Navigating the Path to FI: Bill Powell's Blue Collar Journey from Debt to Empowerment
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Hey, it's Brad. Before we get started with the episode, I wanted to pass along some incredibly exciting news in the Chooseify world. As we talked about on a previous episode, Jonathan has spent the last couple of years building something incredible, and we actually just rolled it out. This is our brand new Chooseify member site. It's obviously entirely free to sign up for. We're hoping this will take the place

of our Facebook groups, both for the main Facebook group and especially for our local groups. So how this is going to work, you just go to our main homepage, choosefi.com, and you will see front and center, register, sign up for an account, log in. It's really, really easy. We made it as simple as possible. So right now, Jonathan is...

building this in public. Every single day, he posts an update with the 20 or 30 things that he updated from the last day that people reported that, hey, I want to see this. I'd love to see this new feature. How can we do this? This is the ultimate crowdsource personal finance website and community. We finally built it. We've

dreamed of this since 2017. We finally have the technology. We are not beholden to Facebook anymore. We can actually send out events and you will get emailed notification of it. So it's not just the 1%. If you get lucky that Facebook shows you the notification now for your local groups, when you sign up, you tag, Hey, I'm a member of this local group. And when your admin sets up an event, you will get email notified. So you can't possibly miss it.

This is so exciting. We already have thousands upon thousands of people that signed up just in the first three days. And I expect there to be tens of thousands before very long. So I wanted to jot this off before the episode started, go to choose a fight.com our main homepage and sign up for an account today.

Hello and welcome to Choose FI. Today on the show, we have a real treat. We have community member Bill Powell, who's somebody who emails me every single week as an accountability buddy. And he checks in, he has five different aspects of his life that he's trying to improve and work on. And he uses these emails to me as both accountability and as journaling. And I think it's just so incredible. And it highlights how these little 1% actions every single day, every single week, every

every single month can add up to something truly extraordinary. And Bill's path is exactly that. He started in the trades with a significant amount of credit card debt and met his wife. They both got on the right path together. They've paid off their house. There are just years from FI and they're living amazing lives. And that's really at the heart of it.

it. I think a lot of you are going to see yourself in this story and are going to take great motivation from this. And with that, welcome to Choose FI.

Bill, it is so good to have you on the podcast. We have emailed for so long now, and this is a long time coming. Thank you for being here. I am definitely excited. This is a bucket list item for me, for sure. That's so awesome. And yeah, I think one of the best parts of Choose a Vibe for me is really getting to know our community and getting to know the amazing, incredible people that make up our community. And I think that's why I go to a lot of these live events and I get to know a lot of people

all across the country and world. That's why I say every single week in my newsletter, hit reply and let me know what's going on. Send me your wins. Tell me what's going on in your world. And there are a handful of people who email me really regularly. And I feel like they're friends of mine and you are squarely in that handful. So you've done some remarkable things. And I think

One of the cool parts that we talked about was you basically said, the more I can share about my life, the more it can help somebody else. And I think this episode is going to help a lot of people. So let's start from where you came from and where you are now, because I think this illustrates really an incredible amount of persistence.

persistence, growth, learning, connection, just everything that FI and our community stands for, I think is encapsulated in your story. Not to put too much pressure on you here, Bill. No. Let's go for it. I'd love for you to share with the community. So just a backstory on me, family was all blue collar. I went through high school, barely graduated with the mindset that I was basically going into construction and that was it.

I worked in commercial construction, residential construction, went back to commercial interiors, various aspects of it. And usually in those industries, right, it's a lot of drinking, it's a lot of partying, stuff like that. And kind of as I've come along this journey, now I'm director of project management for a AV integration company for custom homes.

So just learning along the way that with communication with people, with talking to different individuals and building meaningful relationships, you can do so much more than what everybody else thinks your normal path should be. Oh, that hits hard. What everybody else thinks your normal path should be. And yeah, I suspect, I suspect that happens more often than I even think, you know, I know

I know a really good friend of mine grew up in a farming town, and it was just anticipated that pretty much everybody stays in that farming town, and this is the path. Maybe you farm, maybe you work in a factory, but that's the extent. And I think...

It's so sadly limiting, but there are those people that break out and it's fascinating to see that you are one of them. I'd love to hear, like, how does that unfold? So my dad was a carpenter and I just looked at it. And like you had said, when you're from a small town and farming is all you do or all, you know, that's kind of what you go to for me.

My dad was a carpenter. My mom worked for the post office. I just said, "You know what? That's what I'm going to go into. I'm going to go into construction because that's all I knew."

So, as I kind of got out, the funniest thing was always my exit interview from high school when I was talking to my guidance counselor and they said, okay, what was your ACT score? And I'm like, it was a zero because I didn't take it. And then they're like, oh, you took the SAT. What was your SAT score? I'm like, zero. I didn't take it. And he kind of looked at me funny and he's like,

Well, what are you going to do? And I said, I'm going to go into construction. And he looked me square in the eye and said, you can't do that. And I was like, okay, I'm done here. And I just kind of set up and walked out because like the trades really at that time, they weren't pushing a lot in schools anymore.

So it was kind of the, you know, I graduated in 2001. So it was the, you know, that's really when, hey, you got to go to college. You got to get a degree. You got to do this really was, I feel like taking off. And I'm kind of that personality that if you tell me I can't do something, I'll prove to you that I can do it no matter how painful or, you know, long it takes. That's for sure.

So getting out of high school, I got right into – actually, before I went into drywall, I joined the electrical union company.

And then right as I was in the electrical apprenticeship, 9-11 happened. And then they kind of told me, hey, you're going to be laid off for the next six months because they didn't know what was going on. And so I couldn't really afford that. Went into drywall and metal stud for a couple of years, basically framing out

commercial office spaces and things of that nature for a few years went into doing trim for custom homes base case making cabinets doing custom stair rails learning from a gentleman who was phenomenal to work for just took real pride and quality in his work

From there, I got sucked into the world of contract office furniture. So that's been almost 20 years I was in that realm. So installing picture cubicles, private offices, conference rooms all over the country, traveled to DC quite often, doing quite a bit down there, New York, California, I'm

So I got to see a good chunk of the world from that. That's really cool. I'm curious before you get into today. So Blue Collar Path to Fi, you and I had emailed about this. And I think to our great detriment, like you said, about 20 some odd years ago, there was this college for all. And it kind of really looked down upon or vilified even, which might be a stretch, but I don't know if it's that much of a stretch, the trades. Yeah.

And I think that was just, it was such a detriment to so many people, a lot of not exclusively, certainly, but a lot of young men, especially in kind of pigeonholing people into a path that may not have been the right thing for them and kind of assuming that one size fits all and that college is absolutely necessary. And frankly, I personally think that was a grave mistake for the country as a whole,

And it's interesting to see, like nowadays with AI and so many jobs potentially getting eliminated, the thing that almost invariably is not going to be eliminated is the trades. Correct. I mean, maybe we can make an argument about that, but I'll go to bat for that as of this moment. And I think there are ways to get into it without obviously giving up four years of your life. Clearly, there are apprenticeships.

but it's not this onerous cost of college. It's not the four years of opportunity cost. To me, there's an allure to that, especially for people who know their personal finance. Maybe they found shoes of high early or the simple path to wealth. I'd love for you to talk through like,

the case for the trades or blue collar work on your path to find? Yeah. You know, one thing I will say about blue collar work is there is good money to be made if you keep focused and really hone your craft, right? You know, everybody talks about side hustles. Well, with blue collar work, what you do in the daytime, you can do in the nighttime and

afterward, right? It's not like you're trying to pivot from one industry to the next. You can go and help a friend on their house or solicit work that way. One thing I will say that is very lacking in the trades is financial literacy. So you get, even in the union side of it, right? Because union, non-union, that's tomato, tomato,

you know, for me, but I feel like a lot of people aren't taught that right to save money, you know, in the union, it was, Hey, you've got a pension. So anything you bring home, you can spend it not realizing that, Hey, we make a lot of money in the union. If I'm intentional about what I'm spending on and I save in addition to my pension, I'm

I can work, I can do that. You can turbocharge so much of your life, but I also think there's a big allure in the trades in general of, "Hey, let's go out and have a beer after work," and, "Hey, let's go out and do this." There's a lot of things that your money can be wasted on too. Yeah, Bill, I hear you about the ... It's really double-edged sword, ultimately.

the pension on the one side, the potentially nice income, solid income, especially for not having to deal with onerous student loan debt and years of your life. But then there is a YOLO culture from what I've heard. I haven't been in the world, but a YOLO culture, there's a truck buying culture, there's

There's a let's go out for multiple drinks culture. And there's an easy way. I think we all know no matter what you earn, no matter how little debt you start with, there's an easy way for this to be a real slippery slope into something negative. And yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that generally. Yeah, I mean, I lived it.

I would go out drinking. I would spend all my money, and that was it. I was having a good time. I can't take it with me, so I'm going to spend it while I'm here, and that's it. Thinking at 20 years old, I knew what life would bring, and obviously, life is the ultimate teacher there. But yeah, I think there's a lot there.

that can happen in the blue collar field in regards to financial literacy. I think the more that they're exposed to it and stuff like that, that they can grow in this area as well. You know, I try to work with whoever is working for me or working with me to really help them understand things, you know, and go through what's going on in the world.

what I've learned just from the podcast, right? And going through our 401k options and talking to the installers that we have here at my new company. Hey, when you're looking at things, look at the expense ratios, you know, what's an expense ratio.

The thing that'll make or break your financial future. Right. So just really trying to focus on that because I know when I was there, there was nobody helping us out. Right. It was just, Hey, here's your paycheck every week. Hopefully you can save enough to make it to next Friday. Yeah.

Yeah. Goodness. Yeah. I mean, the need for mentoring in every type of job is critical. And I love that you stepped up and done that for people out there who ideally would love to mentor other people in their, in their job, in their company, in their profession. And maybe you don't think about it as overtly as mentoring, but that's how I'm hearing it is like, how do you broach that subject with those younger people?

I ask a lot of questions. That was kind of one of my focuses for last year is listening more. And I really try to just figure out, you know, where they are on their journey because, you know, explaining investment options doesn't help anybody that doesn't even know how to initiate their 401k. Right. So really following up with them, Hey, how's everything going? How's life going in general? Right. Are you in our 401k program? Just asking them real loose questions about things, not,

Not, you know, what he said, what's your net worth? You know, but just trying to get a feel for where people are at genuinely and building genuine relationships to help them move forward. Yeah, I love that. And that's what you talked about earlier. So a couple of themes that I'm picking up. You said, how have you moved forward in your own life and career? It's talking to people, having conversations and connection.

And you just said, and this is one of really the five pillars. And I kind of loosely talked about the emails that you sent me, but you sent me an email every single week with five different pillars of what's going on in your life. And it's really been this cool accountability thread that you just started and you've

And you sent to me and, and one of them is listen more, talk less, like you said. And I think that can be transformative. Like of all the things you've done and they're all incredible. Like that to me is maybe the easiest to implement in a cosmic scheme of things, but maybe not so easy because I think most people want to talk about themselves all the time. You know, we are,

We are the stars of our own movie. As I've said many times, like we're with ourselves 24 hours a day. We are the center of our own universe. But I think the way that you make real connection with people is by asking them questions. And I love that you hit on that. I'd love to hear you talk about how that has impacted your life more

It's helped me personally because I have this thing where I love to challenge myself and I love to suffer a little bit harder every day, right? No matter what it is, whether it's physical, whether it's mental. And the physical side I found is the first real stepping stone, right? It's like if you can challenge yourself physically, that's fine. But to challenge yourself mentally, it's a whole new level of success.

self-control, right? There are things that I want to say. There are things that I want to respond to people, but I have to stop and think, is this going to move them forward? You know, is my response going to make them a better person? Is my response self-serving? And don't get me wrong. I'm, I'm not perfect at it, right? I, I,

Nobody is. I screw up plenty of times, but I really try to make a conscious effort that what I say is helping them. And it's not just a self-serving story of, oh, you did this? Well, yeah, I did this too. So that's really that fine line I walk with really trying to listen to them and help them because you've said it before, we learn through stories, right? That's really how we grow. So

how do I talk about what I've been through, but using it so other people can grow themselves as well. Yeah, I love that. And as you're saying in there, like the reflexive need to respond, I think so many, so many of us have that. And it's almost like, even if you're not consciously doing it, it's like a one-upsmanship, right? Like, oh, you did that? Well, here's what I did. And it

It's really a need to feel seen, a need to feel special, a need to feel whatever, but it's so detrimental to actual connection I've found. And it reminds me of the famous Viktor Frankl quote that we can't say enough. And this is really the underpinning, I think to me, of inner work generally.

And I think that's been another, I don't know if you term it that way, but that's been another one of your five pillars is inner work. And this quote is, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. And Bill, to me, that Frankl quote is everything. Because if you can just create that little bit of space between that stimulus and response,

You're listening to this and maybe you're reactive. Then we're all reactive. If you can just find it somehow to create that little bit of space, I promise you it will make your life better in a noticeable and appreciable way. It will absolutely. And Bill, as you're saying, like it's in all aspects of life, but it is.

It is not easy. Let's be clear. It's something you need to work on for months and years. But to me, that is freedom. Yeah. Like I was saying, a good catalyst to it is challenging yourself physically because in your journey with weightlifting, that part of it, you become regimented in that and you build

build up those habits, right? Because I'm a big fan of James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, right? I try to read it once a year to really refresh myself and, okay, what habits am I trying to build and what old habits no longer serve me? And going through that. And yeah, I think the habit of physical activity

endurance is good. And then once you kind of have gotten that to a certain level, you start breaking into that mental space regardless. Like for me, you know, from running, right. I was the person that was like, Hey, you never, as a human being in today's society, you should never have to run more than one mile. If you do, you got bigger problems. And this year, um,

I'm training for a 50 mile ultra marathon. So it's like, you know, we change, we grow. But I think that mental aspect starts creeping into the physical aspect. And then you start realizing how much things are intertwined in that way.

Yeah, I love that. So physicality and physical pursuits, doing hard things as the lead domino, in essence, in your case. Now, does that mean everybody has to start with that? No, of course not. We're never giving blanket advice, right? But Bill, I agree with you. That's worked for me exceptionally well.

And it's really like you're saying about habits. Yes. How can we form habits? How can we maybe even stack good habits? You know, you think about just little things like, hey, what if I'm going on the exercise bike and I'm reading at the same time or listening to an audio book? Like, is that going to work for everybody? Is that my advice? No, not necessarily. But that could work for a whole heck of a lot of people.

right? And like, how can you stack habits? And I think for me, the biggest thing has been, can I get into a routine? Can I prove to myself, right? It's a little check mark in your corner. Every time you go to the gym or every time in your case, you go out, I know you were trying to run a 5k every single day for 2024. And now you're preparing for a 50 mile race, which is absolutely wild. And like every time you went out and ran a 5k, that was a check mark.

in the i'm the type of person that can do hard things right like for me it's every time i go to the gym it's another check mark in i'm the type of person that wants to be healthy and is going to do what he can to get there and none of us are getting any younger right so right it's just not the way the world works except for benjamin button maybe but like i mean i'm 45 years old and i'm

I am in by far the best physical shape of my life. I mean, I'm going to the gym and maxing out most of the machines. Like, I mean, it's crazy. Yeah. And it's been, it's been a lot of years, but it's really been the last two years of concerted effort with Dean Turner, my trainer. And it's been amazing. That's awesome. That does like you prove to yourself that you can do hard things. And I think that's massive though, right? Yeah. Yeah.

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So Bill, I think like we were saying, the physicality then gets you to the point where you can focus on your inner game. And I think a lot of us, and again, I don't want to paint a broad brush. I hate doing that. But especially a lot of us males are notorious for...

not doing inner work. And I think what's been so cool, I know about my own journey, really over the last eight years since I reconnected with my friend, Dominic Cortuccio, who's been on the podcast a number of times, is I've joined mastermind groups. I've joined

inner work groups of, of, in my case, in men who are all on a journey of self-discovery of self-improvement of connection. And I think it's really been, it's been a total game changer for me to be able to open up and relate to people and see that frankly, all of us, no matter how successful we appear, we're all dealing with things. We're all humans. Yeah.

And I think it's easy in the Facebook and Instagram world to look at people's absolute best moments out of 365 days and think that that's life. And the reality is that's not life. That's a carefully curated, sometimes totally fictional appearance of what a life is. And I think for really all of us, it's about doing the work.

And it's about trying to connect. And like you said, listening more, talking less, like actually finding people to connect with. I'd love to hear you talk about how that inner work aspect has really helped you. Spirituality, I know, is really important to you. You know, talk us through like how that's been transformative. Yeah. So...

I would say finding the podcast has really been the catalyst to self-improvement, right? I always tell people, like when I share your podcast with my friends and that, I always tell them like, you know, it started out as a financial podcast, but it's more of a life optimization podcast in every aspect of it, right? So it's spurred me into reading more and doing more. You know, I haven't

drank since New Year's Day 2022. Wow. Congrats. Thanks. Yeah, that's been a huge thing for me. Got involved more in my church men's group. Now I actually lead my church men's group with another gentleman. So that's really helped me along in regards to kind of what we were talking about, right? Like we're all going through stuff. And in that group, you know, we've got people from so many different backgrounds that

And we find like over the last year, the more that we share, the more that everybody else shares. And when new guys kind of come in, it's like the more vulnerable we are, the more everybody else feels vulnerable to be honest, to be like, Hey, I'm struggling with this. Hey, I need help with this.

And I don't think we just, we don't have that in life, right? We have to wear this, Hey, we're at work. So boom, you gotta be in work mode. And to a certain extent, I get it, right? Like you can't sometimes let your outside life affect your professional life. But do we have those people? Do we have those groups? Do we have even the capacity to open up and be honest about things? I think when we do that again, again,

It not only helps us, you know, it truly helps us so much. It's unbelievable. But to watch how much it helps other people is life transforming, right? You see guys that just...

Come in, you know, don't even realize that this type of transformation exists in life when you share things, when you work through problems, when you have, you know, accountability partners, whether it's through your church, through even just emailing you, right? Like sending that email every week, it's like, it forces me to go back and go, okay, what did I do? Did I do anything? You know, and being honest about it.

Yeah. I love that. Accountability is so huge. And I know like Brian Feraldi, who's been on the show a number of so many times and we text each other every week. So going back to the physical aspect, when he's doing Dean's workouts now as well, whenever we finish a workout, we just send each other, Hey, upper a done or lower B done. And it's just like that little check-in. You're not looking for a response necessarily, but it's just, Hey, I did it. I'm here. Right. And I showed up and I

And I think that it's really, really important. Yeah. My buddy who's running the 50 mile ultra with me, we're friends on, you know, Matt, my run and that. And it's like, we're always checking in and like, we're seeing what they did, you know, commenting on it. Cause it just links automatically. We don't even have to send anything to each other. We just kind of like, Oh, Hey, good job on the run. You know, it auto posts. We don't have to worry about anything like that, but it's just that,

It's not even accountability, but it is that motivation. It's that, hey, we're in this together. We're going to do it together. It's going to be horrible. I'm sure it's going to be horrible. We're fully prepared for that, but we want to push through it together. And having that group that, like you said before, your tribe of people to get through those challenges, to come out the other side,

building exponential growth off of things, off of the hard things in life. Yeah, I hear you. And one thing that jumped out to me too, and you're writing me this email every week. It's similar, frankly, to a journal.

It's similar to journaling. And it's also like I think about the reticular activating system where basically like what we're looking for, like we find right in that. Hey, if you go out and buy like a red Audi and I'm not advocating that by any means, but you're going to you're going to see a whole lot more red Audis. It's just the way the brain works.

And similarly, and this might not be an exact one-to-one, but similarly, this is why a lot of people do gratitude practice. Because when you're looking for things to be grateful for, even if they're tiny little things, you have a way of finding them. Yes. Right? Absolutely. So even if it's just like, hey, jot down. It sounds so trite when you hear it. And that's, I think, one of the main turnoffs for gratitude practice. Like, oh, how could that really matter? But it matters because that's what you're then looking for.

for. You have attuned your entire brain to, I'm going to look for those little positive things in life and I'm not going to look for the tiny little things to complain about, which so much, I mean, frankly, that's what passes for a lot of conversation in life is just people complaining about little things. And it's really frustrating. Who wants to be around somebody like that? Yeah. It's if you're negative, guess what you're going to find? You're going to find negative. It's the seek and you shall find. There is no doubt about that. One thing that's, you know,

really helped me. There was a book I read. It was The Miracle Morning. And it was a good book. And I read it and I tried to force the structure on myself. And it was square peg, round hole. And it didn't really form to me. I tried actual physical journaling every day. And it became...

you know, just a thing to do. It wasn't really helping me at all, but you know, in working and staying with some sort of morning routine, it's like, now I can set my, my kids and my wife. No, like do not interrupt the process because like if it gets interrupted, the whole process is shot. It's like, get up, make coffee, relax,

read my Bible while the coffee's brewing, go back, get the cup of coffee while I'm reading my, whatever self-help book I'm reading, do yoga for 15 minutes every morning. And then it's like, get the shoes on, go for my run. And it's this structured thing. And then Tuesday mornings is my journaling time. So,

Right. I don't like to journal every day, but that Tuesday morning that I get that email, it's like, okay, this is my time to unload what I have the highlights, if you will. But it's like, okay, this is what I did. And do I feel good about what I did for the last week or do I need to step it up a little more? Hmm.

Yeah, that's really cool. So right, that Tuesday email is literally my email newsletter. So if you're listening to this and you're not getting my newsletter, it really is pretty good. I sit down and write it personally. Unfortunately, usually every Monday right before the deadline. But yeah, I think it provides a little bit of inspiration because we talk about like the 1% wins that other members of our community did that week. And then I have a couple of little sections of things going on in my life for interesting things in the personal finance world. And I

I think it just helps. I think it really like, it just provides that little bit of inspiration. And, and yeah, I love though that you've turned that into like your own journaling time. That's what's so cool about it. So yeah, really, really neat. I, I, yeah, I know we can talk about this a lot. And, and you mentioned the miracle morning. That's a book by a guy named Hal Elrod. And I think,

something that's important that you said in there. And I think a lot of people get bogged down in like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, right? It's like, we can get so bogged down in, oh, I want to do this 75 hard, but you know, do I have to do it exactly perfectly? And if I can't do it, and if I miss a day, then it all goes to hell and it's not worth it. Or like, you know, people get really hung up on like, it has to be perfect or I have to keep that streak. And it's like,

Like give yourself a little bit of grace sometimes. Right. It was, it was hard for me, especially doing all last year. Right. It's like, I, I made it my mission, no matter the weather, get outside, run a 5k minimum every single day. And when it shifted gears into this year and my new resolution was to run a 50 mile ultra, you have to take rest days. And I,

I ran 366 days and it's like, okay, 367, 368. And then it got to don't run. And I'm like, well, I have to. I have to keep my streak going. And then it's like, wait, no, no, no. That was last year.

last year's goal was to run every day. This year's goal is something different. And the mental friction that that caused in my mind was unbelievable. You know how much it's like, like, don't get me wrong. There are good streaks and things like that, but there's a time for everything. And I think when we have to break that is when the real rub comes in. Agreed. Agreed. And yeah, it's, it's yeah. Not to vilify streaks. Cause I think anything that can help people keep, keep routines and,

can be useful. But I think it's just like anything. There's a balance in life. There's a balance in everything. There's a balance in personal finances, balance in life. And when you let that streak override common sense, like if you're training for an ultra marathon, it's to your detriment. And I think a lot of us sometimes do things to our detriment thinking that we're doing something positive. And I would just counsel like,

everybody like you got to be smart. You got to also look at like, Hey, what works for me? Not what's the blanket advice? Because I know on a podcast like this or other podcasts books, like it's very hard to give blanket advice to hundreds of thousands of people at one time. It's just, it's really hard. The only blanket advice that I would say is improve yourself every single day.

That cannot go wrong. I'll sign up for that. I like that. And I mean, it doesn't have to be something big, right? That's the whole point of the 1% actions that we talk about at Choose a Viya all the time. Like it can just be something small, but just push the ball forward, push the ball forward. And you find yourself looking for those things and it becomes, again, it becomes a habit. Yeah. Yeah. And you stack hundreds of those into thousands of those over years and decades. You got a pretty darn good life at some point along the way there, right? Yeah.

So yeah, I wanted to kind of double back to personal finance. Okay. So let's talk about where you were again, like where you were, where you are now. So I know there's some interesting like credit card debt and you talked about, hey, I was one of those people you mentioned, right? Yeah. Who spent? Yeah, I spent every penny I had and most of the times more than what I had. And when I

I would charge things on my credit card. The bill would basically get paid when they called me and said, hey, you didn't pay your bill for the last two months. I go, oh, okay, whatever, and pay the bill and not realize the exorbitant fees I was paying and all that and my interest rate through the roof and credit score tanked. I met my wife, and she was the polar opposite.

opposite of me. And she was like, nope, everything gets paid on time. I do not miss a payment. And I was like, huh, okay. So then it started out as a credit game, right? Downloaded the Credit Karma app. And it was like, well, I wonder what would happen if I paid my... And it's like, oh, my credit score went up. My credit score went up again. So it started there. And then it was

In 2008, we bought our house and luckily, we bought our house in 2008. Pretty good timing. Yes. And-

As we kind of worked along, it was paying off the house, adding extra payments and stuff like that and wanting to pay my house off. It didn't make financial sense and I know it didn't with how low the interest rates were. But to me, the security and the mental side of it of knowing that my wife, my kids would have a house and all they would have to worry about is paying taxes on it instead of a house payment, that to me was worth every penny.

So then really started getting into that portion of it, found the podcast, and then took off from there. I mean, I crunched through, at the time, I think it was 360 some odd episodes and about...

five months, something like that. That's amazing. Yeah. I was so glad I found that, you know, you can listen to it at 1.5 speed. That helped. Yeah. Not bad at all. But, you know, really hammered through that and started digging into, okay, I have savings, but what else can I be saving? Digging into, you know, now it's like I max out my Roth. I max out my HSA. I don't max out my 401k.

Because I don't want to be stuck in the middle class trap. So I take a certain percentage of that and dump it into a taxable brokerage account. Okay. So I've got kind of buckets here, there, and everywhere. Okay. Hey, Bill, let me jump in. What's the trap you're talking about? The middle class trap, right? You're rich on paper. Gotcha. But you can't access it until 59 and a half. And it's like...

I don't want all my net worth to be tied up into my house and into retirement. And obviously, yes, there are things we can do to get it out earlier. But to me, it's like, okay, can I invest in all these things? And how do I balance them to be able to access them?

early, but not have to jump through, you know, Roth conversion ladders and all that stuff. Right. I like that. And yeah, I think obviously to each their own, but it's hard to argue with flexibility. It's hard to argue with having some Roth accounts, having an HSA, having some traditional accounts, having taxable brokerage. Like it is very, very hard to argue with that because what it does is it gives you that flexibility when it comes time to

okay, hey, I have to actually draw this down now, but maybe I want to contemplate getting health insurance ACA subsidies. Maybe I want to contemplate having a low enough taxable income to, like you said, do Roth conversions or doing tax gain harvesting is another thing. So there's a lot of cool tactics that those of us in the FI community can undertake to

but it makes it easier when you have more flexibility. So I think that's smart. Now, of course, again, everybody has to look at their own situation. Like, hey, what tax bracket am I in? If you're in a massive 30 plus percent federal tax bracket, okay, maybe maxing out the 401k makes a whole lot more sense. If you're down in the 10 or 12%, probably doesn't make as much sense. So again, there's no way to give blanket advice, but also you reference how to get

get your money out early. We did an amazing episode with Sean Mullaney. It was episode 475 and it was literally called how to access your retirement accounts before 59 and a half. So there are ways, but like you said, if you want flexibility, like would I ever begrudge you that like you're putting money in a taxable brokerage? No, of course not. I've been doing the same thing for forever. I think that's a really smart thing to do based on your own situation. And it's, it's not like it's all over the board, every different investment. It's like,

It's pretty much the exact same investment in every single bucket. But it's just the availability of when, the tax efficiencies, things like that, that I just enjoy. I don't always make the...

You know, I'm far from making the smartest decisions. My wife and I, you know, we recently bought two brand new trucks. But to us, it made sense because knowing that the truck is going to last a long time, it gets great gas mileage. You know, we bought 22 in a 24 car.

Ford Maverick, the hybrids. And they're getting anywhere between 45 and 50 miles to the gallon. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. And they're under $30,000 brand new. Really? Yeah. So for us, it was like, okay, we can do this. We can pay these off. And hopefully when the girls need a vehicle, I won't need a vehicle. Yeah.

You know, the ultimate goal. They could just have that and I could ride my bike to the store and greet people at the door. Hey, you love connecting with people, right? You love asking questions. That's it. But no, you know, it made sense for us. And that's what I try to help people the most with is like, just because I did it doesn't mean you should do it. But make the optimal choices in whatever you're doing.

If you're struggling for money, yeah, buy a used Honda, Toyota, something that's going to last you for five, 10 years until you get some savings up. Man, it made sense for us. I think that's a quote for the ages, right? Because I think that at the end of the day...

is what we're doing here. There's a whole smorgasbord of options for us to pick from. And there's no one path to fi. There's no one path to a great, successful, happy life. It's winding, it's circuitous, and we're all just kind of figuring it out day by day. And to imagine that there's one prescribed path

Seems pretty silly. I mean, sure. Would I go to bat and say, hey, you need to live below your means and save money? Yes, I would obviously go to bat for pretty much everybody. Hey, you need to try to cut some frivolous expenses. You need to try to earn more money and get more skills. Yeah, of course. But on the investment side, like I personally invest in low cost index funds or really VTI, which is a exchange traded fund now. But is that the right path for everybody? No, there are plenty of people who invest in real estate and things like that. And that's fine.

But I think, hey, this was the right path for us. It worked for us. And I think that's a cool way of looking at it. So, okay. It sounds like the house has paid off or pretty darn close. Nope. It's been paid off for two years. Hey, nice. Obviously, since after meeting your wife, the credit card debt was quickly squashed. But where are you now in your FI journey?

We live well below our means. As soon as I hit a certain threshold, I just kind of said, all right, are you good with us living kind of here and anything else is invested? And my wife was in agreeance. And basically, if we buy a new thing, it has to be because we've offset an old thing. So when the trucks get paid off, if we want to take something else and put it to that, yeah, great. So we've been very smart about

not letting lifestyle creep happen. The house we live in right now, we did a major reconstruction to it in 2016, kind of adding to the kitchen, things like that. But it's all been, hey, let's focus on this amount of money and go from there. I would say we're about halfway to five, but my new career has kind of afforded me to add to that. So it's kind of definitely going to be helping me turbocharge that.

move forward. That's awesome. So right. You told me offline, you just started a new career about a month ago, I think. And I love that you locked down, Hey, what does our life cost? And now if you're earning extra income, it's just all goes to the additional savings. So what's cool. And we can't say this enough because I think it's, it's not intuitive. Just the understanding of, of compounding is if you're halfway to five,

That means almost invariably that money will double in nine years. If we assume an 8% return annual, which of course doesn't happen every single year, last year was in the 20s or 30%, right? But over the long-term historical average, we usually do 8%. So that money will double in nine years, which means if you save $0 in the next nine years and continued working, you'll be at FIY.

which is pretty awesome. And it sounds like if I'm reading between the lines, you have a pretty, pretty massive savings rate. So you're going to reach five well before nine years. And then it doesn't mean you leave your job, obviously, but it means you have flexibility. Yeah. And I think that's the best part is this new job that I found the new company that I work for. It truly is kind of a one-off company in that everybody here from,

the newest guy to the CEO, right? Everybody's mindset is rowing in the same direction. Everybody is great when they come in. Everybody's giving it their all. It's not, you know, the toxic work environment, anything like that. So it's nothing, you know, that I'm going to run away from. It's just having that flexibility and that freedom is what it's about.

I think, you know, if it were me and from looking at it today, I could be here another 10 years and be perfectly happy and loving what I do, working with the team that I work with. Yeah, that's so awesome. And that's the cool thing. I think a lot of times the FI community gets...

painted as anti-work or running away from things and you know after having listened to hundreds upon hundreds of episodes of shoes of eye that we want to run towards an amazing life this is not 2014 anymore where five was all about just getting to a number on a spreadsheet and running away from the life you hate it's all along the way we're building a life that we want to live into

And I know that you've read Dominic's book, Design Your Future, right? And you can hear me quoting his exact phrasing there. But that's what's so cool. There's nothing that says you need to leave your job when you reach five. If you really enjoy it, then stay at it. If you really enjoy parts of it, then you just add value to the company. You have a lot more flexibility then too, which is really neat. Yeah, and one of the ones that I really enjoyed was

Like I said, I was in the last industry I was in for 20 years. It was what I knew. I wasn't even looking for a new job, but one came to me. Because I had that financial space, I could take a risk. A lot of us are stuck between the devil we know and the devil we don't.

having that ability to say, hey, if this works, great. If it doesn't work, I'll be fine and I can go somewhere else, right? It's not that. But when we get stuck in that survival mindset every day, it's like, I have to just do this and I have to deal with it because I need this paycheck. And you don't create that space for you to take those risks, those calculated risks.

Yeah. The, I have to, I have to, I have to, right. Isn't that, isn't that what we're trying to avoid in a nutshell? Yeah. I mean, we get what, 70, 80, 90 years on this planet and to, to waste any significant amount of it doing things you have to.

it just seems really like the height of foolishness. I mean, I don't think either of us think we're living deprived lives at all. I think for me, it's quite the contrary. And I have a significant savings rate and I've been able to amass some wealth and it's remarkable. Yeah, a lot of people look at me like I'm living a sacrificed life. I enjoy it. We spent a month in Costa Rica in 22, living in the jungle with my wife and my kids and I, and it was a blast. And I came back from there

craving black beans, brown rice and eggs and chicken. And it's like, I eat that every day. And people are like,

Like, why do you just eat rice and beans? I was like, because I enjoy it. And it saves me a lot of money too. Yeah. Not a bad sign benefit. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. So Bill, I think this has been just a really solid episode of motivation, right? In every aspect. I think that's, what's cool. Like you said about stories, like invariably a lot of people are going to see themselves in your story and they're going to say, Hey, if Bill did it, I can do it too. I hope so.

Right. And that's, what's so awesome is like, you've just put the work in for years now. And it shows up every week in that accountability email you sent to me. It shows up in the fact that you paid off your house, got rid of your credit card debt. You're on the path to file. Like you're more than halfway to five. You're probably four or five years to five based on, on your savings rate. I mean, this is remarkable stuff. And, and you're in an amazing place mentally and with connections and with family, like this is the holistic life that we're trying to build here. And I just,

I think you've done a really good job of explaining it and encapsulating it for our community. Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate the chance to be on the podcast. Like I said, this is one of my bucket list items that I find more and more. It's like you got to speak, you got to tell people what you want, and you got to be out there, and it'll move us all forward. And I really want people to know that...

Just putting in that effort every single day, be it savings, be it your health, be it anything. You're going to stumble. You're going to fall. Keep going and don't quit. Whatever you're trying to do, just keep going forward. I love that. That is the perfect, perfect way to end. So, Bill, thank you for being here. And thank you for listening. I really appreciate both you, Bill, listening and you out there listening to this podcast.

It's about showing up. It's about taking action. It's about moving our lives forward. And it's just trying to get a little bit better every day. We're not trying to hit home runs here. I think that's the beautiful part about FI is you take tiny little actions to make your life better. And over years and decades, you're going to be absolutely transformed. And it's really not that hard. It just takes these little things. So as always, thank you for being part of our community. And thanks for listening to Choose a FI.

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.