Engineering Your Early Retirement|Kim from The Frugal Engineers - a podcast by Cody of Fly to FI and Justin aka Saving Sherpa
from 2019-08-13T07:00:36
In today's episode, Cody and Justin are joined by Kim from The Frugal Engineers.
Kim started nowhere near engineering and with no financial goals.A math professor and an intro to Dave Ramsey would turn her life and career choice completely around.
Kim would eventually build a side hustle that would become her full-time job.That side hustle brought in more money than she ever made in traditional employment, allowed her to stay at home with her child, and even let her husband reduce to part-time work.
Now both Kim and her husband are self-employed and working for joy instead of stressing about finances.Listen and follow along with the summary below and make sure to check out the links at the bottom of the page.
Episode SummaryKim took a gap year after her junior year of college to work at Disney world
She had been living off scholarships and didn’t really have to worry about incomeDuring that gap year, the scholarships ended
She bought a car and racked up $10k in credit card debt The main culprit was a guy she was dating who was already in a corporate job
She kept trying to keep up with his spending along with the travel and eating outKim ended up graduating with an engineering degree
Engineering wasn’t on her radar until a math professor pushed her that wayHer financial turnaround came after a friend introduced her to Dave Ramsey
While she always understood the math she didn’t have a grasp on the psychological sideFrom there she made a plan that included never taking on debt again
In grad school, she’d meet her future husband who took her on a date to dollar treeKim made a vow to pay off all her debt before they would get married
It was on their debt payoff celebration that he proposedThen we dig into how she graduated from just Dave Ramsey teachings
Now that she’s comfortable with credit cards, she fully embraces travel rewardsFast forward and they have a child and are just discovering the FIRE community
After some quick math, they realized at age 29 they were only 6 years from retirementThat plan was if nothing changed but Kim wanted to work from home
Kim dual-hatted a side hustle with her jobShe built that up so much that she now works from home and reduce childcare costs
After just two years she was making much more than her traditional workInspired by Kim’s transition her husband started working for himself as a consultant
Kim’s side job was hard to juggle with being a new mom at firstAfter calculating things, they realized it was more profitable for her husband to go part-time and free up time for her and greatly increased their work-life balance
Once they were completely location-agnostic they decided to leave FloridaThey tried Oregon for a while but it was too expensive
Starting this year they started the journey of finding a place to put down rootsThey tried Tennessee, Alaska, Nevada but ultimately settled on Wyoming
Wyoming has great tax benefits and access to skiing for their daughterNow the next thing they needed to tackle health insurance
They tried standard heathlcare.gov plan with a high deductibleThen they tried a health share program through Liberty
These plans are interesting because they can be more selective of who they coverIt was $450 per month for a family of three
Kim would have to pay upfront for the bills and then file for reimbursementThey struggled with timelines on reimbursement and lack of understanding from doctors
After 6 months they went back to a standard plan that was over $900 per monthCurrently, they’re on a “short-term” health insurance plan
It’s only $230 per month but comes with a high deductible and no HSAThen we shift to discussing the detailed steps of finding your FIRE home
They made spreadsheets that would mimic their spending in a specific cityThey visited playgrounds, realtors, and the Wal-Mart Test
Further episodes of The Financial Independence Show
Further podcasts by Cody of Fly to FI and Justin aka Saving Sherpa