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welcome to the best interest podcast where we believe Benjamin Franklin's advice that an investment in knowledge
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pays the best interest both in finances and in your life every episode teaches you personal finance and investing in
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simple terms now here's your host Jesse Kramer hello and welcome to episode 91
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of the best interest podcast my name is Jesse Kramer later in today's episode
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Steve Adcock is going to be joining us again Steve is coming back after his first stop on the podcast which was way
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back in episode 16 Steve has built a really cool Financial Independence lifestyle for himself and he shares some
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of his valuable Financial Insights far and wide in a very succinct and understandable and convincing Manner and
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I think you'll really enjoy hearing what Steve has to say but first let's do a
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customary review of the week this one comes in from Shaq and Kobe who left us a review on Apple podcast of five star
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review saying definitely a must ad to your weekly Finance podcasts I'd like to
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try lots of new Finance podcasts to see if I like them sometimes I have to listen to three or four or five episodes
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to get a true feel of if the podcast will be beneficial to me but with the best interest podcast I could tell after
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just the first episode that I chose to try I followed the podcast immediately and now this podcast is part of my
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regular routine well Shack and Kobe I hope you're doing well thank you for those kind words and uh if you hear this
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sha and Kobe drop me an email at Jesse bestin interest. blog and we will get you hooked up with a super soft bestest
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t-shirt and now before Steve Adcock joins us today I want to ask you listeners a question and that question
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is how well do you know your frame what do I mean by your frame let's go back to
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Friend of the blog Anthony Anthony was around and would read some of my very first articles that I wrote for the best
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interest blog when I shared them on Facebook way back in 2018 and 2019 Anthony's seen the best interest grow
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over time and a couple years ago this is probably going back to 2022 I told him that the best interest wasn't exactly
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what I wanted it to be I felt pretty directionless at the time and I was considering hanging up my writing gloves
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for good and in fact it was during that time where I wasn't recording this podcast at all I hung up my podcasting
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microphone for really was like 18 months just because before those 18 months I didn't feel a real passion for the
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podcast and I didn't feel like I had a real direction for the podcast and so I
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was talking to Anthony about this and he said you know Jesse you can't see the
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picture if you're standing inside the frame I'm outside the frame of the best
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interest so trust me when I say that you've got something special going on here the best interest is really cool
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it's different it's Unique and I can see that from outside the frame and you
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might not be able to see that Jesse from where you are inside the frame that was
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a big turning point for me and I'm I'm obviously over Overjoyed that the best
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interest has journeyed on to become what it is today and that quote that you can't see the picture if you're inside
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the frame it's a pivotal part of the human condition but many of us remain blind to it even after we're aware of
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the quote even after we're aware of how true that idea is it's still hard to
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remain cognizant of that idea it's a daily challenge to remove ourselves from
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our frames and gain a true outside perspective of what's going on in our lives now that same theme that same idea
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it's integral to David Foster Wallace's famous speech this is water which
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longtime readers and longtime listeners will have seen me quote countless times as Foster Wallace explains the point is
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that the most obvious and important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about Foster
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Wallace goes on to explain and I'm going to read you a somewhat long quote here
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quote here is just one example of the total wrongness of something that I tend to automatically be sure of everything
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in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe the realest most
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Vivid and most important person in existence we rarely think about this sort of natural basic self-centeredness
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because it's so socially repulsive but it's pretty much the same for all of us
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it is our default setting hardwired into our boards at Birth think about it there's no experience you have had that
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you are not the absolute Center of your world as you experience it is there in front of you or behind you to the left
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or right of you on your TV on your monitor and so on other people's thoughts and feelings have to be
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communicated to you somehow but your own are so immediate urgent real and that's
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the quote from David Foster Wallace we are all stuck inside our own frames our own frame of reference we must first
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realize and accept that truth and only then can we attempt to strategize a way out of our own frames and hopefully
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execute that strategy with some sort of success okay what does this all have to do with personal finance well our
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natural self-centered framing certainly affects our interactions with money the most obvious way to me hearkens back to
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a terrific Charlie Munger quote the world is not driven by greed it's driven
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by Envy in other words we don't simply want more stuff right that's greed
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instead we want more stuff because we see and feel Envy toward other people who have that stuff we get jealous right
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I want it too that's exactly what Katie Gotti tosson who was just here on episode 89 it's what Katie wrote about
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in her recent article called mimic desire and consumer choice right mimic desire we see what other people have
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what we see what other people are spending on and we want that stuff too we want to mime other people we recently
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spent a weekend at a a rental lake house here in the Finger Lakes in Upstate New
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York it was this really nice kind of old school old-fashioned Cottage probably like a 1500t 2,000t cottage on canida
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Lake a beautiful Lake beautiful views but as we went up and down our little Shoreline we were certainly staying in
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the smallest and the oldest of all the nearby lake houses canida lake has one of the highest tax rates in the country
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there's a lot of really really nice property there and I laughed to myself and I began thinking about what ended up
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being this article what ended up being this monologue that I'm speaking to you
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right now when I compared our rental house to the neighbors houses and I thought you know what would it be like
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to have the quote unquote worst of the million dooll lake houses what effect would that have on the psyche now it's
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easy for you and I to sit here and think to ourselves well I I wouldn't care
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right I would take a bad million dooll lake house any day of the week and and maybe that's true but Envy does Drive
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the world and many people would be affected by that isn't that wild that that some people would sit there and say
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sure I have a million dollar lakeh house but it actually doesn't feel too good
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because look at the beautiful neighbors houses I'm I'm sitting in this the worst
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of all these houses it it really would affect some people and we all have those different frames I feel a silver lining
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personally to have grown up in a relatively economically depressed area of rural Upstate New York I've seen
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poverty firsthand deep poverty but then I ended up going to a nice College the University of Rochester and I saw some
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eye popping wealth there so I've interacted with people all over the wealth spectrum and we can remove
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ourselves from our natural frames I think by understanding that for example poverty is fundamentally different from
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the middle class which is fundamentally different from the upper class especially in the early developmental
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years of childhood the difference in framing between a 10-year-old who's on food stamps versus a 10-year-old whose
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family owns a luxury yacht or a 10-year-old whose family owns one of these $5 million lake houses the
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difference between those two children's framing of the world I think that's
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almost inconceivable to you or me I think the Gap might be too wide for any of to truly understand we can't see
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their pictures when we're standing inside our own frames but we can at least try we can think about what it
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must be like to be those two different children we can try to walk a mile in their shoes in fact when we have that
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saying to walk a mile in someone else's shoes that's another way of saying get
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out of your frame and get into their frame it might be more than just a thought experiment though you might have
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to see it for yourself to talk to people who are different from you to truly immerse yourself in the day-to-day
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aspects of others lives that might be one of the only ways to really get yourself out of your frame and into
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someone else's frame to understand if we're talking here about personal finance to understand how other people
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have different views of money or resources or things or travel or experiences to understand how other
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people have just a different frame than you and and one of the last framing ideas that I thought of especially when
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it comes to to money here is this idea of who do you trust perhaps the easiest way to get get out of your natural
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framing is by seeking mentorship or advice from a loved one from a trusted counselor from an older Mentor someone
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like that one of the most rewarding aspects of the best interest of running the best interest is providing that
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exact kind of help to those of you who ask for it and one of my favorite parts of my day job is understanding the
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frames of the people who I work with then trying to act as this neutral third party to provide them advice in their
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best interest uninhibited by the confines of their own frame you know it's it's interesting working with
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someone who tends to be a chronic overs spender and trying to pull back the reins on that by trying to remove them
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from their own frame and and I'm trying to provide them advice where I'm outside
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their frame and looking in or the opposite happens all the time too people who are chronic under Spenders and
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encouraging them to spend more people who really like taking on risk people who really like avoiding risk and
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providing them advice again that that is more neutral and uninhibited by their own frames cuz without that kind of
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advice they're likely going to stand inside their frames and do something that's suboptimal for for who knows for
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some sort of undetermined amount of time like all our frames though these people
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who I just mentioned their frames make it challenging for them to see the bigger picture a great example I loved
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the conversations that I had here in the Late July and early August of 2024 about
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the flash crash if you don't remember between I think mid July and the first
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week of August the S&P 500 dropped something like 8% and then over the next 2 weeks it recovered that full 8% and
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here we are at the end of September making all-time highs again the conversations around that flash crash
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the conversations where some people were really jolted by the market dropping so
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quickly by seeing their portfolios drop so quickly because in their frames that was a very sudden exposure to risk that
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maybe they either weren't anticipating or they forgot what it was like and it
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was very fun for me to have conversations and remind people that hey this is part of equity investing
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hopefully that sinks in and over the long period of time they start to realize okay yeah these kind of
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Corrections are just perfectly normal par for the course if it doesn't sink in
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and it causes them to lose sleep well there's another conversation to be had
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there anyway the same goes for relationship problems career advice Forks in the road try to find someone
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outside of your frame to talk to and what advice can that person give to you so thank you again to Friend of the blog
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friend of the podcast Anthony for the original quote that inspired this monologue today thanks to Canad dig Lake
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I suppose thanks to the flash crash for some of these anecdotes that fit in today and I'd be interested what you all
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think if you know yourself well enough to really Define the confines of your frame and then what actions you're
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taking to try to remove yourself from the frame or try to get outside perspective because there are times
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where I have doubts about how well I even understand my own frame but I'm still trying to to feel around in the
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dark for for it here's a quick ad and then we'll get back to the show every
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week I send a quick free email to thousands of readers that shares three Simple Things One my new articles and
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for free on the homepage at bestter interest. blog again that's a free no strings attached subscription at bestin
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interest. blog let's welcome Steve Adcock onto the podcast Steve achieved Financial Independence at age 35 back in
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2016 he quit full-time work and now lives a sustainable life in an off-grid home with his wife out in the middle of
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the desert he shares his wisdom through his own brand and he's got a couple Brands he's got Steve Adcock us he also
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has millionaire habits which I think is his bigger brand and we will talk about those things today and we will share
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links to you listeners here in the show notes Steve's also a regular contributor
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on market watch Forbes uh he's on CNBC all the time I think you're really going
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to enjoy the sharp and quippy nature of Steve's ADV advice today we have a fun
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conversation so without further Ado here is Steve [Music] atock Well Steve thank you for coming
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back and thinking back to episode 16 when you originally were on the best interest podcast which is over 3 years
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old at this point I know at that time you gave us kind of this overarching fire Journey if you will like you know
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where you were as a young employee when you didn't know what you were doing and
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investing in personal finance all the way up till today or or at that time just to ground the audience today though
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I thought a good place to start would be if you could remind us of where you were
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when you pulled the trigger on early retirement when you said today is my last day of work and I'm now fired or
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whatever you thought you were at the time you know it's been what seven or eight years and then maybe if you could
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describe to us what your life has been like since then and with a little bit of an emphasis on your financial life it
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was December 23rd of 2016 that was my last official day of working a full-time job best Christmas I could ever give
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myself it was a very surreal moment because I was 35 years old at the time and I knew unless something went
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terribly wrong unless it all hit the fan I was never really going to have to have
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to work another day for the rest of my life and I emphasize that that phrase have to because that's the beauty of
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financial Independence and I really like to consider myself to be more financially independent rather than
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early retired Ed at this point because you know one of the things that I've learned since retiring early is how many
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opportunities there are out there to get involved in stuff just doing things and
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when you have a marketable skill guess what those things turn into an income and that's really what has happened over
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the last eight years but I started right out of college when I was like 23 years
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old 2004 time frame I remember my first day in the office like it was yesterday maybe it was my my second day I don't
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know really shortly after I first began my career I was like I was in the office
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I took a look around at everybody just doing their job sitting in their Cube and I was like this is it this is what I
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have to look forward to for the next you know 40 45 years of my working career there's no this is crazy there's no way
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now at the time I didn't have anything figured out I didn't have a concept of
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early retirement or financial Independence so believe me I wasn't this this money expert from the very
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beginning and I had a plan I knew exactly what I was going to do I had zero things zero things goose egg of
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things figured out at that time all I knew was this probably wasn't going to
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work long term fast forward about 10 years and I was the typical employee I earned good money I was a software
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developer at the time so you know in Tech in it you make good money I had the house in the suburbs I had had the
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supercharged Corvette I had the brand new Cadillac CTS I had the Yamaha R1 sport bike so I was having lots of fun
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yeah nice toys the insurance on that R1 was like $220 a month just for the insurance by
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the way crazy crazy crazy but people my age at 26 or something at the time well I guess it was a little older than that
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but they kill themselves on bikes they wreck them wreck their bikes all the time that's why it was so expensive but
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anyway it was a probably when I was 30 31 years old and that's really where I
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think the rubber met the road in terms of what I what I had to do with my future it was a Saturday morning just
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like any other Saturday I walked out to my garage I don't know where where I was
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going but I reached up to open up the garage door like I normally would just robotically but for whatever reason
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something stopped me I just didn't do it I could not open the garage door and
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then I turned around and I looked at what was in my garage the house in the suburbs again the Corvette the sport
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bike the Cadillac you know I have all these toys I have all the you know the markings the objects that supposed to
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you know mean success to a lot of people and me included quite frankly at the time but something was still missing I
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still wasn't satisfied with what was going on in my life and what my future was going to look like it was I was on
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this this hamster wheel I thought maybe it was golden handcuffs at at the time in fact it probably was but I think that
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was the first time where I admitted to myself that I can't just keep earning
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and spending earning and spending earning and spending because I've done that I'm doing that right now and yet
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I'm still not happy so this is not working for me it's not going to continue working for me something has
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got to give and at that point that was like that light that that light in my head finally got turned on this cannot
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happen this cannot continue forward and around that time I found and if you follow the fire movement I know you are
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familiar with this person I found the Mr Money Mustache blog and he was a software developer just like me who
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earned good money just like me he lived in Colorado just one state north of me in in um Arizona so I connected with him
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very very well started following his journey some of the things that he started to do to
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prioritize the financial Independence part so he can quit or be able to do whatever he wants without having to
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worry about that paycheck that that twice a month paycheck slowly but surely I started to put the pieces into place I
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met my future wife and that's really where things started to amp up because she's a rocket scientist way smarter
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than I am will always be smarter than I am so the rocket scientists also made good money so by the end of our careers
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in 2013 man we were making 220 G's a year and back then that was good money it's good money now but it was
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especially good money back then so we had a choice we had a decision to make I know I'm rambling here I'll be done in
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just a second we had a decision to make we could either live like rock stars you
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know the vacation home expensive dinners you know jewelry movies whatever or we can start saving the vast majority of
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what we make and we can do whatever we want with our lives for the rest of our lives and ultimately that's what we
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ended up doing we saved 75% of our combined salaries and our combined salaries was 220,000 so 75%
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that's a hell of a lot of money and that adds up quick and we did that for about
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three years sold everything bought an Airstream travel the country for a living got that the travel bug out of
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our system to to some degree that in 2019 we bought an off-grid house in the desert and that's where we are now in
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2024 just uh living the dream and doing whatever we want how was that lifestyle change initially I could imagine for
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people listening right now maybe they think they spend too much in their own life but at the same time the thought of
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going without some of the luxuries that that spending buys them might be a little intimidating or they might feel a
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little bit deprived without that so what was that process like for you guys whether just the logistics themselves or
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just the emotions involved between having all the toys in the garage and and spending and living life that way
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all the way down to saving 75% of your annual income I will tell you this the hardest part and this is probably true
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for almost everything the hardest part is the beginning just getting over that initial hump of first deciding that this
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is not working I'm going to do this and these are the things I'm going to do to
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put that in place that is by far the hardest part of this you know widescale lifestyle change living that change
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after you get through the initial hump living that change is no sweat I mean I used to thought that I couldn't live
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without ESPN at one point in my life but guess what I'm not dead I'm still here I
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lived just fine thank you very much without the cable TV and and lots of these other things that we stopped
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spending money on I mean we went out to eat maybe once a month we gave ourselves
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50 bucks a month that's it to go out to eat and I love going out to eat absolutely freaking love going out I
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love restaurants the the the whole environment I just love it but we cut it back to maybe once a month but you know
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what like like I said once you once you get over that initial hump you really got to push through at the beginning but
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once that snowball starts to build it's like this isn't so bad that's not so bad
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I don't I didn't really need this anyway yeah I guess it was nice to have but I'm
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not really all that less happy because I'm not doing those things or I'm not
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spending money on those things I I think we realize that after a month or two after making that initial you know
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lifestyle change it's like this is no sweat in fact I wish we can do more I wish we could cut back even more so we
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can get to financial Independence even quicker now of course you have to balance that so your life doesn't feel
00:23:00
like a sacrifice nobody wants to feel like they're sacrificing the things that
00:23:05
actually mean something to you so things are going to look differently to US versus you of course the things that we
00:23:11
spend money on you might not need to spend money on those things and vice versa and that's fine but I think the
00:23:16
important thing to remember is to work backwards look at where you want to be and when you want to be there so it's
00:23:24
2024 now let's say you want to retire or achieve Financial Independence let's say
00:23:29
in 2028 so you got four years so what do you got to do to get to that point in four years how much money do you think
00:23:36
you need in order to be financially independent in 2028 then how much money do you have to
00:23:43
save how much money do you have to invest assuming maybe 6 to 8% gains if you're investing in the market over the
00:23:51
years and as you work backwards you can slowly get down to that monthly budget I
00:23:57
think that you have to stick to now in order to get to where you want to be then and here's the secret you will be
00:24:06
surprised at how often you achieve results quicker faster than you think you're going to I wanted to retire at 40
00:24:17
that was my initial goal back then back when I was 30 31 years old I wanted another 10 years and that's it but we
00:24:25
retired in five now granted I did marry somebody with a salary so that helped tremendously it wasn't everything that
00:24:33
just I did so circumstances do affect that by a large Factor circumstances can affect that but if you put your mind to
00:24:42
it you set your focus to it every single day and you really try not to waiver I think you're going to achieve that goal
00:24:51
faster than you think you will yeah it's a practice right it's this ongoing
00:24:55
practice of steady habits over time it's the water that breaks through the rock
00:25:00
over many years of erosion it's that kind of thing or at least that's the way
00:25:03
that I approach personal finance and investing it's these good habits these millionaire habits you could say which
00:25:09
we'll come back to that that phrasing for you Steve but it's these it's these
00:25:12
habits that you just set up and practice over years at a time and I agree with you that sure you know you and I have
00:25:19
had the Tailwinds of a really nice stock market over the last 10 or 15 years that
00:25:24
we've been really focused on this kind of stuff even without those really nice
00:25:27
tail wins just the idea that over long periods of time these Investments tend to perform in the positive direction for
00:25:33
us and the thing that you can control is what you're saving what you're spending
00:25:38
and to some extent what you're earning compounding happens pretty quickly uh
00:25:42
especially if you choose not to pay attention to it or you only check in once in a while you'll surprise yourself
00:25:46
with what can happen over three or six months over a year over a few years thinking Steve through what it's been
00:25:53
like for you from 2016 till today I I had some some Market thoughts for you if you will cuz I haven't spoken to you
00:26:00
since 2022 happened and I think 2022 was probably the first prolonged barar Market that you and your wife went
00:26:08
through I mean covid sure was a bit of a shock for two or three months but I'm
00:26:12
just curious when you guys here you are you are earning some income which I think is worth pointing out to the
00:26:17
listeners right you've got all these interesting side hustles that you're
00:26:20
still doing but still your nest EG probably took a pretty big hit in 2022 but what was your mindset during that
00:26:27
time I mean we were down and this was during the worst of covid about $220,000 in in assets so we weren't down
00:26:37
that in liquid cash we were down that in assets our stock values decreased by over 200 G's and it's like yeah that
00:26:45
sucks but when you have a long-term mindset it really doesn't matter so I know it's easy for us to say but it
00:26:54
didn't really factor into the equation whatsoever for us and one of the things
00:26:59
that's nice about our lifestyle is we chose to live off- grid which means we
00:27:04
don't have a power bill we don't have a water bill we we do have a a well on
00:27:08
site that we get our water from we power that with our solar system and we have a
00:27:12
septic system so other than like internet and like basic insurance we can live almost as cheap as we want out here
00:27:20
so I think that really helps with our life the expenses that fund our lifestyle right now it's a little higher
00:27:28
because the Market's doing well we're making good money why not enjoy ourselves and there's absolutely nothing
00:27:34
wrong with that as long as you don't go overboard with it but if things if that
00:27:38
recession hits like in 2022 like during covid and you start to cut back those expenses I mean we can really live so
00:27:47
darn cheap out here and that's something that we actually did plan we SE out we
00:27:53
wanted to live off grid so we didn't have all these utilities and it's really
00:27:58
worked out super well for us we did upgrade our system so in the end we probably spent more money with the
00:28:05
batteries and the solar system then we would have spent just paying our monthly utility bill but the other side of that
00:28:13
is we spent that money when the market was good which is exactly when you want to do some of those upgrades so when the
00:28:20
market tanks if it does well when it does it always does it es and flows then you can cut back but we already already
00:28:28
have that nice quote unquote expensive infrastructure in place that we bought when the market was up so we can enjoy
00:28:34
it when the Market's down and when you have like like I said before when you
00:28:39
have that long-term mindset these es and flows really don't matter too much we
00:28:45
look at our finances maybe for five minutes a month that's it we're not moving money we're
00:28:52
not rebalancing we don't do any of that we are the perfect example of passive
00:28:57
invest s active investors and especially day Traders tend not to make money compared with passive passive almost
00:29:08
always unless you're really good at what you do almost always outperforms active
00:29:13
investing and day trading especially day trading I don't like to look at stocks
00:29:18
and and yields and price to earnings ratios and what Nvidia earned last quarter I don't care I just want to
00:29:26
enjoy myself and I want to see my my net worth rise and that is where passive income investing really shines yeah I I
00:29:34
think that's a that's a terrific role model for what all of our our listeners
00:29:38
should aspire to Steve is is just to keep costs low diversify passive investing is the way stick it out for
00:29:45
the long run you don't have to log in every week or every month not even every
00:29:48
quarter if you don't want to I I really liked I wanted to go back to something
00:29:52
you spoke about there Steve which was that that you and your wife adjust your spending or at the very least you try
00:29:57
not to plan any large expenses if the Market's down and and that is exactly the same Principle as what we talked
00:30:04
about on a couple recent episodes one with Tyler from portfolio charts the other with Rob Burger I mean that's
00:30:09
essentially the sequence of returns risk that you're thinking about there which
00:30:12
is yeah sometimes returns will be poor especially early in retirement it's possible and ideally if you can have
00:30:19
flexibility in your retirement plan you don't want to have to sell your shares
00:30:22
when they're down to to fund your lifestyle you'd rather wait for the market to recover and you should feel
00:30:27
more more optimistic and enthusiastic about spending your money at that time so that's really smart but that said
00:30:34
other than bare markets and bad asset performance I feel like one of the other main fears of retirees is inflation
00:30:42
which we know has been in the headlines has has been real during your retirement
00:30:46
especially these last couple years so again I mean has inflation caused any sort of concern for you not really it
00:30:53
might take us if we wanted to go on a vacation or something and now it t now it costs $88,000 instead of $5,000 maybe
00:31:00
we would wait a little bit longer but it's not necessarily like we wouldn't do
00:31:03
it we would just adjust accordingly that's a discretionary spend but what if
00:31:08
it's like groceries or something that you know we all got to eat so we all have to pay whatever the whatever the
00:31:14
supermarket wants to charge things are going up there's no question about that
00:31:19
but then again so so are salaries at least in concept if you're not getting a
00:31:23
cost of living raise I think that's a huge huge problem because then your salary is not keeping up with inflation
00:31:31
but I think there are most of the time there are things that you can do to help combat inflation spending first just
00:31:38
don't spend money on the things that have increased enough now obviously you
00:31:43
can't always do that like in the case of food but you don't always have to buy
00:31:47
the name brand stuff you can buy things that just happen to be on sale even if it's not something that you have your
00:31:53
heart set on or oh I love giradelli chocolates I have to have giradelli Pockets even though this other brand is
00:31:59
half off if it's important enough to you and your budget is what's the word I
00:32:04
guess sensitive to the higher cost of inflation start making those decisions start looking for those coupons start
00:32:12
buying the things that that that are on sale don't necessarily always buy the
00:32:16
name brand products if you can help it I think those things will help you to save
00:32:21
money as well as buying in bulk especially your your Staples cook more with rice and beans and those kinds of
00:32:30
foods that are filling they're relatively healthy they got great macros lot lot of carbs with rice of course but
00:32:37
there there's usually things that you can do even with food that will help you
00:32:43
stay healthy but also minimize the impact on your wallet it's going to take some practice like I said before it's
00:32:50
that initial lifestyle change that initial okay this is not working for me I have to do this now and these are the
00:32:57
things that I'm going to do to put that into place once you get that down you're
00:33:02
going to find probably I don't know 90% of the time once you start getting into
00:33:08
that new routine of buying these different things at the grocery stores buying off brands at department stores
00:33:15
it's going to become second age it's like this this shirt's just fine it was
00:33:18
$15 it's not a $60 bral Flor in polo shirt but you know what I don't really
00:33:23
need a $60 roran polo shirt this one covers me just as well as that one did those kinds of of decisions over time is
00:33:31
going to make a big big difference to your monthly budget yeah it's easy to fall into I think of them as spending
00:33:37
habits and the one that I can the anecdotal spending habit is okay here in Rochester we're actually the home city
00:33:44
of Wegman's grocery stores which is this northeast East Coast you know very highly respected grocery store brand and
00:33:51
if you've ever been in a Wegman's it's got every kind of item you could ever
00:33:55
imagine plus it has a lot of extra stuff that's kind of cool but of course expensive you know there's an olive bar
00:34:01
and all the different kind of cheeses you can imagine and plenty of employees to always help you out and not
00:34:07
surprisingly uh Wegman's prices have really been affected by inflation possibly more than other grocery stores
00:34:13
I'm not really sure but after seeing a few Wegman's bills over the last couple
00:34:17
years I was like I'm kind of in this money habit if you will of just yeah Wegman is my grocery store automatic
00:34:22
every time and I don't really think twice about what I'm spending there as
00:34:25
far as food goes you know I'm I'm making enough of a living that I want to eat
00:34:28
what I want to eat well then I went to Aldi which for us is literally across the street from Wegman's and man if Aldi
00:34:35
isn't you know 60% of the price of Wegman I'd be shocked I I mean it was an
00:34:40
immediate I immediately noticed the difference so now probably three4 of our grocery dollars are spent at Aldi all
00:34:47
the essentials all the basics why would I buy oats at Wegman's if I can save a
00:34:52
dollar at Aldi why buy berries you know Etc sure once in a while some something that's a little bit nicer a little bit
00:34:58
special or maybe Aldi just doesn't have it but that's just one simple money
00:35:02
habit a simple one and you could look at your home gym you could look at the streaming services that you pay for
00:35:07
there're all these little money habits that we have built into our life These
00:35:10
spending habits and it's easy just to overlook them but if you actually open
00:35:14
up the hood odds are you could probably save some dollars there streaming services boy I don't have any numbers to
00:35:21
back this up but I'm really curious how many people quit cable to save money but
00:35:26
then spend just as much money maybe even more on all of these different streaming
00:35:30
services there's so many now it seems like every single freaking channel has a
00:35:35
subscription service that they want you to subscribe to it's it's absolutely
00:35:39
crazy I think we have Netflix we have Amazon Prime we might have Paramount but I think that's it we got three that's
00:35:47
pretty good that's pretty good that's I think the average cable bill is in the
00:35:51
neighborhood of 120 to 140 a month and we probably pay 40 something like that that alone if you
00:36:00
could just if you can just re yourself in a little bit but even with that let let me take a step back even with that
00:36:06
if that really like you get your jollies off by having access to all of these streaming services and that really just
00:36:15
deep down provides value to you and your family maybe you have family night you all get together on Fridays or something
00:36:23
and you watch something those expenses can be worth it it's not like you have
00:36:29
to cut out all of these things that you otherwise would enjoy doing the piece that I want you to remember here is well
00:36:36
the key I guess is to be intentional with where you're spending your money and understand or be honest
00:36:44
with yourself about yes I am spending X number of dollars on this service or on this product and I am getting that
00:36:53
amount of value out of it if that's true that's probably a good expense but if
00:37:00
you haven't watched you know X streaming service or used X product in the last
00:37:04
three months guess what you probably don't need that maybe cancel it and subscribe to it again if you need it in
00:37:11
the future but just take a look through your bank statement and your credit card
00:37:15
just cursory look just go through each line at the end of this month and just see where all of that money is going I
00:37:24
bet you'll be surprised at how many subscription Services you are still paying for and don't use and maybe don't
00:37:32
even remember signing up for for those of you listening who who just heard Steve say that and you think to yourself
00:37:38
like oh well that's that's just money Basics and you know I kind of want
00:37:41
something different than that or I don't want to go back to a budget and looking
00:37:45
well let me tell you this so I work with there's seven cfps on staff here where
00:37:49
it work certified financial planners right that that's what we do here we work with clients all over the spectrum
00:37:54
that is one of the fundamental things that we bring up with our clients I'll
00:37:57
ask say if I were to look at the last 3 months of your credit card statements do
00:38:01
you feel like right now without looking at them you've got a pretty good feel
00:38:04
for what you spent and what you spent out how much you spent all those kind of things and if the answer is no that's
00:38:10
usually bit of a yellow flag where we just we want to bring it up and we want to say hey the the fundamental
00:38:15
Foundation of your financial life is what you earn and what you spend period so if you're not really sure what you're
00:38:22
spending or how you're spending it that is a problem that we need to address
00:38:26
early on so getting yourself familiar with how much you're spending on a monthly basis and what you're spending
00:38:31
it on is huge and you could have a PhD in economics and still not quite have that under control it's worth
00:38:38
understanding that sad but true I mean I've never seen anybody eat fewer calories than normal and not lose weight
00:38:46
I've also seen nobody spend less than they make and not build wealth it it really is that freaking simple it's not
00:38:55
always easy depending on who you you are and your circumstances I get that but the basics we always have to go back to
00:39:02
those Basics because a lot of people simply don't have those down I don't
00:39:07
know how many people what the percentage is now of people who couldn't fund an a
00:39:12
$1,000 emergency without going into debt because they have zero emergency savings
00:39:18
zero they just put it on their credit card and let it ride for 3 months guess what millions of people are in that boat
00:39:26
that those are the Basics that millions of people still aren't able to grasp
00:39:31
like you said that's why we have to keep coming back to this because it is common
00:39:35
and if you do have those basics down you are way ahead of the curve but if you don't then this constant reinforcement
00:39:44
to look at those Basics don't think you got to be in the clouds yet just start
00:39:48
at ground level build from there and let that savings go let your your in Investments go and I think you're going
00:39:56
to find that fin Cal Independence is going to happen way earlier in life than you expect it to but you really got to
00:40:03
start at that ground level I totally agree here's a quick ad and then we'll
00:40:08
get back to the show serious question why do podcasters constantly ask for ratings and reviews yes they do help
00:40:16
highlight our shows to new listeners they help strangers find us on Apple podcast and Spotify it's totally true
00:40:21
and a good reason to ask for ratings and reviews but I have something more important at least more important to me
00:40:28
I want to know if you like this stuff I want to know if you like my podcast episodes my monologues my guests the
00:40:34
information I share with you in the stories I tell I want to improve and make your listening more enjoyable in
00:40:39
the process so yeah I would love to read your reviews and sure if you throw a rating in there too that's great if you
00:40:46
like what I'm doing please share it with me it's such a great feeling to read
00:40:50
your feedback I'd love to read your review or see a rating on Apple podcast or Spotify thank you I almost want to
00:40:58
Pivot a little bit Steve I want to shine a spotlight on your your retirement story you know your post-retirement
00:41:03
story if you will because I think from the outside looking in whether people are thinking about a traditional
00:41:09
retirement or they're reading stories about the fire lifestyle there's some
00:41:13
semblance of okay I think by now we're past the meme of cocktails on the beach
00:41:18
we're past that part but still it's you know okay well how much pickle ball or
00:41:22
golf are you going to play You're going to volunteer at the library like what
00:41:25
are you going to do to fill your time but I'm pretty sure that you've got a a
00:41:28
pretty unique retirement lifestyle that like I alluded to before you filled it with projects some of those projects pay
00:41:36
you and because they're paying you maybe it means you don't have to lean on your
00:41:39
portfolio quite as much can you dive into some of those details for us I don't think we've taken a dime from our
00:41:46
investments since we've retired into well I again I use that term loosely retired yeah you you left the corporate
00:41:53
world for sure right you left the corporate world yeah no no question about it that's the nice thing about fi
00:41:58
you can try different things see what you like see what you don't ditch the things you don't like keep the things
00:42:04
you do regardless of whether they pay you money or not who cares if you enjoy doing those things do them that is the
00:42:11
great thing about this lifestyle so for me I tried lots of different things I tried YouTube I even I I even considered
00:42:19
starting a podcast and did not go down that wrote because that just another thing on top of everything else I'm
00:42:24
doing but for me it was the writing starting a newsletter getting involved on social media and talking about these
00:42:30
things over and over and over again and now I earn thousands of dollars a month just by doing something that I probably
00:42:37
would have been doing anyway I Didn't Do It for the money but I'm also not going
00:42:42
to turn down money if it's a good opportunity for me that's not a millionaire habit you never turn down
00:42:49
income unless it's going to negatively impact your lifestyle or your family those are two great reasons to turn down
00:42:58
income but for me neither of those two were true so now I am doing the things that I would do anyway I've probably
00:43:06
replaced three4 of my salary from the IT world just having fun writing about money talking about money engaging with
00:43:15
with people on social about money that's what makes this early retirement lifestyle so rewarding but I want you to
00:43:22
remember you might not replace a quarter of your salary after you you quit but that's fine the key is have a hobby find
00:43:32
out what you're good at and what you want to be doing after you Achieve Financial Independence and then quit
00:43:39
your job and then pursue that lifestyle do not pursue it before there's a lot of
00:43:46
people who have the money part down right they make lots of money they have millions of dollars in Investments they
00:43:52
don't want to work anymore so they quit they have no no hobby so what do they do
00:43:57
get up turn on Netflix they bingee on some series they get caught up on this and that whatever and then two or three
00:44:04
weeks down down the road I like to call this the bell curve of early retirement happiness so at the beginning of early
00:44:11
retirement right you're you're happiness goes up you're on the left hand side of
00:44:15
the bell curve it's great you no longer have to get up in the morning well at
00:44:19
6:00 a.m. or whatever you have to get up eventually but you can do whatever you want you get to plan your day you're
00:44:25
just so unbelievably happy that happiness level is just going straight up you're on the left hand side of that
00:44:31
bell curve but then after 2 3 weeks maybe two three months depending on who you are your happiness begins to level
00:44:38
off so you're at the you're getting to the top of that bell curve the very top
00:44:42
and it's like you start to realize maybe I can't just watch Netflix all day maybe
00:44:48
this isn't going to do it for me for for the next 30 you know 20 30 40 years and
00:44:53
if you don't make a change guess what happens to your happiness you go down to
00:44:56
the other side you go to the other side the right hand side of that bell curve it's like a roller coaster now your
00:45:01
happiness actually decreases and believe it or not you know you might be in a position now where it's like anything
00:45:08
would be better than this I can't imagine watching Netflix and being less happy than I am now but you would be
00:45:16
surprised that when your purpose is taken away from you and even if you don't like your job a lot of people
00:45:22
derive purpose from what they do for a living so if that is taken away from you you have no purpose you have no reason
00:45:30
to get up in the morning you're like what is the purpose of life and I know nobody thinks this is going to happen to
00:45:37
them I totally get it but you would be surprised at how many people go through this very same dilemma they retire from
00:45:47
something they don't retire to something so you really really really have to have
00:45:53
that two like you're retiring two that next career quote unquote you have to
00:46:00
know what that's going to be and you have to be reasonably certain that you're going to be able to do it in
00:46:06
early retirement before quitting otherwise you have no business retiring early you have no business quitting your
00:46:14
job you might as well just keep chugging down that road keep earning that income
00:46:18
until you have that critical piece about what's going to fill your life without a
00:46:25
full-time job that is absolutely key if you don't have that do not retire thankfully I did have that I knew what I
00:46:32
was going to do I I didn't know what like these exact pieces that I put in place now I didn't necessarily have that
00:46:39
figured out but I had a good direction I knew the things that I was going to start exploring with and playing with
00:46:44
and seeing what what works and ultimately it it did but if you don't have that just keep working until you
00:46:51
have that postc career purpose figured out yeah directional details I I really I I like that phrase a lot Direction
00:46:59
over details you don't need to have all the details but you really have to know
00:47:02
your direction a little bit and you reminded me Steve I might get this stat a tiny bit wrong but this is from uh the
00:47:08
retirement Manifesto this is from Fritz Gilbert there's a stat out there that
00:47:12
about 28% of retirees now this is where it's important that I get it right it's
00:47:17
I know it's 28% and it's either that at one point they go through a depressive
00:47:22
episode related to being retired or just that they are depressed in retirement it's one of the two and and there is an
00:47:27
important difference between those two but the upshot or the lesson I take from that is that it's very easy to enter
00:47:34
retirement and of course like you said start off on this High because great you've now untethered yourself from
00:47:41
daily work or at least you know a daily job the corporate world whatever it may be but then how are you going to fill
00:47:48
the void of those social connections how are you going to fill the void of that feeling of accomplishing something
00:47:54
that's fun too how are you going to fill those eight or 10 or 12 hours a day
00:47:58
where you used to be grinding and sure maybe grinding wasn't always fun but at
00:48:02
least you were doing something productive and and your brain needs that there's a second great stat and then
00:48:07
I'll throw it back over to you where sure the the number one concern for the
00:48:11
average pre- retiree is financial if you were to list out all you know pre-retirees and what their concerns are
00:48:17
the most common biggest concern is financial but finances are rarely one of the top concerns for post retirees
00:48:24
because they realize the finances are fine just like a position you find yourself in and that you alluded to but
00:48:29
many post retirees realize oh there's so much more to life that I was kind of
00:48:34
overlooking and now there's this void and I'm not quite sure how to fill it I
00:48:38
don't think my wife would mind me saying this but she went into that depressive
00:48:42
State about a year after she left her job and she was filling that void with just reading she would read literally
00:48:50
all day long because it was just something to distract her from the fact that she had nothing to do and this was
00:48:55
back when we were traveling full time time in our Airstream I was on the computer doing doing my thing but she
00:49:01
didn't really have that she didn't have something to do every day and she was
00:49:06
getting pretty depressed and she got a little bit more involved with the YouTube channel that we were doing at
00:49:12
that time ultimately we we stopped doing that now she's doing a lot of real estate that keeps her busy and even some
00:49:18
engineering now on the side as well so she did eventually find that it kind of meant her working more of a traditional
00:49:26
job now than traditional retirement I guess but we definitely do have firsthand knowledge of how common that can be and
00:49:35
how easy it is how easy it is to fall into that because nobody thinks they're
00:49:40
going to have that problem otherwise they wouldn't retire all they know is I
00:49:44
don't like this so I want to get away from this but they don't necessarily
00:49:49
stop to think about where they're going to they're just so concerned about
00:49:54
getting away that they don't have the right direction or they don't have a
00:49:57
direction at all so Fritz is stat I'm sure it's 28% in some point in their
00:50:04
early retirement lifestyle experience some ter some type of you know quote unquote depression to you know a varying
00:50:11
degree which is so unbelievably common a third that's almost a third of people
00:50:16
that's an incredibly High number of people who are retiring to to nothing so
00:50:22
I know I'm belaboring the the point here but I'm doing that because it's
00:50:27
incredibly important not to sever your link to purpose to communication to you know your social outlet to a reason to
00:50:37
get up in the morning you cannot sever that until you have something in place that you're going to retire to cannot
00:50:44
stress that enough Steve I feel like you you've delivered so many powerful points
00:50:49
today succinctly and you've worded and you shared your stories with us so well
00:50:53
and you've shared some of these millionaire habits with us so well and bearing the lead here I brought up that
00:50:57
term eight times tell us what millionaire habits is tell us where listeners can reach out to you can
00:51:02
follow you can hear more of what you have to say can connect with you millionaire habits is the newsletter
00:51:07
that I send out once a week I go through a lot of the topics that we discussed today just in email so it go straight to
00:51:14
your inbox absolutely free I do have a paid upgrade for more content if that's
00:51:19
what you're into which of course I would highly recommend that because I do give
00:51:23
a lot more value to the premium subscribers of my email list but it's at millionaire habits. us you'll see a a
00:51:31
little sign up form there if you scroll down just a little bit I also have a bunch of other resources on that website
00:51:37
for you to go through from beginner to Advanced and everything in between that's where I spend the majority of my
00:51:43
writing time at millionaire habits. us if you are on Twitter I'm on Steve onpe
00:51:49
that's my handle has nothing to do with drugs I never did speed it was back when
00:51:54
I had my Corvette I like to go fast I started this Twitter account back then should have changed it a long time ago
00:52:00
but that ship is sailed so anyway on Twitter or X I guess now Steve on speed and Instagram at millionaire habits
00:52:07
without the I and the A and the Habit so that's where you can find me and that's
00:52:12
where I have spent probably way too much of my time but I just love it too much to to step away from those Outlets well
00:52:18
those links for you listeners everything will be in the show notes for you to easily and quickly find it and Steve
00:52:24
Adcock millionaire habits thank you for for coming on the best interest podcast for a second time you are very welcome I
00:52:30
am glad to be here and uh I got to say you were great the first time but you are even better this time you are you're
00:52:36
getting way more you are a natural at this my friend I just love the progression that your podcast has has
00:52:43
taken and what you're doing with it so great job thanks for having me thank you
00:52:47
very much I appreciate it Steve thanks for tuning in to this episode of the best interest podcast if
00:52:54
you have a question for Jesse to answer on a future episode send him an email at
00:52:58
Jesse bestter interest. blog again that's Jesse ATB bestter interest. blog did you enjoy the show subscribe rate
00:53:07
and review the podcast wherever you listen this helps others find the show and invest in knowledge themselves and
00:53:14
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00:53:21
podcast the best interest podcast is a personal podcast met for education and entertainment
00:53:26
it should not be taken as Financial advice and is not prescriptive of your financial situation