Case Study: The Real Numbers That Told Her She Could Quit her Job, Now! | Lisa B | 161 - Catching Up to FI: Financial Independence for Late Starters

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
I then met the father to my kidsand started a little bit more of
the traditional settled down andraising kids not working as much.
So my savings went down a littlebit and then I got a divorce.
And I have to tell you, sinceI got divorced, I've made the
highest salary I've ever made.
So this idea that divorce is financialruin my ex-husband and I really

(00:25):
careful about how we did our divorce.
We used mediation that wasoffered by our local court.
We tried to keep it as low conflictfor the kids as possible, which
actually meant low cost as well.
So that was really lucky.
My biggest financial mistakewas when COVID happened.
Even though I had stuck to my plan allthe way through from 1998 when I really

(00:51):
started investing to 2020, I really didthink this was gonna be different and
I could not see how our economy couldcontinue when everyone was at home.
And I took out about $200,000 andtook it out of the stock market
still within my retirement account,but just put it in a money market,

(01:11):
whatever my settlement account was.
And I lost about $50,000 inthat one month, sold really low.
And then it bounced right back inthat month around what, March, April.
I still regret that.
I guess it's not as big a financialerror as I could have made, but
that was a really, really biglesson to me to stay the course,
no matter how stark things look,

(01:35):
What kind of actions did youtake after the case study?
So after the case study,I put in my notice,
Yay.
April 8th.
I knew that I had enough to bridgethe gap with the income that I had
coming in from my other position.
I met with one hour of fees for servicefinancial advisor through nectarine.
I was given that, thank you verymuch an hour with Nectarine that

(01:58):
was donated for the person whoparticipated in the case study.
And he was fabulous.
He knew exactly what I needed to do.
We got on Vanguard together.
We chose from my brokerage accountthe funds that would have the
least amount of capital gain,literally choosing them lot by lot.
And I transferred that moneyover, so I had that ready to go.

(02:20):
And that's the money that I've beenusing as needed when I, when I've needed
to over the last almost two months.

(09:04):
Hello and welcome backto Catching Up to FI.
I'm Bill Yount with my lovely co-hostJackie Cummings-Kosky, and we have
a late starter FI story today.
We're very excited about this.
This is her first time podcast.
We'd love podcast virgins, soreach out to us, let us know
if you want to tell your story.
And we would love to have youon to inspire others to join us

(09:30):
on the Late Starter FI journey.
Before we get started, we're gonna haveLisa tell us about her charity and because
we like to promote charities a lot, andwe'll introduce her in just a minute,
Jackie will introduce her, but there's acharity that's near and dear to her heart.
So take it away.
Great.
I'm so honored to be here today.
My charity is called AdelanteLatina, and it's adelantelatina.org.

(09:57):
Pretty easy.
It's here in my hometown of Baltimore.
This organization takes latina high schoolstudents starting in grade nine and works
with them every year to mentor them, makesure their grades are as high as they can
be, helps them with college applications.
And all of these young womenare first generation and
helps them get into college.

(10:19):
Their statistic on the young womenwho complete their program is that
95% enroll in a college program,and the national average is 36%.
So they're really makinga huge difference.
It's a small group of really dedicatedvolunteers, and I think they could really
benefit from some additional support.
So I reached out to them, asked if itwould be okay if I chose them as my

(10:41):
charity, and they're excited to receiveany donations that folks wanna make.
Yeah, we'll put a link in the show notesso that you guys, as part of your giving
plan, can help our guests out with thingsthat they're personally involved in
and are near and dear to their hearts.
Okay, Jackie, let's find out a little bitabout Lisa and get this thing rolling.
Well first I absolutely love that charity.

(11:03):
I was a first generation college studentas well, and I know what a difference
you're probably making in their lives.
So as we mentioned, we've gota wonderful late starter story.
Her name is Lisa B and she is53 years old and she's a single
mom of three teenage kids.
She lives in Baltimore.
So let's just say thatLisa B. B is for Baltimore.

(11:24):
So she has been a nurse since1998 and she just used some FU
money to leave her clinical job totransition to a teaching position.
To her, this FU means Freedom Unlimited.
She loves to travel, learnlanguages, and take long urban walks.

(11:44):
So Lisa was chosen for this year'seconomy case study, so I had
the benefit of working with her.
We did the case study togetherand I just fell in love.
She's amazing.
She's smart.
So she was brave enough to sharethe details of her financial
life with over 200 strangers andgive us a peek into her world.

(12:05):
I'm still in awe of her doing that, butI think it went really, really well.
So in return, she received crowdsourcefeedback also tips, recommendations,
all of that to help her reach her goals,including a possible mini retirement.
So just a few weeks after the casestudy, Lisa did something big.

(12:26):
She quit her job.
I was so excited when she sent methat email, so I'm like, yay, Lisa.
So besides her numbers, she has anincredible late starter story where
she bounced back from adversities.
She found her strengths and shereached FI without even realizing it.
So Lisa's story was one that alsomade the JL Collins book Pathfinders.

(12:48):
She's on page 2/47 and herstory is titled, Aiming for
FI Before My Youngest Hits 18.
So Lisa, welcome to Catching Up To FI.
Thank you.
So happy to be here today.
Yeah.
So let's get into your story a little bit.
That starts sort of in the younger ages.
So tell us a little bit abouthow you grew up around money.

(13:09):
What kind of lessons did you learn?
Well, a single mom raised three of us.
I have an older and a youngerbrother and it was a challenge for
her, but we never really felt it.
We had what we needed.
She made sure we had greateducation, stable home.
But as I grew up and got closer tocollege years, I realized that I

(13:33):
was gonna be a little bit on my own.
When I turned 18 and began my own studies,I had a very close cousin, aunt who right
when I was getting ready to start my firstjob after I got my nursing degree, who
told me about Roth IRAs, which now that Ilooked them up, they really did come out

(13:54):
about the time I got my master's degree.
So it was very lucky that I had thatmentor in my life and she encouraged
me to put away the max every year.
And I was able to start savingearly without really even
knowing what I was saving for.
So that carried me through to the pointwhere I started making a little bit more

(14:16):
in my salary and decided I could takesome time away from my paying job to do
a couple of international opportunitiesworking in healthcare overseas.
So after working a few years as anurse practitioner, I went to Congo
Brownsville and then worked in theDominican Republic on health projects.

(14:38):
And this was something I hadwanted to do my entire life.
And being able to have a littlebit of that money set aside really
helped me be able to do that.
I then met the father to my kidsand started a little bit more of
the traditional settled down andraising kids not working as much.
So my savings went down a littlebit and then I got a divorce.

(15:01):
And I have to tell you, sinceI got divorced, I've made the
highest salary I've ever made.
So this idea that divorce is financialruin my ex-husband and I really
careful about how we did our divorce.
We used mediation that wasoffered by our local court.
We tried to keep it as low conflictfor the kids as possible, which
actually meant low cost as well.

(15:21):
So that was really lucky.
And in preparation for the casestudy, actually Jackie, I looked
at my social security statements.
And the first year that I madea three figure salary was 2021.
So I did all of the savings toget to a point where I could be
financially independent earningunder a hundred thousand dollars

(15:44):
a year as a nurse practitioner.
Wow.
And that's amazing.
That is definitely notable.
I never made over six figures,but, one, you went and checked
your social security statement.
That's the only reason why you were ableto see the history of your earnings.
Anyone can do that.
You can go to ssa.gov and itwill go back since the beginning.

(16:04):
If you look at it online and yousaw that you didn't make over six
figures until, what, four years ago?
That's fascinating.
So I'm glad you were able to check that.
And maybe that's just one of thethings that I know you learned after
we did this economy case study.
And we'll get into that a little bit more.
So there's few things that youmentioned, and I know Bill is curious

(16:25):
about some of these things as well.
But let me go first.
So when you went to college, youwere on your own for college, like
how did you get through school?
Did you have student loans?
Was anyone helping you?
so I was lucky in that I haveFrench citizenship, my father's
French, and he lived in Francefor most of my childhood and life.
But that afforded me in country tuitionat a university in Canada, in Quebec

(16:52):
specifically, they have an agreementwith France that Canadian students pay
French fees if they study in France.
And the same for French students.
So my tuition at McGill University, wasa very good education, was 800 Canadian
dollars a semester when I went there.
Which was about 650 US dollars.
So I was able to leave myundergraduate degree with no debt.

(17:15):
I did campus tours.
So I helped to pay forsome of those expenses.
And my dad helped me out witha monthly stipend as well.
So when I left McGill, I had adegree in political science, which
is not the most useful I discoveredunless I wanted to go to law school.
And I knew I wanted to work with people.
So I took a couple of years todo some odd jobs here and there.

(17:38):
And I'm telling you Jackie, very odd jobs.
Like I was a telemarketerfor a hotel chain.
I worked in a bakery, I did waitressing,which that only lasted two days.
I was not a good waitress, butit taught me that that's not
the kind of work I was good at.
So I think every job teachesyou good and sort of things

(17:59):
that you might wanna change.
And then that eventuallyled me to nursing.
I thought I wanted to go into medicine.
My younger brother went intomedicine and we have a lot of
medical folks in my family.
I met a nurse practitioner.
They told me what they did and I waslike, that's exactly what I wanna do.
And I could start right away.
I didn't have to take a year ofthe science classes that I would've

(18:19):
needed to go to medical school.
And I started a nurse practitionerprogram for folks who came
from different backgrounds.
'cause they really needednurses at the time.
And as part of that, did theNational Health Service Corps,
which helped out with my loans.
So I took the loans first and thenwhen I was a nurse practitioner, I was
able to work those off by working ineconomically depressed sort of situations.

(18:42):
So lots of different clinicsand hospitals qualify for that.
But I worked with a Spanish speakingpopulation outside of Boston and I
paid off those loans over three years.
So I was able to really kind of getoutta debt pretty quickly when I started
my career, which was helpful becausemy first job was $40,000 a year and it

(19:03):
didn't go up very quickly from there.
You learned how to college hack.
You don't hear much about collegehacking, but it is possible.
You don't need to take on thesesix figure loans necessarily.
You need to think intentionally,and that's what you did.
You learned great intentionalmoney habits early.
How did that happen?
Because I didn't get that.

(19:24):
I got lucky to have a 500 buckssemester tuition for med school because
of the state supported med school.
Obviously one of the accidentalbest money decisions I ever made.
But I didn't have the good habits.
What were these habits andhow did you learn them?
it's a good question and I haveto say, I remember being in my
undergraduate degree, I was 18 years old.

(19:45):
I opened a bank account in Montrealand I had my first debit card.
This is 1990, so we're going back alittle bit, and I remember going to
the debit machine and getting outfive Canadian dollars at a time.
Because I just knew I had to stick to atight budget, and that was how I did it.
Went down to the Peel pub andgot my 99 cent pasta, you know,
with my friends when we went out.

(20:07):
And I think a lot of my early sort ofbudgeting was really based on fear that
I would run out of money which I don'tthink is the best way to do it, but
it did quite kind of keep me in line.
And I think that was just a fear thatI would never quite have enough or
I would end up not being able to dothings because I didn't have the money.

(20:30):
And honestly, when I went toeconomy and did this case study,
I still didn't believe that Iwas financially independent.
Even at the end when Jackie waslike, these are your numbers.
I was like, no, I don'treally believe that.
I do, and I'll tell you this, Lisa,we'll get into that a little bit
more, but the way that the economycase study works, many of the Choose
FI local groups do case studies.

(20:51):
So Lisa, are you part ofyour local Choose FI group.
I am.
Yeah.
I haven't been able to go to abunch of their talks, but they do do
case studies every once in a while.
Okay.
Have you ever done a case study?
Was this the first time at Economy?
I did the case study at aCamp FI in Mid-Atlantic.
Okay.
So when we do it at Economy, we havethis template, which we've updated it

(21:11):
and we'll make sure everyone gets a copy.
But the way that we do it is you have thistemplate and you go through and you put
in all your numbers and things like that.
And when you submitted, wegot several applications.
When you submitted, I looked at thenumbers and I almost immediately
knew that you pretty much were FI.
But for the purpose of the case study,I wanted you to get that answer from the

(21:31):
crowd, from the people in the audience.
But I knew almost immediatelythat you were in a good place.
But I'm like covering my mouth saying, Idon't wanna only share my opinion, let's
just do it whenever we're in this bigauditorium with all these other people.
So I'm glad that everyone else kind ofagreed with me, but that was a time where
you did get confirmation, not just fromme, but from a bunch of other people.

(21:53):
I wish that everyone would do a casestudy, 'cause all these revelations
that you're sharing with us.
So you did an amazing job with the collegehacking and one of the things that you
did, what is this Nobel Peace Prize?
Oh yeah.
So I worked with an organization,the first job that I took overseas
in International Health waswith Doctors Without Borders.

(22:13):
And Doctors Without Borders won theNobel Peace Prize a few years after I
was with them, or a few years before.
I can't remember.
And so I entitled one of my blog posts.
I won the Nobel Peace Prizeas part of the organization.
But it was an organization I wasinterested in because what they do
is they go to parts of the worldwhere there is medical need, but

(22:33):
where there's political conflict andmedicine is being used as sort of one
of the ponds to control the people.
So it's a country that I had gone to.
There had been three civil warsin a row, and folks were really
isolated and in rural areas wherethey couldn't access healthcare.
So going in there was really more of ahuman rights mission to help the country

(22:57):
or the local folks restart their healthcenters and tertiary healthcare so that
they could take care of themselves.
So those sort of international experienceswere more what they call a witnessing
sort of mission and going there and justbeing there to provide the assistance
that the folks on the ground needto be able to meet their own needs.

(23:20):
And that was the way I wanted to helpout in international development.
And when I came back to the states andstarted working in nursing and immigrant
communities, it was my same approach.
It was how can I give people whatthey need so that they can then sort
of move on and get what they needhealth wise and for their families.
I'm a big fan of Doctors Without Borders.

(23:41):
We actually donate to that cause.
And that's another charity we'dlike to support as part of the show.
The other thing you mentioned inyour story, which we have to circle
back on, and 'cause this is usuallya financially devastating event.
You had a collaborative divorce, youlooked at the potential adversarial
nature of it and lawyer fees andyou decided that 450 bucks an

(24:03):
hour was not the way to do this.
And if you approach divorce froma FI perspective and you educate
maybe your spouse on, we don'twant this to destroy our finances.
Let's just do this in a more friendly way.
And that could be hard 'causeit takes two people to do this.
And you may have been lucky thatyour spouse was willing to proceed

(24:26):
with this, but how did you pursue acollaborative divorce at a very cost
effective $2,000 total for the cost ofyour divorce, which I find incredible.
We see six figure divorces all the time.
One of my friends had one of theseas an anesthesiologist in medicine.
So, what happened was my ex-husband andI knew that the money that was going

(24:50):
towards a divorce and the lawyer's feeswas not gonna be going towards our kids.
We would continue to earn our salariesand be able to provide what we could
for the kids, but this would be moneythat would come out of their college
fund, or this would be really moneythat would impact their future.
So both of us were on board to tryand keep that cost as low as possible.
I mean, there's a reason we gotdivorced, so there wasn't any whole

(25:12):
lot of love between us focusingon the kids made it possible.
Right.
And being able to say,we're doing this for them.
And in fact, when we went to our mediationsessions, I brought a picture of the kids.
So they were literally in the room with usso that when things got a little heated,
we kind of got back to that touchstone.
Our county courthouse offeredmediation between a hundred and

(25:33):
$200 for as many visits as youneeded to come up with a plan.
And these were court sponsors, mediators,they just were there to sort of allow
us to come up with what we needed.
And once we got all of the partsput together, and that probably took
four or five sessions and we justpaid that one flat fee for all of it.

(25:58):
Each of us, me and my ex took that plantwo lawyers and paid them the hourly fee
of two or three hours to look over it,make sure it was fair, we were represented
by separate lawyers, make sure it was fairfor us, and then put together a document
that we just submitted to the court.
And we had a magistrate doour sort of final divorce.

(26:19):
This was before COVID, but we sat in aconference room in the courtroom and the
magistrate was on Zoom, and they resolvedeverything within just 10 minutes.
Are you okay with this?
Did you agree to this?
And it was done.
So that was the way we approached it.
This is a FI divorce.
I've never heard about this kindof divorce, and you researched

(26:42):
it and your husband was on boardand to approach it like this,
I've never heard of this method.
It would always seem that,oh, everybody needs a lawyer.
We need to fight.
But that doesn't need to be the case.
In your case, you focus on the kidsand the fact that it's financially
beneficial, you're not gonna take abig portion of your nest egg and let
lawyers have it so that their kids go tocollege on your divorce instead of your

(27:06):
kids going to college on the divorce.
I did do a lot of research before wewent into those mediation sessions.
It's a complicated document that youcome up with and you don't just wanna
go in there and not have any idea.
It's actually just a series of booksthat was put out, and I believe
it's no low, but I can make sure ofthat and get you that information if
you wanna put it in the show notes,because they are a nonprofit that just

(27:29):
publishes books for the lay person tohelp them with legal situations they
get into and they have a whole series.
You order the book,there's no extra costs.
And so I had this book that we wereworking through and I could say
to my ex, okay, if we're gonna belooking at this aspect of the divorce,
here's the checklist we need to have.

(27:49):
So that took some footwork, butit was free for $20 for the book.
Something like that.
So Lisa, you, at the time youwere doing this method, you
were in the state of Maryland.
Is that right?
Was it something that the state providedthat that process and I'm wondering, I'm
guessing that it would vary by state.
So I guess for our other late starters,if they wanted to try to do something

(28:10):
similar, they would probably checkwith their state and see what options
they might have that's similar to this.
my ex was living was Baltimore County.
So I went to that courthouse and theyhave a family law center and they
also have a self-help law center.
And within that, that's whereI found about this mediation.
So it was pretty easy to access.

(28:30):
It was online and it was just amatter of taking advantage of it.
And signing up for that.
a quote from you on one of your blogsis, you might not see this line often
in the fire community, but here itis, divorce equals financial freedom.
Oh my God.
So, I mean, it's possible, youdid write a blog on this, but we
need to get that out there so thatother women know that, and men,

(28:52):
that this is possible.
Okay.
And you don't need to dingyour nest egg to do this.
I'm constantly impressed.
Not that I'm planning on gettingdivorced, but now we know how to do it
from a very cost effective perspective.
The other thing, you wrote a blogabout that FI people often say,
oh no, we gotta do single FI.
We gotta do dink Fi.

(29:14):
But you did FI with three kidsand say that kids actually
speed your journey to fire.
How does that work?
Well, that's a good question.
'cause that's also not so obvious.
I knew I was a single mom and had the kids90% of the time, which was exhausting.

(29:34):
And thinking of my 2-year-oldat the time of my divorce,
who was my youngest now is 13.
But by the time he was 18, having thatgoal to be financially independent so
that I could kind of get back to whatI wanted to do in my life after raising
these lovely, lovely children wassomething that just locked everything in.
It's, when I found FI, itgave me something to aim for.

(29:58):
I was very intentional abouthow I was raising my kids to
be able to save for that goal.
So all three of my kidswent to public school.
I did as much as I could in terms ofenrichment and volunteering and helping
out, but they were great public schools.
I might be jumping ahead, but my19-year-old just finished his first
year of college, got a 100% free ridefrom merit scholarships and received

(30:23):
a $3,500 check back from his college.
'cause he got that much money.
I was really, really carefuland intentional about how I was
raising them and that timeline.
My kids are in this sense really easy toraise as financially independent beings.
'cause they're not really into a lotof high fashion, high cost stuff.

(30:45):
We tend to travel to visit family.
So , I drive my cars to the ground and myson just bought his first car for $4,500.
So just really being conscious abouthow we're spending money as a family.
All three have retirement accounts thatthey set up with just little earnings
they made around the neighborhoodfirst and now have paying jobs.

(31:07):
And so being able to share this with themand see them pick up on it, motivates
me more and they'll call me out.
I presented at a nursing conference outin California and I took two of my kids
with me and we checked into the hotel andthere was a little bit of a delay with the
room and my 16-year-old says to the personat the front desk, well, because of this

(31:29):
delay, is it possible to get some sortof a credit for the time that we're here?
Oh, I love that.
That's so good.
It's so funny, as kids get older.
You will start to see what stuck thatyou tried to teach them, whether it
was verbally telling them or themwatching and modeling your behavior.
That is probably your one son getting thefree ride, you had a lot to do with that.

(31:53):
I wanted to take a quick detour on thatbecause student loan are outta control
now, and that is such a crazy thing,including parents getting out student
loans on behalf of their children.
I've always thought that there'sso many ways that we can help our
kids get through college versusjust pulling out of our pocketbooks.
What did you do with him to helphim get that full ride scholarship?

(32:16):
Because that became way more valuablethan you taking out student loans
or him taking out student loans.
So he applied through a publicschool in a low income city.
A lot of colleges really wanna investin Baltimore City kids, and so being
a graduate from a Baltimore City highschool, he immediately automatically

(32:36):
got $5,000 merit money every single yearhe goes to the college that he chose.
Just for graduating fromBaltimore City School.
So that public education ended uppaying even more than what I expected.
He applied through his financialscholarship aid there at the high school.
Gets money for a lot of kids thathave a lot of financial need.

(32:58):
We completed those federal formsthat you fill out for financial aid,
the FAFSA, and we didn't qualifyfor anything, not even a federal
subsidy for a job on campus or a loan.
So they were able to help him apply formerit scholarships that he was interested
both locally and someones that were forthe college that he ended up going to.

(33:21):
The hospital that I work for has a tuitionreimbursement program for our dependents.
And so that helped as well.
All of that just added up tohim getting some good money.
We did actually go to the Departmentof Financial Aid at his, the college
that he chose, and we were able tonegotiate a little bit more money
than what they had initially offered.

(33:43):
It ended up being more than heneeded, but he went through that.
He had an interview on Zoom with thefinancial aid director and talked about
what he felt like he needed to be able toattend there, and they gave him more money
. We're, gonna have episodes with a couple people who are experts in this
arena Ron Lieber being one of them.

(34:04):
So that other people can takeadvantage of what you did.
And they have a couple booksout there that are worth doing.
'cause this can be one of the biggestfinancial decisions you make that launches
you more towards FI an earlier age whenyou have kids, is to harvest this money
that's out there waiting to be used.
And you did that.
And we're gonna try and helpour audience do the same thing.

(34:26):
So thank you for walking us through that.
I just thought that was very important.
So for anyone listening to this, youmight wanna hit rewind on that one and
listen and, and play that one back.
'cause it is a great nugget.
So Lisa why don't we talk a littlebit about you as a nurse practitioner.
You have a huge heart, so Ithink you're the perfect person.
This is a perfect career for you.
You said you spent part of your timedoing international nursing, some

(34:47):
in the U.S., but you also spent alittle bit of time in Knoxville.
Bill, she might have been your neighbor.
Yeah, I had no idea she was hereduring the Peyton Manning years.
Enjoyed that.
You've gotta come back tovisit Knoxville and visit me.
It would be awesome tohave you back down here.
How was your time here in Knoxville?
Oh, beautiful.
I remember walking along the lakedown there, they had an incredible

(35:12):
4th of July fireworks that wouldcascade off of the bridges downtown.
There was a revitalization ofdowntown when I was there with
some new shops, and it's sofriendly, so close to the mountains.
We would go to Asheville as partof the hiking and canoeing club.
So just, it was a wonderfulexperience I had there in Knoxville.

(35:33):
Oh, that's great.
The other thing that people need toknow about you is you speak French and
Spanish, you had this French father,and you also make comments about the
French's approach versus the Americanapproach to finances and retirement.
You talk about the Ravi and c'est la vie.
So tell us a little bitabout what's the difference?

(35:55):
What do they do and where wouldyou prefer to live and retire?
Ah, well, that's a great question.
I was born in the States.
We lived in France with my daduntil I was almost age five.
So my first language was French.
I grew up in Texas and I spokeEnglish with a French accent in Texas.
So you can imagine it's a different kindof YOLO in France and maybe in most of

(36:17):
Europe, and that they really enjoy theirtime off and they will pay top dollar
for really quality food and experiences.
But they tend to travel withinFrance or nearby, right?
At least my family doesn't do asmuch of the international travel,
so they keep costs down that way.
And they tend to travelto see family or friends.

(36:39):
So a lot of people are staying withpeople when they travel and use
less hotels or that sort of thing.
But they also have anincredible safety net.
My father passed away in 2019and his medical care, which
was complicated for five years.
Before he passed, unfortunately wasall covered by the state and there

(37:00):
was never a worry that his carewouldn't be covered and excellent care.
As a nurse practitioner, I knew whenhe went into sepsis, the antibiotics
they were talking about treating himwere the same ones we use in our ICUs.
So it was top-notch care.
But at the same time, it just is asense that people are taken care of

(37:21):
in the country, yourself included.
And yes, you pay higher taxesfor that, but everybody has
enough to not be desperate.
And of course, homelessness exists,and of course there's financial
difficulties, but it seems to me thatthere is a base sort of living wage
that everybody has access to what theyneed and even to some nicer things.

(37:43):
when I was in high school, therequired foreign language was French,
so I know par Elle Jacqueline Uni.
So I just said my name isJacqueline from the United States.
So I, I was able to catch some of that.
That's pretty interesting that you couldactually could compare it to another area.
So now did you say which oneyou would want to retire to?

(38:05):
If I had my druthers, itwould be between the two.
I am still very close to my stepmother.
In fact, we're gonna seeeach other this summer.
And I love the pace of life there.
I love spending time with her.
I have some cousins that I enjoy overthere, so if I could do half and half,
could I say that Do half and half.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's perfect.
And you know what?
You have the option to dohalf and half where you can

(38:27):
comfortably speak both languages.
Now, do your kids know French as well?
Did they pick that up?
A little bit.
I am embarrassed to say that my dad,being French and my mom being a French
teacher for 55 years before she retiredwe did not speak French to my kids
as much as I would have liked to.
My eldest, I did for the first twoyears of his life, it was his first

(38:49):
language, but when he started daycareand school, he quickly lost that.
But my kids do have French passportsand they are great travelers.
So my hope is that they will, of theirinitiative be able to pick up some French.
what's important is we havesort of home country bias, and I
lived in Germany for two years.
I was very fortunate to do so.

(39:09):
There was many days and for a lengthof time that I was fluent in German,
wouldn't speak English in the country.
When people ask me and you get a differentperspective on the benefits and downsides
of living where you live, when you liveoutside of the bubble, so to speak.
I would encourage people to study abroad,for example, in college if they can, and
I did it through a work study program.

(39:30):
It is possible to hack theseexperiences where it's not so
expensive, just like you did that.
And during med school, I also hacked goingto Alaska and working for the National
Health Service for the Native Americans.
It's entirely possible to do these things.
You've just gotta be resourcefuland intentional in doing it.
I wanna mention too, before we getinto your numbers and your case study

(39:53):
and what happened afterwards, thatyou also, as part of your blog, wrote
a personal FI statement and I foundthis really intentional and purposeful
probably on your beginning journeyto fi and I would encourage people
to go to this blog and read thisstatement because it's very thorough.
I have a feeling it was based on theWhite Coat Investor a little bit because

(40:15):
it seemed a lot like his template.
Am I right
Yeah.
Yeah.
I based it on that and tried tomake it very intentional now being
closer to maybe needing my retirementfunds, that will change a little bit.
But yeah, at the time it was reallyhelpful for me to have that written
down, even if no one else read it, justto know where sort of my goalpost was.

(40:36):
I love it.
And we will link to the blog thatyou've had in the past, but I
understand that you're updating that.
I wanna encourage you to dothat because we absolutely loved
many of your articles there.
Bill was saying all the differentplaces that he worked and
practice and things like that.
Can you just take us through the differentplaces that you were practicing as a nurse
practitioner and a little bit about that.

(40:57):
So while I was in nursing school, Iapplied for just a graduate school
scholarship that allowed us to doa research project in the summer.
And I went to Honduras and fortwo months I worked on looking at
vaccine rates and accessibility.
Actually found out, Bill, that thevaccination rate in rural Honduras was
higher than any Tennessee at the time.
I know vaccines are a hot topicright now, but at the time there

(41:19):
was a push to vaccinate a hundredpercent of the population.
And so I came back to Tennesseewith some ideas about vaccination.
So that was kind of an interestingtime, but I really solidified my
Spanish speaking skills there.
So my first job outta school wasin Boston, which is a really hard
place to get a medical gig because.

(41:41):
There are a lot of medical schools,there are a lot of nursing schools,
and so being able to get into medicinethere was solely because I spoke
Spanish, so that was my first job.
I worked with Dominicans andPuerto Ricans in downtown Boston
in an area called Mission Hill.
And then from there worked north of Bostonin Lynn, Massachusetts, which also has

(42:01):
a high percentage of Spanish speakers.
And so for three or four years,every single day, I was used in my
Spanish, speaking Spanish, and Ireally became fluent by doing that.
I started off by using translators,really listening to how they were
speaking Spanish, and then beingable to increase my vocabulary.
So those were my first two positions.

(42:21):
Then overseas, I worked with DoctorsWithout Borders, and I worked with an
organization called Catholic ReliefServices in the Dominican Republic.
I worked in Puerto Ricoas a research nurse.
And then came back to the States, workedat the National Institutes of Health and
I worked in oncology in brain cancer.
And then my job that I've had forthe last 20 years since I moved to

(42:45):
Baltimore is with the University ofMaryland, working in an immigrant clinic.
So all Spanish speakers, all folkswithout other access to healthcare.
And it's just been a delight.
It's a wonderful place.
I initially did a primary care thereand I went back about seven years
ago, got a second sort of specialty,a certificate in psychiatry, and now I

(43:09):
do the mental health services for them.
When I went to do more psychiatry there,I got a different full-time position.
So I was keeping my position atUniversity of Maryland, and that's
the position that I just left.
I was working in child and adolescentpsychiatry for almost seven years,
and that's the one where I left to.
After the case study, realizing I hadmoney set aside that I could take a

(43:31):
sabbatical or mini retirement and thenhopefully to be able to go into teaching.
right.
It's time to get into that.
But before, we do that, I wannasay child adolescent psychiatry.
My wife is a child adolescentpsychiatrist, so I get it.
And you job hopped and each time youjob hopped, you increased your salary.
And with that last certificate in mentalhealth, that's when you hit six figures.

(43:53):
And now let's get into thenumbers of your FI journey.
Jackie, this is your game.
So I had the honor ofworking with you, Lisa.
The way that we arrived at the personthat got selected for the case study
is that we threw it out to people thatwere coming to economy and anyone could
apply that was attending economy already.

(44:14):
So I didn't wanna just bebiased and just pick one.
'cause we have a lot of synergiesand people will say, oh yeah,
Jackie just picked her becauseshe's so much like her, but.
I wanted to be as objective as possible.
So I had six other individuals in my lifethat were familiar with FI case studies.
I anonymized the case studiesand these were, the people that

(44:35):
looked at it were very different.
Like they were from different groupsand things like that, but they knew
what a case study was and your nameended up being the one that got chosen.
So that's how we did thatand everyone that applied.
They have to be very transparent withtheir numbers, and we are looking at some

(44:56):
very personal things about your finances.
And so this is a brave thing to do, butthese case studies help other people.
There's no better way for to helppeople mindfully think about their
own numbers by seeing someone else'snot to compare, but to get a sense
of, this is how she was thinkingthrough this, this is what she did.

(45:16):
And not that you're perfectbecause there was a lot of things
that you wanted some help with.
I just wanted to show likea little snapshot, I guess,
of what you have going on.
So Lisa just to get a quick summaryof your numbers here and then
we can dive into a few of them.
Your gross income was $140,000, butagain, you never got to a hundred

(45:39):
thousand until 2021, is that right?
That's right.
Your expenses were about $72,000.
You had a savings rate of 44%.
You know, we talk a lot in the FIcommunity about how important that savings
rate is, and then your FI number ended upbeing $1.8 million, which is 25 times your

(46:01):
expenses, not your income, but your annualexpenses, your current, your net worth.
At the time that we did the case study was1.5 million, so you were very, very close.
And then you have current debt of $75,000.
So does all that look okay?
That's right.
So that's what we started with.
So we have a few questionsabout some of your numbers.

(46:24):
Bill, what do you wanna start with?
Well, I'm just impressed with the 44%savings rate and limiting the expenses.
I was a single digit saver, as I callit, under 10% because I spent first and
saved last once a year at tax time whenI was like, what's left over the exact
reverse of what you need to be doing?
And I did this for 15, 20 years,or we did my wife and I and we

(46:46):
didn't know what net worth was.
We didn't know what trackingyour expenses meant.
We didn't know what a budget wasbecause it was like we thought we
were rich, but we were not wealthy.
There's a huge difference between the two.
So how did you do this?
44% savings rate with three kids.
It's funny that you say that the oppositeof what you're supposed to do, I guess

(47:08):
I did what I was supposed to do withouteven knowing I was supposed to do it.
I have all of the contributionsto my work iRA taken out as
soon as possible in the year.
So I try to save extra towardsthe end of the year so that in the
first, almost three and a half monthsof the year, I have very little.

(47:29):
Income coming in from my work, and it'sall going to the 4 0 3 B, which was
30,000 a year for my age last year.
So even leaving my job for the firstalmost three months of the year, I
didn't get any income because I wastrying to max that out before I left.
So I did that right away.
I did the individual IRAI put aside every month.

(47:51):
It just comes straightout of my bank account.
So went ahead and maxed that out at 7,000and I would then put all of the rest of
the money in savings and move over whatmy expenses were at the start of the
month and see if I could live off of that.
And if there was a larger expense,my car needs breaks or I have some

(48:12):
home improvement project that's notterribly expensive, I can take it out
of my savings without dipping intomy larger savings, I would do that.
And so at the end of the month, I wouldusually have something left over just from
that income that was coming in, and thenI would put that in my brokerage account.
So that is sort of not avery scientific method.
I wasn't great about budgeting,but I was generally careful and

(48:35):
it ended up sort of working out.
Well, you also developed towardsthe end a health savings account
near and dear to Jackie's heart,and then something else also.
You maxed that out for the last fiveyears of your career which was a great
way to help with or defer things likeyour Medicare premiums later in life.
And then one thing that you did veryinterestingly was one part of your

(48:57):
annual savings was your mom's mortgage.
Tell us about that one.
Oh, I'm glad we get to talk about that.
So my mom lives next door to me andliterally in my living room there's
a wall separating of our two homes.
We live in a duplex and she ran intoa little bit of more financial need
a couple of years ago and wanted todo a reverse mortgage on her home.

(49:20):
my brothers and I were quitealarmed when we heard this.
She had actually already signed thepapers and when she sent out the
text all three of us were like, no,I don't think this is a good idea.
Is there some other way we can do this?
And so my mom and I we wrote it out,had a lawyer just do a simple codesil
to her will that I would help her outof giving her a thousand dollars a

(49:42):
month towards her mortgage, althoughshe can spend it however she wants.
And she has until she received aninheritance that she was expecting.
And that has just happened.
And so that was about, yeah, fiveor six years now of just every
month sort of investing in her,a thousand dollars a month with
some repayment when she eventuallyis able to get that inheritance.

(50:07):
And it was sort of the real estate portionof my investments, because I didn't have
any other real estate and I didn't reallyuse that in my investment accounts.
So it was a way to help her out in a waythat I felt it was sort of diversified and
it was a really good way for me to savethat because that was another thousand
that just came straight out and wentstraight to her at the start of the month.

(50:28):
Well, you're a caregiver at heart andyou obviously have a bleeding heart
for the healthcare world and thethings that you did, but it carries
over into caring for your family.
I know Frank Vasquez does the samething 'cause his parents live longer
than they expected and his dadwas a doctor and he realized that
he needed to help out his father.

(50:49):
So we become part ofthe sandwich generation.
You can have the boomerang kid and youcan have the parents that maybe didn't
get it right and need your help, andyou've got to kind of plan for that
instead of having these surprises.
So I'm very impressed that you did that.
Another thing you did was to helpjumpstart your kids' savings and
you match their Roth IRAs, whichI think is a great way to transfer

(51:11):
wealth early in their life.
And I agree with sort of holdingback a little bit, and then what's
left at the end of the month forme does also go into the brokerage
account, and I'm happy to manage.
And thank you for bringingup about my kids too.
It is a mommy match.
It's the awesome mommymatch in our household.
And so whatever they earn, theycan put that into their account.

(51:35):
And sort of the way that I encouragethem to do that is I have them think
about their retirement account asa savings account because I do tell
them they can take that money out.
But I've also instilled never do that.
So they put their money into theirRoth and they know that they could
take those earnings out someday.

(51:55):
It's more than a savings account becauseI do try to encourage them to keep
it in there for as long as possibleand for both my kids and my parents.
I feel like, especially when you'reworking with your older parents and
it's the sandwich generation andfolks who grew up post World War I or
or soon thereafter, they don't likethe idea of just being given money.

(52:17):
So for my mom, it would never haveworked for me to give her a thousand
dollars a month or my brothers andI to come up with some sort of fund.
Her being able to say Ifigured out this way to do it.
Now you all are proposingthis other way, but both ways.
This is my decision and I willrepay you the money when I can.
And for my kids, it's the same thing.

(52:37):
It's having that skin in the game.
It's seeing that, you know,you're doing this together.
And I think that's important for people's,just motivation in terms of savings.
Yeah, great point.
So Lisa, I have a question for you.
so the kids' money isgoing into a Roth IRA?

(52:58):
Correct.
Did you consider like the UTMAor any other, I guess investment
or savings vehicles for them?
I did do the UTMA for my youngest beforehe started having an earned income.
So he's 13, so he does have that account.
It's not as big now as I think hisRoth IRA will be because we'll start

(53:21):
transferring to using that vehicle.
But I did do that for him because he wasso young when we started and I also worked
with them to choose a stock that they were
interested in.
And of course I was talking about index.
But one of them was really passionateabout the environment and so we
were looking at ESG funds for them.

(53:44):
One is really techie and wanteda little bit of apple in theirs.
So, we made sure that they hada fund that had Apple in it.
My son is really, really into soccer,so we really couldn't find anything
for him, but I told him, we'regonna do one that has education.
And that is how you teachyour kids about investing.
It has to be something that's relatableand something that matters to them.

(54:06):
Calling it a retirement accountthat's not gonna get it.
So it is a tip for you.
Lecture daddy.
So Lisa is fun, talking to her kidsabout what they actually love to do
and finding a way to relate that.
The techie person, they know Apple,okay, let's go buy Apple stock.
You don't have to literally go buy Applestock, but you start to show 'em some
things that will help them feel likethey're an owner and understand that

(54:30):
this is part of their long-term savings.
So, so I absolutely love that.
Well then you can say you can have Apple,but then you're gonna have Microsoft too.
Look, you can buy this andyou can have so much if you do
this.
And now You are a huge Roth fan, and wegotta get into your net worth a little
bit and how it breaks down becauseRoth is a huge part of your net worth.

(54:53):
Take us through what it lookslike, 'cause you told us that
it's 1.5 million, but where is it?
You know, it's funny 'cause I made agood friend, I consider a friend now at
economy and we have had many dialoguesabout the Roth because I feel a little
bit like a Roth addict, like I wouldalmost put myself in a higher tax bracket,
which I know is not anyone's advice,just in order to get more Roth money in.

(55:17):
And since I just left my position,I have like 220,000 that I put in
there before my employer had a Rothoption, that is traditional funds.
And I am just so itching to use thatand he keeps telling me, just hold off.
Look at Bolden, play that out.
And I know we'll get into talkingabout Bolden in a little bit

(55:37):
and see if it makes sense and itdoesn't, and I still wanna do it.
But I started off early, early on.
My first investments were inRoth when I found out about it
because my income wasn't high.
I didn't feel like I neededto do the traditional as much.
When my husband and I separated.

(55:57):
We had a division of his and retirementaccount, so $150,000, which was half of
his account, came to me and I immediately,over two years, so 75,000 a year converted
onto Roth and I paid a lot of tax on that.
But that really started my nest eggand adding to that the Roth that I had.

(56:18):
And then when my employer becameeligible to do Roth 30,000 a year
in Roth for the last I think threeyears, that's just sort of added up
to where I have more in my Roth IRAthan I do in my other employer plans.
It's about half of your net worth oralmost that it is in the 40% range.

(56:40):
And then what's interesting is did youget the investments right, because you
have a very relatively simple portfolio.
Did you get that right from the beginningor did you have to adjust to more?
Because there's only about in someof them accounts, 3, 4, 5 funds
and then others less, and youhave a very diversified portfolio.
Tell us about the evolution of that.

(57:01):
Did it start with mistakes and how didyou end up at where your investments are?
Right.
So my same wonderful auntie who toldme about the Roth told me to put it in
actually artisan funds at the start.
And then pretty quickly Vanguard.
So I've been in the Vanguardsimilar to V-T-S-A-X or a VTI
since I started investing.

(57:21):
And I've housed, had moneyon the side and in cash or
I have a small bond fund to makesure I have money for emergencies,
but otherwise I really do put mostof my money into the index funds
there at Vanguard whenever I can.
A mistake I made.
Oh my gosh, okay.
My biggest financial mistakewas when COVID happened.

(57:45):
Even though I had stuck to my plan allthe way through from 1998 when I really
started investing to 2020, I really didthink this was gonna be different and
I could not see how our economy couldcontinue when everyone was at home.
And I took out about $200,000 andtook it out of the stock market

(58:08):
still within my retirement account,but just put it in a money market,
whatever my settlement account was.
And I lost about $50,000 inthat one month, sold really low.
And then it bounced right back inthat month around what, March, April.
I still regret that.
I guess it's not as big a financialerror as I could have made, but that
was a really, really big lesson tome to stay the course, no matter how

(58:32):
stark things look, I have an investmentplan and I need to stick with it.
Yeah, I did the same thing at thebottom of the great recession.
I did it with bigger numbers andunfortunately I kept it out for a
while and missed out on half or so ofthe boom after the great recession.
So, not knowing what you're doing.
And my brother-in-law recentlydid the same thing during the

(58:55):
liberation day debacle of tariffs.
He got scared and did the same thing.
So, it's emotional as Jackie said.
It's very emotional.
It's hard to watch your nestegg drop by 20, 30, 40%.
And that's where you've got tolisten to JL Collins meditation.
read your personal financial statementand say, I am not supposed to do anything.

(59:19):
Just stand there.
And that's the big question for Lisa.
So we just experienced anotherreally big drop in April.
That liberation day, whichI think was April 2nd.
So since the beginning of the year, themarket had been dropping, but then that
early April, it dropped like a rock.
So what did you do when thathappened In April of this year?

(59:43):
That was my last month of work.
I left May the eighth, so AprilI was still, like I told you,
putting as much as I could.
I think I had $3 and 40 centsevery two weeks from my paycheck
because I was putting all ofthat money and I didn't stop.
I had a 8% match.
That money went in low.
All of the 4,000 or something Iput in each paycheck went in low

(01:00:08):
and I just kept putting it in.
You got excited about quote unquotebuying the dip and, putting more in
at the time, and we should all dollarcost average into the market and not
wait to buy the dip because that isa financial loser, but you just got
excited and said, oh, it's on sale.
I'm going into target the marketand I'm just gonna buy more.
I'm gonna use the money I have, anddollar cost average at a higher amount.

(01:00:31):
and another thing, Bill, washer individual circumstances.
So since she was leaving her job inorder to get in that employer, that
money into her 4 0 3 B. So in orderfor her to get that in there, she had
to do it while she was still working.
So was that part of your strategy as well?
Trying to get money in?
Trying to get money in and also as earlyin the year as I could, but also because

(01:00:54):
after that, at the end of May, I wasn'tgoing to have any more contributions,
so I got to about 27,000 of the three ofthe 30,000 that I was eligible to put in.
And then I'll continuedollar cost averaging through
the year with my Roth IRA.
So even though it's not as much, it'sthe 7,000, I still feel like I'm still
putting in the market, but I was prettysure for the rest of the year, or at

(01:01:16):
least until the end of the year, if I dostart working again towards the end of the
year, I wasn't gonna get another chance.
So, that's exactly right, Jackie.
All right, so then the case study came.
We gotta get into this because wegotta get into what happened next.
Hold on just a second.
Bill.
We didn't look at her expensesbecause that is so critical.
Now, I don't wanna go through all ofthem, but I just was very interested

(01:01:37):
in how you segmented your expenses.
So you had your essential expenses, andthen you had your optional expenses.
So the essentials was around 44,000,and then the optional ones . So how do
you think about your optional expenses?
So these are things whereI feel like I can adjust.

(01:01:59):
I mean, we are all going to get haircuts.
We are all going to buy clothes, buthow can I maybe give a little bit less
in charity if I need to, or how can Itake down their allowance if I need to?
These were areas where Ifelt like if I needed to save
more, I could draw from these.
So that was why I put those sort ofas an optional and that was really

(01:02:20):
helpful for me to, to look at and say,I have $27,000 that I can mess around
with a little bit there if I need to,if I really get into dire straits.
And one thing that the case studyreally taught me is that some of these
costs will go down when the kids leaveand have already with one of my kids
leaving, and some of them will not.

(01:02:40):
So realizing that wasreally helpful to me too.
Think about what number I wantedto live off in retirement.
Yeah, and I think this is one of thepoints that we all try to I guess
remind our late starters that oneof the superpowers they may have is
that the kids are grown, the kidsare out of the house, and you now

(01:03:00):
you have more disposable income.
So I just wanted to justhighlight that real quick.
So I'm gonna let you take it away, Bill.
That's, it happened to us too.
The empty nest is a powerful time.
You have the catch up contributionsin your fifties and you have more
disposable income 'cause the kidshave exited the building, so to speak.
Now we heard all this story at the casestudy and you were very transparent,

(01:03:23):
but you actually took action.
What kind of actions did youtake after the case study?
So after the case study,I put in my notice,
Yay.
April 8th.
I knew that I had enough to bridgethe gap with the income that I had
coming in from my other position.
I met with one hour of fees for servicefinancial advisor through nectarine.

(01:03:45):
I was given that, thank you verymuch an hour with Nectarine that
was donated for the person whoparticipated in the case study.
And he was fabulous.
He knew exactly what I needed to do.
We got on Vanguard together.
We chose from my brokerage accountthe funds that would have the
least amount of capital gain,literally choosing them lot by lot.

(01:04:07):
And I transferred that moneyover, so I had that ready to go.
And that's the money that I've beenusing as needed when I, when I've needed
to over the last almost two months.
So that was incredibly empowering.
just clarification.
So when he went through lotby lot, can you explain what
that is, what the lots are?
Was this your brokerage account?
This was my brokerage account, right?

(01:04:27):
So I wasn't trying really hard not totouch any of that retirement savings
and hoping to let that keep growing.
So this was my brokerage accountand I had about 220,000 in there.
So I'm not sure how much I had at thetime, but probably pretty similar.
And I looked at the stocks that had madethe most over time and tried to avoid,
first of all, any short-term gains.

(01:04:48):
But going back to ones thathadn't really grown all that much.
So I had some small cap value andsome emerging market and I think some
international and then some V-T-S-A-Xor more US funds that I had bought at
times that hadn't grown as much, butwere at least a year old so that they
wouldn't get that short-term gain.

(01:05:10):
And we just chose those and sold thosevery strategically and he showed me
how to do that, which is powerful'cause now I can do that myself.
So I took notes.
that's called Spec ID.
And people talk about first in, firstout selling last in, first out LIFO and
FIFO which you can look up, but Spec IDis a powerful tool where you can look at

(01:05:31):
where you bought them, and that's alsohow you look at doing tax loss harvesting.
There's strategy there and it's a littletechnical, but at least it may spark
an interest in looking up those terms.
Right, Jackie?
Now you didn't just use Nectarine.
You also were given the giftof Bolden, and that's a sponsor
of the show as is Nectarine.
We're very proud of these people.

(01:05:53):
They do great work.
Tell us how you use Bolden tohelp you make these decisions.
Well, Bolden was fantastic 'cause I'venever used any kind of financial software.
I go into Vanguard and mess aroundwith their tools a little bit.
As you all know, as I've said,I'm not great about budgeting,
so I haven't used very much.
I used Mint for a little bit, butwasn't great about keeping up.

(01:06:14):
I tend to just do my budget, go throughmy statements and write everything out so
that I came up with my expenses that way.
But Bolden really helped me lookat exactly what I had in terms
of my savings and where it alllaid out how it would grow.
Projecting different scenarios, whatit would look like for me to do a

(01:06:35):
Roth conversion if I decided to.
There were so many great things about it.
They had tutorials.
I went to about five differenttutorials on how to use the software.
They had YouTube videos.
And then I was at a conferenceabout a month after economy and
somebody else in the group knewBolden and sat down with me and spent
an hour with me going through it.

(01:06:56):
So I learned lots about how to usethis amazing tool, and I log on and
I get to see my net worth right away.
And I get all excited because before,I'm like writing down the numbers.
So it's a very powerful tool for me.
Thank you for giving us the backgroundon your experience with them because
we love them and that's why they'rea sponsor of the show and we know

(01:07:17):
they provide good tools, but there'snothing like an individual actually
using it and sharing their experience.
Now for nectarine, do youremember who you used?
I know it's been a while.
I can get you the name.
I'll drop it in the show notes.
I guess I just wanted to give them creditbecause this is who you worked with and
you seem to be very happy with them.
And I guess Bill, you were sayingthat it gets very technical.

(01:07:39):
I don't know that it's all that hard.
Like, Lisa, how would you describe goingthrough the different lots, like the way
you explained it, you use layman's terms.
I don't know that we need touse all those fancy terms.
So it sounds like your person wasjust going through the different
lots, which showed the date andit showed the amount that you paid
for it and how much the growth was.
Like it can be broken down.

(01:08:00):
Just that simple.
Did you find that to be easy?
It was that simple, Jackie.
And in fact, when we looked at theindividual lots next to it, there was a
little green arrow or a little red arrow.
It told me exactly how much it had paid.
So it was like, oh, well I only have topay tax on a dollar 50 if I do this one?
And I had very little that had gone down.
So we didn't do any taxloss harvesting with him.

(01:08:23):
It was just looking at sort of theones that had grown the least and
that it was just about that simple.
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.
'cause I just think I have myCFP and everything, but I think
sometimes things are made out to bemore complex than they need to be.
So hearing directly from you, just asa regular person seeing this for the
first time, how you felt about it.
So thank you for that.

(01:08:47):
One thing that I was fascinated byat the time of your mini retirement
was you have a high risk tolerance.
I mean, you were like 95% stock funds andme being a little more conservative, that
worried me going into a non-working phase,even though you're going to be kind of
coast FI with a lesser paying, maybe lesshours involved job after the six months.

(01:09:10):
So you're not like completely cold Turkeyretired necessarily, and you're enjoying
your six months, but did you make anyadjustments in your portfolio knowing that
you were only gonna be living off of that?
Well, as I said, I didn't know I wasanywhere near being able to leave
my job when I went to Econome, soI was just like full steam ahead.
And then when I realized that, Iwas like, oh, that was some of the

(01:09:31):
comments that people made were.
What if is some stock market volatilityor what if you lost a large amount?
Where would you draw from?
And so as a nurse, I know Ican go back anytime and get a
well-paying job and be fine.
So I have that luxury.
But since leaving my job, Ihaven't adjusted a whole lot.

(01:09:52):
I know that I need to be a little bit morecareful if I'm going to be drawing from,
my brokerage account even is in stocks.
I do worry a little bit about that,but I felt since I was able to move
that money over right away, and I hadsix months of being able to live off
of that, I just stayed the course.
And if I don't have work in six months inthe area that I'd like to work in, I'll

(01:10:16):
just go back to a clinical job and I knowI can and make enough to make that up.
So I do have that luxury.
So you mentioned a couple ofdifferent, like conferences or
courses that you did after you lefteconomy, the work didn't stop there.
You talked with a Nectarine advisor,fee only advice only person.
You started using bolden.

(01:10:38):
You looked at your numbers again, youran your numbers and then you had two
other things that helped you along inthat sort of I think I can retire mode.
Yeah, so the wonderful women who dothe Northeast Father First conference
from WE, which is wealth empowerment,

(01:10:59):
I think it's women empowered, soit's like the We Women collective and
I think the WE is women empowered.
Hope I got that right
and I met up with Zuska, Kim andChantel at Economy, and they told
me about this conference theywere having in about a month.
It was in Maryland.
It's incredibly lucky.
And there were no spots I'llput you on the wait list.

(01:11:21):
And it turns out someone had to cancelit about a week before, and I got to
go to this great conference where wetalked about lots of things, financial
independence, but mostly it was justsuch a great group of about 30, 40
women just talking about our lives andwhat we wanted to do with our future
and challenges and, and struggles and,and lots and lots of positive energy.

(01:11:45):
So that was just fantastic.
Another organization, andactually we still keep in touch.
I just did a book groupwith them two nights ago.
We read The Psychology of Moneyand we were talking about that.
So it was really fun to getback together as a little group.
And then at Economy, I met the pioneers.
And they had talked about CoastFI as part of their talk, and I

(01:12:09):
was like, huh, that's interesting.
I wonder what that could look like for me.
And they had an online course thatI did called Coast With Confidence.
I knew I needed something to keepme moving in the direction of
really making sure I stayed focusedon my finances and on my goals.
So those were two just reallygreat opportunities I had.
yay.

(01:12:29):
So the learning continued.
learning
You also met at economy and I think thisdid make a change for you, Janine Firpo.
And what about her talk changed?
Some investing philosophy?
'cause we've had her on the showand I wanna encourage people to
go back to that episode where shetalks about Activate your money.
Yes, activate your money.
And I made a big change in myretirement account in my Roth account

(01:12:52):
where I had my money in VTI andVTSA X depending on when I bought it.
But they're essentially the same fund.
And I looked at her slides and her talkwas wonderful about really putting on
a graph where V-T-S-A-X and where VSEG,which is the similar indexed Vanguard fund

(01:13:12):
that chooses different companies that areenvironmentally responsible have higher
percentage of women on their boards.
Lots of different ideas that I believe in.
And she was able to show me overtime how they really index so
close to each other and sometimesthe ESG funds even did better.
And I was like, listen, even if Ilose a little bit, I'm still willing

(01:13:33):
to put my money where there'sreally values that I believe in.
And so I shifted all of myVanguard Roth IRA funds into that.
And it was, I think a totalof over about 450,000.
That I put into thatESG fund based on that.
And I also talked to my kids about it,and we put all their funds into there too.
So.
Okay, Lisa, we've talkedabout your case study.

(01:13:56):
We've talked about the blind spots,the action plan, but entering into
a no work phase, mini retirement.
Not that there's no work, butyou're leaving your traditional
work and you've got six months.
How did you organize this andhow come you're not watching
Netflix and chill every day?
You know, that's funny that yousay that, Bill, because my first

(01:14:17):
thought was I might just spentthe first week watching Netflix.
And I couldn't.
I tried, but I was too much stillin sort of the hamster wheel.
I used to get up every morningat four o'clock to do my notes
before I went into clinic.
So I would wake up in the morningat four o'clock and be like, oh.
I don't have any notes to do.
I don't have work to go to.

(01:14:38):
What do I do?
And it did feel a little bit in French,they say de you're out of country.
You're a fish outta water alittle bit to not have work.
After having worked since I wasProbably 12 and started babysitting,
but I thought about two or threethings that I wanted to accomplish
in these next four to six months.
I gave myself, one was a home improvementproject I've been wanting to do

(01:15:02):
forever, which is paint the fence.
And first I started with all of thehome improvement I wanted to do, but
then I was like I don't have time orinclination to do that over the next six
months, so I'm gonna choose one thing.
The second thing was a really consciouseffort to spend time with family,
my kids, and also my mom, but alsojust kind of to take time to do the

(01:15:25):
things that I usually was either tootired or just too rushed to do so.
I took my kids on a tripwith me to California.
When I went to a nursing conference,I was there anyway, and I was like,
this year I'm gonna take the kids.
I took my mom and my brotherout to dinner to celebrate.
I just got my doctoral degree.

(01:15:46):
I don't know if wetalked about that before.
Congratulations.
My mom has a PhD and mybrother is a medical doctor.
So we went to a doctor, doctor, doctordinner where all we did the whole dinner
was say, Dr. Will you pass the wine?
Oh.
And we just talk to each otheras if we were all three doctors.
So and just a couple other things.
Spend time with friends, have someget togethers that I just wouldn't

(01:16:08):
have had the energy to do before.
So that was my second thing.
And then the third thing was really tothink about what direction I wanted as
I continued my career because being anurse, being a healer, a caregiver is
something that's been always part ofmy identity, and I know I wanna move
forward in working with people andhelping people, but in a different way.

(01:16:29):
I didn't wanna be involved in asmuch sort of direct care, but helping
put them in a position where theycould do things to help themselves.
So teaching new nurses how to takecare of people supporting patients
in a way that they can move forward.
I wanted to think about how Icould do that in my next steps.
So those were the three things Ifelt like if I accomplished that

(01:16:52):
I've been successful and I didn'twanna put too much on myself.
Outside of that, of course, thingscreep in and there's all sorts
of opportunities I've thoughtabout doing different things, but.
I did try to sort of make it asabbatical or a mini retirement
around those three aspects.
Oh, we just had JillianJohnsrud on the show.

(01:17:13):
She is the mini retirement guru,and I think she says the same
thing, three to five things.
No more.
You can plan your mini retirementaround that so that they're reasonable,
smart goals for time sensitiveaccomplishments you're doing without
having been coached by her or readher book exactly what she talks about.

(01:17:34):
So we've got to connect you withher so you can be on her podcast.
Yeah, it's so interesting to me.
So you are taking what you did asa career and you're extending it
in a way that's on your own terms.
So you love the work that you did, butyou don't necessarily want it to be within
the confines of the regular day job.

(01:17:57):
And I feel like some people havetrouble deciding what they would do
if they weren't working every day.
Like you had to make a transition.
So is there a reason why you wanna justdo a mini or temporary retirement versus
just saying, I'm retiring for good.
Well, I know myself and I knowI love to work, help learn.

(01:18:20):
So I know that'll be part ofnot working for money or for
the same salary that I had.
But I took a page from Arthur Brookswho's written several books and
has had so many different careersand what he's taken from that.
I think he's probably around retirementage or maybe a little younger.
Looking at his career and sayingthe first 20 years or so of my

(01:18:42):
career was very detail oriented.
I would stay up all night.
I would do all the things, and I got toa point about 20 years into my career,
which he thinks is sort of a pivotal ora perfect time to transition to use that.
What he calls crystallized intelligenceand really put that to work in something
where you're taking all of that experienceand instead of giving it to one patient or

(01:19:08):
one person, you're using that to influenceor to affect more change in a larger way.
And so that's when I started reallythinking about that how to shift my career
so that I can take what I've learned.
I'm not gonna start all over and bemechanical engineer but within healing
and caregiving, how can I use thoseexperiences and pass them on, if you will.

(01:19:31):
Jackie talks about this as oneto many, and that's what she is
doing too, rather than one-on-one.
It's one to many, and I also talk aboutthe 20 year timeframe where I talk about
work, 20 for the money and the rest.
For joy pay your debt offin five, get deFI in 15.
And if people just looked attheir life like that, that

(01:19:52):
creates the Renaissance career.
That creates the next chapter becauseburnout, I feel happens at about 20 years.
Yeah.
I love that term, Renaissance career.
I've never heard that before.
I love that.
Bill
Yeah, I was gonna bring up, thatwonderful saying of yours, Bill the
20 for the money and the rest for joy.
So that was kind of the same thing Lisawas talking about with Arthur Brooks.

(01:20:15):
You know what?
put a link in the show notes,but thank you for telling us
about the challenges and theopportunities of a mini retirement.
You're in the middle of it.
You're probably as busy as ever.
Have you finished the fence yet or not?
I haven't started the fence yet,but I have planned a trip over to
France to see my family this summer.

(01:20:35):
So I'm looking forward to that and Ihave had a lot more time with my kids.
In fact, I think they're probably readyfor me to have less time with that.
Awesome.
All right,
So Lisa, let's, let's put a bow on thisbecause now you've done your case study,
you've done all this additional education,you have thoroughly reviewed the Lisa's

(01:20:57):
life, and what is your big decision,like, what's the next chapter of what
Lisa's gonna be doing from here on out?
Well, what this has really allowed meto do is make a shift within my nursing
career to do something that I've wantedto do for a long time, which is teaching.
I love my clinical care andI'll keep my clinical care job

(01:21:17):
with my immigrant community.
But I wanted to move out of full-timeclinical care and take what I've
learned and being able to offerthat to new nurses who have more
energy and passion about this than,than I do at the end of my career.
So that requires a salary decrease.
And it also allows me a littlebit more flexibility of time.

(01:21:39):
So both of those things were reallyimportant to me, and knowing what my
annual expenses were and what I neededto live off of, was really helpful
in allowing me to take that step.
So I'm in that process now.
I've only actually applied forone job because I don't wanna
work for the next six months.
I wanna take some time andbe intentional about this.

(01:21:59):
And so I might get that job,but I hope not too soon,
which I've never saidthose words in my career.
Right?
I've always gone from one job to another.
When I leave one, I have one set up.
So this is a really big change for me, butI really wanna take some time this summer
to hang out with the kids and traveland think about what the next steps are.
What people don't realize is theycan retire, quote unquote, or

(01:22:21):
partially retire, semi-retire earlier.
If they earn $40,000 a year,they have another million dollar
portfolio and you don't think of itas a million dollars in retirement.
And earning $40,000 can be hard for somepeople, but honestly, that's doable and
allows you to take some of your time back.
Right?

(01:22:41):
Absolutely.
I am so glad to see that you are there.
Now, you also have considered,and I hope you will pursue
it, is financial education.
Yeah, so I just got backfrom a conference, big
national nurse practitionerconference, 5,000 participants.
There was not a single talk.
On anything about finances, there werea few kind of wellness how to avoid

(01:23:04):
burnout, but nothing about how youcould save or set up your career so that
you can be in a position to work less.
And physicians and nurses and everyonein the healthcare field has been
through a hard couple of years.
And I can tell you there's some burnoutout there and some folks that could
really, really benefit from feelinglike they have some options around that

(01:23:26):
and still stay in clinical care, whichis where we need our, our healers.
So I can propose every yearas many talks as I want.
So the proposals for next year's talk,which will be in in June, just went
out and I put forth three financialeducation talks for nurse practitioners.
You are making a difference, Lisa.

(01:23:48):
I hope they'll take me upon it, but I'm also would be
happy to talk to local nurses.
I just felt like this is somethingI could talk to even as a lay person
and just get people sort of usingyour book Jackie as a textbook.
Just like, here's everything you needto know, but here's how I did it.
And is there anything in my storythat might motivate you to take

(01:24:08):
some steps in that direction?
are you gonna be transparent with yournumbers so that you can empower them?
Or is that somethingyou're not gonna share?
I feel like that's so powerful being ableto see exactly how 6,000 dollars each year
in my Roth, IRA eventually led to this.
This is something that people can,I think, identify with and see,
oh, this is how compounding works.

(01:24:29):
This is how staying the course works.
This is what happens when youmake mistakes during COVID.
And I think I woulddefinitely share my numbers.
Happy to put 'em out there andjust let people know sort of
that, that's how I got there.
What topics do you feel are pivotal?
Those three topics I'm kind of interestedin, what you think that they need to
know now and how to get 'em up and going.

(01:24:49):
So the three ones that I proposedwas a beginner, just one of finances,
1 0 1 for nurse practitioners,was what I'd entitled it.
The second one was financial health.
A to Z and that one's gonnabe a little bit more advanced.
So that's when we're gonna starttalking about the 4% rule and how
to save so that you have X amountof your finances that you're wanting

(01:25:11):
to live off by a certain age.
The timeline that you can get tothis in 10 or 15 years, if you just
basically follow that simple path towealth that JL Collins talks about.
So those are a little bit more ofthe advanced topics, but even in the
beginners, talking about debt thatyou accumulate during your nursing
career talking about how to raise kidsand help with financial independence

(01:25:34):
there, just sort of the basic topics.
The third one, they actuallydo a three hour seminar option.
And that one I really wanted totake people through and even have
them start to think about theirgoals and put together a plan.
So I would ask them to come withsome numbers in mind and let's put
some things down on paper so you walkaway with something, an investment

(01:25:55):
policy, or at least some ideas ofwhere you'd like to start get started.
So those were the three I put forth.
Well, I hope you consider usingyour first ever podcast episode as a
marketing tool to get your talks acrossbecause we've covered a lot of ground.
There's a lot of inspiration here, andI am just so proud of you for doing

(01:26:16):
what you're doing, and I wish you reallyall the best for this next chapter.
and let us know if we canhelp you with any of that.
And I know your goal is not to beany kind of marketing machine or
anything like that, but the morepeople need to hear your story.
Your instruction.
Your financial education isgonna be so impactful, being

(01:26:38):
open and sharing your numbers.
I'm someone that doesthat, but we are anomalies.
Most people don't share their numbers,so it is going to make a difference to so
many people, and that is honestly, Bill,our motivation for doing this podcast is
to get out there more of this knowledgeand education in a very easy, relatable

(01:26:59):
way by being open and vulnerable.
And so we love everything thatyou have shared with us today.
We loved you at the case study.
We love that you took so much ofthis and turned it into a way that
you wanted your life to look like.
So congratulations on that.
Bill.
Any final words?
Well,
I have a physician friend of minethat's always trying to turn his nursing

(01:27:23):
colleagues onto something like our show.
This is the perfect show that he'sgonna have to share with all of them
because you don't have to be high income.
If anything, high income can bea liability like it was for me.
We had the wealthy custodian on.
We have you on Jackie.
You can have a five figure income,even a low five figure income

(01:27:43):
if you get it right early on.
But as soon as you get it right, it's a10 to 15 year journey as you've proven.
So this has been so much fun, as is everyshow we just wanna thank you for being
here, Lisa, and we wanna wish you well.
We'll see you guys all nextweek on Catching Up to Fi.
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
I really enjoyed it.

All Episodes

Case Study: The Real Numbers That Told Her She Could Quit her Job, Now! | Lisa B | 161

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Case Study: The Real Numbers That Told Her She Could Quit her Job, Now! | Lisa B | 161