March 12, 2025 • 29 mins
Jackie Cummings Koski is co-host of the 'Catching Up to FI' podcast and author of the book 'F.I.R.E. For Dummies'. In case you're new here, FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. In this episode, Jackie comes clean and publicly shares her non-FIRE confessions. Recorded at a CampFI near San Diego, she reveals surprising financial decisions that didn’t exactly follow the 'rules' of FI, and some are downright shocking… such as taking a 401(k) loan (don’t judge too soon😁). These moves may have gone against traditional FI principles, but they didn't ruin her plans or curb her enthusiasm.
From her early life in poverty to building wealth through strategic saving and investing, Jackie provides a transparent look at her imperfect journey, aiming to inspire others on the path to FI. She not only shares her real numbers, but also her genuine thoughts and feelings beyond the math. Join us to learn from her experience and embrace the big takeaway that 'precision is not required' to reach your financial goals, even when you’re getting a late start.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello and welcome to a special episode ofCatching Up Defy, our Wednesday episode.
It's a pop up episode and thisweek we're featuring our esteemed
co host Jackie Kaminskoski.
Hey, that's what he likes to say.
So, we talked about Camp Fi before.
They're all over the country.
And one of the, I would say oneof the best in person events to
(00:22):
go to, find one in your area.
But I got invited, Bill, to speak atthe Camp Fi near San Diego, California.
And it was So much fun.
And you know what the titleof my presentation was?
I do, but tell us.
yeah, it was my non fire confessionsand I'll confess one of them.
And then you'll have to check out therest of the show to get the other one.
(00:43):
But one of my non fire confessionsis that I took a 401k loan, something
that every financial professional warnsagainst, but I tell the whole backstory.
So before you judge, pleasewatch the whole thing.
Well, I mean, I was fascinated bythis episode and I really recommend
that people hear your storybecause you're very transparent.
(01:04):
You go through yournumbers like nobody else.
does.
And then you give up all these confessionsthat are really surprising considering
we're members of the fire movement.
My non fire confession is that my wifehad me provide her with a hot tub.
And it was a story that I couldn'tsay no to because she said to me,
(01:25):
on your deathbed, you'll regret.
Not having given me a hot tub.
So it turned into a whole landscapingproject and a self build on the hot tub.
It was a massive endeavor.
It was a non fire thing, butwe soak in it and she loves it.
So you can't go wronglistening to your wife, right?
(01:45):
Oh, my God.
How dare you?
Well, I let it all hang out and our showtoday is just going to replay that talk
that I did at Camp Fine near San Diego.
And, we'd love to hear whatare your non fire confession.
So let's roll the tape.
(02:31):
After five years of being inretirement, this is something I
haven't really talked about before,but I have a few confessions to make.
So I'm admitting that todayand I call these my non fire
confessions and guess what?
They did not wreck my plan.
(02:53):
Hey.
Hey everyone, I'm Jackie Cummings Coste.
And today I am going to talkabout my non fire confessions.
I've shared my story and you know, inthe media and everything, they want to
highlight all the really good stuff andnot talk about the real stuff sometimes.
So I'm going to do that.
But before I do that, I wantto kind of introduce myself.
I do live in Ohio, so it was excitingfor me to be in California, except
(03:17):
when you start talking about housingprices, that scares the heck out of me.
So let's get going here.
So my profile I retired at the age of 49.
We talked about a littlebit about that last night.
It was December, 2019.
So it was literally rightbefore the pandemic.
And I was with my companythough for 21 years.
So it wasn't like I justsort of dined and dashed.
(03:40):
I'm a single mom, divorced AfricanAmerican and I have one adult daughter
and she is 29, if you can believe that.
And I did it.
Making less than six figures.
Again, that was in Ohio.
I don't make the big bucks likethey do here in California.
So a little bit about my timeline.
I call the first part kind oflike mindset over adversity.
(04:04):
So, growing up, I grew up, inpoverty in rural South Carolina,
another low cost of living area.
We didn't have much, but I wasraised by a single dad with six kids.
Now that I'm an adult, I think about that,and I'm like, that is crazy, but he did.
He passed away about three monthsbefore I graduated from high school,
(04:24):
so he never saw me graduate, butI was number five out of six.
So I had one younger sisterand everybody else was older,
but I did go on to college.
I didn't get rich going to college.
I was basically a poor college kid, andI was first generation college graduate.
So that feels a little differentthan if you've got, you know, you're
expected to go to college, you know,your mom and dad went to a certain
(04:47):
school and they're all helping you out.
So the experience was a different for me.
I started my career right out of college.
So honestly, after growing up in poverty,I thought the, Quickest way to try to
make a little more money and not be inpoverty again was to get a college degree.
So that worked.
I got a decent job out of college.
I ended up getting married.
(05:07):
My first job out of college was inBentonville, Arkansas at Walmart
headquarters and communications.
And shortly after my husband and I movedto Ohio, which is how I got stuck there,
get to Ohio and found out I was pregnant.
So my daughter was born in Ohio.
Then, after being married for about 10to 12 years or so, you know, divorces
take a little time, so, you know, that'sa little gray area, but, it was about 10
(05:31):
to 12 years ended up getting a divorce,so life changed quickly, and it was,
devastating, you know, not to mention theemotional part, but then the financial
part, and things like that, it was reallytough, so what I thought was a shared
journey, was now a solo project, and Ihad to make sure I was going to be okay,
and my daughter was going to be okay.
So finally, at 38, I started waking up.
(05:54):
So we had a lot of peopleunder the age of 38.
Some people retiring at 38and I was just waking up.
So I was truly that late starter and Iprobably felt it more than it actually
was, but it was a late start to me.
So here's what that wake up call was in2004 right around the time of my divorce.
There was this huge disparityin what I had in my 401 K and
(06:19):
what my husband had in his.
I had 20, 000.
Now I'm around my mid 30sand I'm thinking, Yay, I'm
doing pretty good, right?
Well, he had 120, 000.
So here's what that looked like.
He had 120, 000 and I had 20, 000.
I mean, all that got equalized becausewe were married for more than 10 years
and there's a process called quadro.
So it got fixed, but I vowed tomyself this huge wake up call.
(06:41):
I vowed to myself.
I never wanted to feel thatfinancially ignorant again.
And a lot of times we have thesethings that happen in our lives that,
you know, sort of shakes us up somuch where that is the pivot point.
At that point, we decide wewant to do something different.
So part two of the timeline I callmoney moves started waking up and I
(07:03):
started doing things a lot different.
Hadn't even discovered fire, basically.
But I did join an investment club.
I, this investment club was more aboutindividual companies, which, you know,
it's not exactly a fine thing to do,which is part of one of my confessions.
So I started thinking, you know, doingindividual stocks is probably not the
first place to start, but all of thispersonal finance stuff comes full circle.
(07:26):
So then I said, why am Inot maxing out my 401k?
Why am I not maxing out my IRAand all of those other savings?
So I started doing that.
I could have done it a lotsooner, but I didn't know.
Then I finally got to, youknow, I discovered FIRE and
understood what my FI number was.
And that was 25 times my expenses.
(07:47):
So I was about 46 when I hit my FInumber and I still wasn't ready.
You know, I was gettingthat one more year syndrome.
So I worked another two years.
And during that two years, Ithought about what do I want to do?
There wasn't even events like this whereyou could chat with people and really
kind of learn and bounce off ideas.
(08:08):
So I just said, well, if I don'tknow what I want to do, maybe I'll
just work a couple more years.
So I'm thinking about it.
I really love financialeducation and financial literacy.
That was the game changer for me.
So I'm thinking, you know.
Poor black girl from South Carolina, wasable to change the whole trajectory of
her life just by learning a few financialthings and getting really smart about it.
(08:28):
There's a ton of other people like me.
I really wasn't that special.
So I finally decided toretire at the age of 49.
I wrote this fire letter.
I turned that in, had a big party.
Luckily, I had a great boss that threwa nice little thing at one of the
steak houses in town, and it was great.
So that is kind of the timeline there.
(08:51):
And one thing, I started doingright after I left my company.
I wouldn't do this while I was with mycompany, I talk a lot about my journey,
but more than anything, I share mynumbers, which is kind of unusual.
Most people don't wantto talk about money.
It's taboo.
I don't want you to know how much I make.
And I. I learned most from the peoplethat were willing to share their numbers.
(09:12):
So I said, if I ever have the opportunity,I'm going to share my numbers.
What are they going to do?
Come to my house.
It's not sitting at my house.
So these are my salary and expenses.
Now, again, I am in the state of Ohio.
And so things, all it is, is just scaled.
You know, I didn't make thatmuch, but then again, the cost
of living wasn't quite as high.
So I was making about80, 000 for my W2 job.
(09:35):
And I had about 2, 000 in other income.
So, you know, I had alittle side hustle going on.
I did have some debt at the time of myretirement and that was my mortgage.
And I thought deeply about this,another, you know, non fire confession,
but I decided to keep this mortgagegoing into retirement, but only
after I really thought about it.
My annual expenses wasbetween like 40 a year.
(10:00):
I wasn't even a good budgeter, so theway I figured out what my expenses
were, I just went back to my salaryand then I deducted everything.
I was contributed to my retirementaccounts and then I. You know, shaved
off about 10 or 15 percent for taxes.
And I go, okay, whatever isleft, that's what I live off of.
Just keeping it simple.
And again, my fine numberwas 25 times my expenses.
(10:21):
So you can do the math.
That was roughly a littleover a million dollars.
And then those extra two years, Igot to about 30 times my expenses.
And again, This whole time I'm thinking,I never wanna be back in poverty again.
So I didn't wanna leave and everhave to think about being in
poverty again or for my daughterto ever have to think about it.
(10:42):
So the 30 times expenses was morecomfortable to me, and I felt like that
gave me the extra cushion that I needed.
So the thing I wanna point out here, andwhen I, I'm in a lot of general audiences,
not smart five people like you guys, but.
The whole takeaway from this slide isthat I was living off of less than I earn.
(11:04):
If you spend everything you earn, evenif you make 000 a year, if you spend all
of that, you will never build wealth.
So the next part is mysaving and investing.
I feel like I was abetter saver and investor.
Then budgeter.
So lean into your superpower.
That's what I had to do.
So I first saved 10 percent because that'swhat everybody told me to do, right?
(11:26):
I got a little bit of a company match andI thought this is where I needed to be.
So I moved that up.
When I started wakingup, I moved it up to 40%.
And you know what?
It didn't even feel that hard.
I just didn't know what to do.
I could have been doing the40 percent a lot sooner and
probably would have made it to it.
Fire a lot sooner.
(11:47):
So this is how the savings broke out.
So I maxed out the 401k.
I had a very generous company match.
I maxed out my Roth IRA.
I never made be above the amount where Icouldn't contribute directly to my Roth.
I maxed out the family HSA.
That was me and my daughter.
And I had about 2, 000 inother investments, so that's
(12:10):
how all of that broke out.
Now, on this slide, the main thingis that I started with something.
So when I, you know, sort of figuredsome things out and I started getting on
the right path, I didn't start at zero.
So when people say, well, I'm barelysaving anything, it's better than nothing.
It's better than starting at zero.
(12:30):
So this is my last W2 in 2019,and this is a decent year.
A part of my salary wascommissioned, so it would vary.
So this is a decent year.
So this is not, I know,don't laugh at my paycheck.
Okay.
California people don't laugh atmy paycheck, but I, I got this
year, this last, my last full yearat my company was about 90, 000.
(12:52):
And then you can see all thedeductions that are coming out.
Right.
And my.
Take home after that was about 58, 000.
So already that's a huge chunkgone before I ever see it.
And then after that, the taxes tookme down to about 50, 000 a year.
And then I lived off about 40 to 45.
So there's a missing 5, 000somewhere, but you know, I got close.
(13:16):
So as you can see, all of thedeductions that were coming out,
so that's going into savings.
And, and honestly, when I wasreally young, like in my twenties,
when I was Putting money into my401k, it didn't feel like my money.
So I didn't even think of it as my money.
And I guess either nobody explainedthat to me or I didn't understand.
And I may have felt differently aboutit if I knew it was longer term.
(13:41):
And maybe if I knew that I didn'thave to wait until I was 65.
So that's something that seemslike younger people will grasp
a little bit better to say, youdon't have to wait until you're
65, you can take a career break orsabbatical, or, you know, this is.
Your cushion of money.
This is your money.
Because I didn't graspthat when I was in my 20s.
So here's the network breakdownafter saving all that money, right?
(14:05):
So I've got the 401k.
That was the bulk of it.
The next one was the traditional roleof IRA and that happened to be the
split when I got divorced and we didthe quadro quadro and all of that.
So that grew to be mysecond largest pot of money.
And then here are all the other ones,health savings account, Roth IRA.
I had a teeny tiny company pension, notlike the juicy one that you're getting.
(14:28):
So, but I was happy to have it.
You know, there's the car and all of that
Obviously, this didn't happen overnight.
So I like to show the timeline.
So this was 2004, you know, right atsort of my pivot point to like 2022.
So if you look and if youhaven't done this, this is
kind of a cool exercise, right?
(14:49):
Kind of plot your net worth oryour five number grow along with
what was going on in your life.
So when I did it, It kind of lookedlike this, you know, peaks and valleys.
And then we had that nasty, nasty 2022.
I wasn't contributing anything in 2022.
So my net worth dropped bylike 21 percent in 2022.
We know it bounced back, but youknow, it still wasn't pretty.
(15:12):
And I can tell you that the mostpowerful exercise I've ever done with
my money has been a net worth statement.
So for younger people, that isa great thing to start with.
If they're saying, Hey, howdo I become a millionaire?
How do I become rich?
You say, let's start with a net worth.
Let me show you what that is.
(15:32):
So next, I get this question all the time.
I used to not have it in my slides, butI'll just share what I was invested in and
not even recommending it to anyone else.
But this is what I had.
I had some cash and cash equivalent.
When I retired, I made sure that I had atleast three years worth of living expenses
in cash that was not in the stock market.
(15:53):
So COVID scared me, no doubt, but Ishouldn't have been as bothered as I
was because I did have that set aside.
I have that little frozen pensionthat's sort of fixed income too.
I have my single stock portfolioand my investment club portfolio
and The rest is like a growth stock.
I lean towards growth, whichis another confession, but
(16:15):
we'll talk about that later.
When I said peace out at my job,I wrote him a nice little letter.
That was my resignation letter, and Iwon't bore you with the whole thing,
but I said to them, I know my 40s is alittle early to retire, and some may even
say I'm giving away the golden ticket.
My dad would have said that.
But I've certainly spent manymonths, maybe even years, imagining
(16:40):
such a divergence from the norm.
And ultimately, I came to this conclusion.
I could either follow atraditional path or blaze my own.
And I chose the latter.
So that was the end.
Yeah.
So the, the,
so last night.
(17:00):
We had a group that was talking onthe topic of life after fire, so we
get a lot of questions about that.
People like, what does that look like?
Well I wanted to mention five just randomthings that I learned since I retired.
Precision is not required.
I would have never felt that way.
Approaching fire, but afterwards, I'mlike, I stressed out a little too much,
(17:22):
or I was a little too precise withthat spreadsheet and all of that stuff.
So precision is not required.
There are big bonuses rollingover your retirement account.
Everybody talks about travelbonuses and rewards points.
When I was my biggest chunkof money was in my 401k.
Well, I was strategic about,rolling it over to an IRA.
It's like whoever was thehighest bidder with the best
bonus money, that's who got it.
(17:43):
So it is really possible to getyour tax rate, your effective
tax rate, down to zero.
I did it.
I've been retired for four, five years.
I did it twice.
So I'm like, Oh, this is great.
Cause I would read about it.
I'm like, really?
So I learned that the valueof community and like minded.
So even though I'm retired, Iwill always come to Phi events.
I will always come to Camp Phi.
I just enjoy the energy.
(18:05):
And I learned that there wasplenty of free mint leaves at
the park that I go to every day.
And it was mainly because I wasprobably thinking about work.
I was thinking about other stuff.
And finally, when I slowed down,I'm like, are those mint leaves?
And I love mint leaves.
I love to put them in my martiniand they smell really good.
But those were just some random things.
Some other things here.
I'm not quite as I used to be.
(18:28):
And let me tell you why.
My withdrawal rate ismuch less than I thought.
I was estimating 4 percentlike everybody else, right?
Health insurance is cheaper.
You know, I get really goodsubsidies from the ACA.
I budgeted a whole lot more.
My health savings account has growna lot more than I estimated, so
I'm figuring out, okay, how do Ikind of do my drawdown with that?
(18:49):
I just, a little, that littletiny pension I told you about, I
decided to annuitize it because Iwasn't familiar with the pension.
But finally, when I figured out how itworked and all these options, I'm like,
wait a minute, I probably shouldn't justroll it over as a lump sum into my IRA.
So I'm going to annuitize that.
It roughly will be about 500 bucksa month for the rest of my life.
I'm like, I figured that out.
(19:10):
And then I realized that SocialSecurity is a powerful backstop.
I was way too pessimistic.
So I'm glad that I took thetime to really understand that.
Lastly what am I doing now?
Just a few things.
I, that daughter of mine,she's doing pretty good.
I think she's second gen Phi.
I feel pretty good about that.
I'm focused on financialliteracy and education.
When I left, I had a whiteboard.
(19:32):
And at the center of it wasfinancial literacy and education.
So whatever I was doing, it had to alignwith that or else it was going to be a no.
I did go back and earn my master's degree.
I know the worst return on investmentever because I'm not really doing
much with it, but I wanted todo it for my own satisfaction.
I ended up with a 4.
0 and this was a big do over for mebecause I nearly flunked out of undergrad
(19:55):
because I was working full time and Ihad a lot of stress and things going on.
Thank you.
And I didn't stop there.
I earned some financial credentialsbecause, you know, I don't think
that there's enough financialprofessionals, CFPs, AFCs, or
whatever that know the FHIR community.
So I feel like we are actuallygoing to have to breed our own.
(20:17):
So if anybody's ever interestedin going for the CFP, the AFC,
or whatever I did all of that.
I don't plan to practice like But inthe traditional way, but I feel like
I can use my CFP in a way that's goingto benefit the communities and the
people that I want to give back to.
So luckily I had the luxury of doingthat got all kinds of passion projects.
(20:39):
And I'm wondering if Istill, I'm still retired.
I'm not ready to say that I'mnot retired because a lot of this
stuff isn't bringing me much money.
The biggest things that I'm working onis I have the book fire for dummies.
You've seen that.
And then I co host a podcastcalled catching up to fight.
And my wonderful co host is Dr. BillYount, who has shared who has been
very vulnerable and shared his storyof a very high income earner and how
(21:01):
he was a late starter living paycheckto paycheck for most of his life too.
So I respect him a lot.
One other thing is just fiveyears after retirement, this is
what the portfolio looks like.
A lot of people ask about that.
So I started at 1.
3. It was growing until 2022.
We had that big dive, right?
It popped right back.
So at the, by the, at the end of2023, my net worth had grown and
(21:25):
I'd been retired for four years.
Taking money out of my portfolio.
Thank you.
Okay.
Now let's get into it.
Okay.
After five years being in retirement,this is something I haven't
really talked about before, butI have a few confessions to make.
So I'm hoping I'm in among friends andyou won't laugh at me or say anything
(21:45):
or judge me or anything like that.
And hopefully there's other people.
So so, so I'm admitting that today.
And I call these my non fire confessions.
And guess what?
They did not wreck my plans.
All these happened kind of before.
They didn't wreck my plans andthey won't wreck your easer.
So, so if you're not doing everythingperfect, that's okay because you're human.
We're all human.
(22:06):
So In case you don't, anyone doesn'tknow the tenants of fire and this
is not the official, but thesekind of hit most of them, right?
Index fund investing, minimizing yourexpenses, especially the big three,
optimizing taxes, multiple streamsof income, decreasing, you know, high
(22:28):
interest debt, increasing your savings,and then that 4 percent rule and,
you know, the 25 times your expenses.
So that's just a quickreminder of these tenants.
And.
Some of the confessions here goagainst these tenants, right?
Okay.
So the first one well, I'll go throughthe five and then I'll explain.
Okay.
So I used the 401k loan.
Okay.
I've retired while still having debt.
(22:49):
Every financial professionalwarns against that, right?
I never use VTSX as my goto fund, you know, VTS.
V-T-S-A-X and chill.
I've got probably the little stopsign with the cross through it.
Let's see.
I invest in individualstocks, as I mentioned.
Yeah, they, okay.
I got somebody on my side.
I drive a luxury car, so I knowsome, look, I know somebody's
(23:11):
California people drive, somebody'sdriving a Tesla, somebody's driving
a Tesla all and there you go.
They, I would've thoughtit was you, LA guy.
Okay.
. But wait, let, let explain
. So let me explain.
So, okay, so the 401k loan, I, and Iwas sitting with someone that said this
too, so like, don't bail on me now, butI took a 401k loan it was 2009, so it
(23:38):
was right after the real estate bust,got a really great deal on it, decided
I was going to take, I was going topay for it with cash, took the 50, 000
401k loan, Use some of my own money,and I looked at all the provisions,
and this is interesting that one ofthe provisions was that if you separate
(23:58):
from service, you could still continuepaying the loan through the custodian.
So I'm like, that makesme feel a lot better.
I breathe easier.
And then remember the principles.
The principal and the interest Iwas paying was going back into my
401k, so I was getting a littlebit more in there than I normally
would have, so I did that one.
So who would have done this if theywere presented with this scenario?
(24:19):
Anybody?
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I won't say.
How little people.
Okay, here's the next one.
Retired while still having debt.
Okay.
So I kept my mortgage.
I looked at it.
I looked at the interest rate.
The debt did not keep me up at night, butI know it does bother a lot of people,
but I had to look at it for me and I wasplanning to sell the house at the time.
(24:40):
I did not sell as soon as I thoughtI still have the house, but that's so
that's why I ended up doing that one.
Okay.
The next VTSAX, I hadto do my own research.
I know it's a very easy way to do it.
And if you don't want to do anyresearch or anything, that will get
you where you want to go or somethingsimilar, but I'm growth minded.
I think it comes frominvesting an individual.
(25:02):
Stocks or individual companies.
So my go to fund is justa Vanguard growth fund.
That's still very low fee, but Idid the research up front so that
whenever I want a stock fund in myportfolio, that's the one I go to.
So I never really did VTSAX.
Okay.
I invest in single stocks.
I know somebody thinks this is crazy, butI love doing research on great companies.
(25:26):
That investment club, it was reallyhelpful and I felt really good about
really digging into Apple and theleadership at Apple and the growing
sales and stuff that bores people.
And most people don't havethe inclination, but I do.
I nerd out on it.
I've even attended annual meetings.
I vote my proxy.
(25:46):
So I think I will always havea single stock portfolio.
So that's me on that one.
The last one, I drive a luxury car.
Can I talk myself out of this one?
Okay.
I still follow the tenant ofsort of lowering the expenses.
We've got people obviouslythat buy or lease cars.
It always has to, alwayshas to be brand new.
I always buy pre owned.
(26:07):
My sweet spot is three to fiveyears where I can get it about
half off of what it costs.
My favorite brand is Lexus becausethey're very low maintenance.
It's basically a Toyota luxury Toyota.
Basically.
I keep my cars for a long time, abouteight to 10 years, and I usually
pay cash or I will pay it off.
So in my mind, that's lowering my.
(26:30):
Transportation costs and I don't feel likeI need to drive a beater, but you know,
a lot of people appreciate buying a car.
That's 300, 000 miles.
I just don't.
But that's that's my confession on that.
So, so what is the point?
Okay, why am I even telling you this?
So, I just want you to kind of know thatthe tennis of fire are wonderful, but
(26:51):
remember that your journey is unique.
You may not have the same confessionsas me, but there's probably some
things that you just have duginto and decided, you know what?
I think it's better doing it this way.
Your situation is just different.
Then just think.
Mindfully about the decisions that you'remaking and just make it make sense.
You know, be mindful, be the new.
(27:14):
Anyway no, no one decisionwill wreck your fire plans.
We're all going to make mistakes.
It doesn't have to throw youoff or anything like that.
And even if it goes againstthe grain stay away from it.
Small minded, judgy people, you know,sometimes before I can get, yeah,
I took a 401k loan out of my mouth.
They're like, Oh my God, youshould never take a 401k.
And I know that, you know, but mygenerally, if someone's telling me
(27:37):
something that are in my head, I knowit's sort of against the grain or
doesn't kind of follow the tenets.
I'll just say, well, well, tell mea little, I'm just more curious than
anything because, for the most part,I'm around pretty smart people.
So I know there's probably a reason.
So, I would like to ask, whatare your non fire confessions,
if anybody is willing to share?
(27:58):
But this concludes thepresentation, and I thank you
guys for not judging me too much.
Hello and welcome to a special episode ofCatching Up Defy, our Wednesday episode.
It's a pop up episode and thisweek we're featuring our esteemed
co host Jackie Kaminskoski.
Hey, that's what he likes to say.
So, we talked about Camp Fi before.
They're all over the country.
And one of the, I would say oneof the best in person events to
(00:22):
go to, find one in your area.
But I got invited, Bill, to speak atthe Camp Fi near San Diego, California.
And it was So much fun.
And you know what the titleof my presentation was?
I do, but tell us.
yeah, it was my non fire confessionsand I'll confess one of them.
And then you'll have to check out therest of the show to get the other one.
(00:43):
But one of my non fire confessionsis that I took a 401k loan, something
that every financial professional warnsagainst, but I tell the whole backstory.
So before you judge, pleasewatch the whole thing.
Well, I mean, I was fascinated bythis episode and I really recommend
that people hear your storybecause you're very transparent.
(01:04):
You go through yournumbers like nobody else.
does.
And then you give up all these confessionsthat are really surprising considering
we're members of the fire movement.
My non fire confession is that my wifehad me provide her with a hot tub.
And it was a story that I couldn'tsay no to because she said to me,
(01:25):
on your deathbed, you'll regret.
Not having given me a hot tub.
So it turned into a whole landscapingproject and a self build on the hot tub.
It was a massive endeavor.
It was a non fire thing, butwe soak in it and she loves it.
So you can't go wronglistening to your wife, right?
(01:45):
Oh, my God.
How dare you?
Well, I let it all hang out and our showtoday is just going to replay that talk
that I did at Camp Fine near San Diego.
And, we'd love to hear whatare your non fire confession.
So let's roll the tape.
(02:31):
After five years of being inretirement, this is something I
haven't really talked about before,but I have a few confessions to make.
So I'm admitting that todayand I call these my non fire
confessions and guess what?
They did not wreck my plan.
(02:53):
Hey.
Hey everyone, I'm Jackie Cummings Coste.
And today I am going to talkabout my non fire confessions.
I've shared my story and you know, inthe media and everything, they want to
highlight all the really good stuff andnot talk about the real stuff sometimes.
So I'm going to do that.
But before I do that, I wantto kind of introduce myself.
I do live in Ohio, so it was excitingfor me to be in California, except
(03:17):
when you start talking about housingprices, that scares the heck out of me.
So let's get going here.
So my profile I retired at the age of 49.
We talked about a littlebit about that last night.
It was December, 2019.
So it was literally rightbefore the pandemic.
And I was with my companythough for 21 years.
So it wasn't like I justsort of dined and dashed.
(03:40):
I'm a single mom, divorced AfricanAmerican and I have one adult daughter
and she is 29, if you can believe that.
And I did it.
Making less than six figures.
Again, that was in Ohio.
I don't make the big bucks likethey do here in California.
So a little bit about my timeline.
I call the first part kind oflike mindset over adversity.
(04:04):
So, growing up, I grew up, inpoverty in rural South Carolina,
another low cost of living area.
We didn't have much, but I wasraised by a single dad with six kids.
Now that I'm an adult, I think about that,and I'm like, that is crazy, but he did.
He passed away about three monthsbefore I graduated from high school,
(04:24):
so he never saw me graduate, butI was number five out of six.
So I had one younger sisterand everybody else was older,
but I did go on to college.
I didn't get rich going to college.
I was basically a poor college kid, andI was first generation college graduate.
So that feels a little differentthan if you've got, you know, you're
expected to go to college, you know,your mom and dad went to a certain
(04:47):
school and they're all helping you out.
So the experience was a different for me.
I started my career right out of college.
So honestly, after growing up in poverty,I thought the, Quickest way to try to
make a little more money and not be inpoverty again was to get a college degree.
So that worked.
I got a decent job out of college.
I ended up getting married.
(05:07):
My first job out of college was inBentonville, Arkansas at Walmart
headquarters and communications.
And shortly after my husband and I movedto Ohio, which is how I got stuck there,
get to Ohio and found out I was pregnant.
So my daughter was born in Ohio.
Then, after being married for about 10to 12 years or so, you know, divorces
take a little time, so, you know, that'sa little gray area, but, it was about 10
(05:31):
to 12 years ended up getting a divorce,so life changed quickly, and it was,
devastating, you know, not to mention theemotional part, but then the financial
part, and things like that, it was reallytough, so what I thought was a shared
journey, was now a solo project, and Ihad to make sure I was going to be okay,
and my daughter was going to be okay.
So finally, at 38, I started waking up.
(05:54):
So we had a lot of peopleunder the age of 38.
Some people retiring at 38and I was just waking up.
So I was truly that late starter and Iprobably felt it more than it actually
was, but it was a late start to me.
So here's what that wake up call was in2004 right around the time of my divorce.
There was this huge disparityin what I had in my 401 K and
(06:19):
what my husband had in his.
I had 20, 000.
Now I'm around my mid 30sand I'm thinking, Yay, I'm
doing pretty good, right?
Well, he had 120, 000.
So here's what that looked like.
He had 120, 000 and I had 20, 000.
I mean, all that got equalized becausewe were married for more than 10 years
and there's a process called quadro.
So it got fixed, but I vowed tomyself this huge wake up call.
(06:41):
I vowed to myself.
I never wanted to feel thatfinancially ignorant again.
And a lot of times we have thesethings that happen in our lives that,
you know, sort of shakes us up somuch where that is the pivot point.
At that point, we decide wewant to do something different.
So part two of the timeline I callmoney moves started waking up and I
(07:03):
started doing things a lot different.
Hadn't even discovered fire, basically.
But I did join an investment club.
I, this investment club was more aboutindividual companies, which, you know,
it's not exactly a fine thing to do,which is part of one of my confessions.
So I started thinking, you know, doingindividual stocks is probably not the
first place to start, but all of thispersonal finance stuff comes full circle.
(07:26):
So then I said, why am Inot maxing out my 401k?
Why am I not maxing out my IRAand all of those other savings?
So I started doing that.
I could have done it a lotsooner, but I didn't know.
Then I finally got to, youknow, I discovered FIRE and
understood what my FI number was.
And that was 25 times my expenses.
(07:47):
So I was about 46 when I hit my FInumber and I still wasn't ready.
You know, I was gettingthat one more year syndrome.
So I worked another two years.
And during that two years, Ithought about what do I want to do?
There wasn't even events like this whereyou could chat with people and really
kind of learn and bounce off ideas.
(08:08):
So I just said, well, if I don'tknow what I want to do, maybe I'll
just work a couple more years.
So I'm thinking about it.
I really love financialeducation and financial literacy.
That was the game changer for me.
So I'm thinking, you know.
Poor black girl from South Carolina, wasable to change the whole trajectory of
her life just by learning a few financialthings and getting really smart about it.
(08:28):
There's a ton of other people like me.
I really wasn't that special.
So I finally decided toretire at the age of 49.
I wrote this fire letter.
I turned that in, had a big party.
Luckily, I had a great boss that threwa nice little thing at one of the
steak houses in town, and it was great.
So that is kind of the timeline there.
(08:51):
And one thing, I started doingright after I left my company.
I wouldn't do this while I was with mycompany, I talk a lot about my journey,
but more than anything, I share mynumbers, which is kind of unusual.
Most people don't wantto talk about money.
It's taboo.
I don't want you to know how much I make.
And I. I learned most from the peoplethat were willing to share their numbers.
(09:12):
So I said, if I ever have the opportunity,I'm going to share my numbers.
What are they going to do?
Come to my house.
It's not sitting at my house.
So these are my salary and expenses.
Now, again, I am in the state of Ohio.
And so things, all it is, is just scaled.
You know, I didn't make thatmuch, but then again, the cost
of living wasn't quite as high.
So I was making about80, 000 for my W2 job.
(09:35):
And I had about 2, 000 in other income.
So, you know, I had alittle side hustle going on.
I did have some debt at the time of myretirement and that was my mortgage.
And I thought deeply about this,another, you know, non fire confession,
but I decided to keep this mortgagegoing into retirement, but only
after I really thought about it.
My annual expenses wasbetween like 40 a year.
(10:00):
I wasn't even a good budgeter, so theway I figured out what my expenses
were, I just went back to my salaryand then I deducted everything.
I was contributed to my retirementaccounts and then I. You know, shaved
off about 10 or 15 percent for taxes.
And I go, okay, whatever isleft, that's what I live off of.
Just keeping it simple.
And again, my fine numberwas 25 times my expenses.
(10:21):
So you can do the math.
That was roughly a littleover a million dollars.
And then those extra two years, Igot to about 30 times my expenses.
And again, This whole time I'm thinking,I never wanna be back in poverty again.
So I didn't wanna leave and everhave to think about being in
poverty again or for my daughterto ever have to think about it.
(10:42):
So the 30 times expenses was morecomfortable to me, and I felt like that
gave me the extra cushion that I needed.
So the thing I wanna point out here, andwhen I, I'm in a lot of general audiences,
not smart five people like you guys, but.
The whole takeaway from this slide isthat I was living off of less than I earn.
(11:04):
If you spend everything you earn, evenif you make 000 a year, if you spend all
of that, you will never build wealth.
So the next part is mysaving and investing.
I feel like I was abetter saver and investor.
Then budgeter.
So lean into your superpower.
That's what I had to do.
So I first saved 10 percent because that'swhat everybody told me to do, right?
(11:26):
I got a little bit of a company match andI thought this is where I needed to be.
So I moved that up.
When I started wakingup, I moved it up to 40%.
And you know what?
It didn't even feel that hard.
I just didn't know what to do.
I could have been doing the40 percent a lot sooner and
probably would have made it to it.
Fire a lot sooner.
(11:47):
So this is how the savings broke out.
So I maxed out the 401k.
I had a very generous company match.
I maxed out my Roth IRA.
I never made be above the amount where Icouldn't contribute directly to my Roth.
I maxed out the family HSA.
That was me and my daughter.
And I had about 2, 000 inother investments, so that's
(12:10):
how all of that broke out.
Now, on this slide, the main thingis that I started with something.
So when I, you know, sort of figuredsome things out and I started getting on
the right path, I didn't start at zero.
So when people say, well, I'm barelysaving anything, it's better than nothing.
It's better than starting at zero.
(12:30):
So this is my last W2 in 2019,and this is a decent year.
A part of my salary wascommissioned, so it would vary.
So this is a decent year.
So this is not, I know,don't laugh at my paycheck.
Okay.
California people don't laugh atmy paycheck, but I, I got this
year, this last, my last full yearat my company was about 90, 000.
(12:52):
And then you can see all thedeductions that are coming out.
Right.
And my.
Take home after that was about 58, 000.
So already that's a huge chunkgone before I ever see it.
And then after that, the taxes tookme down to about 50, 000 a year.
And then I lived off about 40 to 45.
So there's a missing 5, 000somewhere, but you know, I got close.
(13:16):
So as you can see, all of thedeductions that were coming out,
so that's going into savings.
And, and honestly, when I wasreally young, like in my twenties,
when I was Putting money into my401k, it didn't feel like my money.
So I didn't even think of it as my money.
And I guess either nobody explainedthat to me or I didn't understand.
And I may have felt differently aboutit if I knew it was longer term.
(13:41):
And maybe if I knew that I didn'thave to wait until I was 65.
So that's something that seemslike younger people will grasp
a little bit better to say, youdon't have to wait until you're
65, you can take a career break orsabbatical, or, you know, this is.
Your cushion of money.
This is your money.
Because I didn't graspthat when I was in my 20s.
So here's the network breakdownafter saving all that money, right?
(14:05):
So I've got the 401k.
That was the bulk of it.
The next one was the traditional roleof IRA and that happened to be the
split when I got divorced and we didthe quadro quadro and all of that.
So that grew to be mysecond largest pot of money.
And then here are all the other ones,health savings account, Roth IRA.
I had a teeny tiny company pension, notlike the juicy one that you're getting.
(14:28):
So, but I was happy to have it.
You know, there's the car and all of that
Obviously, this didn't happen overnight.
So I like to show the timeline.
So this was 2004, you know, right atsort of my pivot point to like 2022.
So if you look and if youhaven't done this, this is
kind of a cool exercise, right?
(14:49):
Kind of plot your net worth oryour five number grow along with
what was going on in your life.
So when I did it, It kind of lookedlike this, you know, peaks and valleys.
And then we had that nasty, nasty 2022.
I wasn't contributing anything in 2022.
So my net worth dropped bylike 21 percent in 2022.
We know it bounced back, but youknow, it still wasn't pretty.
(15:12):
And I can tell you that the mostpowerful exercise I've ever done with
my money has been a net worth statement.
So for younger people, that isa great thing to start with.
If they're saying, Hey, howdo I become a millionaire?
How do I become rich?
You say, let's start with a net worth.
Let me show you what that is.
(15:32):
So next, I get this question all the time.
I used to not have it in my slides, butI'll just share what I was invested in and
not even recommending it to anyone else.
But this is what I had.
I had some cash and cash equivalent.
When I retired, I made sure that I had atleast three years worth of living expenses
in cash that was not in the stock market.
(15:53):
So COVID scared me, no doubt, but Ishouldn't have been as bothered as I
was because I did have that set aside.
I have that little frozen pensionthat's sort of fixed income too.
I have my single stock portfolioand my investment club portfolio
and The rest is like a growth stock.
I lean towards growth, whichis another confession, but
(16:15):
we'll talk about that later.
When I said peace out at my job,I wrote him a nice little letter.
That was my resignation letter, and Iwon't bore you with the whole thing,
but I said to them, I know my 40s is alittle early to retire, and some may even
say I'm giving away the golden ticket.
My dad would have said that.
But I've certainly spent manymonths, maybe even years, imagining
(16:40):
such a divergence from the norm.
And ultimately, I came to this conclusion.
I could either follow atraditional path or blaze my own.
And I chose the latter.
So that was the end.
Yeah.
So the, the,
so last night.
(17:00):
We had a group that was talking onthe topic of life after fire, so we
get a lot of questions about that.
People like, what does that look like?
Well I wanted to mention five just randomthings that I learned since I retired.
Precision is not required.
I would have never felt that way.
Approaching fire, but afterwards, I'mlike, I stressed out a little too much,
(17:22):
or I was a little too precise withthat spreadsheet and all of that stuff.
So precision is not required.
There are big bonuses rollingover your retirement account.
Everybody talks about travelbonuses and rewards points.
When I was my biggest chunkof money was in my 401k.
Well, I was strategic about,rolling it over to an IRA.
It's like whoever was thehighest bidder with the best
bonus money, that's who got it.
(17:43):
So it is really possible to getyour tax rate, your effective
tax rate, down to zero.
I did it.
I've been retired for four, five years.
I did it twice.
So I'm like, Oh, this is great.
Cause I would read about it.
I'm like, really?
So I learned that the valueof community and like minded.
So even though I'm retired, Iwill always come to Phi events.
I will always come to Camp Phi.
I just enjoy the energy.
(18:05):
And I learned that there wasplenty of free mint leaves at
the park that I go to every day.
And it was mainly because I wasprobably thinking about work.
I was thinking about other stuff.
And finally, when I slowed down,I'm like, are those mint leaves?
And I love mint leaves.
I love to put them in my martiniand they smell really good.
But those were just some random things.
Some other things here.
I'm not quite as I used to be.
(18:28):
And let me tell you why.
My withdrawal rate ismuch less than I thought.
I was estimating 4 percentlike everybody else, right?
Health insurance is cheaper.
You know, I get really goodsubsidies from the ACA.
I budgeted a whole lot more.
My health savings account has growna lot more than I estimated, so
I'm figuring out, okay, how do Ikind of do my drawdown with that?
(18:49):
I just, a little, that littletiny pension I told you about, I
decided to annuitize it because Iwasn't familiar with the pension.
But finally, when I figured out how itworked and all these options, I'm like,
wait a minute, I probably shouldn't justroll it over as a lump sum into my IRA.
So I'm going to annuitize that.
It roughly will be about 500 bucksa month for the rest of my life.
I'm like, I figured that out.
(19:10):
And then I realized that SocialSecurity is a powerful backstop.
I was way too pessimistic.
So I'm glad that I took thetime to really understand that.
Lastly what am I doing now?
Just a few things.
I, that daughter of mine,she's doing pretty good.
I think she's second gen Phi.
I feel pretty good about that.
I'm focused on financialliteracy and education.
When I left, I had a whiteboard.
(19:32):
And at the center of it wasfinancial literacy and education.
So whatever I was doing, it had to alignwith that or else it was going to be a no.
I did go back and earn my master's degree.
I know the worst return on investmentever because I'm not really doing
much with it, but I wanted todo it for my own satisfaction.
I ended up with a 4.
0 and this was a big do over for mebecause I nearly flunked out of undergrad
(19:55):
because I was working full time and Ihad a lot of stress and things going on.
Thank you.
And I didn't stop there.
I earned some financial credentialsbecause, you know, I don't think
that there's enough financialprofessionals, CFPs, AFCs, or
whatever that know the FHIR community.
So I feel like we are actuallygoing to have to breed our own.
(20:17):
So if anybody's ever interestedin going for the CFP, the AFC,
or whatever I did all of that.
I don't plan to practice like But inthe traditional way, but I feel like
I can use my CFP in a way that's goingto benefit the communities and the
people that I want to give back to.
So luckily I had the luxury of doingthat got all kinds of passion projects.
(20:39):
And I'm wondering if Istill, I'm still retired.
I'm not ready to say that I'mnot retired because a lot of this
stuff isn't bringing me much money.
The biggest things that I'm working onis I have the book fire for dummies.
You've seen that.
And then I co host a podcastcalled catching up to fight.
And my wonderful co host is Dr. BillYount, who has shared who has been
very vulnerable and shared his storyof a very high income earner and how
(21:01):
he was a late starter living paycheckto paycheck for most of his life too.
So I respect him a lot.
One other thing is just fiveyears after retirement, this is
what the portfolio looks like.
A lot of people ask about that.
So I started at 1.
3. It was growing until 2022.
We had that big dive, right?
It popped right back.
So at the, by the, at the end of2023, my net worth had grown and
(21:25):
I'd been retired for four years.
Taking money out of my portfolio.
Thank you.
Okay.
Now let's get into it.
Okay.
After five years being in retirement,this is something I haven't
really talked about before, butI have a few confessions to make.
So I'm hoping I'm in among friends andyou won't laugh at me or say anything
(21:45):
or judge me or anything like that.
And hopefully there's other people.
So so, so I'm admitting that today.
And I call these my non fire confessions.
And guess what?
They did not wreck my plans.
All these happened kind of before.
They didn't wreck my plans andthey won't wreck your easer.
So, so if you're not doing everythingperfect, that's okay because you're human.
We're all human.
(22:06):
So In case you don't, anyone doesn'tknow the tenants of fire and this
is not the official, but thesekind of hit most of them, right?
Index fund investing, minimizing yourexpenses, especially the big three,
optimizing taxes, multiple streamsof income, decreasing, you know, high
(22:28):
interest debt, increasing your savings,and then that 4 percent rule and,
you know, the 25 times your expenses.
So that's just a quickreminder of these tenants.
And.
Some of the confessions here goagainst these tenants, right?
Okay.
So the first one well, I'll go throughthe five and then I'll explain.
Okay.
So I used the 401k loan.
Okay.
I've retired while still having debt.
(22:49):
Every financial professionalwarns against that, right?
I never use VTSX as my goto fund, you know, VTS.
V-T-S-A-X and chill.
I've got probably the little stopsign with the cross through it.
Let's see.
I invest in individualstocks, as I mentioned.
Yeah, they, okay.
I got somebody on my side.
I drive a luxury car, so I knowsome, look, I know somebody's
(23:11):
California people drive, somebody'sdriving a Tesla, somebody's driving
a Tesla all and there you go.
They, I would've thoughtit was you, LA guy.
Okay.
. But wait, let, let explain
. So let me explain.
So, okay, so the 401k loan, I, and Iwas sitting with someone that said this
too, so like, don't bail on me now, butI took a 401k loan it was 2009, so it
(23:38):
was right after the real estate bust,got a really great deal on it, decided
I was going to take, I was going topay for it with cash, took the 50, 000
401k loan, Use some of my own money,and I looked at all the provisions,
and this is interesting that one ofthe provisions was that if you separate
(23:58):
from service, you could still continuepaying the loan through the custodian.
So I'm like, that makesme feel a lot better.
I breathe easier.
And then remember the principles.
The principal and the interest Iwas paying was going back into my
401k, so I was getting a littlebit more in there than I normally
would have, so I did that one.
So who would have done this if theywere presented with this scenario?
(24:19):
Anybody?
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I won't say.
How little people.
Okay, here's the next one.
Retired while still having debt.
Okay.
So I kept my mortgage.
I looked at it.
I looked at the interest rate.
The debt did not keep me up at night, butI know it does bother a lot of people,
but I had to look at it for me and I wasplanning to sell the house at the time.
(24:40):
I did not sell as soon as I thoughtI still have the house, but that's so
that's why I ended up doing that one.
Okay.
The next VTSAX, I hadto do my own research.
I know it's a very easy way to do it.
And if you don't want to do anyresearch or anything, that will get
you where you want to go or somethingsimilar, but I'm growth minded.
I think it comes frominvesting an individual.
(25:02):
Stocks or individual companies.
So my go to fund is justa Vanguard growth fund.
That's still very low fee, but Idid the research up front so that
whenever I want a stock fund in myportfolio, that's the one I go to.
So I never really did VTSAX.
Okay.
I invest in single stocks.
I know somebody thinks this is crazy, butI love doing research on great companies.
(25:26):
That investment club, it was reallyhelpful and I felt really good about
really digging into Apple and theleadership at Apple and the growing
sales and stuff that bores people.
And most people don't havethe inclination, but I do.
I nerd out on it.
I've even attended annual meetings.
I vote my proxy.
(25:46):
So I think I will always havea single stock portfolio.
So that's me on that one.
The last one, I drive a luxury car.
Can I talk myself out of this one?
Okay.
I still follow the tenant ofsort of lowering the expenses.
We've got people obviouslythat buy or lease cars.
It always has to, alwayshas to be brand new.
I always buy pre owned.
(26:07):
My sweet spot is three to fiveyears where I can get it about
half off of what it costs.
My favorite brand is Lexus becausethey're very low maintenance.
It's basically a Toyota luxury Toyota.
Basically.
I keep my cars for a long time, abouteight to 10 years, and I usually
pay cash or I will pay it off.
So in my mind, that's lowering my.
(26:30):
Transportation costs and I don't feel likeI need to drive a beater, but you know,
a lot of people appreciate buying a car.
That's 300, 000 miles.
I just don't.
But that's that's my confession on that.
So, so what is the point?
Okay, why am I even telling you this?
So, I just want you to kind of know thatthe tennis of fire are wonderful, but
(26:51):
remember that your journey is unique.
You may not have the same confessionsas me, but there's probably some
things that you just have duginto and decided, you know what?
I think it's better doing it this way.
Your situation is just different.
Then just think.
Mindfully about the decisions that you'remaking and just make it make sense.
You know, be mindful, be the new.
(27:14):
Anyway no, no one decisionwill wreck your fire plans.
We're all going to make mistakes.
It doesn't have to throw youoff or anything like that.
And even if it goes againstthe grain stay away from it.
Small minded, judgy people, you know,sometimes before I can get, yeah,
I took a 401k loan out of my mouth.
They're like, Oh my God, youshould never take a 401k.
And I know that, you know, but mygenerally, if someone's telling me
(27:37):
something that are in my head, I knowit's sort of against the grain or
doesn't kind of follow the tenets.
I'll just say, well, well, tell mea little, I'm just more curious than
anything because, for the most part,I'm around pretty smart people.
So I know there's probably a reason.
So, I would like to ask, whatare your non fire confessions,
if anybody is willing to share?
(27:58):
But this concludes thepresentation, and I thank you
guys for not judging me too much.
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