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Welcome to personal finance for long-term investors, where we believe Benjamin Franklin's advice that an
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investment in knowledge pays the best interest both in finances [music] and in your life. Every episode teaches you
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personal finance and long-term investing in simple terms. Now, here's your host,
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Jesse Kramer. Welcome to Personal Finance for long-term investors, episode 123. My name is Jesse Kramer. By day, I
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work at a fiduciary wealth management firm helping clients nationwide. You can learn more at bestinterest.blog/work.
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The link is in the show notes. By night, I write the best interest blog. I host this podcast. I put out a weekly email
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newsletter, too. And all those projects help busy professionals and retirees avoid mistakes and grow their wealth by
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simplifying their investing, their taxes, and their retirement planning. It seems like many Americans feel time a
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poor even when objective free time may exist. It's the something I should be
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doing effect. And in financial planning, we often focus on saving money, investing money, the money in
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retirement, taxes, but time itself, of course, is a resource and one that is increasingly perceived as scarce. So,
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how do we align our financial plan with our time plan, if you will? Well, today's episode is going to focus on
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time, and Andy Hill is going to help us think about time later on. First, we'll
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do a quick review of the week, and I'll do a very brief reading for you. The
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review of the week is from Fartsky. Yes, Fartsky. Fartsky left a review on Spotify saying, "This podcast is the
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best. Jesse provides his honest, educated, and clear perspective on all things finance related. You can tell
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Jesse is not only crazy smart, but also passionate about personal finance and loves to educate his listeners. Most
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importantly, he has integrity, and he's not shilling for anything or anyone.
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Whether you're a beginner trying to figure out what a 401k is, or an advanced person trying to tackle
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complicated Irma rules and Roth conversions, this is the podcast for you." Well, Fartsky, great work on the
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screen name and thank you for those very kind words. I'd be happy to send you a
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super soft podcast t-shirt. So, please drop me an email to jesseb bestinest.blog so I can get that sent
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out to you. And again, before Andy Hill joins us today, I want to share some thoughts from a 2023 article I wrote
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called Get Your Time Back. Going back to 1790, the US Census counted about 4 million Americans. 90% of those 4
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million Americans lived on farms. Granted, not all of them worked at the farm, but you get the gist. Agriculture
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was huge. Food was so hard to produce that only 10% of the population could afford to not be involved in
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agriculture. Now, today only 1.3% of the American workforce participates in farming. I I'll share a chart with you
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in this uh in this article and I recommend you look at it, but it's an amazing looking chart and essentially
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what it shows is that farming productivity and farming total output have increased incredibly over in this
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case it's a 70-year timeline. So, so farming has increased incredibly over the past 70 years despite the inputs of
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labor and land use dropping precipitously. So, less people hours, less labor, and less land is being used
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for farming. And yet farming production goes up and up and up and up. Of course,
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that change has been hugely beneficial for both American and global society. Norman Borlo, if you don't know Dr.
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Norman Borlo, it's worth checking him out. He's credited with saving 1 billion
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lives. Billion with a B. 1 billion lives through his work in agricultural productivity. And one of the takeaways
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from that data set and takeaways combining, you know, the work of Norman Borlo is the fact that specialization,
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efficiency, innovation, and productivity move society forward because other people were dragging the plows at the
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time. Norman Borlong didn't have to, right? He could go into the lab. He could specialize in the sciences and he
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changed the world because of it. barely any of us drag plows today and we're
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able to help out humanity in other specific productive and innovative ways. And that's both true on the the macro
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level, like feeding an entire nation or feeding an entire globe, but it's also
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true on the micro level. And when I wrote this article in that month, my wife and I, we had spent $1,200 to hire
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a threeman painting team to paint the walls and paint the ceilings in our living room. It's a really tall room.
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It's probably got, I don't know, a 16 ft ceiling, a 20ft ceiling. So, they spent
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a lot of their time up on ladders, reaching high with rollers, doing, you know, all those little corners. And for
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those of you wondering at home, the answer is shoji white. That's the color we went with. Now, $1,200 for this
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specified trade. Spending $1,200, nothing to scoff at, right? It's real money. But if we break it down, 200
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bucks was probably for the materials. We would have spent that anyway if we did the painting ourselves. The remaining
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$1,000 was paid for maybe 20 22 hours of expert painting labor. I'll say it was
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20. So it was 50 bucks an hour, right? 20 hours, $1,000. 50 bucks an hour for their labor. But I don't think we should
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measure their time as much as we should measure our time, like my time, my wife's time. I mean, how much time and
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hassle did we save by hiring these experts? They could paint with way more skill and efficiency than I can. It took
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them 20 hours of ladders and rollers. it would have taken me, you know, 50 hours
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and I I would have fallen off and, you know, dislocated my shoulder. Is $1,000 worth saving 40 hours of of hassle? In
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my book, the answer is a pretty easy yes. And I don't think we're alone in
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that opinion. You know, better tools, better machines, and more skilled labor have vastly reduced the amount of time
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Americans spend on chores. So, going back to 1965, this is when this first data is from 1965, uh, the average
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American couple spent 35 hours a week on housework. Overwhelmingly, it was mothers over fathers. Again, this table
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just looks at mothers and fathers. I realize that other people can be involved. Fast forward to say 1985,
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about 30 hours a week. So, dropping from 35 to about 30 hours. And in in 1985, about 20 hours a week from mothers, 10
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hours a week from fathers. Fast forward to today, the answer is about 27 hours a
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week. still more mothers than fathers, but still from 35 hours a week down to when I say 27, 28 hours a week right
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now. Washing machines, blenders, lawnmowers, you name it. We're surrounded by tools and in some cases
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we're surrounded by skilled workers who can save us time. And it's worth
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considering how much is your time worth. As Ruben Miller once wrote, "Buy your
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freaking time back. What do you hate doing that you can pay someone else to do? Time is an ethereal concept and so
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thinking this way can feel unnatural. But most of the physical crap we buy doesn't make us any happier. Whereas at
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least I know how to enjoy myself if I had more time. As you have more and more money, buying your time gets relatively
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cheaper and cheaper. We're all going to die probably before we want to. And for
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a lot of us, we will die with plenty of money in the bank. And our regret will be not enough time with people we love,
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not enough time for places to see, not enough time to do the things we wanted to do. Unfortunately, there are very few
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ways to get more of it. So, go freaking buy it. So, you don't have to hire out
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everything in your life, nor should you give up the reigns completely. You know,
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you can go ahead and and stay in the loop. But if you don't like a chore, and
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if you're not good at that chore, or if you're extremely slow at that chore,
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well, what are you doing? You might want to hire that out to a professional. For
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thousands of years, we all had to be farmers because that's the only way we could eat. But that's not the case
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anymore. Again, tip of the hat to Norman Borlo for that. So, buy your freaking time back. Spend it honing your
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specialization so people hire you to do the stuff that you're great at. Or better yet, spend some time doing the
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things that you love. Personally, I never want to fall off a ladder with a paint roller in my hand thinking to
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myself, "Is ghost champagne really a different shade of white than eggshell
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cream?" We need to get our time back. Here's a quick ad and then we'll get
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back to the show. Serious question. Why do podcasters constantly ask for ratings
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and reviews? Yes, they do help highlight our shows to new listeners. They help strangers find us on Apple Podcast and
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Spotify. It's totally true and a good reason to ask for ratings and reviews.
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But I have something more important, at least more important to me. I want to know if you like this stuff. I want to
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know if you like my podcast episodes, my monologues, my guests, the information I
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share with you and the stories I tell. I want to improve and make your listening
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more enjoyable in the process. So yeah, I would love to read your reviews. And sure, if you throw a rating in there,
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too, that's great. If you like what I'm doing, please share it with me. It's
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such a great feeling to read your feedback. I'd love to read your review or see a rating on Apple Podcast or
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Spotify. Thank you. And with that, let's kick things over to Andy Hill. Andy is
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the award-winning blogger and podcaster behind Marriage, Kids, and Money, which is dedicated to helping young families
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build wealth and thrive. Today you'll hear us talking about Andy's latest
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project, a book coming out in early 2026 called Own Your Time: 10 Financial Steps
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to Put Your Family First and Escape the Corporate Grind. So, when it comes to getting your time back, fixing that
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feeling of feeling time poor or aligning your financial plan with your time plan,
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Andy [music] is a really good resource for that and I'm excited to hear what he
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has to tell us today. Andy, you know, one thing I love about personal finance and financial planning
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is that there are all these nooks and crannies, you know, ripe for amazing conversation and and sometimes me and
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you and and the listeners out there, we might get burnt out on tax planning. Oh,
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but then then we go read up on investing allocation. We get burnt out on frugalism, but oh, we go read about
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Medicare. And it's been a while since I got a chance to dive deep on the topic
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of time. Time, the ultimate limited resource. And I know you're working on a
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really cool project all about time. So I thought we'd start the conversation with
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chapter one, so to speak. How do we begin the journey to truly owning our time? >> Oh, what a great question. Yes, I love
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talking about time because as you said, it is finite and we only get 168 hours in the week, right? We can't
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>> we can create more time. We can create more money, but we create can't create
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more time. So to support that conversation, I think it really comes back to what do you want to do with that
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time, you know? So I think when I start these conversations, a lot of our discussions, Jesse, can be around money,
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can be around finance because we know what that can do for our future. But I really want to encourage people, and I
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have to encourage myself sometimes to really think back about why we're building this wealth, why we're
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accumulating this net worth number or eliminating the debt, all those cool, you know, things that really excite me,
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but why are we doing it? And so when we really think back and we look deeply, we
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have to ask ourselves those questions. What are my goals? How do I want to change my future? How do I see things
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differently for myself 5 years from now? And really building up the reason for owning more of that time. What am I what
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do I want to be doing here? What do I want to be doing with my life? What am I not doing now that I want to be doing in
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the future? Or what am I spending too much of my time doing now that I don't
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want to be doing in the future? Those are really great questions to ask yourself as you start this journey of
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time ownership, time freedom. >> Are there any specific exercises you recommend that help us to find that life
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we want to live that allow us to, you know, in your own words, I think is, you know, carving out some time to dream.
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What specifically does that look like? >> I think it's just how it sounds, too.
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And I think sometimes people have difficulty with that because when we were kids, we dreamed a lot. We dreamed
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of being rock stars or sports athletes or whatever really cool things because those people dared to go dream and do
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something really cool and then we got older and we got our corporate gigs and we were pretty busy and we forgot to
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dream. It's like our it's like our dreaming muscle atrophied from a life in
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the corporate [clears throat] world or all just all the general demands of life as as we get older. So I think it's
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incumbent on us to take that time to literally carve it out of our schedules to say what am I going to do for 15
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minutes, 30 minutes to just block everything out and dream a little bit. What do I want to do for my future?
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Where do I want to go? And sometimes that's difficult for people to physically sit down and write it down
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and then develop goals. People maybe don't have that ability. What I like to
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do is do some fun exercises to say, "Okay, if you went to your mailbox right
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now, Jesse, and you got a check for $5 million in there, don't worry about the
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taxes. Don't worry about any of that stuff." Like, you get it free and clear,
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and it's in your bank account. What would you stop doing immediately? >> That's more of like a subtraction goal
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>> as opposed to like what do I want to be, where do I want to go? Think about what
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you'd stop doing. And if your first reaction is, well, I would quit my soul sucking job because it is not fulfilling
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at all and I would say goodbye and thanks and peace out. Okay, that is informative. But maybe after you took a
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breath, you'd say, "Okay, well actually I like what I do. I just wouldn't want
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to do it so much. You know, I do it 50 hours a week, 60 hours a week. I like what I do. Maybe if I could do that like
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20 hours a week, that'd be good. That way I could spend a lot more time with
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my family. I could spend more time, you know, taking care of my health. my health goals have kind of gone gone
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away. These other big priorities in our life have been pushed aside. So if you can't think of it in a dream standpoint
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of just sitting down and coming up with those big goals, maybe think about it from a subtraction point. What would I
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want to take away? Or if that doesn't work, think about your fears. Think about the things that you're constantly
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worried about that are on your mind all of the time. What are those constant fears? and how could increasing your
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wealth and growing your wealth help you to eliminate some of those fears. So, I think that's a great place to start and
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really that does take some time to carve out in your schedule to say, "I'm going
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to sit down. I'm going to write this down and really think about it and have
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some fun with it." >> Yeah, I really like the the subtraction question as you put it. It reminds me,
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you know, it's a Charlie Mer type thing of like invert always invert. You don't
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have to think about the amazing things you do with $5 million. Like think about the first biggest thing you'd take out
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of your life. And that's a perfectly fine way of of solving the problem. Or um I think it's George Kinder, right?
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Not George Kinder, but George Kinder, who's got these three life planning questions. And and a couple of his
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questions, if I'm I'm getting them loosely right, one of them is, you know,
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if you got a diagnosis that you had, you know, 5 to 10 years to live. Thankfully,
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you're not going to be in any pain. You just don't know between 5 and 10 years
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when it's coming. What would you change today? A second question he has that's
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similar is that he I think he calls it the mortality question which is like if you knew you were going to die you have
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24 hours left to live >> immediately what comes to mind as these kind of like regrets or things you wish
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you would have done more of or things you wish you would have done less of >> and it's just these you know stimulating
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conversations to help us think about of planning the life itself but you know I'm thinking as we start thinking of
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these answers to those questions you devote a lot of time in in the book to something called the coastfire idea like
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the coastire framework I'll call it and I'm sure some audience members probably
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know exactly what I'm talking about when I say coastfire but do you mind starting
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with just a quick definition of what that term means but then tell us maybe more specifically why coast fire is such
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an important milestone for time ownership >> yeah absolutely well to define coastfire
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I would first recommend defining fire to help people and I know that you guys probably talk about that at the show
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quite a bit because it can be a goal for some people out there but it essentially
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is born from this movement of people who were frustrated with this corporate grind really having that thought in
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their brains saying I don't think humans are meant to be clacking away on their
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computers inside cubicle offices for the majority of their life and we got to break free from this madness. So their
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idea was hey save and invest a huge chunk maybe 50% or more of my income for 15 years and then I'm out of this rat
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race and then I can go do whatever I want. I think that's a very inspiring movement and it has been a very
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inspiring movement. The problem with that movement is that it's usually really great for highincome earners and
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it's very difficult if you have another spouse on board and some other kids and
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some other people that you need to care about that also need to go along with you on this journey. It can be a little
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bit more difficult. So what was born out of the fire movement was also this coastfire movement. This essentially
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says, "Yeah, you know what? I don't think we're supposed to be in this
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corporate world for 40 years. What about 15 years? That sounds great. But could we just like slow that down a little
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bit, maybe save like 30%. And then instead of ceasing work altogether in 15 years, what about just going part-time?"
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You know, just saying, "Hey, I don't like what I'm doing full-time, but maybe
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I could do it part-time or maybe I could start my own little part-time business or something like that." Because
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research has shown, as you've probably heard, Jesse, having some sort of purpose or ability to give back and some
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meaningful work is good for you long term. So, I even see myself doing some sort of part-time work even in
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retirement. I think that's there's research that backs that up that it's
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great for retirees to have purpose and meaning and joy in their life. So Coastfire is sort of a middle way when
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you compare the traditional retirement plan of hey I'm going to work for 40 years maybe save 15% and then I'll
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really be able to enjoy myself when I'm 65 and then the o opposite of like let
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me grind away for 15 years saving the majority of of what I'm I'm earning and
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it's going to be really tough for those 15 years but at least I'll have some
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freedom on the other end. Coastfire is that middle way. >> And we've had enough conversations Andy
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and I I know enough about your content. I mean, would you define your family right now in some sort of coastfier
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state or something? You're somewhere in that region, aren't you? Absolutely. I
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would wear that hat gladly. It would be a nice hat and uh happy to wear that. Yeah, we about three years ago, both my
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wife and I took this adventure, this philosophy of Coastfire and said, "Hey,
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let's really lean into this." We had invested about $500,000 for our retirement. This is, you know,
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traditional IAS, Roth IAS, HSAs, things like that. And by doing the projections,
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we could see in about 20 years from now, with a very conservative real rate of return, 6 7% that we would have about $2
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million at 60 without any further contributions to our retirement plans. And that gave
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us pause and we said, well, if we don't need to keep contributing to this thing
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and we still get to our retirement zone that we need to be in, could we just work less? And so that was something we
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decided to do. Both my wife and I have gone to part-time work as of about three years ago. She works part-time as an
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aesthetician. She went back to school to learn a new trade because she was sick of corporate marketing and wanted to try
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something new. So she uh learned that skill and she's doing that part-time. She works Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. And
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now I am a family finance coach and a financial educator online. And I try to smush my week into Tuesday through
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Thursday. I do bleed in a little bit on Monday. I'm probably like a three and a
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half day kind of work guy right now. Fridays I try to religiously always try to take Friday off just because it feels
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good. But longterm I'd love to have a three-day work week and a 4-day weekend.
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I just feel like that just feels right. You know, we look at that typical week and we got seven days. I don't know who
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decided that five days need to be working and two days need to be relaxing. Let's flip the script here if
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we can with our money. And so my wife and I are experimenting with that right now. I was just it's literally it's the
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it's the next question I have down on my ideation sheet over here was, you know,
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you kind of start with this coastfire idea. You start with this idea that maybe we can start to take our foot off
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the pedal, literally start that coast that vehicle for a while. And along with that comes this idea of well, do I still
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need to keep working full-time or not? And I give you credit, Andy, that three-day work week has such an
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appealing label to it, right? Instead of five, five on, two off, I could do three
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on and four off. So again, what does that look like for someone? I'm I'm
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thinking of this mid-career professional right now who first maybe they need to do some math to understand if they've
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reached Coast themselves. And and I don't know, you know, are there any like
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go-to, you know, you've got the 4% rule, that kind of thing. Are there any go-to
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rules when it comes to Coast Fire? Let's start with that one. Yeah, I would say
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the numbers evolve over time based on what $500,000 means in 2025 versus 2020, you know, so you really need to keep
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fluid with that. There's some great free calculators online that help you to
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calculate your cofire situation. We've developed one on our website that's
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helpful for folks. But essentially, the numbers that you need to know are how much do I spend today for my comfortable
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life? I don't say my depriving life or my abundant life, too. It's somewhere in
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the middle of like, yeah, I've got mo I've got all of my needs and most of my
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wants. You know, I I got most of them. I don't have I don't have everything, but
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I have a comfortable life. So, having that number of your annual expenses is very important. And I think that
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adventure right there is a big one for a lot of people. Most people know how much
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they make. Not many people know how much they spend, but that number of how much
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you spend is much more important than how much you earn. So that exercise right there of just learning how much
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you spend each year to make a comfortable life can be a gold mine for your future retirement needs. So having
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that information and then also having how much have I actually saved or invested for my retirement in the
00:21:08
future. Again, people might just be hitting the autoc contribute button on their 401k, which is fantastic. But it's
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good to know that number to see where you are and gauge how close you are to hitting this milestone. Because that
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realization that you've done the work can be very gratifying to say, "Wow, do
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I care more about having three, four, five, $6 million in retirement when I'm
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60, 70 years old, or do I care more about working less in my 30s, 40s, and 50s so that I can own more of my time,
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take care of my health, spend more time with my family, God willing, have some more hobbies,
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spend time with aging parents, all these other identities that are very important
00:21:54
in people's lives besides worker. If we can lean into those other identities, I
00:21:58
think we can find a lot more joy in our lives, a lot more meaning, a lot more purpose. Community leader, volunteer,
00:22:06
athlete, singer, what do you like to do? Like lean into those things. I think that is where joy can be really found.
00:22:13
And obviously spending time with people that you love. I got to interview Robert
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Walddinger who is the director of the Harvard adult study of development is the 85y year study of essentially what
00:22:28
makes people happy and he shared that two results of that obviously the first result is eat healthy and exercise
00:22:36
that's the one we all know right but the second one which was surprising to him
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was people who lived the longest happiest lives were people who had the best relationships people who spent time
00:22:47
with people who lifted them up, that kept them happy, and they did the same to them. So leaning into those types of
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relationships in your 40s, 30s, 50s is much more important in my eyes than having 4 million, 5 million, $6 million
00:23:04
in the investment account when you're 60 or 70 because unfortunately the average
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mortality age in America is 78. 75 for fellas, Jesse. Just right. >> No fun.
00:23:17
>> No, it's f. I mean, listeners might have heard me say this before, Andy, and you
00:23:21
might be familiar with this research, too, but this is, I think, something that Fritz Gilbert over at Retirement
00:23:25
Manifesto did where it's there's some cool stats about the biggest concerns of
00:23:29
pre-retirees versus the biggest concerns of post-retirees. And the pre-retirees are always I shouldn't say this, but in
00:23:35
general, pre-retirees are most concerned about finances. >> Yep. in general, right? Post-retirees
00:23:41
say, "Oh, I didn't realize how socially isolating retirement would be if, you
00:23:46
know, assuming they didn't go into a retirement with a socialization plan, with a plan for their pursuing their
00:23:52
hobbies or passions." And they say things like, "Retirement's lonelier than
00:23:56
I thought. Retirement's more boring than I thought. The money's fine, but yeah,
00:24:00
just, you know, it's it's the lifestyle that's not there." And I think that's a
00:24:04
really important fate that we we want to avoid. Here's a quick ad and then we'll
00:24:09
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That's right, a free weekly email that thousands of people like you are already
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reading, a free white paper to help you plan for retirement. And you can sign up
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for free at bestinterinterest.blog. But anyway, going going back to uh uh Coastfire a little bit and that
00:25:02
three-day work week. That's the thing I wanted to ask you about with that three-day work week. I mean, any tips
00:25:06
for someone who is maybe they're they're the fiveday corporate grinder. They're
00:25:09
that 60 hour a week person who you mentioned before. Maybe they even love the work that they're doing, but they've
00:25:14
gone to your Coast calculator. They've realized they're there. They feel it in
00:25:18
their heart that they want to start slowing down. I mean, any like kind of practical tips and tricks for
00:25:24
>> coasting down into that 3-day work week lifestyle? What does that look like?
00:25:28
Yeah, first of all, congratulations for investing so much that that you did that
00:25:31
because that is the hardest part of doing all this. The fun part, which also, you know, as you mentioned, could
00:25:38
be scary because we're not used to it, >> is something that we should take in baby
00:25:42
steps, right? It should be really stepped down to it. For you to say, hey, I'm investing 30% or 50% into my
00:25:49
retirement and I'm going to go to zero immediately would probably do a jolt to
00:25:53
your system. So maybe the first step is instead of stopping contributions altogether to your retirement, maybe
00:26:00
you're doing a 401k and you're doing a Roth IRA, maybe just starting to pair
00:26:05
back those contributions on a monthly basis, but take that money and say, can I put this now in an FU money fund,
00:26:16
maybe some sort of savings account where I will allow myself to have a bridge out
00:26:22
of this 60hour work situation, maybe into a 20 or 30 hour work situation. Maybe that's your own consultancy doing
00:26:33
what you do best. Maybe that's working at your current employer and just saying, "Hey, do you guys have part-time
00:26:40
opportunities here? Do I have a relationship with my manager where I can have that type of conversation?" If you
00:26:44
don't have that type of relationship with your manager, don't have that type
00:26:47
of conversation. Maybe that there's opportunities out there in other companies looking for part-time work or
00:26:51
you've always wanted to start that soloreneur business where you are the boss and you make the decisions. I think
00:26:58
when we have money in the bank like a sixmon or 12 month runway of cash to support you and your family, you gain
00:27:07
that confidence and autonomy to say, I'm going to give this a go. And that's really what my
00:27:14
wife and I did. after we hit coastfire, after we paid off our mortgage, we saved
00:27:17
up 12 months of expenses in a savings account and said, >> I'm going to try this whole like family
00:27:23
finance coach podcast thing that I've been doing and see how it goes. And so
00:27:29
we launched in January of 2020 with my wife's pat on the back say, "You got
00:27:33
this, man." And I launched into it. The first two months, man, they were fantastic. I was I had contracts. I was
00:27:40
growing my business. And then March 2020, something happened. I think you guys know what happened. [laughter]
00:27:47
>> And it became really scary. >> Mhm. >> Contracts went away. The idea that I had
00:27:53
taken this plunge and put my family along with me became very scary. And I became very depressed and I had some
00:28:01
tears and I needed some moments with my family, my friends to really say, "Hey,
00:28:07
man, you've got this." It was low. But what I did have was 12 months of money
00:28:13
in the bank for me to be guided through this process over the next year, two years. And if I didn't have that, I
00:28:22
would have ran back to my corporate job saying, "I am so sorry. Please take me
00:28:27
back. I made a mistake." But really, that 12 months of runway gave me the confidence to say, "Hey, man. Dip into
00:28:34
me. It's okay. Utilize this money. That's why you did it. So that you can
00:28:39
live a better life in the future. And if I can go through a 100year every 100year
00:28:44
global pandemic for my small business, I believe that people can do it as well. It helps when you've got some FU money
00:28:51
set aside. >> Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah. And boy, there's a one of my go-to phrases is
00:28:56
that for some people money buys happiness. For some people it doesn't buy happiness. But for almost all
00:29:00
people, money buys flexibility. And maybe that just means, you know, that ability at some point in life to say,
00:29:06
you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna change jobs for a lower paying job because I love it more and I have enough
00:29:11
money to give me the flexibility to do that. >> But yeah, in a lot of these cases, it's
00:29:14
that flexibility to maybe retire a little earlier than someone wanted to. Take a chance on yourself. I mean,
00:29:20
that's such a cool one. Such a I mean, like you said earlier that uh we all look up to rock stars and and athletes
00:29:26
and maybe it's because they were able to take a chance on themsel and pursue
00:29:29
their dreams. And what a cool story to be able to say I had the financial flexibility to take a chance on myself,
00:29:36
pursue my dreams, go into business and and even survive a pandemic in the meantime. It's such a cool story and uh
00:29:42
here you are pursuing these dreams but with kids and and that's a question. So
00:29:47
going back to the whole whether it's the owning your time, the coastfire itself,
00:29:51
the the three on four off work weeks, how do kids fit into this picture? I guess logistically how do they fit into
00:29:58
this picture? and but then also in terms of instilling them with the right set of
00:30:03
their own kind of time, money, values as they're watching you as role models. So
00:30:08
I guess first let's start with the logistics of just pursuing these pursuits with children in your life.
00:30:13
Yeah, I would say that my wife and I stepping down to part-time work has been incredible for both our relationship
00:30:23
together as well as our relationship with our kids. Because the thing that kids crave more than anything in their
00:30:31
life is time with their parents. Well, I guess that's different when you get
00:30:36
teenage daughters cuz she doesn't want to see them anymore. But for a big period of time, they really crave being
00:30:42
around their mom and dad. So, we've been able to give that gift to them over the
00:30:47
last three, well, 5 years for me now, three years for my wife, and it's been
00:30:52
so great, man. I've always wanted to be that present father that's there for the
00:30:56
games, that's there to pick them up at the end of the day. I'm taking my son to
00:31:00
his cross country meet right after we're done with this conversation. It's, you
00:31:04
know, 30 minutes away. It's at 3:00. It's like I wouldn't have been able to
00:31:06
do that if I was grinding away at my corporate job or traveling. And it just gives me so much joy that I can see him
00:31:12
lean into a sport that he loves. So I think for our relationship with our kids, it has been fantastic. As far as
00:31:19
helping them see this path as something to consider for the future, man, that's
00:31:25
been a lot of conversations between my wife and I. We've had to question a lot
00:31:29
of the decisions that we've made over the past 20, 30 years of our lives and
00:31:32
saying, "Is this the right path for our kids?" But what I still do believe is
00:31:37
that instilling in our kids that if they want something out of life, working hard
00:31:42
for it is worth it, we still do that. We have our kids contribute around the house here to support with what it means
00:31:49
to be a part of this family that's doing chores. When they want to make some
00:31:53
extra money, they can work with dad and their small business and I can pay them for that. that allows me to contribute
00:31:59
to their Roth IRA because they have earned income through my small business as employees. This is two hours, two,
00:32:07
three, four hours a month. It's not a lot, but you know what? If they've been
00:32:11
doing it for 3 to 5 years, that Roth IRA starts to grow. Right now, my kids both
00:32:16
have over $8,000 in their Roth IAS. My daughter's 11, my son is I'm sorry, my
00:32:21
daughter's 13, and my my son is 11. You can only imagine where this would go
00:32:25
over time towards that goal of time ownership. My net worth at age 28 was $50,000
00:32:33
and my son at age 11 is over $10,000 now. So again, you can only imagine what this type of early contribution towards
00:32:44
investment goals, savings goals, even conversations around giving can do for their long-term wealth and happiness.
00:32:52
That is awesome. And yes, I I've talked before about the child as employee Roth
00:32:57
trick here on the podcast. It sounds like you were going about it exactly the right way. And and listeners, you you
00:33:03
might remember me saying that if your child uh sweeps your warehouse floor for an hour and you pay them $7,000 to max
00:33:10
out their Roth IRA, the IRS will not appreciate that. >> They'll come get them. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:33:15
These are $20 an hour. They're co podcast co-hosts, things like that. My daughter will edit my social media
00:33:23
videos, things like that. And it's not a sweat shop, everybody. It's like a
00:33:27
couple what is it, four hours a month, you know, like when when they want to. And as soon as they're like, "Hey, dad,
00:33:32
I don't want to work with you anymore." Like my daughter, she's like, "I don't
00:33:34
want to be podcast host anymore, Dad, cuz I'm embarrassed." It's not like,
00:33:37
"No, you got to do it." It's like, "No, she's she's gone on and doing her own
00:33:40
thing." She's refing soccer now, soccer games. So awesome. >> It's just, you know, do it when we can.
00:33:45
>> Uncle Sam approves, Andy. Uncle Sam approves. Um, well, maybe the one one of
00:33:49
the last things I wanted to ask you is I I kind of even alluded to it before that
00:33:53
some of the most I'm not sure what the word is, distressing or heartbreaking or
00:33:56
concerning stories I hear involve retirees who, for lack of a better term, essentially like waste away after their
00:34:03
working years that just become some sort of shell of the person they used to be.
00:34:07
And I know you devote some time in this whole topic of owning your time. I think
00:34:11
you call it use your four days wisely, you know, referring to those four days off. I mean, what can people do to
00:34:18
really ensure that they not only don't waste away, but really that they thrive
00:34:22
in their time off, whether it's in Coastfire or in full retirement? What can people do better?
00:34:27
>> I think the issue that I've heard from older retirees or even talking with
00:34:33
doctors who have spoken to patients on their deathbed is that they just leaned into that one identity of hard worker
00:34:42
too much. And so when that hard work went away, they had no identity anymore. >> So in this use your 4 days wisely
00:34:52
mantra, this is our opportunity to diversify our identity outside of worker. We can be dad, we can be mom, we
00:35:01
can be brother, we can be sister, we can be runner. There's all these different
00:35:05
hats that we can wear that can give us pride outside of, hey, I'm a hardworking
00:35:11
guy and I've been there for a long time because when that identity goes away,
00:35:16
you will have an identity crisis. You will say, who am I? What's my purpose?
00:35:22
So, I think it's incumbent on us to diversify our identities as much as possible, as early as possible. Just
00:35:28
like investing, this is the same thing. If we invest in one single stock for a really long time and that single stock
00:35:36
tanks, what are we going to be? We're going to be depressed, right? So, I would say that it has a very good
00:35:42
similarity to investing. I think we should do that as early as possible. And if we're looking for areas to invest in,
00:35:49
our health is a great one because the more we lean into our health, the more we can be better spouses. The more we're
00:35:56
better spouses, the more our kids will see that. and learn the true value of family happiness. So, it's a it's got a
00:36:06
cascading effect. We take care of ourselves, we can be better spouses. We take care of our relationship with our
00:36:11
spouse, we can be better parents. And then from there, we're better friends.
00:36:15
We're better children to our own aging parents. And life goes on from there.
00:36:19
So, I think there's so many things to explore. I'm in this area of my life
00:36:23
where I'm jumping into it and exploring even more. I've definitely diversified
00:36:27
my identities, but there's a lot more that I can do and I'm excited about it.
00:36:31
>> So, it sounds like, you know, there's some compound returns, you could say,
00:36:33
from diversifying your identity. Absolutely. >> We've kind of buried the lead here. In
00:36:38
case listeners weren't aware, we just went through some of the really cool chapters of this new book project you're
00:36:45
working on. So, maybe here in the last couple minutes, I mean, tell us about this book. It might not come out like
00:36:50
this this episode's coming out in in November. The book's probably not out
00:36:54
yet, but I do believe people can pre-order it and uh just tell us more about about the book itself and where
00:37:00
people can find it. >> Yeah, it's called Own Your Time. It is the 10 financial steps to put family
00:37:06
first and escape the corporate grind. So, this is a family conversation. It's
00:37:09
a book for people who feel maybe a little trapped in their work situation and they're looking for those steps to
00:37:15
make their way out from I guess an area of feeling trapped and more to an area of feeling some peace and harmony in
00:37:23
your life. And the there are as Jesse knows some financial steps that can help you to get there so you can have that
00:37:29
choice so you can have that autonomy in your life and eventually have that time freedom where you can choose to if you
00:37:35
want work three days and enjoy four. So yeah, it's called Own Your Time. You can
00:37:39
get it on any major website right now. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Porch Light Books. Again, Own Your Time by Andy
00:37:46
Hill. Yes, it's on pre-order right now and it comes out in January. I have a
00:37:49
goal of hitting 500 pre-orders by January 21st. So if there's anybody out there looking to support that goal, I'd
00:37:55
appreciate it. >> Amazing. Amazing. Looking forward to reading it myself. Andy Andy Hill,
00:38:00
author of Own Your Time: The Man Behind Marriage, Kids, and Money. Thanks for stopping by Personal Finance for
00:38:06
Long-Term Investors. Thank you, Jesse. >> Thanks for tuning in to this episode of
00:38:10
Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. If you have a question for Jesse to answer on a future episode,
00:38:16
send him an email over at his blog, The Bestinest. His email address is [email protected].
00:38:23
Again, that's jessevestinterest.blog. Did you enjoy the show? Subscribe, rate,
00:38:29
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00:38:35
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00:38:39
for Long-Term Investors. Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors is a personal podcast meant for education and
00:38:46
entertainment. It should not be taken as financial advice and it's not prescriptive of your financial
00:38:51
situation.