Once Upon a FI | Paul & Amanda Mollenkopf | 144

Childhood crushes can bloom into full-blown FI fairy tales, and Paul and Amanda Mollenkopf are living proof. They join us to tell their story and showcase the world premiere of Paul's first book, ‘Once Upon a FI.’ What started out as letters to his daughter grew into a delightful collection of short stories inspired by timeless classics and fables. The book is a refreshing approach to spreading the message of financial independence to even the youngest readers. The clever analogies using classic tales inspire valuable generational conversations around money and include:

• The Tortoise and the Hare: A Race to Financial Independence
• The Odd Duckling: Finding the Like-Minded
• Jack and the Beanstalk: Magic Cards that Sprout Growing Debt
• The Boy Who Cried Wealth: A Lesson in Stealth Wealth
• The Three Little Pigs: Getting a Straw, Sticks or Bricks Mortgage
• Chicken Little: The Market is Falling
• A Spending Carol: The Spirits of Spending Past, Present and Future
• Oh, The Places You’ll Go: The Things that You’ll Do, with FI Community standing by You

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:02):
I grew up in a lower middle class family.
I have an older brother and it'sinteresting that we both grew up in
the same household and yet we endedup on two very different tracks.
He wanted to get everythinghe was unable to get as a kid.
And I took the other path where Iwas happy having very little, I had a

(00:22):
great childhood I didn't want the samestresses that my parents had with money.
And so I just became a natural saver.
It started super early, I wouldgo trick or treating on Halloween.
I'd come home with all my candy.
My brother would eat all of his in thefirst day or two, and I'd have a piece
or two a day so that I had enough candyto carry me over to the next Halloween.

(00:45):
the tortoise remains steadfast inhis approach, quietly persevering
toward his own financial freedom.
With focus determination, he continuedto execute his well-crafted strategy
undisturbed by the ebbs and flowsof the market For the tortoise, the
journey was not about catching up tothe hare, but rather about forging
zone path, and catching up to FI.

(01:05):
As fate would have it, a coupleyears later, the stock market
faltered causing the tortoiseand the hare to fall back a bit.
Yet their responses to the crisiscouldn't have been more different.
While the tortoise maintained hisunwavering course, seizing the opportunity
to capitalize on market downturnsby increasing his investments, the
Hare Succumbeded to panic and fear.

(01:26):
The odd duckling stumbled upon anintriguing internet story about a married
duck couple who, through disciplinesaving retired early to travel the
globe, enjoying curry and crackers.
This revelation opened thefloodgates and led to a discovery
of a duck with a mustache whois a dedicated saver like her.
Suddenly she started thinkingmaybe she wasn't that odd after

(01:49):
all, she had to find out how theseducks got to where they were.
She delved deeper into research,uncovering a duck who had penned
an entire book outlining the simplepath to achieving financial dreams.
Encouraged by this knowledge she yearnedto connect with these like-minded ducks,

(02:37):
Hello and welcome backto Catching Up to Fi.
It's spring outside.
The folks had snow in the northern realms.
Tennessee, it's 80 degrees and sunny.
We are so happy to have Spring.
Jackie, how are you doing today?
My spring chicken.
I'm doing great.
I got my, master shirt.
Growing up down south Augusta,Georgia, the big thing was golf and

(02:58):
the masters was the biggest thing.
I think they're still the mostprestigious golf tournament in the world.
People know it.
But anyway, I didn't realizethat when I was in high school.
In college.
I was just trying to get through,but that's what spring means to me.
But also it means tax day.
And I know you're on it.
Bill, you got your taxes all done?
Well, we're recording this on Aprilthe 14th, the day before tax day.

(03:18):
And I still don't have my taxes done yet.
I did those a month ago.
I gotta be a little organized andI have somebody to do them for me.
So you're doing 'em yourself andyou're finding all these little
details down to your mileage , andbeing a do it yourselfer is important.
But that's not me.
I was traumatized by taxesfrom my dad who got audited.
So it's never been anythingI was really interested in.

(03:40):
But, maybe as I get interested ineducating myself a little more as
I move towards retirement and maybedoing the CFP thing, I'll learn
more about taxes late in life.
to me it's just anotherphase of your life.
You can call it late, but you gotlike decades and decades to go.
But I do learn so muchwhen I do my own taxes.
I thought that once I had the tinylittle business that I have that I

(04:03):
would turn that over to someone else.
But no, I love finding thesedeductions and, I just learned so much.
And speaking of taxes this pastweekend, I did a great session.
Let me give a shout out to the, wewomen collective, which is an awesome
Facebook group, but they met ateconomy and they get together once
a month, maybe even more often, andthey talk about a financial topic.

(04:26):
And the topic that I worked with themon as a facilitator was on taxes.
Like what every woman shouldknow and consider about taxes
as they go into retirement.
So , oddly enough, taxes isone of my favorite topics when
it comes to personal finance.
Well, as always, Jackie andI are a little bit different.
We come from different angles.
We, agree on most things, but wherewe disagree, that's the color, right?

(04:48):
, That's where the magic happens.
Okay, Jackie, we gotta dive intothe show 'cause our audience
wants to hear from these folks.
First, Paul and Amanda, we wanted to givea shout out to the charity you've chosen.
And before we introduce you maybe Amanda,you wanna tell us about who you support
and who you want our audience to support.
We wanna support freedom for Fido.
It is a charity that helps lower incomeindividuals that have dogs on chains,

(05:13):
a group of volunteers comes and buildsa fence free of charge for the dog.
I.
that's awesome.
And we've supported Freedom for Fidobefore, and Fritz Gilbert and his wife
have created this charity, in retirement.
So a shout out to Fritz Gilbert,the Retirement Manifesto, and his
wife, they're doing great workin retirement and it's important
to know what you're retiring to.
He writes all about retirement,and it's not just about the number,

(05:35):
it's making the transition into yoursecond or third or fourth chapter,
and they are busier than ever.
And this charity has turnedinto hundreds of volunteers.
, Many.
I. Fences for dogs inthe last couple of years.
They are doing great work andwe want to pay homage to Rudy.
I have a Rudy a Os Labradoodle.

(05:55):
You guys had a Rudy andhe passed away recently.
Sorry for your loss.
Aw.
you.
Thank you.
He was special.
That's why we want to recognize freedomfor Fido and we wanna get down there
and build some fences ourselves someday.
Oh, awesome.
. And , our Rudy and our Lilly,when you talk about giving
back, it isn't just about money.
My wife and I volunteer east TennesseeChildren's Hospital with our dogs

(06:17):
in the Habit program, H-A-B-I-T,human Animal Bond in Tennessee.
So we take our dogs to the hospitalon Fridays and we visit with
families, staff, and patients whoare challenged with cancer diagnoses.
We're both physicians andwe're often responsible for
managing people's journeys.
And when we go there, theydon't know who we are.

(06:38):
We are just the escorts for two dogsthat bring smiles to people and we give
back of our time and our dogs give back.
They love their job,they get all dressed up.
And every Friday it'sa way to just sort of.
Turn the tables and be somebodythat's giving unconditional
love, which is really cool.
So dogs are near and dear to our hearts.

(07:00):
And we have a Rudy, you had aRudy, and when you lose a dog,
it's kind of like losing a child.
So we feel for you and the Rainbow Bridge.
Our Rudy will meet your Rudy someday,and they'll be prancing around all.
You don't yet know who Paul andAmanda are, so let's introduce them.
Jackie I'll take it alittle bit from here.

(07:21):
So, I first met Paul and his wife Amanda,in a cold call email from Minnesota.
He and Amanda were planning onmoving their lives out of the cold
white north into the southeast.
Paul stumbled across me and he'llhave to tell me how exactly in the PHI
space and reached out with questionsabout Knoxville as a possible place
to settle down in their new Phi life.
I love how this communitydraws people together.

(07:43):
The reciprocal warmth is quite infectious.
It's a place where six degrees ofseparation strangers become fast friends.
So Fast forward a year or two lateror so, this dynamic duo packed
up their house and moved into aseasoned Toyota Camry with their dog
Rudy, sadly recently passed away.
As we said, they set off.
As newly minted pioneers ona journey to find a new home.

(08:05):
They stopped in Knoxville and Karenand I, my wife, had a wonderful
lunch with them in our neighborhood.
We shared our real estate agent with them.
We took them on a tour of the area.
We didn't know what would happen here.
'cause they were looking everywhere.
Rural city, South Carolina,North Carolina, and Tennessee.
So we didn't know what would come of this.
But shortly after we record this podcast,Paul and Amanda will be closing on their

(08:28):
new home, just down the street, or atleast the town over from Karen and I. The
southeast is becoming a capital of five.
we gotta hear more about that move becauseI heard that was pretty interesting and
I wanna know more about how you choseKnoxville and Tennessee because I've
been kind of having my eye there too.
So, just a little bit more about Paul.
Paul was a late starter and discoveredthe power of financial independence

(08:51):
through his early starter wife Amanda.
She sparked a passion that has shapedboth his personal and professional life.
As a certified personal financialwellness consultant, Paul helps others
build lasting wealth while enjoyinga balanced, purposeful driven life.
Paul is also a newly minted authorof a book called Once Upon a Phi,

(09:15):
and I got the honor to read it.
So did you bill?
He has invented a new genre to spreadthe world of financial independence.
It is a unique.
Oliver twisty reimagination ofclassic tales from our childhoods.
Weaving in the principles offinancial independence and honoring
creators in the space for theircontributions to the culture.

(09:37):
This book, which started out asletters to his daughter, which is
close to my heart after writing abook to my daughter back in the day.
But it marks the culmination of hisjourney toward financial freedom
and his mission to share theknowledge he's gained along the way.
We both wrote a blurb, but Bill'sactually ended up on the back of the book.
We are thrilled to host Paul andAmanda on their first ever podcast

(10:01):
telling their story and showcasingthe world premier of Once upon a FI.
So Paul and Amanda, welcometo catching up to Fi.
Thank you so much for having us.
Thank you
for having us.
It's an honor.
Well, we love having, as we callthem podcast virgins on the show.
Jackie had to set them upwith all the equipment.
They've got it all right.

(10:22):
They sound beautiful.
They look beautiful.
They're ready to rock and rollas they market this new book.
So we love good stories,much like your book.
But before we get to the book, wemust really start at your beginnings.
Amanda, you go first.
Take us through a synopsis of yourpersonal and financial journey, starting
with the lessons you learned in yourformative years and bring us forward.

(10:44):
I grew up in a lower middle class family.
I have an older brother and it'sinteresting that we both grew up in
the same household and yet we endedup on two very different tracks.
He wanted to get everythinghe was unable to get as a kid.
And I took the other path where Iwas happy having very little, I had a

(11:04):
great childhood I didn't want the samestresses that my parents had with money.
And so I just became a natural saver.
It started super early, I wouldgo trick or treating on Halloween.
I'd come home with all my candy.
My brother would eat all of his in thefirst day or two, and I'd have a piece
or two a day so that I had enough candyto carry me over to the next Halloween.

(11:26):
that's like a marshmallow test.
You've heard of the marshmallow test.
You were the kid that naturallywaited for the second marshmallow.
This is great.
So it's the Halloween candy test.
Please go.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
Go ahead.
that's okay.
When I got a little bit olderand started babysitting and dog
sitting, I saved all the money.
I never had any desire to go out andspend it on new trinkets or anything.

(11:48):
And then my first job aftercollege, I sat in my desk and
I was like, are you serious?
Like, this is what I'm meantto do for the next 45 years.
This sounds awful.
I wanted to find a different way out.
I didn't wanna do what everyone else did.
It didn't sound any fun.
And so I just started savingwithout really any intention in mind

(12:08):
other than not doing this forever.
So one day in 2017, I was sitting at workand I came across a Yahoo Finance article.
And it was advertised as like thiscouple in their thirties retired
early and started traveling the worldand it was about go curry cracker.
So I clicked in there and readthat and I was like, oh my
gosh, they're doing my dream.

(12:28):
I didn't know other people had this dream.
In the article theymentioned Mr. Money mustache.
And so I kind of went down thatrabbit hole and then I found JL
Collins and read the Simple Pathto Wealth, and I was hooked.
I was like, this is my people.
I didn't know there wereother people like me.
And right about that time I foundthe Choose Fi podcast when they
were like on their third episode.

(12:50):
So I started right from the start.
Listening to all their episodes.
And, they talked about the creationof a Camp Phi Midwest and, which
was right in our home state.
I came home from work and I was like,, Paul, I'm gonna go to this camp thing.
You're more than welcome tocome with me, but like, this is
something that I for sure wanna do.
And he was like, yeah, okay.

(13:10):
I'm up for it.
Let's see what's up.
And so
night we were both completely onthe journey we were sucked in.
That's kind of how we began ourjourney together on the FI path.
I'm interested to know,in 2017, you found fire.
I, but how close were to Phi?
Were you based on your early startingand your financial acumen and

(13:31):
getting it right from the beginning?
Did you realize maybe you werefile already and didn't know it?
I wasn't quite at that point.
I was pretty close, maybe twothirds there, and I had a pretty
decent paying job at that time.
I did reach my actual FI numberin 2019, but I did keep working
you just recently retired,so congratulations.
Congrats.

(13:51):
, The bells and whistles go off whenwe hear somebody that retired and
you know, bill, We are doing thisinformal survey about from the time
that people wake up, especially latestarters, about how long did it take
you to get to financial independenceand or get to the point where you were
able to decouple from your job retire?
Have you ever looked at the numbers?

(14:12):
it was about 20 yearsthat I actually did work.
But I had reached FI inprobably 15 years, less
so.
Or two in there.
, I did
retirements as well.
I took nine months off and 14 months off
What did you do during that time?
That's amazing.
Yeah.
I just kind of explored my hobbies.
wanted to feel what retirement felt like.

(14:34):
I wanted to do
Oh, nice.
to do for a while.
The pull of kind of earning moremoney always came back to me.
, I'm definitely one of thoseone more year syndrome folks.
I'm hoping this last instanceis like the final instance.
Who taught you about personal finance?
Did you have a mentor ordid you do it all yourself?
I mean, as far as the mechanicsof it, were you an index investor

(14:55):
right from the beginning?
Did you make mistakes?
What did it look like?
Was it messy?
I.
I definitely made mistakes.
Saving was easy for me.
That was not an issue at all.
I just wasn't sure what to do with it.
I did hire a financial planner earlyon, or a financial advisor, and ended
up in variable life insurance policy.
Oh, okay.

(15:16):
stuck a lot of money in there.
I haven't even gone back to add uphow much I've lost in front load
Yeah,
is that more like a whole life insurance?
Is that a version of awhole life insurance policy.
It's a high commissionfront loaded product.
I did the same thing.
If you go back and calculate it,you'll find that it was probably
around $30,000 or more in commissions.

(15:37):
It's not cheap and it's a costlymistake, but I made the same one.
You were sold a product byyour financial advisor, right?
That happens all too commonly.
On this show, we're all about findingthe proper financial advisor that's
fee only advice only, or projectmanagement focused . So that doesn't
sound like what you found out.
That was one mistake.
Did you make any others along the way?

(15:58):
I think that was really my onlymistake and it was a big one
considering I was in my twenties.
And so that money could havecompounded a lot over the years.
And it sounds like that advisor wasactually an insurance salesman, so I
think sometimes advisors or financialplanners even will get a bad name
from a lot of people that are justusing the title inappropriately,

(16:19):
where they're not really an advisor.
So that's just a tip for everyone else.
Be careful for anyone that callsthemselves a financial advisor or
even a financial planner, becauseit's not a regulated term or title.
Almost anyone can call themselves that.
I'm a financial advisor, right?
We're on this podcast.
I, I'm, I'm a planner.
I don't take my advice, we just talkabout it for fun and we give people ideas.

(16:42):
It's about education on this show.
We should come clean here.
The CFP that she bought thevariable life policy from, was
Really?
time.
I had sold my business and Iwent to work assisting him.
, He truly was a CFP.
I just think that's beforewe discovered FI and
Yeah.
And all the above, that'sjust kind of what you did.

(17:03):
I have a tremendous amountof respect for the man.
I thought, he's a person of integrity.
I don't wanna bash him at all.
But we lived and learned.
I was about to say generallyfor someone her age whole life
policy might not be the best fit.
We don't wanna do a one size fits all.
'cause certainly there's someplace for that type of product.
To your point, just because they're CFP,it does not mean that they have the model

(17:27):
or the compensation model that fits you.
Like Bill was saying, everyonehas a website now, though.
Most financial planners, they havewritten articles, blog posts, been on
podcasts where you can get to know them.
But just goes to show you thatyou have to know what you want.
You don't go to the professionaland have them tell you what you want
because they already have in theirmind what you want or what they sell.

(17:50):
So lesson learned.
so Amanda, this is like 20 years ago, Ithink you're in your forties and the dawn
of index funds was in the nineties, inthe year 2000 or so, I was lost in space.
Didn't know what net worth was.
Never heard of an index fund, did youteach yourself and did you get the
investing part right from the beginningor was there a learning process?

(18:12):
I was kind of a JL Collins simple pathto wealth, like the VTSAX set it and
forget it, and during the accumulationphase that worked so perfect for me.
It was easy, it was simple, it madesense, and I could just work on
making money and then putting itaway and not have to think about it.
simple as best often.
Alright, Paul, you know, before you guysmerged your financial lives, you had your

(18:34):
own financial life and your own story.
And as we mentioned in the introduction,you were a self-admitted late starter.
Tell us, what, the early financial modelswere traumas were that may have led you
to create different habits from Amanda.
'cause she was frugal and she saved.
But was that the case for you?
It was not I don't know that Ihad any traumas, but I definitely

(18:56):
learned half of the equation.
, I just saw you two on earn and invest.
I learned the earn side.
I didn't learn the invest side growingup, and so I always worked hard.
I always made money.
One thing that I. Think I hadthe FI instincts of was I did not
possess the keep up with the Joneses.
I've never owned a new car in my life.
When, back when you wore watches,when you weren't carrying around

(19:18):
a phone with a clock on it?
I always had a Timex.
I never had a Rolex.
I kind of always understood thedifference between utility and luxury.
The car is just supposed toget you from place to place.
It's not supposed to be shinyor a status symbol of any kind.
I. But what I did lack was thesaving and investment side of it.
I thought nothing of going out toeat four or five nights a week.

(19:40):
I always said there were probably timeswhere I drove home in a car that was worth
less than the restaurant tab I just paid.
I always avoided debt, but Istill lived paycheck to paycheck
most of my young adult life.
I owned a business and that the plan atthat point was for that business to just
provide income for the rest of my life.
But a divorce.

(20:00):
The kibosh on thatplan, sold the business.
And that's when I went to work forthe certified financial planner.
But then in 2016, no, I'msorry, 2008 we started dating
and I quickly learned her ways.
At that time I was divorced soI was a single parent , with
a daughter with joint custody.
so saving was still verydifficult at that time.

(20:22):
I bought a townhouse following mydivorce, and that was shortly just
before the crash, so I was underwateron my town home for quite some time.
I had struggled pretty hard for thoseyears in my forties until we got together.
I kinda learned her ways and thenonce my daughter went off on her own.
We were double income, no kids.

(20:44):
We had a mortgage, butwe had no other debt.
We both had decent paying jobs.
So at that point it was really prettyeasy to not deprive ourselves and
still have a very high savings rate.
Paul as a divorced person myself, andwe've got a lot of divorced people in
our community, and a lot of times that'swhat causes them to be a late starter
because they end up starting over.

(21:05):
How was that transition for you?
Like, did it throw you behind some years?
Did it wake you up and did Amandajust come in and rescue you?
Yes, on all counts.
It definitely threw me behind.
And like I said, not just thedivorce, but I said, when I sold
the business, I thought I sold itfor a very good amount of money.

(21:27):
But once you pay off the remaining debton that business, you pay the taxes and
you split it in half, not a lot left.
And so it really was kind ofstarting over at that point.
One mistake I made was having thatbusiness and not having an exit strategy.
So I spent some time after I soldit, I spent some time unemployed.
I bounced around a couple of jobs until Ifound one that kind of suited me a better.

(21:51):
But yeah, the savings part of it waslearned behavior, and who taught me.
What industry was your business in?
owned a franchisebusiness, two UPS stores.
I got into the network whenthey were mailboxes, et cetera.
Oh.
then while I was there, UPS boughtthe franchise itself, became the
franchisor, so they became UPS stores.

(22:12):
So I did that for seven years.
did you always have anentrepreneur gene in you?
Yeah.
do.
Yeah,
Yeah, I think I still do.
Book is kind of part of it too, but yeah,
Yeah, I think have thatthat entrepreneur spirit to
I,
yeah.
So Amanda I'm wondering, so when hewas telling you the story, when he
sold the business, he was outta workfor a couple years or whatever, did

(22:32):
you tell him he should have beendoing Roth conversions at that time?
I'm
I'm not even sure.
If he had a lot of retirement moneyput away at that point to convert.
did you know what a net worth was?
Were you like me?
Were you in sort of a paycheck topaycheck lifestyle with no debt?
Were you aware financially at all?
I.
I was aware that I didn't have debt.

(22:53):
I was also aware that Ididn't have investments.
I'll never forget when I was workingfor the CFP firm, they put on a
little presentation for the employees.
And I was one of the older peoplethere in my mid forties at the time.
And one of the CFPs that was one of thefounders said he basically was talking
about compounding and when you start atyour twenties and your thirties, , and

(23:14):
he made the statements, I'll never forgetit, if you start at 50, it's too late.
we hear that a lot.
yeah, and I
I was.
at the time and oh mygosh, I'm in trouble.
But then when Amanda introducedme to some of these concepts
and , specifically Mr. Money mustacheand the shockingly simple math, I
thought he can do this in 10 years.

(23:35):
He
Yeah.
save enough to retire and he's gonnafund 40, 50 years of retirement.
I can certainly do this and fund 2030.
, Whatever I have left.
Yeah.
So let's go ahead and debunk that mythabout how long from the time you woke
up, I'm assuming maybe it was closeto the time you got with Amanda from

(23:56):
that point, how long did it take youto reach financial independence where
if you wanted to, you didn't have todepend on a paycheck from a regular job.
I still had my daughter living at home,I was badly underwater on that townhouse.
So saving was still verydifficult up until about 2015.
And I retired in 2023, I was startingto save and starting the process.

(24:19):
But those eight years, between 2015and 2023, we really hit it hard.
We both had decent incomes.
We got mortgage free.
So to that point, we had no debt.
We had savings ratesin the 70%, 75% range.
Wow.
we had a side businessgoing at the same time.
So we were raking it in andliving a good life at the same
There's that entrepreneur again,there's that entrepreneur.

(24:42):
But that's pretty cool.
We hear that a lot that from thetime you wake up do you feel like
you surprised yourself in how quicklyyou were able to get to financial
independence from 2015 to 2023?
Well, I well, I remember seeingsavings rate chart and 75% is
eight years or what have you.
It really wow.
A couple of years once we got themortgage paid off and we still were both

(25:06):
working full time had no debt whatsoever.
And we don't deprive ourselves Inever felt deprived through that time.
We still traveled, butwe do so on a budget.
So I wanna take us back a littlebit because this is interesting.
There's a bit of an age gap here thatwe'll have to talk about, because I
think it plays a role there's abouta 15, 20 year age gap between the

(25:26):
two of you or something like that.
This is a love storythat starts in childhood.
We gotta let Amanda tell us this was a sixdegrees of separation story too, right?
Yeah, our parents have been reallygood friends since before I was born.
So I think the first time I metPaul, I was probably a month old.
I don't remember I, but at about agethree I developed a huge crush on him.

(25:51):
And that crush carried on untilhe got married when I was eight.
And so I was at his firstwedding and I was like the one
in the corner, like pouting.
And we saw each other once or twicemore at one of his sister's wedding.
And then we didn't seeeach other for 18 years.
He went off and did his life.
I was doing mine.
And then in 2008 we were both happenedto just be on business lunches.

(26:16):
We were in a completely emptyrestaurant and they seated us at
tables right next to each other.
gosh.
Looked up and I was like.
I think that's Paul.
And I saw he made eye contact with me andI was like, I think he might recognize me.
We just kind of made eye contact thewhole time and left without saying
anything because I didn't wanna, makemyself look stupid by going over there.

(26:38):
so as soon as I walked outta therestaurant, I called my mom and I said,
Hey, do you know where Paul is thesedays, where he lives, where he works?
And she's like, well, no, but youknow, email me everything you just
told me and I'll forward it to his mom.
And
Aw.
Did and she forwarded it to hismom, and his mom forwarded to him
and the next day I show up to workand that I have an email from him.

(26:58):
And
Aw.
said, that was me.
I was wondering if that was you too.
And so we scheduled a lunch date and wewent on a lunch date and sparks kind of
flew and we've been together ever since.
that's why I wanted to tell thelove story because maybe Paul
babysat for you, who knows,
I always make the, the strangebut true statement that I've known

(27:18):
her parents longer than she has.
But going back to that lunch, I remembersitting there, we were both at business
lunches, so we were with other people andI was looking over at her and the only
reason I thought I recognized her is herfamily would send Christmas cards to my
family every year with their pictures.
So I thought that was her, but Iwasn't sure enough to go say hello

(27:39):
to her or anything like that.
So I was really happy tosee that email the next day.
what's interesting here is the,the age gap might play a role in
finances, and I'm kind of curious,Amanda's been an early starter.
She's accumulated assets.
As you're coming into arelationship, you've been debt
free, but not much of a saver.

(28:00):
Tell us a little bit about how you mayhave merged your financial journeys.
when we first started going, oneof the early memories I have of
her being a saver was when we firststarted dating, she was 26 years old.
I was 44, and she called me oneday and said, congratulate me.
I just paid off my student loan.
You're 26 years old.

(28:22):
I have friends my age that haven'tpaid off their student loans yet.
But yeah, managed our finances reallywell together maybe because of the
age difference, the no kids gettinga, married a little later in life.
We've kind of done the, hers, mine andours management of money where we've
put the same amount into a joint accountevery month, more or less to cover our.
Common expenses when we hada mortgage, our utilities.

(28:44):
We always padded it enough to havea travel fund in there as well.
But then beyond that, we hadour own separate finances.
So when she wants to buy a garagedoor for her mother, I don't
have anything to say about it.
When I wanted do something for my daughteror my granddaughter, , let her know, we
just don't have fights we never have.

(29:04):
I think also I wanted to pointout, there's been some studies
done around the fact that it takesmen longer to mature than women.
So we
oh, I'm
we,
of me.
a living example.
I didn't financiallymature into my fifties.
I was an a very long time.
if we wanna find a guy on ourlevel, it's like we almost have

(29:27):
to date older than us because ittakes longer for guys to mature.
Now that's not scientific on my part,but there are some studies done in that
space that seem to lean in that direction.
well, we're a good examplebecause , I always say I'm
very young at heart and she's
Yeah.
So this
Aw.
But the truth is I'm very immature

(29:48):
that's why you wrote a children'sbook and we'll get into that later.
But Amanda , you were financiallysavvy, you'd been a saver.
You met Paul.
There's a big financialdisparity in your knowledge and
potential resources and wealth.
Was that a problem for you?
not at all.
I think simply because we decided todo the, his, hers and ours, that I
was fine knowing that I was takingcare of myself and building my little

(30:11):
nest egg and that I didn't needhim for anything, and therefore.
I knew that he was getting onboard, so it wasn't like he was
dragging behind he was making hisown way and I was confident in that.
And so we just, have , eachof our own fi numbers.
We've hit our own fi numbers and our ownway, and it just really works for us.
That's interesting, Jackie, because youknow, we've always talked about a fine

(30:33):
number being at least in a partnership,a joint number, and to have separate
fine numbers that might be dramaticallydifferent, but you live the same life.
You live the same lifestyle.
I find that interesting.
Yeah, and it works even better in our casebecause I'm more lean five than she is.
But I'm much closer,, social security andMedicare right around the corner for me.

(30:57):
So that eases the stressa little bit as well.
But we're both fine
Yeah.
be just fine.
And, it does point out that Iknow she's married to me because
she wants to be, 'cause she
yeah.
me for anything.
Maybe other than , reachingthings on tall shelves.
This is important for our audience becausewe do have a lot of women that end up
being a spouse that stays at home andhas a husband as the primary earner where

(31:22):
they're not focused on their own financialindependence, and they don't realize
until later that they're financially.
In many ways, dependent, and themovement these days is for women to
take control of their money younger sothat they can control their own destiny.
Right.
Amanda, and you were on top of this early.
that's the funny thing too, is myparents got together very young in life.

(31:45):
My mom was 15 when her and mydad started dating and she was
never interested in the money.
She never knew anything about it.
And she said to me all the time,from a very young age, don't be me.
out how to do things yourselfand don't depend on a man.
She's like,
Wow.
mistakes.
And I very much took that to heart andI'm , very thankful for that advice.

(32:06):
your mom is a wise woman.
So Paul, I have a question for you.
So you mentioned socialsecurity and Medicare.
So because there's this 20 yeargap, have you guys discussed on your
strategy for taking social security?
Because you kind of have to look at it alittle differently when you're a married
couple and you have a 20 year age gap.
yeah, you do.
And we're still open-minded aboutit, but I think it works out

(32:28):
even if this wasn't the issue.
, I am gonna do everything I can to waittill 70 to take social Security, and
it does work out better with the agegap difference to do that as well.
So.
All right, so
comes up.
things that come up aren'tjust like yours, mine and ours.
What comes up too, given that you havea daughter is kind of estate planning.
How have you approached that?
it's a good question.
We have
Beneficiary.

(32:49):
All our investment accounts, ofcourse, and so I have it split
basically where my daughter gets someAmanda doesn't need much from me.
So that's helpful.
Of course, that eases a lot of burden.
At the same time, I don't want to have mydaughter, she's 29 years old right now.
I don't want her thinking this big nestegg is coming her way at some point.
I'm really more focused with her andpart of the reason I wrote the book

(33:11):
I'm really more focused with heron financial literacy than I am any
Oh,
inheritance or generational wealth.
So you're in the die with zero camp?
A little bit, it sounds like.
Right.
A little.
Yeah.
Although I don't,
Mind the idea of leaving hersomething when I do die, I
don't need to die with zero.
But obviously I want to make themost of it in these years in all

(33:31):
aspects of life, including teachingher and giving her the, future
you're not, you're not giving herYou're teaching her how to fish, which
is really important in our space.
And then maybe it's time tomove on to the book, Jackie,
because this is a great segue.
He is talking about his daughterand teaching her how to fish.
And this book, once Upon a Phi, is away of doing that, not just for her

(33:52):
like you did with your book for yourdaughter, but for a new generation
of financially literate people.
Right.
Paul?
I.
I hope so.
yeah, that's really who it's designed for.
I have a former coworker and currentfriend that I worked with her for about
10 years, and she would be involved inour conversations about money quite often.
She knew my interest infinancial independence.

(34:13):
She knew I told her about these CampFis and everything, and, and she
would ask me all sorts of questions.
I helped her, I sent her a couple of myspreadsheets and things like that, but I
I also,
give her a podcast to listen to.
I'd give her a book, I recommended theSimple Path to Wealth catching up to
you have to buy different times.
And she couldn't get through it.
It read like a textbook to her.

(34:34):
She just couldn't sit and listen to it.
And I just thought maybethere is a market out there.
Maybe people in the FI communityknow people like this that need that.
The less intimidating kind ofstarter kit approach to joining
this community and learning theseaspects of financial independence,
Yeah, and we are recording this duringfinancial literacy month, which is April.

(34:57):
So I definitely love your approach and Ihave said this so many times, Paul, that
not everyone does a, big, thick book.
That doesn't resonate with everyone.
I think the way that you've done it isunique enough to get the attention of a
lot of people that may not be willing toread a big serious book, or maybe they

(35:17):
just have a different way of learning.
And I love that you havemade a space for that.
Now, use the entrepreneur, okay?
You went out on your own anddecided, I'm going to not just write
this book, I'm gonna publish it,do the marketing, do everything.
And I would like to know more becauseI feel like there's some people in our
audience that might have an interestin putting what they know into a book.

(35:39):
So I would like to know.
The process that it took tobe able to bring this book to
life from conceptualizing it toactually writing it, getting it put
together, formatting, published,all of that., What was that like?
It is
It's quite a process.
As you know.
Yeah.
I really meant for thisbook to be an easy read.
I wanted it to be short.

(36:01):
the whole concept is for it tobe as the least intimidating book
yeah.
Read about money.
I thought it should be easy, but thepublishing aspect of it is not easy.
In fact, I signed on with a publisherthat I found online, and about four
months into the process, I fired them.
Me some money.
It cost me some time.

(36:21):
But this is important to me.
This really turned into a passion projectfor me, and I wanted it to have the
feel and look of a children's storybook,an old school children's storybook.
And this first publisher was soimpersonal and it just didn't feel right.
And I followed my gut and moved on toa local publisher here in Minnesota.

(36:42):
And it's been so much better this way.
I'm really happy with the waythe illustrations turned out.
I just couldn't be happier.
As
As far as the,
of the
the book.
daughter and her friend actually arecontemplating writing a book, and
they asked my advice and the, bestpiece of advice I had for them in the
writing process is just lean into it.
If you have an idea, ifsomething strikes you.

(37:04):
Write it all down, get it down onpaper, and just follow your instincts.
And that's really theway this book turned out.
Originally, I just thoughtabout writing one story.
I just had
Mm-hmm.
One story.
It came from a letter that Ihad written to my daughter.
The
Letter
was reminding her of a play I took herto when she was about 10, 11 years old.
And it was a satiricalversion of a Christmas Carol.

(37:26):
And the letter I wrote to her wrote,
a hundred letters to her,so this was just one of
oh.
But the letter I wrote to her aboutthis was reminding her of taking
that play and saying, think of howyour spending is in that manner.
How much are you spending on thatspirit of spending past, , you
bought that car two years ago andyou send in the monthly payment
today, you made that past purchase.
Spending present is you stopped atthe convenience store on the way

(37:49):
to work and picked up a bunch ofsodas and snacks and things, then
spending future is your savings of401k and other investment vehicles.
And of course, I encouraged her totilt those percentages as much to the
spending yet to come as she could.
So that led me to the idea ofrewriting a Christmas Carol.
And so that was my original idea.
I was just going to do that.

(38:10):
I wasn't even thinkingof a book at that time.
But then I started thinking of otherchildren's stories that kind of fit morals
and lessons that could be reimagined tofit the morals and lessons of finance.
And so a number of them work pretty well.
I think it was a pretty natural fit.
I say in the book, the end goalof these stories matches the end

(38:32):
goal of financial independence, andthat's to live happily ever after.
We're honored because somehow youcame across us before this book
was written, and when I read yourbook I'm like, oh my goodness.
Tortoise and the hare catchingup tophi is in the first chapter.
Can you tell us a little bit aboutthe tortoise and the hare story?
Yeah.

(38:52):
I could
I could read
for you if
you.
Like.
Please do.
That'd be great.
Everybody pull up a nice cup of coffee
yeah.
if you're in the Northernclimbs Light a fire.
We're about to have a firesidechat with Paul and Amanda here.
He's putting the glasses on, go toYouTube, he's putting the glasses on.
The strength of these now isgreater than my college GPAI.

(39:16):
I think that means they'repretty powerful for you to read.
Okay, so the tortoise and the hare Ithink you can probably imagine they
have different investment strategies.
The tortoise, of course invests inindex funds and stays the course.
The hare hops from investmentdivestment and in and out of the market.
So here's my excerptUndeterred by the hare's.

(39:38):
Sudden lead, the tortoise remainssteadfast in his approach,
quietly persevering towardhis own financial freedom.
With focus determination, he continuedto execute his well-crafted strategy
undisturbed by the ebbs and flowsof the market For the tortoise, the
journey was not about catching up tothe hare, but rather about forging
zone path, and catching up to FI.

(39:59):
As fate would have it, a coupleyears later, the stock market
faltered causing the tortoiseand the hare to fall back a bit.
Yet their responses to the crisiscouldn't have been more different.
While the tortoise maintained hisunwavering course, seizing the opportunity
to capitalize on market downturnsby increasing his investments, the
Hare Succumbeded to panic and fear.

(40:19):
Wow.
I love that.
Catching up to FI is in bold, italicslike a number of the content creators
that are referenced in the book.
And then following each story, Ihave something called financial
independence concepts where I talkabout time in the market versus
timing the market in this case.
And then I have another follow up to thestory with the FI references in the story,

(40:41):
which in this case was catching up to FI.
So this book is reallya jumping off point.
I mean, there's a book that WilliamBernstein wrote, if you Can, which is
16 pages, and he sort of, it's likea triage book where he points you.
Now, if you're interested in this, andif you can do this, go here, here, here,
here, here to go down the rabbit hole.
And I see your book moreor less in the same genre.

(41:03):
But this is a new genre.
We had the first fi album this year.
We probably got FI poetry.
People are really comingat this from all angles.
We got Fire for Dummies.
Jackie wrote, so.
There's so many angles onthis and, but you have created
a new genre and I love it.
I absolutely love it.
And we are honored Jackie,to be included in this book.

(41:25):
Yeah, and let me say this also many ofus are parents now, or we have nieces
or nephews that are in, elementaryschool, middle school, where this
might be a great target audience.
It is part of our responsibility, Ithink, to try to have these discussions
about money and personal finance.
There's 27 states now.
The most recent one is Kentucky.

(41:46):
That requires personalfinance in high school.
However, most states don't have amandate for elementary and middle school,
but they can absolutely, as you'veshown Paul, grasp some of these ideas.
You just need to make thematerial be age appropriate.
I can see the librarian.
At the elementary school,reading to the kids.
I can see this for any teacher.

(42:08):
So if you have kids or grandkids orsomeone in elementary or middle school
present something like this to them asa starting point to teaching your kids
about money in the context of somethingthat they can absolutely understand.
This is a great gift.
You're looking for gifts forkids for their birthdays.
Why not give them the gift offinancial independence or the

(42:30):
gift of financial literacy?
And we are gonna shout this to themountaintops to try and help Paul
get his book out into the world.
And now one of the stories has todo with Amanda, I'm not mistaken.
So which one was that?
And maybe we read an exce.
had to change the name.

(42:51):
It's based on the Ugly Ducklingby Hans Christian Anderson, but I.
obviously that title didn't work,so I changed it to the Odd Duckling
It really is kind of her biographyand it ties into the ugly
duckling, you know, feeling outof place and kind of on your own.
In this case with herfeelings about finance.
say what you will about the oddduckling, but I could tell you that

(43:13):
Amanda has some mad hula hoop skills.
She showed us that economy, thisgirl has moves that you wish you had.
So Amanda, can you read a littleexcerpt from the Odd Duckling?
I'd love to hear that.
one fateful day.
The odd duckling stumbled upon anintriguing internet story about a married

(43:35):
duck couple who, through disciplinesaving retired early to travel the
globe, enjoying curry and crackers.
This revelation opened thefloodgates and led to a discovery
of a duck with a mustache whois a dedicated saver like her.
Suddenly she started thinkingmaybe she wasn't that odd after
all, she had to find out how theseducks got to where they were.

(43:57):
She delved deeper into research,uncovering a duck who had penned
an entire book outlining the simplepath to achieving financial dreams.
Encouraged by this knowledge she yearnedto connect with these like-minded
ducks, learning about their gatherings.
She made the bold decision to attendone of their camps, hoping to find
kindred spirits to her, to light theducks at the camp, while at different

(44:20):
points on the path shared her values.
They all seemed to haveone big thing in common.
They didn't spend duck bucks.
They didn't have on duck things.
They didn't need to impress ducks.
They didn't like.
I love it.
That's so cool.
It brings up the point that it'ssad that when you're financially
literate financially aware and asaver before a spender, that you are

(44:44):
the odd duck in our consumer culture.
Don't we want to flip that on itshead and isn't that why we're here?
when they start hearing thosemessages so early, , how do you even
start talking to kids about money?
So you've done it with this book, but myresponse typically is as soon as they can
learn how to take their little fingersand pinch them together and hold a coin

(45:06):
and drop it into a bank, that's howearly you need to start teaching them.
Which means that 2, 3, 4 yearsold, they can grasp these concepts.
We just need to put it in thecontext in which they can understand
it and it's age appropriate.
And I tell you, we've got some of themost creative people in the FI community.
I'm listening to this,and I'm just loving it.

(45:28):
Well just make sure as the emergencyphysician, they don't use their mouth
as the piggy bank and swallow it becauseI have to see, then use a piggy bank.
Don't, give 'em the coins whenthey're like, let's see how it tastes.
Yes, it needs to be done undersome serious supervision for sure.
All right.
Well, there's more storieswe want to hear about too.

(45:50):
Just to iterate what's in this book,you do one on Jack and the Beanstalk
Magic cards that sprout growing debt.
You do one on The Boy Who CriedWealth, a lesson in Stealth Wealth.
You have one under three little pigsgetting a straw sticks or bricks mortgage.
Now the next one I want tohear about really is Chicken.

(46:11):
Little With A Market is Falling.
We've had issues with this andvolatility lately, and maybe you can
tell us a little bit about why you useChicken Little as an example for this.
I thought it worked really well.
It's not the sky that'sfalling, it's the market.
And as we record this, it's an interestingtime to read this excerpt because
things are very volatile at the moment.

(46:32):
All right.
Lay it on us.
Chicken.
Little as chicken.
Little dreamt away.
An acorn detached from the toweringoak and tumbled down, ultimately
bouncing off her petite littlehead, though a bit shaken chicken.
Little brushed off theincident, dismissing it as a
mere consequence of nature.
As she roused from her nap, sherubbed her head and instinctively
reached for her phone.

(46:52):
The calmness of the day wasabout to be disrupted by an alert
that would ruffle her feathers.
A foreboding notification popped upon her screen, announcing a staggering
20% drop in the stock market.
Panic surged through chicken, littlelike a bolt of lightning through the sky.
The market is falling.
The market is falling.
She shrieked her alarm voiceechoing through the autumn
air seeking reassurance.

(47:14):
She turned to market related video feedsonly to be met with a chorus of doomsday
predictions from the so-called experts.
The Squawk Box only enhanced her panic,a singular thought race through her mind.
I have to go tell the king.
just a spoiler alert, she meetsup with other panicked birds along
the way and gets to the palace.
The king tells her to go talk tothe Godfather and Godfather Collins

(47:39):
gives her some very sage advice.
Aw, look at that.
So Paul, we know that you've gotsome great entrepreneurial skills.
Where did you get thesegreat writing skills?
Because I'm feeling the poetry,I'm feeling the creative
way to put pen to paper.
Where'd you get those skills from?
I don't know.
I've always enjoyed writing.
When I was in high school, my senioryear, I wrote for the local newspaper.

(48:02):
I
huh?
High school football team.
I still
Oh,
byline in my old memorybook, A football story.
I went to college and I started offbeing an English major in college.
I later
Okay.
That to business, but I've alwaysenjoyed reading and writing, and
I'm thankful to those that I putin my acknowledgements in the book.
My parents, my teachers, mybabysitters, everybody that

(48:23):
encouraged me to read these stories.
I really am appreciative of it.
we were at economy together.
I wanna mention one thing real quicklyis one of the speakers, Azu, I don't
remember his last name, but he says thatwe all have at least one book in us.
It's just a matter of gettingthe story out into the world.
You guys are doing this, it's likea, being afraid of public speaking.

(48:45):
It's like being afraid of writing a book.
How did you overcome any fearyou might have in doing this?
Well, imposter syndrome is a real thing,and I kind of feel like this book has
imposter syndrome written all over it.
I could never write.
So I don't think I couldwrite Fire for Dummies.
I can't imagine how much work that was.
Oh my goodness.
It was, it was,

(49:05):
I mean, this simple shortbook has been a lot of work.
And I look at Fire for Dummies.
Oh my gosh, it's so comprehensive.
in the editing process youreally contemplate every word.
big comprehensive book likethat has to be a lot of work.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
There was a whole team behindit as well, including another
fellow FI friend of ours, CodyGarrett was my technical editor.

(49:28):
It does take a lot of work.
You were doing a lot of things yourself.
And that to me makes it even harder.
Now, you did have an illustrator, andI love the illustrations of that book.
We'll try to show a fewof them on the YouTube.
But how did you find your illustrator?
Just
through
the publishing company.
That I used, and again, I'm very thankful.
I saw that first publishingcompany I was working with sent

(49:51):
me a few illustrations just seemed
very generic.
I really wanted that oldschool feel to the whole book,
including the illustration.
So, thank you for that.
Her name was Vanessa and Ithink she did a great job,
Well, we're gonna have to nicknameyou, Hans Christian Mullen.
Yeah, there you go.
Hey, there's a, title of the episode.
If
If I could just get back to the.

(50:12):
syndrome question, though.
I think the way I overcame it was Ileaned into what I think are my strengths.
I do know the basics.
I can do that.
and so that's what I wrote about.
And in writing to my letters, I'm sure youknow this too as well, Jackie I wrote over
a hundred letters to my daughter, and theyweren't all a hundred different subjects.
They were a lot of times repeatingyourself, but trying to find different

(50:34):
ways to present it, finding somethingthat might resonate with her.
And so that's where that effort took me.
I think your daughter beingyour inspiration is beautiful.
My daughter was my inspirationand I did that first book, it was
self-published and I just usedthe company and it's interesting.
So for anyone that's listening thatever thought about writing a book way
back in the day when I graduated fromcollege, I was a journalism major and

(50:58):
it was so discouraging 'cause theysaid basically it was traditional
publishing and you had the top five andthey all had like a 95% rejection rate.
So I knew that couldn't be my career.
I couldn't really makemoney off of writing.
But it's just, to me a much more viableway it's much easier to get a book out

(51:18):
through self-publishing that costs verylittle, there's so many different levels
that you can do this at, but the wholeidea is getting out, what's in your head.
Perhaps being inspired by somebody likeyour daughter or your granddaughter,
someone in your life to be ableto share it with the world, like
that's doable for almost anyone.
So I love that you did this andI'm curious, has your daughter

(51:42):
read the book or your granddaughterand what do they think about it?
daughter has read it.
She read a much earlier draft, actually.
She hasn't seen the final copy yet.
But , she was very supportive.
She loved
Great.
My daughter will be fivein a couple of weeks here,
Your granddaughter.
Okay, so she has not
Ready?
Yet?
I don't think it's beenread to her yet, but I

(52:03):
Definitely.
Her in mind with this
Aw, what did she callyou, your granddaughter?
Papapa grandpa.
she calls
called.
But she calls her grama.
Gr
, I'm the writer.
I came up with that.
So, she's gonna say, grandpawrote this book for me.
Now, that's part of your legacy.
Now a lot of times when we'retalking about legacy, we're talking
about money and who to name on theaccounts and all that type of stuff.

(52:26):
But really a legacy issomething like this.
It will live on yourgranddaughter will read it.
Her daughter will read it, and itwill go on and on because Grandpa
Paul wrote this, poured his heartout and wrote this book for us.
Well, Paul, you are now a creator andby inference, Amanda's a creator because
I'm sure she's in one of the stories, soshe had some influence and you pay homage

(52:49):
to several creators in the spies space.
Can you give us a little smattering of whoshows up in the book and in what roles?
Yeah, it really was , like the referenceas well, , the excerpt that Amanda read.
There are again bold italicsaround curry and crackers.
The simple path mustache.
Of course, we all know who these refer

(53:10):
Yeah.
And camps.
I shout out Steven Boyerand Camp Fis 'cause that's,
had a big impact on my life.
The way it started was , I didn'thave that in mind when I was
originally writing the stories.
In fact, I'd written a couple of theshorter stories and I was taking notes
and writing ideas down for the spending.
Carol and I was writing out okay.
They get visited by past,present, and future.

(53:31):
And in my case, it's a. Marriedcouple that gets visited by these
spirits I was writing out the notefor when they get visited by the
the spirit of spending yet to come.
And I thought, okay, how farin the future is it gonna be?
Five years, 10 years?
How about 1500 days?
And so that's where thelight bulb kind of went off.
I leaned into it and decided to justgive shout outs to of the creators.

(53:53):
That had a big impact on meearly on in this journey.
There, it's impossible to do somethinglike this without leaving some people out.
But include the 1500 days, andI thought that worked out well.
'cause Carl Jensen was actually atthat first camp fight we went to,
Oh
got to meet him.
He presented, and of course, he and Mindyboth do it with such great humor, which
I wanted to do with this book as well.

(54:15):
Yeah.
was a very good fit.
But for the most part it's prettyeasy, like, I felt like catching
up to five fit in pretty well withthe Tortoise and the Hare story.
The guy acted like hecould afford anything.
And of course
Oh reference to Paula pants.
So I think there's about 1415of those references in the book.
I think that's a great springboardand really as a creator, I never

(54:36):
thought in becoming a podcaster,in creating, catching up to Phi,
working with Jackie, that we wouldmake it into other people's works.
I mean, it's really an honor anda privilege because Jackie has a
couple pages on catching up to Phi.
We are paid homage in Shauna Games book.
Everybody's talking about money.
She pays homage to Catch Me Up toFire as one of her favorite podcasts.

(54:59):
And I'm just dumbfounded that whatwe're creating here is expanding
into other people's creations.
Just like what you do.
It's so cool.
This community, is such acool bubble in which to live.
And what we're trying to do with all thatwe create is bring more people into the
bubble of sort of financial wellness asyou teach financial health, financial

(55:24):
independence, financial literacy, right.
Jackie?
Yeah, bill, we need to expand thatbubble and we're already doing that.
It takes a while toactually go outside of that.
I think this is one of those booksthat, again, will apply to anyone,
any parent, teacher, anyone that hasa young person in their lives to help
them get started teaching their kids,grandkids or whatever about money.

(55:50):
So, I get the question a lot, I don'tknow if you do Bill, but people will
say, do you know any good children'sbook about money or personal finance?
Now I have something that I'm happyto share that I think is gonna be so
valuable, but Paul, where can we findthe book and when will it be released?
I don't have a hard
for the release yet.
It's gonna be right aroundthe end of May, early June.

(56:12):
So it should be right around thetime this podcast gets released.
you can go to once upon a fi.com
Okay.
see all about it and it'll havethe order details in there.
And it has some letters tomy daughter in there as well.
I would just encourage everybody to goto once upon a fi.com and go from there.
Okay.
We'll definitely drop that in theshow notes, but we'll be anxiously

(56:34):
awaiting the release of this.
I know you probably can't wait eitherto see this actually in print where
you can see all the illustrations andthe front cover and the back cover.
And especially Bill because he wrotea little blurb on the back cover.
So we'll be anxiously awaitingthis book along with you.
Yeah, I never thought I'd write blurbsfor other people's work, and Paul asked

(56:55):
me to do this, and I was just like, okay.
I gotta do justice to this book.
So I think I put a little children'stail twist to it, if I can remember.
And then another blurb that I gotasked to write, which was really
an honor, was a blurb for BillBengen's new book on his 4.7% rule.
So I'm a little bit shaken up by thefact that, I'm an influencer now.

(57:17):
I never thought I'd be an influencer.
Jackie's an influencer.
Paul and Amanda are influencers with theirstory, their love story, their financial
story, and now their children's story.
So we wanna thank you today, Pauland Amanda for we joining us on
catching up to FI, thank you fordoing your first podcast with us.
Thank you for the world premier todayof the readings of Once Upon a FI.

(57:38):
Any final words for thelate starter audience?
It is never too late.
Yeah.
Thank you for saying that.
I
Yeah.
to
and I don't think we will everget tired of just saying that.
It's never too late.
Thank you guys for joiningus on Catching up to FI.