May 12, 2024 • 49 mins
Jeff York is a remarkable individual whose journey from custodian to millionaire offers a wealth of inspiration and practical advice. Jeff's story breaks down conventional barriers, showcasing the power of education, financial literacy, and personal responsibility. From his unique investment strategies and the importance of health to his experiences with divorce and the insights gained therefrom, the conversation delves into the essence of achieving financial independence and living a fulfilled life. Stay tuned for part 2!
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CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
the instructor or teacher was surprisedthat I was living on under $40,000 a year,
because you don't have any other income.
But I tried to explain to him, Idon't run a standard lifestyle.
Remember, I don't own a cell phone.
I've never owned a new car.
I've only owned five cars in my life.
The most expensive one is my 1994 Corollathat I bought in 2006 for 3,300 bucks.
(00:24):
I work on them still.
I don't go take them to the shopand give them 2,500 to work on them.
I grow vegetables in the backyard.
I'm now a vegetarian.
I eat out if it's a treat orsomebody wants to go do it.
I've graduated.
I told my little third gradersthere in December of 2020.
(00:44):
Cause I'd been around some of themsince they were in preschool that I
was graduating because one of themyelled at me and says, you're too
young to leave and because we're allsocially conditioned that we have
a certain Age that we have to leavethe workforce at that is total social
conditioning that I don't subscribe to.
So I graduated my school graduatedThey, had a ceremony for me and gave
(01:07):
me a certificate at 33 years of service
you're totally counterculture.
I'm fascinated by the fact that, you know,you go against the American grain with
regards to the high consumption lifestyle.
And the simplicity principle that yousubscribe to is really inspiring because
(01:28):
people think, you know, I can't do it.
I can't do this on a lower income.
I mean, I'm a high income professionaland I live paycheck to paycheck.
I'm not as much as aself starter as you are.
And it's not that I've everheard a story like this.
(02:14):
Oh, Bill, I'm so excited for thisconversation with a good friend of mine.
His name is Jeff York, but he's sometimesreferred to as a wealthy custodian.
And this is someone youdon't hear from all the time.
You have not probably heard him inmany other places, but I heard him
on a couple of podcasts and I thoughthis story was absolutely amazing.
(02:35):
This was a guy making very littlemoney on the salary of a school.
Janitor.
And so we dive into a lotof different things because
he's still a super smart guy.
And he dropped so many greatgems that we just kept rolling
and we turned it into two parts.
So today we're going to hearfrom him on the first part.
(02:56):
Yeah, Jeff is amazing.
Meeting him was an honor.
He is so smart and he isan educator in this space.
He wants to improveeverybody's financial literacy.
And like I said, wecould not stop talking.
So we're in two parts.
This is part one.
Look for part two next week.
(03:18):
We'll see you then.
Hi, and welcome back to catchingup to fi I'm Jackie Koski and I'm
here with my co host bill Yount.
Bill, how are you doing today?
I'm a little tired and if Iseem dull, that's because I
just woke up from a night shift.
I've had a series of three.
This is my life, you know but it's okay.
I'm so excited about podcastingand talking to Jeff today.
(03:40):
I'm on fire.
Let's go.
Let's do it.
Yeah.
You know, I'm really excitedabout our guest today.
Cause I got to know him in thefinancial literacy space and we
just have a lot to talk about.
And actually our storiesare kind of alike.
And so I always love talking to him and.
I've only heard him on a few podcasts.
He's not about making the rounds, but hewas one of the first people that came to
(04:02):
mind when in getting him on the podcast.
So, let me just do a quick introduction.
So our guest today, he's avery good friend of mine.
as I mentioned, I'm in thefinancial literacy space.
I think we were actually together on apanel for a podcast called 403B wise,
which works with teachers and their 403Bs.
And So he's often called thewealthy custodian and he's
(04:24):
reached millionaire status.
He achieved financialindependence and retired early.
He may correct me on that later,but he's reached he's a millionaire.
So he's going to get mad at me for evendropping that, but here's the fact.
Okay.
This is jaw dropping.
Okay.
He did this all working as a publicschool custodian in California.
(04:47):
His highest income, just 21 an hour.
And if you're doing the math for that,that comes to about $44,000 a year.
And according to the most recent reportfrom the federal reserve, the median
household income in America is $70,000.
So he'll kill me again forsaying all that and for giving
(05:07):
that all this hoopla about him.
But he is incredibly.
Impressive.
And he's pretty modest about it when itcomes to his own wealth, but not when it
comes to teaching others how he did it.
And his hope is that it's spreadingfinancial literacy and the
importance of financial education.
(05:27):
So he is a huge financial literacyadvocate like me and Bill, and
we are inspired by his journey.
And we know you will be too.
Jeff, welcome to the show.
Yeah, it's a real honor and a pleasureto be on the show today and to meet
Bill and have you interview me.
So, how would you like to start today?
(05:48):
Yeah.
We are so glad to have you.
So would you consideryourself a late starter
Yeah, I could say that I didn'tactually do any of my first
investing until end of 2002.
Up until then, I had none of myfinancial assets in the market at all.
I had to overcome a lot ofconditioning by my family.
(06:10):
To become an investor,
how old were you Jeff?
I would say, what would it be like 39?
Let me think.
Let me do the math.
Let's go back to June.
I'm six.
I've been in the market.
What about 22 years now?
Yeah, well, see, that'ssomething else we have in common.
I started waking up around 38.
Yeah, so I was, we werejust getting started.
(06:31):
So I consider that a little bit of alate starter, but you know what, the
average American is probably a latestarter and you pulled it together.
Unbelievably.
So we're going to talk alittle bit about that today.
So the intro, we talked aboutwhere you were at with your
finances, how you're killing it.
So I want to know,like, how did you do it?
Can you give us a rundownof where you started?
(06:53):
And how you became so savvy with moneythat you were able to build this kind
of wealth on making such a modest
The way to first start out is, is I wasraised by a "depressionaire" father.
Technically I shouldn't have had my dadthat had adulted during the thirties and
the forties during the great depression.
(07:14):
So he had me late in life at 42.
So a lot of those values from that timeperiod were put into me and I'd always
been taught how to be frugal and safe.
And my dad would do some crazy things inthe late seventies with me, like take me
to a bank when I was real young and takeout 10, 000 worth of cash, just to see
(07:36):
if the banks would allow me to do it.
When I was growing up my dad would have.
A hundred dollars bills.
We'd go buy cars with a hundreddollars bills, use cars.
So money and cash was always around.
And what was interesting about my dad was.
He never made it past eighth gradeeducation, but I would say he had
(07:57):
a master's in life skills, youknow, street smarts would be that.
And myself, I picked upa lot of those traits.
And the reason I was able to getwhere I'm at today is, is I never.
Ever really indulged in like new cars.
I never had children.
(08:18):
That's like one of the mostexpensive things to have.
And I kind of adoptedsome of his street smarts.
Like he called it cutting corners.
I think it's calledhacking today or whatever.
So I incorporated a lot of those things.
Plus I'm a.
Blue collar person.
So I use a lot of my skills to in housea lot of services that people farm out
(08:40):
to someone like changing oil in theircar or fixing their car, repairing
the house or whatever like that.
And what really started my journeyoff on financial independence or
financial literacy was back in 1988.
I started attending a junior collegehere and thinking that I was going
(09:03):
to be in the white collar world.
And I felt that if I worked hard enoughat certain skills that I would get
them, because remember back then therewas only really one career track that
society told you that you needed to.
Go to be successful.
And unfortunately for me goingto public education, I was
not really successful there.
And so anyways, I started attendingthe junior college and trying to
(09:26):
go through algebra and trying to bea good writer and a good speller.
And, oh, gosh, by about 9596, I kind of realized that.
That's not really who I am.
And no matter how hard you work atit, I think that people just have
certain innate skills in them.
I think I can make them my language artsbetter or learn vocabulary words, but
(09:50):
I'm never going to be a great writer orspeller, like my first or second wife.
You know, they, it's justpart of who they are.
So anyways, about 96, I was lookingthrough the course, the junior college
and they had a investments 44 class.
This is in spring of 96, and I remembertaking that class and I took to it,
(10:12):
just like, Oh, I really enjoyed it.
Back then, they unfortunately weredoing the stocks or you had to pick five
stocks and you had to report on them.
And I just learned a wealth ofknowledge, and I think I got
like a B or an A in the class.
And what I can rememberdistinctly about that class was
(10:32):
that we had to work in groups.
That's a big thing, work in groups.
And our group every week had toreport on the stock market, what made
it move, what didn't make it move.
And it really gave youan understanding of that.
Also a big piece of information Ipicked up in the back of the book,
I can remember reading about a 403B.
(10:53):
And at that time I'm working atPacheco union school district here.
And I remember going into thedistrict office cause I cleaned it.
So I knew everyone there andI said, do we have a 403B?
And they said, Oh yeah,we have a 403B here.
And I go, Oh, well, how do you set it up?
Well, you have to go through some guy.
So that started my whole introduction andlearning about deferred comp plans or DC
(11:18):
plans to find contribution plans and also.
After I passed my investment 44 class,I took a personal finance class.
And that course taught youabout how to track your spending
and budging your cashflow.
I mean, and to this day I still do it.
(11:40):
I don't do the fancy,you know, spreadsheet.
I don't like sitting in,you know, doing that.
I still do it all by pencil,paper, track it, line it up.
I use that budget book youcan get and I still track it.
And for me, it provides a sense of.
Controlled even though it might beconsidered illusionary, but it's
(12:00):
kind of like my little guardrails orhandrails that keeps me on track and
I always like to know where I'm going.
So anyways, back to junior college.
I took the personal finance class and thenI opened a 403B at my school district.
At the time, I'm still very conservative.
I've been modeled by my father,certificates of deposit.
(12:21):
I remember in the 80s and the 90s, my dadused to crow about how you get 8 percent
and 7 percent on these certificates.
And I had that modeled and I was agood saver and hadn't quite Had that
paradigm shift where I went from asaver to an investor because I look
at them as two different concepts.
(12:42):
The personal finance communityis probably going to throw me
under a bus and back over it.
But I look at savings.
It's something in an FDIC insured account.
Investing is somethingthat goes into the market.
It goes up and down.
I look at them as two different things.
So anyways, I opened up for 403B andthey said, go see this particular guy.
(13:03):
And unfortunately he'sstill Sold me an annuity.
I don't get mad at that personbecause it's my responsibility as a
consumer to understand the productthat's being sold to me and I remember
starting out with a hundred dollars.
so Jeff, can I ask you this?
So
ahead.
I always worked in the corporateworld and I think Bill, you may have
had access to just a 401k as well.
(13:24):
So the 403B.
I used to always think thatthat was simply the version of
a 401k that teachers could get.
And I know I never hadaccess to an annuity.
I never even heard that.
And my company, the 401k provider,can you just briefly tell us some
of these differences that I mightbe missing in a 401k and a 403b?
(13:47):
Because there seem to be somenuances that a lot of us miss.
You have to realize from my understandingof the 403b and I'm not an authority on
it, but the 403b was started like 1958and at that time an annuity product
was the only thing that could be insideof it because you remember teachers
by nature, I'm not a teacher, I'm aclassified, teachers in California
(14:08):
are called certificated by their verynature they're conservative because
if they weren't they wouldn't go intoteaching because their income is capped.
Does that make sense?
So in a 403b It wasn't until1974 that mutual funds were
even allowed into a 403 B.
And that's why they call them a403 B seven paragraph seven allowed
(14:30):
mutual funds long before 401ks.
I think we're accidentally kind ofdiscovered and we won't go into that.
And you have to realize in a school ora public sector, we have what they call
a defined benefit plan, a pension plan.
That's the main workhorse.
In the private sector, when they shiftedthe risk from pensions in that world,
(14:55):
Over to you, the employee by eliminatingpensions and giving you a 401k.
That's very individualistic.
You have to contribute to it.
You have to pick yourinvestments with my CalPERS.
I don't need to worry about it.
It is very hands off.
All I need to do is come to theschool and spend 20 or 30 years there.
(15:18):
And they automatically pullthe money out of the account.
Money comes out of myaccount that funds my PERS.
And
Jeff, What's a CalPERS?
What's
CalPERS PERS stands for CaliforniaPublic Employees Retirement
It covers three basic areas.
It doesn't cover teachers.
Teachers have their own.
That's CalSTRS, CaliforniaState Retirement System.
(15:39):
And the reason they're not together,I look at them as like cousins or
stepsisters, is because they'rehighly influenced by unions.
That's why unions like pensions.
It's a collectivist.
It's the collectivist people puttingall their money into this huge pool.
The employers put their money into it.
And CalPERS, the investment people,and us at CalSTRS takes that money into
(16:02):
the capital markets and invests it andgives you a lifetime stream of income.
Yeah.
And those are just about gone.
Government is probably the only areayou see that in, but that was where,
like you said, you have whatevermoney taken out of your paycheck
and then you get this guaranteedincome for the rest of your life.
And that world has changed.
(16:23):
Yes.
And the only reason it's still inpublic sector is because the public
sector has the ability to tax.
And in the private sectorwe're profit driven.
I want to shift all thecosts on the employees.
That's why 401ks, I considerthose an individualist thing.
You have to put your money in.
(16:44):
So back to the 403b7, the reasonwhy annuities are there, because
originally when they were.
First set up.
That's the only productthat you could have in it.
It's a legacy.
And in California, you could have 10,15, 20, 30 different vendors, like going
to different stores to choose from.
I was so illiterate at onetime I had three annuities.
(17:07):
And had to unwind myself out of thosethree annuities when my literacy came up.
So by about 2002, that paradigm shifthad switched from a saver to an investor.
Cause I said to myself, coming backfrom a CalPERS conference, I said,
I already have an annuity, I havesocial security, that's an annuity.
(17:27):
I already have CalPERSpension, that's an annuity.
I don't need any more annuities.
So then I had to startrolling my money out of those.
Three annuities, pay some surrendercharges because the people that
sold those to me got a commission.
So I started to transferthose over to Vanguard.
Once I got Vanguard on my schooldistrict's list as an approved
(17:49):
vendor, because Vanguard isn't going
to come out,
(18:52):
ahead.
that's interesting because were youinvolved in transitioning the custodian
so that you had access to Vanguardfunds or was that already the case?
No, what happens is in a schoolsystem, I was told at the time you
had to go through a salesperson.
What I was doing, I was doing it myself.
And the custodians are not in it.
(19:14):
It's individualist.
I could have three custodians and Jeff isthe only one going to put into this 403b7
at Vanguard because they have CalPERS astheir pension and social security in the
private sector 401k is your standalone.
Does that make sense that I'm saying?
Yeah.
nobody told me, you know, I'mpart of the lost generation.
(19:35):
Nobody told me aboutthe transition to 401k.
This is kind of a Gen X problem.
Really?
You stumbled into finance classes.
I managed to get through 20 years or morewithout a finance class without anybody
telling me you got to max out your 401k.
I knew that this was there andI put some money into it, but
(19:55):
I was a single digit saver.
I didn't get the person like yourselfpulling me aside and say, do these
simple things and you'll be fine.
But you can't blame yourself, Bill,because in our society, it's really
an interesting dilemma we have.
We are the most marketedto society on the planet.
(20:17):
Every day you're getting marketed to,we do not promote investing or savings.
We promote consumption in our countrybecause it's hyper capitalistic.
Okay.
And I'm not doing a value judgment.
Also in our country, there is noformal financial literacy courses.
In our country, you're educated tocollege to become a highly educated,
(20:42):
highly compensated white collar worker.
Or if you're a blue collar worker, youown a air conditioning business, or you
own a plumbing business or whatever.
So it's not reallypromoted in our society.
So don't beat yourself up.
You're not the only one.
I used to be completelyfinancially illiterate and
I'm still learning every day.
(21:02):
So back to the school district, I hadbeen putting money into these accounts.
And then starting in 2002, once I gotthe Vanguard account open Vanguard says,
Hey, we won't take money out of yourcheck until you get 5, 000 into the plan.
And I'm like, how can I getfive grand into the plan?
I got it all in these other vendors.
(21:23):
How do I get it over?
Well, at the time there was thisthing called a 90 24 asset transfer,
where you could transfer moneyfrom one vendor over to the next.
Well, about 0809 IRS put some moreformal rules and you couldn't do
that anymore because everythingin our country I've learned by
reaching 60 is track and control.
(21:44):
Everything is track you and control youand the IRS and my employer didn't know
Jeff York blow blow janitors transferringthousands and thousands of dollars
from one vendor over to another vendor.
Jeff, how old are you now?
And how old were you when youleft employment at the school?
I'm 59 this April and I
(22:07):
Happy
uh, yeah, I'll be, yeah, and Ileft at 55 and three quarters.
So you've been retired for four years,
roughly.
independent.
Financial independence.
Yeah.
So, so
I'm sorry.
no, let's talk about that.
So I, I, so, you know, I'm a partof the fire movement, financial
independence, retire early.
I use the term retire because I'vekind of defined it for myself.
(22:29):
And I just, I work with great peoplelike you and bill and I'm around people.
I want to be around and I'm doing theprojects I want to do on my terms.
And I consider that retirement.
Some people might not, but what do youcall it since you stepped away from work?
I've graduated.
I told my little third gradersthere in December of 2020.
Cause I'd been around some of themsince they were in preschool that I
(22:51):
was graduating because one of themyelled at me and says, you're too
young to leave and because we're allsocially conditioned that we have
a certain Age that we have to leavethe workforce at that is total social
conditioning that I don't subscribe to.
So I graduated my school graduatedThey, had a ceremony for me and
gave me a certificate at 33 years ofservice, a graduation certificate.
(23:16):
I left and, and I've never looked back.
I don't look as retirement.
You remember retirement, the word, ifyou want to do some Google searching or
whatever your engine is, it comes fromPrussia, comes from Germany, comes from
Bismarck retirement means to retract.
To pull away to remove ,yourself.
That's not what I do today.
Doing podcasts with you is not retired.
(23:39):
I'm convinced that youshould be a teacher.
You just Bill, I'm sure you agree,you have dropped some terms on me that
I have never dug into talking aboutthe 4 0 3 B and the history of that.
You should either be a historyteacher or personal finance
teacher like you know, a lot.
so here's a question.
so as far as financial literacyin high schools, I try to
(24:01):
keep up with this as well.
I know right now California isworking on trying to have the
requirement where every high schoolerwould have to take a personal
finance class a standalone personalfinance class in order to graduate.
So far, we have 25 states.
And none of the big states,not California, not New York,
(24:22):
not Texas, not Illinois.
So what's going on in Californiasince you've got an eye there
and it's close to home for you?
Yeah, I was just had a link sent to meby a friend of mine that's an editor at a
newspaper and right now they're countingthe ballots to put it on as an initiative.
I think in either 2026 where therewould be required at least a half a
(24:46):
year or a year of personal finance.
In all schools in California right now.
It's not a requirement.
I have some personal experience in 2021.
I was invited, believe it or not, tocome back to my own high school and
talk to the 11th and 12th graders in astandalone personal finance class that
was started because of the pandemic era.
(25:08):
They needed a course that people could do.
And I've been backthree times in February.
I just completed my third time talkingto them and just a little nugget.
My first school that I cleaned herein Shasta County, I just talked
to an economics class, to thosestudents about my money story.
So it's ironic that custodian thatfirst cleaned their school in 1987
(25:32):
is back almost 40 years later totalk to them about personal finance.
Okay.
So those are
some little nugget kind ofinteresting how that all worked out.
Didn't plan it.
Just life is stranger than fiction.
So anyways, but
you have so much to teach everybody.
I mean,
as a custodian, you've become one of thebest teachers they're ever going to have.
(25:54):
You know, and I only support you goingback to these schools and, you know,
doing these classes Mark Troutman,that is also in the fold of Catching Up
Defy as a host, he does this as well.
I want to do it now, too.
The high school I went to, Didn't have it.
I'm going to go and offer to do it becauseyou get your first job and you got to
(26:17):
know how to partition your first paycheck.
If you get it right from thebeginning, you're going to be on
autopilot and you don't have to worry.
You don't have to haveyour head in the sand.
You don't have to be unconsciouswith finances and you get interested.
Once you're interested, the rest follows.
You can't unsee it.
and you learn how totake care of yourself.
(26:39):
And obviously you did too.
So Bill, here, here's aquiz question for you.
Does Tennessee, your state,require personal finance in order
to graduate from high school?
Yes, they do.
I know the answer to
Congratula Oh yeah, Tennessee was oneof the early states, that's right.
but I was in a private school andthe private schools aren't beholden
to these laws and they didn't do it.
(27:01):
But see, well Bill, you werein high school, what, eight
decades ago or something?
I don't know.
But, They just, I
I know the year.
was wondering if you caught on to thatI'm just joking, but I mean, as far
as personal finance being availablein any state, it's fairly recent,
(27:22):
maybe over the last 10 or 15 years.
I think in 2019, we might'vehad five States and there
was a few States before then.
I didn't even have it in highschool when I was going there.
I mean, if you got it, it wasmore like that school just did it.
It wasn't required.
So so yeah, I love these financialliteracy conversations, but Jeff,
(27:45):
you're pretty open with your finances.
So I'd love to rip intothat if you don't mind.
No worries, I wouldn't got,numbers for you this morning.
All right.
All right.
I feel special.
Okay.
So, so let's dive into thenumbers for just a minute.
So you're in California.
Most of us consider that avery high cost of living area.
(28:06):
So talk to us about your expenses.
Well, you remember I live in ShastaCounty at the very end of the northern
Sacramento Valley, and it's not whatwe call one of the affluent parts of
California, but my expenses now since Ipaid off the house in December of 2023
are about a thousand bucks a month.
(28:27):
Wow.
Awesome.
Did you say a thousand dollars a month?
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
So that's because youdon't have a house payment.
And I guess, the thing I didn'trealize, I've always considered
California, the whole state to behigh cost of living, but you're saying
you can live, there are places inCalifornia that aren't necessarily,
you know, A high cost of living area.
(28:48):
That is correct.
Like when I spoke at the last highschool here in Shasta County in the
town, I live in Reading, the instructoror teacher was surprised that I was
living on under $40,000 a year, becauseyou don't have any other income.
But I tried to explain to him, Idon't run a standard lifestyle.
Remember, I don't own a cell phone.
I've never owned a new car.
(29:08):
I've only owned five cars in my life.
The most expensive one is my 1994 Corollathat I bought in 2006 for 3,300 bucks.
I work on them still.
I don't go take them to the shopand give them 2,500 to work on them.
I grow vegetables in the backyard.
I'm now a vegetarian.
I eat out if it's a treat orsomebody wants to go do it.
(29:31):
I remember I'm running1970s and sixties values,
and there is a, there is anopportunity cost to that,
Yeah.
For the car thing, boy, I surewish I had you close to me because
yeah, they charge you through thenose to get work done on your car.
And I'm like, if I had Jeff on speeddial and he was local, I'd pay him a
few bucks to come look at my vehicle.
Well,
Jeff,
(29:51):
I beat you.
I've only had three cars in my life.
So, I've done one thing right.
They were a little bit of higher costcars and there were new ones in there,
but I've taken them to their natural life.
I have now 170, 000 miles on my car.
So good for me.
Yep.
Yep.
That, I think it's number onmy list of the seven that I
talked to the students about.
(30:11):
It's number three on the most expensivehousing's number two, children
are number one, food, utilities,
So Jeff, if you don't have acell phone, no computer, right.
you got an iPad.
So I was about to ask, so howare you talking to us today?
Tell us where you're attalking with us today.
I'm right now at the library herein Reading, California in their
(30:32):
podcast room, because I want to havegreat good sound quality for this
because I know it's very important.
So I have like an unoff andkind of an unorthodox lifestyle.
And, you know, I took my 1989 housethat I purchased in 2010 back to 1960
I cool with an evaporative cooler.
I eat with my pellet stove.
I exercise a lot.
(30:53):
I'm outdoors a lot.
95 percent of all the stuff Ihave is used or second hand.
One of my friends used to hang outwith me goes, you really live very
well for what little you have.
And it's because it's the opposite.
You can go and generate more moneyand pay retail prices for life.
You know, on life things, right?
(31:14):
Or you can go my directionthat I learned from my dad.
It's not a wrong or right.
As I tell the students, it's like algebra.
You can solve for X many different ways.
It's whatever your values are.
So Have you ever felt deprived or like youweren't enjoying yourself by doing this?
Well, I just took a money personalitytest and they talked about one of the
(31:37):
money personality types is a connoisseur.
They like the finer things.
I have finer things.
They just were owned by someone else thatpaid the retail price before I came along.
Are you following me and and you haveto and I now enjoy experiences and
freedom, like spending two hours inthe middle of the day to hopefully
(31:58):
impact the listeners of this podcast.
Is that, is that, is that kind of help?
I'm a visionary and I'm a producer.
When somebody says, Jeff, you gotto get it done, I get it done.
And the vision is someday somebodylistening to this podcast might
say, well, if Jeff up in Redding,California can do it, I'm going to
get on the stick and get it done.
(32:19):
Well, and that's how we became friendsbecause I heard you on another podcast.
I'm like, where has this guy been hiding?
And I don't subscribe to the sameexact things that you do, but your
philosophy and your thinking, I'mlike, man, he is dropping gems.
(33:25):
I just wanted to comment thatyou're totally counterculture.
I'm fascinated by the fact that, you know,you go against the American grain with
regards to the high consumption lifestyle.
And the simplicity principle that yousubscribe to is really inspiring because
people think, you know, I can't do it.
(33:46):
I can't do this on a lower income.
I mean, I'm a high income professionaland I live paycheck to paycheck.
I'm not as much as aself starter as you are.
And it's not that I've everheard a story like this.
Have you found other people like yourselfin Reading or have you talked to them?
Because just like the fire community,you seem a bit like an anomaly.
(34:08):
A friend of mine from your medicalcommunity called me a unicorn and he
says, you're different, but in a goodway, you have to realize there are
values that have been imprinted into me.
I don't know if it's nurture or nature.
If my mom had raised me, it would havebeen interesting to see how it turned out.
It's just who I am.
I like having experiences.
What custodian gets to goto Australia three times.
(34:31):
I mean, those are my high status thingsor my investment accounts or my time.
If I want to be at Shasta Lake tilleight o'clock last night, chasing
down Alabama spotted bass in thedark to see if I can catch them.
I want to have that freedom.
That's my thing.
If it's a lady that wants to spend timewith her grandkids, more power to them.
How I run my life is areflection of my values.
(34:53):
And I don't care what anybody elsethinks that I don't mean to be rude
or blunt to anybody or discriminatory,but if they want to go do whatever.
That's fine.
Because in the final analysis, youhave to accept wherever you're at.
I came from a broken home.
People would say I was in poverty.
Cause I drank water out of a garden hose.
(35:15):
I fished in a creek.
You know, I mean, my mom, one time when Iwas living with her in the seventies, we'd
have to go down to PG and E and she'd flipthem 50 bucks to keep the lights on when
50 bucks meant a lot, you know, I can goboohoo, woohoo, woohoo, but I'm not going
to fall into that because I have to, inthe final end, take responsibility for me.
(35:36):
Does that make sense?
think that makes a lot of senseand that is so important to use
your own measuring stick, you know,and, we have a ton to talk about.
We've had some longconversations and our lifestyles.
Are very much the opposite, butour minds are still kind of alike,
but I've never felt like I need tohop over and do what Jeff's doing.
(35:58):
And you've never felt like you need tohop over and do what Jackie's doing.
There is compatibility and, yeah, youmake so much sense with what you're
saying and you've always been nevermissed words and was very clear about
Yeah.
And, and what, and what personalfinance has done for me is
provided me social mobility.
(36:18):
I'm not here because I've been marriedsince I was 21 years old and I'm
a professional or I started my ownplumbing business and the business is
my life and then I've had three kidsand we're making a hundred thousand
in 1993 and I sold the business.
No, I am here because and the reason Ihave merit is because I learned skills
(36:40):
of personal finance and the behaviorto match them if that makes any sense.
It's all behavior
Yeah.
Yeah, that that's that's like one ofthe biggest that's one of the hardest
things to change that psychology to beable to form this habit and all of that.
And obviously it's easier whenyou're younger, which goes back
to the whole, you know, offeringpersonal finance and high school.
(37:00):
So let's look at, let's dive intocontinue with the numbers and everything
because I find that fascinating andalmost unbelievable and probably
some of our listeners do too.
So when you were working.
So this would have been pre 2020.
What year did you retire?
I left at the end of 2020, my highestincome was 47, 000 because remember
(37:22):
that's when COVID money's flowingin and they're giving me overtime.
But if you had looked at my socialsecurity earnings history, because
when I mentor people, I alwaysask them, go to SS, you know, dot
gov and pull up their history.
When you look at mine and you averageit out over 38 years, it works
out to be about 26, 000 a year.
But I say that's an F.
I get an F on that part becauseI didn't increase my skill
(37:45):
set to increase my income.
Because if you're going to buildwealth, you've got to have income.
And generally, if you have awife or a spouse or whatever
your gender preference is, you'reThat changes the whole equation.
And then unfortunately people will get onthe hedonic treadmill and start jacking
it up and, Oh, we got to build a biggerhouse and we've got to scale to the next
(38:06):
one, but that's kind of changed now.
So I'm not being judgmental.
I'm just telling you that'skind of the herd mentality.
So you were just doing morewith the money that you had.
I am hyper, hyper efficient,even in my fishing.
I'm efficient.
All my fishing equipments.
70 years old for 5 or10 at a thrift store.
(38:29):
I have several mentors.
They kind of laugh at me when they seeme bring that stuff in, but I love fish.
They don't discriminate.
If they like it, they'll hit it.
Like my house, I cool it withan air an evaporative cooler.
It'll get to 80 degrees.
Other people are going to melt.
When other people in my neighborhood'sunits are trying to find 110 degrees
here, I'm sitting at 70 degrees or
(38:49):
so where's reading located?
Is it Northern California,Southern California?
northern California.
I'm 145 miles north of Sacramentoat the very end of the valley.
cooler.
it's a little cooler up therethan Southern California, right?
No, it is hotter.
We're in
a bowl where we haveno access to the ocean.
(39:10):
We can be as hot as Las Vegas herewhen it's when it's 100 or 105.
I'm happy when it starts botheringme is when it pushes to 115.
wow.
bothering me.
And I know my older body won'tbe able to handle it, but here in
the winter time, it'll get down tolike 30, my house will drop to 55.
(39:31):
And my friend goes,how do you handle that?
And I said, because Iexercise all the time.
And my metabolism is burning hot.
it's whatever your value systems are.
You know what I'm saying?
It's, it's not a right or wrong.
I mean, if you want to keep it at 70.
Fine.
But when I go fishing outside,it's not a shock to my system.
That change between hot and cold.
(39:52):
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
So that was a great geography.
So you need to be a geography teacher, youneed to be a personal finance teacher, you
need to be a math teacher for all of that.
No, I'm not.
I, you know, so to me,it's not a hard thing.
You make it look easy.
I have to tell you that.
So,
Yeah.
And people ask me, what is themoney for the monies for choices?
Choices and options.
(40:13):
You
got it.
Right.
Well, let's jump into the numbers.
Cause I'm sure people are wantingto know how, where we're going here.
Okay.
you have something?
I just want to know before we get intothe nitty gritty, have you ever read Jacob
Lund Fisker Early Retirement Extreme?
Never have, but am I doingsome of his behavior in that
book?
Absolutely.
Yeah,
that book because his lifestyleis not too dissimilar from yours.
(40:37):
And he retired early as well.
So it can be done.
And let's find out how you did it.
Yeah.
So, okay.
So you're making about 47, 000 a year.
You said today, now this iswhere you paid off all your debt.
You, your expenses are abouta thousand dollars a month,
which is still unbelievable.
But when you were working, so prior to2020, before you graduated, How much were
(41:03):
you saving and where were you saving it?
Cause you talked about thesedifferent plans and stuff like that.
Give
Yeah.
You have to realize the reason I wasable to do it is, is my housing costs
throughout my life are always been low.
I lived with my dad.
I lived in someone's backyardfor 14 years and a mother in law
cottage for 350 bucks a month.
(41:24):
And remember, my utilities are included.
I can fix my truck.
And you have to realize at that time,when I moved in there in 92, I'm only
bringing home 900 a month from the schooldistrict, working full time as a janitor.
Wow.
Okay.
Because we got to pay into CalPERS or 7percent to come magically out of my check.
1.
45 has to magically comeout of for Medicare, 6.
(41:47):
5.
20 magically pulls out of socialsecurity and then I start putting
money in a 403b seven or 403b beforeI in 2002 went into mutual funds.
Before then I had IRAs.
I used to chase CD money, you know, movemy IRAs to get different CDs and stuff
because there were six and seven percent.
So I've always been that way.
(42:08):
So that, that housing costs.
And then when I met my firstwife, I moved in with her and we
didn't scale up our lifestyle.
We didn't scale in.
so I'm curious.
So you mentioned, I think plural wives.
So how did that factor into your
habits and your lifestyle?
So you were married.
(42:28):
So tell us a little bit about thatbecause I feel like if it's just you,
It's
a different approach than when youwere partnered or you have a spouse,
Yeah.
This is important, Jeff, becausewe have a very active community
that have struggled with divorce.
These late starters that in
midlife or later in life have thisfinancial trauma where they're
(42:49):
splitting up their net worth.
Okay.
Here's this story.
You'll like this one.
This one, I'm an unusual person.
This person was about 11 yearsolder than me and they're
from the baby boom generation.
And I kind of have some of theirvalues because I'm born in 1965.
Anyways, when her and I gottogether, she was on, I just
(43:11):
finished her second marriage.
Now, Jeff, what year is this and how
We're going to go back.
We're going to go back to 2003, 2004.
So is this wife number one or
one.
one.
And she's older than me.
So she has children that are onlyabout 11 or 12 years younger than me.
Okay.
Kind of like going into a hornet'snest, but we won't go into that.
(43:31):
Kind of like I'm an advancedcalculus of relationships.
Okay.
So anyways, we get together andshe's got some frugalness in her,
but she's also a baby boomer.
And she was late.
to working.
She was married for 25 yearsand raised two children and
(43:52):
came into teaching at age 42.
Okay.
And she had the frugal gene in her.
So she liked me because one,I didn't have any kids, right?
And she liked me because I wasgood with my money because first
husband, first or second husbandwas not good with his money.
And he was a principal.
So anyways, we get together and we talkand she goes, I love teaching, but it's
(44:17):
really hard to handle certain things.
I want to get out.
I go, do you want to be out by 60?
And she goes, yeah.
And I think she had just turned 50at that time when we got together.
And I said, do these things.
And we did it.
We didn't scale up our lives.
Her house had paid off.
I won't go into all that story, howthat got happened, but what I did was
it started shoveling money because thecars are paid off, the house is paid off.
(44:44):
I thought we did a lot of things.
We traveled around the country.
We went to Australia once together.
We lived in a 1600 square foothouse in an inconspicuous place.
And.
What happened was in 08, rememberwhen the world's falling apart and the
housing market's going down, down, down.
She's a smart cookie.
She goes, my house isn't worth 300, 000.
(45:04):
I go, you sure?
Right.
It's not worth, you know what I mean?
They send little advertisements in themail, trying to get you to sell back then.
And then the market startedgoing to heck in a handbag.
And she goes, I'm nervous.
I'm freaked out.
I said, what do we do?
And I've told this storya hundred times ago.
What do we do when we buy bonelessskinless chicken for a dollar 99 a pound?
She goes, I know we buy a bunch of itat Rayleigh's and put it in the freezer.
(45:26):
I go, what are we going to do?
She goes, we're going to keepputting money in the market.
I did something I coinedextreme paychecking.
You're going to love this one.
I blew it on this.
I put my whole paycheck into my403 B7 account would be your 401k.
You're going Jackie'seyes just kind of pop.
She goes, how do you putyour whole check in there,
Yeah, would you live
(45:47):
off of?
do you I had savings.
I had savings and we had, we have nohouse payment and she cut me the deal.
I Where all you have to pay is theproperty taxes and half the food bill.
And technically she should pay morebecause she made two and a half times
more as me, as a teacher, if you want todo it as a percentage to make it equal,
even I used to argue this out with my dad.
(46:08):
So one day I came home and I showedher, I was doing, she freaked out
because I think she thought I waskind of using her, but I don't know.
That's the dynamics with moneybecause you don't talk about it.
And I had to actually go to payrolland tell them what I was going to do.
I had to keep enough money in the payment.
Social Security tax.
I had to keep enough money in thereto pay Medicare, had to have enough
(46:29):
money to pay my union dues, and myportion of my medical, right, because
my district's cap's not covering it.
I had to also make sure there'senough for the PERS, and my union
dues, and I zeroed out all the taxes,because I didn't earn anything.
Is, yeah.
So
This is an Oh eight.
And this is after you tookthat personal finance class
(46:50):
Oh, yeah, this is it by the yeah, personal
finance classes back in 96.
Yeah, we're back.
We're moved forward by to that by 2002.
I'm already investing in Vanguard andeverything directly through and what was
beautiful back then that Vanguard whenyou had a 403B7, you could add any type
of Asset class to your menu to invest in.
I developed my own asset because ona 401k, the employer's in control
(47:15):
and it says, Jeff, youcan only be now today.
You can't do this.
If you go to Pacheco union schooldistrict and look up their 403 B
seven at Vanguard, it's going tobe very unique because it's legacy.
It's something I created because alot of the asset classes that you can
invest in are not on other 403B7s.
(47:37):
School district accounts in California.
Does
Wow.
So Jeff, can I ask you about the vehicle?
So you had a 403B and a 457.
You had both of those.
At one time, I actually, in2004, I brought the first 457 to
Pacheco school district in anyschool district in Shasta County
So you can have a 457 anda 403B at the same time.
(48:00):
It contribute to the Mac now 457.
Is that the one where onceyou separate from service, you
can take withdrawals without
without the 10, 10 percent down.
Yeah.
You remember
a, school district.
a, that's a superpower right there.
We
Yeah.
But 99 percent of the peopledon't have that superpower.
my fIrst wife and I, we had thissuperpower because she wasn't
(48:21):
providing economic outpatient careto her 30 something kids at the time.
I'll use that from themillionaire next door book that I
read back in the nineties.
the instructor or teacher was surprisedthat I was living on under $40,000 a year,
because you don't have any other income.
But I tried to explain to him, Idon't run a standard lifestyle.
Remember, I don't own a cell phone.
I've never owned a new car.
I've only owned five cars in my life.
The most expensive one is my 1994 Corollathat I bought in 2006 for 3,300 bucks.
(00:24):
I work on them still.
I don't go take them to the shopand give them 2,500 to work on them.
I grow vegetables in the backyard.
I'm now a vegetarian.
I eat out if it's a treat orsomebody wants to go do it.
I've graduated.
I told my little third gradersthere in December of 2020.
(00:44):
Cause I'd been around some of themsince they were in preschool that I
was graduating because one of themyelled at me and says, you're too
young to leave and because we're allsocially conditioned that we have
a certain Age that we have to leavethe workforce at that is total social
conditioning that I don't subscribe to.
So I graduated my school graduatedThey, had a ceremony for me and gave
(01:07):
me a certificate at 33 years of service
you're totally counterculture.
I'm fascinated by the fact that, you know,you go against the American grain with
regards to the high consumption lifestyle.
And the simplicity principle that yousubscribe to is really inspiring because
(01:28):
people think, you know, I can't do it.
I can't do this on a lower income.
I mean, I'm a high income professionaland I live paycheck to paycheck.
I'm not as much as aself starter as you are.
And it's not that I've everheard a story like this.
(02:14):
Oh, Bill, I'm so excited for thisconversation with a good friend of mine.
His name is Jeff York, but he's sometimesreferred to as a wealthy custodian.
And this is someone youdon't hear from all the time.
You have not probably heard him inmany other places, but I heard him
on a couple of podcasts and I thoughthis story was absolutely amazing.
(02:35):
This was a guy making very littlemoney on the salary of a school.
Janitor.
And so we dive into a lotof different things because
he's still a super smart guy.
And he dropped so many greatgems that we just kept rolling
and we turned it into two parts.
So today we're going to hearfrom him on the first part.
(02:56):
Yeah, Jeff is amazing.
Meeting him was an honor.
He is so smart and he isan educator in this space.
He wants to improveeverybody's financial literacy.
And like I said, wecould not stop talking.
So we're in two parts.
This is part one.
Look for part two next week.
(03:18):
We'll see you then.
Hi, and welcome back to catchingup to fi I'm Jackie Koski and I'm
here with my co host bill Yount.
Bill, how are you doing today?
I'm a little tired and if Iseem dull, that's because I
just woke up from a night shift.
I've had a series of three.
This is my life, you know but it's okay.
I'm so excited about podcastingand talking to Jeff today.
(03:40):
I'm on fire.
Let's go.
Let's do it.
Yeah.
You know, I'm really excitedabout our guest today.
Cause I got to know him in thefinancial literacy space and we
just have a lot to talk about.
And actually our storiesare kind of alike.
And so I always love talking to him and.
I've only heard him on a few podcasts.
He's not about making the rounds, but hewas one of the first people that came to
(04:02):
mind when in getting him on the podcast.
So, let me just do a quick introduction.
So our guest today, he's avery good friend of mine.
as I mentioned, I'm in thefinancial literacy space.
I think we were actually together on apanel for a podcast called 403B wise,
which works with teachers and their 403Bs.
And So he's often called thewealthy custodian and he's
(04:24):
reached millionaire status.
He achieved financialindependence and retired early.
He may correct me on that later,but he's reached he's a millionaire.
So he's going to get mad at me for evendropping that, but here's the fact.
Okay.
This is jaw dropping.
Okay.
He did this all working as a publicschool custodian in California.
(04:47):
His highest income, just 21 an hour.
And if you're doing the math for that,that comes to about $44,000 a year.
And according to the most recent reportfrom the federal reserve, the median
household income in America is $70,000.
So he'll kill me again forsaying all that and for giving
(05:07):
that all this hoopla about him.
But he is incredibly.
Impressive.
And he's pretty modest about it when itcomes to his own wealth, but not when it
comes to teaching others how he did it.
And his hope is that it's spreadingfinancial literacy and the
importance of financial education.
(05:27):
So he is a huge financial literacyadvocate like me and Bill, and
we are inspired by his journey.
And we know you will be too.
Jeff, welcome to the show.
Yeah, it's a real honor and a pleasureto be on the show today and to meet
Bill and have you interview me.
So, how would you like to start today?
(05:48):
Yeah.
We are so glad to have you.
So would you consideryourself a late starter
Yeah, I could say that I didn'tactually do any of my first
investing until end of 2002.
Up until then, I had none of myfinancial assets in the market at all.
I had to overcome a lot ofconditioning by my family.
(06:10):
To become an investor,
how old were you Jeff?
I would say, what would it be like 39?
Let me think.
Let me do the math.
Let's go back to June.
I'm six.
I've been in the market.
What about 22 years now?
Yeah, well, see, that'ssomething else we have in common.
I started waking up around 38.
Yeah, so I was, we werejust getting started.
(06:31):
So I consider that a little bit of alate starter, but you know what, the
average American is probably a latestarter and you pulled it together.
Unbelievably.
So we're going to talk alittle bit about that today.
So the intro, we talked aboutwhere you were at with your
finances, how you're killing it.
So I want to know,like, how did you do it?
Can you give us a rundownof where you started?
(06:53):
And how you became so savvy with moneythat you were able to build this kind
of wealth on making such a modest
The way to first start out is, is I wasraised by a "depressionaire" father.
Technically I shouldn't have had my dadthat had adulted during the thirties and
the forties during the great depression.
(07:14):
So he had me late in life at 42.
So a lot of those values from that timeperiod were put into me and I'd always
been taught how to be frugal and safe.
And my dad would do some crazy things inthe late seventies with me, like take me
to a bank when I was real young and takeout 10, 000 worth of cash, just to see
(07:36):
if the banks would allow me to do it.
When I was growing up my dad would have.
A hundred dollars bills.
We'd go buy cars with a hundreddollars bills, use cars.
So money and cash was always around.
And what was interesting about my dad was.
He never made it past eighth gradeeducation, but I would say he had
(07:57):
a master's in life skills, youknow, street smarts would be that.
And myself, I picked upa lot of those traits.
And the reason I was able to getwhere I'm at today is, is I never.
Ever really indulged in like new cars.
I never had children.
(08:18):
That's like one of the mostexpensive things to have.
And I kind of adoptedsome of his street smarts.
Like he called it cutting corners.
I think it's calledhacking today or whatever.
So I incorporated a lot of those things.
Plus I'm a.
Blue collar person.
So I use a lot of my skills to in housea lot of services that people farm out
(08:40):
to someone like changing oil in theircar or fixing their car, repairing
the house or whatever like that.
And what really started my journeyoff on financial independence or
financial literacy was back in 1988.
I started attending a junior collegehere and thinking that I was going
(09:03):
to be in the white collar world.
And I felt that if I worked hard enoughat certain skills that I would get
them, because remember back then therewas only really one career track that
society told you that you needed to.
Go to be successful.
And unfortunately for me goingto public education, I was
not really successful there.
And so anyways, I started attendingthe junior college and trying to
(09:26):
go through algebra and trying to bea good writer and a good speller.
And, oh, gosh, by about 9596, I kind of realized that.
That's not really who I am.
And no matter how hard you work atit, I think that people just have
certain innate skills in them.
I think I can make them my language artsbetter or learn vocabulary words, but
(09:50):
I'm never going to be a great writer orspeller, like my first or second wife.
You know, they, it's justpart of who they are.
So anyways, about 96, I was lookingthrough the course, the junior college
and they had a investments 44 class.
This is in spring of 96, and I remembertaking that class and I took to it,
(10:12):
just like, Oh, I really enjoyed it.
Back then, they unfortunately weredoing the stocks or you had to pick five
stocks and you had to report on them.
And I just learned a wealth ofknowledge, and I think I got
like a B or an A in the class.
And what I can rememberdistinctly about that class was
(10:32):
that we had to work in groups.
That's a big thing, work in groups.
And our group every week had toreport on the stock market, what made
it move, what didn't make it move.
And it really gave youan understanding of that.
Also a big piece of information Ipicked up in the back of the book,
I can remember reading about a 403B.
(10:53):
And at that time I'm working atPacheco union school district here.
And I remember going into thedistrict office cause I cleaned it.
So I knew everyone there andI said, do we have a 403B?
And they said, Oh yeah,we have a 403B here.
And I go, Oh, well, how do you set it up?
Well, you have to go through some guy.
So that started my whole introduction andlearning about deferred comp plans or DC
(11:18):
plans to find contribution plans and also.
After I passed my investment 44 class,I took a personal finance class.
And that course taught youabout how to track your spending
and budging your cashflow.
I mean, and to this day I still do it.
(11:40):
I don't do the fancy,you know, spreadsheet.
I don't like sitting in,you know, doing that.
I still do it all by pencil,paper, track it, line it up.
I use that budget book youcan get and I still track it.
And for me, it provides a sense of.
Controlled even though it might beconsidered illusionary, but it's
(12:00):
kind of like my little guardrails orhandrails that keeps me on track and
I always like to know where I'm going.
So anyways, back to junior college.
I took the personal finance class and thenI opened a 403B at my school district.
At the time, I'm still very conservative.
I've been modeled by my father,certificates of deposit.
(12:21):
I remember in the 80s and the 90s, my dadused to crow about how you get 8 percent
and 7 percent on these certificates.
And I had that modeled and I was agood saver and hadn't quite Had that
paradigm shift where I went from asaver to an investor because I look
at them as two different concepts.
(12:42):
The personal finance communityis probably going to throw me
under a bus and back over it.
But I look at savings.
It's something in an FDIC insured account.
Investing is somethingthat goes into the market.
It goes up and down.
I look at them as two different things.
So anyways, I opened up for 403B andthey said, go see this particular guy.
(13:03):
And unfortunately he'sstill Sold me an annuity.
I don't get mad at that personbecause it's my responsibility as a
consumer to understand the productthat's being sold to me and I remember
starting out with a hundred dollars.
so Jeff, can I ask you this?
So
ahead.
I always worked in the corporateworld and I think Bill, you may have
had access to just a 401k as well.
(13:24):
So the 403B.
I used to always think thatthat was simply the version of
a 401k that teachers could get.
And I know I never hadaccess to an annuity.
I never even heard that.
And my company, the 401k provider,can you just briefly tell us some
of these differences that I mightbe missing in a 401k and a 403b?
(13:47):
Because there seem to be somenuances that a lot of us miss.
You have to realize from my understandingof the 403b and I'm not an authority on
it, but the 403b was started like 1958and at that time an annuity product
was the only thing that could be insideof it because you remember teachers
by nature, I'm not a teacher, I'm aclassified, teachers in California
(14:08):
are called certificated by their verynature they're conservative because
if they weren't they wouldn't go intoteaching because their income is capped.
Does that make sense?
So in a 403b It wasn't until1974 that mutual funds were
even allowed into a 403 B.
And that's why they call them a403 B seven paragraph seven allowed
(14:30):
mutual funds long before 401ks.
I think we're accidentally kind ofdiscovered and we won't go into that.
And you have to realize in a school ora public sector, we have what they call
a defined benefit plan, a pension plan.
That's the main workhorse.
In the private sector, when they shiftedthe risk from pensions in that world,
(14:55):
Over to you, the employee by eliminatingpensions and giving you a 401k.
That's very individualistic.
You have to contribute to it.
You have to pick yourinvestments with my CalPERS.
I don't need to worry about it.
It is very hands off.
All I need to do is come to theschool and spend 20 or 30 years there.
(15:18):
And they automatically pullthe money out of the account.
Money comes out of myaccount that funds my PERS.
And
Jeff, What's a CalPERS?
What's
CalPERS PERS stands for CaliforniaPublic Employees Retirement
It covers three basic areas.
It doesn't cover teachers.
Teachers have their own.
That's CalSTRS, CaliforniaState Retirement System.
(15:39):
And the reason they're not together,I look at them as like cousins or
stepsisters, is because they'rehighly influenced by unions.
That's why unions like pensions.
It's a collectivist.
It's the collectivist people puttingall their money into this huge pool.
The employers put their money into it.
And CalPERS, the investment people,and us at CalSTRS takes that money into
(16:02):
the capital markets and invests it andgives you a lifetime stream of income.
Yeah.
And those are just about gone.
Government is probably the only areayou see that in, but that was where,
like you said, you have whatevermoney taken out of your paycheck
and then you get this guaranteedincome for the rest of your life.
And that world has changed.
(16:23):
Yes.
And the only reason it's still inpublic sector is because the public
sector has the ability to tax.
And in the private sectorwe're profit driven.
I want to shift all thecosts on the employees.
That's why 401ks, I considerthose an individualist thing.
You have to put your money in.
(16:44):
So back to the 403b7, the reasonwhy annuities are there, because
originally when they were.
First set up.
That's the only productthat you could have in it.
It's a legacy.
And in California, you could have 10,15, 20, 30 different vendors, like going
to different stores to choose from.
I was so illiterate at onetime I had three annuities.
(17:07):
And had to unwind myself out of thosethree annuities when my literacy came up.
So by about 2002, that paradigm shifthad switched from a saver to an investor.
Cause I said to myself, coming backfrom a CalPERS conference, I said,
I already have an annuity, I havesocial security, that's an annuity.
(17:27):
I already have CalPERSpension, that's an annuity.
I don't need any more annuities.
So then I had to startrolling my money out of those.
Three annuities, pay some surrendercharges because the people that
sold those to me got a commission.
So I started to transferthose over to Vanguard.
Once I got Vanguard on my schooldistrict's list as an approved
(17:49):
vendor, because Vanguard isn't going
to come out,
(18:52):
ahead.
that's interesting because were youinvolved in transitioning the custodian
so that you had access to Vanguardfunds or was that already the case?
No, what happens is in a schoolsystem, I was told at the time you
had to go through a salesperson.
What I was doing, I was doing it myself.
And the custodians are not in it.
(19:14):
It's individualist.
I could have three custodians and Jeff isthe only one going to put into this 403b7
at Vanguard because they have CalPERS astheir pension and social security in the
private sector 401k is your standalone.
Does that make sense that I'm saying?
Yeah.
nobody told me, you know, I'mpart of the lost generation.
(19:35):
Nobody told me aboutthe transition to 401k.
This is kind of a Gen X problem.
Really?
You stumbled into finance classes.
I managed to get through 20 years or morewithout a finance class without anybody
telling me you got to max out your 401k.
I knew that this was there andI put some money into it, but
(19:55):
I was a single digit saver.
I didn't get the person like yourselfpulling me aside and say, do these
simple things and you'll be fine.
But you can't blame yourself, Bill,because in our society, it's really
an interesting dilemma we have.
We are the most marketedto society on the planet.
(20:17):
Every day you're getting marketed to,we do not promote investing or savings.
We promote consumption in our countrybecause it's hyper capitalistic.
Okay.
And I'm not doing a value judgment.
Also in our country, there is noformal financial literacy courses.
In our country, you're educated tocollege to become a highly educated,
(20:42):
highly compensated white collar worker.
Or if you're a blue collar worker, youown a air conditioning business, or you
own a plumbing business or whatever.
So it's not reallypromoted in our society.
So don't beat yourself up.
You're not the only one.
I used to be completelyfinancially illiterate and
I'm still learning every day.
(21:02):
So back to the school district, I hadbeen putting money into these accounts.
And then starting in 2002, once I gotthe Vanguard account open Vanguard says,
Hey, we won't take money out of yourcheck until you get 5, 000 into the plan.
And I'm like, how can I getfive grand into the plan?
I got it all in these other vendors.
(21:23):
How do I get it over?
Well, at the time there was thisthing called a 90 24 asset transfer,
where you could transfer moneyfrom one vendor over to the next.
Well, about 0809 IRS put some moreformal rules and you couldn't do
that anymore because everythingin our country I've learned by
reaching 60 is track and control.
(21:44):
Everything is track you and control youand the IRS and my employer didn't know
Jeff York blow blow janitors transferringthousands and thousands of dollars
from one vendor over to another vendor.
Jeff, how old are you now?
And how old were you when youleft employment at the school?
I'm 59 this April and I
(22:07):
Happy
uh, yeah, I'll be, yeah, and Ileft at 55 and three quarters.
So you've been retired for four years,
roughly.
independent.
Financial independence.
Yeah.
So, so
I'm sorry.
no, let's talk about that.
So I, I, so, you know, I'm a partof the fire movement, financial
independence, retire early.
I use the term retire because I'vekind of defined it for myself.
(22:29):
And I just, I work with great peoplelike you and bill and I'm around people.
I want to be around and I'm doing theprojects I want to do on my terms.
And I consider that retirement.
Some people might not, but what do youcall it since you stepped away from work?
I've graduated.
I told my little third gradersthere in December of 2020.
Cause I'd been around some of themsince they were in preschool that I
(22:51):
was graduating because one of themyelled at me and says, you're too
young to leave and because we're allsocially conditioned that we have
a certain Age that we have to leavethe workforce at that is total social
conditioning that I don't subscribe to.
So I graduated my school graduatedThey, had a ceremony for me and
gave me a certificate at 33 years ofservice, a graduation certificate.
(23:16):
I left and, and I've never looked back.
I don't look as retirement.
You remember retirement, the word, ifyou want to do some Google searching or
whatever your engine is, it comes fromPrussia, comes from Germany, comes from
Bismarck retirement means to retract.
To pull away to remove ,yourself.
That's not what I do today.
Doing podcasts with you is not retired.
(23:39):
I'm convinced that youshould be a teacher.
You just Bill, I'm sure you agree,you have dropped some terms on me that
I have never dug into talking aboutthe 4 0 3 B and the history of that.
You should either be a historyteacher or personal finance
teacher like you know, a lot.
so here's a question.
so as far as financial literacyin high schools, I try to
(24:01):
keep up with this as well.
I know right now California isworking on trying to have the
requirement where every high schoolerwould have to take a personal
finance class a standalone personalfinance class in order to graduate.
So far, we have 25 states.
And none of the big states,not California, not New York,
(24:22):
not Texas, not Illinois.
So what's going on in Californiasince you've got an eye there
and it's close to home for you?
Yeah, I was just had a link sent to meby a friend of mine that's an editor at a
newspaper and right now they're countingthe ballots to put it on as an initiative.
I think in either 2026 where therewould be required at least a half a
(24:46):
year or a year of personal finance.
In all schools in California right now.
It's not a requirement.
I have some personal experience in 2021.
I was invited, believe it or not, tocome back to my own high school and
talk to the 11th and 12th graders in astandalone personal finance class that
was started because of the pandemic era.
(25:08):
They needed a course that people could do.
And I've been backthree times in February.
I just completed my third time talkingto them and just a little nugget.
My first school that I cleaned herein Shasta County, I just talked
to an economics class, to thosestudents about my money story.
So it's ironic that custodian thatfirst cleaned their school in 1987
(25:32):
is back almost 40 years later totalk to them about personal finance.
Okay.
So those are
some little nugget kind ofinteresting how that all worked out.
Didn't plan it.
Just life is stranger than fiction.
So anyways, but
you have so much to teach everybody.
I mean,
as a custodian, you've become one of thebest teachers they're ever going to have.
(25:54):
You know, and I only support you goingback to these schools and, you know,
doing these classes Mark Troutman,that is also in the fold of Catching Up
Defy as a host, he does this as well.
I want to do it now, too.
The high school I went to, Didn't have it.
I'm going to go and offer to do it becauseyou get your first job and you got to
(26:17):
know how to partition your first paycheck.
If you get it right from thebeginning, you're going to be on
autopilot and you don't have to worry.
You don't have to haveyour head in the sand.
You don't have to be unconsciouswith finances and you get interested.
Once you're interested, the rest follows.
You can't unsee it.
and you learn how totake care of yourself.
(26:39):
And obviously you did too.
So Bill, here, here's aquiz question for you.
Does Tennessee, your state,require personal finance in order
to graduate from high school?
Yes, they do.
I know the answer to
Congratula Oh yeah, Tennessee was oneof the early states, that's right.
but I was in a private school andthe private schools aren't beholden
to these laws and they didn't do it.
(27:01):
But see, well Bill, you werein high school, what, eight
decades ago or something?
I don't know.
But, They just, I
I know the year.
was wondering if you caught on to thatI'm just joking, but I mean, as far
as personal finance being availablein any state, it's fairly recent,
(27:22):
maybe over the last 10 or 15 years.
I think in 2019, we might'vehad five States and there
was a few States before then.
I didn't even have it in highschool when I was going there.
I mean, if you got it, it wasmore like that school just did it.
It wasn't required.
So so yeah, I love these financialliteracy conversations, but Jeff,
(27:45):
you're pretty open with your finances.
So I'd love to rip intothat if you don't mind.
No worries, I wouldn't got,numbers for you this morning.
All right.
All right.
I feel special.
Okay.
So, so let's dive into thenumbers for just a minute.
So you're in California.
Most of us consider that avery high cost of living area.
(28:06):
So talk to us about your expenses.
Well, you remember I live in ShastaCounty at the very end of the northern
Sacramento Valley, and it's not whatwe call one of the affluent parts of
California, but my expenses now since Ipaid off the house in December of 2023
are about a thousand bucks a month.
(28:27):
Wow.
Awesome.
Did you say a thousand dollars a month?
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
So that's because youdon't have a house payment.
And I guess, the thing I didn'trealize, I've always considered
California, the whole state to behigh cost of living, but you're saying
you can live, there are places inCalifornia that aren't necessarily,
you know, A high cost of living area.
(28:48):
That is correct.
Like when I spoke at the last highschool here in Shasta County in the
town, I live in Reading, the instructoror teacher was surprised that I was
living on under $40,000 a year, becauseyou don't have any other income.
But I tried to explain to him, Idon't run a standard lifestyle.
Remember, I don't own a cell phone.
I've never owned a new car.
(29:08):
I've only owned five cars in my life.
The most expensive one is my 1994 Corollathat I bought in 2006 for 3,300 bucks.
I work on them still.
I don't go take them to the shopand give them 2,500 to work on them.
I grow vegetables in the backyard.
I'm now a vegetarian.
I eat out if it's a treat orsomebody wants to go do it.
(29:31):
I remember I'm running1970s and sixties values,
and there is a, there is anopportunity cost to that,
Yeah.
For the car thing, boy, I surewish I had you close to me because
yeah, they charge you through thenose to get work done on your car.
And I'm like, if I had Jeff on speeddial and he was local, I'd pay him a
few bucks to come look at my vehicle.
Well,
Jeff,
(29:51):
I beat you.
I've only had three cars in my life.
So, I've done one thing right.
They were a little bit of higher costcars and there were new ones in there,
but I've taken them to their natural life.
I have now 170, 000 miles on my car.
So good for me.
Yep.
Yep.
That, I think it's number onmy list of the seven that I
talked to the students about.
(30:11):
It's number three on the most expensivehousing's number two, children
are number one, food, utilities,
So Jeff, if you don't have acell phone, no computer, right.
you got an iPad.
So I was about to ask, so howare you talking to us today?
Tell us where you're attalking with us today.
I'm right now at the library herein Reading, California in their
(30:32):
podcast room, because I want to havegreat good sound quality for this
because I know it's very important.
So I have like an unoff andkind of an unorthodox lifestyle.
And, you know, I took my 1989 housethat I purchased in 2010 back to 1960
I cool with an evaporative cooler.
I eat with my pellet stove.
I exercise a lot.
(30:53):
I'm outdoors a lot.
95 percent of all the stuff Ihave is used or second hand.
One of my friends used to hang outwith me goes, you really live very
well for what little you have.
And it's because it's the opposite.
You can go and generate more moneyand pay retail prices for life.
You know, on life things, right?
(31:14):
Or you can go my directionthat I learned from my dad.
It's not a wrong or right.
As I tell the students, it's like algebra.
You can solve for X many different ways.
It's whatever your values are.
So Have you ever felt deprived or like youweren't enjoying yourself by doing this?
Well, I just took a money personalitytest and they talked about one of the
(31:37):
money personality types is a connoisseur.
They like the finer things.
I have finer things.
They just were owned by someone else thatpaid the retail price before I came along.
Are you following me and and you haveto and I now enjoy experiences and
freedom, like spending two hours inthe middle of the day to hopefully
(31:58):
impact the listeners of this podcast.
Is that, is that, is that kind of help?
I'm a visionary and I'm a producer.
When somebody says, Jeff, you gotto get it done, I get it done.
And the vision is someday somebodylistening to this podcast might
say, well, if Jeff up in Redding,California can do it, I'm going to
get on the stick and get it done.
(32:19):
Well, and that's how we became friendsbecause I heard you on another podcast.
I'm like, where has this guy been hiding?
And I don't subscribe to the sameexact things that you do, but your
philosophy and your thinking, I'mlike, man, he is dropping gems.
(33:25):
I just wanted to comment thatyou're totally counterculture.
I'm fascinated by the fact that, you know,you go against the American grain with
regards to the high consumption lifestyle.
And the simplicity principle that yousubscribe to is really inspiring because
people think, you know, I can't do it.
(33:46):
I can't do this on a lower income.
I mean, I'm a high income professionaland I live paycheck to paycheck.
I'm not as much as aself starter as you are.
And it's not that I've everheard a story like this.
Have you found other people like yourselfin Reading or have you talked to them?
Because just like the fire community,you seem a bit like an anomaly.
(34:08):
A friend of mine from your medicalcommunity called me a unicorn and he
says, you're different, but in a goodway, you have to realize there are
values that have been imprinted into me.
I don't know if it's nurture or nature.
If my mom had raised me, it would havebeen interesting to see how it turned out.
It's just who I am.
I like having experiences.
What custodian gets to goto Australia three times.
(34:31):
I mean, those are my high status thingsor my investment accounts or my time.
If I want to be at Shasta Lake tilleight o'clock last night, chasing
down Alabama spotted bass in thedark to see if I can catch them.
I want to have that freedom.
That's my thing.
If it's a lady that wants to spend timewith her grandkids, more power to them.
How I run my life is areflection of my values.
(34:53):
And I don't care what anybody elsethinks that I don't mean to be rude
or blunt to anybody or discriminatory,but if they want to go do whatever.
That's fine.
Because in the final analysis, youhave to accept wherever you're at.
I came from a broken home.
People would say I was in poverty.
Cause I drank water out of a garden hose.
(35:15):
I fished in a creek.
You know, I mean, my mom, one time when Iwas living with her in the seventies, we'd
have to go down to PG and E and she'd flipthem 50 bucks to keep the lights on when
50 bucks meant a lot, you know, I can goboohoo, woohoo, woohoo, but I'm not going
to fall into that because I have to, inthe final end, take responsibility for me.
(35:36):
Does that make sense?
think that makes a lot of senseand that is so important to use
your own measuring stick, you know,and, we have a ton to talk about.
We've had some longconversations and our lifestyles.
Are very much the opposite, butour minds are still kind of alike,
but I've never felt like I need tohop over and do what Jeff's doing.
(35:58):
And you've never felt like you need tohop over and do what Jackie's doing.
There is compatibility and, yeah, youmake so much sense with what you're
saying and you've always been nevermissed words and was very clear about
Yeah.
And, and what, and what personalfinance has done for me is
provided me social mobility.
(36:18):
I'm not here because I've been marriedsince I was 21 years old and I'm
a professional or I started my ownplumbing business and the business is
my life and then I've had three kidsand we're making a hundred thousand
in 1993 and I sold the business.
No, I am here because and the reason Ihave merit is because I learned skills
(36:40):
of personal finance and the behaviorto match them if that makes any sense.
It's all behavior
Yeah.
Yeah, that that's that's like one ofthe biggest that's one of the hardest
things to change that psychology to beable to form this habit and all of that.
And obviously it's easier whenyou're younger, which goes back
to the whole, you know, offeringpersonal finance and high school.
(37:00):
So let's look at, let's dive intocontinue with the numbers and everything
because I find that fascinating andalmost unbelievable and probably
some of our listeners do too.
So when you were working.
So this would have been pre 2020.
What year did you retire?
I left at the end of 2020, my highestincome was 47, 000 because remember
(37:22):
that's when COVID money's flowingin and they're giving me overtime.
But if you had looked at my socialsecurity earnings history, because
when I mentor people, I alwaysask them, go to SS, you know, dot
gov and pull up their history.
When you look at mine and you averageit out over 38 years, it works
out to be about 26, 000 a year.
But I say that's an F.
I get an F on that part becauseI didn't increase my skill
(37:45):
set to increase my income.
Because if you're going to buildwealth, you've got to have income.
And generally, if you have awife or a spouse or whatever
your gender preference is, you'reThat changes the whole equation.
And then unfortunately people will get onthe hedonic treadmill and start jacking
it up and, Oh, we got to build a biggerhouse and we've got to scale to the next
(38:06):
one, but that's kind of changed now.
So I'm not being judgmental.
I'm just telling you that'skind of the herd mentality.
So you were just doing morewith the money that you had.
I am hyper, hyper efficient,even in my fishing.
I'm efficient.
All my fishing equipments.
70 years old for 5 or10 at a thrift store.
(38:29):
I have several mentors.
They kind of laugh at me when they seeme bring that stuff in, but I love fish.
They don't discriminate.
If they like it, they'll hit it.
Like my house, I cool it withan air an evaporative cooler.
It'll get to 80 degrees.
Other people are going to melt.
When other people in my neighborhood'sunits are trying to find 110 degrees
here, I'm sitting at 70 degrees or
(38:49):
so where's reading located?
Is it Northern California,Southern California?
northern California.
I'm 145 miles north of Sacramentoat the very end of the valley.
cooler.
it's a little cooler up therethan Southern California, right?
No, it is hotter.
We're in
a bowl where we haveno access to the ocean.
(39:10):
We can be as hot as Las Vegas herewhen it's when it's 100 or 105.
I'm happy when it starts botheringme is when it pushes to 115.
wow.
bothering me.
And I know my older body won'tbe able to handle it, but here in
the winter time, it'll get down tolike 30, my house will drop to 55.
(39:31):
And my friend goes,how do you handle that?
And I said, because Iexercise all the time.
And my metabolism is burning hot.
it's whatever your value systems are.
You know what I'm saying?
It's, it's not a right or wrong.
I mean, if you want to keep it at 70.
Fine.
But when I go fishing outside,it's not a shock to my system.
That change between hot and cold.
(39:52):
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
So that was a great geography.
So you need to be a geography teacher, youneed to be a personal finance teacher, you
need to be a math teacher for all of that.
No, I'm not.
I, you know, so to me,it's not a hard thing.
You make it look easy.
I have to tell you that.
So,
Yeah.
And people ask me, what is themoney for the monies for choices?
Choices and options.
(40:13):
You
got it.
Right.
Well, let's jump into the numbers.
Cause I'm sure people are wantingto know how, where we're going here.
Okay.
you have something?
I just want to know before we get intothe nitty gritty, have you ever read Jacob
Lund Fisker Early Retirement Extreme?
Never have, but am I doingsome of his behavior in that
book?
Absolutely.
Yeah,
that book because his lifestyleis not too dissimilar from yours.
(40:37):
And he retired early as well.
So it can be done.
And let's find out how you did it.
Yeah.
So, okay.
So you're making about 47, 000 a year.
You said today, now this iswhere you paid off all your debt.
You, your expenses are abouta thousand dollars a month,
which is still unbelievable.
But when you were working, so prior to2020, before you graduated, How much were
(41:03):
you saving and where were you saving it?
Cause you talked about thesedifferent plans and stuff like that.
Give
Yeah.
You have to realize the reason I wasable to do it is, is my housing costs
throughout my life are always been low.
I lived with my dad.
I lived in someone's backyardfor 14 years and a mother in law
cottage for 350 bucks a month.
(41:24):
And remember, my utilities are included.
I can fix my truck.
And you have to realize at that time,when I moved in there in 92, I'm only
bringing home 900 a month from the schooldistrict, working full time as a janitor.
Wow.
Okay.
Because we got to pay into CalPERS or 7percent to come magically out of my check.
1.
45 has to magically comeout of for Medicare, 6.
(41:47):
5.
20 magically pulls out of socialsecurity and then I start putting
money in a 403b seven or 403b beforeI in 2002 went into mutual funds.
Before then I had IRAs.
I used to chase CD money, you know, movemy IRAs to get different CDs and stuff
because there were six and seven percent.
So I've always been that way.
(42:08):
So that, that housing costs.
And then when I met my firstwife, I moved in with her and we
didn't scale up our lifestyle.
We didn't scale in.
so I'm curious.
So you mentioned, I think plural wives.
So how did that factor into your
habits and your lifestyle?
So you were married.
(42:28):
So tell us a little bit about thatbecause I feel like if it's just you,
It's
a different approach than when youwere partnered or you have a spouse,
Yeah.
This is important, Jeff, becausewe have a very active community
that have struggled with divorce.
These late starters that in
midlife or later in life have thisfinancial trauma where they're
(42:49):
splitting up their net worth.
Okay.
Here's this story.
You'll like this one.
This one, I'm an unusual person.
This person was about 11 yearsolder than me and they're
from the baby boom generation.
And I kind of have some of theirvalues because I'm born in 1965.
Anyways, when her and I gottogether, she was on, I just
(43:11):
finished her second marriage.
Now, Jeff, what year is this and how
We're going to go back.
We're going to go back to 2003, 2004.
So is this wife number one or
one.
one.
And she's older than me.
So she has children that are onlyabout 11 or 12 years younger than me.
Okay.
Kind of like going into a hornet'snest, but we won't go into that.
(43:31):
Kind of like I'm an advancedcalculus of relationships.
Okay.
So anyways, we get together andshe's got some frugalness in her,
but she's also a baby boomer.
And she was late.
to working.
She was married for 25 yearsand raised two children and
(43:52):
came into teaching at age 42.
Okay.
And she had the frugal gene in her.
So she liked me because one,I didn't have any kids, right?
And she liked me because I wasgood with my money because first
husband, first or second husbandwas not good with his money.
And he was a principal.
So anyways, we get together and we talkand she goes, I love teaching, but it's
(44:17):
really hard to handle certain things.
I want to get out.
I go, do you want to be out by 60?
And she goes, yeah.
And I think she had just turned 50at that time when we got together.
And I said, do these things.
And we did it.
We didn't scale up our lives.
Her house had paid off.
I won't go into all that story, howthat got happened, but what I did was
it started shoveling money because thecars are paid off, the house is paid off.
(44:44):
I thought we did a lot of things.
We traveled around the country.
We went to Australia once together.
We lived in a 1600 square foothouse in an inconspicuous place.
And.
What happened was in 08, rememberwhen the world's falling apart and the
housing market's going down, down, down.
She's a smart cookie.
She goes, my house isn't worth 300, 000.
(45:04):
I go, you sure?
Right.
It's not worth, you know what I mean?
They send little advertisements in themail, trying to get you to sell back then.
And then the market startedgoing to heck in a handbag.
And she goes, I'm nervous.
I'm freaked out.
I said, what do we do?
And I've told this storya hundred times ago.
What do we do when we buy bonelessskinless chicken for a dollar 99 a pound?
She goes, I know we buy a bunch of itat Rayleigh's and put it in the freezer.
(45:26):
I go, what are we going to do?
She goes, we're going to keepputting money in the market.
I did something I coinedextreme paychecking.
You're going to love this one.
I blew it on this.
I put my whole paycheck into my403 B7 account would be your 401k.
You're going Jackie'seyes just kind of pop.
She goes, how do you putyour whole check in there,
Yeah, would you live
(45:47):
off of?
do you I had savings.
I had savings and we had, we have nohouse payment and she cut me the deal.
I Where all you have to pay is theproperty taxes and half the food bill.
And technically she should pay morebecause she made two and a half times
more as me, as a teacher, if you want todo it as a percentage to make it equal,
even I used to argue this out with my dad.
(46:08):
So one day I came home and I showedher, I was doing, she freaked out
because I think she thought I waskind of using her, but I don't know.
That's the dynamics with moneybecause you don't talk about it.
And I had to actually go to payrolland tell them what I was going to do.
I had to keep enough money in the payment.
Social Security tax.
I had to keep enough money in thereto pay Medicare, had to have enough
(46:29):
money to pay my union dues, and myportion of my medical, right, because
my district's cap's not covering it.
I had to also make sure there'senough for the PERS, and my union
dues, and I zeroed out all the taxes,because I didn't earn anything.
Is, yeah.
So
This is an Oh eight.
And this is after you tookthat personal finance class
(46:50):
Oh, yeah, this is it by the yeah, personal
finance classes back in 96.
Yeah, we're back.
We're moved forward by to that by 2002.
I'm already investing in Vanguard andeverything directly through and what was
beautiful back then that Vanguard whenyou had a 403B7, you could add any type
of Asset class to your menu to invest in.
I developed my own asset because ona 401k, the employer's in control
(47:15):
and it says, Jeff, youcan only be now today.
You can't do this.
If you go to Pacheco union schooldistrict and look up their 403 B
seven at Vanguard, it's going tobe very unique because it's legacy.
It's something I created because alot of the asset classes that you can
invest in are not on other 403B7s.
(47:37):
School district accounts in California.
Does
Wow.
So Jeff, can I ask you about the vehicle?
So you had a 403B and a 457.
You had both of those.
At one time, I actually, in2004, I brought the first 457 to
Pacheco school district in anyschool district in Shasta County
So you can have a 457 anda 403B at the same time.
(48:00):
It contribute to the Mac now 457.
Is that the one where onceyou separate from service, you
can take withdrawals without
without the 10, 10 percent down.
Yeah.
You remember
a, school district.
a, that's a superpower right there.
We
Yeah.
But 99 percent of the peopledon't have that superpower.
my fIrst wife and I, we had thissuperpower because she wasn't
(48:21):
providing economic outpatient careto her 30 something kids at the time.
I'll use that from themillionaire next door book that I
read back in the nineties.
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