Choosefi | Financial Independence Podcast For The Stealth Wealth Community

022 | Do you know what your car is actually costing you each year? What about over an investing lifetime? In this episode of the ChooseFI Radio Podcast we cover the True Cost of Car Ownership and you'll be absolutely amazed at the numbers. In Today's Podcast we cover: ChooseFI: The Ultimate Guide to the True Cost of Car Ownership Your car payment is a terrible way to spend your hard earned money We'll present two different perspectives: Brad will show the long-term compounded cost of buying/leasing new cars continually versus holding a car for 15 years while Jonathan is going to present the yearly cost of your car Brad wanted to see what it was costing someone to constantly "manage their car payments" at a set number forever by buying/leasing new cars This example is too conservative so a FI person would actually save even more money! In Brad's example the FI person is buying a new car every 15 years. They have payments for the first 5 years and $0 car payments the final 10 years.  Person B is constantly payi

021R | 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. In Today's Podcast we cover: 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-

021 | In this episode of the Choose FI Radio Podcast we focus on the essential Pillars of Financial Independence including index investing, affordable housing, the psychology of FI, tax optimization and more. In Today's Podcast we cover: ChooseFI Episode 21: The Pillars of Financial Independence While we intend to focus on the roughly 10 pillars of FI, we assuredly have missed some so we hope the audience sends us the ones we've missed Low-cost index fund investing is the way to go with investing in the stock market over decades and the best way to grow your wealth We love Vanguard and VTSAX but Schwab and Fidelity have similar funds with similar expense ratios Even the Mad Fientist realized that he couldn't out-research the market and stuck with index funds while he pursued tax optimization strategies to grow his wealth even faster Another sub-pillar is to not try to time the stock market. You will screw it up since you need to be right on the buying and selling side Affordable housing as a pillar of Financi

020R | In today's Friday Roundup we introduce our first crowd sourced case study from a listener and we have a challenge to you:  Implement one life hack this week that will make your life easier and less stressful and send it to us at feedback@choosefi.com (or leave a voicemail on our homepage!) and we'll read it on next week's Friday roundup. In Today's Podcast we cover: Our first Friday roundup after a non-guest episode which leaves lots of time for audience input, questions and voicemails We want the podcast to be 'By FIRE for FIRE' and make it truly crowdsourced Jonathan and Brad are living a normal middle class lifestyle, just smarter. We aren't doing anything especially different – just optimizing Brad and his wife Laura had a conversation about what makes their spending different than their friends and neighbors While the fixed expenses are essential (home, cars, cell phones, cable, etc.) the discretionary expenses also make the difference between a non-FI mindset and one pursuing FI How Brad's kids a

020 | The Entry Level Middle Class Lifestyle is a tool that you can use to supercharge your path to FI. Jonathan and Brad go through their expenses one line item at a time. Then they start the conversation about a FI approach to insurance, with an emphasis on life insurance In Today's Podcast we cover: What Jonathan and Brad's lifestyle and budget look like. We go in-depth into our actual spending and budget line items What have we talked about previously? How to crush your food budget, how to get fit while being frugal, basics of investing, how to save 75% of your income, tax loss and tax gain harvesting, travel rewards and the unfair advantage for teachers. Housing prices and mortgages for Brad and Jonathan Jonathan was looking for an older neighborhood with a generational shift going on with kids coming in Brad's net cost per month is under $800 per month on his house in a great school district in the Richmond-metro area How to maximize insurance: be sure to shop around and get quotes and don't be complace

019R | In our Friday roundup Jonathan and Brad discuss the highlights and takeaways from the Monday episode with JL Collins. Then the podcast is opened up and crowd sourced to the community. Find out the specific travel reward perks that are available for active duty military and how to get started with VTSAX if you don't have $10,000 to invest The Friday Roundup #8: Review of podcast with Jim Collins Jonathan's baby was born! And he's here recording the Friday Roundup two days later 2nd Generation FIRE and the impact on Jonathan with his new son The value of starting a child on the path to FIRE from the very beginning Index investing as one of the main 'pillars of Financial Independence' Jim's Stock Series changed the trajectory of Brad's investing life and will benefit him to the tune of millions of dollars in his lifetime There are no investing gurus out there who will help you outperform the market over decades when including fees into the calculation Jim is such a fantastic storyteller Fidelity study of

019 | In Today's Podcast JL collins from JLcollinsnh.com joins Jonathan & Brad on the podcast to bring the Stock Series to life. The Power of Index Investing is one of life's greatest secrets & JL Collins is the ultimate travel guide. This multi part series turns the stock series into an interactive audio companion and this first part is sure to compel you to stick around for each additional entry The Stock Series | Part 1 Our guest: Jim Collins from JLCollinsNH.com The Stock Series Part 1: "There's a Major Market Crash Coming!!!! And Dr. Lo Can't Save You" Lo claimed that "buy and hold investing doesn't work anymore" and that raised Jim's ire quite a bit which led to the Stock Series An overview of the Stock Series and how Jim would explain it Jim's eight rules that you need to understand in order to succeed with long-term stock market investing "The Market Always Goes Up" which is very counterintuitive to people, but over the long-term it invariably does The market is always going to stumble or have

018R | In Today's Podcast we cover how to harvest long term capital gains tax free. Friday Roundup 7 Review of Monday's episode with Jeremy from Go Curry Cracker Brad and his family just visited Washington DC for the weekend and used Chase Ultimate Rewards points to stay at the Hyatt Place National Mall Brad's trip to Walt Disney World with his family, parents and in-laws Jonathan now understands harvesting capital gains and losses after the episode with Jeremy Unconventional choices: Jeremy and Winnie haggling at the farmer's market near the close of business. Brad going to Disney World before Molly turned 3 so they could get her park ticket for free. Jeremy taking his son on a flight the day before he turned 2 so he could be a lap child on a business class flight Quick hit takeaways from the Jeremy episode: He told his mom he had a '60 year emergency fund'; he opened a Roth-IRA for his son for earned income on the website. The power of having money and financial independence enabled Jeremy to walk out of hi

018 | In Today's Podcast we cover: Our guest: Jeremey from Go Curry Cracker Jeremy and Winnie are living the geo-arbitrage life: currently in Taipei, Taiwan and then on to a four month trip to Europe They are using travel rewards points to get nearly free business class flights from Taipei to Europe. Using Alaska Airlines miles on Cathay Pacific they got nearly 20 cents per point in value! "Retiring in your 30s is simple but not necessarily easy" The biggest contributing factor is saving a high percentage of your income It's easier to save a high percentage of your income when you have a larger income Make unconventional choices to save a high percentage 2nd Generation FIRE and how college costs can be lowered Jeremy had $40,000 in debt when he came out of college They have already opened a Roth-IRA for their son and used the income he earned from 'modeling services' for Go Curry Cracker He used the 80/20 rule to look at where 80% of their spending was going Sold his car and rode a bicycle Winnie made it so h

017R | In Today's Podcast we cover: Friday Roundup # 6 This is our 23rd episode and providing a home for the FIRE community Thank you for our 50th review on Itunes (from Chad Carson!) – we plan to implement the voicemail feature on the website so we can use your input on the show Episode with Brandon from the Mad Fientist This podcast humanized Brandon and you got to hear his story "Early retirees are such a different breed…I'm looking at this through the very focused lens of early retirement." The built-in benefits of financial independence aside from just the dollars and cents: College, health care, taxes The Roth IRA Conversion Ladder The Roth IRA conversion ladder is the key to early retirement and accessing your 401k/retirement funds and pay little to no taxes on the money It was amazing how open and honest Brandon was: depression, 'quarter-life crisis', deprivation period Brad went to a retreat over the past weekend for "designing the life you want to live into" Quote from Keith: "I never dreamed past h

017 | In Today's Podcast we cover: Today's guest: Brandon from MadFientist.com and the origin story of the Mad Fientist How did the Mad Fientist website come about? He first stumbled on the Early Retirement Extreme website He thought there'd be investing strategies to get him to financial independence more quickly, but he realized index funds were the best way to go about it Then he stumbled upon tax optimization and tax avoidance strategies Finding Get Rich Slowly and other personal finance blogs got him interested, but he looked at it through the eyes of an early retiree and realized the standard advice didn't necessarily apply "Early retirees are such a different breed" and optimizations can be had when looking at the problems differently for FIRE He took a core tax strategy and pivoted it to the best way to optimize for early retirees He uses his audience feedback to help come up with ideas for new posts or as ways to update and augment posts The Roth IRA conversion ladder changed the entire game for him

016R | In Today's Podcast we cover: Friday Roundup #5 Recap of house hacking episode with Chad Carson from CoachCarson.com Real estate investing is one of the pillars of Financial Independence 'Keep it super simple and try to do the fundamentals well' quote by Chad Chad put in the extra effort to walk neighborhoods on Saturday mornings to learn about real estate House hacking is essential knowledge for someone getting started with FI The main levers to pull to get on the path to financial independence Housing is the biggest line item in most budgets and this can be a game changer House hacking for '2nd generation FIRE' Brad lived at home after college graduation and saved many thousands of dollars instead of renting an apartment If you have a solid income and you aren't saving money then you aren't a "success" Moving forward ChooseFI will bring in other real estate mentors to help educate all of us Itunes reviews Feedback from Libertarian Investments about our appearance on Radical Personal Finance on earning

016 | In Today's Podcast we cover: Real estate investing and house hacking with Chad "Coach" Carson. On the path to financial independence, how much of your own budget is going towards housing? After Chad graduated college at Clemson, he got started with real estate investing in his college town. How financial independence and real estate investing have allowed Chad to move his family to Ecuador for about 1.5 years. When they moved to Ecuador they sold most of their possessions and rented out their house for 2 years. When Chad graduated college he kept his expenses extremely low and actually moved into his business partner's spare bedroom to help save money. This led to his concept of "house hacking" as a way to keep housing expenses down to nearly zero House hacking: buy a multi-family rental unit and live in one unit while you rent out the rest and have them essentially pay for your house payment entirely Easy to become rich saving the money you'd otherwise be paying for your house and car payments Keep it

Keeping up with the Joneses' will cost you 1. Allocation when Investing in a Bubble? Kyith points out that allocation matters as the Early Retiree approaches their FI date 2.Paul wants to know where he should put his emergency fund 3. Should Brad Pay off His Mortgage? Kevin challenges Brad & Jonathan on whether they should pay off their mortgage using the Dave Ramsey litmus test 4. Matt would like to see ChooseFI tackle Effective Altruism 7. Sharing Resources Links Mentioned in Show https://www.choosefi.com/start https://www.choosefi.com/CIT https://www.choosefi.com/Disney https://www.choosefi.com/book Travel Rewards | Southwest companion pass and how to travel to Disney

015 | In Today's Podcast we cover: Our guest: Justin from Root of Good Justin had access to 401k and the 457 retirement plans 457 plan is an extremely valuable took for early retirement as there is no 10% early withdrawal penalty Justin's early retirement journey: Retirement at 33 Saved over 60% of his income to help retire early Justin has a wife and 3 kids and was still able to retire early What does a day in the life look like for Justin and the Root of Good family? "Optimal spouse selection" is important on the path to early retirement. You both need to align and be compatible with the savings mindset Being early retired gives you the flexibility to spend your time as you choose and live like a billionaire from a prior era Justin followed the Early Retirement Forums to model the behavior as he was learning about the path to financial independence Does it really cost $300,000 to raise a child? They spend $29,000 to $34,000 per year including luxurious vacations Quote of the day: "If you want to be average,

Control your Tax Rate by understanding how our marginal brackets work and eliminating consumer debt and taking advantage of tax deferred accounts Get Started on Path to FI https://www.choosefi.com/start Free Travel Course https://www.choosefi.com/travel For Net worth Tracker https://www.choosefi.com/pc Community Questions 1. Brian has a question about separation of service 2. Jason questions whether to use Vanguard vs Schwab 3. Kristen wants to know why she was denied for a premium credit card despite having 700+ credit score 4. Tyler shares how he used geoarbitrage to supercharge his path to FI Jonathan and Brad introduce a new segment with the FWOTW of the week (Frugal Win Of The Week)

014 | The Phases of FI with 1500 days (Mr 1500) Our Guest: Carl from 1500 Days The Phases of Financial Independence Close-knit community at Fincon and FI generally, Its amazing how much you have in common with somebody when you share a philosophy about money What is your philosophy about money? It isn't about money – it's a tool to a better life The goal of his site 1500 Days to freedom Their real estate investing experience Buying a McMansion and selling it within 2 weeks How one bad day at work led him to MMM and the concept of early retirement The importance of health Surrounding yourself with the best possible people Live in a place that has outdoor pursuits, the best possible library and a strong community Raise your children to be good, hardworking people and raise your knowledge every day Explore the world and give back by volunteering Time is the most essential resource, and it's slipping away from you unless you plan for it Develop passions to design the life you want to live with the time available.

Control your Tax Rate by understanding how our marginal brackets work and eliminating consumer debt and taking advantage of tax deferred accounts Get Started on Path to FI https://www.choosefi.com/start Free Travel Course https://www.choosefi.com/travel For Net worth Tracker https://www.choosefi.com/pc Community Questions 1. Brian has a question about separation of service 2. Jason questions whether to use Vanguard vs Schwab 3. Kristen wants to know why she was denied for a premium credit card despite having 700+ credit score 4. Tyler shares how he used geoarbitrage to supercharge his path to FI Jonathan and Brad introduce a new segment with the FWOTW of the week (Frugal Win Of The Week)

013 | Our guest: Millionaire Educator shows us how to invest your money. He shows how teachers, firefighters, police officers and public employees can leverage the power of pretax savings to supercharge their retirement , and become millionaires. Take this information to learn how to invest your money and retires decades before your peers Ed's journey from a college basketball player to a Spanish teacher Graduate school led to $45,000 total debt at age 33 Taught ESL in Saudia Arabia and paid off debt Returned to the US from Saudia Arabia with a $110,000 net worth Had to figure out the concept of FIRE before it even existed Taught in public school in Georgia for the next 7 years The two retirement plans available to public sector employees: 403(b) and 457 Teachers can fully fund both of these accounts ($18,000 to each in current year) Putting away this money helps dramatically decrease your taxes In 2007 his net worth was $400,000 2009: Next phase of their retirement journey 403(b) fees are significant, so it

The Friday Roundup acts as a way to connect the FI community bringing in your feedback questions, and corrections. https://www.choosefi.com/Start Text choosefi to 44222 for FI made simple Ebook On Todays episode Feedback on the Frugalwoods episode Email from Isaac: How have others responded to you being "openly FIRE" in your real life? Email from Evan: Has some tax hacks he wants to pass along Questions about travel rewards – do Chase points expire and how to transfer? Update on Jonathan's goal to lose 30 points by April 22nd Jonathan and Brad's Favorite networth tool FI made Simple Ebook Travel Course Personal Capital Review