Questioning their roles, priorities, and the uncertain future of Two Sides of FI, Jason and Eric unveil hidden tensions arising from the pursuit and realization of financial independence. Will they find common ground and keep the project alive?
To date we haven’t talked much “inside baseball” about how the show comes together. One exception is this outtake footage which we released two years ago: How Do We Feel About Making Two Sides of FI? Find out how much (or little) has changed since this video!
Lastly, we think our two-part series where we discuss our FIRE paths with our spouses is essential content: Part 1 and Part 2.
In this episode we talked about the new Two Sides of FI Discord server. If you’re not familiar, this is an instant messaging social network. Ours is meant to be a community for viewers of our show, as well as a space to discuss all things relation to FIRE. It’s totally open, free of charge, and is anonymous as you’d like. This makes it a safe space to talk about financial topics you might otherwise be sensitive about sharing. Come check it out and see if it fits your interests! There are both desktop and mobile apps available.
Did you know Jason resumed blogging? One recent post came after filming this episode. For more on this thoughts about this conversation and related topics, don’t miss The Flipside of Time Freedom. To be notified of future posts, please consider subscribing here.
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
Do you have a process for regular financial reviews? If not, you aren’t alone – many people are unsure about how to calculate their net worth and keep their personal finances on track. In this episode, Eric and Jason share their simple pre- and post-FI review processes for net worth tracking, portfolio review, setting savings and budget goals, and more. Check the show notes for all the details.
Show notes may be found below the video
Show Notes
Essential Background:
Did you know we previously released a free downloadable rebalancing calculator that’s both powerful and easy to use? In this video, we walk through the features of the tool, demonstrate several examples of how to use it, and describe how you can download your own free copy.
In this episode, Eric mentioned Empower (formerly Personal Capital) for summarizing his portfolio performance as a part of rebalancing. We both use and really like this free tool for tracking investment accounts, understanding asset allocation + rebalancing opportunities, and monitoring net worth. Empower employs a simple account linking process to make it a more automated experience. Give it a try risk-free! (affiliate link; free program )
In this episode, Jason mentioned that he uses the software called YNAB to budget. What is YNAB? You Need a Budget is a popular budgeting tool for many in the FIRE community. If manual spreadsheets aren’t your thing or you’ve struggled with budgeting in the past, this may be a good solution. YNAB has a generous, free 34-day trialso you can see how well it works to help you understand and control spending. (affiliate link; no credit card needed for trial )
Are you interested in tracking net worth, income, FIRE progress, and your budget all in one convenient tool? This popular Reddit post by Redditor u/BloomingFinances outlines a free and powerful way that you can do just that.
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
Love it or hate it, budgeting is an essential part of financial success. In this episode, Eric and Jason share their own financial details using a simple, model budget and offer tips for making budgeting a less daunting task. See the show notes below, which include the full details of our budgets.
Show notes may be found below the video
Show Notes
Eric + Laura’s Budget (click to enlarge)
Jason + Lorri’s Budget (click to enlarge)
Essential Background:
Even if you put good effort into creating your FIRE budget, it’s easy to miss some very important items. In “My FIRE Budget Didn’t Account for This“, we discuss these commonly forgotten or underestimated expenses, including healthcare costs, taxes, dealing with inflation, and more.
Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins, is discussed often in the FIRE community. As Eric shared in this episode, it’s intended as a “practical guide on how to get the most out of your money—and out of your life”. If you like the aim of prioritizing memorable experiences far ahead of simply accumulating money for later in life, you’ll definitely want to check it out.
Lumpy spending in retirement is another commonly discussed budget issue. Sinking funds are only one way to think about these occasional – and sometimes very large expenses. In the Reddit post “Budgeting for ‘one time expenses’ in retirement” and the comments, you’ll find some thoughts on this topic.
Eric mentioned Empower (formerly Personal Capital ) for summarizing his portfolio performance. We both use and really like this free tool for tracking investment accounts, understanding asset allocation + rebalancing opportunities, and monitoring net worth. Empower employs a simple account linking process to make it a more automated experience. Give it a try risk-free! (affiliate link; free program )
In this episode, Jason mentioned that he uses the software called YNAB to budget. What is YNAB? You Need a Budget is a popular budgeting tool for many in the FIRE community. If manual spreadsheets aren’t your thing or you’ve struggled with budgeting in the past, this may be a good solution. YNAB has a generous, free 34-day trialso you can see how well it works to help you understand and control spending. (affiliate link; no credit card needed )
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
Has your shrinking retirement portfolio left you considering part-time work to ease your anxiety? Inspired by a blog post from Go Curry Cracker, we discuss BaristaFIRE, time freedom, what it means to be “unemployable”, and what work we might consider post-retirement. Be sure to see the links below for the show notes and to the blog post referenced in the video.
Show notes may be found below the video
Show Notes
Essential Background:
Never heard of BaristaFIRE before? Check out one of our earlier episodes, “So What’s Your Financial Independence (FI) Number?”. In this video, we talk about the different flavors of FIRE, decode the math used to calculate our FI numbers, and discuss where our FI numbers fall on the FIRE spectrum.
This isn’t the first time we’ve tackled the idea of working post-RE on the show. In “Financial Independence, Retire Early…Go Back to Work?”, we talked about an enticing job prospect that provided a lot of temptation for Jason. One of our temporal check-in episodes, we also discussed Eric’s strong focus on saving to achieve FI, how “vacation time” is different post-RE, as well as some recommended podcasts and books.
Failing at Early Retirement, a Go Curry Cracker blog post, was the inspiration for this episode. As we discussed in the video, in the article you’ll learn how author Jeremy took on some seasonal part-time work as a UPS driver, and what he learned from the experience.
We talked a lot about BaristaFIRE in today’s episode. The linked post from Financial Samurai is a comprehensive look at this path, and is a good primer for those seeking more information. In addition to the financial calculations provided in the article, there are numerous supporting tools available online including this BaristaFIRE calculator from Walletburst.
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) is a great IRS program for US taxpayers who qualify for free federal tax preparation. If you’d like information on VITA including how you can volunteer like Jason is doing, be sure to see the IRS Tax Volunteers page.
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
Do you want to avoid the biggest retirement risk? This simple to use tool will let you model your safe withdrawal rate and help ensure you don’t run out of money. In this walkthrough video, we teach you how to use this powerful, flexible, and FREE tool created by Karsten Jeske. Using the SWR Toolbox, you can ensure that you have a personalized plan that works with your own financial situation.
Part 2: Eric + Jason discuss how they’re using the SWR Toolbox and how Jason is struggling to spendas much as he can safely doin early retirement
How much money can you safely spend in retirement? In part two of this series on safe withdrawal rates, we discuss the #1 tool we’ve found to help you answer that question. Topics covered include the SWR Toolbox, our thoughts on Social Security, the challenges of spending in retirement, and how to get comfortable with increasing your withdrawal rate.
Part 3: Walkthrough of the CAPE-Based Rule tab in the SWR Toolbox
Do you like the idea of a portfolio withdrawal strategy that can’t run out of money? This walkthrough video is the third part in our Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) series, and teaches you how to model a variable withdrawal strategy based on the CAPE ratio. Using this powerful and FREE tool created by Karsten Jeske, you can design a personalized plan that works with your own financial situation.
Show Notes
Download the Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) Toolbox
The Safe Withdrawal Rate Toolbox is available via Karsten Jeske’s Early Retirement Now blog. The current version can be downloaded via Part 28 of the SWR series. This is also the post where the revisions to the calculator are described. To see the history of this tool, you’ll need to go back to Part 7. We found reading both posts to be essential to really understand how the tool works. Please ensure you follow the directions in the video to make your own copy of the tool. There’s no need to email Karsten to request edit rights!
Essential Blog Posts
Safe Withdrawal Rate series: This is the landing page for the 57-partSWR series (it will surely continue to grow) for which Karsten is best known. Be sure to start with the guidance he provides on how to navigate this great but expansive content. Many essential topics are covered in the series and not all of them involve deep dives into math! While we think all of his posts are interesting, you’ll find guidance below about the specific articles we think are most important to the topic of this video – in addition to Parts 28 and 7 listed above.
Sequence Risk is more important than your average return rate. Surprised? Be sure to check out Part 15: More Thoughts on Sequence of Return Risk. As mentioned in the video, SWR is overwhelmingly determined by the first 10-15 years of portfolio drawdown.
Are you the kind of person who wants all the gory details about the math underlying the SWR Toolbox? If so, you won’t want to miss Part 8: Technical Appendix. It’s got all the information you need to fully understand how Karsten’s approach works. There are also some good references at the bottom of the post on related material found elsewhere.
Did you know we’ve spoken to Karsten twice before?“What the FIRE Community Gets Wrong” was the first time he came on Two Sides of FI. We covered a lot of ground in this episode about safe withdrawal strategies – so much so that we also released a follow-up video called “Karsten Spoke, We Listened. Here’s What We Learned”. These two episodes are popular with our audience for a good reason and are definitely worth viewing for anyone interested in SWR strategies.
Our second conversation with Karsten also featured Fritz Gilbert (from The Retirement Manifesto), in a continuation of their debate about the merits of bucket strategies. In “What’s Wrong with This Popular Retirement Strategy?” we covered a lot of ground that you won’t want to miss!
Other Show Notes
cFIREsim (or Crowdsourced Financial Independence and Retire Early Simulator) is a very popular and powerful FIRE calculator created by Lauren. We found a lot of value in this tool throughout our FIRE journey, and clearly many others do as well. In the developer’s words, “What can cFIREsim do? At its core, you can enter information in the a few simple inputs and return the basic simulation. At its most complicated, it can determine your portfolio success based on 80 individual portfolio adjustments, multiple types of inflation, multiple types of market returns, and graphically show you the results. There are many options to choose from outside of the ‘Basic Inputs’ “, including a number of variable withdrawal strategies under “Spending Plan”.
Variable Percentage Withdrawal (VPW) is another method besides CAPE-adjusted WR for allowing market conditions to influence the amount you take out of your portfolio in drawdown. As mentioned in part 2, VPW is popular among some adherents the Bogleheads approach to investing. As you’ll read at this link, this method “adapts adjustments to portfolio withdrawal amounts to the retiree’s retirement horizon, asset allocation, and portfolio returns during retirement… to allow the retiree to spend most of the portfolio using return-adjusted withdrawals. By adapting withdrawals to market returns, VPW will never prematurely deplete the portfolio.”
stickK is the app Eric mentioned in Part 2 to help track adherence to a goal – like keeping to spending your planned withdrawal rate. Created from a behavioral economics framework, stickK allows you to create “Commitment Contracts, [which are] a binding agreement you sign with yourself to ensure that you follow through with your intentions—and it does this by utilizing the psychological power of loss aversion and accountability to drive behavior change.” We’ve not tried this yet but this is a pretty appealing (an a little scary) idea!
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
Do you worry about running out of money in retirement? How do you draw down your assets without tanking your portfolio? Eric + Jason talk with FIRE bloggers Karsten Jeske and Fritz Gilbert about the bucket strategy. Is it a reasonable withdrawal plan or nothing more than a gimmick? They discuss alternative approaches, how to generate a retirement paycheck, and the role of cash. Whether you’re interested in FIRE or on a traditional retirement path, you can’t afford to miss this episode!
Would you like to meet Karsten and Fritz? If you didn’t stick around until the end of the video, you might have missed Fritz’ comment about them attending FI Chautauqua in Ecuador this year. Get all the details here on this conference and how you can attend.
Fritz Gilbert’s Content
How To Build A Retirement Paycheck is the first of (currently) four great posts on Fritz’ implementation of the bucket strategy, which we discussed at length in this episode and also in prior videos. The other articles in the series are linked here too, including one he mentioned in this episode, “How to Build a Bond Ladder”.
A Strategy For Buying Into A Bear Market is a post which shares what Fritz learned from the 2008 financial crisis and how he’s managing today’s market volatility.
In this episode, Fritz mentioned his post “A Step-By-Step Guide for Your Annual Financial Update”. Within you’ll find his guide to an annual review, including a checklist he developed along with links to spreadsheets to help you implement your own process.
In 2021, Fritz recently wrote a book called “Keys to a Successful Retirement” which captures the many lessons he has learned on his retirement journey so far. This is a great read for all current and future retirees. It goes far beyond the financial, and leans heavily into the social and emotional aspects of retirement, just like his blog. Highly recommended!
Freedom for Fidois the charity that the Gilberts started, whose stated purpose is to: “Free the dogs who live on chains in the North Georgia Mountains. We are a charity which provides free fencing and dog houses for low-income residents of the Blue Ridge area.” To learn more about this passion project, be sure to check out this link,
Karsten Jeske’s Content
Safe Withdrawal Rate series: This is the landing page for the 56-partSWR series (now; it will surely continue to grow) for which Karsten is best known. Be sure to start with the guidance he provides on how to navigate this great but expansive content. Many essential topics are covered and not all of them involve deep dives into math!
Portfolio rebalancing is an essential part of both strategies discussed in today’s video. This key topic is addressed in Part 39 of the SWR series. Rebalancing isn’t a panacea for sequence risk, but it’s certainly an important element to consider. As we’ve discussed previously, being consistent + avoiding market timing is essential.
A topic we didn’t hit on today but have talked about extensively in the past is Karsten’s Safe Withdrawal Rate Toolbox. We will be talking more about this powerful, free downloadable tool very soon. In the meantime, Part 28 is the post where the revisions to the original calculator are described and the latest tool is linked. To see the history of this tool, you’ll need to go back to Part 7 of the series.
Unsurprisingly, the always active Bogleheads forum got in on the action with this lengthy comment thread about the bucket strategy debate. If you want a broad range of opinions from many different viewpoints, look no further than this post, Just be prepared to deep dive for hours if you do!
Popular YouTuber and author Rob Berger also weighed in back in 2021 with this video on the bucket strategy. In it, you’ll learn why he thinks this plan is flawed and advocates you should take a different path.
Do you worry about taxes and how they impact your financial goals? Whether you’re on a FIRE path or retiring traditionally, there are many critical tax topics to consider. In this episode, Jason talks with financial planner and CPA Sean Mullaney, creator of the FI Tax Guy blog. We talk about common tax misunderstandings, the power of solo 401k accounts, Roth conversions, and tax loss harvesting.
Show notes may be found below the video
Note:The discussion is intended to be for general educational purposes and is not tax, legal, or investment advice for any individual. Eric, Jason, and Two Sides of FI do not endorse Sean Mullaney, Mullaney Financial & Tax, Inc. and their services.
Show Notes
Essential Background If you’re not familiar with Sean’s great blog, “The FI Tax Guy: The Tax Efficient Path to Financial Independence“, you’ll definitely want to check it out. He’s been posting there for over four years, so there’s a wealth of information available. We’ll link to some essential content below, including a few articles we referenced in this episode. In addition, Sean also has a YouTube channel.
Sean’s book: “Solo 401(k): The Solopreneur’s Retirement Account” – Navigating retirement for solopreneurs is not easy—strategically save with the Solo 401(k). If you’re self-employed, saving enough money to retire can feel complicated when you wear both the employer and employee hats. Get educated and empower your retirement with Solo 401(k). In this book, Sean Mullaney, a financial planner and licensed CPA, cuts through the complexity and boils down what solopreneurs need to know about saving for the future. The Solo 401(k) plan allows self-employed entrepreneurs to reduce taxes and strategically save for retirement. This guide will give you the valuable insight you need to create, navigate, and optimize your own Solo 401(k) plan with tax planning you may not have considered.
Key Posts From The FI Tax Guy Blog:
FIRE Tax Strategies for Beginners – Are you new to financial independence (FI or FIRE)? Are you steeped in financial independence, but confused about tax optimization? If so, this is the post for you. This post works on the 80/20 principle: sure, there’s a ton of knowledge, expertise, and hacks out there, but often times 80 percent of the benefit can come from 20 percent of the knowledge.
The Special Tax Loss Harvesting Opportunity for 2022 – There is a tax loss harvesting opportunity in 2022 that has not existed in recent years to the scope and scale it exists today: tax loss harvesting with bonds and bond funds. In most recent years, many bonds and bond funds have not had significant built-in-losses. 2022 is different: now there are plenty of bonds and bond funds in taxable accounts with significant built-in-losses.
The Advantages of Living On Taxable Assets First in Early Retirement – The FIRE community loves the accumulation phase. Build up assets towards the goal of financial independence. Questions increasingly creep in when it comes to the distribution phase. Members of the FIRE community wonder: what do I live on when I get to retirement? This is particularly true when one reaches early retirement prior to age 59 ½. In this post, Sean discusses the options and the reasons he believes that for many, the best assets to live off of first in early retirement are taxable assets.
2022 Year-End Tax Planning – In this post, Sean shares the primary tax planning items for the year 2022 as he sees them. Topics covered include tax loss harvesting, Roth conversions, tax gain harvesting, HSA contributions, RMDs, and more.
The Four Backstops to the Four Percent Rule – We’ve talked plenty on 2SFI about the 4% Rule (of thumb) and what our own strategies are with respect to withdrawal rate. This post adds a wrinkle to the discussion: the four backstops to the 4% Rule for early retirees. What if worries about the adequacy of the 4% Rule for early retirees can be addressed by factors outside of the 4% Rule safe withdrawal rate? And what if those factors quite naturally occur for early retirees? Read on to get Sean’s thoughts on why this may be the case.
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
Answering your financial independence, retire early (FIRE) questions, including the one we’re asked most often. This special Ask Us Anything format commemorates the 50th episode of Two Sides of FI. THANK YOU to all who submitted questions and for your continued support of the show!
Show notes may be found below the video
Show Notes
First, THANK YOU so much again for all your support of Two Sides of FI. We’d never have achieved this 50 episode milestone without all the engagement and encouragement we receive from you, our community. We truly appreciate you and are thankful for your constant support.
We are often asked how to support + promote the show. Here are three simple ideas which we humbly suggest: 1) Share a link to our channel with people who you think can benefit – via social media, 1:1, or however works for you. 2) Use the ‘like’ feature on videos and subscribe (click here!) to the channel. The YouTube algorithm sees these signals as indications of merit, and they play a vital role in helping to promote our content. 3) Consider rating + reviewing the podcast – even if you always watch it on YouTube. Apple Podcasts is the most important tool out there to drive visibility on the audio format. We get thousands of podcast downloads each month yet have <80 total reviews at the time this episode went live. Thank you!
Essential Background:
Our first episode, “Our Financial Past and our FIRE Present – Two Sides of FI“ is where it all began for the show. 50 episodes later, there certainly have been plenty of changes – and improvements (particularly on Jason’s side of the screen, as he likes to point out). This episode is the best place to learn about our financial backgrounds a bit better.
“So, What’s Your Financial Independence (FI) Number?“ was one of our early popular – and controversial videos. We’ve got a long history with this question, and you won’t want to miss the end of today’s episode to hear our current thoughts on it. But this earlier installment sets the stage for this essential question + many FIRE fundamentals.
We’ve actually done another Q&A episode: “Answering Your Financial Independence Questions”. In this video, we tackled topics including changing withdrawal rates, our FI numbers, redefining identity in early retirement, rental real estate, and more.
In today’s episode we referenced a fun experiment, captured in “We Each Hired a Flat Fee Financial Advisor. Was it Worth It?”. Prior to this video, we each hired the same fee-only, advice-only advisor to evaluate our portfolios and answer our questions. We then shared how we found this advisor, what the process was like, the specific questions + answers we had, and who we believe could benefit from such a service.
Safe Withdrawal Rate has been an ongoing topic for us on 2SFI, and naturally it came up here as well. Did you know we spoke with SWR expert, Karsten Jeske? To see that episode, our follow-up conversation, and get the best collection of all the resources we have on this topic (including the free SWR Toolbox), you’ll want to see this show notes page.
As a complement to Two Sides of FI, Jason’s milestones blog posts are perhaps the easiest way to understand what his journey has been like since retiring early. In these articles, he discusses candidly what he’s felt, experienced, and achieved in the 2+ years since he left his career behind. If there’s a specific topic you’re seeking, don’t miss this list of all his blog posts to date.
Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing is a book by Bronnie Ware that we mentioned in this episode. It originally started as a blog post, outlining the most common regrets that the people she had supported through palliative care had expressed. The post quickly blew up and was viewed by more than three million readers worldwide in its first year. Bronnie subsequently wrote this fascinating and meaningful book capturing all that she learned.
CoastFI came up in a question we addressed in this video. This is a term used to describe someone who isn’t yet FI but has already put in the necessary effort to mathematically achieve that goal without further contributions. Did you know we talked with someone on this topic in an podcast-only episode last year? If you missed it then, you’ll definitely want to check out A CoastFI Path to Financial Security: An Interview with Catherine.
Eric has talked about his “Possible Futures” Notion page in several episodes to date. Here is a screenshot of the kind of information he and Laura track here
The bear market has forced many to revise their FI goals and retirement plans. In this episode, Eric talks with Jason about pushing back his FI date, options he’s considering, whether BaristaFIRE could be the answer, the possibility of redefining work, and advice for others in a similar position. See the link below for the show notes.
Show notes may be found below the video
Show Notes
Essential Background:
If you’re newer to the show, you’ll want to catch up on Eric’s story. We’ve listed some of the key episodes below that set the foundations in his life, business, and his recent financial thoughts + decisions. This is all relevant information to the conversation we had in the current episode.
Our very first episode of Two Sides of FI lays out a good deal of important background for our respective paths to FI. You won’t want to miss “Our Financial Past and our FIRE Present” to get all the details.
The two episodes describing Eric’s building of his business which yields 90% passive income are an important follow-up to the prior video. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 here to learn from his example.
Our two-part series where we invited our spouses to the show is some of our most popular content. Learn more about Eric + Laura’s FIRE journey in Part 1 and Part 2 of this conversation.
Asset allocation has been a key topic on Two Sides of FI over the course of our series. While our portfolios have changed a bit over time, if you haven’t watched our first two episodes on the topic (part 1 and part 2), this is relevant background. However, perhaps more important is the two-part series where Eric + Laura decide to move to a more conservative 70/30 portfolio. Here is Part 1 and Part 2 of that series, as well as some behind the scenes footage of how they made this decision.
Chasing short term market conditions adds a lot of risk to reaching your long term investing goals. An investment policy statement (IPS) can help ensure you stick to your strategy, and avoid market timing and other investing pitfalls. In this episode, Eric talks with Jason about his IPS, and why he finds it such a useful tool. Topics covered include defining portfolio makeup + objectives, the mechanics of cash generation + rebalancing, and why you might consider implementing an IPS yourself. See the link below for the show notes, where we link to all the content we referenced in the episode.
Show notes may be found below the video
Show Notes
Essential Background:
While our portfolios have changed a bit since, if you haven’t watched our previous episodes on asset allocation (part 1 and part 2), this is relevant material to our discussion here.
Jason’s IPS defines his cash holding + generating practices. For more discussion on the topic of holding cash, you’ll want to check out this recent episode on the topic.
Do you have a copy of our free Rebalancing Calculator? Whether you have an IPS or not, this simple tool can help you make decisions about buying and selling in order to rebalance your portfolio.
Jason’s Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is the document we walk through in this episode. If you’d like to see the full copy, you can check that out here. To make your own editable copy, go to File >> Make a copy and this will save to your own Google Drive as long as you are logged in to a Google account.
For more information on Investment Policy Statements (IPS) , check out this entry on the Bogleheads wiki. This page also shares forum user Sunny’s simple IPS which we showed in this episode, along with information on a simpler “investing plan” alternative to the IPS.
How to Create an Investment Policy Statement is a great introductory piece by Morningstar’s Christine Benz. This article also links to a simple IPS template provided by that you can use to for your own portfolio.
Risk Tolerance is a topic we discussed in this episode, and specifically, risk assessment evaluations that often are part of working with financial advisors. There are lots of tools online for this purpose, and this quiz from the University of Mississippi was among the best we found. Check it out and see how risk tolerant you are!
You can find information on the tools we mention in each episode along with additional information in the Resources section of this site.
