Living Off the 4% Rule | Marla Taner | Ep 560

Summary

ChooseFI Podcast Episode 560 Summary

Title: Living Off the 4% Rule | Marla Taner
Release Date: August 18, 2025
Hosts: Brad & Jonathan
Guest: Marla Taner

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the realities and psychology of reaching Financial Independence (FI) and living off the 4% rule, featuring the lived experience of Marla Taner—a long-term member of the FI community who retired in 2013. Brad and Marla analyze not only the mechanics, numbers, and withdrawal strategies of asset decumulation, but also the emotional hurdles and practical life adjustments that come with hitting FI. The conversation is packed with actionable insights, myth-busting, candid admissions, and inspiring encouragement for those on the path.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Psychology of Retiring and Withdrawing Funds ([00:00]–[08:25])

• Initial Discomfort with Pulling the Trigger:
  Brad challenges the fear many people have about finally selling assets and living off their portfolio after years of saving.

  • Quote ([02:29]):
    “If you're going to chicken out because you can't lean into five minutes of discomfort and just log into your brokerage and just click sell... you're going to give up FI success for the next five decades because you're worried about logging in and pressing sell one time.”
  • Marla recounts her own nervousness the first time she sold assets but emphasizes becoming comfortable over time.

• Shifting from Saving to Spending:
  Marla and Brad discuss the need to flex a “spending muscle” after years of strong saving discipline.

  • Quote, Marla ([05:23]):
    “We’ve all gotten really good at having a strong savings muscle, but this idea of a spending muscle is new and something that we really gotta try to work on.”

• Community Narratives and Guilt:
  They critique the oft-repeated myth that everyone who retires early goes back to work for money.

  • Quote, Marla ([06:34]):
    “Are we deserving of a life that's just fun?”
  • Brad agrees, noting that the assumption everyone will return to earning is unhelpful.

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2. Mechanics and Numbers: Marla’s Real-Life FI Story ([15:56]–[24:15])

• Marla’s Retirement & Financials:
  Marla retired at 43 in 2013 after saving about $1 million over 15 years, mostly with a 50% savings rate.

  • Practical Path: She followed the classic “withdraw 4%, increase for inflation every year” method.

  • Results After 10 Years:

    • Current portfolio: $2.3 million
    • Current annual withdrawals: $52,000
    • Age: 55

  • Quote, Marla ([18:04]):
    “Starting with a million, living what I would say is a very abundant life, increasing my withdrawals based on inflation ... my portfolio now ... is sitting at 2.3 million.”

• Expense Myths Debunked:
  Discussion challenges the idea that you need a high income (e.g., “tech bro”) to get to FI, emphasizing that the core number depends on actual annual expenses, not gross income.

  • Brad notes that many underestimate the impact of low fixed expenses (housing paid off, no car payment, etc.) on the FI calculation.

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3. Asset Withdrawal Strategies & Cash Buffer ([25:01]–[32:31])

• How Marla Withdraws:
  Marla is comfortable keeping about two years of expenses in cash as a “sleep at night” buffer, especially after the COVID crash. She generally sells assets once a year, often favoring selling individual stocks first before touching broad index funds.

• Dividend Handling:
  She does not reinvest dividends but treats them as part of her yearly spend; this reduces what she needs to sell annually.

  • Quote, Marla ([28:09]):
    “I'm trying to manage my income tax ... selling so that I'm keeping myself in a low tax ... bracket.”

• Tax Considerations:
  Marla, based in Canada, notes differences with US tax but uses similar principles to minimize taxable events.

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4. Life After FI: Abundance, Community, and the Real Lived Experience ([31:00]–[38:28])

• Abundant but Frugal Living:
  Despite only drawing 2% of her now-much-larger portfolio, Marla enjoys 180 days of travel each year, often leveraging travel rewards and community connections, rejecting any implication of a miserly existence.

• FI Friendships and Community:
  Marla highlights the value of new friendships through the FI community, which enriches her life with shared experiences and travel.

• What to Do with “Too Much” Money:
  The discussion on ‘Die With Zero’ and the evolving psychology of “oversaving”—with Marla prioritizing philanthropy and occasional splurges, while still holding to frugal and environmentally conscious values.

  • Quote, Marla ([38:28]):
    “If you wind up with more money... it's a good problem to have, and let's all get generous and do good things with that money.”

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5. Flexibility, Resilience, and Real-World Stress Tests ([41:22]–[49:09])

• Downside Mitigation:
  Brad and Marla discuss reducing “fixed” costs in tough market years (e.g., renting out a room, geographic arbitrage, cutting discretionary spending by 15%).

• Worst-Case Scenario Analysis:
  Marla presents a “Less Lucky Marla” scenario: retiring at the market’s worst time (2007/2008). Despite an initial 40%+ drop, she still ends up above her starting portfolio a decade later, demonstrating the resilience of the 4% rule.

  • Quote, Marla ([46:02]):
    “At the end of her very first year of retiring, her numbers have gone down to $604,000 ... took a full five years for Less Lucky Marla to get back up to a million dollars ... But that is pretty reassuring ... you're starting again with 1.2 million, which is fantastic."
  • Even in a worst-case scenario, the 4% rule holds.

• Behavioral Challenges:
  The biggest barrier is emotional, not mathematical—fear, scarcity mindset, and inertia are the true enemies. The importance of community and sharing lived experiences is stressed.

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6. Purpose, Identity & Navigating the New Life ([50:23]–[60:38])

• Identity and Purpose Outside Work:
  Marla discusses the angst around “who am I if I don’t work?” and the adjustment period after stopping work.

  • Quote, Marla ([57:18]):
    “If I didn't feel overtly judged, I felt judged by myself that am I wasting my best earning years?...am I using my time really well?”

• The Power of Time Freedom:
  Access to time allows space for reflection, exploration, and “scheming and dreaming,” gradually building confidence and discovering new purposes.

• Encouragement & The Final Word:
  Marla leaves listeners with a message to trust their plan, resist one-more-year syndrome, and know that life after FI is worth it, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.

  • Quote, Marla ([54:40]):
    “Your plan is going to work. You've run the numbers a million times. You have this wonderful community ... Stick with it, because life on the other side is so worth it.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Are we deserving of a life that's just fun?" — Marla ([06:34])
• “We all become evangelists of FI...it’s hard to just live in abundance and not feel guilty.” — Marla ([13:11])
• “You can gamify this ... spending is part of my new game now.” — Brad ([05:40])
• “Can you live on the 4%? Yes, you can. If you wind up with more money…let’s all get generous and do good things with that money.” — Marla ([38:28])

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Recommended Timestamps for Key Segments

• Marla’s FI story, retirement, and numbers — [15:56] – [24:15]
• Withdrawal mechanics and cash buffer — [25:01] – [32:31]
• Discussion on abundance and real FI living — [31:00] – [38:28]
• Worst-case scenario analysis — [45:30] – [49:09]
• Overcoming psychological hurdles — [50:23] – [54:40]

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Tone and Style

Candid, warm, occasionally humorous, and always supportive—Brad and Marla don’t shy from the emotional side of FI, balancing tough love with compassion and encouragement.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This episode provides the rare perspective of someone who has lived the FI/RE life for over a decade—debunking doubts, revealing practical withdrawal strategies, and encouraging listeners to trust the math and embrace their post-FI possibilities. Listeners come away with both inspiration and reassurance that living off the 4% rule is not just possible, but can be the springboard to a joyful, purposeful, and flexible life.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, and welcome to Choose a Fight. Today on the show, we have my good friend Marla Tanner, who's here again. She was on the show way back in episode 77, talking about advanced travel rewards. And that's a fun one to go back to listen to. But today she's here to talk about living off the 4% rule. I think this is something that a lot of people are looking for that example, right? We always say the world revolves around stories, and we're looking for that example of somebody who has. Has reached FI, who's selling their assets, who's living off the 4% rule, and to hear about their journey, to hear about the mechanics of it, to hear how this all went down and what's really neat. So Marla, I knew, would be the perfect person to talk about this, but she actually just did this as a presentation at Camp Mustache very recently. So this was the ideal time to have her on because she's actually run the numbers. She's run the numbers both on her own life and an alternate scenario of worst case scenario, Marla, essentially, which is really, really cool to see how this would have worked out and how it did work out and interestingly. And the spoiler is it would have worked out beautifully even in the worst case scenario. And it's just really wonderful to see someone living this incredible fi life and going through the prototypical path. And I absolutely love it. I think you're going to love this episode. And with that, welcome to choose that F. Marla, my great friend. Oh, it is so good to see you. Thanks for coming back on the show.

[B]

Thanks for having me, Brad. Great to see you, too.

[A]

Yeah. It has been. Goodness, it's been almost nine years since we met at Camp Mustache. Boy, was it southeast before it was called Campfire in Florida.

[B]

That's when the great podcast had even launched. I met both you and Jonathan.

[A]

That was absolutely wild. Yeah. Became fast friends there and have stayed, obviously, in touch ever since. And, yeah, you were the person who I thought of when it came time to think about somebody who is truly living off of the 4% rule. I think there's been a lot of talk in the community lately of, is this real? Are there actually people who are doing this? Can I actually sell my assets when the time comes? And I've kind of taken a little bit of a kind of hardline approach on this, where I say, like, okay, if you've put a plan and this is not your story, obviously, Marla, but just. Just for everybody, because I'm trying to, like, toughen everybody up a little bit, which is, hey, you put a plan in place for 10 to 20 years and you've won. You've won the game, you've reached five. If you're going to chicken out because you think you can't lean into five minutes of discomfort and just log into your brokerage and just click sell that one time, like you're going to give up success fi success for the next five decades because you're worried about logging in and pressing sell one time. Because that's what it is, right, Marley? I imagine you had a little bit of discomfort that first time because you saved for your career and then you went from a saver to somebody who now has to live off their assets. And I would imagine I'm putting words in your mouth. I'd love to hear the psychology of this, But I would imagine that very first time, it was maybe a little bit weird. But you know what? You're an adult and you did it and you won the game. So that's kind of my. My hot take on this. But let's go back to that. So you retired in 2013, right?

[B]

Yes, I went to the first Chautauqua. So that's the JL Collins event at the time, that was in Ecuador. And as soon as it got announced and the speakers were going to be J.L. collins, Mr. Money Mustache, J.D. roth, I was like, I need to buy a ticket. I need to bring my numbers, because I think I can do this. And so I basically retired on the spot after showing them my numbers.

[A]

Wow. Oh, that is. That's really cool. I don't think I even knew that aspect of the story. That's really neat.

[B]

Well, part of it was my competitive nature, which has has largely gone away since retirement. But there was a guy, Jason, who came down in the morning. We were all doing our introductions, and he's like the same age as I am, and he says, I just retired two weeks ago, sold my house, moved. And I was like, if he can do it.

[A]

Darn that, Jason, I can do it too.

[B]

Exactly. So, yeah, I think, I think it's true that when you start having to sell, you know, you start to go back into the little timing the market. So if, if we'd lost the compunction to time the market when we're buying, I think you do go back to trying to time the market when you're first starting to sell. So learning to automate that and not be, not chicken out, as you just said, is probably still a lesson I've got to Learn, because I'm probably withdrawing more like, oh, the market's really up right now. I'll take out a bunch and. And I definitely keep more cash. So when we talk about the whole optimizing, I think in the beginning, I was definitely like a hardcore optimizer. And as you gain, you know, it's been 10 years now that I've been retired. As you get more comfortable with the numbers and you see your portfolio continue to grow and grow beyond what you expected, I start to say, maybe I don't want to optimize. Maybe I just want to have a little bit more of a cash cushion at all times so that I don't chicken out when I stick with the plan.

[A]

Okay, I gotcha. Yeah. And again, tough love aside, this is natural, right? Like that. That's the thing. But that's what we have to understand is this is natural to be nervous about it. It absolutely is. And even for you, who's been doing this, right?

[B]

Absolutely. And I think it is this whole learning to flex a new muscle. And I think this has been talked about. I think Pete actually wrote a post about it where it's like, we've all gotten really good at having a strong savings muscle, but this idea of a spending muscle is new and something that we really gotta try to work on.

[A]

Yeah, I remember. I think the post was something on the order of the skill of spending. I wrote about it in my newsletter. I loved when Pete came up with that phrase. And it's. Yeah, we've had this skill of saving for so long, but really, at some point when you were just rolling in abundance and that. We're going to talk about that also in terms of how well your portfolio has done over the last 10 plus years, all the while withdrawing when you're rolling in abundance, you really do have to come to the point and say, all right, look, I need to start spending this money and I need to get good at that. And that's just part of the game. I think that's what a lot of people like about FI is like, you can gamify this. And it's almost like it's a little bit of keeping score. It's not keeping up with the Joneses. We don't want to get into that, obviously. But maybe if you reframe it to, hey, spending is part of my new game now, maybe, just maybe that'll help you spend a little bit more.

[B]

I think one of the messages that maybe dissuades people from trying to be a person who retires, like, I do where I don't try to earn any other income is we sort of diminish somebody like me in our general FI talk where we say, if you think you're going to sit around on the couch and eat bonbons or go to the beach and drink margaritas, you're not going to do that. You're probably going to find another way to make money. And I think by us saying that and by those of us who consume FI media, we propagate that myth because we wind up saying, oh, nobody sits around and does nothing. Like you're, you know, 43 years old. You're going to just like be like a 65 year old retiree. Probably not. And how many 65 year old retirees just sit around and do nothing? So I'm not saying I sit around and do nothing, but I don't make money. So I find other ways to have purpose and meaning and fun. Mostly fun. I think that's the, I think that's the truth of it all. And maybe part of our, the psychology that you were alluding to is this guilt. Like are we deserving of a life that's just fun?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, that's a great point. And clearly I'm guilty as charged. You probably used almost exact verbatim of something you've heard me say 400 times. Right? Like are you really going to sit around sipping umbrella drinks is what I say. And I think I, I understand as you're saying it that the implicit thing there is, oh, you're going to, you're going to earn money in some way. And I, and I strongly, I know that I've said those words, but I think to me it's always you're going to do something interesting is really the message that I'd love to get across. Not that you need to earn money because I find that a very uncompelling case. The you're going to earn money or you have to earn money or something about your self worth is I have to earn money in some way. Like that to me doesn't seem like winning.

[B]

But don't you think we use that argument as a way of saying reassuring. It's the argument that you can go ahead and pull the plug and we need to find another way to encourage people that your plan is solid and you do have enough and you can go ahead and pull the plug and the chips will follow where they may and that's part of what's exciting and fun and, and an adventure. So you can pull the plug and start your Adventure. As soon as your plan says that you're ready and you're not going to regret it. And when we, you're going to talk about the presentation that I just did, when we presented that and talked to a room of 50 people. How many people who are already retired wish that they'd retired earlier? It was like, you know, 80% of the room. Some people couldn't because they'd retired like I did right when they hit the number. But most people waited too long.

[A]

Yeah, no, you're, I mean, listen, you're exactly right. And yeah, I think it is almost like an end around to help convince people, hey, you can do this. But to your extremely smart line of reasoning, it's do we need that end around? Can we just say this just works, right? Like, because that's what most of us know. This just works. It simply works. But there's so much fear. You know this, I know this. There's so much fear in this community because a lot of us are scarcity minded. A lot of us have been savers our whole lives. It's, it's hard to get over that psychological hump. And yeah, I guess probably some people do use that as an end around for. It's going to be okay. Take a deep breath. But I think, and your presentation talks about this, of having a little bit of flexibility, maybe even being willing to go up or down 10 to 20% in your expenses in a given year based on how things work. Like that might do it. Maybe saving that amazing trip, and I'm not putting words in your mouth here, Marla, by any means, but like saving that amazing trip for a year, that the market was incredible and that doesn't mean you're not going to travel every year, obviously. I know you travel all the time and we're going to talk about that too, but just maybe a little bit of adjustment. But at the heart of it, this just simply works.

[B]

I do think, yes, it does work and I'm a good case study to prove it out. And also that doesn't take away that you might need a few years of it to believe it. So I think you can look back now and be a lot more comfortable when you're me. And I guess when we were talking about like you telling people that it works when you still earn money and run a successful podcast, or most of the other bloggers and podcasters and writers are still earning money, that becomes part of the problem where the consumers of that content are like, well, maybe I also have to earn money because who is There in the th community that isn't still earning money.

[A]

Yeah, no, it is a very interesting thing. And. And I had an email recently from a woman named Nicole who wrote in about almost that verbatim. It was basically saying, like, if the people who talk about this the most don't quote, unquote, trust it, why should I trust it? And, well, a. I think I. I would just argue the premise of the entire thing, which is, you know, frankly, if you look at, let's say, a broad swath of a thousand fi. Bloggers and podcasters, I think, just knowing what I know about online business, 95 to 99% of them are earning zero or less. They're essentially, they're paying for the right to write their journal online as opposed to write their journal in a notebook. But it's hard. And I had a. I had a conversation. A group of us, a five group of us have walks here in Virginia, in Richmond, a couple times a week. Perfect world. I make it infrequently. But one of the more recent ones, I talked with a couple of my real good friends, and they were saying the very same thing, which is like, oh, but all these bloggers and podcasters, I'm like, no, guys, come on. Like, these are just regular people. Just because someone decided to grab a domain name for $12 at GoDaddy and spend $4 a month for hosting doesn't mean there's some mythical creature that is a blogger. Like, they decided to take their notebook and put it online for you for free, and it's costing them to do so. So everyone just hear what I'm saying. 95% of personal finance and certainly financial independence, bloggers and podcasters make $0 or less. So I don't think that should make you trust them less or more, but it is just simply the truth. They're not a different animal. They're not a different species. They're just regular people who took their journal and put it online for your benefit. So stop castigating them as if they're weird people. They're just. They're wonderful. But more like, you can tell this gets me a little hot and bothered because it's just. People just don't understand and it really is important. Like, we shouldn't minimize these people just because they decided to put their journal online.

[B]

Yeah, if anything, we should. We should hold them up, because I think we all become evangelists of five, where we really want to share this amazing life and this ability to get off the hamster wheel. To quote another good podcaster yeah, like, we want to share the story and see how many people, you know, and also maybe track our journey and also, you know, give ourselves some kind of purpose. And that's where a lot of people have turned to becoming producers of content. And I would argue it also comes a little bit from guilt, because I think we. It's hard to know, live in this abundance and not feel guilty when you see almost everybody, you know, struggling and, you know, working so hard. And, you know, that's the reality of the sort of North American lifestyle, is everybody's working really hard and running on this treadmill and somehow not saving because they're big spenders and we're just not.

[A]

Yeah, I hear you. And it is interesting. I'm finally in the first part of my adult life where I'm really flexing some thigh muscles, which is actually really cool. I know I've talked a lot about some of the changes in my personal life or I haven't talked a lot about, but I've talked in passing a couple times about changes in my personal life. And, yeah, I mean, it's really interesting now to try to look at my online life, my website and podcasts and such, and really kind of compartmentalize that. And I've been doing a lot more traveling, and it's really been great. And I'm able to do things now that I simply would not have been able to do if I wasn't fi. So even though I am still earning some money that covers my expenses from Choose a Phi, I'm still living. I believe that I'm living a fi life, and I'm seeing the benefits of it, and it's. It's remarkable. And frankly, if Choose. If I went away tomorrow, which it's not. Don't anybody worry, but if it went away tomorrow, I would be fine, and I'd be living off 4%, just like you, Marla. And I would gleefully sell every month or however else I decided, and. And it would work just as well. So hopefully it doesn't diminish my efficacy as. As someone who talks about this just because I'm not currently selling assets. Anyway, this is a very long, very long preamble. So, okay, we're going to get into your presentation. You. It's funny because I thought of you, again, my great friend, as somebody who would be awesome to talk about living off of their assets before I even knew that you did this presentation at Camp Mustache recently. So this is just like another benefit that you actually have it written down, and we can. We can really go through numbers, but let's start at the beginning. So you retired in maybe mid to late 2013. We'll say you started tracking your numbers for real in 2014, according to the presentation. So give everybody a sense of, like, where were you financially? What were your expenses? What did your financial life look like then?

[B]

So getting to the numbers of. Of having this mythical million dollars, which I would say was pretty close to what I had when I went and had Mr. Money Mustache Pete, in particular, look at my numbers. I had about a million dollars saved, and that had been from 15 years of working. And I realized that my savings rate, this was way before I ever had heard a glimmer of anything to do with financial independence or early retirement. I was always a great saver. And when I look at it now, I think I saved about 50% of my income for my whole career. And strangely, after 15 years, I had about a million dollars and my spending was always very low. So I think I was ready then. So that's where the money came from. And then going back. So, yes, preparing for this presentation, which I did with one of the organizers of Camp Mustache, she basically helped me because I'm not very organized. I'm not very good at charts and spreadsheets. So she was the mastermind. But we looked at my numbers and it was real. Like, it was really fun to kind of look back at this 10 years and see what happened to that million dollars. Like, okay, there was a million dollars, and then I spent about this much. And I kind of did follow the exact path that's recommended in the plan for five. If you had a million dollars in 2013 and you took 4% out, so 40,000, and you adjusted it for inflation and took out that amount every year, what would you have? You know, you have enough to live, hopefully for a long and abundant retirement. So my example shows where I'm at after 10 years. And my end result is 2.3 million in my portfolio. And I'm currently taking out 52,000 a year. So that's the 10 year plan. So starting with a million, living what I would say is a very abundant life, increasing my withdrawals based on inflation, and obviously we've had some big increases to inflation in the last couple of years and then winding up taking out 52,000, my portfolio now, and I'm 55 years old, is sitting at 2.3 million.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Mic drop.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, mic drop. That's. And we can end the episode there. Goodness. That is incredible. That is absolutely incredible. Yeah, I'm looking at this, the chart, and it's, it's really something. And it's just. Yeah, the numbers don't lie. You have annual return of each, including down years like 2018, 2022, the inflation, your exact withdrawal, and your year end portfolio. And so I just wanted to take one quick kind of sidebar, which is the, as you're saying, the mythical million dollars. And it's funny because I think back in the day it was always like, oh, we can do this. If your life costs $40,000 using the 4% rule, you just multiply your annual expenses by 25 gets you to a million dollars, and that's your fine number. But that was always just like you said, mythical. Because as we know, this is all depending on what your life costs. The number works the same. If your life costs $20,000, your fine number would be 500,000. If your life costs 80,000, your fine number would Be 2 million and onward and upward from there. So I don't want anybody to think for 1/2 that $40,000 a year and $1,000,000 are the only fine numbers. Of course, neither of us were saying that, Marlon, but it is important to take that little sidebar.

[B]

Well, and I think to look back and say, okay, that was in 2024. So I think what we did conclude after preparing the presentation and really looking at it is I think it's time, like, obviously we were using a million and forty as nice round numbers when everybody was starting to talk about fire. But I think that if we're going to use nice round numbers, we are looking at more like 52,001.3 million as your numbers. And that hopefully starts to make people go, okay, well, can I live on that type of expense? And I know when Mr. Money Mustache, for example, says he's still living on, you know, sub 30,000, if you have a paid off house, you know, your cost of living can go way down. And for me personally, I rent now. I sold my house. So you, you can really anticipate what your expenses are and plan accordingly.

[A]

Yeah, I think this is really important because I think people, even though we say at the beginning of five, like, you really just need to get this down on paper. Like, what does your life actually cost in. It's still, it's hard for people and I think they overestimate what their expenses are because like you said your savings rate was 50% for your 15 year career. Right. And like, let's just look at $50,000 of annual expenses. Okay? So if your annual expenses were $50,000. Let's just say at the time you're working and you had a 50% savings rate, we usually you. There's some ambiguity around this, but the way that I look at it is it's your after tax money. So you would take your, your gross income less your tax liability to get down to your after tax income. And then that's where I would look at the savings rate. So working backwards, okay, someone making approximately $140,000 in income. So just top line, say 140,000. My total tax burden is 30%. I think for most people it's less than that, but let's just say that. So then you'd get down to about $100,000 after tax. And then of that 100,000, you're saving 50 and you're spending 50. So interestingly, Marla, in that scenario, right, like this person's making 140,000. They think they're anchored to that amount on some level, like, oh, I need to somehow cover 140,000. But no, no, no. Like the two main components of that are the taxes and the savings that you need to save dramatically to get to five in 15 to 20 years, right? So your annual expenses are nowhere near that gross income. In your case, it's about a third. And I think that's probably fairly reasonable. So again, another sidebar, but I think it's just really important for people to understand, like, it has nothing to do with your current income because by definition, in your current income, you're going to have a significant amount of tax and you're going to have a huge amount of savings to get to five. So it's just a really important thing.

[B]

I think it's really important. And like, interestingly, when you're looking at that sort of, when we're looking at hypothetical numbers, this $140,000 gross salary, you don't have to be earning that for your whole 15 years or 10 year work life. Like my salary. And obviously this is back in, let's not talk about how many years ago it was. But, you know, I never earned more than 130,000, and that was only in my last two or three years of my career. So if you're always saving at 50%, the rest of that money is compounding over that much, much longer period. So when we all start talking about, oh, everybody has to be a tech bro or make this huge amount of money, I, I was not a tech bro or gal. Sorry. Some people will get that reference, some won't. But this is what happens as you see, like the stock market chart going up, your salary goes up too. So both of those things are all working together, as does compounding.

[A]

Yeah. And like you said, and also in my case, I was a cpa. I never made more than a hundred thousand dollars in my job, so.

[B]

And well, mine was Canadian dollars, to be fair.

[A]

True. But yeah, to your point also is when you have your housing costs under control, like you're saying with Pete, housing costs under control, you don't have a car payment, your life just simply doesn't cost that much. I think people also overestimate that. And it's pretty darn hard when you don't have a car payment and you don't have a house payment to spend more than 40 or $50,000. I'm not saying it's impossible. So don't, don't yell at me from your, your car or your seat wherever you're listening to this. But it really is pretty darn hard. I mean, to spend more than $4,000 a month just on random food and entertainment. Like, that's not the easiest thing to do month after month. So it's just again, further bolstering the case mentally for people of like, oh, this is doable. Oh, this does make sense. So that $40,000, that was your exact annual expenses in 2013, 2014, right?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, like I say, I haven't been the greatest of trackers, but I think if you do the math, based on my salary, like, I'm not exaggerating where the money came from. So, you know, I did sell a house along the way, so I had other income come in. But in terms of my spending, I never had lifestyle inflation after I retired. I never inflated my lifestyle. And I can look back at my spending and go, yeah, this is pretty accurate, like ups and downs, probably where some years I spent more than 40, but I don't think I ever went over 52, even in my highest spending years.

[A]

Okay, thanks for listening to Choose a.

[C]

Vi and for all your support of our mission here.

[A]

The absolute best way to support Choose a Buy is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at choose a buy.com cards.

[C]

I keep this page constantly updated, so.

[A]

It should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support. I think what a lot of people want to know is the actual mechanics of how much you took out, like where you keep your cash, how frequently you sell. Do you sell, like the entire year's worth on January first you do it month by month. You talked about earlier, like, I guess it's not necessarily automated, it sounds like. So talk us through that because I think this is the part that really gets people a little, a little bit nervous.

[B]

I think this is probably a do as I say, not as I do kind of story, but I've become comfortable. And I think if we look at my 10 years of retirement, the year that was the most stressful for me was the COVID crash. For a whole bunch of reasons in terms of what my travel, lifestyle and Covid Covid didn't really go together very well. So it was a tough time. It was definitely an existential crisis. But the financial part, watching that portfolio drop so dramatically so quickly was really scary. But what I did was I went and looked in all my investment accounts and saw how much was sitting in cash. Like, I don't do the drip or the reinvesting of anything. I use a lot of my dividends and those type of payments to just be part of, like, keep it in cash. So I kind of totaled it all up and realized, oh, I've got more than two years worth of cash or cash equivalents sitting there. And I think like, at times over this 10 years, I'm like, oh, I have too much in cash. But I think like, when you talk about the sleep at night strategy, I think I've realized and certainly seeing, you know, basic interest rates on high interest savings accounts going up, I feel more and more comfortable with just keeping about two years worth of cash around. So I'm still selling. And as I say, I'm kind of timing, attempting to time the market, which I don't think is the recommended approach, but I would say once a year I'm probably looking at my money, looking at where the market's at and selling to pad to keep that number at around two years of cash.

[A]

Okay, gotcha. That makes sense. So right, Once a year, maybe twice a year, you are selling to either get. Yeah, like you said, either the full year's worth of expenses, even though it's not for that current year. You could cut. Money is fungible, right. You could, you could kind of make the argument that it is. But regardless, you're trying to keep roughly a two year buffer of cash just for your own, your own sleep at night test is that.

[B]

And I guess the other thing that makes my investments a little bit different than they would be if I had known about fi at the beginning of my investing career is I still have a lot of individual stocks that I have to manage the sale of. And so that's where a lot of the money comes from in terms of my selling. So my stuff that's in VTI would be the equivalent of what mine is. I haven't started selling that. I'm mostly trying to sell and manage my capital gains on the stuff that I bought before I learned about ETFs.

[A]

Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. And, and yeah, like you said, you don't reinvest the dividends, but clearly from what I'm hearing of having significant amount of index funds, you're not a quote unquote dividend investor. It's just, hey, they're sending me these dividends. So instead of reinvesting them and selling them, I'm just going to take them as part of my annual sale. And then let's say your, your life does cost 52,000 now and I'm just making this up. You get 20,000 in dividends. Right. Like let's say about 1%. Right. So you would then only need to sell about $30,000 of funds each year. So functionally it's kind of the same deal, but it's just, you're doing it in a two pronged way.

[B]

Yeah. And I'm trying to manage my income tax in the same way to make sure that I don't hit. So I'm selling so that I'm keeping myself in a low tax or a mid to low tax bracket on my, on my sales, between my cap gains and my regular income that comes from the sale. Okay, does that make sense?

[A]

It does make a lot of sense. So. Right. The dividends, regardless of whether you take them as cash or reinvest them, dividends are taxable income in the current year. Exactly. So that's going on your tax. I know you're in Canada, but I'm talking with American tax. But I imagine it's substantially similar. If anything's different, obviously let me know. But yeah, so that's a taxable event. But then, right. In America we're going to get a pretty big standard deduction and there's that 0% long term capital gains tax rate. So yeah, you can kind of massage to take some money out of, I guess selling from your taxable brokerage account and realizing those long term capital gains, but paying for again in America you'd be paying 0% tax on that, which is pretty remarkable up to somewhere in the vicinity of like $96,000 of taxable income, which is crazy. If, if for mar.

[B]

I don't have that situation. We pay a 50% tax rate on the cap gains. Yeah.

[A]

Wow, 50.

[B]

But I'm still selling it at a lower marginal tax rate because I'm keeping my income so low. So my tax rate is, you know, it's not zero. It's still probably 22%, something like that. So, yes, we do pay higher taxes in Canada.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[B]

But we get a lot for our taxes, let me tell you.

[A]

Yeah, I believe that. You do. I know you do. We've talked about that many a time. So, Marla, in terms of, obviously we talk about inflation and on this presentation you did, you're actually going by like the actual inflation, but your expenses aren't always going in lockstep with inflation. Like some years, like if you had sold a paid off house and now you're renting, your expenses presumably are going to be more, but then you also have extra money that's now sitting in your investable account to draw down on. But when do you actually look at what does my life cost? Do you reassess that every year? Do you get bothered with that? Do you even care?

[B]

I used to, but I think, as I said, I've gotten comfortable over the years to see, especially riding out some of these drops in the market and then just looking at how much my portfolio has grown. I really don't stress about it anymore.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So I do keep some level of track of my spending based on credit card statements. So I pay attention to money, I pay attention to prices. I've always been that way, I always will be that way. So I know what my spending is based on the fundamentals of rent and what I spend on my credit card. So between those two, I'm like, yeah, I'm fine.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And honestly, we didn't talk about travel rewards, but my travel expenses, even though I'm probably out of the country, 180 days a year, is what I've tracked. My travel expenses are still really low. I'm able to do a lot with, you know, three or four credit card signup bonuses a year and being really good at looking for deals.

[A]

You are the best person I know at that. And I still. You're constantly telling me about all these different things you're doing and I, I wish my brain was agile enough to understand it all the time, but yeah, you're, you're remarkable. I know we, we had you on way back.

[B]

That's part of the joy. Like if people start looking at what is my purpose and my passion, it probably is like planning the next trip. So that Takes a lot of time. It takes a couple hours, you know, probably three, four hours a week of watching all the different travel blogs and planning things and scooping up deals when they come up.

[A]

Yeah. And the cool thing about you is you make this a friend, family, community event of travel. Right. Like, that is the joy that I see you just living into every single year. It's amazing. Like, you're always going on these grand adventures with all sorts of different people, and hopefully someday I'll be able to join you maybe five years from now. And my. My. My daughters are both in college and. And beyond, and. But yeah, lest anybody think that you're living some miserly life, it's the polar opposite. You're traveling everywhere and just enjoying.

[B]

Well, and all these friendships that I've made through Phi. Like, it's amazing. You know, you sort of collect friendships through your life, and I'm happy that I have lots of friends from way before that and people who aren't part of the FI community. But once you find some of your five friends, they tend to have more free time to do fun things together. So, yeah, some really great friendships. And the more times you go to the different events, the more you really build on these friendships. And then you do want to go on trips together or do something fun. So. Yeah, and lots of. Lots of fun adventures.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. And it's so neat. As I learn more about the community and meet more people, I know there are just all sorts of different groups of people who, just, like you said, they just travel together. I know Becky Heptig, who used to be one of the co hosts of Catching up to Fi and her husband Stephen. They travel all over the world with their group of five friends. And I'm constantly seeing you travel. Obviously, there are all these events, and now a lot more of them are going international, which is really cool. So Chris and Knapp is now doing the Five Friends travel, and Amy has the Bali retreat, and even Stephen Boyer has doing the campfire Spain. I think he's planning on expanding it. So, yeah, it's really very cool.

[B]

And I would add in, I've done the Go With Less trips. So you've had Amy and Tim from Go With Less on, of course. And she's just, like, really seen a need for people who are really global nomads who want to find, you know, some community while they're on the road. And her Facebook group has facilitated all these amazing friendships and she organizes. Lately, it's been quite a bit of cruises, and I was like, I'm not sure I really like the idea of cruises, because you're not seeing much, but the cruises themselves are the time to meet the people and become friends. And then when the cruise docks, everybody's now. So in this example, everybody was in Australia, and. And then those same people, like, 25 people from the ship, are all traveling around Australia, and we're all meeting up with each other more times and doing more things together. So that type of friendship building where you go, oh, I'm on a cruise for nine days or 26 days, you really get to know people.

[A]

You are a captive audience in that case. And, yeah, it's neat. We actually have a huge, huge fi community in Australia, too, which I didn't realize until I went to Bali. And, yeah, there's an even an event there. My good buddy Rob runs an event. I think it's every October, so that's something we'll have to add to the calendar as well. So maybe a future year we'll all head down to Australia. That would be fun.

[B]

Well, and honestly, I had thought, I need to save Australia and New Zealand and go for a really long time because it's so far and the time difference and the cost. And then I went, and I'm like, I'll be back within, like, two or three years. It's so amazing. Nice.

[A]

That's super cool. Yeah. So kind of going back to your numbers real quick. So you're now at 2, about 2.3 million, which means, according to the 4% rule, you could live off of a little more than $90,000, which is amazing. And you're only pulling a little more than half that. Marlon, that's wild.

[B]

I know, I know. It's crazy.

[A]

So what's so wild is you are living this incredible life of abundance, right? Like, you're traveling, like you said, 180 days a year. You love looking for these deals and all these things, like, but yet you're only withdrawing about 2% of your nest egg now. Now, clearly, clearly, lest anyone misunderstand that Marla retired on 4%. She's been living off of this the entire way. And just by virtue of it all working right, like, it works. And that was even amidst some craziness, right, with COVID and such. And. And there were scary times, obviously, when you saw your portfolio drop 30 or 40% in a month or two, period. This is not all rainbows and unicorns, but, like, we often talk about, like, most people are going to die with significantly more money than they started. That point of fi with they just are. And I mean, one of the. You are on the trajectory to have just more money than you could possibly imagine. In essence, do you ever think about alternative things to do with the money, different, like spending habits? Does that ever cross your mind?

[B]

It does. And I think, you know, it was what, a year and a half ago that the Diet with Zero, everybody was like losing their mind about it and talking about it. But I think what concerns me is I think that those stories of all of us who've been retired for a longer amount of time and having too much money, quote, unquote, I think it left the listeners and consumers of media feeling like, who are you? Like now? Instead of like convincing us that our plan is solid and we can retire on the 50,000 a year, instead it's like, oh, poor us, we need to start spending more money and having exotic trips and that kind of thing. So I'm reluctant for your listeners to leave them. Like, I don't think that's really the heart of my story. And yes, I've thought about, you know, mostly I've been thinking about philanthropic uses for any excess and how to do good with the money and what my plan is that way. But yes, I'll splurge on the odd thing now. And you know, I'm not an idiot. I can see that I can spend more money, so I probably will, but within reason. And I mean those habits of like, I feel proud about being a frugal person and not wasteful and I care about the environment. And like, when you think of Pete's original message for his blog that, you know, Mr. Money Mustache is really a message about caring about the environment and being anti consumer. So I guess that's where I, you know, the stories of all these exotic trips for campfires and all the different events that people can do, those are not important to our happiness. Those are nice to haves that if you want to splurge, fantastic. But I want to hopefully be, you know, you asked me on to talk about, can you live on the 4%? Yes, you can. If you wind up with more money, you know, as they say, it's a good problem to have and let's all get generous and do good things with that money.

[A]

Wow, that's yet another Mike job moment. Marla. It's absolutely true. No, it's absolutely true. And I love what you said about just being proud about being frugal. And frankly, I'm proud of being frugal. I always have been. And that's just, it's deeply ingrained in me and I don't like being wasteful. I am also cognizant of the fact that it's funny because I suspect that I, my fervor for Die with Zero led to some of that, that time period, everybody talking about it. Because I know I talked about it here on Choose a VI a lot. But to me it wasn't the concept. Like a lot of that book was not that great, frankly. But it was the seasons of Life that I think that really impacted me. And especially with daughters that are growing up really fast and are going to be out of the house really soon. I think it, it gave a naturally frugal person like me maybe the license to do one or two things that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise. And did it mean that all of a sudden I'm a different person and I'm spending like a freewheeling crazy person? No, of course not. But when presented with a trip to go to England and Barcelona with my daughters to see some amazing concerts like Taylor Swift, I'm like, well, of course I'm going to do that, you know, of course. Even though part of me says, oh, but it's a, you know, it's X number of thousands of dollars and yada yada yada. So I think that's where that opened my mind a little bit. But I agree with you and I.

[B]

Think, I think like the book was still really useful. I just think I've read enough about how it kind of turned off a lot of people who were on their path. So it was like people who were underspending, talking to each other about how to live a life that's more abundant, which I think is very valuable and true. But I think these one time expenses and one time splurges, you know, even if you do those one time things 10 times, 15 times, 20 times, they're still like they're just a byproduct of having extra money. And yes, you should, you should say yes. Like we should all be saying yes to a life of abundance and we shouldn't say no because we're frugal. So I think that in itself is a very positive message. But if it's a year where your portfolio is not doing great and the rate of inflation is really high, then that's a great year to hunker down and, you know, not spend a whole lot of money. And we have that muscle. And I think that's the part that's so wonderful about FI is like you're so trained on saving and Being good with money, that's not going to be a problem for you. Like, what we learned in preparing for the presentation was that if you wanted 100% success of your portfolio and you in a bad year where it was looking bad, you, all you had to do was cut your spending by 15% in that one year and you'd be back to 100% success. So I think we can all find 15% of savings. Like, clearly you're not going to go to Europe for Taylor Swift in that year, but you should go three or four times in a year where the market's returning up 24%. Right?

[A]

Yeah, that's really interesting. So in that, in that down year, a mere 15%, you actually told me something interesting, which is a thought experiment I think we should all undertake. I'd love for you to explain it is the concept of fixed cost. And I guess your argument is fixed costs aren't always quite as fixed as people lead themselves to believe.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's true. Like, if you look at the major categories of fixed costs, a lot of them are things like food. And I think we all know that our food, like adjusting our restaurant spending and our grocery shopping, that alone is a huge portion of your expenses in a given year once you're retired. And I know we could all cut back on those spendings and cook from home and have some more simple food and not treat ourselves as much. We can, we can cut our alcohol purchasing budget back a little, all those kind of things. So 15% is a very easy number to shave. So I would encourage everyone to look at their fixed expenses and think about how fixed they really are.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Well, and as we said, even, I think when we were talking about this before we started recording, even with your housing, like, maybe you have more house than you need. And in a, in a not so good year, you get a roommate or rent a room just for like a month, just a month could make the difference. So. Or rent your own house and go to Mexico, you know, rent out your house and go on a trip to a lower cost of living area. So the whole geographic arbitrage, I think is exciting. Like, if you're still working and you're on this path and you're dreaming about what your life in Phi is like, the main thing I can tell you is it's flexible. Like all the lack of flexibility you have when you're a working person goes away and your life becomes so much more flexible.

[A]

Yeah, I love that concept of, well, a flexibility. I think that is just so Incredibly true. And B, like, again, looking at something that you think is fixed and realizing, oh, no, this is not fixed at all. I actually have a lot of. A lot of wiggle room here, especially if you're only talking, like you said, 15%. So 15% on $40,000 is only 6,000 bucks. Right? Like, I know I was recently introduced to something called. I think it's furnish finder. And a friend of mine rents out a bedroom in her house to travel nurses for a couple of months a year. And that's just a really great way. It's, like, very vetted, and you can find people who are just going to be there for a couple months. And that's a great way to earn some extra income from empty bedrooms that are just sitting there. And that's just. Again, that's a cool way of doing this. And you never know, you might meet interesting people, make lifelong friends. You just never know who passes through. And, yeah, I mean, that was just a cool thing that I just never, never been presented with.

[B]

I have friends who did the traveling nurses thing, and when they were first telling me about it, I was like, what are you talking about? Their five friends. And they kept referring to the person as. My friend's name is Adam. As Adam's night nurse.

[A]

Oh, goodness. Okay.

[B]

And they had found a nurse that worked nights, so they never even. So she rented out a room in their house, she worked nights, and then she slept during the day, and they never even crossed paths. And they made, you know, X amount of money that helped them with their savings.

[A]

Wow, that's really, really cool.

[B]

And I mean, it just sounds cool, Brad. Like, if you had Brad's night nurse, I mean, you get some good street cred.

[A]

Oh, God, I don't know how I can reply to that one. But, yes, you are exactly right.

[B]

You can cut that out if you want.

[A]

Oh, that's Dana. Come on. Let's say. So, I know in your presentation, you had the less lucky Marla, which is basically like, if you retired at the worst possible time, and how this would have worked. So let's talk through this, because, like you said, the heart of why you're here is to talk about, hey, this is real. I'm doing this. The 4%. I'm selling assets. I'm living off 4%. This has worked for me, and it has worked great. But even if you had retired in 2008, which is about the worst possible time, it looks like this still would have worked. So, yeah, talk everybody through this one.

[B]

Sure. Well, that's what we did, because I think that that's one of the main arguments when you attend a bunch of five events, is, you know, we have had unprecedented growth in the market over this period of my since I retired in 2013. So not discounting these ups and downs, it's a pretty darn good chunk of of time in terms of the market going up and to the right. So we tried to do the same exercise and imagine a less Lucky Marla who retired in 2008. So I guess we had her retire in 2007 and start the numbers in 2008.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so she started with the same million, and at the end of her very first year of retiring, her numbers have gone down to $604,000. So if that wouldn't freak you out as a person working on your plan, I don't know what would. And it took a full five years for Less Lucky Marla to get back up to the million dollars that she started with. So keep in mind. So to me, this is the most reassuring part of the story because keep in mind, she is still withdrawing her $40,000, inflation adjusted through that whole five years, and her portfolio is growing in the background. And so certainly at the end of her 10 years, it's not as impressive as what my end of 10 years is because she winds up with 1.2 million. But that is pretty reassuring to watch your portfolio drop by 50% and now you're 10 years older and you're starting again with 1.2 million, which is fantastic. So now we plotted taking Less Lucky Marla all the way up to today's date, and it doesn't even seem possible. But the real me at the end of 2023 had 2.26, I think we said, and Less Lucky Marla, by that point in time, her portfolio has grown to over 2.3.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So that's basically from 2008 to 2024.

[A]

Wow. Okay.

[B]

So even in a worst case scenario, like, I think the point is you're retiring for the long haul, you're not retiring for the first five years or the 10 years. Like even a much smaller nest egg is going to still grow and catch you up over the long term.

[A]

That makes a lot of sense. So. Right. Because it had recovered by 2013 in the less Lucky Marla scenario, that I think that's why the Less Lucky Marla actually has more money than you do today, which is fascinating to think. Right? Like, she retired with a million bucks, spent her 40,000 that first year, the market went down a crazy amount and she ended up with 40% less than she started with a year before, but stuck with it and kept withdrawing like that. That getting back over to a million dollars in 2013. That's not just like she sat on the money. She was still obviously withdrawing to live off of every year.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it really, like, I, I think until I looked at these real numbers with the real inflation adjustments, instead of just sort of looking at my spending and what my big number at the end of the year of my portfolio was, I don't think I really saw the mechanics of how it actually works until we got prepared for this presentation. And it was like, you know, pretty much everybody that was in the group watching the presentation, they were pretty convinced. Like, once you showed them these numbers and it was like, because we all go through the what if? Well, what if the market crashes right away? Like, do you think that's going to happen? And when we look at monetary policy and how monetary policy has changed based on each of these worldwide financial occurrences, like the feds of all these different countries, they move heaven and earth to try to correct things and have the recovery be as quick as possible. So they're helping us.

[A]

Yeah, well, it certainly, certainly seems that way. There have been a lot of, A lot of significant crises over the last 15, 20 years. But, yeah, it is remarkable to see the state we're in. And yeah, this is just really incredible to look at these numbers on paper, even in the worst case, the less lucky Marla, worst case scenario, and just see, it just simply works. And yeah, it's funny because. And I love your thoughts on this, Marla, because, right. Like, this again, comes down to the psychology of, like, you have all these brilliant people. Like, I'm basically just presenting this stuff. Obviously, I'm not doing any of the research by any means. But you have all these brilliant people. Bill Bengan, who was the original creator of the 4% rule, obviously there was the Trinity study. We have people like Carson from early retirement now who's just running these numbers constantly, Many, many more people that I can't name right now. But yet people still distrust this. And that's like, it's hard to reconcile sometimes. Do you think it's just fear? I, I know you've thought about this a lot. I'd love to hear your thoughts on why that is and how you, who've been, you've been doing this now for 11 plus years. Like, how do you have that conversation with someone who comes to you and says, like, Marla, does this work? I'm a little afraid of this.

[B]

Yeah, it's a good question. I have thought a lot about it and certainly meeting all these five people on their path and seeing people not be able to pull the plug, I think that the, the strongest message I can give them is that, you know, you have to believe the numbers and stick with your plan. Which sounds easier said than done. But when you get to that place where you're maybe going to do the one more year syndrome and you're going to keep trying to pad number and keep trying to get that 4% down to 2% or whatever, whatever nonsense as you would say people might do, I think that you just have to hold your nose and go with your plan. Because what happens is this beautiful moment of when you now are off the hamster wheel and you have time on your side is this time that you have gives you the opportunity to look around. And I think that's been the biggest gift of fi is that you have much more time to be reading and paying attention to world events and watching what's going on and thinking of new ideas and you know, I call it scheming and dreaming. And I think that's what helps you discover your purpose or helps you like sort of gain confidence that the numbers are going to work. Like, I think that's all that I can say is like. Because I remember doing a one on one thing when Camp Mustache was virtual and there was a medical doctor on there and I could just tell he was like, he clearly had plenty of money and money wasn't the thing that was stopping him from pulling the trigger and retiring. But he was filled with so much angst. And I think that that's, I think the psychology is so much less about the money and so much more about who we think we are, like our identity and just these issues. Like we're just going to use excuses to not do it because it is scary. And it's like, what am I going to do tomorrow when that beautiful moment happens and I'm just alone with myself and my thoughts? Like, you kind of have to have a plan, but if you don't have a plan, you've now got all kinds of time to make a plan. So embrace that. And it might be uncomfortable. You are going to feel uncomfortable, but it's worth it. And think of all those meetings you're sitting in right now and how terrible they are. You don't have those anymore.

[A]

Oh goodness.

[B]

I used to call them like the poke out my eye with an iron poker meetings. Like, oh, terrible.

[A]

Yeah. Now you have time and resource freedom and you can do whatever you want. I love it. And yeah, it's funny because that, again, feels like another kind of mic drop, end the episode moment. Because really, that is, at the essence, you have all this freedom now. And I mean, that's been a through line of the episode here is like freedom and flexibility and just looking at these numbers and saying, like, okay, look, this actually works. This works in good years, in good times and bad times, as you've shown.

[B]

And.

[A]

And it just like, you have been living this for more than a decade now. And you are living your best life, as anybody can tell from hearing you. You're just an incredibly joyful person and you're traveling all over the place. You're scheming and dreaming constantly. You're coming up with these amazing trips for family and friends. I know you're constantly planning these things like you are living the beautiful fi life. And it's. It's just such a pleasure to see and to be. To be your friend. I just. I love it for you.

[B]

That's so sweet, Brad. Thank you. And I mean, it isn't all unicorns and rainbows, but the good part is that, you know, in this 10 years, tragedy happens. Terrible things happen. The same things that happen for anybody in their life, whether they're Phi or they're not phi. But Phi does give you the breathing space to address those tragedies and be able to help people or family members as you need to. And, like, that's the greatest gift of all. And I want to leave people with the message of, you're on this journey. It's hard work. You're saving, you're probably scrimping, you might be sacrificing a little, but stick with your plan. Your plan is going to work. You've run the numbers a million times. You have this wonderful community of five people. You can run your numbers by them. Everyone is willing to share and talk. You can certainly reach out to me. I know you could reach out to Brad and stick with it, because life on the other side is so worth it. So. So you've worked hard. You do deserve it. You're never gonna regret this decision. So go ahead, follow your plan and live your best life. Your best life. Not the life I lead. Lead the best life that you wanna lead when you're able to pull the trigger.

[A]

Wow. Okay. Well, that, I think, is a beautiful way to end this. Marla, thank you so much for coming on. I'm sure that people are gonna have questions, so this is Something we can definitely do another follow up episode on. I think people, they're going to be a lot of questions. So if you're out there and you want to send in, we now have a new, new way to send in questions and feedback. Just go to Choose a com feedback and we actually have a lot of our friends and colleagues who are amazing, world class experts responding to a lot of these questions, which is really cool. Marlo. It's one of the neatest things I've done here at Choose a Vi in the last eight years. And we have people like Carson Bigarn answering questions on safe withdrawal. We have Chad Carson answering questions on real estate and Jillian John's root on many retirements and on and on and on. Dr. Bobby and Dean Turner on health and fitness. So the list goes on. And yeah, that's where really at this point you can send, if you're listening to this, sending questions, send in feedback. I'd love to do another episode with Marla because I feel like, I feel like there are going to be questions on maybe more of the nuts and bolts, I suspect and just send them in. If you have questions, if you have fears, like Marla is literally living this life and she's living it just incredibly. And she's not the only one. Let's be entirely clear. There are a whole host of people who are living this phi life. Obviously just by virtue of you're consuming this content, most likely you're still in an accumulation phase. That's just the reality. So I think when people look at and say, oh, nobody's actually doing this. Well, we're all still saving, we're all still on our path to five for the most part. But there are a lot of people like Marla who, who have been in this community for quite some time and are living into their best lives. And I think it's just so exciting. We're going to see more and more people like her as the years go by who have saved for this time and have now reached fi and have pulled the trigger and are living these incredible lives. And I think, yeah, we need to, we need to start talking about this. We need to start talking about what does it look like, Marla, to live that, that amazing life. What do you do? You know, like you said, there is some nervousness that first day, but because you maybe you did have some identity wrapped up in this. But like you said, I mean, and I'll throw this back to you, even though I said I was going to close it up, is like, yeah, like you worked in a job for 15 years, and I imagine to flip that switch off is not the easiest thing to just turn it off forever. But what did those first couple months look like for you? I know it's a while. It's probably 11 and a half years ago at this point.

[B]

No, for me, it was more than the first few months because unlike, I think, most of the people who are in the FI community now, I didn't have a plan. So I really just like, ostentatiously pulled the trigger. And I didn't really know what I was signing up for. So I think my doubts and fears were more extreme, hopefully, than what most people would have. So, yeah, I think I was in a really, like, a lot of things about, you know, whether I was deserving of this type of life and really feeling sort of. If I didn't feel overtly judged, I felt judged by myself that am I wasting my best earning years? Am I, you know, if I wasn't using my time really well, like, who's the judge of how you're using your time well, but I was really down on myself about that. So I think it did take me a number of years to kind of get past that and feel like, you know what? I'm doing the best that I can, and every year I'm getting better at this, and every year I'm having more fun and sort of giving myself permission to just say, like, I can just have a fun life. There's nothing wrong with that.

[A]

Yeah, nothing wrong with that at all. And yeah, to your point, you hit FI and pulled the trigger back in the early days, right? The 2013 era of the fire movement or fire community. And, and yeah, I mean, I think a lot of us have realized because we've heard some cautionary tales of people who had this existential crisis when they pulled the trigger or because they were just shooting for a number on a screen and. And they didn't think about life afterwards. Right. They were running away from something instead of running towards a great life. And I think hopefully we've all realized, like, this is not just about the digits on the screen. It's about maybe during those years along the journey now of trying to figure out, hey, what is. What do I want my life to look like? And again, we've had Jillian talk about many retirements. We've had just from the pioneers talk about the cure for the boring middle. And it's, It's. It's experimentation, right? You need to figure out, like, what do I actually want to do with My life. And, yeah, I mean, I think this stuff is. Is really important. And I love. I think, Marlo, to me, that's what's so cool about our community is like, we're all learning together, and we're learning from the people who came before us who have realized, like, okay, I did all these things, great, but maybe these couple things, if I could have done it all over again, I would have done it a little differently. And I think that's. That's the beautiful part about being in this worldwide community.

[B]

I agree. You know, I didn't have a lot of peers at the time, that we're already retired, but we all have a lot of peers now. And so being in the community and having all these resources is really going to help you. And if you are stuck, if you're. If you're working, I think the saddest stories I hear are the people who are working so hard, and they're like, but I don't have a purpose. I don't have something to retire to. And they think they need to have that all figured out. If you don't have that figured out, it's still okay. You can still pull the trigger, and you can have the time on the other side to start working on your plan. And I can guarantee you, when you don't have an alarm going off in the morning and you pop out of bed with joy and, like, no dread, no Sunday scaries, you're going to be much more prepared to, like, start planning the next chapter.

[A]

Well, you've been there and done that, and I. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on, Marlon. This is fun. And, yeah, I'm very serious. I'd love to have you back on. So please, anybody listening, send in questions. Let us know what you want to talk to Marla about, because I think this is really, really important as we all move along the path on our FI journey. So, Marla, thanks again for being here.

[B]

Thanks for having me. Great to see you.

[A]

Yep, you too.

[C]

Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the choosefy 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.

[A]

So that's the way that I keep.

[C]

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 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.

[A]

All across the world.

[C]

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 VI episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community and even though.

[A]

It'S a couple years old at this.

[C]

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.

[A]

Live a better life?

[C]

And then choose if I created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free, just head to choose a vi.comfi101 and.

[A]

Again, thanks for listening.

[B]

It.