S5 E17 | FIRE movement

Yo, this episode is straight fire. You're gonna want to tune in because Brittany and I are going to give you the exact path steps to once again continue reiterating this. How to gain access to financial Freedom.

J.

Money Newsom, you know that middle name.

There's a thing out there called the Fire Movement.

Fire Movement. Fire Movement, yes.

What is it and why should our listeners know about it? And what about it do you believe in? And what would you tweak?

Whoa.

Fire movies.

The tweaked. I did not expect that.

I expect you to tweak everything.

I'm tweaking.

Why would you not tweak?

I'm twerking, actually.

Tweeting. Tweaking.

Financial independence. Retire early. F I R E. The Fire Movement. That's what it stands for. And it's very Dave Ramsey esque. There's a lot of proponents.

Start it.

I do not believe so.

I don't think he did either.

No, I don't believe so. But there's a lot of components to that. The retire early portion is really. They're. They're aiming for 40 or younger, which is cool. Which is cool. I like that a lot.

Type it in the comments if you think that's cool. That's pretty cool.

I think it's cool. You know, I retired in my 20s and so did you, and I think both of those are awesome. So 40 and younger. Yes. Now, the. How do you do it? Well, frugality is a big proponent for the Fire movement. Meaning do not overspend. Live below your means. Have a strict budget. Stick on it. Beans and rice and chicken and asparagus. Meal prep all the time. Take as much money as you possibly can, let's say 50% of it, and put it into index funds. Right? Q's spy. Dow Jones. Because when it says index funds, they're the easiest to get a hold of, Right? Even if you have $12, you can put $12 into an index fund, but you can't buy $12 worth of a house. It's usually pretty tough. Now, what I love about the Fire movement is it's about education. They really, really are focused on learning self development, self growth. How can anyone in this movement of this trend work on budgeting, lowering their expenses, creating more income, and being diligent, consistent and resilient on putting a certain amount of their money towards an asset? And the truth is, it's math. That's what's amazing. Retirement, as you know, Brittany, is math. In fact, a bunch of episodes ago, you gave the exact formula for Financial freedom. And we've done it numerous times in this exact podcast. The truth is, financial independence all comes down to a pretty basic formula. Is your income more than your expenses?

Right.

And if your income is passive. Okay, here's the thing. I don't like the word passive income.

Oh, I don't. Why?

It's semi passive income. That's a better term. I don't have any passive income, like at all. All of my income is semi passive income, which means I spent either a large sum of time upfront or a relatively decent AM of money up front to then gain either some type of skill or income on the back end. But even that skill income on the back end requires me logging in to check a bank statement, me moving some money from this account to this account, me talking to someone on the phone, me emailing people on the phone, me texting people on the phone. Like there is still some level, still gotta manage it. There's some level of management. I mean, even if you have dividend from a stock, like which is the most passive income of all time, you still have to log into the broker and purchase the shares in order to get the dividend. Like there is some level of work.

It's not just mailbox money.

No. You don't just wake up and exist. And I have more money. And if you do, congratulations.

That's wonderful for you.

Amazing. That means you have an even more head start. Use it, please.

Yes. Don't feel guilty that your parents set that up for you.

Good.

The privilege word is such a waste of time.

For sure.

Understand it's a blessing. You've got a higher starting point than somebody else. Therefore you can go farther and more responsibility is required of you.

Now, Gabe knows this and we've told him he never has to work ever again. He is so set up like he's good. Guess what? 16, 15. I'm looking for jobs now he's 14. I'm a throw him in jobs ASAP. I'm not going to buy him a car.

No way.

Zero.

We are not buying our kids cars.

And I am rich and I'm not going to buy a single person a vehicle. I'll buy my wife a vehicle, cash, brand new, put in her time off the lot. No problem. I'll eat that depreciation. But my kids. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're going to buy their own vehicles.

So ruining them.

Yes. So the thing, the thing is when the aspect of fire, what I truly do enjoy about it is the discipline, the consistency, the focus, the budgeting. Here's where I would tweak, tweak it up. You can only scale expenses so much, to my knowledge. There's a level where you have to spend money on food, you have to spend money on housing, clothes, health care, so on and so forth. Like you. You have to spend some money. You can get it down to.

$4,000 a month. Maybe in America, if you have a family with kids, I mean, right, like maybe 3,000. It's somewhere between three and four, right? Like, I mean, you're. And at that point, you're living below your means, for sure. So if you have a job at Costco, Whole Foods, Publix, Kroger, your UPS driver, your mailbox.

Interesting.

Whatever you can afford. $40,000 a year, for sure. Definitely doable. Now at that stage.

Anything above that, you're taking 50%, you're investing into some asset. Your assets obviously going to be real estate. My assets can be stocks because they're easier, better, quicker, faster, more efficient.

We understand them.

But real estate's safer. And you can make it happen. You can make it work.

You know, I like control.

Yes, you do. But you can make it appreciate.

Yes or yes, I can force that appreciation.

Yes. You can buy the whole neighborhood. You're the specialist at forcing appreciation. You're a specialist at that. So can I make a stock go up? No, I'm toast. I am toast. I can't control anything. So there's balances, there's levers. You can only scale your expenses so much, but your income is exponential. There is no ceiling. Our boy Elon Musk is doing $30 million a week, give or take.

Oh, that's it.

That's it. Whatever. Subpar. Elon, keep going. Get it together. He'll be the world's first.

Have some goals. Have you done your dream week before?

I got a guy.

He'll be the world's first trillionaire. For sure. Yeah, for sure. No question. And in my opinion, at this stage, I think a lot of people fail to realize that the income can go so much quicker. If you really, really, really, really, really study something, anything, it doesn't matter what it is, study it to the nth degree and then keep going. Because at some level, someone's figured it out. If it's business, if it's sales, if it's marketing, if it's writing music, if it's. This is the tweak, this is how. This is how I'm tweaking, how I'm adjusting. It's like there has to be ways to make A lot more.

And instead of just save your way into success, you're saying make more money together faster. I agree, I agree. Saving is a very, very slow.

It's very slow. Is it guaranteed kind of gas till.

Your first flat tire, Right?

Yeah. Until things pop up.

You can pop up.

You like that. So you can do it. But I love how you said it's slow. And you can still have impact, but it's slow. If you're a person who doesn't love.

Slow, which we don't love. Just find a money will always follow value. So what Newsom's saying is to find a way to be more valuable, not, you know, blocking passwords at your compute, at your company. So they have to depend on you. That's not the point. That's. That's a douche move.

Douche move.

The point is to find more skills to keep growing and learning to where it's not like you're indispensable because you have the password. It's indispensable because you have so much innovation, so much amazing new growth you bring to the organization. And a pro tip on that quick jump on the side is if you want a raise, don't read some little self help book that says get your good suit on and walk in there and demand it. It's a real fast way to get put on the blacklist of your company for sure because they're just gonna sit there and plot, especially if you pull the gender or the race card.

Just letting you know it's not gonna work.

And a better way to do it is to go up to your boss and say, hey, I have some personal goals that I would really like to be making $60,000 a year instead of the 42 that I'm at right now. How can I create enough value within the organization to be worth $60,000 to where you're overjoyed to be paying me $60,000. I want to be that valuable to this. What else do I need to learn? What other responsibilities can I start taking on? Almost every entrepreneur's love language is acts of service. Just gonna tell you right now, fair. Almost every single one with their employees. It definitely is acts of service. You make our life easier. We're gonna keep you around, we're gonna pay you more. You ask for more responsibility. I mean, I would just like, I feel like the whole world would go.

If somebody ever asked me for more versus I'm doing too much get hire somebody else. I would just lose my mind. I'd be so happy. So they Will help you create a path to go from where you are to where you want to be. If that is your current situation, don't ever go in demanding because again, nobody owes you nothing. Money follows value. Keep going, Newsom. I don't want to cut you off.

No, you didn't. I'm a quiz you. Let's go back to the Cheesecake Factory. You know great cheesecakes. If you're in that role currently, what would you do in three months other than that pro tip you just gave the world for free, which was great. What would you do to increase your value? You're a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory. What could you really do to make so much more money?

Gosh, that's a. That's a hard question. Because as a waitress, they're making. I think I was making like $2.18 an hour before tips. But if I had been smart enough to approach my managers and ask them that question, I'm sure they could have been training me for management or giving me different responsibilities on scheduling or even told me, brittany, if you just showed up on time, for the love of God, with a clean apron, which you never wore and you weren't always having some calamity inspired excuse for why you were late, we wouldn't put you in the worst sections. If you weren't hiding in the back reading real estate books, we would have put you in better sections. You did not take your job seriously enough. Fair for us to not put you in the worst section. So yeah, you made worse tips because you're in section frickin G. Section G is the worst G and F. Everybody wants boots.

Craze. I'm tan.

Everybody wants boots.

This is a tangent.

Never got boots.

How are sections worse than some other ones?

Are you kidding me?

No, I'm not.

Everybody wants certain types of tables. And then like the bar top, first come, first serve when it's just tables sucks. It really sucks. And people only order a drink or they only order dessert. So people spend more money in certain sections. Bigger parties. Really different orders. Yeah. Come on. Yeah, you definitely. If you are. If you are really good and you're there for a long time or you aren't just late all the time or reading real estate books in the back, then they put you in the better sections.

Wow.

And so there's a hierarchy in the waitressing community.

Sure.

It's time you learn.

I did not know that. Yeah, that's. I mean, that's really interesting. But. But the piece that I would bring to that attention is I Love how Britney just said, hey, listen, here's the things I wasn't doing as an employee.

I wasn't doing it. I wasn't being excellent.

I didn't make a good employee either, by the way. Like, I wasn't, I was, I was really good when I needed to be good, but I was good as, as short of a time as possible, right? I talked about that earlier. Like, I don't want to be there longer than I need to be. Like, what's the absolute shortest amount of time I can be here that you still will pay me and I can get my work done. That's how long I'm going to be here. They knew I wasn't destined to be there for a long time. Everyone knew. Same thing with you, right? You're reading real estate magazines in the background if you like the Cheesecake Factory or you enjoy where you work, but you're just not making enough money. There is a way to do it. And this fire movement, right, they are. That proponent is a big portion of it, right? Do side hustles make extra income? Again, we've already talked about the side hustle karma. My thought process is the exact same. If you're working at a company and you are doing a fire movement, you want to make more money and retire early. Amazing. Make sure you know what you're retiring for, what your plan is, what you're doing after you're retiring. You're just playing golf all day. If so, don't do that because it's going to be bored pretty quickly.

Well, mine was a bit of a fire movement. I wanted to retire before I was 26 so that I could be a full time missionary. And so don't feel like the word retire has to be equal to doing nothing. It can be the financial freedom required to do the service that you really want to do. And that could be being a full time mom. That could be being a pastor and not never taking any of the tithe for your salary. That could be working with Aerial Recovery for free because you can and donations can go farther and sponsor more missions. Like what is the thing that you want the freedom to do? If money was no object, and people ask that all the time, what would you really do if you never had to worry about money and you have the opportunity to do that. And there are things that I believe humanity is so hungry for that this would even be called a movement. It is a movement. We're tired of being in debt up to our eyeballs.

Right?

We're tired of asking presidents to Forgive our loans, right? We're tired of being victims and it just being trapped in abusive relationships because you're depending on somebody for money. You can own your own life and your own financial situation. It's going to take education, it's going to take a plan and a fire. Movement with some tweaks is a great way to start.

Yeah, I agree. Totally agree. I think if anyone starts implementing that strategy, if you want to again become independent, that's why I like the word, right? You want to retire, like you mentioned, just find out why you're doing it. Find out the exact number. That's a big one. The universe loves clarity. And there's laws, in fact, around money, right? There's universal principles. There's universal laws that as you start understanding money at a little bit of a deeper level. For me, if anyone is in this movement.

After you get out of your job or after you retire or after your bills are in surplus, you need to start studying money at a different level. Because the way money works and the way money moves and then the future of money, these are all components of how the world is going to continually change. And if you're saying, okay, the only thing I need is if I have $4,000 of expenses, I make $5,000 passively and I'm good to go for the rest of my life, cool, but now you're still only living on $1,000, right?

So, like, what can you do for $1,000 a month? It's like, yeah, you do it well.

You've got your expenses, but the, the extra stuff is $2,000.

Yeah, precisely. So your expenses are taken care of.

So you have $4,000, you're making five. Your surplus is $1,000. To quote my girl, BFT Brittany Faith Turner, you serve no one by playing small. Congrats on being financially free. But between me and you, boo boo, you ain't helping a lot of people at $1,000 a month surplus, right? You're not. That's $12,000 a year.

Which is why your goal needs to be more than just having that cover that, just having enough. That's why I have people outline their five years from now. Where are they wanting to live? What are they wanting to drive? Not just my expenses are this today. What are your expenses in five years? And your plan needs to be in accordance with the financial independence around that, right? And on that list is your giving goals, is your impact goals, how are you wanting to contribute and or what kind of nest egg do you want to have set aside to be contributing. If you don't know yet, which I.

Love that you include that in the plan, you gotta. Well, a lot of people don't. You're one of the few that do.

Well, I just, I can't imagine not. I just can't imagine not. But that's because I have one amazing circle around me, a force for good type people that think about this in their second nature.

So when you're talking about giving, right, so the giving goal, five years from now, you want to give more. Is there metrics or, I don't know, tools, stats that you use to determine or people should use to determine who they give money to?

Yes, we have all kinds of fun tips and tricks on how to start filtering through who you're investing with. Because to me, every donation is an actual investment. And you can think of it that way because money is what, an expansion tool. So when you invest in something, it expands it. So if you start thinking of your donations as what do I want to expand in the world? What kind of good? And who is doing that good? That's what we're going to talk about in our next episode. I Broke.

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