March 26, 2025 • 43 mins
'Catching Up to FI' founder and co-host, Bill Yount, appeared as a guest on the EverydayFI podcast with host Meghan Combs. The show explores the lives and stories of everyday people in the financial independence community so Bill opens up about his FI journey as a late starter. He of course represents our Catching Up to FI community. He had a lot to say so this is the second part of a two-part episode. The first part was aired last Wednesday (episode 128) so be sure to check it out.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome back to catching up to FI.
I'm your cohost Jackie Cummings Koski.
And for this special episode,we're sharing part two of Bill's
guest appearance on the everydayFI podcast with Megan Combs.
She explores the lives andstories of everyday people in the
financial independence community.
So Bill opens up about hisFI journey as a late starter.
(00:25):
And even I learned somenew things about Bill.
So you want to tune in for this.
He of course represents ourcatching up to FI community.
Bill had a lot to say.
So this is a two parter as Imentioned, and we aired the
first part last Wednesday.
So now let's get into part two.
(00:46):
Welcome to Catching Up to FI, apodcast on mindset, money, and life
for late starters of any age on theirjourney to financial independence.
I'm Bill and I'm a late starter.
I'm Jackie, and I'm also a latestarter and we're your host.
We're here to help you on yourjourney to financial independence,
no matter where you're starting.
We're going to talk to experts,other late starters, and explore
(01:07):
topics related to our mission.
Join us as we catch up to FI together.
Welcome to Everyday Fi, thepodcast that explores the lives and
stories of everyday people in thefinancial independence community.
We're back with part two of Bill'sstory that we embarked on last week.
In today's episode, we get intoBill's money origin story, which
(01:29):
leads us to talking about financialliteracy, the good, the bad, and
what we can do about it at home.
We also dive into Bill's journeyto finding the FI community and
his why of FI as someone whois a latecomer to the movement.
Towards the end of the episode,Bill shares his current
challenges and wins in life.
Plus, we both wax poeticabout the parallels between
(01:52):
health and personal finance.
I want to hear more aboutyour early money story.
So we know a little bitthat your dad was a doctor.
But I want to hear about what growingup with money was like for you.
So let's start with what one ofyour earliest money memories is.
It's a good question.
And it's one that I come up witha different answer for every
(02:14):
time when I get a flashback.
But you know, my early memories are,there's a paucity of them in my childhood.
I'm not sure if it's because mybrain hadn't developed or there
was a particular amount of trauma.
But no, there was enough to go around.
Yes.
My dad was a doctor, buthe was a state employee.
They're mostly negative memories,unfortunately more micro money
(02:38):
traumas along the way, it wasthe typical patriarchal family.
My mom was a stay at home mom afterhaving been a nurse that married a doctor.
And we lived in a modest house, a verymiddle class upbringing, three kids.
And there was always enough,but I still got jeans from Sears
that could stand up on their own.
(02:59):
Like they were starched.
remember this, but they were very stiffjeans before the day of stonewashed jeans.
That's how old I am.
And so we shopped frugally.
I didn't know that my parentspaid cash for their cars.
They never talked about that,which I find interesting because I
might've done something like that.
If I'd have heard him say it, I remembermy dad doing the taxes every year.
(03:21):
We heard.
He was already a workaholic.
And then when tax season came aroundin March, we wouldn't see him for a
month because he was trying to scam thegovernment out of every penny he could.
And he even got audited one year,which traumatized me for taxes.
And I've, I've did my own taxeswhen it was the easy form.
But as soon as I became a full fledgedphysician, I handed that over to an
(03:45):
accountant and was happy to do so.
My first personal memory of money wasI never went to camp day camp, summer
camp when I was nine years old, I workedat camp, I earned 5 a week and I would
hang out with the four year olds andtwindle around with them doing whatever
activities a four year old does at camp.
(04:07):
Even probably took naps with them, butso I earned a very low wage, but it
was a lot of money to me back then.
And I've worked ever since at variousjobs in the service industry going
through high school and college.
I was a waiter.
And so tips were a big deal, but theminimum wage back then was probably 2.
(04:28):
85 or 3, something like that.
So it never felt like a lotof money, but I didn't learn
how to spend for my parents.
I didn't learn how to save for my parents.
I definitely didn't learn how to invest.
It, it leaves you kind of.
(04:48):
Feeling empty when you realizethat your parents didn't help you
with one of the most importantthings you have to do as an adult.
And then there's some armchairquarterbacking when they say,
well, I know you were doing allthese wrong things with money.
I'm like, well, why didn'tyou help me prospectively?
Why is it sort of a punitive thing?
So there's not one memory andit did provide, I shouldn't say
(05:11):
there are some positive memories.
We would go on some nice vacationsand we lived in London for a year.
So there are some very nicememories, largely around travel.
Uh, that we were able to do, butmajority of the memories were more
micro and negative and they compounded.
And it left me sort of wanting,I think, to spend and not
(05:32):
learning how to spend healthily.
As we talked about with Doug Norman andhis wife, Carol, his daughter, Carol,
and how he brought her up, learning tospend is the first thing you need to do.
You learn to save later, kind oflearned how to healthily spend.
And I didn't learn that.
It makes a lot of sense with how yousaid you kind of came to FI later,
(05:54):
that that would be your upbringing.
And it makes me curious, why do you thinkyour parents didn't teach you about money?
It sounded like they knew somethingabout money, especially if your
dad was spending a month on taxes.
Why do you think they didn't teach you?
Well, they're a boomer generation, right?
And I think it's somewhat generational.
They came from parents that werethe sons and daughters of depression
(06:16):
and they didn't talk about sex orreligion or politics much either.
There wasn't a lot of healthydiscourse in my family.
I think that was part and parcel to someof the pathology that was already there.
My parents ended up gettingdivorced after a lot of turmoil.
And I think divorce is probably commonin financial illiterate families.
(06:40):
I would imagine that's just my own bias.
My mom came into an inheritance andmy dad made her invest in something
called church's fried chicken.
And that company didn't do well and herinvestment didn't do well, but he was
telling her what to do with her money.
And she towed the line as opposed tomaking a financial decision for herself,
which was, you know, in patriarchalfamilies, that's very common, you
(07:03):
know, and one of the things we tryand do with our show, and I'm sure
you're with your show is empower women.
To take control of their financiallives because there needs to be equity
and parity across the gender spectrum.
Yeah, absolutely.
I have talked freely about how I am thehigher earner in my partnership and my
(07:26):
partner moved into my house that I own.
We both own.
Property separately, but we also cametogether later in life, you know, he's
going to be 35 in a couple of weeks.
I'm 37 and we met in our mid thirties,whereas generations before us were
married with freaking 10, 12 yearolds by the time they were our age.
(07:47):
So I think for millennials and GenZ, it's a little bit different.
But I do think that there's stillthat aspect of, and it might, the
gender part of it might be going away,but there's still an aspect of in
relationships, one person tends to drivethe money conversations and the money
decisions more than another person.
I hear that a lot on Ramit's podcast.
(08:09):
Now, obviously he's taking peopleon who have money problems.
So that's, you know, already there'slike a bias there when you're
listening to the people on there,but you still see this, you know.
Genderless idea of the person who makesless or maybe who stays home with the kids
thinks they're not contributing enoughto the relationship because they put this
(08:32):
inherent value in money and meaning likethey tie their own self worth to money.
And that's something that that's morewhat I like to talk about is like
you're worthy despite what money youmake, but it is very important to.
Understand money because like yousaid, it's a language that we all, not
(08:56):
everybody does know, but everybody shouldknow because it's the tool that you
have to know how to use in your life.
It just is everywhere andit's funny the other day.
My partner and I were talking to mymom and we were talking about the
fact that politics has been one ofthose things where people are like,
Oh, we don't talk about politics.
(09:17):
And I'm like, that's like sayingyou don't talk about money when
it's literally in every singlething that you do every single day.
So like, if you complain about a potholein your road that hasn't been fixed
for a month on end, that's politics.
Those are your elected officials whoare supposed to get that fixed for you.
And guess what?
It also takes.
Money to fix that pothole orthose streetlights that are out
(09:40):
or whatever, or fund the schoolthat you send your kids to.
Like it's everywhere.
Why are we not talking about this?
And I get it because people arelike, Oh, they don't want to fight.
And I find that so interesting.
That's what I'm trying to undo islike, it doesn't need to be a fight.
It just needs to be a discourse.
Like it just needs to be a conversation.
(10:00):
You're correct.
And then brought up anothermemory because in my household
growing up, money was a weapon.
It was a tool that was more of a hatchetand, you know, my mom was the spender.
My dad was the earner and therewas a lot of animosity there and.
And there was tight reins placedon money between the two of them.
(10:21):
And money was certainly one of thethings that broke up the marriage.
There was a lot of other things,but that certainly played a role.
And I remember lots of fights, you know,our dinner table was a war zone at times,
and it was not fun to sit down at a familydinner because it turned into a fight.
Yeah.
And I mean, that's unfortunate.
And it makes me wonder with thatkind of atmosphere that you grew up
(10:47):
and with that kind of idea of moneyas a blade, as a weapon, how do you
think that affected or shapes yourfinancial philosophies as an adult?
I mean, we've kind of alluded to thisa little bit, but specifically, do
you see any parallels with how yourparents have Handled money, talked
about money, didn't talk about moneyand your adult life prior to five.
(11:10):
Let's talk about prior to five, right?
Because after five, we've changedand we've evolved and we are now
a better version of ourselves.
But prior to five, how do youthink that shaped your life?
Well, it comes down to a scarcityversus abundance mindset.
And the memories I have about moneyearly on, I think left me with a
scarcity mindset so that when itturned into the fact that I had money
(11:35):
to spend, I wanted to spend it andI don't just spend it on myself.
I mean, I wanted to.
Give it to others.
And so I'd say, you know, on my wifeand family, and we're, we're very like
minded when it comes to what we do,we're not necessarily frugal, which
is one of the reasons we're not FI.
(11:56):
We were able to downsize.
We were able to downshift.
We downsized our house, ourcars, they're all paid off.
We're debt free actually now.
And so we're on the samepage and that's different.
And was true for our parents.
We have a much healthierrelationship now with money.
We were out of balance.
There was scarcity on the front end.
(12:16):
There was spend thriftiness in the middle.
And now we've reached sort of a periodof balance where, you know, we, we
don't, we don't fight about money, butwe have similar priorities, similar
values, and those are the thingsyou've got to assess before you can
really wield money as a proper tool.
Did you ever fight about moneywith your wife, including when
(12:39):
you found the buy movement?
Not, no, not since then.
And she's been very supportive.
She's come to the conferences with me.
She loves the social aspect ofit and the friends we've made.
She just wants me to make sure thatthe money is there when she needs it.
So it provides a little bit of stress.
You know, do we sit downand talk about a budget?
No, do I track it?
Yes.
(12:59):
And I'll needler sometimes when I say, youknow, we need to rein it in this month.
She doesn't want to get intothe spreadsheet details and I'm
not a spreadsheet person either.
So we're on the same page, but I handlethe money from a mechanical aspect.
She's more of the visionary big pictureperson and she knows what's going on.
(13:21):
I largely, and when Iask her, she's on it.
Yeah, and that's what's important.
It's important that she knows thatthe trajectory is in line with what
her goals are and what your goalsare and potentially where some money
is, you know, like percentage wise.
But otherwise, I don't thinkit's important for people
to know the nitty gritty.
Like I said, there's only one personin the relationship who usually
(13:43):
takes the reins on the day to day.
Who's in the spreadsheets,that would be me.
It's probably the people whohave the podcast talking about
money who are in the spreadsheet.
No, I mean, if there's one thing thatwe sometimes disagree on is how much.
Economic outpatient care to give our kids,her boundaries aren't necessarily as good
(14:03):
with, you know, throwing money at thekids and that's just sort of one of her
values and I tend to want to reign it in.
And so we'll have, Iwouldn't call them fights.
I would call them discussions,disagreements, or we have to come
to a resolution as, you know, isthis really actually healthy for
us to do for our kids as opposed toletting them do it for themselves.
(14:25):
It's commendable that you guyscan come together and have that
healthy discourse or dialogue whenit comes to those kinds of things.
I want to know about how youfound financial independence.
I'm very, very curious about thatbecause, you know, you were trucking
along doing the doctor thing, living upthe life, you got the expensive home,
the expensive cars, the expensive trips,and then five dropped in your lap.
(14:49):
What's that story like, how, whointroduced you to this and why
did it resonate with you more thansay another financial philosophy?
It's relatively straightforward.
I was turning 50 and had sortof a, you can call it a midlife
or late life wake up call.
As I mentioned, you know,this is very common story.
(15:12):
The kids are exiting the nest, butyou're focusing on them differently.
I had a job crisis at that time.
And I Googled something along the linesof financial independence, but before
even that, I was like, Oh, I found it.
I found Bill Bernstein first.
(15:33):
He's a retired neurologistwho is a financial guru.
He's written many books on the subject.
I've met him in person.
He's brilliant.
The book that I ended up landing onwas the Intelligent Asset Allocator.
And the funny thing is I told himthis, this book is complicated.
This is not where you want to startyour journey because, and it wasn't Mr.
(15:57):
Money Mustache, like everybodyelse, I had to get out a financial
calculator to read through this book.
And figure out how to do a financialcalculator because of the things he
was teaching us through the book.
So I started pretty complex andI worked my way back to simple
over the next couple of years.
I was in analysis paralysis forprobably a year being a type a doctor.
(16:20):
I had to dive down the rabbithole of reading and listening to
everything before I found five.
I didn't really know what a podcast was.
I hadn't listened to a podcast.
Before I found five, you can see hereshelves upon shelves of financial books.
And I can say that I've read every one ofthem and I spent probably a year reading.
And then about thatpoint, I felt comfortable.
And exited the private bank where you'rein and pulled the assets over into
(16:44):
Fidelity and Vanguard to self manage.
And that was a huge shift.
It's not easy, you know, clickingthe buttons and moving hundreds
of thousands of dollars, causewe didn't start from zero.
You know, I honestly couldn't probablyeven go back and calculate our net worth.
We still had a significant mortgageand we may have been a net worth
(17:05):
of around zero, but we weren'tnegative after reading that book.
Thought to myself, somebody shoulddo this for doctors, somebody should
educate doctors what's going on here.
And when I googled it, I found Jim Dollyand the white coat investor and he had
started blogging around 2011 or 2013.
(17:26):
So he was about.
Two or three years into hisjourney, he hadn't started his
podcast or his media empire.
He had just been a blogger and Ifound him and he'd already done it.
I mean, I could have beenthe white coat investor.
I could have been the guy,but he got there first.
Well, there can alwaysbe more than one, right?
I mean, There's so many FI podcastsnow that end with the word FI every
(17:49):
day, catching up to FI, choose a FI.
So you could have been, but no, Ilove the fact that your journey took
you to catching up to FI, becauselike you said, I think you fill a
niche and that is desperately needed.
So I'm kind of glad you weren'tthe first white coat investor.
Funny thing is the emphasisis on starting not late.
You know, late as a negative emotion,starting as a positive emotion.
(18:13):
And our logo has a clock that's inmotion where you get on the five
treadmill and you start out slowand then you get going faster.
As a late starter, you have to get fastera little bit sooner, but late starters are
the average American as we refer to it.
I mean, you can start out,you're starting on time.
If you're starting yourthirties, you're really not late.
(18:34):
You know, you're 20 as you're figuringout life, the original tech bro person
that fired in the early 30s is a totalanomaly and is not a good example of what
five really means, quite honestly, theylived a life of deprivation, not balance.
I would never want that for myself.
You probably need to spend yourtwenties figuring out a lot of stuff,
(18:56):
but you should be able to start bythe time you're 30 because one of my.
Monikers is work 20 for themoney and the rest for joy.
And so if you started at age 30 andyou were on a 30 to 50 percent savings
rate, you're going to be done at 45 to50 ish, depending on how much debt you
start with and how you manage your money.
(19:17):
So, you know, you'll retire early, butlate starters are the average American.
And it's also Gen X isthe silent generation.
We got caught in between the definedbenefit plan and the defined contribution
plan, and nobody told me what a 401k was.
You know, that came online in the1970s when I was about 10 years old.
So my dad had not invested into a 401k.
(19:38):
He was in a state pension plan and it'shard to learn about a pension plan.
And that's how he grew up.
So it wasn't like he waseducating me on the 401k.
Nobody pulled me aside.
There's like three simple thingsyou got to do for somebody.
Pull them aside when they start thefirst job and say, max out your 401k.
Pull them aside and say, just invest ina hundred percent stocks and you're good
(20:01):
for 20 years and you're going to be fine.
Nobody mentioned that to me.
You know, pay yourselffirst, track your money.
The lessons are like three,four or five lessons.
And if you just listen tothose, you will be fine.
Yeah, exactly.
I was actually talking to Alan, thepodcast that's going to come out before
yours about the half privilege, but halfburden we have today with the Internet
(20:27):
and how much information is out thereand how, you know, back in your day,
you had to have somebody, like you say,pull you aside to tell you about this.
There wasn't just a swath ofinformation on the Internet
that you could go and find this.
And so, cool.
If somebody didn't do that,then you didn't know, you didn't
know what you didn't know.
And today, now there's kind oflike the opposite problem where
(20:50):
there's too much information.
And so now it's hard to parse throughwhat's what you should do because you
have all those crypto bros out therewho are like yeet it all into Bitcoin
or, you know, Dogecoin or whatever.
So there's kind of like this.
Shift of, there's a little bit ofprivilege where you have access, a
lot of access to that information,but also the quality of information
(21:14):
is not necessarily the best either.
There's more to lifethan working for money.
And I think we're realizing that lifestyleis important, you know, but there's more
to life than having to work for money.
And, you know, if, if you,you know, play it right.
You're free from having to work formoney and you have time freedom after 15
(21:36):
or 20 years, then you've got your wholerest of your life to play at the things
that you want to try and experiment.
No, we have to put the work in.
There's no way that nothing is for free.
You have to put in the sweatequity to get to time freedom.
You will.
If you're conscious and intentionaland aware of what you're doing.
(21:59):
Yeah, for sure.
And if we can get the government to putpersonal finance classes in high schools.
Well, my Jackie Cummins Koski, my cohostis a financial educator, and she'll
tell you that there are 26 States thatrequire a semester of personal finance
in the nation and the next gen personalfinance headed up by Tim Ranzetta is
(22:20):
on a mission to make that a 52 States.
So it's happening.
It's our challenge, you and I, aspodcasters and everybody else in this
creator space, to unwind the generationaltrauma of not talking about money,
not educating about money, making sureeverybody speaks English and money.
Yes.
Preach.
Anyway, yeah, it's my partner andI the other day, we're just talking
(22:44):
about, you know, how Irritating itis that you have four years of, you
know, literature class in high school,like every single semester, like
you have to have English literatureevery single semester of your high
school, I swear, at least minded, but.
I had one semester of governmentclass and it was an elective.
(23:06):
It wasn't even required.
And personal finance, forget it.
We didn't have anything like that.
And I was like, okay, I'm sorry.
What are the two classes that are goingto actually set people up for success?
Government, personal finance,not English literature, we do not
need to learn about Shakespeare.
He's been dead for 500 years.
Okay, I'm sorry, like no disson Shakespeare, but one semester
(23:29):
of Shakespeare, four or eightsemesters of government class.
Institutional learningchanges very slowly.
It's a victim of the boomer generationto, you know, now we live in an era
where you can educate yourself onanything that wasn't necessarily so
easy before things like the internet,but, you know, getting change processed
(23:51):
politically in schools is really hard.
We're not as nimble as we would liketo be like a small business would
be, uh, you would like to thinkwe are, but finally we're seeing.
You know, the rock get up to thetop of the hill and it's going
to roll down like a snowball.
I hope for my grandkids, becausemodeling how you deal with money is
(24:12):
as important, if not more importantthan learning the technical language
of it in school, you've got to, youknow, how your parents model it.
But you learn about the language inschool, how do you apply it becomes
the issue and I take it a step furtherand you know, people require social
service projects in high school, theyshould require you have a job, they
(24:32):
should require that you go work andget a paycheck because once you've got
that paycheck and you want to learnhow to read it and you want to learn
how to pay your taxes on it and youwant to learn about banking and then
you want to learn about investing,then it becomes instantly applicable.
We do it almost in reverse.
You know, it's like trying tolearn German without ever going
(24:53):
to Germany and living there.
It's really hard to do.
You've got live in that environment.
And so jump in, have yourtween or teen get a job and
figure out how to manage money.
And at the same time, they'relearning the language of money.
It's so much easier and morefun to learn when it is real.
(25:16):
And even if you don't get the job, likeI'm thinking of both personal finance
and government, if there's actual reallife examples that a teacher can give
a student to do, like, Hey, we're goingto give you some fake monopoly money.
You have to budget it.
If you don't budget itcorrectly, if you don't invest
it correctly, then you fail this.
(25:37):
A project and howinteresting would that be?
Because then it's not like beinglectured at, you're actually
interacting and learning that way.
And yeah, it's something that I wouldlove to do if they ever opened up public
education to outside consultants whocould come in and do some of that stuff.
I would love to do that.
I don't have any creds though,so you probably couldn't do it.
(26:00):
Oh, you probably could, because asI mentioned before, Tim Renzetta.
Is the head of next gen personalfinance, they've on their website,
they've established curriculumsbecause what happened was the teachers
weren't taught how to teach moneyand you're having to reteach teachers
that want to help their students thisway, but just didn't have the tools.
So next gen personal financehas provided the tools.
(26:23):
For the teachers, teaching theteachers to teach the kids.
Uh, there's over a hundred thousandteachers involved with this organization.
We've had him on our show.
I would encourage people to golisten to that episode and learn
more about what he's doing.
It's just incredible.
And there's a lot of momentumin the right direction.
We're talking about money here today, andwe want to reach at least on our podcast.
(26:43):
And I'm sure you do too.
People outside.
Of this bubble, of this space we'reoperating inside of the bubble, the people
we need to reach are the ones where theperson that enters the bubble says, Oh,
I've got 10 friends that need to hearthis message and bring them with you.
I think more and more people are hearingthe term financial independence and even
(27:05):
the term retire early and their ears perkup in a positive way than they used to.
So even today, beforewe hit record, I was.
At work, you know, and I dropped frommeeting early because I told them I want
to prep for my interview and they'relike, Oh my God, you have a podcast.
What's it about?
And I was like, Oh, you know,it's a personal finance podcast.
(27:26):
Oh, cool.
Like what kind of personal finance?
And I said, it's about the fire movement.
And one of the guys was like, Ohmy God, you mean the retire early?
Send me your podcast.
I really want to listen toit because I just found that.
And it's so cool.
And he just went off and was so excited.
And my boss even was like, do youwant to interview me on there?
And I was like, only if youbecome part of the community.
He's like, sure, I'll do that.
(27:47):
Let me, you mentioned the workplacebecause when I drank the Kool
Aid back when I turned 50, all Iwanted to do was talk about money.
And my kids got tired of it, so I starteda Facebook group called Financial Literacy
Project, where I brain dumped all theinformation I was learning, because
they didn't want to hear it anymore.
I was called Lecture Daddy, andthat's not how to change behavior,
(28:09):
as I've learned the hard way.
But one day I was talking to the youngdoctors to be, who were scribes at the
time, about money, because they weregetting ready to take on student loans.
And make some big boy decisions andbig girl decisions at a very young age,
you know, can you imagine being 18 andtaking on hundreds of thousand dollars
of loans with free money, so to speak,at least free on the front end so.
(28:33):
I was told not to talk aboutmoney by one of my colleagues,
who was my direct supervisor.
We don't talk about money at work.
A few years later, I start apodcast and this has been going on
now a year and a half, two years.
Everybody at work, it's leaked out.
Everybody at work knows I'm doing thispodcast and then they'll come up to me
asking me about this or that episode.
(28:54):
And this is the paramedics, the nurses.
And then I have physician friends of minewho, when they start hearing people open.
For the discussion of money,they say, go listen to Catch
Amplify and I'm very flattered.
I've gotten more gratitude from the workwe've done, the play we have done on Catch
Amplify than I've probably gotten in 26years of being an emergency physician.
(29:18):
Yeah, it's that connection that yousaid that you lacked with your patients
that you now have with your listeners.
I love that.
Yeah, I love it.
I love the relationship andI get to meet a lot of them.
It's been a joy.
Just like talking to youhas been a joy today.
Oh, thank you.
You're so sweet.
Okay, so I want to know whyyou're pursuing FI to begin with.
(29:41):
I know that you felt like youwere On this path where you
said you had a zero net worth.
And so I get that you were kind ofcourse correcting, but at least like
have a retirement, but I guess whythe principles are, are you trying
to retire earlier than planned?
You said you're 80 percentthere and you're 59.
So that sounds like it'searlier than planned.
(30:01):
Or do you just want to hit likea regular retirement number?
And then when you do, what doesthat life look like for you after
you can quit working as a doctor?
Well, those are all good questions.
As far as what does life look after?
Well, I fear retirement.
I don't like the word retirement becausebeing a doctor, going to work 10 shifts
a month provides me with structure.
(30:23):
You know, it gives me a reasonto be, it's not necessarily
the thing I want to do anymore.
It's more of a job than itis a profession to me now.
So I am looking forward to thetime that ends and yet there is a
number, but it's not the number.
There's also a line in the sand asfar as time goes where, yeah, I want
to be retired by the time I'm 63.
(30:45):
But what does that mean?
Like I said, I hate the word retirement.
What does life on the otherside of that really look like?
Well, podcasting, sure.
Maybe paying attention a littlebit more to my health, but I need
to develop those interests beforeI retire, because that gives me
the power to achieve time freedom.
What are you going to do with that time?
You know, are you still going to set analarm to look forward to get out of bed
(31:08):
to, you know, every day is a Saturday.
And as people say, you can't play golfand sip martinis on the beach or my ties.
I think it is on the beach every day.
And you're going to have another.
20 or 30 years ahead of you.
No, for me, the clock isin some ways ticking down.
So I am looking forward to that timefreedom because before, while I'm still
(31:28):
in my go go years and, you know, slow goyears, I want to put off the no go years
as long as I can and why the principlesof five, well, cause it's healthy.
It's just, it's, it's likeyou're being a vegetarian, it's
a healthy way to live your life.
People don't want stress,anxiety, fear, all these negative
scarcity, mindset, emotions.
(31:50):
They want joy, abundance, happiness,engagement, community relationships.
And we need to use our time wisely,our money wisely to enable us to
focus on the things that pickle those.
Interests in our brain.
I could not agree more.
And it's funny that you saidyou can't golf and sit Mai
(32:14):
Tais on the beach every day.
I think you mentionedthat you interviewed Doug.
I just interviewed him too.
And he said that.
When he told people that he was retiringto go and surf, his colleagues were like,
you can't surf every day in retirement.
And he basically was like, watch me.
And he did for 20 years, just surf.
(32:36):
That's all he did was surf.
And I was like, yes, you showedthem that you absolutely could.
If you really wanted to sit Mai Tai'son a beach and that's all you did.
You can do it.
Okay, so we're wrapping up a little bit.
And one thing that I like to get frommy guests is any current struggles and
current wins they're going through rightnow, because that's a really great way
(33:00):
for us to connect to your story that'sgoing on now and not just your history.
So what would you say some of your currentstruggles or challenges right now are?
Losing weight would be one ofthem, and I'm focused on that for
the next year before I turn 60because it only becomes harder.
I've been very cavalier with my diet, andI need to be more intentional with that.
(33:21):
It's hard to keep all the platesspinning in the air at the same
time, and that's important to me.
I'm sure it's importantto a lot of people.
Obesity is a terrible diseasein our society, and we have
financial obesity, too.
You know, it's hard to go on a diet.
But you just need to, what's it called,Kaizen, where you do the 1 percent
(33:41):
better every day in the Japanese term.
As Brad Barrett says too often on hispodcast and his ChooseFIN newsletter,
just 1 percent better every day.
I'm actually taking medicine tohelp me too, because I've recognized
that I can't do it by myself.
I need, I needed help and asking forhelp, going to your doctor, which hadn't
(34:02):
been a habit of mine until more recently.
You know, you mentioned therapy, and Ithink that's important for people too.
There's a lot of money therapythat people need to work through.
We all want to find an abundance mindset.
That's where we all want to end up.
You know, giving is the art of receiving.
Yeah, I love that.
And if you don't mind me asking, areyou doing like Ozempic or something
(34:25):
like that for your weight loss, orare you doing something different?
We go V.
With Govee.
Is that another GLP one?
Yes, it is.
Okay.
My other podcast love is medical podcasts.
I absolutely love listening to them.
And I listened to this one called Dr.Karen Explorers and he's a UK doctor and
they had a weight loss episode and theytalked about Ozempic and stuff like that
(34:47):
and how they're like, it's just scratchingthe surface of what weight loss means
and why this works for weight loss whenit, that wasn't even its intended use.
It's the secondary use.
I also am having some weight issuesbecause I'm going through early menopause.
Menopause, you gain weight.
You just do.
I didn't change anything.
I do exercise.
(35:07):
I eat healthy.
And I still gained a tonof weight in my belly area.
And it freaked me out becauseit was 15 pounds in two months.
I've never gained weightthat fast in my life.
And I was like, what is happening?
No different than taking on debt.
You can take on a lotof debt really quickly.
Yeah, that's true.
Discharging that debtis like losing weight.
(35:28):
It's so funny how money and healthand wellness correlate so much.
I always say that aboutyour credit score too.
You can lower it really fast.
You can gain weight really fast,but then getting your credit score
back up and losing weight takes.
years.
And I'm like, why, why is it like this?
(35:48):
Why is the world like this?
Why can't kale taste like a donut?
Things are very simple in your mind.
They're not easy.
That's again, the brainemotion connect or disconnect.
They can be simple, but not easy.
Absolutely.
So tell us about someof your wins right now.
The podcast is a win.
(36:09):
I love working with mypartner, Jackie Cummins Costi.
I love working with Diana Socialmedia person provides me with
a lot of community engagement.
I love meeting the peoplewho are our guests.
They become friends.
I see them at conferences.
I love seeing the people that are in otherareas of the content creation business
(36:30):
in this space is, it is blown open.
My friendship circle.
It's hard to, as anadult, it is hard to meet.
New friends physically, unless you'reinvolved in an activity that provides
common ground and the financialindependence space is the common ground.
I go every year to the economyconference, see all my friends.
(36:52):
I go to other conferencesto see them as well.
Bogle heads, FinCon.
Camp fi and then I bumpinto him like today.
We are virtually the virtual world becomesreal and it really expands your horizons.
Everybody needs to participate atsome level or another and expanding
their friends circle this way.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
(37:13):
And I actually just hung outwith somebody I met at camp fi.
Her name's Tanya.
She lives here in Durhamwith me and she's with.
Travel penguin, and I'm goingto link that in the show notes.
And she makes jewelry.
We've had so much fun.
There's something in Durhamcalled Durham Central Park.
It's definitely not like New YorkCity's Central Park, but it's very cute.
It's a little quaint park and they havea farmer's market every other Saturday.
(37:37):
We went and it was such a blast.
And we talked about Fi and shesaid, I'm so happy that you
came with me because you're not.
Opposed to spending some money becausewe were spending some money on little
treats and I got some fresh arugula andwe did a candle making class together.
I probably spent like 75that day supporting small
(38:00):
businesses and things like that.
I told her, I was like,well, I'm a spender.
So I'm fine spending and if you everneed a friend to go and spend money with
you, you can call me, but it was so fun.
I want to hang out with her more often.
I even told her we should seriouslymake this a regular thing because I
have a hard time making friends asan adult, like you said, because.
(38:21):
I'm more discerning now that I'm older.
When you're in college, you kind ofjust hang out with whoever's in your
class and you just, you know, goout drinking or whatever with them.
And it doesn't matterwho they are as people.
They're just in your peer group.
So you hang out with them.
But now as an adult, I'm like,okay, do I actually want to spend
a lot of time with this human beingor are they not quite jiving with
(38:43):
what I want in my life right now?
And so that actually makes it kindof hard to have adult friendships.
And then also people already havetheir, their groups that they're in.
So yeah, Tonya, if you're listening,we need to like hang more, yo.
In the end, it doesn't come down to money.
It comes down torelationships and community.
(39:03):
That's where your longevity andyour health come from physical
activity, social activity.
And money is only the foundationupon which you build the more
important things in life.
So kudos to you.
The wins.
Or in the people you engage with, and I'vebeen very fortunate to be able to do so
and have great relationships with my kidsand my wife, the empty nest is awesome.
(39:25):
That's a win, you know,
it's so funny because we'reon the opposite sides of kids.
I am wanting to have themand I haven't had them yet.
And you're on the other sideof like, they're finally out of
the house and I'm like, I can'twait to have them in the house.
Well, time marches on so fast thatit'll happen for you, I'm sure,
and it'll go by very quickly.
(39:45):
Yeah, I'm going to take so many pictures.
All right, so we're pretty muchat the end of our time, but before
we leave, do you have a life hackrecommendation or learning that you
would like to share with the community?
It would be pay yourself first.
Save first.
Get to know your future selfbecause that person does exist.
It's not as far away as you think it is.
(40:06):
And you need to take care ofthat person, the future you,
because nobody else is going to.
It's a great one.
Get to know your future self.
I really love that.
How can people reach you if they'dlike to learn more or reach out to you?
Well, we welcome everybody that'sinterested in financial independence and
catching up to FI in our Facebook group.
We have a private Facebook groupthat's about 16, 000 people.
(40:28):
So please join us there for a discourse.
It's a very safe and vulnerable space.
We do a very good job of policingout the bots and the trolls.
I have a great group of moderatorsthat help me keep it safe.
And then we have a podcast, whichwe come out weekly on Sundays.
It's called catching up to five.
You can reach us throughour website at www.
(40:50):
catchinguptofive.
com.
Please email me.
I'd love to engage with you.
My cohost, Jackie standsat the ready as well.
Those are the two main, wehave social media channels at.
Catching up to FI, you're welcometo engage with us there, but our
primary focus is Facebook group.
Love to hear from you.
Yeah, sounds good.
I'll definitely link allthose in the show notes.
(41:12):
All right, Bill, that's it for us.
Thank you for being here.
It was so much fun.
Well, we're going to havea podcaster to podcaster.
Thank you so much for the opportunityto talk with you and your audience.
Thanks for listening tothe everyday five podcast.
If you're loving the show, hereare some things you can do.
Number one, subscribe in yourfavorite podcast player and share the
(41:32):
show with your friends and family.
Number two, please leave a review.
I'm always looking forways to improve the show.
Number three, check outmy website, everyday fi.
com, where you can listen to allthe episodes And leave comments for
myself and the guest number four, ifyou're interested in sharing your own
financial independence story, you canfind a submission form at everyday fi.
(41:56):
com slash podcast.
And finally, number five, join my Patreonmembership for only 5 a month at patreon.
com slash everyday five podcast.
This is a one woman show.
So every little bit counts.
See you next time.
As we continue to go down thepath to financial freedom.
Welcome back to catching up to FI.
I'm your cohost Jackie Cummings Koski.
And for this special episode,we're sharing part two of Bill's
guest appearance on the everydayFI podcast with Megan Combs.
She explores the lives andstories of everyday people in the
financial independence community.
So Bill opens up about hisFI journey as a late starter.
(00:25):
And even I learned somenew things about Bill.
So you want to tune in for this.
He of course represents ourcatching up to FI community.
Bill had a lot to say.
So this is a two parter as Imentioned, and we aired the
first part last Wednesday.
So now let's get into part two.
(00:46):
Welcome to Catching Up to FI, apodcast on mindset, money, and life
for late starters of any age on theirjourney to financial independence.
I'm Bill and I'm a late starter.
I'm Jackie, and I'm also a latestarter and we're your host.
We're here to help you on yourjourney to financial independence,
no matter where you're starting.
We're going to talk to experts,other late starters, and explore
(01:07):
topics related to our mission.
Join us as we catch up to FI together.
Welcome to Everyday Fi, thepodcast that explores the lives and
stories of everyday people in thefinancial independence community.
We're back with part two of Bill'sstory that we embarked on last week.
In today's episode, we get intoBill's money origin story, which
(01:29):
leads us to talking about financialliteracy, the good, the bad, and
what we can do about it at home.
We also dive into Bill's journeyto finding the FI community and
his why of FI as someone whois a latecomer to the movement.
Towards the end of the episode,Bill shares his current
challenges and wins in life.
Plus, we both wax poeticabout the parallels between
(01:52):
health and personal finance.
I want to hear more aboutyour early money story.
So we know a little bitthat your dad was a doctor.
But I want to hear about what growingup with money was like for you.
So let's start with what one ofyour earliest money memories is.
It's a good question.
And it's one that I come up witha different answer for every
(02:14):
time when I get a flashback.
But you know, my early memories are,there's a paucity of them in my childhood.
I'm not sure if it's because mybrain hadn't developed or there
was a particular amount of trauma.
But no, there was enough to go around.
Yes.
My dad was a doctor, buthe was a state employee.
They're mostly negative memories,unfortunately more micro money
(02:38):
traumas along the way, it wasthe typical patriarchal family.
My mom was a stay at home mom afterhaving been a nurse that married a doctor.
And we lived in a modest house, a verymiddle class upbringing, three kids.
And there was always enough,but I still got jeans from Sears
that could stand up on their own.
(02:59):
Like they were starched.
remember this, but they were very stiffjeans before the day of stonewashed jeans.
That's how old I am.
And so we shopped frugally.
I didn't know that my parentspaid cash for their cars.
They never talked about that,which I find interesting because I
might've done something like that.
If I'd have heard him say it, I remembermy dad doing the taxes every year.
(03:21):
We heard.
He was already a workaholic.
And then when tax season came aroundin March, we wouldn't see him for a
month because he was trying to scam thegovernment out of every penny he could.
And he even got audited one year,which traumatized me for taxes.
And I've, I've did my own taxeswhen it was the easy form.
But as soon as I became a full fledgedphysician, I handed that over to an
(03:45):
accountant and was happy to do so.
My first personal memory of money wasI never went to camp day camp, summer
camp when I was nine years old, I workedat camp, I earned 5 a week and I would
hang out with the four year olds andtwindle around with them doing whatever
activities a four year old does at camp.
(04:07):
Even probably took naps with them, butso I earned a very low wage, but it
was a lot of money to me back then.
And I've worked ever since at variousjobs in the service industry going
through high school and college.
I was a waiter.
And so tips were a big deal, but theminimum wage back then was probably 2.
(04:28):
85 or 3, something like that.
So it never felt like a lotof money, but I didn't learn
how to spend for my parents.
I didn't learn how to save for my parents.
I definitely didn't learn how to invest.
It, it leaves you kind of.
(04:48):
Feeling empty when you realizethat your parents didn't help you
with one of the most importantthings you have to do as an adult.
And then there's some armchairquarterbacking when they say,
well, I know you were doing allthese wrong things with money.
I'm like, well, why didn'tyou help me prospectively?
Why is it sort of a punitive thing?
So there's not one memory andit did provide, I shouldn't say
(05:11):
there are some positive memories.
We would go on some nice vacationsand we lived in London for a year.
So there are some very nicememories, largely around travel.
Uh, that we were able to do, butmajority of the memories were more
micro and negative and they compounded.
And it left me sort of wanting,I think, to spend and not
(05:32):
learning how to spend healthily.
As we talked about with Doug Norman andhis wife, Carol, his daughter, Carol,
and how he brought her up, learning tospend is the first thing you need to do.
You learn to save later, kind oflearned how to healthily spend.
And I didn't learn that.
It makes a lot of sense with how yousaid you kind of came to FI later,
(05:54):
that that would be your upbringing.
And it makes me curious, why do you thinkyour parents didn't teach you about money?
It sounded like they knew somethingabout money, especially if your
dad was spending a month on taxes.
Why do you think they didn't teach you?
Well, they're a boomer generation, right?
And I think it's somewhat generational.
They came from parents that werethe sons and daughters of depression
(06:16):
and they didn't talk about sex orreligion or politics much either.
There wasn't a lot of healthydiscourse in my family.
I think that was part and parcel to someof the pathology that was already there.
My parents ended up gettingdivorced after a lot of turmoil.
And I think divorce is probably commonin financial illiterate families.
(06:40):
I would imagine that's just my own bias.
My mom came into an inheritance andmy dad made her invest in something
called church's fried chicken.
And that company didn't do well and herinvestment didn't do well, but he was
telling her what to do with her money.
And she towed the line as opposed tomaking a financial decision for herself,
which was, you know, in patriarchalfamilies, that's very common, you
(07:03):
know, and one of the things we tryand do with our show, and I'm sure
you're with your show is empower women.
To take control of their financiallives because there needs to be equity
and parity across the gender spectrum.
Yeah, absolutely.
I have talked freely about how I am thehigher earner in my partnership and my
(07:26):
partner moved into my house that I own.
We both own.
Property separately, but we also cametogether later in life, you know, he's
going to be 35 in a couple of weeks.
I'm 37 and we met in our mid thirties,whereas generations before us were
married with freaking 10, 12 yearolds by the time they were our age.
(07:47):
So I think for millennials and GenZ, it's a little bit different.
But I do think that there's stillthat aspect of, and it might, the
gender part of it might be going away,but there's still an aspect of in
relationships, one person tends to drivethe money conversations and the money
decisions more than another person.
I hear that a lot on Ramit's podcast.
(08:09):
Now, obviously he's taking peopleon who have money problems.
So that's, you know, already there'slike a bias there when you're
listening to the people on there,but you still see this, you know.
Genderless idea of the person who makesless or maybe who stays home with the kids
thinks they're not contributing enoughto the relationship because they put this
(08:32):
inherent value in money and meaning likethey tie their own self worth to money.
And that's something that that's morewhat I like to talk about is like
you're worthy despite what money youmake, but it is very important to.
Understand money because like yousaid, it's a language that we all, not
(08:56):
everybody does know, but everybody shouldknow because it's the tool that you
have to know how to use in your life.
It just is everywhere andit's funny the other day.
My partner and I were talking to mymom and we were talking about the
fact that politics has been one ofthose things where people are like,
Oh, we don't talk about politics.
(09:17):
And I'm like, that's like sayingyou don't talk about money when
it's literally in every singlething that you do every single day.
So like, if you complain about a potholein your road that hasn't been fixed
for a month on end, that's politics.
Those are your elected officials whoare supposed to get that fixed for you.
And guess what?
It also takes.
Money to fix that pothole orthose streetlights that are out
(09:40):
or whatever, or fund the schoolthat you send your kids to.
Like it's everywhere.
Why are we not talking about this?
And I get it because people arelike, Oh, they don't want to fight.
And I find that so interesting.
That's what I'm trying to undo islike, it doesn't need to be a fight.
It just needs to be a discourse.
Like it just needs to be a conversation.
(10:00):
You're correct.
And then brought up anothermemory because in my household
growing up, money was a weapon.
It was a tool that was more of a hatchetand, you know, my mom was the spender.
My dad was the earner and therewas a lot of animosity there and.
And there was tight reins placedon money between the two of them.
(10:21):
And money was certainly one of thethings that broke up the marriage.
There was a lot of other things,but that certainly played a role.
And I remember lots of fights, you know,our dinner table was a war zone at times,
and it was not fun to sit down at a familydinner because it turned into a fight.
Yeah.
And I mean, that's unfortunate.
And it makes me wonder with thatkind of atmosphere that you grew up
(10:47):
and with that kind of idea of moneyas a blade, as a weapon, how do you
think that affected or shapes yourfinancial philosophies as an adult?
I mean, we've kind of alluded to thisa little bit, but specifically, do
you see any parallels with how yourparents have Handled money, talked
about money, didn't talk about moneyand your adult life prior to five.
(11:10):
Let's talk about prior to five, right?
Because after five, we've changedand we've evolved and we are now
a better version of ourselves.
But prior to five, how do youthink that shaped your life?
Well, it comes down to a scarcityversus abundance mindset.
And the memories I have about moneyearly on, I think left me with a
scarcity mindset so that when itturned into the fact that I had money
(11:35):
to spend, I wanted to spend it andI don't just spend it on myself.
I mean, I wanted to.
Give it to others.
And so I'd say, you know, on my wifeand family, and we're, we're very like
minded when it comes to what we do,we're not necessarily frugal, which
is one of the reasons we're not FI.
(11:56):
We were able to downsize.
We were able to downshift.
We downsized our house, ourcars, they're all paid off.
We're debt free actually now.
And so we're on the samepage and that's different.
And was true for our parents.
We have a much healthierrelationship now with money.
We were out of balance.
There was scarcity on the front end.
(12:16):
There was spend thriftiness in the middle.
And now we've reached sort of a periodof balance where, you know, we, we
don't, we don't fight about money, butwe have similar priorities, similar
values, and those are the thingsyou've got to assess before you can
really wield money as a proper tool.
Did you ever fight about moneywith your wife, including when
(12:39):
you found the buy movement?
Not, no, not since then.
And she's been very supportive.
She's come to the conferences with me.
She loves the social aspect ofit and the friends we've made.
She just wants me to make sure thatthe money is there when she needs it.
So it provides a little bit of stress.
You know, do we sit downand talk about a budget?
No, do I track it?
Yes.
(12:59):
And I'll needler sometimes when I say, youknow, we need to rein it in this month.
She doesn't want to get intothe spreadsheet details and I'm
not a spreadsheet person either.
So we're on the same page, but I handlethe money from a mechanical aspect.
She's more of the visionary big pictureperson and she knows what's going on.
(13:21):
I largely, and when Iask her, she's on it.
Yeah, and that's what's important.
It's important that she knows thatthe trajectory is in line with what
her goals are and what your goalsare and potentially where some money
is, you know, like percentage wise.
But otherwise, I don't thinkit's important for people
to know the nitty gritty.
Like I said, there's only one personin the relationship who usually
(13:43):
takes the reins on the day to day.
Who's in the spreadsheets,that would be me.
It's probably the people whohave the podcast talking about
money who are in the spreadsheet.
No, I mean, if there's one thing thatwe sometimes disagree on is how much.
Economic outpatient care to give our kids,her boundaries aren't necessarily as good
(14:03):
with, you know, throwing money at thekids and that's just sort of one of her
values and I tend to want to reign it in.
And so we'll have, Iwouldn't call them fights.
I would call them discussions,disagreements, or we have to come
to a resolution as, you know, isthis really actually healthy for
us to do for our kids as opposed toletting them do it for themselves.
(14:25):
It's commendable that you guyscan come together and have that
healthy discourse or dialogue whenit comes to those kinds of things.
I want to know about how youfound financial independence.
I'm very, very curious about thatbecause, you know, you were trucking
along doing the doctor thing, living upthe life, you got the expensive home,
the expensive cars, the expensive trips,and then five dropped in your lap.
(14:49):
What's that story like, how, whointroduced you to this and why
did it resonate with you more thansay another financial philosophy?
It's relatively straightforward.
I was turning 50 and had sortof a, you can call it a midlife
or late life wake up call.
As I mentioned, you know,this is very common story.
(15:12):
The kids are exiting the nest, butyou're focusing on them differently.
I had a job crisis at that time.
And I Googled something along the linesof financial independence, but before
even that, I was like, Oh, I found it.
I found Bill Bernstein first.
(15:33):
He's a retired neurologistwho is a financial guru.
He's written many books on the subject.
I've met him in person.
He's brilliant.
The book that I ended up landing onwas the Intelligent Asset Allocator.
And the funny thing is I told himthis, this book is complicated.
This is not where you want to startyour journey because, and it wasn't Mr.
(15:57):
Money Mustache, like everybodyelse, I had to get out a financial
calculator to read through this book.
And figure out how to do a financialcalculator because of the things he
was teaching us through the book.
So I started pretty complex andI worked my way back to simple
over the next couple of years.
I was in analysis paralysis forprobably a year being a type a doctor.
(16:20):
I had to dive down the rabbithole of reading and listening to
everything before I found five.
I didn't really know what a podcast was.
I hadn't listened to a podcast.
Before I found five, you can see hereshelves upon shelves of financial books.
And I can say that I've read every one ofthem and I spent probably a year reading.
And then about thatpoint, I felt comfortable.
And exited the private bank where you'rein and pulled the assets over into
(16:44):
Fidelity and Vanguard to self manage.
And that was a huge shift.
It's not easy, you know, clickingthe buttons and moving hundreds
of thousands of dollars, causewe didn't start from zero.
You know, I honestly couldn't probablyeven go back and calculate our net worth.
We still had a significant mortgageand we may have been a net worth
(17:05):
of around zero, but we weren'tnegative after reading that book.
Thought to myself, somebody shoulddo this for doctors, somebody should
educate doctors what's going on here.
And when I googled it, I found Jim Dollyand the white coat investor and he had
started blogging around 2011 or 2013.
(17:26):
So he was about.
Two or three years into hisjourney, he hadn't started his
podcast or his media empire.
He had just been a blogger and Ifound him and he'd already done it.
I mean, I could have beenthe white coat investor.
I could have been the guy,but he got there first.
Well, there can alwaysbe more than one, right?
I mean, There's so many FI podcastsnow that end with the word FI every
(17:49):
day, catching up to FI, choose a FI.
So you could have been, but no, Ilove the fact that your journey took
you to catching up to FI, becauselike you said, I think you fill a
niche and that is desperately needed.
So I'm kind of glad you weren'tthe first white coat investor.
Funny thing is the emphasisis on starting not late.
You know, late as a negative emotion,starting as a positive emotion.
(18:13):
And our logo has a clock that's inmotion where you get on the five
treadmill and you start out slowand then you get going faster.
As a late starter, you have to get fastera little bit sooner, but late starters are
the average American as we refer to it.
I mean, you can start out,you're starting on time.
If you're starting yourthirties, you're really not late.
(18:34):
You know, you're 20 as you're figuringout life, the original tech bro person
that fired in the early 30s is a totalanomaly and is not a good example of what
five really means, quite honestly, theylived a life of deprivation, not balance.
I would never want that for myself.
You probably need to spend yourtwenties figuring out a lot of stuff,
(18:56):
but you should be able to start bythe time you're 30 because one of my.
Monikers is work 20 for themoney and the rest for joy.
And so if you started at age 30 andyou were on a 30 to 50 percent savings
rate, you're going to be done at 45 to50 ish, depending on how much debt you
start with and how you manage your money.
(19:17):
So, you know, you'll retire early, butlate starters are the average American.
And it's also Gen X isthe silent generation.
We got caught in between the definedbenefit plan and the defined contribution
plan, and nobody told me what a 401k was.
You know, that came online in the1970s when I was about 10 years old.
So my dad had not invested into a 401k.
(19:38):
He was in a state pension plan and it'shard to learn about a pension plan.
And that's how he grew up.
So it wasn't like he waseducating me on the 401k.
Nobody pulled me aside.
There's like three simple thingsyou got to do for somebody.
Pull them aside when they start thefirst job and say, max out your 401k.
Pull them aside and say, just invest ina hundred percent stocks and you're good
(20:01):
for 20 years and you're going to be fine.
Nobody mentioned that to me.
You know, pay yourselffirst, track your money.
The lessons are like three,four or five lessons.
And if you just listen tothose, you will be fine.
Yeah, exactly.
I was actually talking to Alan, thepodcast that's going to come out before
yours about the half privilege, but halfburden we have today with the Internet
(20:27):
and how much information is out thereand how, you know, back in your day,
you had to have somebody, like you say,pull you aside to tell you about this.
There wasn't just a swath ofinformation on the Internet
that you could go and find this.
And so, cool.
If somebody didn't do that,then you didn't know, you didn't
know what you didn't know.
And today, now there's kind oflike the opposite problem where
(20:50):
there's too much information.
And so now it's hard to parse throughwhat's what you should do because you
have all those crypto bros out therewho are like yeet it all into Bitcoin
or, you know, Dogecoin or whatever.
So there's kind of like this.
Shift of, there's a little bit ofprivilege where you have access, a
lot of access to that information,but also the quality of information
(21:14):
is not necessarily the best either.
There's more to lifethan working for money.
And I think we're realizing that lifestyleis important, you know, but there's more
to life than having to work for money.
And, you know, if, if you,you know, play it right.
You're free from having to work formoney and you have time freedom after 15
(21:36):
or 20 years, then you've got your wholerest of your life to play at the things
that you want to try and experiment.
No, we have to put the work in.
There's no way that nothing is for free.
You have to put in the sweatequity to get to time freedom.
You will.
If you're conscious and intentionaland aware of what you're doing.
(21:59):
Yeah, for sure.
And if we can get the government to putpersonal finance classes in high schools.
Well, my Jackie Cummins Koski, my cohostis a financial educator, and she'll
tell you that there are 26 States thatrequire a semester of personal finance
in the nation and the next gen personalfinance headed up by Tim Ranzetta is
(22:20):
on a mission to make that a 52 States.
So it's happening.
It's our challenge, you and I, aspodcasters and everybody else in this
creator space, to unwind the generationaltrauma of not talking about money,
not educating about money, making sureeverybody speaks English and money.
Yes.
Preach.
Anyway, yeah, it's my partner andI the other day, we're just talking
(22:44):
about, you know, how Irritating itis that you have four years of, you
know, literature class in high school,like every single semester, like
you have to have English literatureevery single semester of your high
school, I swear, at least minded, but.
I had one semester of governmentclass and it was an elective.
(23:06):
It wasn't even required.
And personal finance, forget it.
We didn't have anything like that.
And I was like, okay, I'm sorry.
What are the two classes that are goingto actually set people up for success?
Government, personal finance,not English literature, we do not
need to learn about Shakespeare.
He's been dead for 500 years.
Okay, I'm sorry, like no disson Shakespeare, but one semester
(23:29):
of Shakespeare, four or eightsemesters of government class.
Institutional learningchanges very slowly.
It's a victim of the boomer generationto, you know, now we live in an era
where you can educate yourself onanything that wasn't necessarily so
easy before things like the internet,but, you know, getting change processed
(23:51):
politically in schools is really hard.
We're not as nimble as we would liketo be like a small business would
be, uh, you would like to thinkwe are, but finally we're seeing.
You know, the rock get up to thetop of the hill and it's going
to roll down like a snowball.
I hope for my grandkids, becausemodeling how you deal with money is
(24:12):
as important, if not more importantthan learning the technical language
of it in school, you've got to, youknow, how your parents model it.
But you learn about the language inschool, how do you apply it becomes
the issue and I take it a step furtherand you know, people require social
service projects in high school, theyshould require you have a job, they
(24:32):
should require that you go work andget a paycheck because once you've got
that paycheck and you want to learnhow to read it and you want to learn
how to pay your taxes on it and youwant to learn about banking and then
you want to learn about investing,then it becomes instantly applicable.
We do it almost in reverse.
You know, it's like trying tolearn German without ever going
(24:53):
to Germany and living there.
It's really hard to do.
You've got live in that environment.
And so jump in, have yourtween or teen get a job and
figure out how to manage money.
And at the same time, they'relearning the language of money.
It's so much easier and morefun to learn when it is real.
(25:16):
And even if you don't get the job, likeI'm thinking of both personal finance
and government, if there's actual reallife examples that a teacher can give
a student to do, like, Hey, we're goingto give you some fake monopoly money.
You have to budget it.
If you don't budget itcorrectly, if you don't invest
it correctly, then you fail this.
(25:37):
A project and howinteresting would that be?
Because then it's not like beinglectured at, you're actually
interacting and learning that way.
And yeah, it's something that I wouldlove to do if they ever opened up public
education to outside consultants whocould come in and do some of that stuff.
I would love to do that.
I don't have any creds though,so you probably couldn't do it.
(26:00):
Oh, you probably could, because asI mentioned before, Tim Renzetta.
Is the head of next gen personalfinance, they've on their website,
they've established curriculumsbecause what happened was the teachers
weren't taught how to teach moneyand you're having to reteach teachers
that want to help their students thisway, but just didn't have the tools.
So next gen personal financehas provided the tools.
(26:23):
For the teachers, teaching theteachers to teach the kids.
Uh, there's over a hundred thousandteachers involved with this organization.
We've had him on our show.
I would encourage people to golisten to that episode and learn
more about what he's doing.
It's just incredible.
And there's a lot of momentumin the right direction.
We're talking about money here today, andwe want to reach at least on our podcast.
(26:43):
And I'm sure you do too.
People outside.
Of this bubble, of this space we'reoperating inside of the bubble, the people
we need to reach are the ones where theperson that enters the bubble says, Oh,
I've got 10 friends that need to hearthis message and bring them with you.
I think more and more people are hearingthe term financial independence and even
(27:05):
the term retire early and their ears perkup in a positive way than they used to.
So even today, beforewe hit record, I was.
At work, you know, and I dropped frommeeting early because I told them I want
to prep for my interview and they'relike, Oh my God, you have a podcast.
What's it about?
And I was like, Oh, you know,it's a personal finance podcast.
(27:26):
Oh, cool.
Like what kind of personal finance?
And I said, it's about the fire movement.
And one of the guys was like, Ohmy God, you mean the retire early?
Send me your podcast.
I really want to listen toit because I just found that.
And it's so cool.
And he just went off and was so excited.
And my boss even was like, do youwant to interview me on there?
And I was like, only if youbecome part of the community.
He's like, sure, I'll do that.
(27:47):
Let me, you mentioned the workplacebecause when I drank the Kool
Aid back when I turned 50, all Iwanted to do was talk about money.
And my kids got tired of it, so I starteda Facebook group called Financial Literacy
Project, where I brain dumped all theinformation I was learning, because
they didn't want to hear it anymore.
I was called Lecture Daddy, andthat's not how to change behavior,
(28:09):
as I've learned the hard way.
But one day I was talking to the youngdoctors to be, who were scribes at the
time, about money, because they weregetting ready to take on student loans.
And make some big boy decisions andbig girl decisions at a very young age,
you know, can you imagine being 18 andtaking on hundreds of thousand dollars
of loans with free money, so to speak,at least free on the front end so.
(28:33):
I was told not to talk aboutmoney by one of my colleagues,
who was my direct supervisor.
We don't talk about money at work.
A few years later, I start apodcast and this has been going on
now a year and a half, two years.
Everybody at work, it's leaked out.
Everybody at work knows I'm doing thispodcast and then they'll come up to me
asking me about this or that episode.
(28:54):
And this is the paramedics, the nurses.
And then I have physician friends of minewho, when they start hearing people open.
For the discussion of money,they say, go listen to Catch
Amplify and I'm very flattered.
I've gotten more gratitude from the workwe've done, the play we have done on Catch
Amplify than I've probably gotten in 26years of being an emergency physician.
(29:18):
Yeah, it's that connection that yousaid that you lacked with your patients
that you now have with your listeners.
I love that.
Yeah, I love it.
I love the relationship andI get to meet a lot of them.
It's been a joy.
Just like talking to youhas been a joy today.
Oh, thank you.
You're so sweet.
Okay, so I want to know whyyou're pursuing FI to begin with.
(29:41):
I know that you felt like youwere On this path where you
said you had a zero net worth.
And so I get that you were kind ofcourse correcting, but at least like
have a retirement, but I guess whythe principles are, are you trying
to retire earlier than planned?
You said you're 80 percentthere and you're 59.
So that sounds like it'searlier than planned.
(30:01):
Or do you just want to hit likea regular retirement number?
And then when you do, what doesthat life look like for you after
you can quit working as a doctor?
Well, those are all good questions.
As far as what does life look after?
Well, I fear retirement.
I don't like the word retirement becausebeing a doctor, going to work 10 shifts
a month provides me with structure.
(30:23):
You know, it gives me a reasonto be, it's not necessarily
the thing I want to do anymore.
It's more of a job than itis a profession to me now.
So I am looking forward to thetime that ends and yet there is a
number, but it's not the number.
There's also a line in the sand asfar as time goes where, yeah, I want
to be retired by the time I'm 63.
(30:45):
But what does that mean?
Like I said, I hate the word retirement.
What does life on the otherside of that really look like?
Well, podcasting, sure.
Maybe paying attention a littlebit more to my health, but I need
to develop those interests beforeI retire, because that gives me
the power to achieve time freedom.
What are you going to do with that time?
You know, are you still going to set analarm to look forward to get out of bed
(31:08):
to, you know, every day is a Saturday.
And as people say, you can't play golfand sip martinis on the beach or my ties.
I think it is on the beach every day.
And you're going to have another.
20 or 30 years ahead of you.
No, for me, the clock isin some ways ticking down.
So I am looking forward to that timefreedom because before, while I'm still
(31:28):
in my go go years and, you know, slow goyears, I want to put off the no go years
as long as I can and why the principlesof five, well, cause it's healthy.
It's just, it's, it's likeyou're being a vegetarian, it's
a healthy way to live your life.
People don't want stress,anxiety, fear, all these negative
scarcity, mindset, emotions.
(31:50):
They want joy, abundance, happiness,engagement, community relationships.
And we need to use our time wisely,our money wisely to enable us to
focus on the things that pickle those.
Interests in our brain.
I could not agree more.
And it's funny that you saidyou can't golf and sit Mai
(32:14):
Tais on the beach every day.
I think you mentionedthat you interviewed Doug.
I just interviewed him too.
And he said that.
When he told people that he was retiringto go and surf, his colleagues were like,
you can't surf every day in retirement.
And he basically was like, watch me.
And he did for 20 years, just surf.
(32:36):
That's all he did was surf.
And I was like, yes, you showedthem that you absolutely could.
If you really wanted to sit Mai Tai'son a beach and that's all you did.
You can do it.
Okay, so we're wrapping up a little bit.
And one thing that I like to get frommy guests is any current struggles and
current wins they're going through rightnow, because that's a really great way
(33:00):
for us to connect to your story that'sgoing on now and not just your history.
So what would you say some of your currentstruggles or challenges right now are?
Losing weight would be one ofthem, and I'm focused on that for
the next year before I turn 60because it only becomes harder.
I've been very cavalier with my diet, andI need to be more intentional with that.
(33:21):
It's hard to keep all the platesspinning in the air at the same
time, and that's important to me.
I'm sure it's importantto a lot of people.
Obesity is a terrible diseasein our society, and we have
financial obesity, too.
You know, it's hard to go on a diet.
But you just need to, what's it called,Kaizen, where you do the 1 percent
(33:41):
better every day in the Japanese term.
As Brad Barrett says too often on hispodcast and his ChooseFIN newsletter,
just 1 percent better every day.
I'm actually taking medicine tohelp me too, because I've recognized
that I can't do it by myself.
I need, I needed help and asking forhelp, going to your doctor, which hadn't
(34:02):
been a habit of mine until more recently.
You know, you mentioned therapy, and Ithink that's important for people too.
There's a lot of money therapythat people need to work through.
We all want to find an abundance mindset.
That's where we all want to end up.
You know, giving is the art of receiving.
Yeah, I love that.
And if you don't mind me asking, areyou doing like Ozempic or something
(34:25):
like that for your weight loss, orare you doing something different?
We go V.
With Govee.
Is that another GLP one?
Yes, it is.
Okay.
My other podcast love is medical podcasts.
I absolutely love listening to them.
And I listened to this one called Dr.Karen Explorers and he's a UK doctor and
they had a weight loss episode and theytalked about Ozempic and stuff like that
(34:47):
and how they're like, it's just scratchingthe surface of what weight loss means
and why this works for weight loss whenit, that wasn't even its intended use.
It's the secondary use.
I also am having some weight issuesbecause I'm going through early menopause.
Menopause, you gain weight.
You just do.
I didn't change anything.
I do exercise.
(35:07):
I eat healthy.
And I still gained a tonof weight in my belly area.
And it freaked me out becauseit was 15 pounds in two months.
I've never gained weightthat fast in my life.
And I was like, what is happening?
No different than taking on debt.
You can take on a lotof debt really quickly.
Yeah, that's true.
Discharging that debtis like losing weight.
(35:28):
It's so funny how money and healthand wellness correlate so much.
I always say that aboutyour credit score too.
You can lower it really fast.
You can gain weight really fast,but then getting your credit score
back up and losing weight takes.
years.
And I'm like, why, why is it like this?
(35:48):
Why is the world like this?
Why can't kale taste like a donut?
Things are very simple in your mind.
They're not easy.
That's again, the brainemotion connect or disconnect.
They can be simple, but not easy.
Absolutely.
So tell us about someof your wins right now.
The podcast is a win.
(36:09):
I love working with mypartner, Jackie Cummins Costi.
I love working with Diana Socialmedia person provides me with
a lot of community engagement.
I love meeting the peoplewho are our guests.
They become friends.
I see them at conferences.
I love seeing the people that are in otherareas of the content creation business
(36:30):
in this space is, it is blown open.
My friendship circle.
It's hard to, as anadult, it is hard to meet.
New friends physically, unless you'reinvolved in an activity that provides
common ground and the financialindependence space is the common ground.
I go every year to the economyconference, see all my friends.
(36:52):
I go to other conferencesto see them as well.
Bogle heads, FinCon.
Camp fi and then I bumpinto him like today.
We are virtually the virtual world becomesreal and it really expands your horizons.
Everybody needs to participate atsome level or another and expanding
their friends circle this way.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
(37:13):
And I actually just hung outwith somebody I met at camp fi.
Her name's Tanya.
She lives here in Durhamwith me and she's with.
Travel penguin, and I'm goingto link that in the show notes.
And she makes jewelry.
We've had so much fun.
There's something in Durhamcalled Durham Central Park.
It's definitely not like New YorkCity's Central Park, but it's very cute.
It's a little quaint park and they havea farmer's market every other Saturday.
(37:37):
We went and it was such a blast.
And we talked about Fi and shesaid, I'm so happy that you
came with me because you're not.
Opposed to spending some money becausewe were spending some money on little
treats and I got some fresh arugula andwe did a candle making class together.
I probably spent like 75that day supporting small
(38:00):
businesses and things like that.
I told her, I was like,well, I'm a spender.
So I'm fine spending and if you everneed a friend to go and spend money with
you, you can call me, but it was so fun.
I want to hang out with her more often.
I even told her we should seriouslymake this a regular thing because I
have a hard time making friends asan adult, like you said, because.
(38:21):
I'm more discerning now that I'm older.
When you're in college, you kind ofjust hang out with whoever's in your
class and you just, you know, goout drinking or whatever with them.
And it doesn't matterwho they are as people.
They're just in your peer group.
So you hang out with them.
But now as an adult, I'm like,okay, do I actually want to spend
a lot of time with this human beingor are they not quite jiving with
(38:43):
what I want in my life right now?
And so that actually makes it kindof hard to have adult friendships.
And then also people already havetheir, their groups that they're in.
So yeah, Tonya, if you're listening,we need to like hang more, yo.
In the end, it doesn't come down to money.
It comes down torelationships and community.
(39:03):
That's where your longevity andyour health come from physical
activity, social activity.
And money is only the foundationupon which you build the more
important things in life.
So kudos to you.
The wins.
Or in the people you engage with, and I'vebeen very fortunate to be able to do so
and have great relationships with my kidsand my wife, the empty nest is awesome.
(39:25):
That's a win, you know,
it's so funny because we'reon the opposite sides of kids.
I am wanting to have themand I haven't had them yet.
And you're on the other sideof like, they're finally out of
the house and I'm like, I can'twait to have them in the house.
Well, time marches on so fast thatit'll happen for you, I'm sure,
and it'll go by very quickly.
(39:45):
Yeah, I'm going to take so many pictures.
All right, so we're pretty muchat the end of our time, but before
we leave, do you have a life hackrecommendation or learning that you
would like to share with the community?
It would be pay yourself first.
Save first.
Get to know your future selfbecause that person does exist.
It's not as far away as you think it is.
(40:06):
And you need to take care ofthat person, the future you,
because nobody else is going to.
It's a great one.
Get to know your future self.
I really love that.
How can people reach you if they'dlike to learn more or reach out to you?
Well, we welcome everybody that'sinterested in financial independence and
catching up to FI in our Facebook group.
We have a private Facebook groupthat's about 16, 000 people.
(40:28):
So please join us there for a discourse.
It's a very safe and vulnerable space.
We do a very good job of policingout the bots and the trolls.
I have a great group of moderatorsthat help me keep it safe.
And then we have a podcast, whichwe come out weekly on Sundays.
It's called catching up to five.
You can reach us throughour website at www.
(40:50):
catchinguptofive.
com.
Please email me.
I'd love to engage with you.
My cohost, Jackie standsat the ready as well.
Those are the two main, wehave social media channels at.
Catching up to FI, you're welcometo engage with us there, but our
primary focus is Facebook group.
Love to hear from you.
Yeah, sounds good.
I'll definitely link allthose in the show notes.
(41:12):
All right, Bill, that's it for us.
Thank you for being here.
It was so much fun.
Well, we're going to havea podcaster to podcaster.
Thank you so much for the opportunityto talk with you and your audience.
Thanks for listening tothe everyday five podcast.
If you're loving the show, hereare some things you can do.
Number one, subscribe in yourfavorite podcast player and share the
(41:32):
show with your friends and family.
Number two, please leave a review.
I'm always looking forways to improve the show.
Number three, check outmy website, everyday fi.
com, where you can listen to allthe episodes And leave comments for
myself and the guest number four, ifyou're interested in sharing your own
financial independence story, you canfind a submission form at everyday fi.
(41:56):
com slash podcast.
And finally, number five, join my Patreonmembership for only 5 a month at patreon.
com slash everyday five podcast.
This is a one woman show.
So every little bit counts.
See you next time.
As we continue to go down thepath to financial freedom.
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