Becoming a Financial Samurai with Sam Dogen #535

Happy Independence Day! We’re marking the occasion by talking with Sam Dogen- one of the pioneers of the Financial Independence Retire Early movement. Sam is the founder of Financial Samurai which he founded over 10 years ago. He retired at age 34 after a career at Goldman Sachs, but then came out of retirement as retired life was a bit too boring for him! He has written over 2,100 articles at his site and now his new book “Buy This, Not That” is about to be released very soon which is an excellent guide on how you can optimize your money to build wealth and live life on your own terms. During this episode we talk about why Sam isn’t a huge fan of the 25x rule, maximizing your earning potential, engineering a layoff- we’re excited to talk about all of that and more today!

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Daily Serving by Trillium- and thanks again to Sean for sending this one our way! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

 

Best friends out!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am
Matt and today we're talking about becoming a financial Samurai
with Sam Dogan. That's right, Sam Dogan. He is the

(00:28):
founder of Financial Samurai, which you probably had heard of, uh,
and he is joining us today. Sam was one of
the pioneers of fire back when he started writing at
Financial Samurai over ten years ago. He retired at age
thirty four after a career at Goldman Sachs. But then
actually he came out of retirement because retired life was
a little too boring for him. But he has written

(00:48):
over twenty articles at his site and now his new
book By This Not That it's about to be released
very soon, which is an excellent guide on how you
can optimies you your money to build wealth and live
life on your own terms. And yeah, I'm looking forward
to talking about financial independence, about maximizing your earning potential,

(01:09):
engineering a layoff. That's something that he that we're gonna
get to. We're excited to talk about all of that
and more today. And by the way, we're gonna give
away several copies of Sam's book By This Not That, uh,
And so stick around to the end of the episode
to learn how you can enter to win one of
those copies. But Sam, thank you so much for joining
us today. Hey guys, thanks so much for having me Sam.

(01:30):
We're pumped to talk to you man. And the first
question we ask everyone out of the gate is what
their craft beer equivalent is. And that's because Matt and
I love craft beer. We spent a lot of money
on it while we're trying to be good with our money,
save and invest for the future. So, yeah, do you
have something like a craft beer equivalent in your life? Yeah?
So craft beer equivalent would be chlorine tablets or chlorine granules.

(01:53):
You know what that is for It sounds like the
opposite of a splur sounds I am very confus used.
I cannot wait to keep these are all about. Yeah,
there you go. So I get a bottle of chlorine
granular tablets once every three weeks maybe, and I dump
them into my hot tub every other day to keep

(02:14):
the water clear and clean. So that is the absolute
best splurge I've ever spent. This was six years ago.
I spent fifteen dollars to buy hot tub, set up
the level cement platforms, set up the electronics, and then
just go with it. So that is my splurge. How
often are you using that hot tub? So I go
about three times a week, and then since the pandemic started,

(02:36):
I've been going about four or five times a week,
and it's been a great outlet for my son. And
I had a bond because the hot tub is actually
at a rental property, but half of the rental property
is open, and so it's kind of like our sanctuary,
our escape. Oh so it's like, Okay, I see what
you did here. This is an investment. You got to

(02:58):
run off those expenses. It's definitely an investment and there yea.
Hey that's important man. Okay, So Joe, you gonna gonna
pull the trigger. Joel always talks about getting a hot
tub like pool my kids love. Just two years ago,
you thought about getting one of the inflatable hot tubs.
I tried on Black Friday, Sam, there was one of
those inflatable hot tubs on Walmart site for like, listen,

(03:19):
two hundred bucks. But I'm a little hopped on at
seven PM when it was supposed to be on sale
and it was sold out to jerk the rug out
from money, Yeah exactly, Yeah, I was bumped but maybe
I need to like go all out and get one
of those nice ones, like Sam Scott, you gotta get out,
you gotta go big and get the hardwired hot tub
with the twenty jets whatever. That is so worth it. Okay,
Well if I if I proceed, I'm gonna reach out

(03:41):
to you for with some questions to get you that
Cadillac of hot tubs. Sam. So you first started writing
about financial independence, I feel like before it was even cool, uh,
way back in the day. What is it that inspired
you to pursue that that lifestyle and to start documenting
it all way back in two thousand nine. Yeah, So,
I started working at Goldman sax In and they required

(04:03):
me to get into the office at five thirty in
the morning. And it wasn't just getting in a five thirty.
I had to stay back beyond seven pm every night
to connect with Asia because the Asian markets were opening.
And so I knew right then and there in after
one month, I couldn't last, you know, for hopefully until
I was aged forty. I like, beyond that, there was

(04:24):
just no way to have a multi decade career in finance.
And I mean, you know, I gained weight, I got sciatica.
You know, I was just always stressed, and so I decided,
you know what, I'm gonna try to invest and save
as much as possible the first month from work so
that one day I could escape. And so in two

(04:45):
thousand and nine, July is when I started financial Samurai,
because I had been putting it off since two thousand
and six after I graduated from business school part time.
And July two tho nine was the bottom of the
global financial crisis, and I lost thirty five pc of
my net worth in six months. That's you know, that
took ten years to build. And I just felt like
a dummy, and I felt, you know what, there's gotta

(05:06):
be a better way to get out of this. And
writing was Mike Catharsis, Okay, So yeah, it was like
partly Catharsis, part documentation, and I, I just I'm curious
to seeing your network dropped by something like other people
in like today's market might be feeling something like you
were feeling back then. They might have seen, you know,

(05:26):
their their their stock market holdings dropped by if if
they're heavily exposed to crypto, potentially more so, Yeah, how
would you how would you talk to talk people through
maybe an experience like this. Since you've kind of dealt
with it firsthand and have recovered handsomely well, the important
thing to do is learn from your experience. So investing

(05:47):
is a long term game. It's a psychological mind vendor.
The person who lasts the longest and is the most
calm usually wins because over time, right you see stocks
go up ten percent a year, real estate is up
unlevered about three to four and a half percent a
year just on average, So you know that over a
ten twenty year period, you're probably gonna be fine. It's

(06:08):
the people who wig out and just sell and just
get out of things when things are crashing that generally
end up regretting it over time. So the key right now,
let's say in two you're down huge on your investments,
is to understand what your risk tolerance is. And it's
a wake up call. If you feel bad right now,

(06:29):
horrible that you're losing whatever you're losing, then it's probably
because your risks exposure is too high and you have
to adjust that downwards. So over the two thousand dot
Com bomb, the two thousand and eight two thousand and
nine financial crisis, I've been able to hone my net
worth asset allocation to match my risk tolerance. And everybody's
risk tolerance is different because everybody's goals and DNA are different, right,

(06:54):
And so you've got to use this as an opportunity
to figure out what your risk tolerance is and net
worth asset allocate apprope really yeah, So, Sam, you know
like you're focused in the new book. It it centers
around spending, and you say that like most folks, they
get told about the saving side of the equation, but
that we're often lost when it comes to knowing how
to actually spend our way to wealth. Can you explain

(07:16):
to to listeners what you mean by that? Right, So,
there's only so much you can save, but the income
side is unlimited. All the wealthiest people in the world
didn't get super wealthy by saving their way to wealth,
but by making more money, building more equity, building companies
and businesses. So it's really going from a defensive approach,

(07:37):
which I think should be a given saving budgeting, to
an offensive approach where you can get your vacuum money
vacuum cleaner and then just soak up as much money
as possible in the world. Because truly, there's trillions and
trillions of dollars for the taking, And it's a mindset
you have to say, I too deserve to be rich.

(07:58):
Why can't I stop up all this money as well?
So it's really about thinking on the offense rather than
the defense. Yeah, well, you talk about the root of
inaction in your book and you say that, like that
part of the reason so many of us don't take
action when it comes to investing is because we desire
absolute certainty. So in your mind, for folks who are

(08:21):
like I would love to invest, it just feels a
little risky. How how can we overcome maybe that tendency
that so many of us have towards inaction, towards really
kind of standing pat right. So it's important to realize
that the fear in your head is often worse than
the reality. And the other point to know is it's
important to think in probabilities, not absolutes. So what do

(08:45):
I mean by that? When you think in absolutes you
short change yourself. You think you need a hun certainty
to go ask out that girl or boy, You need
a hun certainty to apply for that job or bid
on that house before proceed And what a shame because
you will likely miss out on so many opportunities. So instead,

(09:06):
I encourage you to think in probabilities using a seventy
thirty decision making framework. And this decision making framework can
be used for investing, for having children, for doing a
lot of tackling a lot of life's biggest dilemmas. And
the Frameworkers says, if you believe there's a seventy percent
probability or better that you will make the right choice,
you go for it while having the humility in knowing

(09:28):
that thirty percent of the time you're gonna make the
wrong choice, but that's okay because you're gonna learn from
that choice and make better decisions going forward, right. I mean,
I guess the problem there, though, is that it's difficult
to determine when you are kind of crossing that seventy
percent threshold, right, and so so much of this, I
mean it kind of comes down to you as an

(09:48):
individual to kind of weigh the risk to kind of
determined to figure out on your own that like, Okay,
you know this, this feels like something that's seventy I
think that's the pushback. I think a lot of folks
might say that why. I get that theoretically, I get
that as a principle, but in practice I think that
can be difficult, right, right, So there's two ways to
approach this um. One is by making calculations. Making calculations

(10:13):
for everything, whether it's from the NBA Finals who's gonna
win by how many games? To who's gonna win the
Dog Show, to how long that marriage is going to last,
to whether you're going to get into that incubator for
your startup and so forth. And what you do is you,
before something happens, you make a prediction, and then you
write down why you think it's gonna happen that way,

(10:33):
and then sooner or later you're gonna find out the result.
And then you do a post mortem and try to
analyze why things didn't go the way it did or
why it did go. But are you sure it went
the way it did because of those reasons you highlighted
or big as is something else? You don't want to
be delusional in your thought. So this takes experience and practice,

(10:54):
really intentional practice. And that's something that I learned on
the trading for working for a couple of Wall Street
firms for thirteen years. You really need to make some
probability estimates. The other way to get around this to
overcome your fear is to listen and to read from
people who have been there before. And so that's the
whole point behind by this, not that how to spend

(11:15):
your way to wealth and freedom. Not only is it
a book about helping you achieve financial freedom in a
risk appropriate way, it also tackles some of life's biggest dilemmas.
You know, things such as should you marry for money
or marry for love, Should you live in an expensive
city um for the greater career potential, or should you
relocate to a lower cost area, should you have kids

(11:37):
later or younger? So all of these big dilemmas are
approached using the seventy framework in my book. Yeah, I
thought it was interesting that you said that people should
go to the anemic coal Smith route and always just
marry someone who's really rich and really old, and that's
what you're set for life, right exactly, And then then
you just leap frog generations of hard work and struggles.

(12:01):
It's so simple, that's the real trick. Let other people
do the compounding for you, and then you just meet
them there at the end. The easy button at the
easy button. Well one of the things too, you know,
you're talking about the probabilities, and I thought that was
a great, great framework, But it's also important probably to
think about the potential negative consequences of something that you
could do. And when, for instance, when you're talking about

(12:21):
asking somebody out on a date, and like, how bad
is the negative potential consequence of being talked about? Uh?
And I had the distinctly remember when I was, you know,
in my early twenties before I met my lovely wife,
trying and I was like so bad at asking girls out,
and I was like, finally, like what is the possible
worst possible outcome. I'm gonna feel like crap for maybe

(12:44):
twenty minutes and then I'll get over it. And so
it was one of those things where I just kind
of started with breathless abandoned to start asking people out
on dates and UH. And so that's another thing like
when you think about the worst possible outcome of not investing, man,
it is so severe that you better get started. But
when it comes to something else out the negative possibilities
might be so infantestively small that you better just go

(13:06):
ahead and do it. Yeah, A lot of about financial
independence is about having the courage to change in sub
optimal situation. So one test to see if you are
truly financially independent is to see if you can change,
to take action to change a bad situation. If you
feel you're financially independent, but you're still coming into or
getting oppressed by, you know, a terrible boss and doing

(13:30):
something you don't like, well you're probably not financially independent yet.
Well all that note about financial independence, I mean same,
can you talk about like the evolution of the fire
movement because you know, like folks who saved a huge
chunk of their income, like they existed before, you know,
the modern fire movement, but I feel that like you
kind of helped to bring it mainstream. Like what's your
take on where the movement stands right now? Well, it's

(13:52):
really interesting. So in two thousand and nine, UM, when
I helped kickstart the modern day fire movement. The basic
definition of fire is if you have enough passive income
or passive investment income to cover your basic living expenses,
then you're financially independent. So what I've noticed over time
is that definition of financial independence has changed, where there's

(14:15):
terms such as Coast Fire, Barista fire, Lean fire, and
all sorts of fire and what it is terminology has spread. Yeah,
I mean it's it's pretty interesting to watch. And what
it is is based off human psychology because it really
is hard to accumulates enough capital to generate that passive income.
It takes you know, ten twenty years, and a lot

(14:38):
of people just can't wait too long and they will
lose steam. So what has happened is instead of waiting
that long, people have created these new terminologies to help
fit where they are on their journey. Right. So for example,
if you say, let's say Barista fire is basically working
part time where you know, you get a job at
Starbucks and they provide healthcare helps supplement your chilled, chilled

(15:02):
out life. Uh. Coast Fire is is a is a
fascinating one where it talks about having enough retirement income
that if it compounds at the historical rate of return,
you'll eventually be living the good life in retirement. But
that's just defining what most people are doing right now
is just saving for retirement. So it's really a psychological

(15:24):
motivating tool to redefine what financial independence is for various
people so they can continue saving and investing for the future, right,
I mean, do you see that as a good thing,
because I mean I hear all these things that what
it does to me is it makes it sound a
little more inclusive, which in my mind, the more folks
you can kind of get on the boat, right even
though it's like, well you're not you're not totally there yet. Man,

(15:46):
you're still working a job or you're still clock in
thirty hours a week and benefits necessarily want to quit altogether,
which and so like, on one hand, I like I
kind of see it as almost like a like a
good thing because it gets folks on the boat that
they're they're thinking in that direction, even though they might
have years or even maybe decades of part time work
ahead of them. Yeah, I definitely think it's a good

(16:08):
thing to be more inclusive, because again, the journey is
very long and sometimes it can be very hard, and
it's easy to quit. I mean, how many of us
try to go on diets and then we just quit
after three months because we're like screw that, right, So
the more inclusive it can be to help people go
along on their journey, the better. It's just sometimes it
can give get a little bit funny where there's another

(16:29):
term called why WiFi so wife wife financial independence. In
other words, you know, so men, we men have really
fragile egos, and so when we leave our jobs and
we've become stay at home fathers, a lot of men,
it seems like, are not willing to say that they
are stay at home dad's. Instead they'll say they retired
early and while they have a working wife making good

(16:53):
money and providing for healthcare. So again it's that yeah,
so it's it's but you know I I I was
like for me, it's like more prior to you, whatever
you want to do to you know, help your situation,
whatever is best for your household. I think that's the
most important thing. And however you can frame it, that
means that you're going to be able to pursue it

(17:15):
with the most vigor in a way that's sustainable for
for your life. Right right, All right, Sam, We've got
more questions for you. Man. We want to specifically talk
more about fire. We want to talk about how real
estate can factor in to the financial independence lifestyle, and
then we also want to talk about debt. You've got
kind of some interesting thoughts on that, so we'll get
to those questions right after this. Alright, well we are

(17:44):
back from the break. We're talking with Sam Dougan about
becoming a financial samurai. Angel. I know you're excited to
talk about real estate with Sam here in a second.
But uh, before we move on, Sam, let's let's talk
about how you know that you've reached five How how
you know you once you reach financial independence or achieve
some sort of sense of financial freedom. Because we know
you're not the biggest fan of the coming up with

(18:07):
five times your your annual expenses, how do you suggest
that folks think about what they'll need to have saved
up in order to hit that five mark? Right? So,
the times expenses is fine. It's based off the inverse
of the four percent rule, which was started in the
ninety nineties, when you can get a risk free return
of five to six percent from a ten year bond yield. So,

(18:29):
in other words, of course you can withdraw at a
four percent rate because you were getting a risk free
return of five to six percent. But obviously times have
changed over the past thirty years, and so should we.
In my mind, it's more important to base your financial
independence number based on a multiple of your gross annual income,

(18:50):
not your expenses. And why is that because when you
base it off your expenses, there's a propensity to cheat. Right,
So let's say expenses are a hundred thousand dollars and
you want to do twenty five times to get to
financial independence. That's two point five million. But let's say
you're just tired of it all and it's just you

(19:11):
want to just get out quicker, so you just say, well,
I'm gonna do lower my expenses to fifty thousand dollars
a year. So based on twenty five times, you know
you only need to generate what one point to five million.
So with the multiple based on income, you can't cheat.
And many of us who are pursuing this, you know,
obviously by definition, are younger, right forty, And if we

(19:34):
base a multiple by income, as your income grows, as
most people's income will grow over time, you have to
force yourself to save and invest more, there's no cheating.
And so the ultimate number that I've come up with
is twenty times your annual gross income, which is a
huge number, and I know some people will get married
very mad at that. But the idea is to change

(19:55):
your mindset again from defense to offense, and once you
get to about ten times your growth annual income, that's
really when you feel like you're you're on a great
path of financial independence. So it is a stratus. Do
you do you think that number and kind of that
mindset is because you're probably more in like the fat
fire camp talking about different fire terminology. Maybe because yeah,

(20:18):
you're you're less. You're not looking forward to that Barista
fire lifestyle. That's not that's not your jam. So do
you think that's maybe part of why you kind of
come up with with that methodology. It might be, But
the good thing about multiples is that it works whatever
the absolute dollar amount is. And so again it's back
to the philosophy of focusing on income and growth and

(20:40):
less so much about budgeting and saving. We should all
be budgeting and saving, but this is like a standard
operating procedure that should be a default setting. Really, you know,
it's just changing that mindset to a number based on income.
And I think that's very consistent with my whole philosophy
of the book. Okay and okay, so when it comes
to real estate, want to talk about real estate? Matt

(21:00):
and I we talk about real estate A decent amount
on the show, we're both you know, small time mom
and pop landlords here in Atlanta have a small stable
rental properties, and we are we think it's something that
more people should consider, and we're constantly like you know,
pushing people, hopefully gently in that direction. But um, yeah,
how does real estate factor into the wealth building journey
for you? Because it could be you know, a bit

(21:21):
daunting for some folks to think about buying a single
family home or a duplex renting it out and and
you know that's kind of a part time job in
addition to your day job. Maybe, So yeah, what are
your favorite ways for folks to have some real estate exposure?
So my absolute favorite way to build a rental property
portfolio to generate passive income is to buy your primary residents,

(21:41):
get neutral real estates. You're going up and down with
the market, living it for three to five years, maybe longer,
rent out that property by another property, living it for
three to five years, maybe longer rented out, and over
a forty year career post high school to college, you
can easily build a three to four rental property portfolio

(22:03):
which will most likely pay for all your living expenses
by the time you know you're fifty or sixty, and
so that's the easiest way to do it. Another easy
way to do it is obviously to buy public rates
or invest in private real estate funds. UH. You don't
need to borrow money. You can just invest as it
is to gain that exposure as you're building your down

(22:25):
payment for your primary residence or your rental property portfolio.
For me, real estate accounts for about of my net worth,
excluding the value of my online business. And the reason
why it's so high, whereas stocks it's only about is
because I'm focused on generating cash flow so I don't
have to go back to work, and real estate is

(22:46):
something that's more stable generates higher yields. You are the
king or the queen of your asset. You can do
things to improve the asset, not only just remodeling and expanding,
but hustling harder to find better tenants to pay you
a closer to market rate. So it's a much more
stable and attractive way to go to generate income, especially

(23:08):
with the higher yields compared to stock divd and yields.
Because you don't wake up one day and see your
property down thirty You just continue to you know, collect
that rental income where it's with stocks crypto, it's like, man,
you know, look at the tech stocks they're down. Sure, yeah,
well I guess the biggest downside right too. I mean,

(23:29):
and we think people should save up. We encourage people
to do. This is kind of the nest egg that
you have to have on hand for a down payment
to buy that house. And um, and we want people
to challenge themselves to save more for a bigger down payment.
But that that for a lot of people. That's why
maybe people might go in the direction of real estate
investment trust a publicly traded reats instead of a single

(23:51):
family home or a multi family home, right just because
just because it's more accessible, right, and so it's important.
So it is daunting to come up with a ten
or twenty or thirty percent down pay and on the
value of the home. Right now, the median price in
America is like four four and fifty thousands, so you're
talking eighty to nine dollars. But it's all about perspective too,
because the first time home buyer in America is in

(24:12):
their early thirties, let's say two to thirty four. So yeah,
you know, when you're twenty two or twenty. Yeah, you're
you don't get that money usually, right, But it's about perspective.
So the average is, let's say thirty four first time
home buyer. Just try to beat the average. Maybe you
can get long by age thirty, thirty one or eight.
It's all about being understanding where other people are in

(24:35):
general with your age group. The one other thing about
the down payment is, and I talked about this in
the book, it's about, um, how do you access to
the bank of Mom and Dad as well? So here
in San Francisco, of homes we're purchased in cash and
something like first time home buyers had the help of
bank of Mom and Dad and in the past, right,

(24:55):
like if you if you just bought a property on
your own, you probably poopoo the people who leveraged the
bank of Mom and Dad. And that was me too,
I was. I was. And it's barely because I don't
even have access to that. So yeah, exactly, Yeah, I'm
like jealous. I'm like, you know, scool, you I had
to I had to cut myself to save this. You know,
I'm just jealous. Basically, you're just jealous, right, I was
just jealous. But if you think about it if your

(25:16):
parents are you know, fifties sixty seventy, they've been able
to save and invest so much and take advantage of
the massive bull market we've had. And as a parent now,
I totally understand why every parent you know I love
their child and why they want everything to be best
for their child. And if you're a responsible parent who

(25:37):
has saved invested over the past thirty to forty years,
you're probably going to die with too much money, and
so it's probably better to help your children and loved
ones while you're still alive then after you're dead, because
after you're dead, you know your children might be fifty
plus years old. So what's the point of that, right.
I completely agree with that philosophy, and I think, yeah,
there are way too many people hoping to leave some

(25:58):
sort of massive inheritance when they would be using it
in here now to help their kids and uh and
get to actually experience the joy on their kids faces
as were able to maybe buy a house that they
otherwise wouldn't have been able to. I mean and and yes,
I totally believe that as a parent, um. And the
key is obviously not to brag about it. If you're
receiving all this help from bank of mom and dad.

(26:18):
You know, it's to be humble, it's to be low key,
it's to be set helf, and to actually pay your
parents back to It's just even if they don't need
the money, I'm sure they'll feel even more great that. Wow,
you know, my kids are such responsible individuals that they
want to pay me back. Yeah. Well, when it comes
to taking out a mortgage, it's interesting because you've been
a proponent of adjustable rate mortgages, where the interest rate right,

(26:41):
it can move around after a set period of time.
So I guess I'm curious because interest rates have been
on the rise lately, so people with adjustable rate mortgages
might be shaking in their boots a little bit. How
do you feel about those those products right now? Yeah,
So I love this debate. I love this debate, and
I've been encouraging people to take out adjustable rate mortgages

(27:03):
since I started in two thousand and nine. And the
reason why is because of perspective. First of all, interest
rates have been coming down since the late nineteen eighties.
Literally it's been a forty year decline. And why is that.
It's because the world has gotten smaller. The federal reserve
boards around the country, central banks around the country have

(27:24):
become tighter, they've become more coordinated, and we better, We've
been able to better manufacture inflation. Further, with a smaller world,
you have input costs that have come down. Right, So China, India, Vietnam,
they're creating goods, They're creating goods and exporting it to
more developed countries and lowering the cost of goods. Right,

(27:45):
And this is all you're going to continue over time. Now,
sure you we're gonna have um, you know, short term
spikes in inflation and therefore interest rates as we are
experiencing right now. But right now is a special situation.
You know, we've at war in Ukraine. Who would have thought,
you know, Russia would have invade Ukraine. We had COVID
pandemic which hopefully is not going to last for more

(28:07):
than five years. And we've had massive, massive amount of stimulus,
which obviously percolates through the system. But think about it,
if you are an arm holder, you're basically borrowing money
at the shorter end of the yield curve. And when
you borrow at the shorter end of the yield curve,
the interest rate is lower. So the spread between let's
say an average thirty year fixed rate mortgage and let's

(28:28):
say a seven one ARM might be like one and
a half percent. So for seven years during that fixed
rate period, you're saving one and a half percent in
terms of interest cost for a year. So you're only
going to start losing seven years later after if the
thirty year fixed rate mortgage or a new rate mortgage

(28:49):
is one and a half percent or higher. So, in
other words, let's say you did get an ARM, I'll
just use my example. I got a seven one ARM
at two point one two five because I bought another home. Then, right,
so am I quaking in my boots? I'm not quaking
in my boots because it doesn't reset until and if

(29:10):
it does reset, there's a limit to how much it
can reset. It's not like endless reset, right, It's like
two or three percent limit, and then it only resets
at a limit a year after that. However, it's in
my opinion that inflation will ultimately moderate and therefore in
st right, So I could easily see a scenario by
three where inflation starts moderating because there's demand destruction. Right,

(29:33):
The higher prices go the less demand comes, and if
inflation starts rolling over, let's say in August, there's going
to be a decline in the bond yields and there's
gonna be a client in mortgage rates, and you're right
back to long term forty year trend. And here's the
other thing, And sorry for blabbing around so much, but

(29:53):
it's interesting. This is good. But the average person, the
median home ownership duration was about at four and a
half years before the financial crisis in two thousand and
eight two thousand nine. Today, the average homeownership duration is
closer to ten and a half eleven years. Okay, so
it doesn't make sense to take out a thirty year
fixed rate mortgage and pay a higher rate if you're

(30:16):
only going to hold your property for ten or eleven years,
or hold onto that mortgage for ten or eleven years. Instead,
it's a much more optimal financial decision to match your
fixed rate duration to the length of ownership of your home.
So if it's ten years you plan to own it
before you sell it or pay off the mortgage, then
you should match it with a ten one arm. This

(30:38):
is something I've kind of come around on because I
used to be like, oh no, no no, you've got to
do the fifteen year fix. You got to do the
thirty year fixed. But that, like you said, that assumes
that you're gonna be there for the next fifteen years,
in the next thirty years. And one thing I've realized
is that folks they like to move. There are opportunities
that draw them to different cities or two different parts
of the country, or to close closer to family for

(30:58):
just a desire for a big your or different house.
Life changes. I mean, your your wealth now will be
different from your wealth twenty years from now or thirty
years from now. To be able to match your flexibility
is actually much smarter and so and but the reality
is ninety plus percent of mortgages are thirty or fixed mortgages.

(31:19):
It's something like five to our arms. And and I
get a lot of pushback from that. But if you
live your life and you observe other people living their lives,
you will notice change in their their homes over time.
And you just have to do the math. If you
ever have doubt, just run the scenarios on the break
even point. Because I'm I'm very happy, i I'm holding

(31:40):
an arm and The other thing is you're not stuck, right, Like,
let's say when my arm resets in two thousand seven,
I'm assuming I will have some more cash. I can
pay down principle when at a time comes so that
my payment is lower, or I could sell the property.
I can do a lot of other things. So I
think the optionality of paying less and having flexibility it

(32:00):
is very valuable. That's true. Yeah, So let' let's talk
about a different kind of debt, Sam, because you say
that most of us get into debt because we want
to live a lifestyle that we don't deserve. So can
you explain what you mean by this? And how does
debt factor into someone's ability to achieve financial independence? Yeah,
if you think about how we consumed and purchased goods

(32:21):
hundreds of years ago, just a hundred years ago, we
pay mostly cash because the debt markets weren't built out yet.
But very smart and wise people have been able to
recognize that we're greedy. We want things now, and we
don't want to you know, we want to go straight
to the corner office without putting in our dues. And
that's just human nature, right. So we've created credit cards,

(32:43):
pay day loans by now pay later to get people
to get what they want what without having to be
able to afford, you know, whatever they want in full value.
And so I think getting into debt is something that
UM people really need to get out of, especially it's
consumer debt. If you have credit card debt, revolving credit

(33:03):
card debt, the average illustrated something like SEV which is
seven to eight percent higher than the average SMP five
return over since and it is also higher than the
average return UH. The illustraus Warren Buffett has been able
to generate in his career and he's one of the
top ten richest people in the world. And so if

(33:25):
you have this revolving credit card debt or consumer debt
and you're buying things that don't have a chance of
appreciating and value, I think you're doing yourself a disservice.
So you have to ask yourself how much do you
really want and you want to do you want to
get rich or do you want to make the lender
yet rich. That's the mindset. And the other thing UM
I think you're asking about is you know, debt and investing.

(33:46):
So many of us have debt, but we also want
to invest. So I have a framework called the financial
Samurai debt and investment ratio, which basically states, if you
have debt and you also want to invest, you should
use that debt interest rate as a barometer for what
percentage of your monthly cash flo you're going to use

(34:07):
to pay down that debt. So, in other words, if
you have debt at seven, you multiply that by ten
to get seventy, so you would take sevent of your
monthly cash flow to pay down debt and then to invest.
So this way you're always winning and you're always hedged. Now,
after ten percent, which is also the SPI historical average return,

(34:30):
you would allocate one of your casual to paying off
that debt because you can't really really launch if you're
getting dragged down by ten plus percent debt interest rates. Yeah,
now that makes sense. And really the only caveat to that,
I'm sure you agree is if you're getting some sort
of company match on some of those four one dollars
right where you might want to avoid paying off something

(34:52):
it's like eight or nine percent interest rate in order
to get that max that match out before you start
attacking that thing like gangbusters, right, I mean the company
matches a hundred percent return, so yes, definitely fulfilled that
return up to the match maximum and then start paying
down that debt. I mean, you want to change your
mindset to say, well, what is the return on my debt?

(35:12):
Pay down? It's obviously the interest rate that you don't
have to pay. Yeah, all right, we want to talk
about some career stuff with you, Sam, including you know,
one of the coolest things. I feel like I read
this on Financial Samurai years ago, and uh if for
some reason, it sticks in my mind more than anything
else when it comes to like the content that you've
put out, and it's about basically getting paid to walk
away from your job. So we'll talk about career advice

(35:35):
that you've got and more right after this. All right,
we are back talking with Sam Dogan and Sam, we're
gonna spend this last section talking a good bit about
career advice. We're gonna talk about how you were able

(35:56):
to engineer a layoff before we dive into that. Can
you share the story of actually about how you got
your first job. You you tell a pretty good story
in the book about yeah, scoring that that first position
there at Goldman Sacks and how it wasn't necessarily about grades,
but yeah, share how that came to be. So it
all came about because there was a career fair in Washington,

(36:16):
d C. And Williamsburg, Virginia, where the College of William
and Mary Is is about a two and a half
hour drive south or north to Washington, d C. And
so I signed up for a career fair and Goldman
Sachs said they wanted to to see me. I was like, okay,
sounds good, and so I woke up at five thirty

(36:37):
am to get on a bus at six am from
Williamsburg to d C. And nobody showed up, and supposedly
twenty five to thirty people signed up to go go
on this bus to go to d C. And so
after about forty five minutes, the driver said, you know what,
screw this, nobody's showing up. Let's go change vehicles. So
he drove me in the bus to some random shack

(37:00):
in Williamsburg and out popped a black Lincoln town car.
And then so he drove me like a shave limo
for two and a half hours to the career fair,
and I had a lot of series of tough interviews
and then I was invited to super Day where there
were twelve interviews that one day, and I thought, all right,
twelve interviews, let's rock, let's do it. You know, you

(37:21):
drink your caffeine and you go. And I felt great
afterwards and they said, oh, thanks for your interviews, let's
come back. So all told, I ended u up doing.
I believe it was fifty five interviews over seven rounds
to get my first job in New York City, and
the reason why it took so long is most likely
because I was a poor candidate. You know, they couldn't

(37:42):
fit me in the right bucket. You know. I was
interviewing on the on the US trading floor and then
the options derived of desk they made me read a
thousand page book called Options as a Strategic Investment Way.
I think it was Nate McMillan, and then they asked
me one question about what is a butterfly spread? So
that was it was like the gauntlet and so but
after you know, like about the fourth round, you're like, okay,

(38:04):
if they're not gonna hire me, and that's ridiculous. I
started feeling confident and so they finally hired me, and
then then I had to go through the mean Grinder
again about getting into Ork at five thirty and then
realizing is this what my life is going to be? Yeah,
well it's fascinating to that just your basically your pursuit
of that job, your work ethic, your your willingness to
show up when when nobody else did it set you

(38:26):
apart in a way that maybe you didn't go to
one of the schools that they typically mine. It was
not a target school at all. I mean, you gotta
show up, folks. Showing up, I really is like fifty
plus percent of the battle. You know. I promised myself
in two thousand and nine I would write publish a
new post three times a week for ten years to
see what would happen, because I I strongly felt plus

(38:50):
probability greater that something good would happen if that were
to come true. And so it's now it's been over
thirteen years, and I'm just going to continue because if
you can speak forever, you can write forever. There's so
much interesting stuff to talk about every day. Yeah. Well,
one of the things you talking about in the book too,
is you talk about how not many folks pick a
place to live based on income potential. And I love

(39:11):
that you actually dedicated a whole chapter to it in
your new book. But like, salaries in coastal cities are
often higher, but it's also much cheaper to live in
like the American heartland. So so how does someone decide
that that conundrum of where to live? And you know,
when it comes to job opportunities. Fortunately, now I guess
maybe it's a little bit easier with more work from
home opportunities. But how do you think about that? So

(39:33):
when you first start off, you're learning instead of earning,
and eventually you're gonna start earning. But when you first off,
if you don't have that much knowledge, you don't have
that much experience by definition, So you should go where
the job opportunity, the salary is the highest, the greatest,
And even if that means living in a studio apartment
with two other people in New York City because it's

(39:56):
so expensive, that's where you should go. Again, we're talking
about growing income versus saving money to generate wealth. Because look,
so many people talk about San Francisco and New York
City is they're so expensive, how do people afford to
live there? But it's it's it's economics, folks. You can't
talk about, you know, a one point eight million dollar

(40:17):
medium price home without talking about the median household income
of the buyers of those homes. Right, you have to
look at both sides of the equation, and because eventually,
eventually your income, well this is the whole will will
skyrocket far beyond the cost of living. And this is
what people don't tell you who have been able to

(40:37):
generate a lot of wealth in the more expensive places. Yes,
it costs a lot to live, to buy home, to
send your kids to school, whatever, but that income growth
is huge. People are making two thousand dollars right out
of school working at Facebook, Google, Apple, and by the
time they're thirty they're making four hundred thousand. And then
if two people shack up, they're making seven eight hundred

(40:59):
thousand dollars. So suddenly, maybe that one point a million
dollar home on a seven thousand dollar household income isn't
that expensive. So it's it's important to look at it
that way. Now, I love the heartland because of the
opportunity to invest as a real estate investor. Post COVID.
Now we're seeing much more segregation spreading out of America,

(41:21):
where you can work from home, you can go. So
if you are in a relatively senior position, people trust
you and they know you're going to do your job.
I would take advantage of, you know, relocation closer to
where your family is. Maybe you can save some money,
have a better lifestyle. Um that is that makes tons
of sense. However, here's the one thing a lot of

(41:41):
people again starting on the career of twenties and thirties,
need to be cautious about because out of sight is
often out of mind. So if you are that person
who wants to get promoted and paid and go places
and you're earlier on your financial journey, if you're out
out of sight physically in a satellite office, you might

(42:03):
be missing out on those in person opportunities. And when
it comes time to lay people off, it's so much
easier to lay people off who you don't see often,
So please be aware of that. Also when it comes
time to get a raise, like you probably aren't going
to be the first person when it comes to a
promotional raise on your manager's mind. Yeah, let's imagine a
scenario where there's a conference room, you know it's it's

(42:26):
hybrid work from home whatever. There's like five people in
the room, and then there's five people dialing in and
you see them on TV. I will promise you that
the relationships in that office are going to be stronger,
and the people who are dialing it in are probably
not going to be called on as much to participate.
And this is based on my talks. I've already given

(42:47):
talks at Google, Yelp, some other large firms and they're
talking about this dynamic now. So it depends on where
you are in your career too, and how much you
want it. Totally agree. Yeah, So, Sam, can we talk
about your experience negotiating a severance package because you basically
got paid handsomely to leave your job when you're itching
to leave anyway. Yeah, share how that went down please. Yeah. So,

(43:10):
one of my biggest failures as a financial writer and
blogger is that I haven't been able to create a
movement where if you're going to quit your job anyway
or retire early anyway, you should try to negotiate a
severance because what's the downside. You're gonna leave anyway, your
two week notice, you're just gone. Why not create a

(43:31):
win win scenario where you try to get a severance
based on your good work, your good relationships while you
help the firm find your replacement and you train your replacement.
Because I was a manager once, and every manager will
agree that losing people who have done decent work or
even just social work is really painful, especially in this
market tight labor market. Right. So my my story is essentially,

(43:56):
in two thousand eleven, I was really burned out from
finance financial crisis. You know, the correlation with effort and
reward was no longer there, and so I really wanted
to get the hell out of finance. You know, it's
just enough, twelve years enough, and I really liked financial
Samurai and just writing and connecting with people online. So
after I got a Bagel bonus in twenty eleven, I

(44:19):
was like, you know what, this is really not worth
it anymore. I got to find a way out. And
I recognized from you know, basically we were going through
like three to five rounds of layouts almost every year
for a couple of years. I recognized that people were
getting laid off with pretty decent servance packages, you know,
based on two to three they were getting paid two

(44:41):
to let's see, two to three weeks of pay for
every year worked. And also they were getting their deferred
cash and stock compensation. So in finance, there was more
senior you rise, the more of your compensation, your your
arin bonus will be in deferred cash and stock. So
it's like a golden cancuff. So you you can never
eve right because there's no like retirement part of your pensions.

(45:03):
And so if you quit your job in finance, just
like if you quit your job in tech or any
industry that provides deferred compensation, you tend to lose it all.
And so after being in my one firm for eleven years,
I had three years of deferred compensation and generally I
got paid thirty five percent of my total compensation in

(45:25):
deferred compensation. So in other words, I had like a
year of deferred a year of income that I was
just gonna lose, and that was in the hundreds of
thousands of dollars. And not only that, the company forced
all employees to invest a portion of their bonus in
the toxic assets of all these mortgage backed securities to
get that off the company balance sheet, and which was

(45:46):
I think a really smart and wise move that we
all shared the pain. But those investments in turned out
to be multi multi baggers and if I left that,
I would have lost that as well. And so the
bottom line was I was able to to my manager
and talk to my HR person and say, hey, look,
you know these are tough times right now, and I've

(46:06):
hired my replacement. I'll do whatever it takes to train
him make the transition as seamless as possible, if you
can reward me with all my deferred compensation and a severance.
And it took about a month of going back and forth,
and ultimately I convinced them to let me go and
pay me out. So it's exactly the opposite of trying

(46:28):
to convince someone to hire you and pay and promote you.
But it's actually the same because it's actually about understanding
what the other side needs. The other side, you know,
they would like to cut the salary and conversation of
a director like myself whose heart was no longer in it,
to promote and pay less a younger person, and then

(46:49):
to move on. So it was it was great win
win situation, and it's better. It's just easier emotionally to
act somebody who who wants to leave than to like
find somebody who's like yes, it's the hardest thing to it.
It's one of the hardest things to lay people off.
And if someone can volunteer to get laid off when
you have to lay someone off anyway, it is a
huge relief on the managers, uh, Psyche. And so I

(47:12):
really hope that more people if they're going to leave
their job anyway. You know, I think actually giving a
two week notice is kind of cruel because what are
the chances that you know, your boss, your colleagues are
going to find your replacement within two weeks that's good,
and you know your colleague is gonna be left holding
the bag where they got to do all the work.
So my transition out took a couple of months because
I was trying to help make things smooth. Yeah, I

(47:35):
like that. One. One of the other things you mentioned
briefly in the book too, is that there are additional
benefits to getting laid off as opposed to quitting or
getting fired, whether it's governmental benefits, U and so cobra,
things like that. So those are important things to think about.
But I guess I want to ask you about this
this situation because you were in a kind of an
interesting job that most people they might think Okay, cool,

(47:58):
maybe this works in high finance, But isn't that sort
of an outlier scenario? U? Yeah, what would you say
to that person and can they make this a reality
in their kind of everyday sort of work wherever wherever
they're at. So I would say anybody who has uh
the courage to confront their manager or hi person to
try to get laid off is an outlier. But I

(48:20):
think we're all outliers if we want to do something
different or special. I would say everybody has the ability
to negotiate a severance because everybody has emotions, everybody has needs.
Paying a serverance is voluntary. The warn Act pay, which
a lot of people confuse with a servants, is actually law.

(48:41):
If you're a big company, you have to give severance
in the form of warn Act pay, which is mandatory
one to three months of pay. A severance is voluntary.
So let's just put I don't know myself as an example,
I have a hard working employee. I'm a private company.
I don't have to pay a severance. Let's have a
great employee five years just added so much value, so,

(49:03):
you know, always nice, great, friendly to work with, easy,
and they say, Sam, you know I I gotta move on.
I got another opportunity. You know, thanks so much. Is
there anything I can do? Um, you know, maybe get
a severance or something. It's like a going away gift.
If I like that person and they try to help
me find their replacement, I'm happily giving them a severance, because,
if you think about it from a corporation's point of view,

(49:26):
a severance the amount is not huge in terms of
the overall earnings, but the good will is huge. It's
about treating people well so that it can attract more
people in the future. If you're like a big employee.
One of the biggest actually for all companies, one of
the biggest fears is gaining a bad reputation as a
bad place to work, as a place where they don't

(49:46):
treat their employees with respect, as disaster with social media
and everything, you know, I mean, if I want it,
I can blow people left and right with my platform, right,
I mean, that's you don't want to do that, but frankly,
anybody can do that right now. So it's really about
create um that that collegiate atmosphere, collegial atmosphere and creating
win wins with situations and anybody can do it in

(50:07):
any kind of job setting. It might not be a
specifically like a severance. I mean it could be you
know what you can how about you work four hours
a day for the next three months. That's kind of
like getting double pay for three months. Or how about
just come in two days a week and you know,
just do hybrid two days a week and then take
Friday off. You get three day weekend every every weekend

(50:27):
for one year. That's kind of like a severance because
it's about creating matching a scenario of demand and supply
as well. Yes, not black or white. There are a
lot of options out there, not black or white. Everything.
Every problem is there, there's a solution, there's a more
optical solution where both sides can win. And that's what
I encourage people to do is always think about the

(50:48):
other side so you can make a better situation for yourself,
totally make it win win for for both parties involved.
With all the talk about severance, Sam, did you happen
to watch the TV show Severance on Apple TV? Yeah,
I've watched the first episode, so I'm actually gonna watch more.
But I gotta sign up Joel both so you got
to get that first episode get so good, and uh,

(51:10):
I mean, I'm sure it's gonna kig. I'm not taking
that show. I just finished Peaky Blinders season six. I
gotta do the severance. Well, San, thank you so much
for joining us. Man. Where where can folks learn more
about you? Well? Obviously at Financial Samurai dot com. I'm
gonna go ahead and say it, but where can folks
learn more about your books? Specifically, you can buy buy this,
not that, How to Spend Your Way to Wealth and

(51:31):
Freedom anywhere that they sell books, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles,
Powells Books, Indie Books, and at your bookstore. It's coming
out July. I think that's it's gonna be the best book.
And obviously I'm biased because it not only talks about
helping you achieve financial freedom based on real life experience
and examples, but it really tackles a lot of life's

(51:53):
biggest dilemmas. What's the point of money, right is to
live a better life and to look back with no regret.
So I really think you guys love it? Yeah? No,
well we enjoyed reading it, Sam, and yeah, we think
how the money listeners are gonna love it too, So
Thank you so much for taking the time out of
your day to join us. We appreciate it man, And yeah,
I hope to talk to you soon. Thanks so much, guys,
I really feel honored that you have me on. Well, Sam,

(52:14):
we are honored to have had you on the show today.
Thanks again for joining us, Joel Man. Great conversation here
with the financial Samurai. The man himself, Sam was one
of the o g uh he he was just on
the space. He was on the scene very early on
when it came to folks who were writing about personal
finance and specifically on you know, about the different ways

(52:35):
that you can achieve some sense of financial freedom. So
it was really cool to have him on today. But yeah,
what were your Did you have a big takeaway from
this episode? I think maybe I know, there's a lot
of great stuff for sure, and I love the way
so I'm Sam talks about engineering a layoff, and I
just think that's like such beneficial advice for so many
people who are interested in changing careers or just tired
of their job and want something different and they want

(52:57):
maybe a little bit of peace out money to to
help them navig eight uh those few months in between
finding something else, but I think I don't know. The
main thing that that stuck out to me talking to
him was when he said investing is a psychological mind bender,
and he said stay calm um, And basically what he
said was that the fear is worse than the reality itself.
And I think it's true. I think it's very true

(53:18):
that we get fearful and we let that fear override
the reality of the situation. Um, we we we let
our emotions overly influence our behavior. So I think, yeah,
staying calm is staying reasonable in a time where everyone
else is running around like chickens with their with their
heads cut off. I think is is sage advice and

(53:38):
it's something that we should all be following during this time.
There is no need to look at your account balance
every day or every week. There's no need to read
the headlines. And the calmer you can stay in the
midst of chaos, the more wealth you're gonna be able
to build. That's right. Yeah, you just set up fear
is bigger than the actual reality, and so all parlay
that into negotiating that severance. And one of the things

(54:01):
that took out to me was that in reality, for
a business. We're not talking about a large amount of
money in the grand scheme of things, and you know
when you're taking the zoomed out big picture look at things,
but the amount of goodwill that you are fostering by
working with your boss or your manager or your employer
to make sure that they're not the ones left holding
the bag, because a lot of times it's not. It's

(54:22):
it's less about the money, and it's more about the work.
It's more about the different tasks. It's more about the
client relations that you have, and if you are able
to make that transition stretched out over a period of time,
or if there are just some ways that you can
make that happen more smoothly, like he said, while you
train the new person who's going to be taking over
your role. That is worth the money, and that is

(54:43):
something that a manager is willing to pay for. And
so I mentioned that because you're you're talking about fear,
and I think a lot of times folks are afraid
to step out and do something like that. But he
positioned it where it's presumptuous, it feels presumptious, or it
feels like or it feels like maybe mean or something
like that, but what he was saying is that it's
it's seems more rude to give a two week's notice
where you're doing all right, because that seems like the

(55:04):
clean when something that it makes complete sense that that
is actually maybe a better way to go about it.
And I just want to say that I was able
to do this exact same thing. Like I read what
Sam wrote on this and I was like, dang it,
that makes a whole lot of sense. And I was
like looking to to leave, but there was a perfect
outlet to say, what if I stick around for a
little bit longer? And I helped with this transition and ultimately, like,

(55:25):
I see that you're actually trying to get rid of people,
get rid of me. And so when your employer was
better off for it though, because you were to stick around.
And yeah, I think a lot of times folks see
the two week noticed thing. I was like, Okay, that's
just how you do it. There's a reason why everybody
remembers that. I don't know, it's got a good marketing platform.
Like for whatever reason that is stuck in our minds,
that's what you're supposed to do. But in reality, maybe

(55:47):
there are some alternatives where everybody is able to win
where everybody's going to come out a little more ahead.
But yeah, that was my big take away. Uh, Foster
that goodwill with with your employer. Don't be afraid to
start having some of those conversations. But unless get back
to the beer that you and I enjoyed during this episode,
we both enjoyed a daily serving and this is a
tropical punch berlinavice. This is by Trillium. I didn't know

(56:11):
that Trillium makes Berlino vices. I think most of the
beers I've ever had by them have been I P
A s. And so this is a quite a surprise
to to be able to enjoy something so delicious that
I'm not used to these guys making. But what were
your thoughts on I think we've had like a coffee
stop from them before too, but everything we've had from
them has everything else. It's been incredible. Yeah, and and
so this one was no exception to me. If this

(56:34):
could count as my serving of daily fruit, I would
drink it every day because it is just like it's
bursting at the seams with fruit flavor and so just
incredibly juicy, luxurious amounts of fruit in this I would say,
like they must have used a ton because the fruit
vibes come forward in a big way. But yeah, again,
like everything Trillium does, I'm impressed. It's so good. Right,

(56:55):
So some of the flavors they don't like bash you
over the head all ryeah, it's just not like this
perfume kind of over the top fruit flavor. It's it's
it's real, like you can tell that there there there
is real fruit in here. And like you said, I
think that's why they called it daily serving, because it
truly is real fruit in this beer. Honestly, it kind
of reminds me of Humble Forger because they do a
really good job of incorporating a lot of that fruit

(57:16):
flavor without it feeling like this perfumey artificial fruitiness. Um.
And so I think Trillium has done an incredible job.
And this was another beer that was sent to us,
by the way, by Sean. He is up there in Boston,
I'm pretty sure, and so for him this is maybe
this is a daily thing because it might be his
daily serving. Gonna be able to enjoy something this delicious,
I'm jealous, But Sean, thank you so much for sending

(57:36):
this one. Hour away. Seriously, thanks Sean, we appreciate it.
By the way, Matt, we should announce how to enter
the book. We almost forgot that you mentioned at the
beginning of the episode. We are giving away five copies
of Sam's new book by this, not that, And all
you gotta do is be a How to Money newsletter subscriber.
If you already subscribed, you realize how glorious it is,

(57:57):
and you are already entered. Uh. But if you have
not yet subscribed, you should and it's free, and you
will get entered to win one of these five copies,
and we will mention the winners in next week's newsletter
a week from tomorrow. That's right, and you can sign
up for that newsletter at how to Money dot com
Ford slash newsletter. I love how we got that. You

(58:18):
are l just nailed right, We got it all right man.
That's gonna be it for this episode, buddy. Until next time,
Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.