 Welcome to the Bogleheads chapter series. This episode was hosted by the Bogleheads starting out life stage chapter and recorded August 30th, 2021. It features the blogger Matt Fientist discussing achieving the dream of financial independence. Bogleheads are investors who follow John Bogle's philosophy for attaining financial independence. This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Brandon, great to see you. Thanks a lot for having me. Thanks for being here. We are so grateful that you've taken the time. A lot of folks know that you were a software developer. You retired at 34 having reached financial independence. So we're going to talk about the highs and lows of financial independence, but also get to know you as a person, talk about some of your influences, how you've evolved during early retirement, and wherever the conversation takes us. So I want to be sensitive to some of the audience knowing your material really well, both written and podcast, and some of the audience being less familiar. So we'll navigate that balance so as to not be too redundant as well as to not be, you know, to not address what you're known for and specialized about. So again, as Miriam mentioned, we have a national audience here from coast to coast. Again, for the audience, you and I will chat for about an hour. And then during the chat, we're collecting the team is collecting questions via the chat function. And we'll address those after you're in my conversation includes. So with that, I also want to encourage folks who aren't yet familiar with Brandon's website to read the blogs, listen to the podcasts are so much there. A lot of it might sound familiar covered in the space, but a lot of it is uniquely Brandon or mad finances related a lot of tax efficiency stuff and Brandon has also been a guest on other podcasts like choose fi and afford anything so you can find additional insights from Brandon as a guest, not just on his podcast. With that, let's dive in. Anything you want to say before we get started, Brandon? No, no, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for having me again. Excellent. So we'll begin with something that you often end with on your podcast, which is you ask your guests who, you know, are leaders in the fi space or often the self improvement space, you ask them what's one piece of financial advice you would give towards financial independence. So I ask you that question. Yeah, well, yeah, that's a question I love to ask because there's so many different answers I've gotten over the years. But for me, I would say experiment, which, you know, being the math scientist, I probably wouldn't have said that when I started the math scientist. So it's not me just saying that because it fits with my science theme or anything. But it's really the truth because if I've learned anything over the past, you know, 10 years of doing this and like really thinking about it hard is that we're really bad at knowing what we really, really want. And the only way to find out is to try things, hopefully try them at a low costs, low commitment sort of situation so that you don't, you know, get yourself into a situation where you can't reverse that choice. But it's really about experimenting because especially like for me, I'm naturally frugal guy and spending has been a big focus of mine recently. And, you know, after post five to figure out like what is the best use of money. And now that it's not as tight anymore, you know, what what's actually going to make me happier and what's not really going to move the needle and things like that. So yeah, experimenting and just realizing that you don't have to be right right away because you are probably pretty bad at actually figuring out what you really want to do or what you want to be or what you want to spend your money on. Excellent. Yeah, it's so great to hear. And there's so much there that I'd like for us to follow up on. One is when you know, you say experiment tried out there, there are tons of people that we hear about who whether they're planning for financial independence early retirement, or or just retirement in general, they dream about this next phase of life, they plan, they plan the savings part of it. But then when they get there, they're kind of absent the social structure or interaction or meaning. How do you how do you suggest people, you know, building on what you said about experimenting? How do you suggest people fill that void in advance? Sure. Yeah, no, I so like, I'm sure a lot of people out there are probably similar to what I was where I blamed my job for the reason I wasn't living the life that I thought would make me happiest and wasn't doing the things that I thought I really wanted to do with my life. Like it was such an easy scapegoat. And only after leaving the job, and then trying to do all those things that I thought I wanted to do, I realized it wasn't my job holding me back. I was I was very lucky. I was a software developer. And the technologies I used allowed me to be very productive very quickly so I could get my work done. And, you know, a quarter of the time that some other teams that I worked amongst were able to do it. So my time skills were never tight. And, you know, I had plenty of free time. So it was only once that I removed that easy scapegoat. Did I realize that actually, I could have been doing all of these things with a job. And, you know, I would have then not had to also try to figure out all these crazy post five things that come up that you never even expect because I would have still been working. So, so yeah, I would say one, yeah, just try to remove the easy scapegoats of your job and start trying to do these things that you really think you're going to do post five, because one, some things aren't big enough to really get you out of the bed in the morning. Like I remember I thought like, oh, I'll learn a new language. And then that way when we travel to wherever in the world, I'll be able to, you know, know this new language is going to be amazing. But, you know, like when you don't have anyone forcing you to get out of bed in the morning to conjugate verbs. It's hard. It's harder to force yourself to do that. And you're not exactly leaping out of bed to do that either. So the more you can like get started on these things, while you're still in the grind, the daily grind, I think the way better off you're going to be because one, you're going to have momentum. You're going to sort of like come across these challenges that have nothing to do with your job earlier and start to work through them and realize, say, actually, it's not my job that's holding me back. It's for me, like personally, it was my self-doubt in some of the artistic things I wanted to do. And yeah, if you just start early and don't think of like, I think the other problem is like, it's like for me back then it was a finish line. Everything was going to be great after that finish line and everything wasn't working prior to that finish line. And I think that was the definitely wrong way to do it. I think the more you can view it as just a spectrum where every dollar you're saving is adding to that power that you have to, you know, take more time off or follow that passion project to another level and things like that, I think the better off you'll be and then the less crazy fire post-fire life would be after because it's not going to be just like flipping a switch. It's going to be this gradual progression into, oh, actually now I have the power to have unlimited free time and now I know how to deal with that and use it properly because I've practiced along the way as I've incrementally got more free time. So that's, that's how I would view it just as a spectrum, not as a goal line. Excellent. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of someone interviewed Michael Phelps and in I think one of the Olympic runs his goggles failed and water got in his eyes and he had to do the whole thing closed with eyes closed and they interviewed him after and said how was he able to perform at such a high level and he said he did that in his head over and over again. So it reminds me of how you're saying prepare. So following up on a few of the things you mentioned. So you mentioned passion project. I think your followers will know that you pursued FI to record and release your own music and you were able to do that. So huge congrats again there. Yeah, thank you. And you know, I know you're you're modest so I'll let folks know that the release went really well and had success on the charts. Why don't you tell us a bit more about that, how it was to pursue this lifelong goal and you know, how's it been since? Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned the charts and like I'd love to, I'd love that to be because the music was so amazing and it just got played on radio everywhere. Actually it was just the Mad Finest audience had grown so big over 10 years and I'd never asked them to do anything and I asked them to buy the album and they and thousands of them did and yeah it was a ridiculous, ridiculous one week on the charts and then it was yeah that was that was done but yeah that was yeah that was the main goal. That was again like I've mentioned a bit earlier that I blamed my job for holding me back on that for so long. But it was only once I quit my job and had all the time in the world to pursue it that I realized it was way more than that it was it was really just a ton of self-doubt. I never thought I could actually do it so I was not even trying to do it because I thought if I tried and then failed I'd lose the dream forever but and I never wanted to do that because I was like I really need to write and release an album one day so I didn't want to lose the dream but trying every time I tried just made it so much more evident that I would never actually be able to do it so that's why I just put off doing it. So I never made progress and it took me till three and a half years after I left my job before you know I finally got fed up and I was like look this is the whole reason I was wanting to have all this free time and in the first years after leaving my job I filled it with you know Mad Finest stuff I filled it with fun stuff I was saying yes to everything because I could have all this time and I was like I need to just really get serious about this and it was brutal but I it was actually Atomic Habits by James Clear. I read his book got to speak to him on my podcast which was amazing and it was that coupled with another book called Ultra Learning and and then there was a music specific one that I it was just an e-book but it was actually phenomenal so if any musicians out there care I'll go I'll send you a link to that because it's not a very big book but it was it was very instrumental in me actually making progress and all of that at the end of the day just boiled down to like putting in the time so sitting in the chair and being uncomfortable and just forcing yourself to do that and trying to not focus on what you produced by the end of that day just focusing on okay I put five hours into the chair and it was all mostly productive you know like I would lose confidence I would lose willpower and by the end of the day I was like watching youtube tutorials which you know was not really productive but I could sort of make it seem productive for my five hours at least so anyway it took all of that and then the pandemic hit and and then I just locked myself inside for 15 months because Scotland was very locked down my wife Scottish and we live in Edinburgh or we did at that time and just locked myself inside and never truly believed that I would do it and until it came out and still don't really believe it but I listened to it and I'm like I'm really proud of it it was definitely the most challenging thing I've ever tried to do and it meant so much to me so yeah you'll listen to it it's not like Grammy award-winning stuff it's like my weird synthesizer like experimental synth pop stuff that I loved growing up so it's a really weird genre of music but it's yeah my my only goal line was that I was comfortable enough with it to release it and I did so that it's that was the yeah the highlights and was the whole reason I wanted to pursue Phi in the first place and like I said before I didn't actually need to to be fine to do it but I sort of did as well because that took away all my excuses yeah well congrats again on achieving that it's tremendous and I'm not a typically a synth pop listener but and absolutely enjoyed your music so thanks again for getting it out there so a few things one is a lot of folks in the fi space you know we'll we'll talk about of course saving and investing and reducing your living expenses and increasing your savings rate and I think folks you know interested in pursuing it have a lot of access to that information a more common underlying message that surfaces is a lot of this is about happiness right so can you can you elaborate on what happiness is you know like for you or what success means to you and for this audience the bogelheads famously are not defined by a fancy house or fancy car even though many of them could easily afford that sometimes many times over so yeah what does what does success mean to you and how how has it been in um early retirement yeah well success is to me those personal wins like um I can think back over the last 10 years and the things I'm most proud of are things that you know I haven't shouted about or told you know anybody about really and it's just those like knowing how hard I worked on that album and all the hurdles that I had overcome that like that's what I'm super proud of and yeah getting on the billboard charts for a week is as funny and just adds to the ridiculousness of my life um in a great way like I'm it's so funny to think about every time I think about it but that that was that's nothing that it's thinking back at all those things that I had to overcome and um and yeah happiness is a tricky one because I had a great comment on my last post and it was I was sort of talking about happiness and like finding new sources of motivation after five because people like me who think about money since I was a you know a kid I was there my parents are throwing quarters in the deep end of the pool and I would spend all day like finding money and I just loved it so for somebody who's where money has been so important for so long for now that to not matter anymore because I don't want the fancy house or the fancy cars or I don't want to waste money in any way and things like that so that's been that's been really interesting to try to come to grips with that and find new sources of motivation because now I don't have to do anything and as I said in like my most recent post it's like a lot of the really fun things have a lot of discomfort up at up front but now that I don't have to I don't have money driving me through that initial discomfort I worry that I'm missing out on some like longer term fun in some areas just because you know I'm like well I don't want to do that I don't have to do that because I don't need to earn another dollar or whatever so so yeah happiness is a tricky one and in that so this goes back to the comment I was going to mention so it was I thought it was really insightful the the guy had said I think as humans we always need something to be uncomfortable with our unhappy about or striving for something better and he brought up the fact that like you know there's a lot of maybe I'm not too big in the the rest of the Phi community anymore just because I've been working on the music stuff but apparently in the Phi community there's lots of like divorces happening and things and people reach Phi and then you know they need that unhappiness so they find it in their partner or things like that and I can see how that I could see how that happens because you you know I could I could throw everything at my job and be like that's why my boss is making me mad my colleagues are making me mad and that's why I'm unhappy but then when you when you can control everything and do whatever you want then you either have to come to accept that oh it's just you that's finding those things to be unhappy about or angry about or you you know sometimes is sadly maybe put it on the person closest to you or the people around you so yeah so it's still one that I haven't figured out yet and uh I'm like that's not to say like I feel so lucky and I'm definitely happier now having been able to pursue all these things that I've always wanted to and you know not have the stresses of money or worrying about you know the markets of tanking or anything like that but yeah it's not a golden ticket to uh just yeah happiness and rainbows which I think early me when I was pursuing it I put that on on Phi I was like well yeah I'll be happy when I'm Phi so I'll just be miserable now and just grind it out and I again going back to the advice that I was given earlier is like yeah don't put off happiness until the finish line either don't put off you know pursuing your things that you want to do don't put off you think you're thinking about what post-phy life's going to look like because yeah when you cross the finish line it's just at the end of the day it's just a slightly higher number on a screen and it really uh maybe is more anti-climactic than you may expect it to be. Got it yeah um very insightful stuff so two two particular things so let's say a two-part question one um building on your comments one is this concept of enough right you and I know people in the FI space and life in general who had earned a lot can still earn a lot and really adjusted this mindset to just say you know any additional money has very little marginal value why why am I needing to work or seeking work but there are also people who either enjoy what they do maybe they're entrepreneurs or some people are paid really well dislike the rat race but enjoy accumulating enjoy watching their portfolios grow and you know within the FI community there's this one more year syndrome right people don't feel comfortable can you elaborate on how you achieve this I'll call it a zen like state of you have enough right we know someone who who says any additional money he gets he gives to charity and I just feel like that's such an enlightened state right like we're socialized like apart from societal's influence on the importance of money there's a practical importance so that's one and then the second you spoke about relationships and specifically in the FI community can you elaborate on yours to the extent you're comfortable what it's like being because you mentioned publicly Jill still works she loves what she does you guys converged in this journey and you know what has that been like to be and I'll talk about like gender roles or societal you know pressures or influences to be the the spouse who's not working and to be a guy in you know not working in in our society sure oh yeah I really don't feel like I've reached any zen like state sadly but I'm more I'm working towards it again like I think the big thing for me was never feeling like I needed to impress anyone with money and I think that just gives you such a huge advantage where like I would rather people think I was poorer than I am because I just had a you know a middle class upbringing like like times were always tight and I my identity so tied to that so to then either go into the next societal brackets you know upper class or something would just be a total identity it would just yeah I don't think my brain could handle it so I'm always so I'm lucky in that sense where I've never felt the need to impress people with with flashy anything I wouldn't say I'm zen yet because because you mentioned charity like I I still can't give money away I'm I'm I'm not wasting it and that's why I have such a hard trouble spending it because I don't want to waste it and I know one day I'm going to be at that stage where I can make better use of it so in this meantime where I still have this psychological hang up I yeah I just I'm protecting it so that I don't I don't waste it away and have some sort of lifestyle inflation that causes me to not to be able to give it away but they're still part of me that I guess just has this scarcity mindset like oh like I got to keep it all just in case something really bad happens or and I don't know where that comes from it like I said maybe it was because times were so tight growing up and I never felt like we're deprived of anything but you know there was you know every penny was accounted for and I still feel that and my mindset hasn't caught up with the actual situation yet so so yeah so a long way to go on the zen part to get to the spouse part yes my wife was complete opposite end of the spectrum for me she wasn't she never spent money to like impress other people so I don't think it was like that far but she never she just didn't care about money so if it was in there her account she would spend it and if it wasn't she wouldn't want to think think too much about it whereas I was like you know spreadsheets for everything and go into you know knowing what I bought at this store versus this store and all that stuff so yeah thankfully we've come together and she's a lot more conscious of spending and money and I'm not as crazy about it which has worked out great and as you said she's she loves her job she's an optometrist she can't think of anything else she'd want to do but she's also seen the benefits of having savings so to go to covid at the beginning of the pandemic in Scotland her thing people weren't taking it seriously as we felt needed to be you know things needed to be taken care of so she was able to just say look I'm not I'm just not coming in and then she yeah she was off for the first three or four months of the pandemic because she was worried about giving us her elderly patients and she didn't think the PPE was all in the right state and then once that came back she was able to go back and then for the past like six months we've been traveling to the state since we were finally able to and we've been able to see friends and family so she's obviously not worked that time so she's seen the benefits of that and obviously I've seen the benefits of not being so crazy with money so thankfully we have met in the middle and I think we've both made each other better with our relationships with money but as far as her working in me not one like this is going to sound crazy because I'm you know I've been writing about financial independence on the internet since 2012 but I really don't like talking about it to people I know in real life so I still just say I'm a software developer that works from home but which is technically true because I write software for the mad scientist website but yeah I feel really weird talking about that in person so so yeah I'm at home but I was at home before before we vibing hit by and again I don't think I don't think it bothers me that I don't even if even if that wasn't the case and I was if all of our friends that I was just unemployed and she was working um yeah I don't know how I would feel about that I don't think I would hope I wouldn't care that much um because again like the things that drive me are the personal things that I accomplish that you know I still don't I don't tell anybody anybody about anyway um so I think I'd I'd hope that I would be okay with that but you know like I said it's harder to the reality is often way different than you imagine it would be so yeah but so far I haven't had any issue because again I just mostly tell people I'm I work from home for myself as a software developer excellent great to hear um so that spawns on another two-part question one is uh COVID and I know historically you said uh you saved enough but your you know passive income stream was sufficient that you didn't need to withdraw from your portfolio and I know that this audience would be very curious about your withdrawal strategy I um so maybe if you can elaborate maybe during COVID you needed to test it or how you envision it if you haven't needed to test it and then um within the you know the actual fi experience if you could talk more about the highs and lows of it so what surprised you were you blindsided by anything were there uh some disappointing surprises and then some like phenomenal surprises you didn't even consider sure um so the first thing I haven't had to withdraw um with jail working and with the side income that has grown probably over the last three or four years I guess when whenever fi really took off I guess that was maybe 2018 when it seemed to be in mainstream media and stuff so then the math fund just started earning more income than we spend um so I can't speak to that my plan was always to you know do the say the safe withdrawal rates just um I I'd never imagined I would increase it with inflation as allowed for um I felt that I would be very flexible in my withdrawals um since we don't have a lot of fixed costs a lot of our spending is just discretionary um so the plan was to just tighten up in down years and and then go back to three and a half percent was my floor uh withdrawal rates um but then four percent plus and in better years potentially um so yeah 3.5 percent was my target and that's still what I base all of all of our spending on now um I'm actually like I said I'm trying to loosen up with spending because I'm still the frugal college student I was 20 years ago and I'm trying to break out of that I spoke to Ramit Sethi about that on my podcast and I'm hopefully going to get him back because I feel like I've made some strides in that slightly but um but now I'm trying to force myself to spend that 3.5 withdrawal which which we we've been we've been shy of ever since uh we hit five so um so that's yeah so yeah I wish I could talk more but like I said I don't have any first-hand experience so I'm not gonna uh go on about what I theoretically would do because that doesn't really help anybody and then the the second question the surprise is um yeah one is yeah losing money as a source of motivation um that that wasn't what I expected uh I always thought yeah I always always thought wow just yeah just do fun stuff with it um but as part of that experimentation I told you about earlier like we experimented one year and we traveled the whole year and we ate out like four or five nights a week and we tried all that stuff and realized like it's actually way more fun when it's special and you get to look forward to it over a few months and you plan for it and same with eating out it's like well if it's a Friday night thing then you're looking forward to Friday nights and so we've tried a lot of that stuff so so I thought you know so I guess pre-file would have thought that you know oh if we had extra money this could be great we could go do even more fun stuff um but through experimentation I feel like we've got the got the sweet spot and um more is not necessarily better in a lot of cases it's worse so so that was a big surprise and that's you know that's still something I'm trying to come to grips with and I don't know I haven't even talked to you about this Gory but like I realized now that my cheapness was the only thing keeping my eating in check when we're traveling so like when we go somewhere like sightseeing is just the stuff I do in between eating and drinking and tasting all the foods and trying all the different stuff um and on these on these past trips ever since we've been able to travel since COVID I've just gone crazy and I realized that the only thing that was keeping that in check was my frugality and my cheapness and now that that's not there it's like well I need I need some self control I guess when it comes to food and uh yeah food and drinks so um so yeah it's things like that you don't really think about um but then yeah they they rear their head when when uh your situation changes so that was a surprise um I think the just the peace of mind has mind has been fantastic like I still like I said I still feel like a teenager so like the thought of like my car breaking down still gives me some stress and anxiety um but you know having enough and then having uh more than enough has sort of eased that and been like okay we can handle you know the car breaking or an unexpected repair and things like that um I think has really drastically improved my just like baseline just at easeness I guess um so that's been fantastic and then I'm trying to think if there's anything else that's been really yeah now those those are some of the big ones if I if anything comes up when we're talking I'll I'll be sure to add it but yeah those are the those are the big ones and then yeah just realizing that all your excuses before all the blame I was placing on my job was just totally misplaced and it was more it was all the internal stuff and stuff that I still had to deal with uh yeah just the self-doubt and the motivation the procrastination all that stuff uh yeah it wasn't my job so those are the big ones got it uh so thanks for sharing especially you know some of these vulnerable topics like you know what you're opening up about a lot of its personal um so some of the things I think it's funny you know to hear your comments about remit for a lot of folks in the space you know they're diehard mustachians folks who read Mr. Monty Mustache and whose blog changed their lives and then remit you know I would joke to myself I really value his his content as well but in in my head I think of him as somewhat of an the anti-mustachian so I understand that you know you felt liberated to some extent I'd love to hear more about what you've grown to enjoy spending on you mentioned food and then I'd also love to hear about the evolution of travel like it sounds like you know we all want to travel it's a very common primary goal and then some people travel a lot so when it sounds like your your ambition for travel has kind of perhaps changed so I'd love to hear more about that and then on the topic of travel and living abroad how has um being financially independent living abroad how do you feel that would differ from living in the states like a lot of people in the fi space consider moving abroad they try to optimize you know where they're going to live either travel around or settle so your thoughts on on those yeah sure um yeah I'll address the anti-mustachian remits which I I thought too and that's why I was so excited to get him on my show because I was like yeah you you are you are opposite ends of the spectrum I think they say a lot of the same things in just different ways um but I think having both in your ear is great and that's uh I was lucky to talk to both of them and that's uh and again I I'm going to be going back to remit because I I feel like I'm naturally like Mr. Money Mustache like that's that's my natural inclination I guess so having remit there challenging all that stuff that yeah me listening to MMM is like an echo chamber so it's like I'm not really getting anything out of that but for me challenges me in um as far as some of the stuff that has helped me not be so crazy with the spending um which I believe you asked me but I'm not sure if if you don't if you want me to talk about something else um I believe I was part of the question about remit um it was uh it was reframing things so one of the one of the things that's helped is like like ten dollars to me is just as valuable as it was when I was a college student um it's in my mind it's the same it's like that's ten bucks I'm not going to waste ten bucks or I'm going to save ten bucks if I can um so the trick that I've been doing recently is anytime I'm like freaking out about a expense that I think I really shouldn't be freaking out about I I calculate what that expense is like in my college years because that's what that's where my brain feels like still is with money um so you know taking my net worth back in 2000 and dividing it by my net worth now and then timesing it by the expense that I'm worried about and then it'll be like oh that's a nickel you're you're actually stressing out about a nickel in you know college times um so that's been helpful um yeah and then forcing myself to spend with the portfolio is what should allow me to spend has been really nice because it's it's made me a lot more generous which is something I've always wanted to be but I always was like I said before I'm always like oh every penny I need to squeeze it tight in case you know anything happens whereas now this year it's like you know going out to dinner with my family it's like hurry up and try to pay before anybody else even has a chance and same with drinks with friends and things like that so it's that's been really nice because it's like well I gotta spend it this year I'm forcing myself to spend that much and there's no way I'm gonna do that naturally because like I said I feel like we've dialed in our spending quite well so anything more is just gonna be you know um maybe not as maybe not as useful or not bring as much happiness so it's like uh so then yeah doing those things day to day has been really nice just because before I would have maybe stressed about that like you got to dinner with friends and like somebody orders the fancy cocktail and you're drinking water and then you're like oh and that's like that's the mindset I was when I was a student I want to get out of that um and now the times have changed forcing myself to spend that this year and again it's not I'm not wasting any money because like I said I don't want to waste money I want to um protect it in case you know one day I definitely will be giving it away um and the third thing that's helped with that is also um allowing myself to enjoy investments so rather than just dump all my money into vanguard index funds which is what I've done for the you know last 20 years um instead it's I'm thinking about buying a house for example so to me that's an ultimate luxury it's not really a great investment um but I think it's a luxury that I'm really looking forward to right now and my wife is as well so in my mind as I think about it as an investment rather than me spending on myself which that makes it a lot easier to to you know accept and so I think that's something we're gonna do over the next few months is buy a house in scotland and hopefully you know make it really comfortable and nice and all of that and then and then for the music stuff it's like instead of buying the cheapest synthesizer that will let me make the sound I buy the one that's gonna hold its value the best and it's gonna maybe be a future classic that is gonna maybe even go up in value so that's helping me spend a bit more in the near term but then hopefully getting a lot of enjoyment out of it and and then you know maybe even you know making it an investment where I'm if if not making money at least not losing money and that's been that's been helpful and and you know mentally being able to spend on myself a little bit more um and I'm sorry but I forgot the second question living living abroad versus being fi in the States sure yeah um well luckily so that was one thing I never skimped on when we were in our 20s and I'm thankful for that we did travel I was really good at travel hacking that's like I love doing stuff like that that's like having spreadsheets and plans and that's that's like how my brain loves to be all the time so travel hacking was just right in my wheelhouse um so we got to we we we visited I think 50 countries uh over our lifetime so far and we had great great trips and it didn't break the bank but um obviously yeah especially since now that covid is sort of made travel a bit less fun where I'm so glad I didn't skimp on that when we were younger um but now uh I don't know if it's because I'm older I'm turning 40 this year um I don't know I I feel like I've done my fair like I've got that out of my system I feel like it's out of my system and now we just flip flop back between Scotland and America because my wife's family's in Scotland and my family's in America and luckily those are two great beautiful rich places that have so much to offer that you can you know continue to explore for a lifetime and not get bored with them um so we're always so excited to do that but now I think our travel is more based around people so it's not all right which which country could we go to to see these things or eat these foods or whatever it's now like our work we go to see these people and uh have fun with them so that's been a huge shift um so I think travel is going to decrease for us in the future as well it's just going to be mainly just bounce up between those two places um as far as like how that impacts fi um I know travel in my 20s was very impactful and showing me that you know what I thought was normal in America was actually extremely extravagant and there's a lot of really unfortunate situations out there where people are really struggling to get by and that allowed me to keep my spending in check I think and never you know feel like I deserved nicer things or anything like that um so that was huge and just having given me the mindset to save so much money over those years um but as far as you know now um I just became a British citizen on uh July 1st which was really exciting after so long and so many applications trying to get it um so now we don't have to worry about visas and stuff but obviously the health care thing that's a huge weight off my chest now I guess it's like the national health care uh national health services fantastic in Scotland um so there are benefits in places um you know it it's probably more difficult to pursue fi there just because of the higher taxes and things like that and there's less loopholes which is what you know my whole site was built on back in the earlier days was yeah just finding interesting loopholes for early retirees or future early retirees um so there's a lot less of that but then there's a there's a bigger social safety net so you know you have a lot more stuff covered as well so yeah I don't know if that exactly answers your question but hopefully it's helpful yeah that was very helpful thanks so a few things um and what you said one is that you're considering buying a house I'm certain that the Boglehead audience would like to hear more about especially given how analytical you are and how you know you commented it's not necessarily a good investment or it's often not a good investment but also if you could talk about on top of that share your thoughts previously you mentioned you were considering buying real estate as a part-time investment so uh you mentioned you know like a unit near a ski resort that you could you could use personally when you in ski season and then you could rent it out when you're not using it and then COVID happens obviously that changed but how are your your thoughts going forward on that does it still interest you and then can you elaborate on your purchase analysis and how you decided where you're currently leaning sure yeah no so that that plan is pretty much out the window um and again that's always me coming back to my default which is like how could I optimize this for the numbers as perfectly as possible and that that whole plan of having yeah two places one in scotland one in america um and the thought was that we would buy in places that the peak tour season was pretty much opposite so we could live in the non high peak tourist place while we rent out the peak tourist place and then use that money to pay for the other one and then vice versa and it was all a numbers thing and that's again it's just old habits die hard i'm trying to get out of making numbers only decisions which is where remit comes in where he's like there's more than a spreadsheet and you have to live outside the spreadsheet and uh you know sometimes decisions should be more than just like optimizing numbers so i realized like all the stress that could come from renting things out and and uh and at least i know myself well enough to know that that would just cause a huge amount of stress because yeah um i'm an introverted guy and i do enjoy interacting with people but yeah conflict with people that yeah it's it's i just know that if i'm a landlord i'm not going to be too happy um and i'll probably be a lot more stressed so it would just add a lot of negative things and yeah the numbers may be great but um uh yeah i don't think would actually benefit so so now the idea is to just buy a base in scotland um you know finally get to enjoy some of our stuff that has been we just literally today jill and i were in a closet i'm at my dad's house going through that closet because there's boxes in there that we haven't seen since we moved out of vermont's like six years ago or something um so yeah being reunited with all that stuff is going to be nice um and then we can just store it all in scotland and then when we come to the states and yeah if we want to go skiing we can just rent an airbnb or if we want to you know come to pittsburgh and see all of my family here we can just rent a apartment in the city or i think it'll allow us to be a lot more flexible um in the states and then in scotland we'll have a home base to go back to and that's when i can you know the idea is to like yeah scotland will be the place where we can get stuff done and uh see jill's family and just really spend time with them and jill can work uh if she wants to pick up some shifts and things like that and then the states we can just use that time to see people here and have fun and yeah do things like skiing and visiting friends so um so yeah it's changed quite a lot and then as far as the analysis for buying a place in scotland uh not really not really looking at it numbers-based trying not to at least um we know where we want to be we know the type of property we want um thankfully it hasn't popped up yet uh because we're in the states for we're not going to be back in scotland until mid-october um so hopefully we can deal with that when we get back um but yeah i think it's hopefully hopefully just going to be the property that decides it and not any crazy number analysis from me and i could just i have some money set aside that's like for that and yeah hopefully we just find a property that that works and then yeah try to be homeowners again after renting for so long now that sounds fantastic it's uh another example of optimizing for happiness so i'm sensitive of the group's time i think we have about four or five minutes before we go to the group's questions so as you and i wrap up even though clearly we could you know keep talking about so many different things um and i think folks you know find a lot of this practical and insightful um on that note uh you've commented that you're you're not in this five space to be evangelical you started the blog to kind of keep yourself accountable right with an external motivator and it helps people who are ready interested in the journey so this question is really like for a lot of bogelheads they're the beacon in their community whether it's a social circle or family people come to them for guidance and advice what have you seen in the space because there's so much advice out there right and certain things resonate with some people more than others obviously what have you seen be most effective for the folks that want to improve they want to save better they want to invest better but they find it so incredibly challenging yeah that's yeah that's that's tough um it's a tough one for me just because it has come so naturally like i said before it's just been such a focus in my life for some reason for so long um i i guess it would have to just go back to tracking um and really like so this is probably a good actual example so i have a i have another personal spreadsheet where i just in in a cell just one column will have like all the thing all the big purchases i made that year and then another column will have and it doesn't like all the spreadsheet purists are gonna be like you don't need a spreadsheet for that but i just love working with sales um so and then of another column that's the highlights of the year and i think like obviously if i was struggling with that i think that would be really beneficial to keep those lists you know your big purchases and then your highlights and then revisit it in future years and you know tracking your spending is obviously huge and i think like yeah tracking your spending and then tracking these big purchases i think would be the first step because i feel like a lot of people maybe are just you know buying what other people think or they see other people doing that and they're buying and it's really not adding to their happiness in any way um so i think writing those things down and then looking back on it be like oh actually those things weren't really that important or that trip wasn't that great um or eating out wasn't that great so yeah but again though i'm like i said i'm so naturally focused on this stuff that it's a bit harder for me to think about yeah what would be really beneficial but i think even now as i'm trying to come to grips with my new spending patterns it's been helpful for me and it's something yeah that i still do so it's yeah just uh recording all the all the big purchases all the highlights and then trying to figure out hmm what does that mean for what i actually enjoy or get value out of great yeah that's it's definitely helpful to hear and uh for folks who who don't know um mad scientist compiled a pdf of the uh one piece of advice answers that he got from his podcast guest so that's available at mad scientist slash advice i believe you go to that enter your email you get that pdf basically instantly so in closing before we turn it over to audience questions you mentioned james clears atomic habits i think that's a universal favorite um everyone i know that's read it just kind of swears by it on top of the other habit books out there that preceded it um very practical uh and you mentioned ultra learning any other books you recommend or documentaries especially for the bogelhead crowd doesn't need to be finance related could be you know spanning life yeah um so uh jl collins the arthur the simple path to wealth he was my second podcast guest way back in 2012 uh way before the simple path to wealth and um he had recommended how to obtain freedom in an unfree world harry brown and there's a lot in that book that are you know like i definitely don't agree with it all um my wife particularly had big issues with some of it but it did make you think a little bit differently um about the boxes you put yourself in and the constraints that are all self-imposed pretty much i would say in a lot of cases um and you know back then 2012 you know fire wasn't as big of a thing and um definitely wasn't anywhere near mainstream like it got to be in 2018 or things like that um so that helped just yeah with my mindset at like oh actually society doesn't know best and these other people don't know best and the things that i think i'm restricted by aren't actually restrictions they're just my own mental restrictions and i can actually do anything that i really want um so that was i would say that was a pretty impactful non-financial book um early retirement extreme that was what got me into this in the first place i saw on 2011 i think it was that uh gd rothan get rich slowly had interviewed or um had written a book review of early retirement extreme and that that reads like a academic book but there's a lot of a lot of great stuff in there that you know i've read it at least three times and uh finally got to speak to jake up just last year which was a which was a big thrill for me because he was the thing that he was the guy that you know made the light bulb go off in my head um so yeah early retirement extreme is still still one of my favorites so those two i would i would give as yeah something to check out with an open mind and yeah it's not they're not bibles but yeah they'll hopefully get you thinking fantastic well thanks again i meant to mention earlier um when we're talking about relationships that uh your wife jill has a guest post on your blog and also a podcast uh conversation that if folks haven't listened to i highly recommend those very engaging very just warm and enjoyable so um with that uh brandon thanks again uh you're you know we're still continuing but i want to turn it over to miriam carol and mani and the folks who are running the the questions on the chat and those folks will be asking the questions from the audience although yeah before you move over thanks a lot gory it's always a pleasure to chat with you and hopefully see you back in edinburgh soon love that and likewise thank you gory thank you mad scientist that was a wonderful wonderful discussion i enjoyed it very much i'm going to remove you from spotlight so hold on here while i do that okay