Scott, Taylor and little Jovie Riding Around Town
Here are the stars Scott and Taylor
Georgiana and Taylor
Why Wait Till Age 65?
Nothing wrong or old with my generation’s contribution to retirement. As a boomer, I love what I am doing right now. This post is a testament to a time in my life where I have an opportunity to give back to society. Nothing wrong with making a world a better place than what was given to me. However, what if these great things could have been done at 50, 40 or younger?
Enter America’s youngest generation, the Millennials. They wish to do meaningful things decades earlier than the traditional age of 65. Some have quit their first jobs at 30 after an aggressive saving and investing plan. And why not? These young people have been hammered with bad news about the implications of the dwindling public safety nets, social security, and pensions. Their basic idea of living with more meaning is not just for oldsters but young adults too. They know their future is precarious, and they want to take matters into their own hands now.
I applaud them for their ideas. When I was a young adult, I felt the same way. Nobody is going to take care of me because I was not going to have children, so I better take care of business, get an education, a profession, live frugally and save what I can. I knew that I was not going to earn a high salary, but I never imagined with just frugal living and being married for 40 years that I would have a comfortable retirement! It worked, as I have plenty of financial support to not only live a comfortable retirement with my new love but feel economically and emotionally secure, and able to do things that I value, not what society expects. These young people want the same, and they deserve our support and respect.
What is FIRE?
They call it FIRE, Financial Independence, Retire Early. How will they achieve this when everybody older couldn’t? Can they support each other and become financially independent! If so, how? What support can they get to achieve financial independence at age 30, 35 or 40? They have most of the answers and its happening right before our eyes–frugal living and savvy investing.
This movement started in 2011. Enter one of the world’s most famous blogger, Canadian-born Pete Adeney, his wife and small son retired at 30 and settled in Colorado. But the entire country and the world know him as Mr. Money Mustache. MMM came on the blogosphere scene like a vengeance, so much so, the older folks don’t know what to make of his spartan lifestyle and why he is so famous. Since the launch of his blog in 2011, he attracts 1.5 million page views every month!
Without much fanfare or publicity, the usual blogger must do, he made his blog one of the world most popular blogs about finding your life through frugal living. That’s it! Of course, his timing, his brilliant content, his writing, and his massive authenticity are critical for any successful blog. But what I love about this man is that he never set out to be a competitive profiteer intrapreneur, a famous book author, or having a TV show (BTW, there is nothing wrong with these goals). His blog is not loaded with commercials either, and only a dozen links to the media that interviewed him. His message is all about helping everybody with not just their finances but helping people achieve a less stressful, peaceful, and more fulfilling life at 25, 30, 35, or even at my age 71. Living a meaningful life has no age limits.
A subsequent movement has been created following what this great man has modeled correctly. Since I have been following MMM, I subsequently heard and began following the FIRE (or only FI) movement. Luck would have it, one of their conferences was held in our back door at Joshua Tree, California last summer. Georgiana and I signed up immediately.
What is CampFI?
At CampFI (Financial Independence) Georgiana and I got to know these amazing young people and how they are supporting each other to achieve their goals. They have organized conferences all over the country. Their ideas of living a simple life, reducing expenses and investing in low-cost index funds are what I do for the last 20 years, and living frugally, and I have done all my life. While it took me a lot longer to become financially independent, these young people are learning this in their 20s and 30s. They have it all: the investment savvy, the understanding of what makes them happy, and the courage to stop the hideous spending that our American culture saturates us aggressively 24/7.
At the CampFI conference (see above photo), each morning Georgiana led a meditation for the 50 participants, and she talked a little using meditation to relax so you can get your mind in the right direction when entering the FIRE lifestyle. The lifestyle is not for wimps because they are fundamentally going against the competitive, winning take all borrow and spend consumer culture.
We older folks only dream that our younger relatives and friends would not make the same mistake that we did, starting to save and invest for retirement at an older age. But they are going a lot further than we ever imagined. I love them so much when a fund-raising opportunity came around for me to help support their documentary. I jumped in right away with my donation. While I said that they are all about making the world a better place by becoming financially independent and doing what you love, hit home with me. My donation is an opportunity to make the world a better place too. That’s what we all should be doing in retirement.
Me, an Associate Producer! I love it!
Promoting the Film on the Podcast “ChooseFI”
Last fall, the Executive Producers, staff, and the Director were asking for funding to support this documentary. I jumped right in with $10,000! Why? Because this community has identical life values of rejecting the powerful consumer and materialistic world and are investment savvy. What a combination! While it took almost a lifetime to discover investing, I was (and still am) an anti-consumer and a frugal individual all my life. My donation catapulted me into being an Associate Producer of the documentary, Playing with FIRE. We were invited to the premiere in San Diego. Georgiana and I had a spectacular time in San Diego going to fabulous restaurants, Coronado and La Jolla.
An Evening to Remember
I was a little nervous about the Playing with FIRE premiere. Since I am one of the Associate Producers, I thought I would be asked to say a few words to 250 people. What happened was very cool. The entire evening was a night to remember. Recall, I am very fond of these young people and how they got the simple life philosophy and their frugal goals correct at such an early age. And they are so polite! They are my tribe.
Right from the onset, one of the volunteers Jen was soooooooo welcoming, she hugged while screaming, “OMG HI!” She remembered Georgiana and me at CampFI South West in Joshua Tree last summer. Later, when it was time to get our seats, Jen came to the rescue when there was a screw-up on our tickets, we were one ticket short. Our friend didn’t have one. Jen gave her ticket without hesitation. These are the kind of people I adore.
As the audience was waiting, the cast called Georgiana and me, and another Associate Producer to the green room. The entire cast was on hand to thank the Associate Producers and volunteers. The movie was an hour-long. Scott and Taylor were intense, genuine, and had plenty of drama which naturally happens during significant life changes. The movie began with Scott and Taylor and daughter Jovie living “comfortably” in the world-famous Coronado. After hearing a podcast interview with MMM, they began thinking about retooling their lives. Difficult decisions of the responsibility of downsizing their life so that they can begin saving and investing aggressively. Taylor almost cried when she talked about how out of control her life was since she left San Diego and gave up her BMW. The documentary is more about how changing to a frugal lifestyle than about saving money. After seeing this documentary, you might understand why so many Americans live from paycheck to paycheck, no matter what income.
The documentary was as much intense as it was entertaining and informative. While the documentary never said one iota about divorce, however, their marriage was in risky territory. Their main disagreement was that Scott was ready to live the FIRE lifestyle before Taylor. Living with their parents and inlaws with a small child would be tough on all involved. But Scott and Taylor, and their loving parents earned everyone’s respect as they hung in there while going through this messy, anxious, and stressed out time. They were the most stressed about the real possibility they made a huge mistake. But what saved their marriage was reviewing their original list of what makes them happy:
Taylor’s
- Hearing my baby laugh
- Having coffee with my husband
- Cuddling with my baby
- Going for a walk
- Going for a bike ride
- Enjoying a glass of wine
- Good chocolate
- Talking to my parents and family
- Having family dinners
- Reading to my baby
Scott’s
- Reading to Jovie until she falls asleep
- Listening to music
- Enjoying libations
- Having coffee with Tay
- Spending time outdoors (riding bikes, going hiking, etc.)
- Reading
- Cooking dinner for the family
- Spending time with friends
- Playing competitive sports
- Fishing
What Makes People Happy?
Scott had written his list down first and asked Taylor to do the same (he did not show her his list). She came up with an almost identical list of meaningful activities. Surprised? In my opinion, the simple list above kept them on track. Scott and Taylor had to remind themselves by reading their lists above that they were achieving their financial and meaningful goals. From the beginning, both agreed that they wanted to reach FI so they can do the above sooner rather than later. They are in their early 30s currently. They predicted that they would achieve FI in about ten years when they are in their early 40s.
The Amazon book reviews are overwhelmingly positive (85%). Support this movie and read the book. For my book review, click here.
Below are the locations of the documentary from June 13th through July 16th, 2019:
Washington D.C.
-
Thursday, June 13, 2019
-
6:30 PM 8:30 PM
Seattle
-
Monday, June 24, 2019
-
6:00 PM 9:00 PM
New York City
-
Thursday, June 27, 2019
-
6:00 PM 8:00 PM
Atlanta
-
Saturday, June 29, 2019
-
5:00 PM 7:00 PM
Detroit
-
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
-
6:00 PM 8:00 PM
Watch the trailer: https://www.playingwithfire.co/the-documentary
For details on the location and tickets, go to the documentary website and sign up for their newsletter. Also discover how to promote this documentary in your neighborhood or in your house by inviting your friends: Playing with FIRE
Stephen’s Bio
Stephen A. Schullo, Ph.D. (UCLA ’96) taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for 24 years and UCLA Extension teaching educational technology to student teachers. Steve wrote investment articles for the United Teacher-Los Angeles (UTLA) union newspaper for 13 years. He has been featured and quoted in many mainstream media articles about 403(b) plans, including the Los Angeles Times, NY Times, and U.S. News and World Report. He co-founded an investor self-help group 403bAware for teacher colleagues and wrote 7,500 posts in three investment forums since 1997. He testified at California State legislative hearings and honored with the “Unsung Hero” award by his teacher’s union for his retirement planning advocacy.
For the last thirteen years, he serves as a volunteer on LAUSD’s Investment Advisory Committee as a “Member-at-Large” and former co-chair. The committee contains collective bargaining reps from the unions and monitors the district’s tax-deferred retirement plans, 457b/403b, of 55,000 former and current LAUSD employees, worth $2.8 billion in total assets.
He started this blog in 2012 to help all PreK-12 public school educators nationwide, especially his Los Angeles Unified School District colleagues. He belongs to a small national group of 403(b) advocates (mostly teachers) who want to bring closer attention to the 403(b). During the last 25 years, 38 newspaper articles have been published and each one says the same thing, TSAs (Tax Sheltered Annuities) are terrible 403(b) plans and the salesperson gets the benefit from lucrative commissions and high costs. Nobody in educational leadership reads these articles NOR talk about the proper place for annuity products publically. We come together at 403bwise.com. Come on over if you want to join us so we can help our colleagues avoid these self-conflicted retirement plans, TSAs.
During the last 3.5 years, Steve had suffered his worse loss in his life when his husband Dan of 40 years suddenly died. He writes in this blog the healing process which eventually led him to have a wonderful loving life again with Georgiana.