← ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
Getting Personal with Personal Finance: Meghan & Ginger | Ep 550
00:46:51
Ginger interviews Meghan Combs, who shares her journey to financial independence after recently getting married. They discuss budgeting strategies, the significance of personal values in spending, and adapting financial goals amid life transitions....
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- [00:00]
A
Today I'm talking with Megan Combs, host of the Everyday Fi podcast. It's a show with a great mission to share the journeys of regular Fi people with us regular Fi people. I love this because I really can't get enough of other people's money stories. I'm inspired by Megan's guests, their smart choices, their creativity and courage, and I'm humbled by their willingness to share their mistakes. I wanted to talk to Megan because she's regular. She's one of us, but she's also fearless. Let's see if I can figure out why and how. You are all very welcome to listen in. And welcome to choose Fi. Megan.
- [00:44]
B
Hey. Hey.
- [00:45]
A
Welcome. And thank you so much for coming on the show.
- [00:48]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [00:49]
A
Did you just get married?
- [00:51]
B
I did on February 22, which is actually my birthday, too. And everybody's like, why did you get married on your birthday? But I don't know. Two presents.
- [01:02]
A
Congratulations.
- [01:03]
B
Thank you.
- [01:04]
A
How much was your wedding?
- [01:06]
B
So we eloped. Okay. And it's funny that you asked me that, because I literally just recorded an episode with Mitch about paying for a wedding, and that should be coming out probably end of March. I'm not sure when this episode is coming out, but that one's coming out end of March. And so I'm having a reception in November, and we're going to try to keep it under ten grand, but I go into details with that episode. So. Sorry to, like, self promote right away, but literally we just recorded it last weekend, so we want to know.
- [01:39]
A
Hearing about people's wedding budgets is, like, one of those, like, guilty pleasures I love. Well, really, I love to judge them. Right. You should get a house instead. Yeah. But it's always so fascinating to me how much people that experience like, that is interesting. Judgments aside. Right. Like, just how differently we can value that experience. And I'm an experienced person. Right. So I shouldn't be judgy about it. Where do you kind of fall on that continuum? Yeah, I guess lower end. You're like 10,000, which I think today is, like, you know, extremely reasonable for a wedding or a wedding reception.
- [02:19]
B
Well, it's funny because Mitch was like, that's what we paid for our wedding. And I think they had 180 guests, and we're only going to have, like, 55. But that's. He had his wedding, like, 10 years ago, so that's inflation and all that. So we want it to be less because we value other things outside of just having, like, the fancy everything. We knew we wanted to Party with our friends. So we were like, okay, so let's have some good food, a nice venue and a dj. But what's the way that we can get this, you know, under budget? And the venue was the easy part because there's like a botanical garden at UNC Chapel Hill that's super cheap and it's like covered in beautiful plants and it's a huge space. And it was 1500 bucks for like six hours. It was super cheap. And then they already had a list of caterers that we had to use, so. Done. And the DJ really wasn't that much. And that was it. Like everything else. We're going to diy. I already got my dress because that's the same dress for the elopement, which wasn't very much. My mom actually paid for the dress, but it was under 200 bucks. It was not very expensive, but that's it. That's all we paid for. And yeah, it's going to stay under 10 grand. I think the way to keep it under 10 grand, though, is to keep your guest list as tight as possible because the catering budget can get a little wild because it's around 80 to 90 a person. And so if you can get your guest list down, then you can get your cost down. Yeah, but that's one thing that Mitch and I talked about. And like, I know in the FI community, we're all about budgeting and keeping things and. Oh, we don't understand why people want big weddings. But we were talking about family expectations because there are a lot of people who have either family money going into the wedding, so the parents might have expectations about what the wedding needs to be, or it's a very large traditional family that has specific traditions. I'm thinking Greek or Italian families who want every single cousin who's ever existed to come to the wedding. So we were trying to be a little bit more open minded about why people might spend a lot on a wedding. But then of course, there's the other side of like keeping up with the Joneses.
- [04:27]
A
So the pictures. This is making me think of my wedding, which was a hundred years ago. And here's my big hack for cutting costs. My dress was a bridesmaid's dress that I had made in ivory because I just wanted a simple dress and it worked out great. And it was also like 100 and some dollars. So. Hot tip.
- [04:49]
B
Yeah. Mine's not a wedding dress technically either.
- [04:52]
A
No, I figured under the two white dress.
- [04:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [04:55]
A
Well done. Well done. Okay. Well, one of the many reasons I wanted to talk to you is because I think you are at an interesting place in your fi. Journey that we don't hear about very much. Like, we hear about people who are just got on board and they're getting out of debt and sort of making a plan. And then we hear about people who are like, I need to know my drawdown strategy because I have so much money and the time is here. Right. And you are. You were not in one of those places. And I've heard you on your podcast, so I knew you would be open to it. Maybe, but I know you said you're an open book. So tell us, Megan, what is your net worth?
- [05:33]
B
Yeah, so now that I got married, it's a lot higher, which is super nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just checked it today because we have Monarch. We just signed up for it as a couple, and my husband made me so much richer. It's so nice. And it's $527,000, so about half a million. And he was floored when he saw that. He was like, megan, we have almost a million in assets. And I was like, yeah, honey, but do you see the liability? We're not at a million dollars. And he's like, oh, okay. What I like about Marnark too, is that it does percentages of like, here's how much your cash is of your whole portfolio and here's how much. So ours is like 70% real estate. We both own homes, and we both put quite a bit of down payment on it. So mine was 20%, his was like 10. So that's where the majority of it lies. So I think what's hard is like our investment balance, like our quote unquote liquid net worth, meaning something that we could sell and take. The cash right now is more in the three hundreds. And I'm 38 and he's 36. So I'm here to make everybody feel better about their numbers. Your numbers are awesome because we're not all 30 year olds who have a million dollar net worth in this community. Right?
- [06:51]
A
Yeah. So what percentage of your fine number is your net worth right now?
- [06:57]
B
It's so hard to know because we. It changes. Right? So, like, if you would have asked me, I don't know, five years ago, my phi number was probably around a million. And now we're like, moving on, I think. What? Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm thinking about it. So it's not that our expenses have gone up. It's more that we're like, what kind of life do we Want to live. And so I think a million or a million and a half would be awesome. But what we would do is do the Coastify thing and work part time. So our goal is by 2030 to quit corporate so no longer have full time high stress jobs. You know, he would love to work at like a rock climbing gym and I would love to just do the barista FY thing because I used to be a barista back in the day, but still have the ability that like, if they ask us to work holidays that we don't want to work, we can still say no and if they fire us, whatever.
- [07:53]
A
Yeah.
- [07:53]
B
So that's the kind of life that we're aiming towards for 2030. Now. One problem with that, and I'm going to throw a little wrench in our conversation here is the IVF that we're going through now and the fact that like my HSA was part of the plan for early retirement. Now the, you know, the balance wasn't huge, but it was around 40 grand between the two of us because we were maxing it out every year, both of us. But now we're going to have to use that for IVF and potentially donor egg. And it's very expensive. So it's funny how that goes. And then just kids in general are expensive. Like I had not planned to do that five years ago, have kids. And then when I met Chris and realized, oh, hey, here's a human being I would actually like to spend my life with and who I could parent a child with, we deviated and we're like, yeah, let's do kids. Yeah. So it changes. And I think that's okay if your phi number changes.
- [08:47]
A
Yeah. It's so hard to know, like to guess how much your child is going to cost you.
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B
And it's so hard to know what you're gonna want and need when you're in your 50s and 60s, when you're in your 30s too.
- [09:00]
A
Lose it. Absolutely, I agree. Okay, I wanna talk about that. But first I wanna go back to. You're gonna leave corporate. Like, I am dying to know what you do, Megan. Yeah, I know, I know you work in tech.
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B
Yeah.
- [09:15]
A
All these people are like, I work in tech. What does that mean? Like, what literally, what do you do? Coming from someone who I've always had jobs that like a five year old could understand. Right. Like, I'm a teacher, I'm a counselor. Right. What are you guys doing all day?
- [09:32]
B
Okay, so everybody listening. Take a shot of espresso because you're going to get Bored really fast. No, I'm a product manager, not a project manager. I just want to make that very clear. They are very distinct, different things. A product manager has so many duties that it's basically unsustainable as a job. But our biggest aim is to create products that serve customers and make money for the business. So we are there at the beginning of a product. We're doing all the market research, we're doing sometimes pricing, we're doing experiments, we're doing user interviews, we're talking to stakeholders, which are people who are in the company, marketing, sales support, et cetera, to understand customer pain points. Then we take all of that information and we say, what kind of product or feature can we build now? And then we go to our engineering partners, our engineering lead, things like that, and say, hey, this is what we want to build. Also, I don't want to forget design. We also have design in there. They usually design it for us and do that if it's a visual product. And then we oversee delivery. So we make sure that timelines are being met, we make sure that the business logic is understood by all of the developers, and we make sure that the approach is going to fit within the roadmap and things like that. And sometimes we have to prioritize and deprioritize things as a quarter goes on. And then once the product launches, we have to set the sales and support and customer success teams up for success and give them all of the details about the product. We have to tell them what it does. We have to tell them if there's any bugs being launched with it that we decided not to fix and how to do a workaround for them. We have to help create support articles and sales pitches and things like that. And then even after that, we have to track what are called KPIs or success metrics. And so we have to measure the product and make sure that it is actually doing what it's supposed to be doing. And if it's not, then we need to iterate. And that is the entire job of a product manager. A lot. It's a lot.
- [11:52]
A
You're virtual, right? You're working online. Okay? You get up in the morning, you log on. How do you know what to do? Like, you just told me, like, 40 things.
- [12:02]
B
Yeah, there's 40 things you do every day. It really depends on the priority of the day, of the week, of the month. So, like, for instance, today, seriously, if everybody's bored, just, you know, come back later in 10 minutes. But so right now we're running some betas and some pilot programs because we have a product at my company that's not fully generally available. We call it gaap. So we are beta testing it with some customers. And so I am in charge of one of the customers, setting them up and working with our onboarding team to get them onboarded onto our product. And so I have to look at, okay, what are the processes they have, what can we provide and what are the gaps? And I have to document all of those gaps. And then I had to create a phase document of like, okay, this is the first phase, the pilot program. What's the second phase? What other features will they need down the road? And what's the third phase? What can they wait for? But we need to put it in our backlog. So I did that. And then I also worked on the Q2 planning because Q2 is coming up. And so we have a roadmap. And so it was me and the group product manager, who's my boss, who worked on that today. And then I also wrote some requirements for another feature that I own. So it's. There's a lot, but I, you know, I just knew that's what I needed to do because it's. What's the most urgent right now. So.
- [13:17]
A
Okay, one more question and then we can move on, which is like, other people in your industry talk this way, like, what is with the product? Like, the general. Is that like, industry standard? We can't say what we're actually working on?
- [13:34]
B
Oh, I can tell you. Yeah. I mean, but the thing is what they do in my industry is they put acronyms on everything, so you're not even going to necessarily know what it means. And it's also very industry specific. So we work for property managers in real estate. And so we are creating a product called Resident Onboarding that helps property managers create leases, send them to the residents, and then the residents can sign them. And then the residents can also sign up for our actual available product, the resident benefits package, and which is how we're making money. And so the resident onboarding side is the side that's not available yet. So feel free to cut all that out. If you want to cut all that out, that's fine. But, like, that's what the product is.
- [14:20]
A
No, like, now you're saying words that give me an idea of what you're talking about. I just feel like when people talk about this, it's like so general that I'm like, I don't. I still don't know. I still have no idea. So that's really helpful. Like, okay, I can get.
- [14:34]
B
And I can tell you why. It's because every single company is different. So, like, the way that I talk about this current company and this current product is totally different than how I would have talked about it at my other jobs, because it was a different product, it was a different problem set. I mean, if people are listening to this and they want to get into tech, but they don't want to be a developer and they want to make really good money, be a product manager, but just know you're going to work nights, so.
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A
And so how would they do that? Like, how did you learn how to do those things? And how did you kind of get your foot in the door?
- [15:07]
B
Yeah, I talked a little bit about this on one of my episodes called Career Transitions. But I used to be an art historian in New York City and that was not working out. And so I pivoted, which is an industry term that we use. We use pivot all the time. And I pivoted to tech by taking a coding boot camp in 2017. And I will say that I'm not sure if that's a viable way to do it anymore. I mean, it was eight years ago. And the trend that I'm seeing for developers and programmers is that it's being outsourced to cheaper countries. So almost all of our developers are either in Eastern Europe or the Philippines.
- [15:52]
A
Okay.
- [15:53]
B
Or South America. And so I think we have maybe five in house developers out of a company of 300. So I would just take that under consideration. But anyway, I did this bootcamp. I got a. Actually, this is kind of a fun story. So when I was done with the Bootcamp, the hardest part is getting that first job. Right. Cause you don't have any experience. And some companies at that time were actually looking at Bootcamp experience as experience, and they wanted to bring on really green people so they could mold them into what they wanted. And I was lucky enough that I was done with Bootcamp and I was searching for jobs. And I knew that there was a tech fair going on at NC State. And at the time NC State was about two hours away from where I was living. And it was kind of in the morning. It started at eight and went about. Till about one. And you know, I had that moment where I woke up in the morning and I was like, do I really want to go? I really want to stay in bed. And I was like, no, just go. You don't know what's going to happen. And I was right. I Met people, recruiters from the company who was my first company. But that's not where the story ends. So they took my resume, which I was very lucky too, that my coding bootcamp brand colors were the exact same brand colors as this company. So they were super into that. So my resume was like this brand color. So they brought me into interview. And the thing is, is the coding bootcamp that I did the tech stack, which basically just means the programming language that I learned was different than what they used in the company. And so at first they passed and said, nevermind. So I messaged all the people I interviewed with, one of them being the head of quality assurance. And the funny thing there is I actually wasn't supposed to be interviewing with him. I was supposed to be interviewing with the cto, but he had been out of town at the time. So it was kind of a turn of fate that I interviewed with this guy. He and I clicked really well. And I messaged him and one of the other people that I interviewed with and I said, hey, what about this? You know, I really love this company. I'm really willing to learn. What if I came on as like a volunteer or an unpaid intern? Like, you don't even have to pay me. Let me just show you what I got. And they were like, you know what, we're going to take you up on that offer, but we are going to pay you $15 an hour. I was 31, so they did that and they paid me that and let me show them what I had for six months. And I realized that I was much better at quality assurance than developing. And so that's what I did. I did qa. And they brought me on full time because I was working my butt off. I was a little scrappy youngin back then. And I noticed that the product managers had such a cool job because I was like, you guys get to do all the problem solving and the creative work. And the product managers there were actually technically part time. They worked three to four days a week. And so I saw a gap and I had a little bit of downtime sometimes. And so I was like, hey, can I fill in some of these gaps? Because I'd love to learn this side of the company. And they were like, yeah, sure. So I did that for about six months, and then they hired a new VP of product. And I told her, hey, I want to be a product manager. What do I need to do? And she was like, yes, okay, let's make that happen. And about a year later is when they brought me on as an associate product manager. And so it's just been that way ever since. So, yeah, I don't know what people can learn out of that, but it's basically just like if you see something you love, get into it, ask if you can do it and tell the people who matter what your goals are because they might want to help you.
- [19:32]
A
Yeah, no, I think that is really helpful. Yeah. Okay, well, let's go back to sort of where you are on your FI journey. What kind of got you interested in this community and got you interested in pursuing financial independence?
- [19:48]
B
Yeah, so I got into personal finance back in New York because I was a mess with my money. I had credit card debt like any young 20 something did. And I paid that off without even like getting into personal finance content. I just was like, I need to stop doing this and feel great. Yeah, I got my head on my shoulders. But then I. I don't. I wish I remembered the catalyst to getting me to listening to finance podcasts. But I do remember the first one was her Money with Jean Chassis. She's one of my favorites. I have kind of evolved from that one because it's still like, that advice is really good for beginners and sometimes I'll listen to it just because it's very nostalgic. But the advice is usually pretty similar to what she said over several years that she's been around. So I've been listening to her for several years and she brought on Brad and Jonathan from Choose a Fi to her show and I was listening to them and I was like, wait a second. There's a way that you can just not have a job. That sounds awesome because I. I'm one of those kind of weird people who has never really connected with work. You know, I've never really wanted to work and like, I don't count everyday fi, like, that's fun. But going to a job and having to be at a certain place at a certain time or you don't get money, like, I hate it. So I was like, this is the answer. So I am one of those people who's like, yes, I want to actually quit, quit one day and, you know, we'll do that whole Barista Phi thing for as long as sustainable. But if there's a point where I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm just going to be like, how can we make this work where I don't have to work anymore? So, yeah, that's what attracted me to it. And I just binged all of their content for about a year. And I think I got caught up in. In about a year, maybe. Maybe faster than that. But that was, I think, like, around February 2019. And I only remember that because I think I set up, like, a payment plan for a student loan with my mom at the same time, and so I can just track it back to that, like, beginning of that loan. So. Yeah.
- [21:57]
A
So what changes did you make when you were listening? Did you start to save a lot more money? Did you start to track your savings, or what did that look like for you?
- [22:05]
B
Yeah, I think I was already tracking my expenses through Mint at the time, But I definitely started doing the typical thing that we all do when we find the fire movement is just cut ruthlessly. And then I started feeling very deprived. And I did that for a few years, actually. Like, I did it to the point where when I found their podcast, I was living in an apartment, renting. And, you know, I listened to the house hacking stuff, and I was like, oh, I can do that. And I bought a condo that was literally the condo complex right next to my apartment. So I just bought a condo and got a roommate. My expenses were really, really low, but the problem was, is I hated both roommates that I chose. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. I'm terrible at choosing roommates. I am either a bad judge of character or I just trust that everybody's, like, a good person when not everybody is. So, anyway, so that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. And then the condo was really not a good buy, in my opinion. Like, I didn't like it. And so I was doing all this house hacking. But during all of that, I met Chris. And Chris lives in a city that's maybe 20, 30 minutes from where I lived. And so I really wanted to be closer to him because we were only seeing each other on weekends. And then I got a job that was in Durham, and I was living in Raleigh. And anybody who's from this area knows that it's kind of like Dallas Fort Worth. It's there next to each other, but it's still kind of far. So I was like, you know what? I hate this condo. Let's sell it. And so I started looking for a single family home, and I found one in Durham and actually got to sell the condo for quite a bit of money. But that was the end of my frugal lifestyle, because this house is definitely not cheap. So I did it for a little while, and then I started realizing, you know what? I think I want to live a life that makes me Happy, you know, because I wasn't. I wasn't happy. I was saving a crap ton of money, but I wasn't happy, you know?
- [24:10]
A
Yeah.
- [24:10]
B
I mean, I got my housing payment down to like $400 a month. It was crazy. But I just was not. I was not happy.
- [24:18]
A
You're such an actor. Like, you, like, do things. Like I was trying to get it at the beginning, right. About your fearlessness. Even just heard from only talking to you for 20 minutes. Right. You're like, I need a different job, so I'm going to go do something totally different. Right. I heard this podcast. So I'm going to buy a condo. Wait, I'm gonna sell a condo. Like, you do all of these things that I feel like other people will sit on for a really long time. Do you think that is, like part of your personality or is that something you have cultivated? Because I think that's a thing that a lot of people wish that they had.
- [24:53]
B
Yeah. It's funny because I sometimes see it as impetuousness and so I don't always celebrate it, but I think I need to get away from that and say that, like, I'm a doer.
- [25:05]
A
Yeah.
- [25:06]
B
I do not. Like, if I'm unhappy in a situation, I'm going to change it and I'm going to change it pretty quickly.
- [25:11]
A
Yeah.
- [25:11]
B
I think the only problem with that is when I. I'm letting my emotions drive a little more than I probably should. Like, I could probably let the other side of my brain take a little bit of the reins and maybe wait a little bit. And I'm getting better as I get older. Like now, just for an example, we are looking at, you know, we do potentially want to upgrade. Not upgrade, but just enlarge in the house. Because this house is quite small. It's a two bedroom, one bath and the one, the bathroom is so small, we like elbow each other while we're brushing our teeth. I was like, can you imagine trying to bathe a baby in here? And he was like, no. So we are looking at that, but we are taking our time. We are being very firm with our real estate agent about timeline, about needs, about price. And we're being very thoughtful. Now. I put that all towards Chris. He's a very, very thoughtful person. So we balance each other. I'm the impetuous one, he's the thoughtful one. So I don't know if I cultivated that. I think, like you said, that's just kind of who I am. I did move around a lot as a kid, so change Is my normal.
- [26:15]
A
There we go. There it is.
- [26:18]
B
Can you tell I've been in therapy? Yeah.
- [26:24]
A
But look what that has afforded you. Right? To be able to make changes like that. Right. And to not maybe get overly attached to the things in your life that are not good for you.
- [26:34]
B
Yeah, exactly. It's. I think I need to do better at priding myself on doing that. One example that I do pride myself on is when I got into my master's program. I moved to New York City without knowing anybody, and I made that decision within a few months. You know, I got into the school, and I was like, let's do it. I've never been here. I've never lived here. It's a little scary, but let's do it. I love it. And it was the best seven years of my life. Like, some of the. One of the best seven years right now is probably really the best seven years, but it's close.
- [27:03]
A
Second, I have been thinking about whether my family should take a year and go do something interesting, like live in Costa Rica. I have been thinking about this for years, and eventually we'll all just be dead, and then I won't have to make that decision. Like, I am on the far other end, where it's like, oh, I just do all the pros and cons and think it to death. And so definitely I wish I could move a little bit. A little bit more quickly.
- [27:32]
B
Do you think something's holding you back, though?
- [27:36]
A
Yeah, Megan, I think a lot of things are holding me back. But are those, like, good things? Are those, like, I want to make a good decision, and I feel like I don't have enough information to make a good decision. But, of course, the problem is I will never have. I will never have enough information. And so I want to make sure that I don't get paralyzed and that that paralysis doesn't become the thing that makes the decision, you know, like I said, because eventually we're going to run out of time. Like, if we want to do this with our child, then he has to be a child, you know?
- [28:10]
B
So what does a good decision mean to you?
- [28:14]
A
Well, I recognize that doing something like this is big, and that there are real risks. And so I want to give those risks, like, proper weight. And so I know it's really easy to think, oh, we'll just do it, because if it's terrible, then whatever, you can go back to your old life. But it would mean really changing my job. Maybe I think it could be good for my kid. Maybe it would be terrible for My kid. Right. Like, I just don't know. And my husband's job is another thing that it would mean walking away from the current position. So it's like, there are real stakes, and it's hard to know without seeing into the future whether those risks are worth taking.
- [29:02]
B
Have you considered the Alan Donegan or the Donegan approach of play? Testing it, experimenting, Maybe taking a sabbatical for, like, a month and trying it.
- [29:14]
A
I mean, I don't think it's doable just because of the things that would have to change. They would have to change if we took a month versus what we took, 12 months. Yeah. Like, I can't take a month off of my job. Right. Or I can't move my kid out of school for a month. I mean, maybe you could. Maybe you could make that part work. But, yeah, it's something I've thought about in terms of, like, well, does it have to be a year? But it's like, well, if you're gonna, like, change your whole life, then I want to be able to rent out the house. I want to be able to. You know, so there's all these different sort of factors that are coming into play. Yeah.
- [29:53]
B
I think if you were able to, like, set up an easy path backwards, if the risks did become too much, that might make you feel better about it. I don't know. Just a thought.
- [30:03]
A
Yeah. The thing I'm always thinking about is, like, the deathbed thing, but I don't know if that is. I wrestle with whether or not that's a good way to make decisions, but I am thinking about, like, gosh, I'm at this stage in my life where I could still do some big, big moves, some big things. Right. And I don't know, am I going to regret it if I don't? I'm not sure. But this makes me think of another thing that I wanted to talk to you about, because I heard you talking on the. On your podcast about how you didn't always feel like you knew yourself well. And I could so relate to that. And I think a lot of people can, or even if they can't, like, they have a blind spot about having a blind spot. And so I just think it's a kind of an interesting thing to explore, like, those things that we don't know about ourselves. And I think even around money, like, am I frugal? Am I a minimalist? I don't know. Like, why can't I answer those questions? But I feel like you kind of know what I'm talking about. A little bit. So I wonder, what does that look like for you in terms of money stuff? Like, where are the parts where you're like, I don't really know myself? Yeah.
- [31:19]
B
I think it's less that we don't know ourselves and those of us who feel that way. I wonder if it's more that we just are adaptable and we adapt to change. And so because we're changing on a regular basis, we're not consistent or constant. And so there's this thing where people have this identity, and they have this identity with money. They have it with diet and exercise and health. They have it with their job. They have it as like a parent. People have this identity. And I have never connected with a, like, identity. There are things that I am interested in. There are things that I do. There's things that I care about. But me as Megan.
- [32:04]
A
Yeah.
- [32:05]
B
Like, my identity is fluid. And so when I think about money, I think that's actually a better way to look at it, is keeping it fluid, because life is fluid. If you're just like, I'm frugal, then you run into the trap of somebody like Paula Pant, where she realized, oh, my extreme frugalness made me miss out on so many opportunities to spend time with my family because I wouldn't spend $200 on a plane ticket to go see them. And if you're like, I am a spender, then it stops you from potentially learning new and better habits to have a healthier money life.
- [32:45]
A
Right.
- [32:45]
B
Because you have this identity as a frugal person or a spender. So I don't like to have a money identity. I like to say that I'm money fluid. And I literally just came up with all that bull right now.
- [33:01]
A
Just so you know, I. No, I appreciate the way you're talking about it. I think it's really smart to think about, like, this isn't necess. Like, all this is speaking to is the fact that we change and that we have many parts to ourselves. And one part that I always get hung up on is I'm like, well, am I frugal compared to what? Like, compared to who? And so it's really hard to sort of form your own identity without who are you kind of bumping up against?
- [33:32]
B
Yeah. And that are you frugal compared to an outside person from you, or are you frugal compared to who you used to be? You know, I think the only comparison that we can ever do and it still robs you of joy, of course, is to yourself. Right. Just And I say, it still robs you of joy. Because when I look at pictures of myself at 25, I'm like, damn, I looked good. And then I'm like, I've gained so much weight. No, but, yeah, it's. I didn't have any other point with that, but. Sorry.
- [34:06]
A
Well, okay. So part of my trying to understand myself and my relationship to money better is that this is the year that I'm budgeting. Like, hardcore budgeting, Monarch money budgeting. And the reason I haven't done it before is because we're pretty. Like, I don't really feel like we need to. Like, we kind of have our little things that we spend money on, and none of them are extravagant, so it's not a big deal. But I also sense that if I were to really look at it, if I were to really come face to face with some of these things that I'm valuing with my dollars, but I don't think of them as values. Right. That that would really change my behavior. And it kind of freaks me out to think, well, if I really forced myself to look at this, then things would change. And that says something too. You're hiding parts of yourself from yourself, right?
- [35:00]
B
Yeah.
- [35:01]
A
So I don't know. What do you think about budgeting? Are there surprising things in it for you, or does it teach you something about who you are or what you value?
- [35:10]
B
It teaches me that my brain is like everybody else's, and it likes the little dopamine hits. Like seeing the budget item and seeing that you're either under it or at it. And then when you go over, you're like, no, but I. I don't think it changes behavior.
- [35:29]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [35:30]
B
Behavioral science is one of my passions. And behavioral science goes into so many things. It goes into money, it goes into health. It goes into product management, too. And when it comes to things like money, you know, it's. Budgets are an indicator of, okay, here's where I want to go. But it's not actually putting any guardrails in place. Right. So it's not like setting up your savings automatically and having it taken out of your paycheck. So that's one thing that did work for me. I actually made a little bit of a mistake with my paycheck, so I wanted to save more of an emergency fund. And so I was like, okay, I want to save $500 a month. But instead of doing $500 a month, I did accidentally $500 a paycheck. And the process to, like, do all of that takes a Little bit of time. So there's some barrier to entry to, like, set it up. But then there's barrier to entry to change it, too, which is nice. And so I just left it. And I'm like, it's okay. It's actually working out pretty well. And so that's like forcing me to change. But a budget. There's no. I mean, unless, like, I just would love to pitch this as a product. Like, if there was a card, like a debit card that could come along with your budget. And you set a budget and your debit card is like, nope, you can't spend any more money because you already overdid it on shopping this month. Sorry. That would work, right? Because when you're sitting there swiping, you're not going and looking at your budget and saying, okay, I have $21 left. Okay. I can go on Amazon and find this $19 thing. Okay, I can buy that. Because tax. Nobody's doing that. Right?
- [37:08]
A
Yeah.
- [37:09]
B
So that's why I don't really think budgets for me are helpful.
- [37:13]
A
Yeah, No, I think that's so smart to think of it in terms of. There's not really a guardrail.
- [37:19]
B
Yeah. I mean, when you look at studies like the 401k thing, where if you have employees who come on board and whether they're opted in or out, the amount of people who actually save in their 401k dramatically increases when they have to opt out versus opting in. That's behavioral science. We are the kind of species that need things that are good for us to be easily accessible and things that are bad for us to have a lot of barriers. It's the same for health. Health is harder. Health is so much harder. You can't automate your diet. You know, I tried. I tried with, like, those meal plans.
- [38:00]
A
Yeah.
- [38:01]
B
And they were fine. But they were so expensive. They were so expensive. And I still ate other crap outside of the meal plan, so it didn't really work either.
- [38:10]
A
Yeah. Okay. Well, I hear what you're saying. I think it's really smart. I think I have an added barrier, though, or an added. What was the word you use? Guardrail.
- [38:21]
B
So the guardrail is like, making sure you're staying on track. The barrier is like, you don't want to do this thing.
- [38:27]
A
Sure, sure. Okay. I think it might change my behavior in that now my husband can see every stupid coffee I buy.
- [38:37]
B
Yes, that's such a good point. That is such a good point, because I will say that I am way more aware of what I buy. Now that Chris can go in and look at Monarch.
- [38:46]
A
Yeah.
- [38:47]
B
The hilarious thing is, is I know he's not going in there and looking at anything. He doesn't care. But he could. But he could.
- [38:52]
A
There could be a witness.
- [38:54]
B
Exactly. And there's something to be said for accountability. I mean, that's why they say for people who don't want to go work out, you know what, Get a buddy involved. Because now you're not committing to you. You're committing to that person. Now you're accountable to that one. And if you don't show up, that means you're a flake. And do you want to be a flake?
- [39:11]
A
No. Yeah. To me, yes, I'm happy to have the eyes, because. Yeah. I think I have some money, and I. If I was just looking at it and someone else was looking at it, it would be bigger. Yeah.
- [39:23]
B
I can't look at money. Like, if I look at anything and it says, oh, you have $26,000 of cash. I'm like, hell, yeah. Let's, like, buy all the stuff. It's bad. It's bad. My brain likes the dopamine. It's like, oh, this top is cute. Buy it.
- [39:41]
A
Yeah. Okay. This is perfect. Transition to what I want to talk about next, which is. But here you are on a personal finance podcast.
- [39:49]
B
I know. What am I doing?
- [39:50]
A
You have goals. Like, you have ambitious goals. And I know that the biggest thing or one of the big things that's getting you there is your awesome salary, but are there? And I say sort of, right, Because I know that people can have awesome salaries, and then they can spend them. All right, so that's not the whole story. But what are the things that you are doing that help you to get to those ambitious numbers? How do you save?
- [40:19]
B
Yeah. So I mentioned this a little bit, that automating it out of my paycheck, just making sure that it comes out of the paycheck before I see it, that's the biggest thing. And I will say that my big salary is relatively recent as of a year.
- [40:32]
A
Okay.
- [40:33]
B
So that's what this job. This job started March 19th of 2024, and that's when I got the big salary. Now, my salary before that was decent, too. It was six figures, but it was like 100,000. Now it's 150,000, and I'm fine sharing numbers. And then with Chris's salary on top of that, it's grown even more. Right. Within the last couple weeks. But, yeah, it's boring. I know. Everybody keeps hearing it. There's no tricks, y' all. It's the same as a health journey. You automate your savings, and you make sure to think very critically. Not critically, but just, like, think about your values when you're buying things. Not the little things. Like, the little things like buying a coffee here and there, I don't think is a big deal. I know we in this community have demonized that in the past, but I don't think it's a big deal to get a Starbucks here and there. But big things like houses and cars, food, those. As long as you keep to your values and your true values, not your, ooh, pretty shiny Joneses. Your true values, then I think everything's gonna be fine.
- [41:40]
A
Yeah.
- [41:41]
B
And then, like I said, with health, like, it's, you know, diet, exercise, eat more leafy greens, eat more fruits and vegetables and nuts and fish. You know, there it is. That's it. That's all you gotta do is sleep good. And it's. It's boring. But it's boring. Cause it works.
- [41:57]
A
Yeah.
- [41:57]
B
Yeah. But, yeah, just to be more specific, I max out my 401k because I wanna do the Roth ladder. I max out the hsa. Even while I'm spending it down, I'm still putting into it because it's the tax benefit.
- [42:11]
A
Yeah.
- [42:11]
B
And then I'm doing that thousand dollars a month to cash savings because I don't have as much cash savings as I should. And then once our cash savings gets up to six months, we're going to pivot that to a brokerage account. And I think I'm putting, like, a hundred bucks into the brokerage, too, just to grease the wheels, get it going. Yeah.
- [42:33]
A
Oh, that's helpful. Well, let's end so you said that's really boring. So let's end on, like, the fun things that Megan will splurge on. Like, what are things that are aligned with your values that you are happy to spend money on? Yeah.
- [42:50]
B
And this is, again, probably going to be a typical answer, but travel. You know, Chris and I, we like to travel. I don't think we'd ever be, like, nomads or anything, but, you know, we're going to campfi Sp. Spain, and we're really excited about that. I'm excited for everybody to meet him. And he's gonna. I'm so ready for this. Because he's gonna be like, how does everybody already know who I am? And I'm like, because I talk about you on my podcast every day, so that's gonna be fun. And then I'm going To Egypt, hopefully in October. And so did you say how.
- [43:24]
A
Wow.
- [43:24]
B
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that one I'm very excited about. And it's really funny because, like, with the ivf, like, I could technically be pregnant right now, and then I'd have to say, I can't go to that trip because I would be too pregnant to get on a plane. But it's like, I don't want to not. Not be pregnant. You know? Like, it's a weird little dichotomy of feelings right there. But, yeah, that's one of the travel. And then we're going to Colorado this summer for, like, a little family reunion. And we just. We just like to travel. We like to get out of town and do stuff. And, you know, we try to do it on a budget. We're not really points hacker people. I don't really want to spend my time doing that crap. I'm sorry. I don't.
- [44:05]
A
Like.
- [44:05]
B
I will just look for the cheap ticket and I'll just buy it. It's fine.
- [44:09]
A
Yeah. It's so exhausting.
- [44:10]
B
Yeah. Super good enough. Super good enough, as my husband likes to say. So, yeah, that's what we probably splurge on the most. And, you know, gardening supplies. Yes. I bought $140 worth of flowers, and I could not figure out where to plant them because I have so many flowers already planted. So that was. Yeah.
- [44:30]
A
Love it. Do you plant vegetables?
- [44:32]
B
I try. They always get eaten by bugs. And I don't know how to stop that because I'm like, I don't really want to put, like, pesticides on them.
- [44:41]
A
Yeah.
- [44:42]
B
But I guess I could.
- [44:43]
A
You have to get the right bugs to eat the bad bugs.
- [44:47]
B
Exactly. And I don't know what that is or what that means.
- [44:50]
A
Yeah. And then it's, like, kind of expensive. I have a huge vegetable garden, which I'm very proud of. But you know what? I don't know that it saves us any money. And so this year, it would be, like, so great if it did, but there's always things like, oh, I have to get the special bugs, and.
- [45:06]
B
Oh, yeah. I mostly do it because I want to see if I can. You know, I love eating kale. There's no way I would grow the amount of kale that I eat. And I love it unironically, by the way. I really do like it. People are probably like, whatever, millennial weirdo. But I really do like kale. And so I'm trying to grow it and some spinach, because I'll actually eat It. But literally, like once the plant gets to maturity, I can eat that one plant in two days and then I have to wait several weeks for it to come back. So there's no way I'd ever grow enough. But it's more just to see if I could grow it. Yeah, the flowers are easier because then you're like, look at how beautiful and lovely these flowers are every single year.
- [45:45]
A
Very satisfying. All right, Megan, thank you so much for joining me today and for telling us about your journey.
- [45:53]
B
Sure.
- [45:54]
A
And I bet so many people in our audience have checked out your podcast, but if not, we will link it in the show notes. And is there anywhere else that people should come find you? I guess they should find you in Spain at campfire.
- [46:08]
B
Yeah, campfire, Spain. I'll be there. Week two. So what is that? April 27th I think is when it starts, so. Or 28th, something like that. Yeah. So week two and the website for the podcast, if you also want to find it, there is everyday-fi.com and you can find like the Spotify, the Apple and the. I even have YouTube. I don't put any of the videos on there, but I do put the recording. So yeah, that's how you can find me. I'm not on social media anymore. I got off social media.
- [46:40]
A
Good for you. Good for you.
- [46:42]
B
So much better for my mental health. So, yeah.
- [46:45]
A
All right, thanks everyone and we will talk soon.
- [46:49]
B
Yeah, thanks.
- [46:51]
C
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 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 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 VI 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 in 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.