robin
Yeah, we're social species and so we've.
- [26:20]
Ginger
Got to figure that out, you know, even if it's not built into our nine to five.
- [26:24]
Vicki Robin
Right, right. I used to say that the consumer culture grows on breaking bonds. You know, if you have a marriage, you've got one washing machine, one refrigerator, you know, one dishwasher, you know, one stove, you get divorced and suddenly the number of appliances needed to live a life is doubled. You get divorced and oh, there's another house you need. So every time a bond, a human bond is broken, you have trained yourself to seek something that costs money usually to replace that. And you know, I mean, even unto finding another partner. I don't know how other people have enjoyed online d. I'm just like, ah, you know, but it's almost like a marketplace. Yeah. It's not natural. You haven't like met people and it's hard to meet people through natural means. I mean, I think there's like, I've been to quite a few gatherings where fire people get together and I think it's. That's part of it. That's part of building the face to face community. And once you've been in like a camp mustache or campfire or something like that, you have a network of people you could go visit, you know, and every time you kind of run around and go visit people. I knew this is years ago, but I knew some people who were thinking about forming their own village of fire people, you know, So I think the instinct is there, it's just overwritten, you know. Yeah, yeah. Why the Buddhists say, you know, painted cakes do not nourish. So anyway, that's some thoughts on that one.
- [28:08]
Ginger
Yeah, those events are really popular and I think it's because of what you're saying. Right. It feels really different to connect with someone in that way. You've touched on consumerism a bit. And I wonder how spending money has changed for you in the last decade.
- [28:23]
Vicki Robin
Well, when I was representing your money, you, life and trying to prove that it was a perfectly wonderful way of life, mostly because I wanted people, I wanted us to stop over consumption. You know, that was my secret goal, was to, you know, bust consumerism. So I kept myself at a level of consumption that was very limited. I also lived communally and so you can save a lot of money if you share the heating of a house, you share meals, you bulk buy, you know, so there was many ways that my life was way less expensive than it was after a cancer. And I restarted my life, lived alone. So one of the things I've had to do is train myself to be less frugal and also to forgive myself for making buying mistakes.
- [29:23]
Ginger
Oh, well, we can all relate to that.
- [29:26]
Vicki Robin
Exactly. And to like I've been very diy, you know, just doing everything myself. And last year, actually the year before last, I discovered this company called Rhodes Scholar, which is an theoretically over 50 travel adventure company. And I did a six day whitewater rafting trip with them and I had a ball and I probably spent twice or three times what I would have spent had I had to find the company if I had to designed everything myself. And so yeah, okay, okay, Vicki, just let other people figure it out for you and pay the surcharge. And it's a reasonably priced travel company, so things like that. I'VE had a lot of delayed inner processing, a lot of growing up and healing wounds to do that came from my younger life. And I just overwrote them because I had places to go and things to do and people to meet and things to accomplish. And so there has been quite a bit of remedial work, if you will, on self examination. And I have spent money on that and I would have never done that in the past. So I've invested some of the surplus in teachers who have really accelerated my path and held up mirrors that I would have never held up to myself. And in the past it would have been an indulgence, you know. And I will say, you know, it's like this is the payoff of a lifelong frugality is you actually have enough money. You know, I used to joke that I'm going to die and they're going to find a million dollars in my mattress because, you know, like there's stories about, you know, woman taking an ironing and that she was a millionaire so she wouldn't spend. So it's balancing, this is a difficult thing, balancing the safety of money to see you through to the end. I used to say I want to die with a dime in my pocket, but not a day later. In other words, I wanted to spend down everything. But that's not possible because you may outlive your money. So how do you do this? How do you balance? But I'm pretty much aware of what surplus I have, what the monopoly money is in my life and I spend it every year. You know, my basic nut keeps pumping out, but the surplus I spend. I bought a house 12 years ago and you know, I just plumped a lot of money into just owning a house that was on the market for a long time because it had some problems with it. So I did fix it up and it's been like I had a refrigerator where I had to arrange things on different shelves because some places the refrigerator would freeze my vegetables, you know, so I had to like. And I thought, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I bought myself a new fridge and it was like, oh God, I got a new fridge. And these may seem like such normal purchases, so I guess maybe there's a message here which is that when you get older, even if you're not decrepit, even if your mind is working perfectly, you really want more ease and the kind of things that you could do in your 30s, like live in a 10 by 10 room with five roommates and your bicycle hanging off the roof ceiling so that you can save 90% of your income. That sort of, you can keep doing that, but it's actually a degradation of life. So there is a way in which, and this is back to like supporting yourself when you're in your 80s and beyond. There is a way that you realize that I might not have. I might be, you know, upright, I'm walking, but I might not have the. My body might not have the will to do the things that I've done when I'm younger. And it's not just so go ye forth and you know, climb Mount Everest, which you might do while you have a really great body, but it's also just sort of forgiving yourself in advance for the fact that you are going to not have the oomph that you had and that you're going to spend more money. So I'm very, very glad I have this. And what I did with my house, which is a very fire thing, is it's a split entry house, very, very typical box. And on the ground floor is a family room and a garage. And so I converted both into studio apartments. So like I get income from, I said I want my house to be a site of production, not a site of consumption. So, you know, and that's a viral thing to do. You know, you buy a duplex, you live on one side and you pay your mortgage with the other. So my habits of maximizing return on investments, like I bought one of the first hybrid cars. It was a little Honda Insight. And I had that for, I don't know, 15 years. But you know, when it was really on its last legs and I wanted to, I bought an all electric car because I'm an early adopter of all things that might save the planet. So I had that Insight and I rented it on the qt. You know, somebody moved here and they needed a car for three months. Well, you know, so I'm clever in that way to be able to mobilize what I have into income. I don't know if I'm answering your question. I'm just thinking about how my spending has changed.
- [35:21]
Ginger
Yeah, I know a few people who are recently retired in their 60s and who really struggle with spending money now. And I mean, I think this is common no matter what age, if you've been frugal. And I hear you saying like, yeah, that was hard for me and that was something that I needed to kind of reassess and think about in a different way. Can you speak to how you did that? Like, was it just a matter of Time or was it really working on changing your thinking?
- [35:49]
Vicki Robin
It was definitely changing my thinking. It was watching my mind. It was an embarrassing mind. I mean, I would buy something that felt like a treat, Maybe it was $4, and then I would not buy something that I wanted that was $4 in order to make up for it. Nobody was counting. My mind was due. I called it cash register consciousness. I think the biggest recommendation is to develop another stream of passive income, whether it's renting my car or converting parts of my house. And even that I felt like I have a pile of money and I'm taking it off the top. And so if I keep, if I have to, like not take too much off the top because I have no inflow or I have a fixed inflow and I could overspend, and then I don't have as much of my stored wealth to throw off money. And so I recently, you know, I've always, I've done everything pretty much for free. Although I stumbled into, you know, being an author of a bestselling book, which was great. And I recently thought, you know, I need, I need to convince my, my mind that I can earn money at this point in my life. And the fact of the matter is, is that I have a super popular blog on substack that I haven't monetized because they didn't want to. I just wanted readers. But I thought, no, you can do that. You can do some coaching and, you know, classes and stuff like that. You could ask for money. So it's made a difference for me, you know, not so much. I mean, I've gotten a little bit of money from it, but it made a difference in the psychology of I can still earn if I need to. If I spend down some of that pile, I have this other income. And then when you get a lot older, you could do a reverse mortgage if you plan to stay in your house. So if you have tangible wealth, which I have, I have this house and I bought a rental house when there was like a little dip in the market and I just, I just snatched up a house. It was incredibly well priced and I have great renters and they do repairs and I lowered their rent because it was like, what you're doing that? And we have such a great relationship. The stove died and they bought a new stove, like really? So I could definitely raise their rent year by year, the maximum amount and harvest more money from that investment. But that's a nice relational investment. You know, we're partners in well being. Yeah. Yeah. So I'VE since living here, I've created more avenues of passive income. Not totally passive, because I have to maintain the objects. You know, if you retire when you're 60 and you've been in the fire community, so you've been forced to be, like, creative, you know, because I think fire is very creative. You can do that. You can create other passive income. And the empowerment that comes from that is really. I found it made a difference.
- [39:09]
Ginger
Yeah. I think this is a counterintuitive answer right where I said, well, how do you learn to spend money and feel okay about it? And you spoke to, well, what's underneath that anxiety? Like, why is it hard to spend? And can you address that? So it's not, oh, I can just start to feel better about spending, but I can start to find my strength. Like, I can start to think about all of the resources that I can bring to this if the time comes. And that knowledge, even if you don't end up starting a business or you don't end up making extra money, can influence how you feel about spending money. Right. Because this doesn't have to be the last dollar I ever earn. I still have the ability to make money.
- [39:50]
Vicki Robin
Yeah. Used to call it pin money. And it's a different activity from having developed the habit of making money. And you can't really. You know, your identity gets a big ding if you're not making money because you identify with your income. That's different.
- [40:07]
Ginger
Yeah.
- [40:08]
Vicki Robin
Yeah. You're asking questions that I have to be thoughtful about. Yeah. I mean, it was really hard, you know, when I moved here. You know, this is, as I said, it's in what's called a Newark naturally occurring retirement community. And I moved into a village with a lot of homeowners who had considerably more wealth than I did. It was hard at first to even socialize. You know, let's go out to lunch. Okay. And I order the cup of soup. You know, when they order, you know, the pile of mussels, and then they say, let's split the bill. Oh, no. So it's so many layers. It's, you know, identity, self respect, respect of others. And I think the other thing I'm cultivating is a sense of abundance. And abundance doesn't mean there's always more money where that came from, but that the world is. Yeah. That there's so much abundance in nature and in love and other people and spirituality and in gratitude and, you know, I mean, when you call, you go on to abundance. It's not like, ooh, that costs too much. Money, I have to save it. It's that, wow, I get to have enough money to buy the plate of muscles if I want to, you know. So it's an abundance attitude and it hasn't. It served me well, you know, that's another thing. I guess we have to adapt. You know, we've had a frugality attitude in order to get to fi and then you cross over and you need an abundance attitude of there's so much pleasure, there's so much to see and do, there's just air to breathe. You know, it's just getting up in the morning and just thinking what amazing thing is going to happen today? You know, I wonder if there'll be birds coming to the bird feeder. You know, it's like not like oh God, you know, my refrigerator's in the fritz or something. You know, it's. So maybe that's a part of the shift from being an earner to being retired is to develop an abundance attitude that isn't about making another million.
- [42:22]
Ginger
Really understanding what enough is and how big enough is.
- [42:27]
Vicki Robin
Yeah, yeah, Right, right, right, right. Yeah. So enoughness in the accumulation phase is like, it takes a lot of attention to like oh yeah, that bite of food was just right and this bite of food was more than enough. So I'm going to stop. And that's a beautiful attention to sufficiency. But there's a built in sufficiency in the world because nature is, it's a self generating, self nourishing, self replenishing world that we live in. And even if you are in this society, not part of the 1% or the 10%, there's still so much to enjoy. Yeah. So in pleasure, that's another part of it is, you know, maybe you've been into self denial in order to get to fi, but what would it be like to just to focus on the pleasure of existence? That's really focus of mine, you know. Yeah. I think that the more I shed the identities and the fears, et cetera, the freer my mind is. And I think that's where I'm headed in, in this coming of aging, as I call my blog. There is a sort of a vast ocean out beyond all the restrictions, you know, all the shoals and the reefs and all that dangerous passage out of the harbor. There's something beautiful out there and it's not just heaven after you die, it's something else that I'm just discovering what it is.
- [44:05]
Ginger
Yeah, that's so beautiful. I think what I hear you saying is that you've gotten really good at putting your attention on things as you've gotten older and that you have really put your attention on your inner life and like, how can I make connections and how can I really be a part of this community? And that giving attention to those things has brought such meaning and richness to your life. I can tell you're a very intentional person. And I wonder if this careful attention, like, if there's anything that has been hard to put your attention on as you've gotten older.
- [44:41]
Vicki Robin
Well, death for one.
- [44:45]
Ginger
Well, the big one.
- [44:47]
Vicki Robin
I mean, I don't want to think about that. You know, I know for a fact that I will die. Yeah. But my mind will not go there.
- [44:55]
Ginger
Yeah. I was going to say you're ahead of so many of us because we don't think we will.
- [45:00]
Vicki Robin
Well, that's part of what I realized. You know, my come to Jesus moment of turning 78 and realizing I'm in the part of my life where death is, you know, like, I'm not in the part of life where death is later. So, yeah, there's plenty I don't want to put my attention on. But attention is pleasure for me. It's not duty. And, you know, the pandemic gave me time to learn the craft of writing. I mean, I've written, written, written, written, written, but I was more like an activist, more like a warrior. Like, I'm writing things to convince other people. And in this period of time, I've had just the joy and pleasure of learning the craft of storytelling and telling stories from my life. And I just get up in the morning and I sit down. I have a writing group from 7 to 8, so that puts me in the chair. And I just love it, you know, And a lot of people my age or, you know, someplace in here start to do memoir. And it's not just. It's not like writing your autobiography, you know, maybe selling three copies to your family or something. It's that process of self reflection. It's that process of making something out of the material of your life. Yeah. And it's a big activity of this period of time is self reflection however you do it. Yeah. I mean, would I like to have some rich person with a boat sail me around the world? Sure. You know, are there pleasures that, you know, if I had more money, I might do far.
- [46:50]
Ginger
What about this? I guess this is kind of related to the death question, but one thing that maybe I had not expected. So I'm 46 now, and in the last few years, I have started to Feel urgency that I have not felt before.
- [47:07]
Vicki Robin
Right.
- [47:07]
Ginger
About really coming to grips with. Hey, if I'm going to do such and such thing, it has to fit in in these years ahead. And there aren't endless years ahead. And so that's not. That sounds like wisdom. That sounds good, but it's not good. It's like panic. Right. It's very difficult feeling for me to sort of work with. And a worry I have is that that urgency is going to be heightened every year. And I wonder if you have ever had that experience or what that's like for you now. Do you feel kind of that urgency?
- [47:49]
Vicki Robin
I don't feel urgency, but I do at this point. I feel like if old dreams are going to get realized, it's now. So it's more like priority than urgency.
- [48:01]
Ginger
Even when you just say that word, it calms me down a little even just saying, like, okay, think about your priorities, then that feels like a manageable thing. Like, oh, yeah, we can make choices about what we care about the most.
- [48:16]
Vicki Robin
Yeah. I mean, isn't that what we do? All our, you know, the whole fire path is a path of choices. You know, what's most important to me now and in the future, what's going to bring me the most happiness? What's going to be most important? And I think it's difficult. You know, they call it a midlife crisis. I didn't have that, but I think that is the moment. And it's sort of about your age. You know, at least they talk about it for men. I don't know about women, but it probably happened for, you know, women. It probably happens earlier when they realize that they're not going to ovulate forever. Where it's like, okay, you know, 20 years ago, I thought the world was my oyster. I had every option. You know, the future was. Was just full and free. But this is the point where you realize limitation. And there are choices that you made in the past that probably are just like, that's how I spent my 20s. That's how I spent my 30s. That's it. That's how I did it. You know, there's an acceptance of finitude. So it's a focus on what's important. And I feel for myself that pretty much I've done that. Well, like in my 60s and 70s, I've been so creative, you know, I was like, socially creative. I started all sorts of projects. I'd like, I had a podcast. And, you know, it's like anything I wanted to do. I just felt like, okay, I can do that. And now I think there's maybe one or two more big things. I have a book that I wrote years ago that never got published. And, you know, it just sits there yammering, you know, And I always wanted to do a solo show, and I'm now doing, you know, I'm now underway. And, yeah, I've done a lot of work reconciling with my family. I don't feel like I've done a lot of work on that, you know, for several years. Just this coming of aging thing is like, oh, the people I left in the dust, the people who cared about me that I didn't care about, the people I crossed. And I didn't think I was crossing them. I just thought that I was doing what I wanted to do, you know, that's big work. So I feel like I've done a lot of that. And this solo show came up recently. I thought if I'm gonna do it, it's gonna happen, you know, because I might not even be able to memorize a script later. So I don't know. I sort of feel like life is. It's an unfolding, you know, like something comes and I give myself to it. I recognize, okay, this is on my path and I give myself to it, whether it's inner work or something on the outer. And then in giving myself to it, somehow or another, I complete that bubble of desire. And then I get to the edge of it and it's in the past and it's done. And then I have a faith that the next thing that is mine to do, whether it's inner work or outer work, will present itself. You know, I feel like life is sort of like an endless packages that I'm opening on Christmas. Not quite, you know, I'm not that conscious, I'm not that liberated, but something like that. And so I don't know, after this solo show, I don't know, you know, I can imagine if I do it well, that I could take it on the road. I mean, that would be amazing. You know, there's all these conferences on gerontology. You know, there's lots of old people. There's lots of old boomers, you know, so it's sort of like another whole possibility of meaning making that is here. Yeah, I just. I don't know that you're asking questions that I don't have pat answers to. But, yeah, we're going to die, and we're all going to die incomplete. There's going to be unlived parts of ourselves and then, you know, when you think about it, a hundred years from now, this world is going to be populated with a whole different set of people, and it's not us. You know, when you're younger and you come into life, you think, ah, this is our world. I own the joint. And then you realize, oh, yeah, so that's a reckoning. I've worked on that reckoning, that indeed I will not be around. Indeed, in 100 years from now, there will probably be no trace of me in the visible world. There'll be just, you know, a few bones in the ground. But all of my importance or whatever it's been, it's all gone. You know, I can leave, you know, beautiful legacy. I can. Like, I could put my name on the building and then somebody will come along and rename it, you know, so it's like, we're gone. I'll be gone.
- [53:12]
Ginger
Yeah. I mean, you talk about another way that people do the thing that I was describing earlier where it's like, oh, well, when I think about getting old, I think about what an awesome, fit, beautiful old person I'm going to be. And I think there's another thing we do, which is when we talk about our legacy or like, here's what I'm going to leave behind. And that's wonderful, that's wonderful. But it also allows us to not maybe confront some of the stuff that we're talking about, which is, hey, that building that has your name on, maybe it will get renamed, maybe it won't, but it's crumbling to the ground at some point. Right. Like, at some point it's gone. And that understanding that can help us to love our life more.
- [53:56]
Vicki Robin
I agree. I mean, you know, I read once that monks were sent to sleep in graveyards to really start to get that. Yeah, yeah. I've known people who spend an awful lot of time on their will, you know, as their legacy, like who gets what piece of money or property and then a falling out happens and they have to rewrite their will or, you know, the organizations I'm going to give money to. You know, I don't know. It just now I haven't had children, so I don't have that focus on my. Something from. With my biology living on. But so, yeah, it's a task. It's a task. And we don't know. That's the other thing is. You do not know. You do not know. I have a friend, you know, this is the time. I mean, I have a friend who's now into deep dementia and she was funny, she was a writer. You know, it's like, it's impossible to think about that. She's lost that capacity. I have several friends who have Parkinson's, you know, who are really, they're doing their best. But I have more and more friends who've died. You know, so there's also sort of a natural process of more and more people dying. And so you start to understand that you're part of that flow. And I didn't have a lot of experience of people dying when I was young.
- [55:30]
Ginger
We can be really shielded from that too, and we can shield ourselves until I think a certain stage of life, and then that doesn't really work anymore.
- [55:40]
Vicki Robin
Right, right. So, yeah, it's adulting at a massive scale. Maturation. Adulting is maybe what you do in your 20s when you realize your parents aren't paying for you anymore. But maturation is this part of life where you realize that, you know, there are limits, that there are things that you may never be able to fix, that you did in the past, that your time is short, that your control over resources or people is, you know, I mean, I live in an earthquake zone. You know, this whole town could fall into the water. So, you know, we do our best to have guarantees, but there are no guarantees. And that's why you have to be really good at making new friends, you know, because your generation is falling off the edge.
- [56:31]
Ginger
Well, let's go ahead and wrap up. Vicki, thank you so much for being willing to have this conversation and to answer with some real answers. And let's end with you giving some advice to me. And, you know, I really appreciated at the beginning how you said, when I was 60, I thought a lot about how I could take care of the me that was 80. And so if we go back even farther, how do you think I, as a 46 year old person, how do you think I can take care of 80 year old me now?
- [57:10]
Vicki Robin
Oh, right. I was just thinking 65 year old person. Well, I would say it's not a bucket list, but I would say my 50s were the most powerful time in my life. I really, I wielded power, you know, in my own way. You know, I had the book, I traveled the world, I hobnobbed with, you know, leaders. I had something to say. And I see your 50s is like when you see a sailboat with a big spinnaker, you know, this big ballooned out sail in the front. That's what I feel like your 50s are. So I would say just whatever it is that you want to embody in this life, you know, whatever you're passionate about, whatever you want to taste, feel, you know, whatever difference you want to make, whatever it is that's there for you. It's not a question of, you know, scarcity. There's a scarcity of time. So get on it. It's like, use these years, especially for women, you know, because for women, being powerful when we're younger is. There are barriers to that. And I don't know if you're partnered or if you have children, but, you know, very often the child rearing part by your 50s is pretty much done. You can obsess about it all you want, but you don't need to. For me, that part of my life was so exciting, and I was thinking it was a little wild, you know, I started three big things all at once because I didn't really know better, you know, and I had a big appetite. I had a big appetite for the kind of experiences that I wanted to have, which was making a difference in the world. And I had the social credibility and I had the, you know, I had all of that. So that's what I would recommend. Just like, go for it in your 50s. And I'm not talking about a bucket list about, you know, you should go to the Taj Mahal. Unless you want to. I mean, if you've always wanted to be a biologist, you know, and study rare plants in the Amazon, this is the time. If you always wanted to go back and get a master's, this is the time. If there's some unlived part of yourself, this is the time to live it. That's what I would say. Love that.
- [59:38]
Ginger
Okay, we will put in the show notes Vicki's book and her blog. Check her out. She's wonderful. And thank you again.
- [59:46]
Vicki Robin
Yeah. And my podcast.
- [59:48]
Ginger
End your podcast.
- [59:49]
Vicki Robin
Yep.
- [59:50]
Jonathan
Bye, all. Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Choose a 5 community. If you haven't already. The best ways to get involved are first, subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player. Just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to choosefi.com subscribe and it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there. And I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsourced personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choose a five local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to choose a vi.com local and you'll find a list of all of Those cities in 20 plus countries all across the world. And if you're just getting started with FI or you have a family member or friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways choose a Fi episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the Fi community. And even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence. What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life? And then choose if I created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free. Just head to choosefi.comfi101 and again, thanks for listening.