551 | Roundup: Buy vs. Rent, Mortgage Amortization, Minimalism and More
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Hello and welcome to Chooseify. Today on the show, we have another roundup, which are my absolute favorite episodes. So Ginger's back for another round of this. And this is a really fun conversation. We talk about both the pluses and minuses of paying off your mortgage, buying versus renting. I think Ginger and I both are in different life situations. And we kind of talk through a lot of these things, even amortizing your mortgage and kind of off the wall thoughts that I've had on that, that amortizing

I've really dove into the numbers and looked at amortization schedules and hopefully put this in a perspective that maybe you've never considered before. We talk a lot about minimalism and stuff and owning things, hitting credit card spends, and even just little improvements in life.

And finally, we close with the Chooseify local app that Jonathan has created that is really something special. And I think it's going to revolutionize what we have going on at Chooseify. And hopefully this is something that is really going to make a difference in the Chooseify local groups and really the larger conversation of FI and being able to ask questions of our friends and experts. I think there's something special going on. So I think you're really going to like this episode. And with that, welcome to Chooseify. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ginger, it is always good to see you. These roundup episodes are a blast. So it's been a couple of months. How's it going? Oh, it's been good. It's good to be back on the show. Okay, let's open with... I want to tell you about a YouTube clip that I was watching this morning. And it was titled something like, 10 Reasons to Pay Off Your House Early. Okay. Do you know why I was watching this? I do not. Confirmation bias. Because...

Because I've made a decision and I want to be told that it's a good decision. So my husband and I are hopefully going to have paid off our house by the end of the year. So I am obsessed with this. I'm thinking about it all the time. I'm like going to my amortization calculator constantly to see like, wait, if I put this much more. Yeah.

You know, can I knock another month off? I know what we're doing is controversial, although I will say I've only been throwing extra at it for the last year and a half. Okay. And that was kind of my way to sort of mitigate maybe some of the, like, I know it's not a great idea.

optimized decision financially, but we didn't pay it off 10 years early. We're going to pay it off, you know, like two years early. So I'm really excited about it. And I kind of wanted to talk to you about it.

And yeah, what do you think about that? Ooh, I love it. Well, first off, congrats. I think no matter what comes next, no matter what anybody is saying, yelling at you or whatever, you know, I'm kidding, obviously, but in listening to this, that's fantastic. To pay off your mortgage is a huge accomplishment. And again, all jokes aside, I don't think personal finance and certainly FI, in my opinion, is about being perfectly optimized at all times. I

I think, sure, there's that tiny little sliver of people in our community who are always going to be the math nerds and the ultra optimizers. But I think most people are not really like that. We're kind of, hey, I'm optimizing for the sleep well at night test, right? And if paying off your mortgage makes you sleep better at night, then that's a massive win as far as I'm concerned. And it sounds like since you said, hey, we're only paying it off two years early and

you only started making these extra payments a year ago, it doesn't sound like a ton of

crazy things went down here, right? Like this is just, hey, we decided to pay it off a little bit early. No harm, no foul. And I mean, you and your husband are going to have a celebration when that thing is paid off. So I mean, that's my quick hit thought. I'm sure you have actual like real questions and we can dive into maybe some actual analysis if we want or high level. But if you're looking for confirmation bias, I'll tell you, you know,

paying off the mortgage is not something, well, that's not entirely true. It is, it's something that I went back and forth on when I did have a mortgage. And there were times where I did throw some extra money to principal every month for a couple of years there. And then I decided, oh, you know what? I don't really want to do that. I have such a low interest rate. This doesn't make sense. But like, I mean,

I mean, frankly, like I vacillated with it just constantly. So I don't think there's really a right answer other than what's good for you. So yeah, I mean, I think just to summarize, a hearty congrats. That's really, really awesome.

Yeah, I think about who I was four years ago, even like I specifically remember having this conversation with a friend about it was the time during the vaccine lotteries. Okay. Where at least our state was like, if you got vaccinated, then you were put into this lottery and you might win $100,000 or I have no idea what the number was. But I remember we were all like, okay, we're gonna win. So let's all plan what we're gonna do with our $100,000.

And so in these very fun conversations, paying off the house would always come up. And I was so firmly like, no, no, no, don't do that. But then I think the closer that I have gotten to being done with that bill, it really cranked up the emotional...

The intensity of that decision where when it was farther away, I could be more rational, I guess, and I could optimize around interest rate.

So I think for me, it was something about just getting closer to it. Like I said, if we didn't start putting money towards it, we'd still be done in a few years. So it wasn't that big of a deal. But getting closer to it, just like, oh my gosh, it feels so exciting to... This is the biggest financial goal we've ever had or worked towards. So I take your point. And for us, yes, it does feel like the right decision. And I have no...

No plan to slow down now. That's huge. And Ginger, I mean, I think you hit on something important there, which is this is supposed to be fun. Yeah. This journey to FI. Like, I think that's what so many people from the outside of our community think that we're these misers and we're depriving ourselves and we're unhappy and we're running away from jobs. Like this is like FI circa 2013, but no.

The financial independence community circa 2025, I think to me is about living better lives. And I think this whole journey should be fun. No part of it should we wish away in terms of, oh, just, I'm just cranking through this and just trying to increase my savings rate and I'll wake up five or 10 years from now, fi, and everything's going to be better. Like, I think we've all kind of realized that that's not the path to success. It's about

Trying to, for me at least, trying to simplify everything, trying to get everything on autopilot, trying to not let my brain get in the way of investment decisions, of savings decisions, of things like that. And then taking all that extra free time that I have now to experiment on what do I want my life to look like?

Yeah. Right? And if part of your fun FI journey is paying off your mortgage, then do it. That's phenomenal as far as I'm concerned. And so that's my giving license to every single person listening to this is just you got to figure out what works for you. And don't listen to the naysayers or the people who say like, oh, that's not perfectly optimized. Who cares what's perfectly optimized? Just do what works for your life. And of course, you don't want to do stupid things. Of

of course, but that's all like at the margin at the end of the day, like just figure out what works for your life and just try to live a better life today, tomorrow, and, and all the tomorrows in the future. So yeah, Ginger, I'm glad you brought that up because I think like fun is a really important part of this.

I thought it could be worth talking about too, because when we think about paying off the mortgage early, we talk about like, should I do this or should I not do this? And there's so many little steps in between that, like the weird thing that we're doing, which is, oh, once you hit two years to really speed it up. And I remember, I think I remember when you and Jonathan did an episode about paying off the mortgage early, you talked a little bit about instead of just like

choosing either a 15 or a 30 year, in fact, to choose a 30 year, but pay it like a 15 year. And that's another one of those things that's like, that gives you another option, another way to think about it, when maybe what you're optimizing for is safety, or maybe what you're optimizing for is freedom, maybe it would be worth you kind of running through what that's all about. Yeah.

Yeah. Damn, Ginger, that's an incredible memory. And yeah, so I'm going to do this off the top of my head and I remember it well enough, but I have always thought, and I ran the numbers, I think a lot of people get confused when it comes to like the amortization schedule on their mortgage.

And you hear this often with refinancing. So, oh, I'm going to reset the amortization schedule and I'm going to just then all of a sudden I'm going to start paying a whole lot more in interest on a percentage basis each month because I started my mortgage over. Well, that's true to a degree, but it's not the apples to apples comparison. So I'm going to get around to the 15 to 30 year, but I think it's a starker example when it comes to refinancing, because again, that's the commonly held myth.

That, oh, you're restarting your amortization and that's just that. But what actually happens is the apples to apples would be, okay, yes, you refinanced. And now in most cases, when you refinance, it's because the interest rate went down. And also just almost by definition, you've paid off more principal than your prior mortgage that you just refinanced out of. So your payment is actually going to be lower every month.

Okay. And yes, just the way these amortization schedules work, you do pay a significant amount of interest every single month on a percentage basis. So let's say your, your mortgage payment is $1,500 a month. And you look at those first year or two, really first handful of years, you're paying somewhere at 85, 90% of the principal and interest portion to interest actually. Okay.

So that's true. But the apples to apples would be, okay, actually take your old mortgage payment, the principal and interest portion and continue paying that actually. So again, just for simplicity sake, let's say your old mortgage payment on your higher balance, your higher principal balance and the higher interest rate was $2,000 a month.

And you've been paying it for, I don't know, 10 years, 15 years, something like that. And again, when you refinance now, naturally the interest rate, you wouldn't do this if the interest rate didn't go down. And that principal has been paid down for the, over those 15 years, your payment every month is going to be lower. Okay. So let's just say it went down just again, totally made up. It went down to $1,200 a month. Well, the apples to apples would be to continue paying at the 2000 per month.

that you were previously paying. And lo and behold, you would actually find that the amortization schedule is not only the same, but it's better than

you previously had on your old mortgage because the interest rate went down. So actually the only important component there is since the interest rate went down, you're actually paying a higher amount towards principal every month. So you'll notice if you run this schedule and just again, just do this like, Hey, I'm refinancing, but I'm paying that extra principal to get me back to where my old

principal and interest payment was my old mortgage payment, not including your escrow amounts for taxes and insurance. But if you just made it equivalent on the principal and interest, you would actually pay it off quicker. And now that kind of makes sense because again, the interest rate went down. So, okay. That all said, and hopefully that wasn't too confusing. It's a little hard to do this, obviously on a podcast, not seeing it on paper, but trust me, just like run a mortgage amortization schedule and just throw in your new amount

And even just to prove it out to yourself, keep the interest rate the same. Okay. And this actually gets us into that 15 versus 30 year. Keep the interest rate the same and just pay that extra principle that gets you up to where your old mortgage payment was. And you'll actually notice that it is identical. In that case, you'll pay it off exactly when you would have paid it off on your old mortgage

mortgage. But again, because in reality, the interest rate went down. If you're paying that extra principal, you will pay it off quicker. So this is not a requirement. You don't have to do it, but it's just to prove to yourself that, oh, this is how that amortization schedule works. So it really, it takes something that is very difficult to understand. And when you just see it on a mortgage interest calculator and a mortgage amortization schedule, it actually becomes clear. So now I'll take that to this 15 versus 30 year.

My argument has always been that I would, for me, and of course, I don't give personal finance advice. I just talk about what I would do. I would always do a 30-year mortgage because using the same principle, the same concept, I can basically self-amortize my mortgage into as many years as I want to by paying extra principal.

So I think a 15 year mortgage, or even less, some people do a 10 year mortgage. Like I think that cuts you down on options because it locks you into contractually locks you into a higher payment every month. Okay. Let's just say something went wrong. You lost your job or something like, do you want to be contractually locked into a higher mortgage payment? No, I'm not.

I don't. Not when I could have basically done this on my own. Now, naturally, you are going to pay. And this is the opposite of the example that I just talked about with the refinance. What you do pay extra is a tiny little interest rate premium. So you're going to pay a little extra in your interest rate. And that to me is the cost of

of doing business to have this extra flexibility. So again, to prove it out, you can just run side by side and let's just say, again, to prove it, just keep the interest rate the exact same. Okay. Just make it up and say it's a 5% interest rate or even prevailing, whatever, 7% and throw in your numbers. So throw in the principal amount of my mortgage, let's say is 300,000. I'm doing it at 7% interest.

And then you put in the years and do 15 years and figure out what the payment amount is to 30 years and you get the payment amount. Okay. And then you just compare them. Now, naturally the payment on the 15 year mortgage is going to be much more every month. Again, that's yeah, you're paying it off much quicker, but again, you're contractually locked into that. Right.

Right. So Ginger, again, I'm totally making these numbers up. I could run this, but it's actually relevant. We'll use the same numbers, right? Like that $2,000 a month for the 15 year mortgage. And we'll say it's $1,200 a month for the 30 year mortgage. Now these are again, totally made up numbers. So now that's an $800 difference, right? So what I would say is again, to prove this out to yourself, go into this mortgage amortization schedule and do that 30 year, but then pay $800 a month extra on mortgage

your extra principal every month, and you will find that it is paid off in exactly 15 years. Okay. So there's no secret here. There's no surprise. Nothing crazy is happening. You're self-amortizing it into a 15 year mortgage. You could self-amortize it into any number of years that you want. But again, to prove this point, it's just literally apples to apples, but now naturally you are paying a premium. So the interest rate would be a little bit extra.

Right. So instead of it being 7%, again, making these numbers up, it might be 7.125 or seven and a quarter or something like that. So that's the extra premium that you're paying to get this extra flexibility. But to me, I think that's worth it. And in my own life, I would always rather have

my contractually locked in payments every month be dramatically less. And then I can self-advertise this as quickly or slowly as I want. And I can also go into and out of that, like as life changes and things come up, but I have the flexibility as opposed to, I am stuck in this 15 year mortgage until I refinance or sell the house basically. So I know that was a lot changer, but

Hopefully I explained the two examples well, and I know it's interesting because in one case, the interest rate is going down, the other it's going up. But nevertheless, like when you compare apples to apples, like you realize there are no surprises here. It's all the same math, but you're just that interest rate going up or down is what's actually changing.

Yeah. And it's interesting to hear you talk about optimizing for flexibility, because I think about how that's what we did as well, but we kind of did it on the back end, where the reason that I started throwing more money at the house was that two years ago, we had

had this opportunity to maybe skip town for a couple of years. We were going to do a thing. And as we were like trying to figure out the logistics of doing it, the house kept coming up as like, we have to have the house payment covered. And it was just such a disaster because there were pets and it wasn't like easy to just like rent it out. And so even once that fell through and it was like, okay, we're not going to do that. Just thinking about

Because we always kind of have our minds on like, oh, should we leave town? Should we do something interesting for a few years? And thinking, okay, if our house was paid off and that huge logistical nightmare was like solved and whatever we did with the house, it would be okay.

To me, I thought, okay, I'm going to lose some money, just like you were saying. I'm going to pay a price to pay off the house early. But to me, it's worth it for the flexibility of like, hey, if I want to do something interesting in a year, making sure that my mortgage gets paid is not going to be the thing that stops that from happening. Right. I like that. And yeah, again, like to each their own on how they consider different aspects of their financial life.

And I think, yeah, like you not having that mortgage payment, like if that helps facilitate you going on this trip of a lifetime or whatever this skipping down, opening up options is like, if that's the difference, the make or break difference for you and your husband and your family, like, then that's great.

Right. Like for other people, it might just be, hey, look, we're not really locked into this particular house. And who knows if we're going to come back to Washington state or maybe we move back to the exact location, whatever it may be. Like they might decide to sell their house if they're going away for two, three, five years as opposed to letting it sit there. Right. But again, I'm not saying this is the right thing to do. I think it's just how someone might look at it. It's like, OK, yeah, you paid off this mortgage.

But you also have all that equity just sitting in the walls, in essence, inert, doing nothing. And there is an opportunity cost to that. Like, that's an interesting concept when you think about like renting versus owning. And yeah, it doesn't seem like your house costs a lot when you have it paid off, especially. But yeah.

let's say you have $400,000 in equity on a paid off house. Like, yeah, houses go up a little bit sometimes, you know, but on average, a couple percent a year. But realistically, like you can't count on appreciation when it comes to houses. So if you had that $400,000 sitting in a high yield savings account earning 4%, that's $16,000 a year in interest income you'd get, which, hey, if this adventure of yours was taking you to

Portugal or Indonesia or something like that might pay for a decent bit of your rent for each of the years. So again, I'm not trying to tell you right or wrong or anything. It's just like all these considerations really factor in. And I think the cool part is it just comes down to your own life, Ginger, in this case, and your own life, you who's listening to me talking about this. And I think there's no right answer, but knowing all the factors, I think that's what matters most.

Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about some other factors.

Let's go back to, so a few weeks ago, I interviewed you for the Getting Personal series. And you mentioned that you are renting and want to keep renting forever and ever and ever because it's so great. And at the time, I was like, okay, we're going to have to get back to this because you felt so strongly about it. And we kind of glossed over it. But I wonder now that a little bit of time has passed.

How that is sitting with you or if you have more to share sort of about that. I don't know. Maybe it's not a change of heart, but maybe it is. Yeah, it's a really good question. I'm glad you brought that back up. And yeah, that episode was episode 533. So yeah, Ginger, it's crazy that that was almost five months ago, which is crazy.

Absolutely wild. And yeah, I did talk about some really personal things on there, especially some changes going on in my personal life. And I wanted to just first off say a huge thank you to all the people, the outpouring of kindness and compassion that people showed me after that. I was frankly just pretty worried about talking about something just so intensely personal on the show. And I mean...

goodness, you all just really, really came through in just a beautifully human way. So yeah, Ginger, thank you for facilitating that conversation first off. And thank you to everybody listening, who is just incredibly, incredibly kind. That meant more to me than you'll really ever, ever, ever know. So yeah, as part of that, I talked about

Not living in the house and the mortgage that I've had and moving out and getting an apartment where I am now renting.

So that's what Ginger was talking about there. And yeah, Ginger, I mean, you know, I certainly, the change of heart part is an interesting thing. Like, and also let's be clear, because I think there, I saw a lot of posts in the Facebook group about this. Like, oh, is Brad saying you should only rent or that this is the only thing or this is what he advises. And of course I'm paraphrasing very loosely there, but let's be clear. It is absolutely not.

the only way to go. It's not even necessarily the best way. Again, like I hate to keep saying this, but like this is really personal for your life. And I think owning a home for many people, to me most especially, like it was always about stability. So owning my home, I always believed was a suboptimal financial decision, but a

positive decision for my daughters and the continuity of schools, the continuity of just having a home that they knew and loved and having neighbors and friends in the area. Like that was why I always thought owning a home was, was a great decision. But for me, it was never about the personal finance aspect of it or being like a great investment or anything like that. Like

I think that's frankly total nonsense. Just like as part of popular culture, like your home is your largest asset and blah, blah, blah. Like, yeah, I think for regular people, like it's for savings. It might be at the end of the day, just through like sheer like bias

backing into this, their biggest financial asset after, you know, 20, 30 years, if you stayed in a home that long, I don't think most people do frankly, but for most of us in the five community, if we wake up 30 or 40 years from now and our home at the home that we live in, again, let's separate this from real estate investments, which are overt and specific and distinct. But if the home that you live in is your biggest financial asset and you're in the financial independence community, I suspect something's gone wrong because like

I can't imagine like saving and investing over years and decades in the stock market or wherever else you, you put your money. Like I find it hard to believe that that would not vastly outweigh the amount of equity you'd have in your, in your single family residence or your, your home, whatever that looks like. So I think that's kind of a red herring for, if that's even the saying for, for people in the five community, it's just, it's just simply not the case. So that all said, yeah, I mean, ginger, I

I love renting. I absolutely love it. I think it's the greatest thing. I think I've been moving my life towards simplicity. I know I've mentioned that repeatedly. Another aspect, interestingly, and this is not the anti-real estate show, let's be totally clear, but I actually have sold the rental properties that I owned in Georgia. Now, this is completely separate from this renting thing, but I'm just trying to simplify my life in every way possible. And

There is just something really, really nice about, hey, the only thing that I'm on the hook for every single month when it comes to my living expenses is just that rent payment that I have to pay. And if something breaks, if anything goes wrong,

It's not my responsibility. I'm not responsible for, I live in a little condo community where there's an HOA fee. I don't have to pay that. I don't pay for property taxes. I don't pay anything.

I just paid this one monthly fee and it's fantastic. Like in terms of optimizing for simplicity, it's really great. And I think frankly, like I think it's a better financial move for me as well. If I thought it was a better financial move to own, I probably would consider it. But yeah, I feel like I'm coming out way ahead. Are there things about renting that are unexpectedly harder than you thought they'd be? Ooh, yeah.

No, as of right now, in my particular case, no, I guess maybe at the margin because it's not my own place. I can't really, I mean, well, that's not true. That's a limiting belief. I was going to say, I can't really make upgrades or changes and that's, that's just false. I could, but I'd be doing that into someone else's place, right? Like I could move out of here a year from now or six months from now, or who knows five plus years from now.

So one of the only negatives in my particular unit that I'm living in is there's only one HVAC unit and it's a three level place. So the climate control leaves a little bit to be desired. And I've been working some ways around it, but I noticed like the sliding glass doors out to these little deck and patio that I have on two of the levels, they're just, they're

They're really not great. And if it was my own place, I would probably replace them. And I don't know how much a sliding door, you know, be a thousand, 2000, something like that dollars. Right. But I could actually do that. I could pay for it out of my own pocket, but I'd be giving it as a gift in essence to the, to the landlord. But I could make that decision.

Right. Which is interesting. But yeah, like that's something that I'm probably not prepared to do because I don't know exactly how long I live in this in this unit. So, yeah, I mean, there's some stuff like that. Like, do I really feel like painting the walls when I'd have to probably repaint them or pay a fee for? So, like, yeah, you do give up some of the personalization. But again, it's just at the margins. And at the end of the day, it's just money.

Right. Like, what are they going to charge me? Like, even if I painted the bland walls into a nice color, like maybe they actually like it better and they just leave it that way. Like it might actually be a positive for the homeowner, the property manager. I don't know. It's a question I could ask.

But yeah, I mean, I think the scary part of renting for me is again, that lack of continuity, which is why I don't think I ever would have done this, even though I talked about on the podcast, certainly for years about, Oh, I'd love to rent. I think it would be great. Like I just could never do that to my girls, like make it. So like our fate was in someone else's hands, right. In terms of like, Hey, if the owner of the home decided to sell, like,

We have to look for a new place. And that wasn't what I wanted for my daughters. Whereas this is just me in this place. And if the homeowner decides to sell it because it's just not working for him, I can find another place really, really easily. So I'm not worried about that. So that issue has been mitigated. But that's always hanging over my head that like, yeah, they might just decide not to renew. They might sell the place. And while I probably plan to be here for five more years, at least until my younger daughter graduates from high school, like, yeah, I might have to move.

And that's a cost, obviously. And it is what it is. But yeah, that's kind of the only negative I've found. Yeah. Thanks for listening to Chooseify and for all your support of our mission here. The absolute best way to support Chooseify is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at chooseify.com slash cards. I keep this page constantly updated, so it should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support.

I know we talked last time about sort of minimalism and maybe even I asked you, how long would it take you to pack up your place? But one thing that happens when people go to a new place and they are purging their stuff is that they get into this new empty place and they end up buying stuff. They end up filling the space. Have you noticed that happening at all?

No. Well, yes and no. I mean, I guess, yeah, it would be ridiculous to say no, because there obviously was an expense, right? So this is a three bedroom place. My daughters each have their own bedrooms here for when they stay with me. And yeah, I had to go out and buy beds for each of them. I had to buy desks for when they do their homework. I had to buy nightstands and lamps and all that. Like there certainly is an expense.

And then, yeah, I had to buy a chair or two for the living room. We have a second area downstairs in the basement. Like, you know, I had to buy a little bit of furniture. And frankly, like the other cool part is like, I don't care about this stuff at all. So yeah, like you jokingly asking, like, or we talked about like how quickly I could get out of here. Like I own virtually nothing at this point that I actually care about. And again, with this, the minimalism and simplification, like I love that. Like I could probably recreate

my entire wardrobe in 15 minutes on Amazon. I know the exact shirts, the exact Under Armour shirts, the soccer t-shirts I have, the exact shorts. It's all in my Amazon account. Ginger, it's pretty wild. In this day and age with a password manager on your computer and Dropbox and your phone and a passport and some credit cards, you don't really need anything.

I could get on any computer I need to. I don't need like my setup. I had, sure. I have some lights for the podcast. I have a microphone, but I could just buy all that stuff really easily. Like it's actually really liberating to just not own anything that I really care about. So like, yeah, I'm not going to like trick that furniture around the world with me. Like, I don't care about it. Why do it? I'll sell it. I'll donate it. I'll leave it in the place if they want it to be furnished. Who knows? Right. But like, yeah, I really have been pretty good with not

not filling it up with like unnecessary things. I think there's always the level of necessary, like I needed to buy stuff for my kitchen. I needed to get a, whatever it is, an air fryer, a microwave oven, you know, whatever, fill in the blank, a Keurig machine. But yeah, other than that, I really, I've done a pretty good job. I,

I think it's a really interesting framework that you've laid down and I want you to write a book about it. And here's the conceit, right? The idea, like we've all heard this idea, get rid of everything except for the things that you care about, that you're really deeply attached to, the things that bring you joy. But your book is going to be get rid of everything you care about so that the only things that you have are things that you can easily walk away from. Yeah.

I love that. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I like thinking about it. Yeah. It's like, uh, I don't know if it's Buddhism or meditation or whatever, but like, it's like a total detachment from stuff. And it's not to say I don't own stuff again. I own some books. I own all the things that are necessary for, for a house. I have a nice piece of luggage that I just got, like, but I don't care about any of this stuff. It's all just me.

It's just money, right? Like if whatever forbid, like, you know, I had a fire or something or something happened or I got robbed or, you know, not that anybody would rob my place because there's literally nothing of any value in it. But I could literally recreate my whole life in a couple of clicks on Amazon. And that might sound weird to some people. I suspect there are people listening to this who are saying like, Brad, that doesn't sound great to me.

Yeah. Right. Like Ginger, you might be one of those people like that's wonderful. If that doesn't sound great to you, that's I'm not trying to proselytize and like say that this is wonderful. This is how you should live. Like I'm saying this is how I'm living and I find it really liberating. But Ginger, what are your thoughts? I don't know. I have to think about it more. That's why I want to read your book about it, because I do. I mean, we've kind of talked about how I kind of lean that way in terms of I really want to be less attached to my things and

I'm constantly getting rid of stuff. But at the same time, as I hear you talking, I'm like, yeah, there is something about it that doesn't sit super well with me in terms of I think of like, oh, well, there's some, I don't know. Yeah. There's something about those things that I have chosen. I mean, I guess it's just the idea of attachment, right? But there's some messiness there that feels alive to me.

And so that's why I feel like, oh, gosh, I kind of have to think about it more because those things, those things are also attachments to the people that I love and to experiences that I've had. So I'm not sure. I lean that way, but I'm not ready for the fire yet. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's perfectly fine. And yeah, let's, let's hope there's no, uh, no fire. Obviously I'm not wishing for that. Let's be clear. But yeah, like I think it's okay. And I think that's, that's a fun part of this conversation is to figure out like, Hey, where am I in life now? Like, what do I think about my stuff? Like, do I want more stuff? Wanting more stuff is not a bad thing. It's really not. And I'm not saying you're necessarily wanting more stuff, but like, if you're listening to this and you're saying like,

hey, this stuff brings me joy. It brings me happiness. Like I'm really carefully cultivating what comes into my life and I want a net increase in wonderful things that I value. Like that's really great, but do it with eyes wide open. I think like if you're doing it that way, that's great. But if you're just buying haphazardly, I think that's,

That's the intentionality, Ginger, that we're constantly talking about here at Choose FI is if you're living a life of intention and you're being specific and you're really thinking through purchases, then you can't go wrong with those purchases.

I think my issue is with people unconsciously just purchasing and doing it to fill some hole that it's not really filling. And it's not to say there aren't things that I wouldn't rebuy. Like I'm not advocating that. I'm not advocating that like,

I want to keep culling things down or that I wouldn't rebuy things if I lost them. Like I've said repeatedly, like for some bizarre reason, like I love noise canceling headphones. I have these Bose ones. I'm not saying they're better than any other brand, but I just really liked them. I forget they're probably two to $300. If I lost them, if they broke, I would buy them in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even think about it.

And they just bring a lot of satisfaction to my life. It's like I always joke when I turn that button on and I get the noise canceling, it's like it's like lying in a meadow. Like I just feel like this sense of like peace and serenity. And maybe it's like quiets the noise in my head or the ambient noise around that just like really gets to me. But that was a great purchase. I'll make it again and again and again.

And I think that's a cool aspect of life is like, Hey, what are those things that are important? What are those things that like going back to Marie Kondo or Marie Kondo, which would be the Japanese version, like what brings me joy? And I don't know, especially even for clothes. And I don't, I'm not like a fashionista by any stretch of imagination, but like I've pretty much culled.

almost all of my clothes at this point. And I just wear things that I really love that fit me well, that are comfortable, that are nice material, even if it's a little expensive. Like when I went traveling, when I went to Indonesia, when I went to Bali and Singapore,

A friend of mine, Samantha, talked about merino wool and these t-shirts that are just really great for hotter climates. And even though wool doesn't normally connotate like, oh, I'm going to wear this to a 95 degree Singapore, but she convinced me and I

I bought, I think I bought four of them. I subsequently bought two more long sleeves and these things aren't cheap. I mean, I think most of them cost like $100 per, but I wound up getting a different brand that were maybe $40 or $50 per shirt, which is not inexpensive. But Ginger, these are fantastic. I wore them and they are wonderful travel shirts. They're great shirts to even wear around

town, like they look nice and they fit great. So I can wear them to maybe even not formal occasions, certainly, but like out to dinner or something like that, even though it's a t-shirt, it's a really nice thing. And like, again, there are five people in the old days, certainly who would bristle at, Oh, you spent $50 or $40 on a shirt. Like, come on when you can get free t-shirts at FinCon or wherever it is. Like, but I mean, like, that's not the life I'm playing at this point. These are really wonderful things. And I'd rebuy them in a heartbeat also.

Okay, so you also mentioned in that previous interview that you're just sort of spending less. You said, my life doesn't really cost that much. And it makes me think about, okay, that's the case for a lot of us. We really try to get our expenses down. I am currently trying to make my $5,000 chase...

Okay. Yep, four years. Yeah.

than I anticipated. And I kind of have a solution that I'm happy to share. But it brings up this point of like, oh, is this a mistake? Do we end up actually spending more when we're using credit cards and especially when we're trying to meet a minimum spend? What do you think of that? Yeah, Ginger, that is a really good question. And actually, Sean wrote in about this

actually looks like late last year, talking about behavioral economics and do we wind up spending more on the credit card than we would if paying cash? And yeah, it's an interesting one. So first, right, you're talking about a travel rewards credit card that you opened up recently that you have to hit this minimum spend. And it's fairly considerable. So you said $5,000 in three months. So it's like, what, $1,667?

per month on average. Now, for anybody who's getting into travel rewards cards, the way those bonuses work, usually here's something like that, like spend $5,000 in the first three months and earn this bonus, whatever it may be. And

And how that works, again, it's not that you have to hit exactly that amount of money or the $1,667 a month. If you had a $5,000 purchase that you put on the card two days into it, that would trigger that bonus at that point.

you'd get it at for most cards, you'd earn that bonus then at the end of that first statement close. So also the other thing is, let's say you put $2,000 on the first month and then you paid it off, of course, on time and in full that month. And you want to do that every single month in your credit cards or travel rewards makes no sense to pursue. It's just that $5,000 cumulative. So it's not like you have to carry a $5,000 balance. Like you're going to get hit with interest or something. It doesn't work that way.

You put $2,000 on the first month, $2,000 on the second month, you're up to 4,000 cumulative. Then when you hit that next thousand in that third month, then you've reached that bonus requirement and you get it from there. So Ginger, always just important to kind of hit the highlights of the old school stuff. But yeah, I mean, listen, I think just the practical reality of life is retailers and certainly with how easy Amazon is,

man, cutting the friction, yeah, it makes your life easier, but it does make it a whole lot easier to just buy things. And I don't know if I can intellectually 100% honestly say, if I had to actually shell out cash, that I would have made 100% of the purchases that I made. I don't think there's any way that I could very honestly say 100%. I'd like to believe that I would make

90 plus percent of the same purchases. But unless you ran that side by side, it's just hard to know. I don't think I make a ton of just like wasteful purchases, but I do spend a lot. And frankly, you might even be able to make the counter argument that because a lot of us in the fight community are, you

maybe have a tendency to be a little too frugal. And this might be a stretch. So I'd be curious of your opinion on this random stretch that I might have here is that like, because a lot of us are too naturally frugal, that we might not spend enough, especially on things that might add value to our lives. So like, I'm really into health and fitness and optimizing my sleep specifically. So I just got one of those, the whoop band. And as

As I often do, I was listening to Tim Ferriss and he had an episode with Kevin Rose recently. He was talking about like Kevin was talking about some kind of nose spray that like helps cut down on like catching viruses and such. And like, OK, like, does it sound a little kooky? Yeah, maybe. But like it was twenty dollars. And I'm like, you know, I really care about my health and I don't love

going to conferences or five events and worrying that I'm going to get sick. Like maybe even just as a placebo, it would be worth the 20 bucks that it costs me. Like would I have paid that if I had to shell out $20 in cash? Yeah, I probably would have thought about it a little more or I would have instituted something like that 72 hour rule that Liz from frugal woods talked about way back when in 2017. So yeah, I mean, where do you come down on this?

Okay, I come down. I think I'm the opposite. Because cash is like, not as real to me. It's this piece of paper in my hand, and then I give it away, and then it's gone. Whereas a credit card is the story of how I spent my money. Oh, okay.

Oh, so literally the trail, the trail of it is the story. Okay. Yes. And so I'm less likely to spend money if I know I'm going to have to like contend with this later in terms of not paying the bill, but in terms of like, oh, well, when I look back at how much I spent at the coffee shop this month,

It's embarrassing versus if I just grab cash from over the fridge and buy a coffee, that's like nothing. There's no evidence of anything happening to myself. And so for me, I don't think the cash versus card like works in that way because to me it's about the trail. But I do worry a little bit about meeting people.

the minimum spends because I noticed my thoughts around it where, oh gosh, I have this big bill, but then I almost feel relief. I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm in this period where I have to hit my 5,000. So great. Take my money. And I'm not so naive to think that there isn't something like not great about like, maybe I am spending more than I would. Yeah. And you might be. And yeah, I think we need to be careful of that. Right. Because like,

Clearly, this whole travel rewards thing, we talk about free travel or close to free travel. If you are spending extra money to hit the bonuses, then this is very clearly not free travel. So something I've done and there are some stipulations around like what you can and can purchase in terms of like gift cards. So I'm not advocating like going out and buying gift cards, but like I've even like preloaded my balance at Amazon by.

buying $500 or something like that. Like if I was fairly close, like you can actually just buy your own gift card, like basically top up your Amazon account. So I've done that before. Sometimes you can prepay some things like that's another nice part about being in the fight community is a lot of us have, have some assets. I think most of us have some assets where even, even if it's a, you're just getting started, like you're in a position where you're

You're not worried about cashflow so much. Like you can make decisions from more of a place of power. And I've always found this to be like a, a really unsung aspect of like the benefit of FI is just by virtue of, again, we're not living paycheck to paycheck.

even if you're just a year or so in to your five journey or even months, depending on your, your income and your savings rate, like even if you're starting from zero, you might now have a couple thousand dollars in the bank or 5,000, 10,000, whatever it may be. Like you're not so worried anymore about, Hey, am I going to have enough money to pay when the electric bill comes out or the mortgage comes out? You can actually make decisions from a place of strength

And, yeah, just not having to worry about timing has always been a nice thing for me. So, like, if I see an amazing deal on something, like the joking example I always used to use was, like, aluminum foil, which, again, is silly. But, like, if you find some non-perishable and, like, just some amazing deal somewhere and you know you're going to use...

X amount in a year or two, why not buy a year or two supply? And now naturally you can't do that with everything, Ginger, right? Like you don't want to have your house look like a hoarder's palace. So I'm just talking like...

at the margins, like you can make decisions from a place of strength where what actually matters is the value and the deal, as opposed to do I literally have enough money to pay for this based on the check that's coming in on the 15th and 30th of the month and the money that's coming out otherwise. And it sounds like a little thing, but I think the psychological satisfaction of that is huge. And yeah, like something like that, where I just kind of top up my Amazon balance and

a little bit at the margin, that's a nice thing because I spend a decent percentage of my expenses on Amazon and I know I'm going to go through that whether it's a month, two months, six months, a year, I'm going to go through it. All that I'm foregoing is just the interest that I would have earned on that little bit of money, which is essentially negligible. That's at least a cool rethink from my perspective.

I would add two little tips to that. So another way I think to think about it is instead of waiting for the optimal card bonus, instead to time by your big expenses. So I've definitely had some times when it's like, oh, we're about to throw down so much money for summer camp, you know? Yeah, yeah. Or, oh gosh, we're getting a water heater. Or when we got our roof, I was like, okay, it's time to open a card because I know that I will instantly meet

that spend. And so maybe it wasn't the time of the, again, it wasn't optimizing. It wasn't the time of like the absolute best card, but that can be a way to kind of hedge for that. Yeah. And then here's another idea I have. I don't know. People might not like it. I'm going to share it anyway, which is, okay. My husband and I put aside

money every month to give to charity, but we don't give it out every month. And so it builds up, right? Until we decide like, oh, okay, we're going to make this donation. And I've always had in the back of my mind, like if I'm $500 short, I'm probably going to give this to GiveDirectly anyway, which is a great charity you should go out

go check out, right? So I'll just do that now, right? Like as a backup, I can always just make a charitable donation. Now I get that maybe that's like, to me, that's great because I'm going to give that money to that charity anyway. So it doesn't really matter anymore.

if that happens this month or next month. But I could also see, hey, maybe this isn't great because you could probably put a debit card in and then they're not having to pay the extra $15 or whatever. So I get that you're not optimizing for the charity in that way if you're paying for a credit card instead of a debit card. Although, do they still have to pay the fees for a debit card?

That's a good question. I do not know. Yeah, that might be true. And if that is the case, then whatever. Use your credit card. But I think it's always been a nice safety net for me knowing like, oh, I'm not going to feel pressure to make some purchase that I'm not ready to do because I always know if I don't meet that spend, I'll just give some money away that I was going to give away anyway. Cool. I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah. Really good tips. I don't think anybody's going to get mad at you. Don't worry.

And yeah, I think what's kind of fun and we're, you know, we've been talking about minimalism and looking for these little improvements. Like I would kind of challenge everybody out there listening is just look for little ways that you can improve your life. Like look for little pain points and, and,

Again, the journey to fi is not only about the money. Like to me, it's about just living a better life. And, and I, I just look for like little ways, little things that annoy me in my own life. And I'm not looking for the negative. I think that's a bad way to go through life, but just like, what are little things that I can improve on? Like just even tiny things, ginger, this is going to sound so silly, but like I used to carry around a wallet with a whole bunch of cards in there and it was just annoying. I

And really in the same age, like I'm not carrying around cash. I haven't had a dollar in cash in a very long time. And all these cards were just taking up space. I think now I added like a little magnetic, tiny little wallet to my phone. And I just have in there one credit card, my driver's license and my insurance card.

Though, frankly, I could put my insurance card, I could put a bunch of that stuff in Google Wallet or Google Pay at this point. Or I guess, you know, people with Apple can do Apple Pay and such. But that Google Wallet is also neat. Like I was able to put my AAA card in there. You can put a ton of different things and not actually have to hold these. But I even think of it something like my library card.

okay, I've been schlepping this thing around for forever in my wallet. And how often do I go to the library? Even, you know, I go to the library a decent bit for most normal people, but I don't go that often. If I go once a month, it's a lot. So what did I do? I put it in my glove compartment. I put it in my glove box in my car because literally every single time I go to the library, I have to drive myself there. So I just grab it.

And at my new place, like when I check my mail, it's outside and it's a little ways down the road. So I have my key for the mailbox in my car also, because invariably when I'm going to check the mail, it's when I'm just getting out of my car. So I leave that in there. But yeah. And Ginger, like, again, these tiny little things like.

I now just walk around with all I have is my phone and this tiny little magnetic thing that's attached. And even frankly, sometimes that's a little too big. And I just like hold the magnetic thing in my one pocket, my phone in my back pocket, and it fits perfectly.

perfectly in these shorts that I have again with my recreating my wardrobe. I got five pairs of these athletic shorts off Amazon and they're fantastic. And even like I optimize for like, oh, how does my phone fit in the pocket? And it fits fantastic. So again, these are all silly things. And I suspect like somebody is rolling their eyes. They're like, oh, this is what he's thinking about. Like, this is how, you know, oh, poor me. Like my life is so difficult. Like, and I'm not arguing that I'm just saying like, I'm just looking for these little improvements and like

What are just little tiny pain points in your life

And how can you look for like just a little workaround that you might not have thought of because you've done it this way forever? I've always carried my library card. I've always carried a key chain with seven different keys on it. And like, I don't need to do that anymore. Like the pool for my community here, like the pool's only open for a couple months in the summer. I don't need to carry that key all year round. So I leave that on the same key chain with the library card. So it's just these little things.

I love this. I think it ties back to what you said earlier in the episode when I was talking about paying off my house and you said, well, yeah, this should be fun. And that's totally the reason that we're doing that. Like it is really fun because we haven't been at a place in our life where we've been able to do something like this before, where we've had enough extra that we could just throw it on the mortgage and that we could make that choice and that it could be for a goal that is really important

close that we can really see it is fun. And I think that's kind of what this community is all about. Right. So even the small stuff, right. We're trying to have fun. Yes, we are trying to have fun. And yeah, I guess kind of in closing a fun thing that's going on kind of behind the scenes here at choose if I is Jonathan.

my old co-host here at Chooseify for the first five years, co-founder of Chooseify. He has been creating something really amazing at our website and hopefully will be an app pretty soon. And it's basically what we've always had these Facebook groups for like the main Facebook group on Chooseify has, I forgot it's something like

120,000 people and we have all of our local groups on Facebook. And that's been a source of frustration for a lot of people who frankly don't want to have anything to do with Facebook, never get notifications because Facebook throttles so many posts and such. And Jonathan's built what he's calling our choose a local platform. And it's really more than that, frankly, and it will become much more than that. But that's the easiest way to think about it right now. And

And we just passed 10,000 people who signed up for this. So it's still a tiny fraction of the 120,000 who have been on Facebook. But now that's naturally over eight plus years. But if you're listening to this and you have not signed up for it yet, we're not trying to sell anything. Of course, it's free, just like everything at Chooseify. Just go to chooseify.com and subscribe.

Right smack in the middle of the homepage, create your free account. Then there's login for the next time you want to come back. And the cool thing, Jonathan just created and literally just sent out as we're recording this, the first weekly digest. And what's neat is you'll get an email every single week and it will show all your local events.

and all the activity in all these threads of, hey, I posted in there and these are the replies I got that I might not have seen. Like Jonathan is a wizard with technology and he's now able to personalize all these emails. So you're going to see what's going on in my Chooseify local group. And really my ask to you, if you're listening to this, is if you haven't signed up and you're a part of the Chooseify community, now's the time to stand up and be involved.

and just literally sign up for this free account. And hopefully if you're not seeing any local events in your area, then you can stand up and create some, you can get in touch with the local admin of your local group who frankly, like, well, yeah, we've gotten in touch with the local admins. Like when they see that people are on this, they're going to be incentivized to get off of the Facebook group.

And come to the Chooseify platform. And the cool thing is, even in 2025, Ginger, and this sounds crazy, like email is the best way to get in touch with people, certainly people in our community. And when a Chooseify local event is created in your area, you will get emailed.

So you're not, again, beholden to the stupid Facebook algorithm where maybe you see 1% of the events that are created. You get to see every single one and you can respond right there in your email. Jonathan created this so you can RSVP right there. You'll get reminder emails. Again, you'll get this weekly digest that'll tell you what's going on. Like you will never miss a local event ever again. And.

And really now this is behavioral of like, we all need to make this a success. Jonathan built it and we need to create these events in the local group. So please admins, if you're listening to this and you don't know how to do this or need some help, just reach out to me. Feedback at choose a by.com. If you are in a local group and you haven't had an event recently, like create one.

Again, you could reach out to us. You could stand up and say, I want to be an admin. My local group has kind of gone dormant after COVID and whatnot. Like I want to stand up and be an admin, please. This is the time. So we have built it. We've built something that I'm, well, I haven't built anything. Jonathan's built it, but I'm really proud of this. And I think it's something really, really special. But at this point we need you, we need you to get in there and

comment on threads, create threads, ask questions. We're going to have a lot of ability to have our amazing friends and experts answer all the questions. It's going to be this flywheel where we're getting more really wonderful involved questions about five, about the journey, about different aspects, real estate and, and,

Who knows health and wellness or sequence of returns? Like when you ask a question and you can get a world-class expert to answer it again, this flywheel of, we're going to get more questions come in. We're going to be able to send more of these out in this local digest. So you're going to see, oh, wow.

Chad Carson answered this question on real estate or Carson answered this on safe withdrawal rates. I'm promising this. I've spoken with them in passing, but Cody Garrett is going to answer tons of questions as a CFP. You're going to be able to get this. There's something really special going on, Ginger. We're at that inflection point where now is the time. It's been built and we need people to come in

and just get involved. And I think that's what the Choose a Vi community has always been great at. And it's just been astonishing over the last eight years. And I've never seen a community like this. And I'm just really excited that we've finally been able to build something that is good enough for the Fi community. And not only is it good enough, I think this thing has huge potential. Yes, Brad, actually joining the new site has inspired me to go to my first meetup.

Ooh. Yeah, we haven't even talked about that. So I do think because there is just, I just never went to the Facebook site for a lot of different reasons. And so I think for a lot of us, this can be a really clear, like now's the time, like Brad said. So hop on there and see what's going on in your local group. Oh, I love that. I absolutely love that.

And yeah, it's just neat. I've seen so many of the local groups have just a ton of activity recently. And yeah, it's just great seeing a lot of these case studies. I know someone reached out to me the other day. He went to his first Chisivaya local group and it was actually the one that my brother runs in Wisconsin. And he's like, here's a picture of our group. You might recognize one of the people. And I'm like, oh, there's Scott. This is wild. So yeah, just really, really cool stuff.

Yeah, I think the local groups have always been the heartbeat of Choose a Buy. And I think this is really going to make a difference. So, all right, Ginger, as always, we never know where these roundups are going to take us. I think this is a really fun conversation. I think we covered a lot of interesting things, food for thought for a lot of people to really just kind of look at their own lives and think about how does this impact me? All right, until next time, thanks for being part of the Choose a Buy community and thanks for listening.

Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first, subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player, just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand.

And I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to choosefi.com slash subscribe. And it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there. And I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me. You can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox. So that's the way that I keep a pulse of the community.

How We Keep This, the Ultimate Crowdsource Personal Finance Show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in-real-life community, we have Chooseify local groups in 300-plus cities all around the world. So head to chooseify.com slash local, and you'll find a list of all of those cities in 20-plus countries all across the world.

And if you're just getting started with FI or you have a family member or a friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Choose a FI episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community. And even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life?

And then Choose a Vi created a financial independence 101 course that's entirely free. Just head to chooseavi.com slash fi101. And again, thanks for listening.