ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. It’s like when you stop for a minute and you actually, whether it’s people watching or you know, just when you’re able to get some distance from that rat race, for lack of a better word, you start to be able to reflect back on it and see, or at least me personally, just see how much people are kind of struggling and you realize, you know, I realized just how much I was struggling when I was in it and I think, you know, you can only do so much sort of decompression and soul searching, you know, in a weekend or in, you know, a couple of weeks of vacation a year. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. It’s kind of the paradox of financial freedom that, you know, since I can get up and do whatever I want, I actually feel like in some cases I have less time in order to do the things I love. So it was all those things. And it’s legal. Brandon is the host of the Mad FIentist podcast and author at MadFIentist.com where he talks and writes about financial independence, these are his good things.. Good things to read. 13,936 people like this. But for the first few months I really struggled to sleep and that was because there was so much stuff that I was so excited to do that I really didn’t want to go to bed. Brandon Ganch is a computer programmer-turned-financial expert, musician, blogger, and podcaster. I wouldn’t have just been fired because I asked for it so I don’t really know what I was afraid of, but I didn’t realize the power that I had so I should have used the power of the money gave me to make positive changes in my life and I should have been focused on the real goal, which wasn’t a certain number in the bank because once I hit that, it didn’t matter. Your email address will not be published. 46 talking about this. And I feel one of the things I’ve started to recognize, and I’ve never seen this before, that, you know, a lot of people are just, they’re asleep. Name *. And uh, it’s, it was a huge impact. I think. Not Now. And yeah, you should optimize for now as you said, but you’re right, you’re going to be different in two years and you should optimize for them for the new you. Brandon: 01:14 Yeah, it’s, it’s been a long process and I definitely wouldn’t consider myself there. Matt and Andrew are joined by Brandon from MadFientist.com to talk about staying motivated in their online businesses. If you have one at work, if you have a 403b, that’s also a great one. Advanced Strategies for Pursuing Financial Independence - http://www.madfientist.com And it was only like, as I felt like my time was constricted, like I was when I was at a job, I was like, what am I doing? And it’s like, well, what do I do with that? Notify me of new posts by email. It wasn’t just frugality and deprivation for spending. About See All. It’s way too early in the morning for Medicare, but how, you know, taxes just, they seem so boring. I found some ways like travel hacking and things like that, but for the most part, like my spending was pretty optimized so it was like a, we’re, we’re, what other, what else is there? So like bedtime was always the worst because I was like, I gotta go to sleep now and like when I’d wake up I’d be super excited. I think that, that uh, it’s often tough for people when they hear that. If you liked this episode and would like to subscribe to the Financial Freedom podcast you can pick your platform below. And then you’re just like, oh, like this isn’t even fun and it’s probably less healthy than cooking. Wunderlist. Join Brad Barrett and Community Manager, Jennifer Mah, for a virtual hangout with special guest, Brandon, aka The Mad Fientist!! When looking at Amazon to find out how to spell the authors’ names, I noticed a quote by Mark Cuban that sells the book much better than I could: “If given a choice between investing in someone who has read REWORK or has an MBA, I’m investing in REWORK every time. All these things, and I think one of the things with financial independence is a lot people, they just look to that destination and it just becomes kind of a money addiction in another form and I really appreciate it. Like we felt like we just wanted to come and be settled and we get a lot of happiness from like doing our normal routine and making progress on stuff that we’re working on and. Perfect multiple. However, there are many “traps” that attempt to limit your freedom, like pressures from society, family expectations, etc. In this episode, we focus on what life after financial freedom has looked like for Brandon… I was the same way. His favorite sections of the tax code are, of course, those that have to do with retirement. After following the FI path alone for over 2 years I discovered Brandon's blog MadFientist.com in 2013, immediately reading all of his posts. And I’m like, wow, this is an amazing opportunity to potentially, you know, have completely tax free money because you can juice these pre-tax retirement accounts like 401ks and IRAs and HSAs and things like that to lower your taxable income when your income’s high and thus your tax brackets high and then you can use those periods of low income years to transfer all that money over to like a Roth IRA. MILLENNIAL MONEY IS A PART OF THE MOTLEY FOOL NETWORK, A DIVISION OF THE MOTLEY FOOL.©1995-2021 THE MOTLEY FOOL. Well not the rest of my life, but you know what I mean. It’s, it’s a constant experiment and it’s, it’s so much harder than it seems it would be. Any of the pre-tax retirement accounts, just trying to max those out just because if this is going to be the highest tax bracket you’re in, potentially just if you have early retirement plans, then you just want to lower that as much as possible and then once you get to the stage where you’re thinking, okay, I’m going to maybe pull the plug on work, then that’s when you’re going to want to do some research into like how you can transfer that money over into a Roth IRA efficiently and how you can access those accounts early. So I was like in this big, vast ocean with no rudder and no idea what I was going to do. Brandon: 27:47  But I think the spending side of the equation is really where you would want to start because it’s like if you’re hemorrhaging money on things that don’t really improve your life, then that’s an easy first place to start trimming and trying to optimize. But I think you increased the opportunity for peace just to arrive in your life. It’s like yeah, we were eating out a lot more but it got less special. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Long Way Round. This is the encouragement I needed to keep saving. I just knew once I hit FI I’ll be happy and I was just trying to get there as quickly as possible, but just slowly just started to be more withdrawn from my friends and family and it was like, okay, I don’t want to go and do this, a big ski trip because that’ll cost a lot of money and so I’ll just stay at home and I’ll study or I’ll do some Mad Fientist work and that just kept building until I was like really withdrawn and we were living in the woods of Vermont at the time. I’m a host and for what, a few basis points, it’s not so salaries are high. Today we’re joined by a friend of the BiggerPockets podcast network, Brandon “The Mad Fientist”. I had a look at the mad fientist portfolio using 70/30 split between VTI & VXUS over ten years. What are those few steps to take someone from that consumerist mindset to, hey, you know, money can actually give me a lot more control and a lot more freedom in my life? On Mad Fientist, Brandon offers a free, downloadable Excel spreadsheet to help others calculate when they can afford to retire. He wears sweaters instead of cranking up the heat. Brandon, aka the Mad Fientist, a former software developer who achieved early retirement and financial independence at age 34, shares how he spends his money in Edinburgh, Scotland. And also, you know, actually this is, this is the last question. And you know, it’s just another example of not having to…knowing that oddly at your core, you know, you’re going to be able to take care of yourself. They seem so, you know, I want to outsource that or I don’t want to think about that. It actually makes me sad inside when I see other people using a Windows machine because I know how much better their lives could be if they made the switch. 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