00:03:13.140And what happened was my work got very stressful and it also got very scary because they started outsourcing our jobs.
00:03:21.040So I was a software developer working in Toronto.
00:03:25.120And what happened was they were outsourcing our jobs to developers working in India, making $5 an hour.0.82
00:03:31.680There was no way I was going to be able to compete with that.
00:03:33.960So the idea that I could just keep working until I was 65, get a mortgage, pay it off for 25 years, that option quickly started closing.
00:03:44.100And at the time, we weren't sure what to do because that was the script that we had been taught our entire lives.
00:03:50.400And it wasn't until I started doing some research and then I discovered a handful of blogs online.
00:03:55.480and some of them were one of them was called Mr. Money Mustache and it was about how to use the
00:04:02.860power of optimization and investing to get to financial independence which means that you are
00:04:10.040living off the proceeds of your portfolio and you never have to work again the first time I discovered
00:04:15.480that I thought it was a scam I was thinking there's no way this could be possible how could
00:04:20.400you possibly stop working in your 30s? Because he also retired very early. I also have a background
00:04:26.060where I at one point I was growing up on 44 cents a day. My parents were very poor growing up. So to
00:04:31.840me, that idea of investing and becoming financially independent was a pipe dream. But my work got it
00:04:38.200got more and more stressful to the point where my coworker was one day, his lung collapsed and he
00:04:45.140almost died at work. And they took him to the hospital right away. And then we discovered from
00:04:50.800the doctor that he was working so many hours that they said it was the equivalent of smoking two
00:04:55.960packs of cigarettes a day, despite the fact that he never smoked a day in his life. And that was
00:05:01.520my wake-up call, not just not to buy a house, but to realize that work is very stressful. I could
00:05:07.360lose my job at any time. And this old script that we've been taught about work until you're 65,
00:05:12.300buy a house and retire no longer works. So what we did was we the money that we were trying
00:05:18.340desperately to save towards buying a house. Instead, we put that into investing and we built
00:05:23.780a portfolio. I thought that it would take me another five to 10 years before I could reach
00:05:28.820the million. But we actually reached the million in three years after we discovered financially
00:05:33.380financial independence. And after that, we spent the next six years of our lives traveling the
00:05:39.340world until the pandemic hit. And then a family emergency brought us back home. And then after
00:05:45.400dealing with that family emergency, we ended up having our son. And now we are we just came back
00:05:52.040from living nomadically with him for three months across in Spain. And yeah, life has just been
00:05:59.520incredible since. I mean, I love everything about that. And like you, every time I hear this,
00:06:05.900I think it's a scam. Literally every time, because it sounds too good to be true, A, but also B,
00:06:12.960Instagram is full of people trying to scam you, explaining how to make this work. So you guys
00:06:18.840decided to start an investment portfolio. What kind of investment portfolio was this? And were
00:06:25.040you working with a brokerage house or doing it just on your own? Like, what is the nitty gritty
00:06:28.400of that? We started off working with a financial advisor. Unfortunately, that financial advisor
00:06:34.540turned out to be, you know, doing some kind of sketchy behavior that alarmed us. And we ended up
00:06:41.840learning how to do it ourselves. The index, the portfolio itself is not that complicated. It's
00:06:47.660based on the, investing is based on the idea that you are not smarter than anyone else. And you are
00:06:53.540probably not going to be great at picking stocks that are, you know, individual stocks that win
00:06:59.020consistently. So the FIRE movement, which is this kind of movement that these blogs have
00:07:08.460kind of grown into, is based on the idea that instead of picking individual stocks or even
00:07:13.120picking individual countries where you put your money into, you spread your bets across the entire
00:07:16.980economy using index funds. So index funds are funds that track the entire economy and attract
00:07:25.920all companies in a particular geographic region all at once. And then we expand on that by also
00:07:31.400spreading our bets across the world. So you invest part of your money in the US, we invest as well,
00:07:36.700some in Canada, which is where we live. And we invest also in international funds as well. So
00:07:41.940you kind of cover the entire globe so that geopolitical events can't really like, can't
00:07:47.080really, you know, destroy your portfolio and use that to build passive income. And then when the
00:07:51.740passive income is enough for you to to pay for your living expenses that's when you can say
00:07:56.720goodbye to work or at least goodbye to work for the money itself you can then you can the fire
00:08:02.040movement uh the fi we like to say the financial independence parts that part is mandatory but
00:08:07.940the retirement the retire early part of it you don't actually have to do that if you love your
00:08:11.880work like you clearly do um you can continue to keep doing it it's just now you are now you are
00:08:18.020doing it because you actually want to do it rather than you're doing it to chase a paycheck which is
00:08:21.680which is a very, very different experience. Right, right. So FIRE, for people who don't know,
00:08:26.960is financial independence, retire early. I love the idea that you don't have to retire early,
00:08:31.940because I think about that a lot. And I don't know what I would do if I retired early. I mean,
00:08:37.440I don't golf, right? And I love traveling. And I also love what I do. I mean, I love writing books
00:08:42.500and I love making podcasts. So I think I would keep working. I hate hustling, though. I hate
00:08:48.420hustling for a paycheck. It's miserable. And I think everyone can agree that that part of this0.91
00:08:52.420is miserable. So the financial independence part is incredibly attractive. So when you talk about
00:08:59.200being able to live off passive income, what does that mean? Are you living off proceeds from
00:09:04.580investment accounts, interest? What does that look like? So the fire movement is the big kind
00:09:11.540of golden rule inside that all the financial planning is based on. It's called the 4% rule.
00:09:15.980The idea is that if you invest in a portfolio that comprises mostly of index funds, then you can statistically withdraw 4% of your portfolio at the beginning of your retirement and then keep adjusting that amount for inflation for the rest of your retirement.
00:09:32.860And statistically, you have a very high, like 95% chance of never running out of money.
00:09:38.380um we kind of expanded on that a little bit uh on that you know basic principle to then include
00:09:45.620more income producing assets and alternative assets i'm not going to get into the weeds on
00:09:49.160this because we do write about this extensively on our blog and on a free workshop which anyone is
00:09:53.280is uh is welcome to uh to look over but um you can um but what we did from that is we uh figured
00:10:02.460out how to then turn that into being able to live off of the interest and the dividends so
00:10:07.020we have a portfolio that is worth X amount of dollars. I think last time I checked, it was
00:10:11.720like 2.9 million or something like that. And the dividends and interest that are being paid off
00:10:18.600of that without selling anything is enough for us to live off of. So the portfolio continues to
00:10:24.040increase and it continues to increase the dividends as well. And then we simply take
00:10:29.080the dividends and then we live off of that. I like to say that we grew a giant apple orchard
00:10:33.680and then we're just eating the apples and we're never cutting down any of the trees.
00:10:37.020I like that analogy. I do. Because I get confused by a lot of this stuff. I truly do. I love numbers and I also love money. And yet investing can sometimes seem very confusing. But what you're saying sounds really straightforward and we'll drop all of your links into the show notes if people want to take a look.
00:11:00.360One of the things that I've thought about FIRE before is, do you have to live super, super frugally in order to get to this point?
00:11:39.020It's really about spending towards your values and knowing some tips and tricks in order to maximize your output and then minimize the amount of money you put towards it.
00:11:49.500So one of the examples I can give you is, so when I was looking for baby gear for my son, there was what we like to call the big baby industry.
00:11:58.580what they do oh my god I hate the big baby industry so much I well I was thinking about
00:12:07.540this yesterday because yesterday was trash day and I went for went for a run and I saw a house
00:12:15.520that had thrown out so much baby stuff all of which looked perfectly fine like one of those
00:12:19.980like bumby chairs that they sit in and I just I almost cried because I couldn't because I don't
00:12:26.160have a baby that I need to take it home for anymore because we are completely like we totally
00:12:31.500take stuff off the curb all the time. But it just made me think about how much stuff we do not need
00:12:36.960for these kids and how much can be recycled within communities. Absolutely. And social media tracks
00:12:42.400you like crazy. Like the second I got pregnant and then I was doing tests and I was researching
00:12:46.800about maternity classes, I get all these ads like, do you want to buy this extra thing? Do you want
00:12:51.680to do uh do you want to store like the placenta blood do you want like these carriers do you want
00:12:57.620this expensive stroller it's just endless um and like you said there's so many free things on the
00:13:02.500curb and one of the tricks that we discovered is um what i call renting for free because what you
00:13:08.100can do is buy things off secondary market like facebook marketplace and then if you pick things
00:13:13.620like that's what i'm saying you don't want to scrip and save you don't want to buy the cheapest
00:13:16.740item. You want to buy something that keeps its value. So for example, a baby Bjorn bouncer,
00:13:22.280and you can almost sell it for the exact same price because those things, you don't actually
00:13:26.240use it for that long. You use it for less than a year. And then when you buy from the secondary
00:13:30.020market, you are riding the depreciation curve and you're selling back into the same market.
00:13:34.660It's very easy to sell. Not only is it good for the environment, it's really good for your
00:13:39.040parental. It's really good for parenting because then you don't have to worry about it. It's a
00:13:43.380secondhand. You don't have to be like, oh, my God, I spent three hundred dollars on this and now it's
00:13:47.400already dirty. And now I have to clean all this baby puke off of it. It it really is life changing
00:13:53.440to discover that you don't have to give in to a big baby. It's a lot of preying on parents
00:13:58.260insecurities. And especially when we think, oh, the more money we spend on our kids, the better
00:14:03.560parents we are. That is not true. And a lot of the stuff they outgrow so quickly, there's no point
00:14:08.820spending that much money anyway. But it's really easy to get suckered into that because we're
00:14:13.680constantly tracked on social media and we're constantly being promoted products that we
00:14:17.400should buy to prove our love. And it's also the trick of being quite careful about what type of
00:14:24.560baby gear that you pick up on the secondary market. Because certain things like cheap plastic
00:14:29.680stuff that's like non-name brand or generic or that kind of thing, it depreciates quite quickly
00:14:35.240because it breaks but if you pick like higher end stuff like stuff that you would normally like you
00:14:39.680know baby Bjorn is an example of a brand that holds its value um what was that love every is
00:14:46.180it called lovery or love every love every yeah love every is also like another uh a brand of
00:14:50.360baby toys that uh holds its value real because they're made out of wood and they're quite solid
00:14:54.400and um and stuff like that so it's it's it's about um so it's it gives people an excuse also
00:15:00.160to go for higher end baby gears uh for higher end baby gear um that you normally wouldn't be
00:15:04.900able to afford and even pay more on the secondary market for it, knowing that it'll hold its value
00:15:08.520and can sell it back for the same price. We call it renting it for free. However, one thing that
00:15:13.140you cannot do this with is car seats. Car seats, you do have to buy that new because you never
00:15:19.360really, because you never want to compromise on your baby's safety. And you don't know whether
00:15:23.080that car seat has been damaged in a previous collision. So that's one thing that we explicitly
00:15:27.480say, don't do this for, never, ever compromise on your baby's safety. But for everything else,
00:15:33.740you can actually get really high-end quality uh high-end baby gear for basically free using this
00:15:39.640technique honestly honestly the highest it's true i mean buy nothing groups are so wonderful for
00:15:47.980this there's also a wonderful company in philadelphia where you can rent baby things
00:15:54.100which i love uh because we wanted to rent some travel gear for one trip that we were going to
00:15:59.740take for our baby the first time we had one. And we just rented it for maybe $10 and then returned
00:16:06.800it and someone else got to use it. I mean, it was just really, it was really a great way to save a
00:16:13.500lot of money. And I love that. I love the idea of not getting suckered into big baby because it is
00:16:20.180really intense and it is a lot, especially when you end up having multiple children. So I think
00:16:26.080that is a great way to start saving money. I want to take a quick break. And when we get back,
00:16:30.940let's get into some of the things that feel unavoidable, things like child care and stuff
00:16:37.260like that. Okay, we're back. You guys talk a lot in the book about ways you can shave off costs
00:16:50.760pretty much everywhere in raising a child. And I don't want to give away too much, but I do want
00:16:55.600to talk about some of the tips and tricks for being smarter when it comes to parenting finances
00:17:01.500with things like, say, child care. Yes. So one of the things we talk about is having a babysitting
00:17:09.200co-op. So what that means is trying to find friends in which you can help each other take
00:17:14.980care of each other's kids. So there's apps that actually help you match your schedule and also
00:17:20.000kind of have an IOU like I did this many hours taking care of my friends kids and the two kids
00:17:25.680together and then now it's their turn so there's ways to organize around community because one of
00:17:30.980the things that throughout our travels we discovered is that other parts of the world
00:17:35.100there's a lot of human currency that we don't leverage in North America everything we do is
00:17:39.860we need to pay someone to help take care of our kids and everybody's just so separate from each
00:17:44.660other because we're so busy working and we have such busy lives. And as someone who grew up very
00:17:50.000poor, one of the things I did have, even though my parents could never afford to hire a nanny
00:17:54.260or babysitter, is that I had a village of people. I had other aunties and uncles. I had neighbors
00:18:00.860that my mom, when she had to do a work shift and she couldn't take care of me, she was able to drop0.98
00:18:05.560me off at my neighbor's house. And then when she had her time off, she was able to take care of
00:18:10.740them. So there's a lot of community aspect that we could tap into in order to and use apps in
00:18:17.260order to figure out how do we do this in terms of having a babysitting co-op. Yeah, I was first
00:18:24.540introduced to the babysitting co-op idea when we lived in San Francisco when we had our first baby.
00:18:29.720It was actually filled with a bunch of techie people, techie data people who were very,
00:18:34.300very intense about the spreadsheet system. That sounds like us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:10.940That's one of the biggest fears of people who retire early as well, because they think
00:21:15.280everybody else is going to be at work.
00:21:17.420How am I going to make any new friends?
00:21:18.720And it's much more difficult to make a new friend when you're an adult compared to when
00:21:22.560you're in high school or you're in college in which you're all there by circumstance. You meet
00:21:27.580a lot of other people and they have a lot of free time. So one of the things that we like to do when
00:21:32.100we make new friends is try to be helpful in some way. Like you have skills that was what enabled
00:21:40.700you to retire early. You still have those same skills. Find a problem that you want to punch
00:21:45.580and then try to solve that problem. So this is one of the reasons why we created the investment
00:21:49.620workshop is we don't want people to get hoodwinked by financial advisors or by people who work at
00:21:55.320the bank. We wanted people to know about how to invest safely. And we wanted to break it down
00:22:01.100step by step. So we wrote this free workshop that anybody can use following the guide in order to
00:22:07.080get to financial independence like we did. And we have made an entire community of friends just
00:22:12.340because of that. Multiple people have written in and said, I started your workshop eight years ago.
00:22:17.500I had a $40,000 salary and now I'm actually a millionaire thanks to you because of the workshop.
00:22:22.820And then there's other people that found the workshop.
00:22:25.900They read our book and randomly we go out into the wild and there's people that we run into who recognize us.
00:22:32.680And then as a result, we make friends with them.
00:22:35.620So using the skills that you have in order to help people is one of the best ways to make new friends.
00:22:41.500Because you automatically people are people want to give back.
00:22:46.160People want to reciprocate and they're really grateful that you're helping them.
00:22:50.360So I we have discovered that as an adult, it is very hard to go out there and just talk to a random stranger.
00:22:56.780But being helpful in some way has opened a lot of doors.
00:23:02.860Yeah, I can see that. And then also, I mean, I talk a lot about this being helpful once you're already friends.
00:23:08.460I mean, making the offers as much as you can.
00:23:11.460One of my girlfriend's husbands is traveling all week and I was like, we'll do drop off for you.
00:23:16.160I threw it out there. I'm like, you're on our way to school that you shouldn't.
00:23:18.940But it gives you an extra 30 minutes in the morning to just like figure your life out.
00:23:24.320Right. So I think it is so important to build social capital and to invest in these relationships and not just think that they're going to appear.
00:23:34.240Absolutely. And I get it. It's really, really hard to as a parent because you just have so little time.
00:23:40.020but it makes a lot of sense to basically you don't have to make a whole bunch of friends like
00:23:47.160people think oh I need to make a whole group of friends I need to make hundreds of friends
00:23:50.600even one or two new friends they introduce you to other people so you get kind of adopted into
00:23:56.260their friend circle so it's a gradual process it's not a zero to like and then you have like
00:24:01.240all these it's not and it's very different from the number of social media followers you have
00:24:05.280the people that you actually meet face to face and become long-term friends and those are deeper
00:24:09.740relationships that you keep over the long term. And it really is about quality over quantity.
00:24:16.220Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about quality generally. As I think about shaping the life
00:24:23.360that I want for the next, you know, hopefully 50 years, I'm trying to think about it in terms of
00:24:30.060quality. And, you know, what do I actually want? What things matter? How do I want to be spending
00:24:37.700my time in a way that I enjoy, right? But that also feels purposeful. So did you guys officially
00:24:44.720retire early? I mean, you're still working because you're writing books and you're making
00:24:48.460workshops. You're doing all of those things. Absolutely. So I like to say we retired from
00:24:53.460the nine to five and then we're working on passion projects whenever we want to. It's
00:24:58.180something that we're choosing to do. And I think that's very helpful now because when we have our
00:25:03.640son, we want to spend as much time with him as possible. But, you know, parents are people too.
00:25:08.280And we also want to have our own passions, our own hobbies. And so it's a really good balance.
00:25:14.320And FIRE enables you to have that choice. But I think the number one thing that FIRE gave us and
00:25:19.520early retirement gave us is the time to spend with the people that we love, our family members.
00:25:25.280So this crazy thing happened after we retired. So during the pandemic, we had to fly back home
00:26:23.620that need you in the moment that they need you.
00:26:28.280So because we had done all that work, building up the portfolio, creating a passive income and doing the financial independence thing, when my dad needed me and especially as he really started getting sick, Christy and I were able to move back home and help take care of him.
00:26:46.080We were running at the end there like 20.
00:26:49.800He needed basically 24 hour care because as his condition got worse and worse, he would
00:26:54.200get up in the middle of the night at like 3 a.m. and then try to climb the stairs and
00:26:57.740we were worried that he was going to hurt himself.
00:26:59.600So one of us had to be with him at all times.
00:27:02.020And because the Christian and I were able to do that because we had the time, we were
00:27:07.000able to coordinate with my mom, with my sisters and their busy schedules.
00:27:10.620And we were able to provide that 24 hour care at home.
00:27:14.560and uh if we if we still had to work we wouldn't have been able to do that so i'd like to i like
00:27:20.440to call uh fire the best money i never spent because uh because we didn't spend all that
00:27:26.520money on a house and requiring a large mortgage and a job that needed to pay for the next 25 years
00:27:31.760i was able to be there for my dad when he needed me the most so uh yeah that's so that and then
00:27:37.560after uh and and by the way and during that entire time christy was also uh pregnant with our first
00:27:44.000son so that was like a crazy period of time in which we were trying to navigate covid my dad's
00:27:48.680terminal illness and christy preparing to give birth um actually the the christy's due date was
00:27:54.800actually the same date as my dad's memorial service so we had to go straight from losing
00:28:00.980my dad to becoming one within like a day so that was like a very that was a pretty that was a crazy
00:28:06.560transition and if we uh didn't have the freedom to be like all hands on deck managing that i don't
00:28:12.520know how i would be able to do it oh my god bryce that is so much yeah it was it was it was crazy
00:28:18.8002023 was not a good year for us it was a year of massive of massive transformation but uh um
00:28:26.300but you know what sometimes life really throws your curveball and you really can't control it so
00:28:31.140that's why i'm so hesitant that's what that's what um i keep trying to impress on people when they say
00:28:36.680oh this fire stuff is not for me because i like my job it's like yeah for now but you don't know
00:28:41.660when, um, you don't know when things are going to turn bad, like for your life personally,
00:28:45.960like we're all getting older. Our parents are getting older and you don't know when, um, you
00:28:50.960are going to be needed and, uh, being able to have that freedom to step up and be there. That's kind
00:28:57.340of weird. The real value of all this, of all this investing stuff comes from. Right. Right. You know,
00:29:02.560you said something really smart where you said, you know, people say to you, I love my job. And
00:29:08.240then the answer is well now until something happens yeah right right right so i mean um so
00:29:16.040so sometimes people have pushed back on the whole fire thing by saying i you know i but i love my
00:29:21.640job i love what i uh i love what i do yeah sure for now but you know as uh as many people have
00:29:29.600experienced over the past few years all a job is good as long as your boss is good all it takes is
00:29:35.920one you know kind of personnel change and then all of a sudden a good job can become a very bad job
00:29:39.880and not only that your personal circumstances could change too a good job that you enjoy doing
00:29:46.100could turn into a very bad job if you're if you know there's a parent across the country that
00:29:50.300needs uh that needs to be taken care of and your boss won't let you go for whatever reason right
00:29:55.520so um so fire is all fire is all about freedom and freedom is all about choice the ability to say
00:30:02.540I choose to do what is the right thing for me is what gives you power. And that's the real power
00:30:11.460of being able to, of having passive income, whether it's passive income to free you from
00:30:19.920your job, or as we talk about in the book, a smaller kind of scale passive income that will
00:30:25.200pay for, you know, for example, diapers or babysitting or occasional babysitting or something
00:30:28.900like that uh it gives you it gives you the free it gives you freedom uh to not have to worry about
00:30:34.460that kind of expense anymore and then that allows you to become you know uh a more a more that allows
00:30:40.540you to spend your time the way that you want to do so it's incredibly important for that reasons
00:30:43.820well and i think that freedom is is the real thing here i think freedom and flexibility
00:30:50.220are what we're all seeking out of out of careers or at least it's what a lot of people i know
00:30:55.900are sticking. Let's take one more quick break. And when we get back, I have kind of a rapid
00:31:00.900fire question round for you guys. Ooh, fun. Let's do it.
00:31:13.680Okay, so we are back. One big question I have about fire a lot is, is it always about delaying
00:31:20.540buying a house? So will you guys never buy a house? Will you always be renting? Is that a
00:31:24.800better thing to do as a fire proponent? I would say definitely never say never. I totally understand
00:31:31.660why people would like the idea of owning once they have kids. But for us, it's always about
00:31:37.180the math. Like I said, we're spreadsheet nerds. So we got to do the math to make sure it actually
00:31:41.480makes sense first. So currently, where we're renting, the place that we're renting right now,
00:31:46.780it's a three bedroom, two bath. I initially stayed in a one bedroom, but we upgraded.
00:31:50.920and the rent that we are paying is less than the mortgage.
00:31:55.280The mortgage interest rate would be on a place to buy
00:32:12.740We say we follow the math to make your decisions.
00:32:15.640And so everybody has to make the best decision for them.
00:32:19.120And but I just want to make sure that people are making decisions consciously and they're doing it because they want to put it towards their values and not something that society tells us.
00:32:30.620Because I know that renting definitely has this stigma in North America.
00:32:34.580We discovered that when we went to Spain and when we went to Germany, that was not the case in Europe.
00:32:38.700But in North America, it is one of these adulting checkboxes that you have to check off.
00:32:44.600And especially after you have a kid, my parents were putting a lot of pressure on me to buy a house because they didn't understand that putting money in the stock market, they think that's risky.
00:32:55.360And if you don't check off that adding adulting box of buying a house, then people will kind of look down on you and think, oh, you're going to be a renter for life.
00:33:02.940Like, you know, you're not really an adult until you buy a house.
00:33:06.120I just I don't think that makes any sense whatsoever.
00:33:08.080It really is about what your values are and making sure that the math makes sense so that you don't shoot yourself in the foot and have to keep working in order to feed all these expenses.
00:33:19.560And it takes time away from the things that you want to do, things like passion projects, spending time with your kids, traveling, whatever that is.
00:33:28.360So we're definitely not dogmatic about not buying a house, but the numbers have to make sense.
00:33:43.000OK, OK. So still definitely not school age. So what are you guys doing for child care?
00:33:47.460Yeah. So based on what you're saying, a lot of your listeners are very interested in making work more flexible.
00:33:53.080And that happened also as a result of the pandemic. People realize that there's more ways to go remote.
00:33:57.540And so the fact that we can work on passion projects now, like sometimes we do have to write a book and sometimes we have to do editing.
00:34:04.100And so we use a combination of co-working space slash child care.
00:34:09.400So this became popular after the pandemic where kids parents had to take kids out of school anyway.
00:34:14.880So they popped up so that it's a it's a co-working space that has a daycare and you can pay by the hour.
00:34:21.020So instead of a fixed cost, like I have to pay every month and I have to sign up to this daycare.
00:34:25.440You just pay for exactly what you need for the hours that you need to work.
00:34:29.520And then we also do a combination of international daycare.
00:34:32.860So we tried out daycare in Spain. That's another thing where you can do daycare for a month, like however long you need it for. And we found that it's so much less expensive than in North America. We were in Spain and it cost 30 euros for one day. And it's also more flexible in that you can choose to do however many months you want. It's not like a year-long commitment.
00:34:56.200So I think the key here is if you can make your work as flexible as possible, then it significantly reduces the cost of child care because you're paying for what you need rather than being forced to pay per month and then securing it for multiple years.
00:35:10.740Right, right. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, in America, the entire daycare infrastructure would collapse because it's not at all supported or helped by the government if we did allow people that level of flexibility.
00:35:27.100I remember when I first became a mom and so many of the daycares, you pay for them year round, like even when, you know, your kids aren't there.
00:35:35.180And I was horrified at this, horrified.
00:35:37.860I was like, I don't I don't want to pay for the days my my kids aren't there.
00:35:48.380I want them to have full time jobs and job security.
00:35:52.100And that was literally the only way these places could do it because they had no other support.
00:35:57.100I think it depends because the places that we go to for co-working, it's actually a different license. So daycares, you actually leave the child at the place and then you leave for the day. For co-working spaces, they're actually child minders. So it's a different system in terms of like the type of licensing they have to get. So it's actually less expensive for them to run.
00:36:15.820And definitely there's definitely a systemic problem in which daycares are very expensive and these co-working child care spaces, which does exist in Canada and the States, they're up and coming in the future.
00:36:27.980So one of the things that we have to take care of going forward is there's a systemic issue that needs to be resolved.
00:36:34.020And we can't change that at the moment, but we need to gradually work towards something that is more helpful for parents.
00:36:40.120And in the meantime, there is the fact that daycare is temporary. I guess we forget about that a lot because it's a shock to the system that you think, oh my God, this is a cost that's an ongoing cost. And I'm going to put that into the USDA number of how much it costs to raise a kid. And I'm going to need like hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it is temporary. And once, like you said, you're so relieved that they go to public school, that cost goes away once they go to public school.
00:37:08.540So it's not a forever cost. And it's something that needs to be addressed going forward from a systemic problem, from a systemic issue, a systemic issue. But it is not a forever cost. And one of the things that we do is we do the calculation in the book about, does it make sense for you to keep working, even if your salary, entire salary is being eaten up by daycare and the results actually may surprise you?
00:37:33.880Yeah, I'm always so, so curious about that. I mean, especially for women, it is really hard to leave the workforce and then go back to the workforce in the same position, at the same level, at the same salary that you were at before if you leave.
00:37:50.880I do think that's changing. I do think that a lot of things are often more flexible now.
00:37:58.000Again, the shifts in the economy, a lot of it is not good, what is happening now. But I do think
00:38:05.180that there is more flexibility in terms of reinvigorating and reinventing your career
00:38:10.480after what my friend Neha Roosh likes to call a pause. But it can still be terrifying to say,
00:38:19.020oh my gosh if I drop out completely can I ever get back to where I was before I think that is
00:38:25.040yet another one of the myths that we tell ourselves though absolutely I just think yeah
00:38:30.520before I became a parent I didn't know um so much how unfair the workload was for for a mother versus
00:38:38.180a father and like the amount of breastfeeding at the time I had to spend doing breastfeeding
00:38:42.480and just like trying to split myself in two to be able to keep some of my identity but also be
00:38:47.520there for my son. And then there's this biological need to, you know, always just, I need to
00:38:53.000sacrifice myself for him. And like, I'm no longer a person and it's not healthy going forward that I
00:38:59.500need to be able to balance that. And yeah, we need to ask ourselves whether making, giving up our
00:39:05.560career is really worth it. But at the same time, we really want the best for our children as well.
00:39:10.660And it makes sense that it's really an identity shift that when we go back to work, is it going to be the same?
00:39:20.300And we kind of have to mentally shift how things are going to be compared to our expectations that once we have a kid, everything will be the same and our career is not going to take any hit.
00:39:30.180And it may not, but it really is an identity shift.
00:39:33.580Just like when you're traveling with kids, I always think, oh, when I'm traveling, everything is going to be the same and I just have this kid with me.
00:39:39.880But everything is different. All the places I used to love, I don't love anymore.
00:39:43.960And the places that I was not interested in all of a sudden became very interested in because it has all this family, all these amenities for families, has all these playgrounds.
00:39:52.880Just like the career, you really have this mental shift of how do I divide myself in two and be a mom, but also be a person and have my career as well.
00:40:03.580Yeah, I remember before I had kids, I was like, I'd never go to an all inclusive resort. And now I'm like, that sounds so nice. Having someone plan all of those things for me. And then maybe having childcare there where they'd like to take my children away from me for a while. Also sounds really lovely.
00:40:20.580yeah we feel the same way about like stuff like cruise ships like cruise ships that uh cruise
00:40:26.380ships that have like embedded child care like we would never set foot on a disney cruise before
00:40:29.980as a couple because we're like oh my god screaming kids but now we're like hey you can just drop the
00:40:35.020kid off at like daycare and then go off on an excursion and then come back later and pick the
00:40:38.800kid up we're like that sounds amazing i know my husband is still anti disney cruise and i'm like
00:40:43.960not me i'll go i'll go any day i'll go without you any day of the week you go yeah leave yeah
00:40:49.780leave him back yeah yeah exactly i'm like well i'm like i just love built-in structure for kids
00:40:55.740when traveling we hire babysitters and sometimes even nannies when we take a long a long trip and
00:41:02.680because we are people that still love to travel and we're trying to figure out how to take a whole
00:41:07.320year abroad with the kids and what that would look like are you guys hoping to continue to have
00:41:13.380a nomadic existence as a family oh god yes one of the things we also learned as parents is that
00:41:21.140the kid is constantly changing so not not to plan any not be so fixated on planning and scheduling
00:41:27.140like we used to be before having him um so we're kind of just playing it by ear and we're trying
00:41:31.820out different types of lifestyles and see which one is the best fit for him and what's it what's
00:41:35.820the best fit for us going forward uh what we we discovered was interesting when we started um when
00:41:41.700we had a nomadic life for three months in Spain was how much better we are treated as a family
00:41:46.860when we have him compared to before. So the first time we went to Barcelona as a couple,
00:41:52.400they did not like tourists. They were just like, please go home. There's just so many of you here
00:41:57.020already. Why are you here? Like, you just get that sense that, especially when you go to any
00:42:02.080of the touristy areas, they're just like, just go home. Please don't. Don't come here. We are
00:42:05.980already so crowded. Just go home. But then when we actually brought him, because he's such an
00:42:10.120outgoing kid and he learned some Spanish. So he would like say hola to random people on the
00:42:14.420on the subway and in the parks. And they were so much nicer to us. They really we really loved
00:42:19.760Barcelona because they were especially the playgrounds that we started noticing so much
00:42:23.420more than before. We went to the Sagrada Familia and then there were three playgrounds within a
00:42:29.660stone's throw. The playgrounds are all really amazing, really well kept. People were super
00:42:34.520nice to us. They were constantly playing with him. So it really changed our perspective. And
00:42:38.620you get treated very differently because I think people are very happy that you're bringing your
00:42:43.180kid to their country because they're like, oh, you want him to see how our culture is. You trust us
00:42:49.160for his safety that you're bringing a tiny kid to our country. So I've noticed that a lot of things
00:42:55.120are very different when you're traveling and it's a lot harder, but you also get treated very
00:42:58.760differently depending on where you go. Yeah, no, it's true. It's true. We've gotten to a place
00:43:03.020where we actually really enjoy traveling with our children. It costs so much money to travel
00:43:08.980with three children, though. It is just, we use all the points. We use all the points and it is
00:43:15.040still insanity. Does your book have travel tips for parents? Oh, absolutely. One of the things we
00:43:21.220absolutely love is home exchange. So we basically pretty much stopped using Airbnbs completely
00:43:26.800because of home exchange. It's this wonderful platform that's actually existed way before
00:43:31.800home exchange but it's just people don't know it as well so it seems like it's new sorry way before
00:43:36.760airbnb and people don't know it as well so they think that it's new um it started it's actually
00:43:41.320uh i got the idea from watching that movie the holiday because they had the kate winslet was
00:43:46.740like switching homes with um i can't remember the other uh i can't remember the other character
00:43:51.220of course with cameron diaz yes cameron diaz yes they were switching homes in like la and uh and
00:43:56.420the uk and then so i started researching into home exchange and we've been using it for three years
00:44:01.540now. And it is amazing because it's this concept of the actual sharing economy. I like what Airbnb
00:44:08.940has turned into, which is kind of more like there's a lot of ghost hotels now. You're not
00:44:12.540actually staying in people's homes. This one, every single one of them was actually someone's
00:44:16.040home. And we met a lot of the hosts. We took them out to dinner. And how it works is so you swapped
00:44:22.080homes with someone, but they made the system very sophisticated so that, you know, just in case you
00:44:26.960don't have the exact same schedule or your destination, their destination, that's not
00:44:33.140where you want to go. They made an IOU points system in which someone can give you points
00:44:38.680to stay in your apartment or house. And then you take those points and then you spend it somewhere
00:44:44.160else. So there's no money that changes hands. The only cost is the cost of administration that the
00:44:49.280platform takes. It's about 200 US dollars for the entire year. And other than that, there's no money
00:44:54.100that changes hands. It's basically one of these reciprocity community-based platforms in which
00:45:02.280is full of travelers and we have saved to date around $40,000 to $50,000. I love that. Yeah,
00:45:09.840we did a home exchange when we lived in San Francisco and we went to Barcelona with our son
00:45:15.240who was about a year old. We swapped with a family who also had a kid the same age. So they had all
00:45:20.860the kids stuff and they used our kids stuff we used their kids stuff it was absolutely idyllic
00:45:25.740and for some reason we've never done it again and i do not know why
00:45:28.500but yeah what you mentioned is actually one of the big advantages of of doing this as a family
00:45:34.460with home exchange because if you find a family with a similar uh with the similar kids uh with
00:45:39.920a similar kid's age yeah you get like they have all the stuff like already set up for you you
00:45:44.320don't have to worry about like baby proofing because they've already done it and then there's
00:45:47.040the same uh is true for when they come to your area so it's like yeah it's like traveling with
00:45:53.580the kids um you know a couple things really just did change one is uh the platforms that we use
00:45:59.160changed completely before we would travel and we would use mostly uh airbnbs because that made the
00:46:04.060most sense for us second we really needed to slow down the pace of travel uh when we were traveling
00:46:09.100as a couple and living nomadically we would be like switching like cities every week and then
00:46:14.760now we have we have to um and then now we have to know that we come down into a city and then we
00:46:19.440have to stay there for at least a month in order to kind of like in order for it to in order to
00:46:24.140give time to like settle in and that kind of stuff and three the destinations that you go to
00:46:29.220it's the choice of destination is really really important because depending on how um child
00:46:34.820friendly of places uh you can have a very very different experience from before you know before
00:46:39.400kids and after kids and barcelona is a really great example of that but uh so um like another
00:46:44.520place that we absolutely loved as a couple was switzerland because we went to switzerland and
00:46:49.100we were able to like hike all these like beautiful like you know swiss alps and this kind of stuff
00:46:53.020with a kid not so much because like the the infrastructure is really not set up for families
00:46:57.560as much there uh and they're just like they just like seemed grumpier when it had to do with they
00:47:02.920seemed grumpier and uh and more annoyed that to that they had to deal with uh your kid versus
00:47:09.400spain which it became the exact opposite so it really surprised us that the choice of location
00:47:14.240choice of platform and the choice of your timing really makes a huge difference whether travel
00:47:19.720with kids is a positive experience or a negative experience yeah it really it really i mean that's
00:47:26.040a whole other episode guys a whole other episode because it really does yeah before that episode
00:47:31.360it was really good you you're traveling with kids episode oh yeah with reagan with reagan that was
00:47:35.540great i mean she's a pro she's amazing uh tell everyone where they can find you and where they
00:47:40.220can get this wonderful book of yours. Yeah. So our book comes out March 3rd. It's called
00:47:45.580Parent Like a Millionaire Without Being One. And it's available wherever great books are sold
00:47:50.620near you. And you can reach us at www.millennial-revolution.com. Just click on the
00:48:00.100Contact Us link. And you can also use our workshop for free. It's on that link as well.
00:48:05.860And we hope to hear from you. Wonderful. Thanks so much for being here, guys.