In today’s episode of the Friday Roundup we review our discussion of the Pillars of Financial Independence, take questions and comments from the community and go in-depth on Paul’s live case study.
Podcast Episode Summary
- Review of Episode 21, the Pillars of Financial Independence
- What areas of financial independence did we leave out of the episode?
- Might have under-discussed savings rate as a pillar of FI
- Choose FI as one of the ‘5 people you spend the most time with’
- The value of $100 savings per month after 20 years or 40 years
- Can Jonathan really do 50 pullups?
- Comment from the audience: Charlotte mentioned Geographic Arbitrage as a pillar of financial independence
- Comment from the audience: Mary suggests that taxes are the largest line item in your budget, not housing like we mentioned
- Comment from Frank: He thinks we can do an entire episode on how to educate your children on money
- Comment from Matt: The expense ratio on Vanguard’s VTSAX fund was just lowered to 0.04%
- FIRE in the News: Anti-frugal event that Isaac showed us and Financial Panther’s list of best new podcasts
- The value of travel rewards for people in the FI community
- Frugal wins of the week from the audience: Andrew starting his own Gracie Garage, Tom’s list of incredible life changes, Cassie’s reduction in car insurance, Neal maximizing gift cards that were lying around the house, Tanner saving on free and used items, Heidi cutting cable
- Live case study from Paul – his responses to our questions from last week’s episode. Find the beginning of the case study here.
- Paul’s response to “how much do your expenses cost you each year”
- Paul’s response to the question, “do you want to quit your job?”
- Paul’s response to “what does your post-FI life really look like?”
- Brad’s thought that the pursuit of FI is not about money – it’s what you value in life and finding happiness both in the journey and post-FI
- Frank’s question to Paul about what they have planned for his daughter’s college education
- Will $43,000 of savings be enough to fully fund a four year college education?
- Thoughts on college education and the value of that education
- Question to Paul about what is psychologically holding him back
- Question to Paul about his plans to include Social Security into his FI plan
- Question to Paul about the breakdown of his investment accounts between different ‘buckets’
- Paul’s plan for a Roth-IRA conversion ladder
- Paige’s comment about the ‘Age of 55’ rule for distributions from your 401k if you are 55 or older after your separation from service
- Our follow up questions for Paul based on his case study
- Itunes reviews and book giveaways
Links from the show:
- Money Confident Kids article: Parents are likely to pass down good and bad financial habits to their kids
- Article from Isaac: Fyre Festival: When a $12,000 luxury festival in paradise turns into chaos
- Financial Panther article: 9 Best New Personal Finance Podcasts
