I’ve been wanting to be a part of the ChooseFI podcast shortly after it began. Jonathan and Brad launched the show at the end of 2016 and quickly took the FIRE community by storm!
It’s a fantastic podcast helping to discuss the path to financial independence. They bring on various guests to examine different aspects and strategies of reaching FI.
What’s really great though is that they also focus quite a bit on enjoying the journey along the way. I fell trap to missing that important piece for a little while during our route to retirement.
The discussion tends to be very insightful and honest. Brad and Jonathan are open and talk not just about the positives but also the negative impact some of the strategies can have on your life as well.
So, I was hoping to be a part of this show for quite some time. I briefly met Jonathan at FinCon 17 in Dallas (the same year of the infamous Mohawk!).
Last year, I pitched them a few ideas via email but we just never got anything in place. The good news is that changed this year.
After I retired at the end of 2018, I agreed to do a geoarbitrage presentation for Deanna from the Ms. Fiology site for the local ChooseFI group in northeast Ohio. It was based on our plans to leverage the lower cost of living in Panama for our FIRE plans.
After my presentation was done, Deanna uploaded some footage to the ChooseFI Facebook group (and YouTube) for the local chapter. Jonathan hit me up shortly after that to ask me to come on the show.
We tossed around some different ideas and made it happen this past April.
I hope you enjoy the show. Our discussion revolved primarily around how we reached a million dollar net worth.
It was especially fun because they hit me up on a lot of questions that haven’t come up before. They really wanted to follow the timeline of each increment of my life and the different milestones along the way.
That’s important because I think it helps others to realize that while our household income was very good, it was never anything crazy. There are many ways to reach financial independence, but the tried and true path is to just save a large amount of what you make.
Check it out below and let me know what you think…
Choose FI: 134 | Early Retirement Case Study with Route to Retire
Thanks for reading… and listening!!
— Jim
Great episode Jim, I really enjoyed that one!
I appreciate that Dave – thanks!
Very interesting episode Jim. I appreciate your journey and I share some experiences. I especially appreciated how you handled the retirement party issue. I am targeting the end of 2020 to retire at 45 from corporate america. I have no idea how the company leadership will respond to that one. I doubt a party is coming my way.
My wife had a vision for RE overseas last year and I chickened out. A few months later an opportunity came up with my company for us to move to Sri Lanka for a 2-3 year expat role. You weren’t kidding about the value of the international schools for expat children — it’s a huge benefit as tuition is a fraction of a similar school in the US. The educational value is fantastic plus the kids grow up with children from the country and expat kids.
I haven’t gone through your living abroad posts but intend to over the next few days. One free bit of advice that we learned after dealing with the terrorist attack here in Sri Lanka. Make sure you and your wife have all the necessary documents in one place, preferably a safe, that you can access at any time. We brought a safe purchased from Amazon for less than a hundred bucks. If for any reason you have to get out quick, its good to have all the medical, education, financial, etc. records in one place.
Good luck, I look forward to watching your journey from the other side of the world.
Thanks, Pat! Sorry you’re probably not getting a party either – guess FIRE is kind of the outcast thing to do! 🙂
I like your idea of having a safe in place. I had one here, but obviously, that’s not making the trip with us! We also already registered with STEP as just another precaution. Unfortunately, you can never prepare enough for these kinds of things.
Good luck with your new adventure!!