September 3, 2025 • 49 mins
In this crossover episode, Jackie joins the 'Wicked Pissah Podcast’, brought to you by the Financial Planning Association (FPA) of New England. She trades in the Sunday sweatshirt for her CFP® blazer but still stays true to openly sharing her fascinating money story and spreading financial literacy. They discuss:
- The story behind her $2-bill savings habit
- The divorce-day gut punch that pushed her from $20k to FI
- Why she is so passionate about the 'Catching Up to FI’ platform and late starters
- How she demystifies FIRE for financial professionals
- How she tackled the big skeptic questions about retiring early
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey, catching up to FI Jackiehere, and I am bringing you another
midweek episode because we love tokind of show you different sides of
us when we go onto other podcasts.
This time I'm kind of, showingyou that, professional side of me,
certified financial planner side.
And I joined the Financial PlanningAssociation of New England's podcast
(00:24):
called The Wicked pissah podcast issuch a fun name, but I, myself, am, am
pretty involved in the CFP community.
I serve as president of my localchapter, which is the Financial Planning
Association of Southwestern Ohio.
So I think you're gonna enjoy it.
Let's take a listen.
(01:13):
Our guest in this episodeis Jackie Cummings Koski.
She's the author of Fire for Dummies.
She also co-hosts a podcast calledCatching Up to Phi, financial Independence
for Late Starters, and is the FPAchapter President of Southwestern Ohio.
We'll hear Jackie's story on how shebecame involved with the fire movement.
Why she was chosen to be theone to write the book and why?
(01:35):
She hands out $2 bills wherever she goes.
It's time for a Wicked Piss podcast.
Wicked Piss Podcast.
Wicked Piss podcast.
It's time for a Wicked Piss podcast.
Welcome to the Wicked Piss of Podcast,a production of the Financial Planning
Association of New England intendedfor financial planning advisors.
(01:56):
Hello and welcome back tothe Wicked Piss of Podcast.
I'm Brad Wright, past president ofthe Financial Planning Association
of New England, co-founder of LaunchFinancial Planning, and Andover Mass.
Our guest on this episodeis Jackie Cummings Koski.
Jackie wrote the book Fire for Dummies.
She also co-hosts a different podcastcalled Catching Up to Fi, financial
Independence for Late Starters.
(02:17):
And as a fellow FPA member,she is chapter president of
the Southwestern Ohio chapter.
Jackie started her CFP path throughthe Master's of Science and Personal
financial planning degree from KansasState and the FPAs Externship program.
She considers herself a financial educatorwhose superpower is sprinkling money,
smarts, and $2 bills wherever she goes.
(02:39):
Jackie, thanks for joining us.
Hey, uh, right.
Thanks for having me.
Um, so yeah, you, you, you got it right.
Uh, I'm a financial planning expertnow as well as financial education, and
my main job is waving other people in.
So, um, I'm glad tohang out with you guys.
Um, but I, I do have one request.
Can I say the name of the podcast?
(03:00):
I love the name.
Do it.
Okay.
The Wikia podcast.
Yeah.
Now you gotta, you gotta forgetany Rs, any r in your is wikia.
Wsa.
Okay.
There you go.
I, I do wanna know about the $2 bills,but I, I also wanna know about your
background and sort of what, you know,what got you to where you are today?
I think it goes back to, youknow, kind of how I grew up.
(03:21):
You know, I grew up in poverty raisedby a single dad with six kids, and the
key to me that kind of shifted thingsto where I was no longer in poverty.
I'm in middle class, I'm learningabout finance, was financial literacy.
So when that was such a door openerfor me that changed my world,
changed the whole trajectory ofmy life, I'm like, you know what?
(03:43):
I'm not that unique.
There's a lot of other people thatcame from where I came from that I know
could do the same thing, except nota lot of people were talking to them.
So I figured I would be the voice.
So I started out just, you know,doing personal finance, uh, workshops,
financial education in high schools.
Wrote a self-published book calledMoney Letters to My Daughter because you
(04:05):
know, when we learn something, the firstthing we wanna do is teach our kids.
And so as I'm going through that,I have a thirst for more and more.
And so I started learning aboutmore advanced topics, learning
about, you know, fire, financialindependence, retire early.
But then I said, I kind of wantto memorialize some of this.
(04:27):
Right.
I was, look, started looking atthe CFP saying, you know what,
I, I'm still ready to up my game.
I'm still curious.
So I go to get this master's, uh,well actually the master's program at
Kansas State was financial therapy.
And I love that it was so unique, but toget the master's degree, there was these
six pesky classes that you had to takeand those classes were to sit for the CFP.
(04:51):
So even as I was going through thoseclasses, I'm like, you know what?
I don't know if I wanna be a CFP.
I don't wanna practice like that.
I know a lot about financial planning,but I don't know if I wanna do one-on-one.
And so somewhere down theroad, by the time I graduated.
With this degree in financialplanning and financial education,
key word financial therapy.
(05:11):
I said, you know what?
I think I'm gonna do it.
And so I earned this scholarship thatgave me one year to sit for the exam.
So I'm doing everything I can to tryto pass this exam the first time.
And luckily I did.
Yeah, I passed the exam.
I get my CFP.
Most of my experience hourswas financial education.
(05:33):
I learned that you could use that and.
I have, you know, thought of myselfnow as an important part of the
financial planning profession,just in a slightly different way.
So, so that's kind of the story and that'swhere most of my passion for teaching
people about their money, uh, comes from.
Yeah.
And, and, and you mentioned, youknow, somebody, somebody introduced
(05:53):
you to financial education, which nowyou're doing to multiple other people.
So who was that person for you?
Gosh, I'm trying to think back.
I dunno if it was any one person,because a lot of this was happening.
Before social media, it was happeningbefore a lot of these online
communities and things like that.
I was just so curious and, and I guess,I guess my turning point would've
(06:15):
been at the time of my divorce, Iwas in my mid thirties and um, one
big financial thing that stuck withme, that was my big wake up call was
when I saw the huge disparity betweenwhat I had in my retirement account.
And what my husband hadin his, I had $20,000.
(06:35):
Again, I'm in my mid thirties.
I, I don't, didn't even know if thatwas good or bad, but he had $120,000,
a hundred thousand dollars more.
Think of how that wouldmake you feel, right?
We didn't talk about this stuff andI just, uh, it felt like somebody had
punched me in the gut at a time thatI was already vulnerable already.
A lot of stress and anxiety.
And, and all these emotions going on.
(06:56):
And I said, you know what?
I don't want to feel thisfinancially ignorant again.
The first thing I ended updoing is I said, okay, what
was I really interested in?
What was I curious about?
And I was always curious about thestock market because I was afraid of it.
And I ended up joining an investment club.
That's what it was.
I ended up joining Investment Club.
It was supported by a nonprofitorganization called Better Investing.
(07:17):
And, and I remember.
A friend of mine, she actuallywas in Boston, Massachusetts.
I was in Dayton, Ohio, we're havingthis conversation about stocks and I
didn't even know what I was doing, butshe mentioned the organization and she's
like, yeah, they support investment clubs.
There's one in Boston, theyprobably have somewhere.
You are too.
You should Google it.
So I Googled it.
And the rest is history.
(07:38):
Yeah.
People are most afraid of, uh,investments, that's for sure.
Yeah.
But people don't understand thatthere's so much more to financial
planning than just the investments.
Once they understand all that,you know, it, it all comes
together for people I think.
So what's with, uh, thehanding out $2 bills?
Yeah, so I got a big sheetof $2 bills behind me.
Um, if you're looking at the video,the $2 bill, it represents a lot to me.
Basically, it was the first lessonI learned about saving because even
(08:02):
when you think you don't have enoughto save, you can save something.
To at least start to createthe habit and build the muscle.
I was doing that without even knowing it.
Sometimes we're doing something rightwith, and we don't even realize it.
Mm-hmm.
So when I was in highschool, I got my first job.
It was at this, uh, restaurant chaincalled Shoney's in South Carolina,
and I went to go cash my checkbecause back then you had to take
(08:25):
the paper check to the bank andthey gave me back a two do one of.
The bills that they gave meback was a $2 bill, so I'm like,
wow, this looks really special.
I'd never seen a $2 bill.
So I held onto that $2 bill and everytime I would cash my check, I would
ask for a $2 bill and I saved those.
No matter what the ones got spent,the fives got spent, the twenties got
spent, the $2 bills did not get spent.
(08:48):
They were always either for anemergency fund or my little special
collection that I held very tight to.
So I did that all through high school.
Through college as a youngadult when I started my career.
And I think I was easily, you know, in mythirties, it may have been post-divorce,
but I remember my daughter asked me, she'slike, mom, how many $2 bills do you have?
(09:09):
Because I was showing herthe collection one day.
And I'm like, you know, Idon't know, let's count 'em.
And when I counted those $2 bills,I had 1900, $2 bills, $3,800 worth.
Yeah, it was crazy.
But I had saved all of that money.
And didn't even realize I was saving it.
Now, obviously it would've donebetter if I would've had it invested
somewhere, but the savings gene wasbeing built without me even realizing it.
(09:33):
And, and now I, yeah, now I usethe $2 bills I give them away,
especially the high schoolers, ifI'm doing a financial education
session, I'm not coming empty handed.
I'm giving out $2 bills.
If you got a good question,you get a $2 bill.
If you answer one of myquestions, you get a $2 bill.
And that's just sort of beenmy calling card, uh, since.
Then
that's great.
They stopped making 'em.
Right, so they mightbe worth more than $2.
(09:53):
Maybe that's your investment.
Well, supposedly they still make them.
They don't make 'em as often.
I think the last group that theymade was in 2017, but obviously
there's not as many, right?
Because a lot, one, a lot of people holdonto them, and two, nobody really uses.
Cash that much anymore.
True.
But they do, they are still in circulationand they are still making them.
(10:14):
All right, good.
So you wrote the book, fireFinancial Independence, retire Early.
I think a lot of advisors and,and just people in general
have heard the term, but maybe.
Don't fully understand what it is.
So let's do a little bit of the basics.
Who started the, the movement?
Why did it get started?
What is it?
Yeah, so the book is Fire for Dummies.
You know, that verypopular brand under Wiley.
(10:35):
And part of who I had in mind andI was as I was writing the books,
was financial professionals becausethere, there is a lot of misnomers.
One of the biggest ones is that.
Fire people or do it yourselfersthat don't ever want to
use a financial advisor.
And that's just not true.
They will seek out professionals forthings that they find valuable and
(10:55):
with some of the newer models, like theadvice only that fits right into the fire
philosophy, but they are primarily do.
It was, but more so big pictureis the fire movement, which
basically says, you know what?
I don't think.
We have to wait until we'rein our sixties to retire.
Why can't we cut out early if we justoptimize a few things, do things a little
(11:20):
bit different, and speed up that process.
So that we can get closer much soonerto doing that thing that we love.
I know most of my working life,I work to bring home a paycheck.
Unfortunately, it wasn't what I love todo, and for most of Americans, they're
not necessarily doing what they love.
The first thing theywanna do is make money.
(11:40):
That's, that's the whole reasonwhy we choose our college program.
A lot of times that's the reasons whywe wanna get promotions and go back
to college and get more education.
So why not do some things alittle bit smarter and create
the nest egg that you need?
So that you can live off of thatnest egg before 60 or 65 Now.
(12:02):
Now some of the big peoplethat started talking about
this, it goes way back, Brad.
It goes way back to, you know Vicki,Robin, Vicki Robin was on the Oprah
Winfrey show when that was going on.
She was basically talking abouttrading your time for money
and how do you not do that?
And she was talking alot about cutting out.
She wrote one of the
first books on it.
Yeah.
One of the first books on it.
(12:23):
Yeah.
Your money or Your Life.
Yeah.
And then, um, when another Big Voice isJail Collins, he's talks about simple.
Index fund investing.
Uh, investing can be that easy foreveryday people because I always think
about the masses and as financialplanners working one-on-one, you know,
we can only touch so many people.
(12:44):
Typically two or 300 householdsis about all we can handle.
So who's helping all those other people?
Right.
Um, so yeah.
JL Collins, uh, there's this guy,funny name, uh, Mr. Money Mustache.
He retired when he was 30.
Now he was a brilliant engineer.
You know, actually a very prolific writer.
So he did a lot of writing and one of hismost popular articles was the Shockingly
(13:08):
Simple Math Behind Early Retirement.
He had this, uh, showed this chart thatsaid, okay, in order to determine when
you retire, it's really a big, the biggestfunction is looking at your savings rate.
So if your savings rate is10%, you can retire at 70.
If it's 40%, you might be retired 50.
(13:28):
If it's 50 or 60%, you might be ableto retire in your thirties or forties.
And it was just that simple.
So the whole idea is to get to doing whatyou love a lot sooner because it's the
money part that always gets in the way.
Right?
Yeah, so, so the typicalperson obviously is young.
Um, and then I would think either.
(13:50):
Is willing to live in the parents'basement and eat noodles, or is an
engineer that makes a lot of moneyearly on and, and can do that.
Yeah, maybe.
And you know what?
That's probably the simplified waythat some people will look at it.
So they're not all young.
I wasn't young.
Um, I was younger than thetypical retirement age.
Typical retirement age in the US is what?
65? 70. Sure.
(14:12):
Yeah.
Around, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
So young, I guess hisrelative, you know, Mr.
Money mustache, he was in every article.
Why?
Because he's 30 years old and that'sthe sexy, hot, unbelievable thing
that the media wants to share.
But I was 49 when I retired, but that'sstill very early by most standards.
Yep.
And, and my, and the podcast thatI host, catching up Tophi, it's
(14:34):
a whole bunch of people that.
Are a bit older and thinking, you knowwhat, I didn't do any everything right.
Coming outta the, I wasn't,I wasn't an engineer, okay?
I didn't know about my finances whenI got outta college and I'm not a
high income earner and I'm just nowlearning about money and I'm 45.
What do I do?
So it's not, and I think originallyyou hit the nail on the head.
(14:54):
That was probably the avatar.
And these days you can doit so many different ways.
You know, you got things like CoastFive where you've saved enough
to where just by letting it grow.
By the time you turn 60, it'll bewhere it needs to be and you don't
need to contribute anything else.
Uh, you know, barista fight whereyou're done with a big corporate job
and you're like, you know what, eh,I'll just go to Starbucks and be a
(15:16):
barista for a while, um, to get healthinsurance and I think I'll be okay.
I think there's a lot of.
Different nuances or different typesand different ways that you can approach
fire that didn't really exist early on.
It was the avatar that you mentioned.
Clients come to us right as theyapproach retirement or is there
maybe not so close to retirement?
(15:36):
And, and they always ask,how much money do I need?
Right?
How much money do I need to retire?
So I'll ask you the same thing.
So if you're retiring, you know, 25years earlier than plans, how much
more money do you need at that point?
And, and when these.
Fire individuals retire, uh,where are they retiring to?
That's a very important question.
Where do they retire to?
(15:57):
That is really something they should beasking themselves before they cut out.
I mean, obviously a lot of themmight have a job that they hate.
Okay.
They just wanna get away from that.
But I think the whole.
Idea of knowing what you're retiringto, that's the key to a happy retirement
that applies to fire people justlike it does traditional retirement.
Okay?
(16:18):
So think about what, what does yourlife even look like once you retire?
And if someone asks thatquestion, people don't have a
long attention span, especiallywhen it comes to the money stuff.
So I, I break it down as simply aspossible, and so do i. I think one of
the things that attracted me to thefire movement at is that they did.
Really simplify things.
It's not saying that it'stotally simple to do this.
(16:40):
Start out with something simpleand, and you will start to ask more
questions and become more curious,and then you can flush it all out.
So what do you need for retirement?
25 times your expenses.
Okay, so in order to come up withthat number, what do you need to know?
Do you need to know your expenses?
Which typically you need a budget,
right?
And
you need to know, you know,what's, what's your savings?
So there's a lot of numbersyou need to know to get there,
(17:01):
and most people that I ask.
I'll say, what is your expenses?
What do you spend every year?
Normally they will gimme their salary.
They will give me what they make, whichas you know, are two very different.
Yep.
Uh, numbers.
So if they tell me their expenses is whattheir annual salary is, I'll say, well,
do you contribute anything to your 401k?
(17:22):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I do.
Do you know how muchyou're paying in taxes?
Oh, a lot.
You know, so, so by the time wecut it down, I mean it's probably
30% less than what they thought.
And I'm like, when you take that number,let's say it's $40,000, you multiply
it by 25, so 25 times your annualexpenses, that's a starting point.
(17:43):
And that is keyed off of the 4%rule, but we know the 4% rule.
Some people say it should be more or less.
Now, one of the big advantages thatsomeone has retiring early over,
someone retiring at 70 is their humancapital so they can do passion projects.
What are they retiring to?
Yeah.
Is that a skill or talent or somethingthat you're doing that warrants pay?
(18:07):
To get something.
So those are just some of thedifferences, but you almost
kind of have to back into it.
But I think initially peoplewant a quick, an quick answer.
If you want a quick answer,I'll give you a quick answer.
And typically there's alot of follow up questions.
And then if they have even onefollow up question, I got them.
They're curious enough to ask a question.
(18:28):
Right?
Right.
So, so you, you know, you mentionedtaking away the taxes, taking
away the 401k contributions.
There are things I would think youhave to add in, though that might
be a little more costly, like healthinsurance for an extra period of time.
And, and, and maybe wetalked travel, right?
Travel is definitely a big one.
Um, so there, so there's an answerto everything because you know, every
(18:49):
time Avid big video, fire video isposted, you get the same questions.
Okay?
The same three questions are,what about health insurance?
How to get money outta your,your retirement account early?
And how do you create a paycheck whenyou're used to getting a paycheck from
a job and the health insurance part?
Maybe it's expensive, maybe it's not.
You know, there's a lot of options.
Like right now you've got the AffordableCare Act that's gonna be very state
(19:11):
specific, and to an extent zip code.
Specific, but you definitelyshould look at it.
There's a lot of political undertones,so when you ask somebody, sometimes
they're gonna tell you whatevertheir political affiliation is.
And as far as getting your, uh,getting money out of your retirement
account early, that is a seminalquestion in the fire community.
And there's, as you know,there's lots of ways to do it.
Just go look at, uh, RR.
(19:32):
Code 72 T. Yep.
And there's over 20different ways to get it out.
So those are all good questions, though.
We get them again and again and again.
Just from average people sayingthis doesn't make any sense,
help me make sense of it.
So you are part of the fire movement.
You've achieved financialindependence, retired as you said
at 49, but you're working again.
(19:54):
You're doing differentthings now, so Yeah.
Is, is that typical?
Do people do this for five or 10 yearsand say, you know what, I'm bored.
I want another challenge, orwhatever the reason I ran outta
money, whatever the reason may be,and, and just, and go back to work.
I mean, I don't thinkit's that black and white.
When people retire, typically they'retalking about separating from that
(20:14):
corporate job where they are having to.
They are required to, in order tolive and pay their bills, they need
to exchange their time for money.
And when they say they'reretired, they're done with that.
Just like the guy working.
You know, I live in Ohio, so just like theguy working on the Ford Assembly plant.
Okay.
So if he retires there may or may not bea pension, but if he retires from Ford.
(20:38):
People just say he's retired.
Does he sit around and do nothingtypically, that that guy's doing
something, but nobody's reallyquestioning what else he's
doing that might bring in money.
So the whole idea of retiringto something, I guess I'll,
I'll just use myself an example.
So five years in, five or six yearsin, I had definitively decided that
I never wanted to work a regularfull-time day job ever again.
(21:03):
Now I'll do passion projects.
Sometimes I get paid forit, sometimes I don't.
I have a big missionof financial literacy.
You know, I wanna create afinancially literate society
and whatever furthers that.
Money is not the only factor for me.
If money were the biggest factorfor me, I have my CFP now.
(21:23):
I have a master's in financialplanning and financial therapy.
I can go to Wells Fargo, bank ofAmerica, Schwab, fidelity, any of
those guys, and make $200,000 a year.
Right?
Pretty quickly.
Yep.
So if I wanted to go backto work and not be retired.
Wanted the money, I would do that.
Yep.
Now, some of the projectsI do, I make money.
I'm personally not, will, not readyto say I'm no longer retired because
(21:47):
most of my days I get to control it.
I don't have to work.
I have, I enjoy projects.
So like for instance, when.
Every podcast episode, there'sa certain process you go through
and then you have the baby andyou have, you release the episode.
That's right.
I, I love that.
I enjoy that.
Okay.
I don't wanna commit to you for threeyears to work for your stinky firm.
(22:10):
It's like, I don't wanna do that.
So, because then
they're gonna make you go throughcompliance for the podcast and hurdle.
Right?
They're gonna, and, and I, and onour podcast, we'll get some, um.
CFPs or people with licensesthat work for a firm.
Yeah.
Where they gotta have itgo through compliance.
Yeah.
So we can't air it for three weeks.
It's one of the reasons
I started my own firm.
I was sick of doing that.
Yeah.
Just tired of doing that.
So, uh, or, or, and no desire to do that.
(22:32):
Other people may consider me.
Working.
Oh yeah.
If she makes any money, if shehas anything, like even from
the book, if she makes any moneycoming in, she's not retired.
It's like, you know what?
That's okay.
You can think what you want.
But I am, one of the thingsI write about in the book is
use your own measuring stick.
So if that's how you measureit, that's fine, that's fine.
(22:52):
But don't try to push yourmeasuring stick on me.
Okay.
So my measuring stick says I, I,I'm retired and I'm not out there
actively trying to make money.
If I go.
Years without making money.
That's fine.
I still withdraw my, frommy portfolio every year.
There was only one year since I retired.
That I didn't have to draw from myportfolio 'cause I did a big project
(23:13):
and I made enough money where I didn'thave to touch my investments, which,
which goes back to that whole 4% rule.
We know it's not an even line.
Right.
And it's variable.
Yeah.
You know, so, so, and that answerspart of the question about.
Okay, you have a longer retirement.
Does those normal ruleof thumbs kind of work?
And to me, the biggest advantageor the biggest thing that helps a
(23:36):
younger person out retiring, I don'tknow, 40 fifties, even 60 sometimes.
It's just your human capital andyour ability to make more money.
Sometimes even if you sit on boardsyou could possibly make money for
from that, you do some consulting oryou do projects that's gonna offset.
Or keep you from having to withdrawout of your portfolio if you've
actually got money coming inbecause of your human capital.
(23:58):
So Jackie, how were you theone chosen to write this book?
The fire book?
How'd you end up being the author?
Yeah, that's funny.
Um, so fire, um.
The name of the book, fire for Dummieswas not supposed to be the name.
So they wasn't, theyweren't looking for someone.
So the interesting part is I hada good friend who's also CFP,
(24:18):
her name is Sarah Catherine.
She's in Arkansas, and she has agreat firm that was growing like
crazy and she was growing her firm.
So she had been.
Talking with Wiley to write this bookcalled Wealth Building for Dummies, and
she just did not have the bandwidth.
Again, she's building her firm and sotheir question was, well, since you
(24:42):
don't have time to write it, that's fine.
Um, thank you for considering it.
Do you know someone elsethat could write this book?
So she emails me, she says,um, would you be interested?
I'm like, of course.
Of course.
And so I talked with the acquisitionseditor, she introduced us, and we got
along great and I had to fill out allthis stuff, all this information about
(25:05):
myself and what I do and my credentialsand background and all of that.
And.
I sent it all to her.
I later figured out that that'swhat normally you would put
in a book proposal, right?
Uh, so I guess I got the shortcut.
So she talks to her team and theysee all this fire stuff, right?
I did a market watch, uh, videoon fire, you know, a lot of
(25:25):
major media stuff around fire.
So that's what they dug out of it.
Now the big part of fire is.
Wealth building is pretty much thesame except fire is a lot sexier
than wealth building, right?
So, uh, so they come back to me, theygo, yeah, they loved everything but they
would like to change the, change thename of the book to Fire for Dummies.
And I'm sure those guys, theseare Wiley is one of the big five
(25:49):
publishing companies, so I'm surethey do their research to figure out.
Titles of books and what is morepopular or more likely to sell.
So they came back with Fire for Dummies.
I'm like, that's great.
I, I don't know if I would've been ableto sell them on it, but thank goodness
they made the connection that WealthBuilding Fire is wealth building.
Let's go this direction.
(26:10):
Yep.
So, so that's how the book came to life.
It's fantastic.
It's doing well.
It's doing very good.
Better than expected.
My publisher is very happy.
I'm very happy.
I'll do like a 32nd math lesson,so that advance that you get
is not really in advance.
Right?
It's a loan
Yep.
That you pay back in theform of book royalties.
(26:31):
So, uh, this book came out a year ago.
I am now even.
Okay.
I am now Even, uh, theroyalties are pretty small.
Um, about 15%.
So I'm not getting, you know, even thoughthe cost of the book is $24, I'm not
getting $24 for every book that's sold.
I'm getting a very smallpercentage, so it takes a long time.
(26:53):
Um, well, depending on how great the bookdoes, um, I guess as far as different,
uh, sales metrics or sales milestones,5,000, you kind of hit it out of the park.
Done well, well over 5,000probably Right at 10,000.
Great.
And so it is, they're gonna make
the movie next, right?
Right, exactly.
So, so it, it's hit the Mile, allthe milestones that says it was a
(27:14):
very successful book, but I had noidea, Brad, what it was gonna do.
You know how many people would buy it.
I, I knew I had some friends and familyand, uh, colleagues that would buy it, but
beyond that, you, you don't really know.
No.
Uh, so, so I'm pleasantly surprised.
And, and so was the publisher.
All
right.
So, so go find the book and buy it.
Search, uh, fire for Dummiesand, uh, and get on that.
(27:37):
How long did it take you to write it?
Shorter than I thought.
Um, when I wrote that littleself-published book way back
in the day, uh, about financialliteracy, money letters to my
daughter was the name of that one.
I was going at my own pace.
It took two and a half years.
This book took about six months frombeginning to end because I didn't
already, like some people that are writingbooks, they've got half the book done
(27:59):
by the time they start on a schedule.
And I didn't, I started from scratch.
I had to do the outline forscratch From Scratch, and, and
they did the editing, but I had to.
Put everything else together.
So I did have a technicaleditor on the book.
His name was Cody Garrett.
But he went through and made sure thatall the technical stuff was correct.
'cause you know, there's alot, lot of stuff in there.
It was a lot of stress.
(28:19):
I, I had already beenretired at that point.
So the idea of having a timeline and,and having to get this in by this
date, it felt too much like work to me.
But I agreed to the schedule.
I'm like, you know, I'm not.
Working.
You know, I'm retired, sure I can dothese, but the ideals weren't flowing.
The cre, creative juicesweren't flowing all the time.
And I found it to bevery, it was stressful.
(28:42):
It was, it was pressure.
It felt that way to me.
And again, not because of Wiley, it'sbecause, you know, I agreed to this and I
just wasn't exactly sure how it would go.
And so if I were to do this over, Iwould definitely give myself longer.
I would have more of the book alreadywritten where I'm just flushing
things out and things like that.
Sure.
Um, but I, I got it done and I, I wasvery proud to be the person that wrote
(29:05):
this book because most proud, becauseI had my CFP at that point, I had just
earned my CFP, so I was glad to be ableto put Jackie Cum Koski, CFP on the book.
So I am, I'm puttingin there very balanced.
Accurate, well-researched materialand putting it all in the framework
of financial independence.
(29:26):
And I even have, uh, one chapter, it waschapter eight, that specifically talked
about working with financial professionalsand just deciphering some things that
confuses us all, us all, like flat fee,you know, fee only, you know, we in the
profession even get confused about it.
I was clarifying that and,and my big, my big thing.
(29:46):
Especially for fire people.
But if they say, how do Ifind a good financial planner?
Don't you get asked thequestion all the time?
Right?
Yeah.
My, my answer is, the first thingis to know what you are looking
for and what you want help with.
And once you do that, then you canstart to, um, I guess whittle down.
Uh.
The different profess type ofprofessionals that would be able
(30:08):
to fulfill what you're looking for.
But if you don't know what you'relooking for, the first person you go
to, they're gonna tell you what you'relooking for and it's whatever they do.
And that, and that takes some work.
'cause a lot of people don't evenknow where to start with that.
What, what do you meanwhat am I looking for?
I'm looking for someoneto help me with my money.
Right, right,
right.
They, they usually make it verygeneral and then I'll then you
(30:29):
got a conversation going, do youwant them to manage your money?
No, no, no.
I like index funds.
I wanna do it myself.
Okay, so that's not who you need.
Um.
You know, maybe they'll talk abouttaxes, maybe they'll talk about
they need an estate plan and youknow, so there's a lot of different
types of professionals, right?
But you have to knowwhat you're looking for.
Sometimes it may be a CPA,sometimes it may be an, an attorney.
(30:52):
So, um, again, us as the profession, aspart of our job to help educate people on
how to even find the right professional,because you know, a lot of the.
Negative reputation that we might have.
It comes from peoplethat aren't even CFPs.
Right?
Right.
Anybody can call themselves afinancial planner, but how does
(31:13):
the average consumer know that?
Yep.
I CF p board's trying to do,uh, commercials for that.
Yeah.
To explain it.
Yeah.
You know, they're
doing a, they're doing a good job.
I actually like the commercial,but yes, they are definitely
spending their marketing dollars.
For sure
and why you should have a CFP.
So, alright, so six months, how?
Eight hours a day you're riding?
Heck no.
Um, no way.
Um, maybe three or four hours a day.
(31:36):
I, I tried everything, Brad.
That's good.
I I would do dictation 'causeI walk and I hike a lot.
So I like to speak it.
I tried ai, I think it was way too early.
Yeah.
On only to sort of sh plant some seeds forme, or if I needed a list of something.
Yeah.
Sometimes AI did a good job, like, letme make sure I'm not missing anything.
Let me see what, what AI says.
(31:57):
But that was very little help to mebecause I, I needed it to be my voice
and I needed it to say it a certain way.
And of course, AI is onlysays it the way that it's.
Where whatever they're aggregating,wherever they're getting, that's learned
so far.
Right?
Yeah.
That it's, that it's learned so far.
Yeah.
And my voice is probablynot out there like that.
So rarely.
Eight hour days.
(32:17):
Um, but there was some long nights, likeif the juices were flowing, it could
easily be, uh, eight hours, I suppose.
But that was.
That was rare, but sometimes it'llbe like two o'clock in the morning.
I'm like, oh my God.
Um, it's two o'clock in the morning,but I, I still gotta go like, like
this energy, you know, I've got thiscreative energy going, I can't stop.
Yeah.
And the good thing was thatI didn't nec, you know.
(32:40):
If I didn't have anything goingon the next morning, I could
continue to write until I justlike literally fell over in my bed.
Right.
So the opposite of fire right,is, is, uh, financial independence
for late starters, which is Wow.
So you went from writing the fire bookto hosting the podcast for late starters.
Let's talk about how the, the podcastcame to be and who your co-host is.
Yeah, so, so probably, so the firstpart of fire is financial independence,
(33:04):
and the majority of the fire movementwould say that the stress is on the
five reaching financial independence.
As you know, there's many people that.
Retiring that may not be financiallyindependent, they're not ready,
they don't have enough money.
Look at all the, all the research, youknow, all the statistics and things
like that say that most people arenot financially ready for retirement.
(33:28):
So, um, the catching up toPHI is, is the podcast, uh,
PHI is financial independence.
And so that basically is keying inon a slightly different demographic.
They're still part of, youknow, financial independence.
They're still seeking financialindependence, who's not, but they're
saying that Why do we only hearthe stories of the people that are
(33:48):
30 year olds or 40 year olds thathad it all figured out early on?
I've had kids, I have trying toget my kids to through school.
I went through a divorce, I'm animmigrant and I had to start, start over.
Well, what about these peoplethat got a late starter?
Primarily our demographic is between 35and 55, so I wouldn't really call that
(34:11):
old, but it is older than the typicalpicture you see of the fire avatar.
Sure.
So nobody was talking to this demographic.
It, it is almost like.
The silent generation that no one wastalking to, no one was saying, Hey.
Even if you're 45, it's not too late.
Like that compound growth chartthat we love to show that says after
(34:33):
40 years, if you put in, you know,if you invest $50 a week, you'll
have a, that's the one I used.
You'll have a million dollarsif you invest $50 a week in
the s and p 500 after 40 years.
Well, I don't have 40 years.
So now what do we do?
So we address those things and my cohost.
So I was a late starter.
I started at 38 after I'dgotten a divorce, um, or I
felt like a late starter.
(34:54):
Sometimes that's relative.
Some people say, huh, I don'tthink that's a late start.
To me, it was a late start and it, itcaused me to run really hard and really
fast, and I think that's how I ended upbeing in a position to where I could.
Actually retired early.
I moved way faster than I ever imagined.
So my co-host, he is a highly paidemergency room physician, right?
(35:17):
Being a doctor, um, is a bigpaycheck, but he got a late start.
He didn't wake up until he was 50.
You know, big money, big life.
Yeah.
Right.
Just more zeroes.
Right.
Just add more zeroes to it.
So he was living a big life.
I mean, some of it he doesn't regret,you know, he has two twin boys that
they had some great trips, lots ofgreat memories and uh, different
(35:40):
times together that he would not.
Trade, but he knew that he wasspending everything that he earned.
He talks about his story.
Um, basically him and hiswife was a single digit saver,
almost had nothing at the time.
He woke up at 50 and then he startedputting all these pieces, pieces together.
He got really curious and he changed a lotof things, and now he's in about 10 years.
(36:04):
He turned it, he's turned it around towhere he is financially independent Now.
He is still working.
Now he's, he will be as a position,
right?
Not as a financial planner.
Right.
Not as a financial planner.
Yeah.
Although now he has enough knowledgewhere he could be a financial planner.
I am definitely nudging him downthe CFP route and all of that.
However, he enjoys being an ER physician.
He does enjoy it, butthere's a high burnout rate.
(36:26):
Sure.
There's a, there's a lotof stress there sometimes.
Uh, he, he shares it with me and ourcommunity that in the er, he's having
to tell people that they've got.
A chronic disease or that they've got aterminal disease that was not detected.
And the only, the way that they ended upin the emergency room is that they were
(36:47):
ignoring all these signs to begin with.
So he enjoys what he does andhe has the ability to where,
um, he, he ratcheted down.
I think he works like three quarters.
He's not part-time, a littlemore than part-time, but his job.
Is in very high demand.
And so if he wanted to, he couldgo down to one or two days a
(37:07):
week probably if he wanted to.
Um, and I feel like that'sprobably how he's gonna retire.
He retire and they might say, Hey,can you work one or two days a month?
Or whatever.
He might say, yeah, I cangive you these few days.
Do you consider him retired or not?
Right.
You know, I don't know.
But so, so he, but if he has thoseskills, those expert skills that are
(37:28):
in high demand, why wouldn't he use it?
He may decide to do it on a volunteerbasis, you know, doctors Without
Borders or something like that.
But it's up to him.
And at the time that he retires,he, I think he's okay now, but, uh,
he says he has a few more years.
But in his, you know, in hismind, he has a few more years,
but I think he's able to.
(37:50):
He can retire whenever he wants,is technically retirement.
If anyone else wants to call itsomething different, that's fine.
They can use that for theirown, um, measuring stick.
But he's very interesting too, because herepresents the high income doctor that.
You think most people thinkhave it all figured out.
Mm-hmm.
And a lot of planners go after, um,you know, physicians and doctors.
(38:13):
Um, and he's right now lookingfor a, I think before he
didn't really have a planner.
He had like salespeople, I think it waslike insurance or something like that.
But now doctors
get hit from everybody.
Yeah.
Doctors get hit from everybody.
So he has Wise Doc and he tries toeducate other doctors, but also.
He does want to workwith a financial planner.
(38:33):
So he is currently interviewing financialplanners to get the right fit for him.
And so this whole idea that theFI community or the fire community
doesn't use financial professional,that's just not right at all.
He has A-A-C-P-A that takes care ofall his tax planning and tax work.
Um, so he, he does that.
I've used, you know,financial professionals.
Sure.
(38:54):
So, um, I think it's a misnomer that,you know, we wouldn't wanna work
with financial professionals, but.
You know, very mindful though about,you know, how we spend our money.
You can't be an expert in everything,
right?
I mean, you're Yeah.
Emergency room physician,you're focused on that.
It's not like, right.
You should know everythingabout your personal finances.
You should have a general ideaof what's going on, but Right.
You know, somebody else is gonna bepaying a lot more attention to it.
(39:15):
Yeah.
And that's why we usually say.
DIY or do it yourself.
It doesn't mean you wannado it all yourself, right?
There's still things youmight want help with.
And, and then, so I'm talking tothe fire people when I'm, when I'm
talking about that, because I am partof the financial planning world too.
And there are, you know, verycapable, um, a whole lot of great
(39:37):
professionals that are there to serve.
They're experts at whatthey do and they, they.
Have a lot of knowledge that theaverage person does not have.
So for fire people, you know, thereare a lot of value that a financial
planner can bring to you or othertype of financial professional.
(39:59):
Mm-hmm.
And for the financial professionals,just because they talk about fire or.
You know, buzzwords for fire, like passiveincome or retiring early, that does not
mean that they don't want or need touse some type of financial professional
help you reach those goals earlier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So congratulations.
Your podcast has reacheda million downloads.
(40:21):
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm very happy about that.
Um, fantastic.
It's, it's been a, it's been a ride,it's been about two years as you
know, you know, you've been doing thispodcast, so, um, it's, it's, it's great.
You get to talk to a lot of peopleand you get to flush out certain
things with experts and all of that.
So, um, we're very proud of it.
Uh, bill, uh, my co-host, theER physician, he's actually the
founder and he had done a few.
(40:42):
Other, you know, financialliteracy projects.
So he's been around that for a long time.
And so, um, I'm, I'm more proud of himbecause he was the one that did it.
I knew that, you know, older peopleor people with a late start, they.
We're not giving, given theattention that they needed.
No one was really talking to them,but Bill was the one that actually
started it and did something about it.
(41:03):
Yeah.
Well, congratulations.
That's a, that's a big milestone.
Yeah.
Thanks.
It's a big milestone.
How's everything with your,uh, Southwestern, Southwestern
Ohio chapter FPA chapter?
Oh, I love my president.
Uh, yes, Madam president.
Um, I, I, I love it.
You know what, I really appreciate, Brad,I appreciate that the chapter board.
The chapter executive who, whosename is Danielle, she's awesome.
(41:26):
How much they embraced me.
You know, I knew my approach in theworld of financial planning and the
role that I played was not that commonand that it was different than the
typical one-on-one financial planner.
But they embraced me.
They embraced me, and.
You know, welcomed me to the board.
Um, even got to the pointwhere, um, I'm president now.
(41:48):
Uh, I, I think it's important to notethat this financial planning profession,
there's a lot of different roles.
You've got technology people, you'vegot some people behind the scenes.
You've got people that do one to manypeople that do one-on-one, people
that focus on different things.
So.
I am a huge advocate for theprofession and I want us to do good
(42:10):
because we hold so much knowledge.
Yeah.
So much knowledge that we need to share.
And a lot of the work that we do, uh,we are sharing as much as we possibly
can with what a planner can do for you.
There are many awesome chapters,small, medium, and large, around the
country that, uh, and, and it's great.
It, it's not the, I mean there's acentralized FPA, but uh, you know, all
(42:31):
the chapters sort of operate on theirown, um, with help if they need it.
And everyone's kind of doing differentthings and different cool things.
I am very proud to be, uh, you know,whenever people will make, if anybody
makes any negative statements about,you know, financial planners or anything
like that, it's like, well, that's me.
Okay.
I'm a part of the financialplanning world now.
Yeah.
So, so let me just give youa little clarity on that.
(42:51):
So, yeah, I'm, I'm glad that I'm on thisside of it because when I was deciding
whether or not I was gonna sit for my CSPand become part of the planning world, I
didn't have the most positive perception.
And it was because I was thinkingabout like some other professionals
that either didn't have their CFP ormaybe they were doing other things
(43:13):
where they weren't really a planner.
So I could have stayed on theoutside and complained about it.
Right.
And have that negative perception or.
I could be on the inside, and as I saw,this is a changing profession, so I can be
on the inside and be a part of the change,
right?
Or I could have stayed on the outside andI'm really glad that I decided to be on
the inside to be a part of the change.
Yeah.
And I see it happening every day.
(43:34):
We're making waves.
Yeah, we're making waves.
We are.
Jackie, before we go, I know youwanted to mention something about
the, uh, the saving initiative that'sgoing on that you're working with.
Yeah, I did.
Um, you know, I'm not technically apart of it, but because this pilot is
happening in Boston, Massachusetts,it says, so ancy runs the humble
dollar personal finance, uh, websitethat's been around for a while.
(43:57):
He is a staunch, uh, financial educator.
Financial literacy advocate,and he's a big, has a huge
connection with the bogleheads.
And the Bogleheads Centeris a nonprofit organization.
So what they are doing, um, well,unfortunately, uh, Jonathan was diagnosed
with, uh, a terminal cancer last year.
(44:18):
And only had about a year to live.
He's still here, he's still withus, and he has openly been talking
about, this is how I wanna go out.
He is still talking about financialeducation, financial literacy, and trying
to get everything in he possibly can.
He has, he has no regrets.
Okay.
One of the things that he's doingalongside the Bogle Center is that
(44:38):
they're offering $1,000 grants tohelp with seed money for young people.
18 ish.
Uh, start their Roth, IRA.
They're wondering, okay, what if westart these people out really early,
give them some seed money, help themunderstand how to use it, get their Roth
IRA, started, can we make some movement?
(45:00):
So they, it's a pilot project.
It's being, uh, done with the BostonSummer Youth Employment Program.
These are underserved youth.
In that area, part ofthis employment program.
So they meet the one criteria, right?
They have to have earned income.
Yep.
And, and it'll be interesting to see.
So when I saw that, you know, Bostonwas the area that they're starting
(45:20):
with, I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
I'll be sure to mention that to Brad.
So Joe, I don't know if there'sanything, you know, the financial
Planning Association could do tosupport that, but I would be very
interested and if this pilot goes well.
Then of course, the idea isto roll it out and make it
accessible to a lot more people.
So I, I just, I just love new ideas.
(45:40):
I love as you as, as I mentioned,I love projects and I think this
is a worthy one, and for JonathanClements and the Bogle Center to be
at the forefront of this, it just.
Giving back double downing on thefact that how of, how financial,
how important financial educationand financial literacy is to them.
And, and I came from an underservedcommunity myself, so I appreciate
(46:02):
that they are trying to help, uh,people that might not otherwise,
uh, have access to stuff like this.
Yeah, the, you know, the financialplanning association is great
for financial literacy, also.
Very great.
In, uh, nationally, in our,in our pro bono efforts.
I think absolutely think that's abig thing that sets the FPA apart.
Each chapter has their own, they dowonderful things within their own
(46:23):
communities and, uh, and giving back.
So, Jackie, thank youfor joining us today.
Thanks, Brad.
This was great.
I appreciate you having me here.
And I am loving the W of Piss podcast.
I think you guys have been roundbefore I even took my CFP exam.
Yeah.
So I've been li I've beenlistening to it for a long time.
Uh, I'm a little jealous.
Five years ago.
I came on board about three years ago,but yeah, five years ago, I think.
(46:45):
Uh, Chris Boyd, uh, oneof our members started it.
Yeah, so thanks.
And to find out more aboutJackie, you can go to LinkedIn.
Just go to LinkedIn and searchfor, uh, Jackie Cummings Koski.
You could also go to your podcastright, catching up to phi.com.
That's right.
Uh, hit me up there.
We release new episodes everySunday, connect with me.
I'm a huge advocate, especially for newerpeople trying to come into the industry.
(47:07):
I have a little bit of a, a differentperspective, so, um, I'm, I'm happy
to be a part of, uh, you know,financial planning and the FPA.
Yeah.
And search and then buy Fire for Dummies.
Right.
We wanna get you that 15.
A lot percent.
Yeah.
Thanks
a lot.
I know.
Then you gotta put, put a fewmore pennies in my pocket.
Thank you for that.
Yeah.
And if you're in, uh, the Ohio area,you're interested in, uh, joining, uh,
Jackie's FPA chapter, you can go tofpa s w.org or for more info on our New
(47:32):
England chapter, you can visit FPA newengland.org And thanks for listening.
If you'd like to learn moreabout the Financial Planning
Association or FPA New England.
Visit our websites, financial planningassociation.org for the National
Association or FPA new england.org.
You can learn more about ourorganization and all the upcoming
(47:54):
chapter events we hope you'll join.
That's FPA new england.org.
Until next time, have a wicked good day.
Hey, catching up to FI Jackiehere, and I am bringing you another
midweek episode because we love tokind of show you different sides of
us when we go onto other podcasts.
This time I'm kind of, showingyou that, professional side of me,
certified financial planner side.
And I joined the Financial PlanningAssociation of New England's podcast
(00:24):
called The Wicked pissah podcast issuch a fun name, but I, myself, am, am
pretty involved in the CFP community.
I serve as president of my localchapter, which is the Financial Planning
Association of Southwestern Ohio.
So I think you're gonna enjoy it.
Let's take a listen.
(01:13):
Our guest in this episodeis Jackie Cummings Koski.
She's the author of Fire for Dummies.
She also co-hosts a podcast calledCatching Up to Phi, financial Independence
for Late Starters, and is the FPAchapter President of Southwestern Ohio.
We'll hear Jackie's story on how shebecame involved with the fire movement.
Why she was chosen to be theone to write the book and why?
(01:35):
She hands out $2 bills wherever she goes.
It's time for a Wicked Piss podcast.
Wicked Piss Podcast.
Wicked Piss podcast.
It's time for a Wicked Piss podcast.
Welcome to the Wicked Piss of Podcast,a production of the Financial Planning
Association of New England intendedfor financial planning advisors.
(01:56):
Hello and welcome back tothe Wicked Piss of Podcast.
I'm Brad Wright, past president ofthe Financial Planning Association
of New England, co-founder of LaunchFinancial Planning, and Andover Mass.
Our guest on this episodeis Jackie Cummings Koski.
Jackie wrote the book Fire for Dummies.
She also co-hosts a different podcastcalled Catching Up to Fi, financial
Independence for Late Starters.
(02:17):
And as a fellow FPA member,she is chapter president of
the Southwestern Ohio chapter.
Jackie started her CFP path throughthe Master's of Science and Personal
financial planning degree from KansasState and the FPAs Externship program.
She considers herself a financial educatorwhose superpower is sprinkling money,
smarts, and $2 bills wherever she goes.
(02:39):
Jackie, thanks for joining us.
Hey, uh, right.
Thanks for having me.
Um, so yeah, you, you, you got it right.
Uh, I'm a financial planning expertnow as well as financial education, and
my main job is waving other people in.
So, um, I'm glad tohang out with you guys.
Um, but I, I do have one request.
Can I say the name of the podcast?
(03:00):
I love the name.
Do it.
Okay.
The Wikia podcast.
Yeah.
Now you gotta, you gotta forgetany Rs, any r in your is wikia.
Wsa.
Okay.
There you go.
I, I do wanna know about the $2 bills,but I, I also wanna know about your
background and sort of what, you know,what got you to where you are today?
I think it goes back to, youknow, kind of how I grew up.
(03:21):
You know, I grew up in poverty raisedby a single dad with six kids, and the
key to me that kind of shifted thingsto where I was no longer in poverty.
I'm in middle class, I'm learningabout finance, was financial literacy.
So when that was such a door openerfor me that changed my world,
changed the whole trajectory ofmy life, I'm like, you know what?
(03:43):
I'm not that unique.
There's a lot of other people thatcame from where I came from that I know
could do the same thing, except nota lot of people were talking to them.
So I figured I would be the voice.
So I started out just, you know,doing personal finance, uh, workshops,
financial education in high schools.
Wrote a self-published book calledMoney Letters to My Daughter because you
(04:05):
know, when we learn something, the firstthing we wanna do is teach our kids.
And so as I'm going through that,I have a thirst for more and more.
And so I started learning aboutmore advanced topics, learning
about, you know, fire, financialindependence, retire early.
But then I said, I kind of wantto memorialize some of this.
(04:27):
Right.
I was, look, started looking atthe CFP saying, you know what,
I, I'm still ready to up my game.
I'm still curious.
So I go to get this master's, uh,well actually the master's program at
Kansas State was financial therapy.
And I love that it was so unique, but toget the master's degree, there was these
six pesky classes that you had to takeand those classes were to sit for the CFP.
(04:51):
So even as I was going through thoseclasses, I'm like, you know what?
I don't know if I wanna be a CFP.
I don't wanna practice like that.
I know a lot about financial planning,but I don't know if I wanna do one-on-one.
And so somewhere down theroad, by the time I graduated.
With this degree in financialplanning and financial education,
key word financial therapy.
(05:11):
I said, you know what?
I think I'm gonna do it.
And so I earned this scholarship thatgave me one year to sit for the exam.
So I'm doing everything I can to tryto pass this exam the first time.
And luckily I did.
Yeah, I passed the exam.
I get my CFP.
Most of my experience hourswas financial education.
(05:33):
I learned that you could use that and.
I have, you know, thought of myselfnow as an important part of the
financial planning profession,just in a slightly different way.
So, so that's kind of the story and that'swhere most of my passion for teaching
people about their money, uh, comes from.
Yeah.
And, and, and you mentioned, youknow, somebody, somebody introduced
(05:53):
you to financial education, which nowyou're doing to multiple other people.
So who was that person for you?
Gosh, I'm trying to think back.
I dunno if it was any one person,because a lot of this was happening.
Before social media, it was happeningbefore a lot of these online
communities and things like that.
I was just so curious and, and I guess,I guess my turning point would've
(06:15):
been at the time of my divorce, Iwas in my mid thirties and um, one
big financial thing that stuck withme, that was my big wake up call was
when I saw the huge disparity betweenwhat I had in my retirement account.
And what my husband hadin his, I had $20,000.
(06:35):
Again, I'm in my mid thirties.
I, I don't, didn't even know if thatwas good or bad, but he had $120,000,
a hundred thousand dollars more.
Think of how that wouldmake you feel, right?
We didn't talk about this stuff andI just, uh, it felt like somebody had
punched me in the gut at a time thatI was already vulnerable already.
A lot of stress and anxiety.
And, and all these emotions going on.
(06:56):
And I said, you know what?
I don't want to feel thisfinancially ignorant again.
The first thing I ended updoing is I said, okay, what
was I really interested in?
What was I curious about?
And I was always curious about thestock market because I was afraid of it.
And I ended up joining an investment club.
That's what it was.
I ended up joining Investment Club.
It was supported by a nonprofitorganization called Better Investing.
(07:17):
And, and I remember.
A friend of mine, she actuallywas in Boston, Massachusetts.
I was in Dayton, Ohio, we're havingthis conversation about stocks and I
didn't even know what I was doing, butshe mentioned the organization and she's
like, yeah, they support investment clubs.
There's one in Boston, theyprobably have somewhere.
You are too.
You should Google it.
So I Googled it.
And the rest is history.
(07:38):
Yeah.
People are most afraid of, uh,investments, that's for sure.
Yeah.
But people don't understand thatthere's so much more to financial
planning than just the investments.
Once they understand all that,you know, it, it all comes
together for people I think.
So what's with, uh, thehanding out $2 bills?
Yeah, so I got a big sheetof $2 bills behind me.
Um, if you're looking at the video,the $2 bill, it represents a lot to me.
Basically, it was the first lessonI learned about saving because even
(08:02):
when you think you don't have enoughto save, you can save something.
To at least start to createthe habit and build the muscle.
I was doing that without even knowing it.
Sometimes we're doing something rightwith, and we don't even realize it.
Mm-hmm.
So when I was in highschool, I got my first job.
It was at this, uh, restaurant chaincalled Shoney's in South Carolina,
and I went to go cash my checkbecause back then you had to take
(08:25):
the paper check to the bank andthey gave me back a two do one of.
The bills that they gave meback was a $2 bill, so I'm like,
wow, this looks really special.
I'd never seen a $2 bill.
So I held onto that $2 bill and everytime I would cash my check, I would
ask for a $2 bill and I saved those.
No matter what the ones got spent,the fives got spent, the twenties got
spent, the $2 bills did not get spent.
(08:48):
They were always either for anemergency fund or my little special
collection that I held very tight to.
So I did that all through high school.
Through college as a youngadult when I started my career.
And I think I was easily, you know, in mythirties, it may have been post-divorce,
but I remember my daughter asked me, she'slike, mom, how many $2 bills do you have?
(09:09):
Because I was showing herthe collection one day.
And I'm like, you know, Idon't know, let's count 'em.
And when I counted those $2 bills,I had 1900, $2 bills, $3,800 worth.
Yeah, it was crazy.
But I had saved all of that money.
And didn't even realize I was saving it.
Now, obviously it would've donebetter if I would've had it invested
somewhere, but the savings gene wasbeing built without me even realizing it.
(09:33):
And, and now I, yeah, now I usethe $2 bills I give them away,
especially the high schoolers, ifI'm doing a financial education
session, I'm not coming empty handed.
I'm giving out $2 bills.
If you got a good question,you get a $2 bill.
If you answer one of myquestions, you get a $2 bill.
And that's just sort of beenmy calling card, uh, since.
Then
that's great.
They stopped making 'em.
Right, so they mightbe worth more than $2.
(09:53):
Maybe that's your investment.
Well, supposedly they still make them.
They don't make 'em as often.
I think the last group that theymade was in 2017, but obviously
there's not as many, right?
Because a lot, one, a lot of people holdonto them, and two, nobody really uses.
Cash that much anymore.
True.
But they do, they are still in circulationand they are still making them.
(10:14):
All right, good.
So you wrote the book, fireFinancial Independence, retire Early.
I think a lot of advisors and,and just people in general
have heard the term, but maybe.
Don't fully understand what it is.
So let's do a little bit of the basics.
Who started the, the movement?
Why did it get started?
What is it?
Yeah, so the book is Fire for Dummies.
You know, that verypopular brand under Wiley.
(10:35):
And part of who I had in mind andI was as I was writing the books,
was financial professionals becausethere, there is a lot of misnomers.
One of the biggest ones is that.
Fire people or do it yourselfersthat don't ever want to
use a financial advisor.
And that's just not true.
They will seek out professionals forthings that they find valuable and
(10:55):
with some of the newer models, like theadvice only that fits right into the fire
philosophy, but they are primarily do.
It was, but more so big pictureis the fire movement, which
basically says, you know what?
I don't think.
We have to wait until we'rein our sixties to retire.
Why can't we cut out early if we justoptimize a few things, do things a little
(11:20):
bit different, and speed up that process.
So that we can get closer much soonerto doing that thing that we love.
I know most of my working life,I work to bring home a paycheck.
Unfortunately, it wasn't what I love todo, and for most of Americans, they're
not necessarily doing what they love.
The first thing theywanna do is make money.
(11:40):
That's, that's the whole reasonwhy we choose our college program.
A lot of times that's the reasons whywe wanna get promotions and go back
to college and get more education.
So why not do some things alittle bit smarter and create
the nest egg that you need?
So that you can live off of thatnest egg before 60 or 65 Now.
(12:02):
Now some of the big peoplethat started talking about
this, it goes way back, Brad.
It goes way back to, you know Vicki,Robin, Vicki Robin was on the Oprah
Winfrey show when that was going on.
She was basically talking abouttrading your time for money
and how do you not do that?
And she was talking alot about cutting out.
She wrote one of the
first books on it.
Yeah.
One of the first books on it.
(12:23):
Yeah.
Your money or Your Life.
Yeah.
And then, um, when another Big Voice isJail Collins, he's talks about simple.
Index fund investing.
Uh, investing can be that easy foreveryday people because I always think
about the masses and as financialplanners working one-on-one, you know,
we can only touch so many people.
(12:44):
Typically two or 300 householdsis about all we can handle.
So who's helping all those other people?
Right.
Um, so yeah.
JL Collins, uh, there's this guy,funny name, uh, Mr. Money Mustache.
He retired when he was 30.
Now he was a brilliant engineer.
You know, actually a very prolific writer.
So he did a lot of writing and one of hismost popular articles was the Shockingly
(13:08):
Simple Math Behind Early Retirement.
He had this, uh, showed this chart thatsaid, okay, in order to determine when
you retire, it's really a big, the biggestfunction is looking at your savings rate.
So if your savings rate is10%, you can retire at 70.
If it's 40%, you might be retired 50.
(13:28):
If it's 50 or 60%, you might be ableto retire in your thirties or forties.
And it was just that simple.
So the whole idea is to get to doing whatyou love a lot sooner because it's the
money part that always gets in the way.
Right?
Yeah, so, so the typicalperson obviously is young.
Um, and then I would think either.
(13:50):
Is willing to live in the parents'basement and eat noodles, or is an
engineer that makes a lot of moneyearly on and, and can do that.
Yeah, maybe.
And you know what?
That's probably the simplified waythat some people will look at it.
So they're not all young.
I wasn't young.
Um, I was younger than thetypical retirement age.
Typical retirement age in the US is what?
65? 70. Sure.
(14:12):
Yeah.
Around, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
So young, I guess hisrelative, you know, Mr.
Money mustache, he was in every article.
Why?
Because he's 30 years old and that'sthe sexy, hot, unbelievable thing
that the media wants to share.
But I was 49 when I retired, but that'sstill very early by most standards.
Yep.
And, and my, and the podcast thatI host, catching up Tophi, it's
(14:34):
a whole bunch of people that.
Are a bit older and thinking, you knowwhat, I didn't do any everything right.
Coming outta the, I wasn't,I wasn't an engineer, okay?
I didn't know about my finances whenI got outta college and I'm not a
high income earner and I'm just nowlearning about money and I'm 45.
What do I do?
So it's not, and I think originallyyou hit the nail on the head.
(14:54):
That was probably the avatar.
And these days you can doit so many different ways.
You know, you got things like CoastFive where you've saved enough
to where just by letting it grow.
By the time you turn 60, it'll bewhere it needs to be and you don't
need to contribute anything else.
Uh, you know, barista fight whereyou're done with a big corporate job
and you're like, you know what, eh,I'll just go to Starbucks and be a
(15:16):
barista for a while, um, to get healthinsurance and I think I'll be okay.
I think there's a lot of.
Different nuances or different typesand different ways that you can approach
fire that didn't really exist early on.
It was the avatar that you mentioned.
Clients come to us right as theyapproach retirement or is there
maybe not so close to retirement?
(15:36):
And, and they always ask,how much money do I need?
Right?
How much money do I need to retire?
So I'll ask you the same thing.
So if you're retiring, you know, 25years earlier than plans, how much
more money do you need at that point?
And, and when these.
Fire individuals retire, uh,where are they retiring to?
That's a very important question.
Where do they retire to?
(15:57):
That is really something they should beasking themselves before they cut out.
I mean, obviously a lot of themmight have a job that they hate.
Okay.
They just wanna get away from that.
But I think the whole.
Idea of knowing what you're retiringto, that's the key to a happy retirement
that applies to fire people justlike it does traditional retirement.
Okay?
(16:18):
So think about what, what does yourlife even look like once you retire?
And if someone asks thatquestion, people don't have a
long attention span, especiallywhen it comes to the money stuff.
So I, I break it down as simply aspossible, and so do i. I think one of
the things that attracted me to thefire movement at is that they did.
Really simplify things.
It's not saying that it'stotally simple to do this.
(16:40):
Start out with something simpleand, and you will start to ask more
questions and become more curious,and then you can flush it all out.
So what do you need for retirement?
25 times your expenses.
Okay, so in order to come up withthat number, what do you need to know?
Do you need to know your expenses?
Which typically you need a budget,
right?
And
you need to know, you know,what's, what's your savings?
So there's a lot of numbersyou need to know to get there,
(17:01):
and most people that I ask.
I'll say, what is your expenses?
What do you spend every year?
Normally they will gimme their salary.
They will give me what they make, whichas you know, are two very different.
Yep.
Uh, numbers.
So if they tell me their expenses is whattheir annual salary is, I'll say, well,
do you contribute anything to your 401k?
(17:22):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I do.
Do you know how muchyou're paying in taxes?
Oh, a lot.
You know, so, so by the time wecut it down, I mean it's probably
30% less than what they thought.
And I'm like, when you take that number,let's say it's $40,000, you multiply
it by 25, so 25 times your annualexpenses, that's a starting point.
(17:43):
And that is keyed off of the 4%rule, but we know the 4% rule.
Some people say it should be more or less.
Now, one of the big advantages thatsomeone has retiring early over,
someone retiring at 70 is their humancapital so they can do passion projects.
What are they retiring to?
Yeah.
Is that a skill or talent or somethingthat you're doing that warrants pay?
(18:07):
To get something.
So those are just some of thedifferences, but you almost
kind of have to back into it.
But I think initially peoplewant a quick, an quick answer.
If you want a quick answer,I'll give you a quick answer.
And typically there's alot of follow up questions.
And then if they have even onefollow up question, I got them.
They're curious enough to ask a question.
(18:28):
Right?
Right.
So, so you, you know, you mentionedtaking away the taxes, taking
away the 401k contributions.
There are things I would think youhave to add in, though that might
be a little more costly, like healthinsurance for an extra period of time.
And, and, and maybe wetalked travel, right?
Travel is definitely a big one.
Um, so there, so there's an answerto everything because you know, every
(18:49):
time Avid big video, fire video isposted, you get the same questions.
Okay?
The same three questions are,what about health insurance?
How to get money outta your,your retirement account early?
And how do you create a paycheck whenyou're used to getting a paycheck from
a job and the health insurance part?
Maybe it's expensive, maybe it's not.
You know, there's a lot of options.
Like right now you've got the AffordableCare Act that's gonna be very state
(19:11):
specific, and to an extent zip code.
Specific, but you definitelyshould look at it.
There's a lot of political undertones,so when you ask somebody, sometimes
they're gonna tell you whatevertheir political affiliation is.
And as far as getting your, uh,getting money out of your retirement
account early, that is a seminalquestion in the fire community.
And there's, as you know,there's lots of ways to do it.
Just go look at, uh, RR.
(19:32):
Code 72 T. Yep.
And there's over 20different ways to get it out.
So those are all good questions, though.
We get them again and again and again.
Just from average people sayingthis doesn't make any sense,
help me make sense of it.
So you are part of the fire movement.
You've achieved financialindependence, retired as you said
at 49, but you're working again.
(19:54):
You're doing differentthings now, so Yeah.
Is, is that typical?
Do people do this for five or 10 yearsand say, you know what, I'm bored.
I want another challenge, orwhatever the reason I ran outta
money, whatever the reason may be,and, and just, and go back to work.
I mean, I don't thinkit's that black and white.
When people retire, typically they'retalking about separating from that
(20:14):
corporate job where they are having to.
They are required to, in order tolive and pay their bills, they need
to exchange their time for money.
And when they say they'reretired, they're done with that.
Just like the guy working.
You know, I live in Ohio, so just like theguy working on the Ford Assembly plant.
Okay.
So if he retires there may or may not bea pension, but if he retires from Ford.
(20:38):
People just say he's retired.
Does he sit around and do nothingtypically, that that guy's doing
something, but nobody's reallyquestioning what else he's
doing that might bring in money.
So the whole idea of retiringto something, I guess I'll,
I'll just use myself an example.
So five years in, five or six yearsin, I had definitively decided that
I never wanted to work a regularfull-time day job ever again.
(21:03):
Now I'll do passion projects.
Sometimes I get paid forit, sometimes I don't.
I have a big missionof financial literacy.
You know, I wanna create afinancially literate society
and whatever furthers that.
Money is not the only factor for me.
If money were the biggest factorfor me, I have my CFP now.
(21:23):
I have a master's in financialplanning and financial therapy.
I can go to Wells Fargo, bank ofAmerica, Schwab, fidelity, any of
those guys, and make $200,000 a year.
Right?
Pretty quickly.
Yep.
So if I wanted to go backto work and not be retired.
Wanted the money, I would do that.
Yep.
Now, some of the projectsI do, I make money.
I'm personally not, will, not readyto say I'm no longer retired because
(21:47):
most of my days I get to control it.
I don't have to work.
I have, I enjoy projects.
So like for instance, when.
Every podcast episode, there'sa certain process you go through
and then you have the baby andyou have, you release the episode.
That's right.
I, I love that.
I enjoy that.
Okay.
I don't wanna commit to you for threeyears to work for your stinky firm.
(22:10):
It's like, I don't wanna do that.
So, because then
they're gonna make you go throughcompliance for the podcast and hurdle.
Right?
They're gonna, and, and I, and onour podcast, we'll get some, um.
CFPs or people with licensesthat work for a firm.
Yeah.
Where they gotta have itgo through compliance.
Yeah.
So we can't air it for three weeks.
It's one of the reasons
I started my own firm.
I was sick of doing that.
Yeah.
Just tired of doing that.
So, uh, or, or, and no desire to do that.
(22:32):
Other people may consider me.
Working.
Oh yeah.
If she makes any money, if shehas anything, like even from
the book, if she makes any moneycoming in, she's not retired.
It's like, you know what?
That's okay.
You can think what you want.
But I am, one of the thingsI write about in the book is
use your own measuring stick.
So if that's how you measureit, that's fine, that's fine.
(22:52):
But don't try to push yourmeasuring stick on me.
Okay.
So my measuring stick says I, I,I'm retired and I'm not out there
actively trying to make money.
If I go.
Years without making money.
That's fine.
I still withdraw my, frommy portfolio every year.
There was only one year since I retired.
That I didn't have to draw from myportfolio 'cause I did a big project
(23:13):
and I made enough money where I didn'thave to touch my investments, which,
which goes back to that whole 4% rule.
We know it's not an even line.
Right.
And it's variable.
Yeah.
You know, so, so, and that answerspart of the question about.
Okay, you have a longer retirement.
Does those normal ruleof thumbs kind of work?
And to me, the biggest advantageor the biggest thing that helps a
(23:36):
younger person out retiring, I don'tknow, 40 fifties, even 60 sometimes.
It's just your human capital andyour ability to make more money.
Sometimes even if you sit on boardsyou could possibly make money for
from that, you do some consulting oryou do projects that's gonna offset.
Or keep you from having to withdrawout of your portfolio if you've
actually got money coming inbecause of your human capital.
(23:58):
So Jackie, how were you theone chosen to write this book?
The fire book?
How'd you end up being the author?
Yeah, that's funny.
Um, so fire, um.
The name of the book, fire for Dummieswas not supposed to be the name.
So they wasn't, theyweren't looking for someone.
So the interesting part is I hada good friend who's also CFP,
(24:18):
her name is Sarah Catherine.
She's in Arkansas, and she has agreat firm that was growing like
crazy and she was growing her firm.
So she had been.
Talking with Wiley to write this bookcalled Wealth Building for Dummies, and
she just did not have the bandwidth.
Again, she's building her firm and sotheir question was, well, since you
(24:42):
don't have time to write it, that's fine.
Um, thank you for considering it.
Do you know someone elsethat could write this book?
So she emails me, she says,um, would you be interested?
I'm like, of course.
Of course.
And so I talked with the acquisitionseditor, she introduced us, and we got
along great and I had to fill out allthis stuff, all this information about
(25:05):
myself and what I do and my credentialsand background and all of that.
And.
I sent it all to her.
I later figured out that that'swhat normally you would put
in a book proposal, right?
Uh, so I guess I got the shortcut.
So she talks to her team and theysee all this fire stuff, right?
I did a market watch, uh, videoon fire, you know, a lot of
(25:25):
major media stuff around fire.
So that's what they dug out of it.
Now the big part of fire is.
Wealth building is pretty much thesame except fire is a lot sexier
than wealth building, right?
So, uh, so they come back to me, theygo, yeah, they loved everything but they
would like to change the, change thename of the book to Fire for Dummies.
And I'm sure those guys, theseare Wiley is one of the big five
(25:49):
publishing companies, so I'm surethey do their research to figure out.
Titles of books and what is morepopular or more likely to sell.
So they came back with Fire for Dummies.
I'm like, that's great.
I, I don't know if I would've been ableto sell them on it, but thank goodness
they made the connection that WealthBuilding Fire is wealth building.
Let's go this direction.
(26:10):
Yep.
So, so that's how the book came to life.
It's fantastic.
It's doing well.
It's doing very good.
Better than expected.
My publisher is very happy.
I'm very happy.
I'll do like a 32nd math lesson,so that advance that you get
is not really in advance.
Right?
It's a loan
Yep.
That you pay back in theform of book royalties.
(26:31):
So, uh, this book came out a year ago.
I am now even.
Okay.
I am now Even, uh, theroyalties are pretty small.
Um, about 15%.
So I'm not getting, you know, even thoughthe cost of the book is $24, I'm not
getting $24 for every book that's sold.
I'm getting a very smallpercentage, so it takes a long time.
(26:53):
Um, well, depending on how great the bookdoes, um, I guess as far as different,
uh, sales metrics or sales milestones,5,000, you kind of hit it out of the park.
Done well, well over 5,000probably Right at 10,000.
Great.
And so it is, they're gonna make
the movie next, right?
Right, exactly.
So, so it, it's hit the Mile, allthe milestones that says it was a
(27:14):
very successful book, but I had noidea, Brad, what it was gonna do.
You know how many people would buy it.
I, I knew I had some friends and familyand, uh, colleagues that would buy it, but
beyond that, you, you don't really know.
No.
Uh, so, so I'm pleasantly surprised.
And, and so was the publisher.
All
right.
So, so go find the book and buy it.
Search, uh, fire for Dummiesand, uh, and get on that.
(27:37):
How long did it take you to write it?
Shorter than I thought.
Um, when I wrote that littleself-published book way back
in the day, uh, about financialliteracy, money letters to my
daughter was the name of that one.
I was going at my own pace.
It took two and a half years.
This book took about six months frombeginning to end because I didn't
already, like some people that are writingbooks, they've got half the book done
(27:59):
by the time they start on a schedule.
And I didn't, I started from scratch.
I had to do the outline forscratch From Scratch, and, and
they did the editing, but I had to.
Put everything else together.
So I did have a technicaleditor on the book.
His name was Cody Garrett.
But he went through and made sure thatall the technical stuff was correct.
'cause you know, there's alot, lot of stuff in there.
It was a lot of stress.
(28:19):
I, I had already beenretired at that point.
So the idea of having a timeline and,and having to get this in by this
date, it felt too much like work to me.
But I agreed to the schedule.
I'm like, you know, I'm not.
Working.
You know, I'm retired, sure I can dothese, but the ideals weren't flowing.
The cre, creative juicesweren't flowing all the time.
And I found it to bevery, it was stressful.
(28:42):
It was, it was pressure.
It felt that way to me.
And again, not because of Wiley, it'sbecause, you know, I agreed to this and I
just wasn't exactly sure how it would go.
And so if I were to do this over, Iwould definitely give myself longer.
I would have more of the book alreadywritten where I'm just flushing
things out and things like that.
Sure.
Um, but I, I got it done and I, I wasvery proud to be the person that wrote
(29:05):
this book because most proud, becauseI had my CFP at that point, I had just
earned my CFP, so I was glad to be ableto put Jackie Cum Koski, CFP on the book.
So I am, I'm puttingin there very balanced.
Accurate, well-researched materialand putting it all in the framework
of financial independence.
(29:26):
And I even have, uh, one chapter, it waschapter eight, that specifically talked
about working with financial professionalsand just deciphering some things that
confuses us all, us all, like flat fee,you know, fee only, you know, we in the
profession even get confused about it.
I was clarifying that and,and my big, my big thing.
(29:46):
Especially for fire people.
But if they say, how do Ifind a good financial planner?
Don't you get asked thequestion all the time?
Right?
Yeah.
My, my answer is, the first thingis to know what you are looking
for and what you want help with.
And once you do that, then you canstart to, um, I guess whittle down.
Uh.
The different profess type ofprofessionals that would be able
(30:08):
to fulfill what you're looking for.
But if you don't know what you'relooking for, the first person you go
to, they're gonna tell you what you'relooking for and it's whatever they do.
And that, and that takes some work.
'cause a lot of people don't evenknow where to start with that.
What, what do you meanwhat am I looking for?
I'm looking for someoneto help me with my money.
Right, right,
right.
They, they usually make it verygeneral and then I'll then you
(30:29):
got a conversation going, do youwant them to manage your money?
No, no, no.
I like index funds.
I wanna do it myself.
Okay, so that's not who you need.
Um.
You know, maybe they'll talk abouttaxes, maybe they'll talk about
they need an estate plan and youknow, so there's a lot of different
types of professionals, right?
But you have to knowwhat you're looking for.
Sometimes it may be a CPA,sometimes it may be an, an attorney.
(30:52):
So, um, again, us as the profession, aspart of our job to help educate people on
how to even find the right professional,because you know, a lot of the.
Negative reputation that we might have.
It comes from peoplethat aren't even CFPs.
Right?
Right.
Anybody can call themselves afinancial planner, but how does
(31:13):
the average consumer know that?
Yep.
I CF p board's trying to do,uh, commercials for that.
Yeah.
To explain it.
Yeah.
You know, they're
doing a, they're doing a good job.
I actually like the commercial,but yes, they are definitely
spending their marketing dollars.
For sure
and why you should have a CFP.
So, alright, so six months, how?
Eight hours a day you're riding?
Heck no.
Um, no way.
Um, maybe three or four hours a day.
(31:36):
I, I tried everything, Brad.
That's good.
I I would do dictation 'causeI walk and I hike a lot.
So I like to speak it.
I tried ai, I think it was way too early.
Yeah.
On only to sort of sh plant some seeds forme, or if I needed a list of something.
Yeah.
Sometimes AI did a good job, like, letme make sure I'm not missing anything.
Let me see what, what AI says.
(31:57):
But that was very little help to mebecause I, I needed it to be my voice
and I needed it to say it a certain way.
And of course, AI is onlysays it the way that it's.
Where whatever they're aggregating,wherever they're getting, that's learned
so far.
Right?
Yeah.
That it's, that it's learned so far.
Yeah.
And my voice is probablynot out there like that.
So rarely.
Eight hour days.
(32:17):
Um, but there was some long nights, likeif the juices were flowing, it could
easily be, uh, eight hours, I suppose.
But that was.
That was rare, but sometimes it'llbe like two o'clock in the morning.
I'm like, oh my God.
Um, it's two o'clock in the morning,but I, I still gotta go like, like
this energy, you know, I've got thiscreative energy going, I can't stop.
Yeah.
And the good thing was thatI didn't nec, you know.
(32:40):
If I didn't have anything goingon the next morning, I could
continue to write until I justlike literally fell over in my bed.
Right.
So the opposite of fire right,is, is, uh, financial independence
for late starters, which is Wow.
So you went from writing the fire bookto hosting the podcast for late starters.
Let's talk about how the, the podcastcame to be and who your co-host is.
Yeah, so, so probably, so the firstpart of fire is financial independence,
(33:04):
and the majority of the fire movementwould say that the stress is on the
five reaching financial independence.
As you know, there's many people that.
Retiring that may not be financiallyindependent, they're not ready,
they don't have enough money.
Look at all the, all the research, youknow, all the statistics and things
like that say that most people arenot financially ready for retirement.
(33:28):
So, um, the catching up toPHI is, is the podcast, uh,
PHI is financial independence.
And so that basically is keying inon a slightly different demographic.
They're still part of, youknow, financial independence.
They're still seeking financialindependence, who's not, but they're
saying that Why do we only hearthe stories of the people that are
(33:48):
30 year olds or 40 year olds thathad it all figured out early on?
I've had kids, I have trying toget my kids to through school.
I went through a divorce, I'm animmigrant and I had to start, start over.
Well, what about these peoplethat got a late starter?
Primarily our demographic is between 35and 55, so I wouldn't really call that
(34:11):
old, but it is older than the typicalpicture you see of the fire avatar.
Sure.
So nobody was talking to this demographic.
It, it is almost like.
The silent generation that no one wastalking to, no one was saying, Hey.
Even if you're 45, it's not too late.
Like that compound growth chartthat we love to show that says after
(34:33):
40 years, if you put in, you know,if you invest $50 a week, you'll
have a, that's the one I used.
You'll have a million dollarsif you invest $50 a week in
the s and p 500 after 40 years.
Well, I don't have 40 years.
So now what do we do?
So we address those things and my cohost.
So I was a late starter.
I started at 38 after I'dgotten a divorce, um, or I
felt like a late starter.
(34:54):
Sometimes that's relative.
Some people say, huh, I don'tthink that's a late start.
To me, it was a late start and it, itcaused me to run really hard and really
fast, and I think that's how I ended upbeing in a position to where I could.
Actually retired early.
I moved way faster than I ever imagined.
So my co-host, he is a highly paidemergency room physician, right?
(35:17):
Being a doctor, um, is a bigpaycheck, but he got a late start.
He didn't wake up until he was 50.
You know, big money, big life.
Yeah.
Right.
Just more zeroes.
Right.
Just add more zeroes to it.
So he was living a big life.
I mean, some of it he doesn't regret,you know, he has two twin boys that
they had some great trips, lots ofgreat memories and uh, different
(35:40):
times together that he would not.
Trade, but he knew that he wasspending everything that he earned.
He talks about his story.
Um, basically him and hiswife was a single digit saver,
almost had nothing at the time.
He woke up at 50 and then he startedputting all these pieces, pieces together.
He got really curious and he changed a lotof things, and now he's in about 10 years.
(36:04):
He turned it, he's turned it around towhere he is financially independent Now.
He is still working.
Now he's, he will be as a position,
right?
Not as a financial planner.
Right.
Not as a financial planner.
Yeah.
Although now he has enough knowledgewhere he could be a financial planner.
I am definitely nudging him downthe CFP route and all of that.
However, he enjoys being an ER physician.
He does enjoy it, butthere's a high burnout rate.
(36:26):
Sure.
There's a, there's a lotof stress there sometimes.
Uh, he, he shares it with me and ourcommunity that in the er, he's having
to tell people that they've got.
A chronic disease or that they've got aterminal disease that was not detected.
And the only, the way that they ended upin the emergency room is that they were
(36:47):
ignoring all these signs to begin with.
So he enjoys what he does andhe has the ability to where,
um, he, he ratcheted down.
I think he works like three quarters.
He's not part-time, a littlemore than part-time, but his job.
Is in very high demand.
And so if he wanted to, he couldgo down to one or two days a
(37:07):
week probably if he wanted to.
Um, and I feel like that'sprobably how he's gonna retire.
He retire and they might say, Hey,can you work one or two days a month?
Or whatever.
He might say, yeah, I cangive you these few days.
Do you consider him retired or not?
Right.
You know, I don't know.
But so, so he, but if he has thoseskills, those expert skills that are
(37:28):
in high demand, why wouldn't he use it?
He may decide to do it on a volunteerbasis, you know, doctors Without
Borders or something like that.
But it's up to him.
And at the time that he retires,he, I think he's okay now, but, uh,
he says he has a few more years.
But in his, you know, in hismind, he has a few more years,
but I think he's able to.
(37:50):
He can retire whenever he wants,is technically retirement.
If anyone else wants to call itsomething different, that's fine.
They can use that for theirown, um, measuring stick.
But he's very interesting too, because herepresents the high income doctor that.
You think most people thinkhave it all figured out.
Mm-hmm.
And a lot of planners go after, um,you know, physicians and doctors.
(38:13):
Um, and he's right now lookingfor a, I think before he
didn't really have a planner.
He had like salespeople, I think it waslike insurance or something like that.
But now doctors
get hit from everybody.
Yeah.
Doctors get hit from everybody.
So he has Wise Doc and he tries toeducate other doctors, but also.
He does want to workwith a financial planner.
(38:33):
So he is currently interviewing financialplanners to get the right fit for him.
And so this whole idea that theFI community or the fire community
doesn't use financial professional,that's just not right at all.
He has A-A-C-P-A that takes care ofall his tax planning and tax work.
Um, so he, he does that.
I've used, you know,financial professionals.
Sure.
(38:54):
So, um, I think it's a misnomer that,you know, we wouldn't wanna work
with financial professionals, but.
You know, very mindful though about,you know, how we spend our money.
You can't be an expert in everything,
right?
I mean, you're Yeah.
Emergency room physician,you're focused on that.
It's not like, right.
You should know everythingabout your personal finances.
You should have a general ideaof what's going on, but Right.
You know, somebody else is gonna bepaying a lot more attention to it.
(39:15):
Yeah.
And that's why we usually say.
DIY or do it yourself.
It doesn't mean you wannado it all yourself, right?
There's still things youmight want help with.
And, and then, so I'm talking tothe fire people when I'm, when I'm
talking about that, because I am partof the financial planning world too.
And there are, you know, verycapable, um, a whole lot of great
(39:37):
professionals that are there to serve.
They're experts at whatthey do and they, they.
Have a lot of knowledge that theaverage person does not have.
So for fire people, you know, thereare a lot of value that a financial
planner can bring to you or othertype of financial professional.
(39:59):
Mm-hmm.
And for the financial professionals,just because they talk about fire or.
You know, buzzwords for fire, like passiveincome or retiring early, that does not
mean that they don't want or need touse some type of financial professional
help you reach those goals earlier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So congratulations.
Your podcast has reacheda million downloads.
(40:21):
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm very happy about that.
Um, fantastic.
It's, it's been a, it's been a ride,it's been about two years as you
know, you know, you've been doing thispodcast, so, um, it's, it's, it's great.
You get to talk to a lot of peopleand you get to flush out certain
things with experts and all of that.
So, um, we're very proud of it.
Uh, bill, uh, my co-host, theER physician, he's actually the
founder and he had done a few.
(40:42):
Other, you know, financialliteracy projects.
So he's been around that for a long time.
And so, um, I'm, I'm more proud of himbecause he was the one that did it.
I knew that, you know, older peopleor people with a late start, they.
We're not giving, given theattention that they needed.
No one was really talking to them,but Bill was the one that actually
started it and did something about it.
(41:03):
Yeah.
Well, congratulations.
That's a, that's a big milestone.
Yeah.
Thanks.
It's a big milestone.
How's everything with your,uh, Southwestern, Southwestern
Ohio chapter FPA chapter?
Oh, I love my president.
Uh, yes, Madam president.
Um, I, I, I love it.
You know what, I really appreciate, Brad,I appreciate that the chapter board.
The chapter executive who, whosename is Danielle, she's awesome.
(41:26):
How much they embraced me.
You know, I knew my approach in theworld of financial planning and the
role that I played was not that commonand that it was different than the
typical one-on-one financial planner.
But they embraced me.
They embraced me, and.
You know, welcomed me to the board.
Um, even got to the pointwhere, um, I'm president now.
(41:48):
Uh, I, I think it's important to notethat this financial planning profession,
there's a lot of different roles.
You've got technology people, you'vegot some people behind the scenes.
You've got people that do one to manypeople that do one-on-one, people
that focus on different things.
So.
I am a huge advocate for theprofession and I want us to do good
(42:10):
because we hold so much knowledge.
Yeah.
So much knowledge that we need to share.
And a lot of the work that we do, uh,we are sharing as much as we possibly
can with what a planner can do for you.
There are many awesome chapters,small, medium, and large, around the
country that, uh, and, and it's great.
It, it's not the, I mean there's acentralized FPA, but uh, you know, all
(42:31):
the chapters sort of operate on theirown, um, with help if they need it.
And everyone's kind of doing differentthings and different cool things.
I am very proud to be, uh, you know,whenever people will make, if anybody
makes any negative statements about,you know, financial planners or anything
like that, it's like, well, that's me.
Okay.
I'm a part of the financialplanning world now.
Yeah.
So, so let me just give youa little clarity on that.
(42:51):
So, yeah, I'm, I'm glad that I'm on thisside of it because when I was deciding
whether or not I was gonna sit for my CSPand become part of the planning world, I
didn't have the most positive perception.
And it was because I was thinkingabout like some other professionals
that either didn't have their CFP ormaybe they were doing other things
(43:13):
where they weren't really a planner.
So I could have stayed on theoutside and complained about it.
Right.
And have that negative perception or.
I could be on the inside, and as I saw,this is a changing profession, so I can be
on the inside and be a part of the change,
right?
Or I could have stayed on the outside andI'm really glad that I decided to be on
the inside to be a part of the change.
Yeah.
And I see it happening every day.
(43:34):
We're making waves.
Yeah, we're making waves.
We are.
Jackie, before we go, I know youwanted to mention something about
the, uh, the saving initiative that'sgoing on that you're working with.
Yeah, I did.
Um, you know, I'm not technically apart of it, but because this pilot is
happening in Boston, Massachusetts,it says, so ancy runs the humble
dollar personal finance, uh, websitethat's been around for a while.
(43:57):
He is a staunch, uh, financial educator.
Financial literacy advocate,and he's a big, has a huge
connection with the bogleheads.
And the Bogleheads Centeris a nonprofit organization.
So what they are doing, um, well,unfortunately, uh, Jonathan was diagnosed
with, uh, a terminal cancer last year.
(44:18):
And only had about a year to live.
He's still here, he's still withus, and he has openly been talking
about, this is how I wanna go out.
He is still talking about financialeducation, financial literacy, and trying
to get everything in he possibly can.
He has, he has no regrets.
Okay.
One of the things that he's doingalongside the Bogle Center is that
(44:38):
they're offering $1,000 grants tohelp with seed money for young people.
18 ish.
Uh, start their Roth, IRA.
They're wondering, okay, what if westart these people out really early,
give them some seed money, help themunderstand how to use it, get their Roth
IRA, started, can we make some movement?
(45:00):
So they, it's a pilot project.
It's being, uh, done with the BostonSummer Youth Employment Program.
These are underserved youth.
In that area, part ofthis employment program.
So they meet the one criteria, right?
They have to have earned income.
Yep.
And, and it'll be interesting to see.
So when I saw that, you know, Bostonwas the area that they're starting
(45:20):
with, I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
I'll be sure to mention that to Brad.
So Joe, I don't know if there'sanything, you know, the financial
Planning Association could do tosupport that, but I would be very
interested and if this pilot goes well.
Then of course, the idea isto roll it out and make it
accessible to a lot more people.
So I, I just, I just love new ideas.
(45:40):
I love as you as, as I mentioned,I love projects and I think this
is a worthy one, and for JonathanClements and the Bogle Center to be
at the forefront of this, it just.
Giving back double downing on thefact that how of, how financial,
how important financial educationand financial literacy is to them.
And, and I came from an underservedcommunity myself, so I appreciate
(46:02):
that they are trying to help, uh,people that might not otherwise,
uh, have access to stuff like this.
Yeah, the, you know, the financialplanning association is great
for financial literacy, also.
Very great.
In, uh, nationally, in our,in our pro bono efforts.
I think absolutely think that's abig thing that sets the FPA apart.
Each chapter has their own, they dowonderful things within their own
(46:23):
communities and, uh, and giving back.
So, Jackie, thank youfor joining us today.
Thanks, Brad.
This was great.
I appreciate you having me here.
And I am loving the W of Piss podcast.
I think you guys have been roundbefore I even took my CFP exam.
Yeah.
So I've been li I've beenlistening to it for a long time.
Uh, I'm a little jealous.
Five years ago.
I came on board about three years ago,but yeah, five years ago, I think.
(46:45):
Uh, Chris Boyd, uh, oneof our members started it.
Yeah, so thanks.
And to find out more aboutJackie, you can go to LinkedIn.
Just go to LinkedIn and searchfor, uh, Jackie Cummings Koski.
You could also go to your podcastright, catching up to phi.com.
That's right.
Uh, hit me up there.
We release new episodes everySunday, connect with me.
I'm a huge advocate, especially for newerpeople trying to come into the industry.
(47:07):
I have a little bit of a, a differentperspective, so, um, I'm, I'm happy
to be a part of, uh, you know,financial planning and the FPA.
Yeah.
And search and then buy Fire for Dummies.
Right.
We wanna get you that 15.
A lot percent.
Yeah.
Thanks
a lot.
I know.
Then you gotta put, put a fewmore pennies in my pocket.
Thank you for that.
Yeah.
And if you're in, uh, the Ohio area,you're interested in, uh, joining, uh,
Jackie's FPA chapter, you can go tofpa s w.org or for more info on our New
(47:32):
England chapter, you can visit FPA newengland.org And thanks for listening.
If you'd like to learn moreabout the Financial Planning
Association or FPA New England.
Visit our websites, financial planningassociation.org for the National
Association or FPA new england.org.
You can learn more about ourorganization and all the upcoming
(47:54):
chapter events we hope you'll join.
That's FPA new england.org.
Until next time, have a wicked good day.
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