Retire Early Aftercast - Biggest Takeaways for Retiring on FIRE

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin:    00:00:23    Hello. Hello, Kristin. From Traveling with Kristin here and for today's podcast, I wanted to do a solo cast after cast style to really drive home and explain what I think are the biggest, most important takeaways from the last two podcasts we did, which were both about retiring early through passive income. We had one with Eric Richards from Nomad on Fire, and one with Stephanie and Gillian, a Canadian couple who run a website and YouTube channel called Our Freedom Years. And all three of them retired before the age of 40 and are currently living completely financially free and location independent lives. And that is really what this show is all about and why we are here. I want to help everyone live lives of freedom on their own terms, whatever that looks like. And so even though you don't have to achieve early retirement to be able to live a fulfilled, happy, free life, I just really wanted to go behind the scenes a little bit to help you get the most value possible out of these concepts so that you can apply the premise behind F.I.R.E to your own life.  

Kristin:    00:01:56    Because as we all know, the traditional linear nine to five rat race does not result in a life of happiness, freedom, and financial independence. Otherwise everybody on the planet and especially in the developed world would be living that way. And instead, we have most people who never save enough money to retire and are working into their sixties, seventies, eighties. So what we really wanna do here is find a balance between having enough financial resources to live a comfortable lifestyle and a high quality of life, and then also being able to have fun and have freedom and have those experiences that you really wanna have and just integrate that with your lifestyle. So I'll get into the, the top takeaways in a second, but first, let's do a little digital nomad News Minute, because many countries around the world have been opening their borders to international travelers and tourists in the past few weeks.  

Kristin:    00:03:07    And on my YouTube channel over on Traveling with Kristin, I have some new videos about what you need to travel to these different countries that are reopening. So we have a video on Colombia Costa Rica, Thailand, and coming up next this week, we'll have a video on travel to Brazil. So this is how you can travel to those countries during the Coronavirus Pandemic, um, with just a passport for tourism and not for essential travel reasons. And we'll have a lot more videos on deck such as videos on Peru's reopening, on Panama during COVID-19, and then also in Asian countries update as well as Africa before we get back to Europe and Canada and some of the other countries that should hopefully be opening by the end of the year, like Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Argentina, and many more. Also, right before recording this, I just hopped off a private live stream house tour of my house in Miami for my Patreon patrons today.  

Kristin:    00:04:15    So if you wanna do more live streams and q and as with me and get access to exclusive content, you can become a Patreon for just $5 per month at patreon.com/TravelingwithKristin. So that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/TravelingwithKristin. And thanks to Carlos who left a five star review of Badass Digital Nomads this week. He says unique and inspiring perspective on life. Kristin has been all over the world and has so much useful advice about life. Her unique perspective inspires and educates people of all ages. And her podcast helped me start my first online business during the Pandemic, She rocks. I definitely recommend everyone listen to her because you'll learn something that will help in your own life. Thanks Carlos. And shout out to Wanderlust with Sarah and Jenna wanders for listening in and for connecting with me on Instagram over at Traveling with Kristin. Great to meet you ladies.  

Kristin:    00:05:21    Hi to everyone listening right now and let's get into the learning. Just to recap on this after cast, the episodes I'm referring to are episode 72, How to Retire Early On Fire with Eric Richards of Nomad On Fire Podcast. And then also 73, which is how to Retire Before 40, even if you have a high Cost of Living with Stephanie and Gillian of our Freedom Year. So go bookmark those if you haven't listened yet and make sure to go back and listen to both of those if you missed them. But the main premise of those episodes was that Eric, Stephanie and Gillian all retired early using what is called the F.I.R.E method, which is short for Financial Independence, Retire Early. And the similarities between the three of them is that they were all really stressed out and burned out with their traditional corporate jobs and they were just grasping for something to solve that problem.  

Kristin:    00:06:26    And this is a feeling that I'm sure everyone can relate to, myself included, we've all been at jobs that we didn't like at one point or another and we just wondered how are we gonna survive this and what are we gonna do about it? So while working full-time at these jobs that they pretty much hated, they saved up enough money in just a few years to at least achieve lean F.I.R.E, which is having about $500,000 in the bank. Um, and then you can go back and listen to those episodes to get more of the details on the amount of money you need, what the percentages are and the definitions and things like that. But, um, you, you can really achieve F.I.R.E status by just saving up enough money so that you can live off of the interest or passive revenue streams that come from that nest egg.  

Kristin:    00:07:24    So there's more details on exactly how to do it in those other episodes, 72 and 73. Um, but by far, I think the most effective way that they achieved F.I.R.E so fast really in just a few years, like between the moment they decided they wanted to retire early and the moment that they actually did it, I think for both of them only took about three years. And so there are four steps that I kind of drew out of the advice that they gave in those episodes. And the first thing they did was to get clear on their goal of retiring early and then get clear on what their monthly expenses and budget were at that moment. So that's the first step is just to decide that that's what you're gonna pursue, and then figure out what are you spending your money on? Where is your hard earned money going?  

Kristin:    00:08:22    Then they used that data to create a financial goal for themselves, so a savings goal, and then broke that down into how much money they would have to save on a monthly basis to reach that goal. So it's just numbers, just re-engineering those goals and then working backwards to break it down. So that's the second step. The third step is taking action to start achieving that goal. And the way they did that was by simplifying their lifestyles and lowering their cost of living to a point where they could save most of what they earned. So that's really important because they made a sacrifice in the present for this future payoff. And my friend Tom Kuegler, who's a top writer on Medium, he talks about this a lot in his writing and also Anthony Moore who's coming on the podcast in a couple weeks, they talk about how they sacrificed a few years of their lives to work really hard so that they could become financially independent digital nomads later and have that freedom later.  

Kristin:    00:09:37    And it didn't mean that they didn't enjoy their lives at that time, but they were just really cognizant about what they were spending their time and their money on. And by doing the opposite of what everyone else was doing, you know, by doing what 1% of the people were doing, rather than 99% of the people are doing the status quo, they were able to get a result that was different from 99% of their friends. And so that is something to think about. You know, you don't have to suffer during these years that you want to achieve financial freedom or location independence, but you might need to cut back on what would be the path of least resistance. So they lowered their cost of living. That was step three. And then the fourth thing, which is really important, is that none of them quit their jobs until they reached their savings goal.  

Kristin:    00:10:35    So it can be really tempting to just quit your job when you don't like it, but that is going to conflict with your goal of retiring early or making money in other ways or saving money. So even though they hated their jobs, they did not quit. They kept their income predictable and consistent while cutting back on their cost of living until these goals were reached. And so the reason I'm bringing this up now also is that the restrictions of the Coronavirus pandemic are about to end as far as the practicality of living in the pandemic. The pandemic might not end ever, or who knows, you know, we might not have a vaccine for a while or this might be something we have to live with for a very long time, but life is going back to a new form of normal. Just on Friday, the governor of Florida announced that he was rolling back all restrictions on restaurants and bars and that they can open at 100% capacity.  

Kristin:    00:11:45    So things are going to start happening depending on where you are right now and when you're listening to this, the pandemic conditions so far over the past six months have presented an opportunity for everyone to cut back on their living expenses as there are less events and less things to do and less distractions. But those days might be ending soon. However, it's also important to point out that Eric, Stephanie and Jillian all achieved F.I.R.E before the pandemic started. So they achieved this under quote unquote normal life circumstances. So it's possible to take action on achieving this at any time, but really as travel starts coming back and opportunities start coming back, whether it's for, um, personal things, um, events with friends or conferences or business travel, now is a really good time for you to get clear on your financial goals and to prepare for what you're going to say yes and no to when those opportunities inevitably start popping up.  

Kristin:    00:12:58    Some of the biggest ways that my guests saved money were by going out less, eating at home more, getting rid of their stuff and moving into smaller properties with lower rent and lower utilities. And these are all things that I recommend to people when they want to become digital nomads because it's taking a minimalist approach to life. It's cutting away anything that's non-essential. And just really going back to basics so that you can have a lighter load, be more mobile, have less expenses, less stuff weighing you down, and prepare to, you know, live out of a suitcase or live out of your carry on backpack and go around and travel the world. So think about how you can cut back on expenses. Think about what stuff you can sell, donate, get rid of, and can you move into a smaller property that costs less. I just had a friend, Patrick Farrell, who I met on the Nomad Cruise.  

Kristin:    00:14:04    He came to visit me this weekend and he saved money by moving out of his $3,000 a month apartment in Manhattan into a co-living space, I think it was in Brooklyn. And then now he's moving into a room in a shared house for $1,200 in Florida. So just think about ways that you can reduce your monthly cost of living. And then they were also then able to leverage lean F.I.R.E or having a lower amount of money saved, probably less than six or probably less than seven figures in both cases, although they didn't exactly answer me in the podcast. But, um, they were able to save a, a lower amount of money and retire on less money because they were planning on using geo arbitrage where they become full-time, digital nomads or expats who go to live abroad in countries where they could even further reduce their cost of living. So instead of paying $1,200 for a room in Florida, they could be paying $1,200 per month total by living in a different country. And Eric chose Bali and Medellin, Colombia, for example, while Stephanie and Jillian moved from Singapore to Greece and then into more affordable countries in Eastern and Western Europe and Central Europe.  

Kristin:    00:15:38    So in those types of destinations, you can easily keep your monthly living expenses between $1,020, $500 per month without sacrificing your quality of life. So my cost of living in Bulgaria, for example, depending on the month of the year and and what I was doing and if I had a car or not, and what my rent was, was anywhere between $1,520, $500 per month. Although there are definitely people there living on less than a thousand dollars per month, they just have a simpler lifestyle. And that doesn't include business expenses, but at least you know your personal living expenses. And then the other thing that I really wanted to highlight from these podcast episodes is that just because you achieve F.I.R.E and retire early doesn't mean that you have to stop working or want to stop working. Because I noticed that Eric and Jillian and Stephanie, they all continue to follow their investments pretty actively, and they've each started new businesses and side hustles even though they don't need the money to live on.  

Kristin:    00:16:49    So Eric is working on monetizing his blog and podcast Nomad on Fire, for example, while Stephanie and Jillian started a YouTube channel and they have a website called Our Freedom Years where they teach people what they know about financial independence. And so I got into some pretty deep existential questions with each of them on the show about how they see life now that they have achieved financial freedom and never have to work again, as well as achieving fully nomadic location independence. And that's really important because quite often people think that if they just had more money and more freedom that that would solve everything, but it's not so, you know, even the richest and most financially successful people in the world on paper, your Jeff Bezos and your Elon Musk, they're still human. And you know, my guests on these shows all agreed that despite having achieved these high level goals, the holy grail of financial and location independence, and they're happy, they're definitely content and happy, they recognize that life isn't perfect and they still have problems <laugh> because that's life.  

Kristin:    00:18:19    So no matter what you're achieving, you know, we're everybody's working towards having more freedom and having more financial flexibility. But you know, look at Tim Ferriss who just came out with a podcast recently about child abuse that he suffered and his, um, issues with that very difficult. And he has achieved a lot of wealth, a lot of success, but you know, he still struggles because he's human. And Jack Dorsey the founder of Twitter, he goes to silent meditation courses at least once a year and probably more often. And you know, that's not because everything is perfect. And that's because you know, there's, even if you found a tech company and you become a billionaire, like there's still things that you need to work through. And I also notice that when I go to music festivals, for example, where you see how people from all over the world are coming together for what equates to basically group therapy, <laugh>, and a celebration of life.  

Kristin:    00:19:28    Um, but everyone is equal in these situations. You know, nobody's working. They're all just taking off time to go there and connect with people and listen to music. And like whether you drive to Burning Man and wait in line for hours or drop into the middle of it from a helicopter with a parachute because you have more money or more privilege or whatever, you're still going to the same place for the same reasons. So I just wanted to go back to that because life is not linear and there's no end to this path of self-development that we're all on. So even though I would not trade my life for the world, and I'm so happy with the path that I took, you know, I just wanna tell everybody that once you get there, it's like you're there, but you gotta keep going, you know, and keep living your life and keep growing.  

Kristin:    00:20:27    And so I also wanted to point out that Eric has been nomadic for less than a year while Stephanie and Jillian had been living abroad for almost 10 years. I think they spent seven or eight years in Singapore and now they've been living in Europe. So those are two totally different, um, perspectives. You know, we, we have Eric who is from the US and Stephanie and Jillian from Canada. So they're from different countries, different ages, different backgrounds, lived in different places, nomadic for different periods of time. But what they all seemed to really appreciate was that once they achieved F.I.R.E, that meant that they had freedom of choice in being able to pursue passion projects and side hustles and to design their own careers that merge their interests and their talents together and helping people in a way with what they have experience with and with what they know best.  

Kristin:    00:21:28    And so I found that to be very interesting because even though they don't need anyone else, you know, they have their investments, they have their passive income, they can just go live these lives of complete travel freedom, but instead they decided to create value for other people in the world. So now that they have time and money, when left with that decision, they chose the same one. And so they like having the adventure of their lifestyles, but they also like having the ability to add value to people's lives and to connect with people in other places wherever they go. And just not having that pressure to make a certain amount of money each month to cover their expenses. And so it's, I think, encouraging to see that once you can get there and get financial and location independence, that life goes on and you will encounter new goals and aspirations.  

Kristin:    00:22:31    So it's about finding a balance between celebrating and enjoying and reflecting on your achievements, like this lofty goal of retiring early while also remaining present in your journey. And then continuing on your own path of personal growth and development. You know, because money comes and goes, but it's experiences and people that really bring happiness. And I know this even though I'm not 100% retired, I have been in the position various times throughout my career where I had passive income coming in. I didn't really have to work. I could travel whenever and wherever I wanted. And it's been an ebb and flow over the years, but I definitely know what that feeling is like, and I could at the drop of a hat, I remember one time a friend invited me to go to Iceland and I went like the next day, another friend invited me to go to meet her in Norway.  

Kristin:    00:23:40    She was at a hotel in Oslo, and I just flew the same day from Florida to Oslo. Um, I would meet my friends to go sail in Croatia or go to a Halloween party in the Isle of Man or join a friend on a business trip somewhere like Manila and the Philippines. I did that once. I went with my boyfriend to a poker tournament in The Bahamas. Like I would just do all of these spontaneous things, go hiking in Oregon for the week. Like all of that is great and amazing, but human beings are not meant to only have fun <laugh> and not work. And we're not meant to ever stop evolving. And so I wanted to admit to you guys that despite having this freedom and money in the bank, it was through a sense of a sense that something was missing, that I decided to create this concept of Traveling with Kristin and Badass Digital Nomads to connect with other people who I might never meet in person and to help other people who I didn't know live non-traditional lives on their terms and achieve their personal vision of freedom and location independence.  

Kristin:    00:25:05    And also to challenge myself to pursue creative dreams and ideas that I had had since childhood, but was afraid to do. And then also to just share what I had learned in life and try to make a positive contribution to the world. And I have a lot of friends with traditional jobs who make more money than me, but their biggest complaint is that they don't feel like they're doing anything of value. And there was that book that came out called Bullshit Jobs, I think, and it was kind of a flop, but I think people wanted it to be something that it, that it wasn't. But a lot of people could relate to the idea of bullshit jobs, where it's like you're getting paid for something that you don't think is worthy of, you know, your skills and your intentions and your ideas. So meeting people, creating value in the world, these are things that are universal, helping people and creating, like following creative pursuits.  

Kristin:    00:26:13    There are books, um, that everybody is a writer or everybody is an artist, and I truly believe that. And I thought it was really interesting that Stephanie, Gillian, and Eric all tried to do creative things like podcasting and making videos and integrating their art with their, um, business sense. So if you do decide to retire on F.I.R.E, I encourage you to re-listen to episode 72 and 73, but also to listen with the perspective of making that concept your own. So three questions for you to contemplate. Number one, why do you want to retire early? Number two, what goals do you want to achieve in life? And number three, what would you use your newfound financial freedom and extra time for? So what will you do? What will you make? What will you create if you could retire early because you can. So that is some food for thought for you this week. And go back and listen for more of the technical and strategic tips from those episodes. I hope you liked this solo cast, aftercast. Thank you all for tuning in. Thank you for connecting with me on social media and sending messages and comments and reviews about how the podcast has helped you. Let's keep the conversation going. Stay safe and see you next week.  

Kristin:    00:27:59    Thank you so much for listening. And remember to leave a review for the podcast wherever you listen and share this episode with someone you think it might help.  

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