19. Your Plan to Make Work Optional with Tanja Hester
Sheepdog Financial
English - November 06, 2019 08:00 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MB - ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsInvesting Business investing finance personalfinance passiveincome wealth valuestocks stockmarket business money equity Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Early retirement is one of those things that many people dream about and some do. My guest today is Tanja Hester. Tanja and her husband Mark Bunge were able to retire from formal employment when she was 38, and he was 41. Tanja is now able to devote her life to fun and purpose. She is the author of Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way. Tanja and Mark have an award-winning financial independence blog called Our Next Life. Tanja also podcasts on The Fairer Cents Podcast with her friend Kara Perez where they explore marginalized and tricky financial topics.
Her new found freedom also allows her to focus on interests like gathering women together to talk about financial independence at Cents Positive retreats and volunteering in her community. She’s also able to indulge her love of traveling the world, and enjoy sports like skiing, hiking, biking, paddling, and climbing around her home in North Lake Tahoe, California. She is basically living the dream. On today’s show, we talk about how she and her husband tracked their progress and timed their leaving work and how they downsized their lifestyle to retire early.
Tanja has researched and explored every aspect of early retirement from the best strategies for saving to redefining your identity without a career. She applies those lessons every day in her work-optional life. She has a regular column on MarketWatch. She’s spoken at Google, Tesla and at conferences around the U.S. She has been featured in the New York Times, TIME, MONEY Magazine, Vice Media, Yahoo! Finance, Forbes, LifeHacker, Bloomberg, Buzzfeed, and media outlets around the world. If you want to learn how Tanja was able to retire early and make it work, this episode is for you.
Highlights from Episode 18
[02:11] Tanja retired early at 38.
[02:20] Tanja's definition of retired probably most closely matches the military definition of retired.
[02:40] She feels that things like being able to podcast and write are a privilege, because they don't feel like work.
[03:01] When approached with projects, she's more concerned with the fun aspect as opposed to how much it may pay.
[05:01] Every six month period of Tanja's retirement has been different.
[05:31] Tanja was 38, and her husband was 41 when they both retired. Looking back, they would probably have gone a little slower and not been so aggressive with their savings goals and said yes to more things.
[06:18] If they could do it over again, they would have taken more vacation and rested more.
[06:58] They both started out at entry level pay, but they were making six figures before retirement. At the end, they were saving quickly.
[08:01] A micro retirement is more of a career intermission where you take a year or two off. You could also use it as a bridge to a new career.
[09:40] Tanja saw her dad retire with a genetic disability when he was 42. She didn’t want to be powerless and forced into retirement. She wanted to travel, hike and have fun.
[12:01] She developed her love of travel as a kid.
[14:44] Tanja and her husband were die hard index fund investors. They have tax advantaged funds that they can't access until later and then regular investment accounts that they can access.
[18:04] Solid investors have to think about downturns. Good investors need to be mentally tough or not look at things and get emotions involved.
[20:04] The worst thing would be to retire and not have a cushion.
[22:35] They have insurance on the exchange and pay $1000.00 a month.
[24:58] If you want to look into retiring early, track three months of spending and see where your money is going. Then get very clear about what you want to spend. Set up automated saving and investing.
[29:43] When you are watching your savings grow, it's a lot easier to avoid that impulse buy.
[30:43] If you know you're going to retire, think about what you want to do in advance and where you get your identity and community.
[33:28] She’s found ways to do public speaking without having to have a job.
[33:51] Tanja has learned that podcasting takes more time than anyone thinks. She also found that writing her book was more enjoyable than she thought it would be.
[35:35] She's a Top Gun fan!
Links and Resources
Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way