2904: Stuck No More by Wanderer of Millennial Revolution on Financial Independence & Digital Nomads

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: This complex financing talk is very challenging. Do I get my depot ever?

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[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever noticed how a calm mind can really set the stage for a good night's sleep?

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[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Optimal Finance Daily. Stuck no more. By Wanderer of Millennial-Revolution.com

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm your host and personal finance enthusiast, Diana Merriam.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to Optimal Finance Daily, where I'm here with you each and every day to read from some of the world's best finance blogs.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So with that, let's get right to today's article as we optimize your life.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Stuck no more. By Wanderer of Millennial-Revolution.com

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: We love doing reader cases on this blog, as that's kind of our way of giving back to the FIRE community that has been so kind to us over the years.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time, we don't really have any idea whether our analysis has any actual impact.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't one of those times.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Quote,

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Christy and Bryce.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_00]: It's been a little more than five years since my husband wrote in with our story that you took on as a case study.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to give you a happy update.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, who doesn't like to hear,

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I took your advice and look at how it's turned out for us.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: In 2019, my husband was 28 and I was 31.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Our net worth sat at $175,000, with some debt, so it was less in reality.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And we hoped to retire in 19 years.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: 19!

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Your math showed we could do it in 10, and that really encouraged us to make big moves.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: As you suggested, we moved all of our investments away from the financial advisor who was charging us fees galore and put it with Vanguard in a low-cost total stock market ETF.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: We paid off our debt and moved to Thailand, where for a while we worked remotely and lived a pretty cushy life while we read your investment workshop twice and learned how to manage our money ourselves.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_00]: For the next few years, up until now, we've been living around the world.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: We house and pet sit in high-cost-of-living areas and rent in low-cost-of-living places.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: We have lived in Thailand, Spain, England, Portugal, Cyprus, France, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Scotland, Ireland, and Northern Ireland, and visited many more as tourists.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Although we didn't stay long enough to say we lived there.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You may wonder why we didn't stay in Asia, where we had a low-cost-of-living and all the fresh fruit smoothies and delicious noodle dishes we could have ever asked for.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00]: The short answer is we're currently beholden to East Coast U.S. hours, and the time zone difference is brutal.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: On to our news.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Just a few weeks ago, our net worth crossed the million-dollar mark.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I have retired early and keep our lives afloat day-to-day while planning all of our travel.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_00]: My husband is still working, although we both feel like he's winding down there.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: He also thinks, with his personality type, that he will benefit from retiring to something, not just retiring from a stressful job.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So he's beginning to think about how he wants his days to look when he's no longer trading his time and energy for a paycheck.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Until he's ready to put in his notice, we'll continue maxing out every benefit we have access to, living simply and investing 65% of his net salary in our brokerage account.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a long way of saying thank you.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for reading our story and giving us actionable advice.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: At a time when we were all turned around, you gave us a path forward and a bit of a kick in the pants.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And look, we're millionaires.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I have the hardest time saying that out loud, but boy, do I love typing it in all caps.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: We hope to meet you guys in person one day, maybe at an extraordinary event.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Have a wonderful day.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Mr. and Mrs. Stuck No More.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_00]: End quote.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually pretty rare for people to go out there and make major changes based on something we've said.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Too often, people read our advice and either do nothing or do the exact opposite of what we suggested, doubling down on real estate or crypto.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But not these readers.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00]: When we first encountered this couple, their investments were being bled dry by a shady investment advisor, peddling funds with extremely creepy fee structures.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Not only were their funds management fees as high as 2%, but there was also a front-loaded fee of 3.5% every time they put money in.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a great example of how corrupt and predatory the finance industry can be.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_00]: With fees this high, it's basically impossible to get the performance you need to make any progress on your fire journey.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_00]: They're just relying on their marks to not read the fine print too closely.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, our readers did.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Five years ago, I told them to run, not walk, from these people and free their money from their evil clutches as soon as possible.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Not only did they do that, they kept going, even taking their jobs on the road to take advantage of geographic arbitrage to goose their savings rate even more.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Digital nomadism is one of the coolest hacks to supercharge your fire journey because it doesn't feel like a sacrifice.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Rather than clipping coupons to save money on groceries, you're traveling the world.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_00]: That being said, I get that not every job allows you to do this.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're a dentist, it's kind of hard to keep doing that over Zoom.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But this couple managed to do it and even managed to beat my fire projection that I made in the original reader case.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of 10 years, they've completely turned things around and did it in five.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're millionaires to boot.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: This couple did a great job and they have so much to be proud of.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: It takes real guts to make the kind of lifestyle changes they did.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And now they get to ride off into the sunset and enjoy their hard-earned freedom.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_00]: These are the kinds of results you can get if you really commit to this path.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I've spent a lot of time reading books and blogs about money.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And most of the stuff you read out there is some variant of a get-rich-quick scheme.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Fire is the only strategy I've ever encountered that actually works.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And we're so grateful for the opportunity to share it with so many wonderful people like these readers.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Great job, Mr. and Mrs. Stuck No More.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy your retirement.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_00]: You've definitely earned it.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You just listened to the post titled,

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Stuck No More by Wanderer of Millennial-Revolution.com.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Buy low, sell high.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to say, hard to do.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: For example, high interest rates are crushing the real estate market right now.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Demand is dropping and prices are falling,

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00]: even for many of the best assets.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It's no wonder the Fundrise flagship fund plans to go on a buying spree,

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: expanding its billion-dollar real estate portfolio over the next few months.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You can add the Fundrise flagship fund to your portfolio in just minutes,

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and with as little as $10,

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_00]: by visiting fundrise.com slash OFD.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: That's F-U-N-D-R-I-S-E dot com slash OFD.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Carefully consider the investment objectives,

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise flagship fund before investing.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_00]: This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a paid advertisement.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: This post is very representative of how I feel about the case study meetups I coordinate in the Cincinnati area.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Most people will never get access to unconflicted financial advice because of the way the financial services industry is structured.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I do think this is changing with advice-only CFPs who charge an hourly rate,

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: but the issue is that they are extremely hard to find.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Out of 700,000 people who call themselves financial advisors,

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_00]: only about 3% will just charge you for their time.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So even if you know enough to know to look for a flat fee advisor,

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you will still be challenged to find one.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_00]: This is where community comes in,

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and this is a great free way to get unconflicted financial feedback.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Most DIY investors don't have any credentials,

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_00]: they're not technically qualified to give advice,

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and you should take their feedback with a grain of salt.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: However, they have also spent many hours reading about money and figuring it out for themselves,

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: so their perspectives are valuable.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Here's how our local case studies work.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Anywhere from 20 to 50 of us meet monthly at the library.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: One willing victim shares details on their income, expenses, current investments, and assumptions.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_00]: The group then weighs in on their strategy to reach FI,

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: offers suggestions, and uncovers blind spots.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_00]: No shade to online groups, but this needs to happen in person.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It's very easy to be judgmental about another person's financials through a screen.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: But when a living, breathing person is standing in front of you,

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_00]: pouring their heart out,

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: compassion and creativity is much more accessible.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And that'll do it for today.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being here every day and listening.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great rest of your day.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.