← Crickets to Cha-Chings
Crickets to Cha-Chings
216. Build Long-Term Wealth with Digital Products - Cody Berman of Retire By 30
00:36:20
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- [00:00]
A
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Crickets to Cha Ching's podcast. I'm Julie Berenger and I have something special for you. Here we have Cody Berman, my co founder and the new author of retire by 30. Welcome, Cody.
- [00:12]
B
I am so excited to be back on Julie, what's going on?
- [00:14]
A
Things are great over here and I'm so excited to get your book. I cannot believe that it's finally releasing. I know you've been working on this for what, six years now?
- [00:23]
B
Maybe five years. It took me a long time. It kept getting shuffled to the side. But yeah, it's finally getting released. I'm very excited about it.
- [00:32]
A
So the book took a long time, but retirement did not take a long time. The title of this book is retire by 30. And Cody, the hook right here is that Cody spent six months in corporate America, decided it wasn't for him, and was able to reach an incredible financial feat at a very, very young age. So congratulations, Cody. That's amazing.
- [00:51]
B
Thank you so much. Yeah, a lot of the stuff is going to tie back to what you hear a lot on this podcast. Like digital products played a huge role in my financial freedom journey. And we could talk about all the other stuff as well, like saving, savings, rate, investments and yeah, it was, it was a very rapid journey. But I think for those who are like really about it, it's replicable for people of any age. I don't want people to think if they're over 30 years old listening to this, like, oh, there's nothing that I can implement from this book. If you're in your 50s, if you're in your 60s, if you're 16, listening to this podcast, watching this YouTube video, there's going to be something that you can take out of the book and implement into your own financial life.
- [01:26]
A
And I'll tell you, as a 37 year old mother of three, maybe I didn't retire by 30, but I still found nuggets of this book super helpful. And also, if you do have anyone in your life that is under 30, gift them this book. I gifted my cousin this book and I really, I think he's gonna love it. You know what he said to me though, Cody? He said, where are the Lamborghinis? On the COVID He wants the Lambos. And I think that's.
- [01:50]
B
Did he start reading it yet? He'll find out quickly that Lamborghinis are not part of the equation here.
- [01:56]
A
Yes. And I think from a 25 year old today, they are thinking that financial independence means Lamborghinis and private jets and all that. And at the end of the day, it's like saving strategies and smart financial decisions that will get someone there. So that's why I think it's super important, because people are getting this information from TikTok and all these places, and just learning how it actually worked from someone who did it is super important. So, Cody, we're going to start with where your digital products journey actually began. I know you were the side hustle king back in the day. Can you talk a little more about that time in your life and the different side hustles that you tried and sort of how that snowball got started for you?
- [02:37]
B
Yeah, so I, at one point had over 19 different streams of income. Now, do as I say, not as I do. That was way too many at once. But one of the ones I tried back in the day was selling digital products. And the reason why digital products and sod hustles like that stuck and why I liked it so much is because you could spend your time creating something and then sell that thing in perpetuity. Other side hustles I tried. It was like I'd have to trade my time directly for money. I was delivering UberEats on a bicycle. I was doing freelance writing. I was doing freelance podcast editing. I was building websites for people. All these other side hustles were things that if I didn't perform, like, if I didn't deliver the thing, if I didn't work and make a certain dollars per hour, I didn't get paid. But digital products, as you well know, Julie, like, you can create a digital product and sell that thing for years and years. Like, I've created a piece of paper. I have one right down here. My love coupons. A piece of paper that's since paid me over $4,000, took me two hours to create. Like, where else are you getting a $2,000 per hour ROI? So that was why I became so obsessed with digital products. And yeah, digital products have played a huge part in my journey. And the income that I was making from those digital products, I was then able to invest into things like stock, stock market and real estate and some of the things we'll talk about today. But, yeah, digital products was just a side hustle that the return on my time was so awesome. And I could just. I could, you know, make money as I slept, as they like to say.
- [04:00]
A
Yes. Okay, so we're. This is something a little different for our podcast because we typically talk about Etsy strategies and marketing for Etsy products. We're going to get into some financial concepts today and money strategies. But I do think that this is a conversation that most people don't. You don't have access to unless you are friends or cousins with someone like Cody. So definitely listen up here. I think you're going to learn something new that you might not have considered before. And maybe if you're not ready to implement the advice right now, or maybe you're not in a position to use some of the strategies that Cody used, maybe you that will be something that will be an opportunity for you in the future or you know someone that would be able to do this. So let's get started with if Cody, you're going back in time and you're going to make your first, let's say a thousand dollars with digital products today, are there certain things that you are doing when that money is coming in? Or how are you thinking about that in terms of your overall financial landscape?
- [04:57]
B
If you're someone who already has a okay financial footing, like you're maybe saving a little bit, or maybe you're even just living paycheck to paycheck, and you start a side hustle selling digital products and you start making an extra 500 or $1,000 per month. Like, don't use that money to instantly inflate your lifestyle. Like, don't go and buy the new car, don't go and start eating out four times a week just because you have all this extra money coming in. If you can set up a system on autopilot where you're kind of investing that money into things like the stock market, into things like real estate, that money is going to compound over time. So I actually pulled up a compound interest calculator here, Julie. Let's say you start making an extra thousand dollars per month from something like digital products and you're just investing that over the course of 30 years. Obviously that's a long time, but you can always pivot, you can always change side hustles. You can always like, start with digital products. Maybe you do pod in the future. You'll learn a lot here. And so let's say you invest $1,000 per month for the next 30 years, assuming an 8% interest rate, which is like slightly lower than the historical average. In 30 years, that money from that side hustle will turn to about $1.4 million. That's without doing anything with your day job. That's without, like, this is just from that $1,000 per month side hustle, investing the entirety of it into something that yields an 8% return. Like the stock market. Like, people can't conceptualize what compound interest looks like until they plug it into something like compound interest calculator. I know the first time. And for those who are on the Internet right now, like, just type in compound interest calculator into Google, start playing with some numbers, and prepare to have your mind blown. Cause I remember when I first discovered this stuff, Julie, we both came from the personal finance, the financial independence, retire early, the fire world. These numbers blew my mind. I'm like, I can invest just, you know, 500 or $1,000 per month over the course of a couple decades and have millions of dollars in retirement. Like, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't compute. But once you see it out on a spreadsheet, once you see it out with a compound interest calculator, you're like, okay, I can kind of see what the end goal looks like here.
- [06:57]
A
And I'm glad you mentioned the financial independence angle here, because that is how you and I met. We had these podcasts about retirement, retiring early. Now, the irony is I have not retired early with everything going on with my life with the kids and such, I haven't. But I still have benefited from saving and investing pretty early. Cody and I were just talking about some household things that went wrong in my house. And because I have been putting money away in investments, I feel a little less panicked when something goes wrong. We had a small electrical fire, everyone's fine. But when something like that happens, if you have socked away money and investments and such, it does make it easier to kind of weather those blows. But for the average person who is making money in their 9 to 5, it can be hard to put that extra money away with just what you're bringing in from your job. So that's where in the past, the effort that I put into the side hustles and taking that money and saving it, it did really help me, and it helped me through this period of my life. And I know for Cody, for you, it did more than help you. It actually retired you to the point where you've now hit financial independence. Can you tell everyone you mish mentioned the numbers for compound interest? One thing I found interesting in the book, you said retirement is a number, and I'm like, oh, that's a really interesting way to put it. Can you explain that concept?
- [08:12]
B
Yeah. So there's kind of two main ways to reach financial independence. There's what's called the traditional or the nest egg method. With this method, it's you save up a certain number. It's 25x your annual expenses. So let's say you spend 40, $40,000 per year. Multiply that by 25. You need a million dollars saved and invested in something like the stock market or real estate to then live off of that portfolio in perpetuity, assuming that your spending stays about the same. Or you can go the cash flow method. So this is actually probably something that those who sell digital products, this is probably something you're going to be interested in. The cash flow method states that if you can cover your expenses with passive or mostly passive cash flow, we call this a mostly passive side hustle. Selling digital products, once they're listed, the pretty much the only active thing you have to do is respond to the occasional customer message. But once you have a semi passive income stream covering the cost of your living, like let's say you spend $4,000 a month and you are making $5,000 a month from your digital products, from your Etsy store, from other things that you're doing online in theory, like you no longer have to work. You're not trading your time to live like you are. Your expenses are already covered. So again, there's a nest egg method. There's the cash flow method. What I did was I kind of combined the two. So I was investing in things like the stock market and real estate, but I was also building up this like kind of passive income machine on the side with my digital products, with my other businesses. So I was able to earn mostly passive cash flow that was covering my expenses month in and month out. So yeah, that combo approach worked really, really well for me and I was able to hit financial independence in a couple of years.
- [09:44]
A
And I know the book talked about different things that you did. Now me with a family, I'm not going to be house hacking at this point, like living with other people, for example. And I think it would be difficult for me to change school systems and such, but maybe there are people listening that could put themselves in a more flexible housing situation and accelerate their path to financial independence even more. Because I think the point that we're trying to get across in this YouTube video is you have more power than you might think. You might have to bring in money in other ways, whether it's through selling digital products, starting an Etsy shop, doing some type of real estate venture that could bring in additional cash. So you want to talk a little bit more, Cody, on some of the creativity that you did early on with your house hacking and some of your real Estate.
- [10:31]
B
Yeah. So this was everything. So maximizing the gap, like if you can take one thing away from this interview, this conversation, my book, it's the gap. It's the difference between your income and your expenses that is going towards that. That's what's going to dictate how quickly you reach financial freedom, financial independence. So for me, as my income continued to climb, I kept my expenses the exact same. But I wasn't like depriving myself. My quality of life wasn't horrible. So as Julie alluded to, on the housing front, so there's the big three. There's housing, transportation and food. Those make up about 67% of the average American spending. On the housing front, I was house hacking. So me and my then girlfriend, now wife Lauren, we bought the property that I'm living in now, actually. So we live in a one bed, one bathroom. Next to us about 50ft away is a four bed, two bath apartment with 600 square feet of office space. We rent that out and it's for $2,500 a month. And after all expenses, after everything said and done, we make $800 a month to live here. Now compare that to some of my friends who moved out to Boston. I'm from Massachusetts. They're spending $2,500 a month on a studio apartment in Seaport in one of the most expensive areas in Boston, which is have a $3,300 difference in our cost of housing. So they're spending $2,500 a month to live. I'm earning $800 a month to live. One tiny tweak. It's not like I'm living in a storage container. Our house is nice. No complaints at all. Right now it's just me and Lauren. We don't have any kids yet. So like this is perfect for us. And it's just one tiny decision. Like we have friends who are also living in one bed, one bath, exact same as us in a drastically different financial situation. On the transportation front, at this point, I could totally afford buying a brand new car, but I don't. I'm still driving the Same paid off 2015 Nissan Frontier truck just because I don't want car payments. And we like to spend on what we value and then we definitely spend a lot more on food. Now that's the last one of the big three. But when we were coming up, like we didn't not do things we didn't like, not hang out with friends, go to restaurants, go to bars, do all the things that people in their 20s do we would just be slightly more intentional about it. So. So, you know, at a restaurant, people would order appetizer, entree, dessert, and wouldn't finish half of it, send it back. Lauren and I would order like an appetizer and an entree. And when we go out to the bars, our. Our friends would be buying a bunch of drinks. Maybe we'd buy one or two drinks. So, like, just all of these things started to compound. Instead of spending, you know, 60 to $80,000 a year, like a lot of our peers were who are making similar money, Lauren and I were spending like $24,000 a year for the first couple years of financial freedom, which made all the difference because as my income climbed again, that gap started to spread. And with that gap with the difference between my income, my expenses, I was investing like crazy.
- [13:10]
A
I love your story and I've lived through it. We've been business partners for seven years. So I've sort of watched what you've accomplished, and it's like, really impressive. So it's been amazing. You mentioned other case studies of other people in the book that also achieved financial independence by 30. So it seems like, oh, you're this outlier, but actually there's kind of a growing community of people that have done this. And it's funny because I'm like, we just all lived the last same years, but somehow you all have been able to do it. But I do think there is something to be said about that resourcefulness. And someone you mentioned, you mentioned a Purple Life. She is a blogger that also achieved financial independence at 30. I was personally friends with her when I lived in Seattle. And from being her friend, I did see that she was a little bit more. I guess the word is resourceful. So if we were going to meet up, she had knew which places had the free happy hour, which, for the $3 drinks or whatever, she knew which karaoke was 50% off on what day, and she just was very scheduled. So she would ask you to hang out, like, hey, do you want to hang out on this day so we can do this thing? Whereas other people would text what are you doing tonight? Type of thing. So I think there's something to be said about just putting that little extra effort in to be a little more creative.
- [14:20]
B
Yeah, I really don't want people to think that this is all about deprivation because like, like I was saying during those couple years, if you asked one of our friends what a Cody and Lauren spend for per year, they would probably say a similar number to them just because, like, from the outside, you can't tell. Like, we could be renting this place, but instead we own it. We rent out the other side. We make money from it. Like, I could be paying car payments on my truck. So, like, from the outside, our life didn't look really any different from our peers, but it was. It was like, you're saying it was the resourcefulness, it's the tiny little tweaks, the differences in our lifestyle that made all the difference.
- [14:51]
A
Yep. And with TikTok and all the ways that people can research right now, you can do the same thing in whatever circumstances you're in. And I think whatever life stage someone's in, I mean, there's a point where if you're moving from two kids to three kids, you might have to get a new car because you can't fit all your kids in your car. That there's. There's ways that. But you can lessen the blow of having to take those financial decisions. And to your point, the compound interest really kicks on. You mentioned A Purple Life, and she retired with $500,000, you said in the book. But then now I noticed on Instagram, she has over a million dollars from. Just.
- [15:22]
B
Isn't that crazy?
- [15:23]
A
Yes. From. And she didn't.
- [15:25]
B
She's been living on her portfolio.
- [15:27]
A
Yeah.
- [15:27]
B
She didn't add any money to it. It's just compound interest doing its work. Like, yeah, she retired with 500,000. She's been living off of that portfolio, and it's doubled while she's spending down the money that's actively. That's invested. Like, it's. It's crazy. It's. It's so wild what the compound interest numbers can do. Like, a lot of people, you'll hear. You'll hear the phrase, like, the rich get richer. And it's like. Well, if you see. If you think of someone like, you know, Warren Buffett, who has billions of dollars, like, he can put his money in, like, a high yield savings account making 5% per year. If you have a billion dollars in a high yield savings account making 5% per year, you're just making $50 million without lifting a finger. Like, it's. Once you build up, like, a sizable nest egg, it's just. It's so crazy what the numbers will do if you leave that money invested in the market.
- [16:11]
A
Mm. Yep. And I know she wasn't necessarily a side hustler. I think a lot of her income came just from her day job. So that's just the power of investing for you. Although I do think adding Income from side hustles. It's a way that you can accelerate sooner, right? I know for myself, I wasn't using my side hustle money for financial independence, but for I did use it to pay off debt. My husband and I both had student loans. So when I started out with blogging and selling on Etsy, I was able to pay down both of our student loans with that on the side. And that was huge because my day job money was for like our mortgage and the house and car and all these things. But then that side money was like, oh, this is extra. I can. Instead of extra, I could spend. Like, let's use it towards helping us get further financially.
- [16:54]
B
Yeah. I'm such a huge fan of side hustles. Like, not only from a financial standpoint, like, yes, you can pay down debt with side hustles. You can invest. I just talked about compound interest, but I think you can agree, Julie, like the first time you make even a dollar outside of your day job, like once you realize that you can get paid without having to work for an employer, it's like mind blowing. Like, I remember it was such a light bulb moment. I made like four bucks or something online, but I was like, oh wow. Like I can not work for a boss and make money by myself online. And I know everyone in our Gold City ventures in our Etsy community, like they say the same thing. It's that first sale is so much more than the dollar amount that you get from it. It is like a whole new world is unlocked and you finally realize, like, hey, I can actually make money by myself online. Like, I can spend my free time making a. Making some extra money with this side hustle. It's about so much more than the money.
- [17:45]
A
And that's why I think your book coming out right now, it's kind of perfect timing because something is changing in the world. We've seen it over the last decade. We were almost early to this where we knew the way that even though we both got college degrees, it was very clear that E commerce and online business was the new western frontier that, you know, was left to be conquered. Like, that's, that's the place where it's at. And now with AI, it's like adding another layer where before we had to learn all of these techy fancy skills and now people can just come in and it's. It's never been easier to just earn money online. And I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head where stuff's going to happen. Like obviously there'll be layoffs with AI. Like things are going to shake up, but having digital skills and understanding how to almost make your own destiny by learning how to get money outside of an employer or outside of another situation, that's, that's going to be the key to someone like sinking or surviving or thriving from 2026 onward, in my opinion.
- [18:45]
B
Yeah, I think the biggest thing right now, like the gap between the doers and the don't do ers is just widening. Like the people who do, the people who are motivated, have just so much more, so, so many more tools nowadays than they did even a decade ago. So, like these people with the help of AI and the help of just all the amazing tools we have today are just so far out competing. The people who don't want to try side hustling and who don't want to adopt these new things. So like, if you are on the cutting edge, if you're someone even listening to a podcast like this, like, you are a doer and so you're going to, you're going to start to out compete your peers by a long shot. I totally agree with you, Julia. Yeah. People who start to acquire the skills now are the ones who are going to be safe when the whole world gets shaken up 100%.
- [19:28]
A
So we're going to talk about a couple more specific strategies so people can walk away with that. But, but I think it's important to be said you have to start somewhere. And obviously you reach financial independence by 30. It's more than just the gap between your savings and your investing and such. I mean, you're, you're doing at this point now you're doing some complicated, you're doing real estate, you're doing syndications. I know from talking to you you're doing some pretty complicated things, but you had to start somewhere. I think when people sometimes hear this information, they don't, they don't necessarily realize they want to skip to the end. They don't realize like, okay, you need to, this is a skill set. Like for myself, I went to college for a skill set and it took me four years to kind of learn a specific thing. And same with you. But online, you got to have that base level of like, skill set. Like for example, your love coupons. If you've never sold anything online, you're not going to make $5 million the next week. Like, you literally have to learn, how do I make $2, how do I make $10, how do I make a thousand dollars and kind of like move on? And I Know, you've. You kind of have done that math out. I think you did. Like, if it's $33 per day, it's almost a thousand dollars per day. Can you talk a little more about, like, just why you need to kind of get started with. With something so that you have that base skill set?
- [20:44]
B
Yeah, I think you're talking about micro goals, which I'm such a huge fan of, because, like, a lot of people would be like, oh, $1,000 per month. That seems so unattainable. But like, you're saying you break $1,000 per month down to the daily, and it's like a thousand dollars per month is $33 per day. That's like three $11 products. That's 11 $3 products. That's five $6 products. That's four $8 products. And it's like, oh, if once you kind of break it down to how many sales of how many digital product sales you need on Etsy, it becomes a whole lot more attainable. And you'll probably see people in communities like ours actually doing that thing. So I think a lot of people will set these crazy big, audacious goals, like, oh, I want a million dollar net worth. It's like, okay, but what actions you need to take to actually get to that point? Or, you know, I want to make an extra 10k on the side this year. Okay, well, how much does that translate to per month? How much per day? And I think, I think when people break things down into micro goals, they just become a lot more attainable. And, and you can kind of check the boxes along the way. Right. It's like you want to pat your back with every little win. You don't want to just celebrate when you hit some massive milestone. Like, the small milestones are just as important. And I think momentum is everything, which you're kind of alluding to there. Like making that first product even. Yeah, just creating that first product in Canva, you know, investing that first dollar, a lot of people will be like, oh, well, I only have a hundred dollars in my bank account. Like, what's the point of investing? It's like, it's getting the muscle. It's, you know, setting up the account so that when you do get more money in the future, you already have that account set up. It's just a click of a button and boom, you're off to the races. Like, it happens slowly until it happens quickly. All of a sudden you wake up and you're like, wow, like, I have no idea how I'm making this much money with digital products or I have no idea how my investment accounts escalated to this point. Like, it just happened in the blink of an eye. I know that's what happened to me, and I know that's what happened to a lot of other people that I've interviewed. Like, I have a bunch of case studies in my book. So just getting that momentum, like, getting comfortable, being uncomfortable is such a huge skill. Trying new things. And so if you're someone who's already doing that, like, kudos to you and investing and saving money and financial freedom might just be the next journey for you to start.
- [22:47]
A
Totally agree. And I almost think as someone that has kids, I think a lot about their future. And we've started saving for college for them. And I'm like, are they even going to go to college? Like, is that. I do think my oldest will probably go to college in like 12 years. I do think that maybe 12 years there'll still be the concept of college. But I've thought about, like, how do I instill what I have learned to her? And I'm like, oh, the second that she can start an Etsy shop and then give to be 13, I'm like, I'm gonna have her do this because this is the way now. Like, forget getting an mba. Forget. I mean, I have a master's degree. Forget getting a master's degree. Like, you don't need to be paying anybody. You need to learn how to sell stuff on the Internet. And you gotta start, start small, because you're not gonna be able to sell a big thing until you can figure out how to sell these small things. And it just gives you so much more confidence and sort of like control over your own life. Like, I think this is the whole point of this podcast, is when you can learn to make money outside of an employer or some other contractual agreement, you have a lot more control over the things that happen to you. And you can weather the storm a little bit better and you can seek and find opportunities that might be successful. So I know, I know we're going to rapid fire a couple strategies. I think if somebody, they don't need their side hustle income right now. They have a. They have their paycheck coming in. This is just sort of an extra thing. Like, there are certain things that they can do. You said investment for an example, or like high yield savings account. Like, what would you suggest that they do and get set up?
- [24:13]
B
Yeah, I would say just invest in the, like, total stock market. So a lot of people will Hear like investing or stock market and that they think that means, oh, I have to pick stocks. I'm going to invest in Tesla, I'm going to invest in Apple, I'm going to invest in Nvidia. You don't have to do that. And I actually suggest you don't do that. Like 90 plus percent of, of professional investors don't beat the market. So like set up an account. You can set up a brokerage account or an IRA that's like a individual retirement account and just invest in the total stock market. Any brokerage, your Vanguards, Fidelity, your Schwabs will have like a total Stock market index fund. That is where I have of my money that's in the stock market. I have 90 plus percent of my money in just total stock market index funds. You don't have to make it fancy or complicated. You don't know, have to know what's happening with all these individual stocks. Like you. Basically what that means when you invest in the total Stock market is you're just betting on the economy. You're embedding on the United States as a whole if you're investing in the US market. So that's one. If you want to get more complicated, I would, I would say like maybe you can look at things like real estate or small business, but that this is getting in the weeds. Like I think just getting set up with like just a brokerage account or an ira, an individual retirement account is probably your first step if you have never invested before.
- [25:28]
A
Yeah. And we're not financial advisors, we're just speaking to what we have personally done.
- [25:32]
B
But yeah, this is just what I personally do.
- [25:35]
A
Yeah. And a lot of people don't realize you have to go onto, when you move the money into these accounts, you actually have to purchase the stock. This sounds, this sounds maybe dumb if you've been doing this, but for me, I didn't know that I had like, I didn't get it. I was like, what? Like I don't. You have to go and purchase. You're purchasing the total Stock Market index, whatever, whatever it is, whatever the version is, Vanguard Finality, et cetera. So, you know, we're not telling you anyone to do that, but just, just pointing out sometimes these little things can like stop people from moving forward or you know, if you're not comfortable with investing, you could open a high Yield Savings account. I know for my parents, they didn't know that. I think, I think I, I've used ally in the past. But there's, there's certain companies that offer interest on your money that you, instead of just putting in the bank and earning nothing, you can earn something. They, my parents didn't know that you could do that. And they're like, oh, we just have this money sitting there for our renovation. I'm like, that's been sitting there. What are you doing? Like, put it, put it somewhere where you can earn something, you know, And I'm sure you've, you learned those similar steps along your way too, Cody.
- [26:35]
B
Yeah, and I have most things on autopilot now. So once you get comfortable with investing, the best thing you can do. Like I'm a huge fan of systems over willpower. Like if you have a bag of chips in your counter one day you're just going to be hungry and tired and you're like, screw it, I'm just going to eat those chips. But if they're not there, you can't eat the chips. Right. It's the same thing with your money. Like if you can set up systems where your money is going into these retirement accounts, into these brokerage accounts before you even see it, before it hits your bank account, a place where you can spend it on maybe frivolous things that you don't need. Like it's going to be so much easier to build financial freedom and build wealth if you just have these systems set up that work on autopilot whether or not you're clicking buttons in certain accounts. So like I have all my stuff set up on auto at this point and if you are someone who starts investing, I would highly, highly encourage you to look into doing that as well. Of course, consult with your financial advisor or read some other stuff online before just like willy nilly clicking stuff. But yeah, it's been huge for me and it's why I'm here, it's why I've come so far today.
- [27:35]
A
And the last thing I want to, I want to mention to get into marriage and family. I mean, let's go there. Your lovely wife Lauren works with us. You mention her in the book. You have some funny lines there about how she did not want to live in some type of crazy financial housing situation that you had suggested. I think you said Lauren said absolutely not. And I laughed out loud when I got to that part. There are some funny things in this book, particularly knowing her too. So how important is it, do you think, for someone to be approaching this with their partner, family, significant other. And like, what is, what does that mean for you as a married person? Like how you guys are going about this together?
- [28:12]
B
Yeah, I think having your spouse or significant other on board is everything. Like most people just don't talk about money with anyone, with their family, with their spouse. Like I've heard some crazy podcasts of people who have like multi million dollar net worths and their partner doesn't know about it. Like start the money conversations now. If you're just getting into this stuff, talk about your goals, talk about, you know, financial freedom and you can listen to podcasts and read articles and read books, but yeah, get, get your spouse on board, just start having the conversations and kind of it's whatever way that is going to get them on board. Like I know for me, I tried getting Lauren on board by showing her spreadsheets and I was showing her like compound interest calculators. She wasn't having any of it. She didn't care about the numbers. But I'm like, hey, what if we can stop working by the time we're 30? Hey, what if we can travel for four months out of the year? Like now she's interested, now she's listening to me because I'm talking her language, something that she cares about. So something we actually do every single month is we have a monthly meeting and we talk about things like business, money, we talk about real estate, we talk about travel, we talk about health and fitness, we talk about relationships, we talk about our goals for the next month. And these, it sounds silly, but these little monthly meetings have been so crucial and just like communication is key in any relationship. And so yeah, you can take that idea, steal it and start having your own little monthly meetings with your significant other. But that was, that's been a huge thing. And Lauren and I have been doing that for years and it's really helped us get on the same page. And so, so it's not like since I'm the more of the finance guy in the relationship and I say, well, we're investing in X, Y or Z or hey, let's not do this, let's do that instead. It's not just like me telling her that we're doing this. Like we're on the same page, our goals and missions are aligned, which has been so crucial. I think like 50% of fights or something are about money. At least in the US That's a stat I read pretty recently. And so it's because people don't talk about it and communication is key. So open up the communication floodgates and start talking about this stuff with your significant other.
- [30:01]
A
I, I love that. And I've been following so now I Guess in my, my age of 37 with the kids, I love following entrepreneurs that they have the family approach to it and or marriage approach to it. And I, I love what you guys do and that's what my husband and I do. And sometimes it takes a little bit of administrative work like we move to combine finances and while that might not be for everybody, it made sense in our life and it just feels like we are creating this Berninger family thing. And I know you guys are creating the Berman, the Berman family thing and it's nice to be on the same page in that aspect and to be working together towards the same goals and to, to have that trade off. But administratively you got to put in the work. Like you have to create the accounts together. You have to do X, Y and Z. It's a pain. You know, if you get married, you change your name. It's, it's annoying. But I, I do feel like bringing your family and on board and having these family goals is, is what can be the motivational factor to really like get after and go for it.
- [30:57]
B
Oh yeah, kids too. I mean if you're, all your kids are side hustling, running Etsy shops like you just got, you guys are just gonna be this financial powerhouse. So it's gonna be awesome.
- [31:05]
A
Oh, just, just you wait. I've started, I've already started. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen some of the, the printables that are coming outta my house right now from the six year old. I wouldn't sell them on Etsy quite yet. Uh, we've been giving them through friends. Uh, she wanted to join a kids business fair. There's a lot of kids business fairs in, in the area. I mean they might be across the country actually if anyone's interested. But I'm, I'm definitely going to get her doing that. I had to stop the lemonade stands though. I feel like it was becoming a health and safety hazard because the recipes were interesting. The recipes I think she was giving one of the neighbor kids, like it was like a combined lemonade fruit punch. Before I really, it was a lightly supervised activity. I'm like, you know what, we need to stop that. Like I don't know what people's allergy situation is. I'm just not going to do that. But we're going to do definitely, I want to do like craft fairs with her and different things like that. And then obviously like there's strategies where if you do get your kids involved in your business, you can set them up in Certain ways. So we're not going to get into that today. But if anyone wants to start their journey like this is a excellent book. Retire by 30. I read this in two days and I already know a lot about Cody and I, I was like, oh, this is, I just, I love the whole thing and I think the two of us, it's great. We were very inspired, both of us. I know we were inspired by the book Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. And I feel like this is the equivalent of the 2026 version of that. Like not to say Tim is. Tim's in a different point of life. We got the Cody Berman's coming up in the world and how do they do it? You know. And I remember reading Tim's book and he was talking about kick, whatever he was doing, like some type of fighting, kickboxing in Spain and blah blah, blah. And like your life is just as interesting as that. You know, you were riding what, ATVs through the desert in Morocco like last year.
- [32:43]
B
Camels. Yeah, yeah. ATVs and camels, yes.
- [32:48]
A
For Cody that's a version of a full life. You know, for me it might be more getting able, being able to pick my kids up from the bus stop myself. Like that's kind of my vibe of how I'm using my financial status that I have. Everyone's going to have whatever their perfect life looks to them. But I think this book can help anybody. But especially if you know somebody, if you can catch somebody that is under 30 and they can do some of the things that Cody mentioned like the house hacking and even taking risks. Like I have to mention this, but when Cody and I first met, I had been working almost 10 years in corporate and we went for a walk in the Boston Public Gardens and he told me he's going to quit his job after only working six months. And I spent an hour long walk trying to convince him not to quit his job. How important it was that he stay in corporate America and all the things he's going to learn and the meetings he's going to attend and the people he's going to learn from and blah blah, blah. And, and he didn't listen to me at all. And he quit his job like the next day. Um, but thank God he did, right? Because we've built Gold City Ventures and his business and clearly he, he made the right choice. I do think that's a risk that is a lot easier to take when you're early 20s. So if you can catch anybody that is at that age like oh God. You can, you can give them like such an incredible head start to life. And it's not, it's not too late for the rest of us. But you know, if, if you can do that, there's a very book, it's called by Meg J. It's called Defining youg 20s or why your 20s matter and how to make the Most of Them. Like, this is a much better. This, this book is way, is way more step by step on how to, on how to do that. So hopefully, you know, someone watching or listening here will be like, oh, I have a cousin or I have this neighbor, friend or whoever. Like, I'm gonna give them this book at a very, very early point and they're gonna thank me in 10 years. So anyways, Cody, appreciate the praise.
- [34:33]
B
Thank you.
- [34:34]
A
Well done. All right, well, we'll let everyone go. But if you have any questions about personal finance, this is an Etsy podcast, so you should definitely go check out Cody's podcast, the FI show, which is incredible. Cody, I'll give you a second to kind of plug that show and where they can learn more about your book and as well as learn more about money.
- [34:51]
B
Yeah. So my podcast, the Financial Independence show, that's been running since 2018, and it's basically just all things personal finance, financial independence, bunch of case studies, bunch of tactical step by steps with different side hustles, saving strategies, investing strategies, and then the book, we'll be doing some fun giveaways. So that's retireby30book.com. But yeah, thank you for this, Julie. This is awesome. It was good to finally talk personal finance. I feel like we talk about Etsy all the time, but I mean, back in the day, this is how we met. It was the, the Fire Drill podcast back in 2018 when we first spoke to each other. Man, that feels like ages ago.
- [35:25]
A
It feels like ages ago. It feels to me like three children ago. Honestly, it was, it was ages ago. I just, I want, and I don't want anyone to think that like Cody, because he's just, just turned 30 and all this, like he doesn't get it. He gets it. Like we have built goal setting ventures together through all of my kids. He's, they've been screaming in the background. I had a baby screaming 20 minutes ago. We weren't even sure if we're gonna do this podcast. Like, he understands the, this is not a book about people not understanding the challenges that people face in their life. Like he is aware of it. It's, it's. How do I make the best of the situation I have. How do I make smart financial choices, and how do I just, like, go that extra step so that I can create this lifestyle of freedom and choice, which he has done at a very early age. So well done, Cody. I know you're going to change a bunch of lives with this book. I'm really excited to see it launch, and it's going to be a bestseller.
- [36:17]
B
Thanks so much. Super excited.
- [36:18]
A
All right, thanks, everyone. Bye.