Reframing Your Life for Financial Independence with Brad Barrett
Do finances stress you out? You’re not alone. Most of us aren’t clear about what we have to do to achieve financial independence. The average 50-year-old has about 50K in savings. Most millennials are not saving at all. The majority of family households don’t even have a budget to know what they’re spending on.
Money problems wreak havoc on our physical and mental wellbeing as well as our relationships. The best time to take control and be intentional about financial independence is right now.
Financial legend, Brad Barrett, returns to The Dad Edge. He’s the cohost of the Choose FI Podcast, the co-author of Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence, and cofounder of a financial independence movement that has spread worldwide.
Brad went from being a full-time CPA to retired and financially independent at the age of 35. Now he empowers others to design their paths to financial independence.
Today, Brad gives us simple, actionable steps you can take right now to cut expenses, save money, and build wealth without feeling deprived. He also talks about how to get your spouse in on the game to use your financial plan to bring you closer.
It’s not about what you’ll be giving up, it’s about making your life better. Don’t waste another day or another cent. It’s time to build a lifestyle according to what you value most.
Brad Barrett
Brad and his wife are both Virginia Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) and find themselves constantly looking for new strategies to make their lives less stressful and more financially secure.
Brad lives for finding smart and creative life hacks to make their lives easier and he looks forward to helping others do the same in in their lives on the path to financial independence.
Brad is passionate about everything from saving money, to living a more healthy lifestyle, to ‘boring’ things like tracking your finances and cutting down on your tax bill. But his favorite topic is leveraging credit card rewards to save more money, and take trips you never would have dreamed possible for pennies on the dollar.
What You’ll Learn
- Living a life of intentionality with freedom as your goal
- How to reframe and anchor to a 15-20 year working life instead of the traditional retirement age.
- If you look at saving and budgeting as deprivation, you’re going to be bitterly unhappy.
- Life is an experiment. Find out what makes you happy and what helps you interact best with your wife and kids.
- How to figure out what you value.
- Why you should never sacrifice date nights with your wife.
- Cutting back in less important areas allows you to spend lavishly on the things you really value.
- Cutting expenses on housing, food, and transportation
- Brad’s $2 per person per meal family dinner plan.
- Preparing food in advance to avoid scrambling for take-out or ready-to-eat food.
- How intentionality and planning saves both money and time.
- Having happy hour with your spouse at home to save the huge bar tab.
- How FI can bring you closer together as a couple, turning life into a game you play together.
- How to live the same middle-class life as everyone else without being chained to a job.
- The FIRST STEP: Get an honest understanding of what’s going on in your finances.
- Face your mistakes. Put your financial failures on paper without beating yourself up about it.
- How the money story that comes from our childhoods affects us as adults
- Think about what kind of security you need. Each person is different.
- Sit with your spouse. Ask yourselves, what do you want your lives to look like, and is your current budget going to get you there?
- Hiding or avoiding talking about your financial habits with your spouse is destructive. You don’t want to be enemies. You want to be teammates.
- Make decisions and take action. It doesn’t help to learn of you don’t act on the information.
- In the beginning, the easiest way to begin to save money is decide what to cut, like subscriptions you don’t really use.
- Bolder steps you can take like moving to a less expensive city or selling your car.
- Reframe your budget mindset as a path to a better life.
- Think about how you can earn more—start a side hustle, ask for a raise at your current job, or add to your education and skills.
- Get easy quick wins that will inspire you to do more.
- Think about how much less stressful your life would be if you knew you had a few thousand in the bank as a cushion. You don’t have to take crap from your job when you have enough money saved up.
- It’s not about deprivation, it’s about making your life better.
RELATED EPISODES:
ChooseFI: Stock Market, Tax, and Retirement Hacks with Brad Barrett
All the Money You Will Ever Need with Grant Sabatier
Choose FI Podcast with Larry Hagner
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