{"id":103659,"date":"2018-11-12T00:02:38","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T07:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=103659"},"modified":"2023-04-26T22:04:51","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T04:04:51","slug":"biggerpockets-money-podcast-46-engineering-passive-income-streams-to-find-the-life-you-want-financial-samurai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/biggerpockets-money-podcast-46-engineering-passive-income-streams-to-find-the-life-you-want-financial-samurai","title":{"rendered":"Engineering Passive Income Streams to Fund the Life You Want with Financial Samurai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This week\u2019s episode features <strong>Sam Dogen from Financial Samurai<\/strong>. After one month working for a top investment firm, Sam knew 70-hour workweeks were not the life he wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So Sam took action immediately. Instead of fancy cars and dinners out, Sam shared a studio apartment with a friend and socked away HUGE sums of money\u201450% of mediocre starting salary. He invested in real estate (shocker), stocks, and bonds\u2014and continued his massive savings rate. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Taking advantage of the economic downturn, Sam engineered his layoff and an enormous payout. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sam now lives the life he wants, having set up multiple passive income streams during his working years. He spends time with his family every day and embodies the concept of financially free. He no longer trades his time for money; his money just simply reproduces itself and does all the heavy lifting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This episode is a great look at how a little upfront discomfort can lead the your best life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/biggerpockets-money-podcast\/id1330225136\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a>\u00a0to listen on iTunes.<\/p>\n<h2>Listen to the Podcast Here<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=BIGPOC5473507835&#038;light=false\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Read the Transcript Here<\/h2>\n<div style=\"overflow-y: scroll; max-height: 400px; background: #eee; padding: 20px; border: 1px solid #ddd;\">\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Welcome to BiggerPockets Money Podcast, Show Number 46, where we interview Sam from Financial Samurai.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>\u201cI mean, just think about all the people ten years from now, they wake up and they wonder, where\u2019s all my money? Where did it all go? And I think it\u2019s because they didn\u2019t forecast or measure and realize hey, ten years later, you might love your job for three years but man, if you do the same thing ten years in a row or maybe 15 to 20 years, you\u2019re probably not going to like it as much\u201d. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>It\u2019s time for a new American dream, one that doesn\u2019t involve working in a cubicle for 40 years, barely scraping by. Whether you\u2019re looking to get your financial house in order, invest the money you already have, or discover new paths for wealth\u2019s creation, you\u2019re in the right place. This show is for anyone who has money or wants more, this is the BiggerPockets Money podcast.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>How\u2019s it going, everybody? I\u2019m Scott Trench and I\u2019m here with my co-host, Miss Mindy Jensen. How are you doing today, Mindy? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Scott, I am doing fantastic as always. I am so excited for today\u2019s show. I\u2019ve known Sam for about six years now through the blogging conference that everybody who listens is sick of hearing, FinCon. And his story just always makes me smile, from being super frugal while working in a fairly prestigious job to engineering his own layoff with a huge payout. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">His story is just really fun to listen to and I want to remind everybody that we\u2019re listening to a guy who is post-financial independence. He no longer has a formal job. He made smart money decisions his whole life and he is just sharing his experiences. So I think it\u2019s fascinating and I know you\u2019re a big fan of Financial Samurai, Scott.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Yeah, I\u2019ve read Financial Samurai for years. I think he\u2019s got some great, well data-driven posts and some personal perspective as well. Sam is the epitomy of a guy who has just done it right. High school, college, great job out of college, smart investing decisions, taking chances, getting lucky, having a couple that backfired but overall, seeing the rewards of smart decision-making over and over again over the course of a long career. And now at 41, he\u2019s retired. He does exactly what he wants and what he thinks is best for him and his family and what a payoff. What an awesome story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Yeah, and this episode runs really long. So it is worth every minute. I really, really enjoyed listening to Sam. But before we bring him in, let\u2019s hear a note from today\u2019s sponsor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>The right here can make a huge impact on your business. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to find the right person. 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Terms and conditions apply.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>If you\u2019re like me, the list of books you want to read or those that people suggest you read is never-ending and always expanding. You simply don\u2019t have time to read them all. Our sponsor, Blinkus, has solved your long list of must-reads once and for all. Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the bestselling nonfiction books and distills them down into the most impactful elements so that you can read or listen to them under 15 minutes all on your phone. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>With Blinkus, you will expand your knowledge and learn more in those 15 minutes than you can in almost any other way. Plus, you can listen anywhere. I listen to Blinkist on my commute to work and the Blinkist library is massive and has timeless classics just like \u2018Rich Dad, Poor Dad\u2019 and \u2018The Four-Hour Work Week\u2019. My personal recommendation is that you use Blinkist at least to start to reread classics that you want to revisit once a year. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>For example, \u2018Rich Dad, Poor Dad\u2019 for me is one I come back to once every year and Blinkist has a phenomenal summary of that book. Blinkist is constantly curating and adding new titles as well from the \u2018Best Of\u2019 list so you\u2019re always getting those powerful ideas in a made-for-mobile format. Right now, for a limited time, Blinkist has a special just for our audience. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Go to Blinkus.com\/BiggerPockets to start your free 7-day trial. That\u2019s Blinkist.com\/BiggerPockets. Visit it to start your 7-day trial. You can cancel it at any time, of course. Blinkist.com\/BiggerPockets.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Okay, huge thanks to the sponsor of today\u2019s show. Let\u2019s bring in Sam.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Okay, so Sam from Financial Samurai, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Thank you, Mindy. Thank you, Scott.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>I\u2019m so excited to have you. I have known you or known of you for at least six years. I know that your blog has been around longer than that. But for those of you listening who may not be familiar with Financial Samurai, can you walk us through where your journey with money begins, because I really love your story?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Well, to start, my parents were in the U.S. Foreign Service so I grew up overseas in countries like Malaysia, Philippines, Japan, Taiwan and Zambia. So when I was growing up, I was really aware of the dichotomy between the wealthy and the not wealthy, especially in Malaysia when I was in middle school. I would have friends who were very, very poor\u2014a family of five living in a studio. And then we were living in diplomat housing provided by the government and it was much nicer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So from a really young age, I just realized, wow, there\u2019s so much poverty and wealth out there at the same time coexisting. And I decided when I was a kid that I didn\u2019t want to be poor. I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to be rich. And so, it was from middle school onward that I really tried to think more about money and my parents were always really, really frugal. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">For example, we would go out to a restaurant and my dad would always scold me for trying to order a drink because he would say hey, that\u2019s like the highest margined product at a restaurant, so just have some lemon water, son. And you know, save us some money and be smart about it. And that was one of my first memories as a kid about money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">After that, I came to the United States for high school and college and I went to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. So it\u2019s the South, not the Deep South. And there, I was the minority there. There was only like 5% Asian folks there whereas when I was living in Asia, we were a majority. And after studying economics and Mandarin, I decided to join Wall Street and join Goldman-Sachs in New York City in 1999. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>So going from middle school is when you kind of started thinking about this. To get a job at Goldman-Sachs out of college requires a pretty big commitment throughout high school and college, right? You\u2019ve got to be getting pretty good grades and that\u2019s got to be something that you\u2019re kind of gunning for throughout both of those things. Was that a goal of yours going into high school as a result of your kind of experiences growing up in middle school and earlier?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So in middle school, my goal was to be a businessman because I would go to these random events and parties that my parents would take me to and we\u2019d go to these really nice house parties with like a pool and some views and the hills and the city lights. And I always asked my dad, what do these guys do for a living? And he said, well they\u2019re businessmen. One produced a beverage drink and another produced instant noodles and another was a chicken farmer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So the chicken farmer, we checked out his factory before and was like, not really a sexy place but he drove a Jaguar and I was like, wow. Dad, this is so cool. Meanwhile, my parents are so frugal that they owned a paintless 1976 Nissan Datsun and I remember this to this day because I stole the car one midnight evening with my buddies and we took it out for a spin. It was like 1:00AM and the hubcap fell off. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And the hubcap fell off because it was monsoon season in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and when we returned, we stopped and we tried to look for the hubcap. It disappeared and went into a monsoon drain and when we returned and started the car back around 2:00AM, I was just waiting for a whipping because no hubcap. And then a week went by and my parents didn\u2019t say anything. Because they, too, did not realize a hubcap was missing on our car. So there\u2019s a real benefit to owning cheap, inexpensive things. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Yeah, that\u2019s my philosophy. If you own nice things, you\u2019ve got to surround it with other nice things. So if you don\u2019t own anything nice, you\u2019re perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>But to answer your question, I wanted to be a businessman and my parents were like okay, you\u2019ve got to study hard in high school otherwise you\u2019re going to screw your life up. And I remembered a ninth grader telling me on the bus one day, look, you have until the eighth grade to mess around. Once you start ninth grade, your grades start accumulating. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Well, enjoy the last year of eighth grade but let\u2019s get cracking the books in ninth grade. And when I came to the States for high school, I mean I did okay. I was fine. It wasn\u2019t a spectacular GPA or SAT. And I went to the College of William and Mary, which is a fine state school. Tuition was $2800 a year back then. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">But I knew in college, wow, stock market looks really cool. International equities because we lived abroad for 13 years of my life, it looked really cool. And I felt like I basically won the lottery because I went to this career fair and one of the recruiters picked up my resume and then it was seven rounds and 55 interviews later that I was able to get the job. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Wait. It took you 55 interviews to get the job at Goldman-Sachs?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>55 interviews. It was crazy. So I was invited to the Super Day, which is eight interviews all day. Six, seven hours. And I thought I think I did pretty well and they invited me back. And then I met the entire team on the derivatives desk and then the U.S. sales trading desk and then they said, come back, you need to meet more people and read this 1000-page book called <i>Stock Options as a Viable Investment<\/i> by Nate MacMillan. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I remember it was a 1000-page book and they asked me a question out of that book. And they said, you\u2019re probably not the right guy, but hey, we like you. So let\u2019s just try to find a spot for you. So I kept on interviewing around and finally, I met with the international equities folks, the Asian equities desk, I mean merging markets desk, and they finally said okay. Welcome aboard. So it was really cool. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>55 interviews. That\u2019s crazy. I\u2019m sorry, I just can\u2019t get over that. Scott, I\u2019m sorry I interrupted you, Scott.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>So your career started at Goldman-Sachs, which is kind of a stereotypical way to start a career that is going to be a successful financially, on the income front. Can you describe what that was like and what kind of your view with accumulating personal wealth and early retirement and how that kind of shaped out over your career there?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Sure. So I was interviewing in 1998 when Goldman was private. And I finally got the job in 1999 when they had just went public. So all the partners there were certainly worth tens of millions of dollars. Maybe hundreds of millions of dollars. I\u2019m not sure. And I just remember meeting with my classmates\u2014we call them classmates\u2014and there were some really wealthy kids. I think one kid was the son of the Canadian Prime Minister at the time. Another kid was the son of one really senior Chinese government official. So in other words, I realized there was a lot of nepotism and wealth already established by these companies, at least back then, recruited. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">But I wasn\u2019t one of them. My parents worked in the government, middle-class. We lived in a townhouse and we had a 1976 Datsun, right? So I knew that I was really behind so I was like, okay, I\u2019ve got to get my crap together because I feel like I had won the lottery. So I lived in a studio with another friend from high school for two weeks. And we just really buckled down whereas my classmates were\u2014their parents were buying them condos or they were living in really nice places.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And after the first month of working, I realized that I could have last. Because we were getting in around 5:30AM and then we were leaving around 7:38PM, sometimes 10:00PM. Every single day. So that really puts a grind on your body and for me, I just couldn\u2019t take it but I knew right there and there, I was really miserable and I knew that I couldn\u2019t last 20 to 30 years in a typical career path like my parents did. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I figured I might as well save as much as possible now in order to give me options in the future. And that was when I realized, it was important to forecast your misery. It\u2019s like the best way to forecast your happiness. If you can forecast ahead how miserable you will be in 5, 10, 15 years, whether it\u2019s with your relationship or with your job or with your business, then you can take steps, really concrete steps to free yourself of that misery. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>What a great saying. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That is a great way to put it because it\u2019s real easy to forecast your happiness. Oh, I\u2019m going to be happy for five years. Great, that\u2019s awesome. How long do I get to be miserable for? I\u2019ve never heard it phrased that way. That\u2019s brilliant. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah, I\u2019m glad you like it. I mean, think about all the people ten years from now. They wake up and they wonder, hey, where\u2019s all my money? Where did it all go? And I think it\u2019s because they didn\u2019t forecast their misery and realize hey, ten years later, you might love your job for the first three years but man, if you do the same thing ten years in a row or maybe 15, 20 years, you\u2019re probably not going to like it as much. But if you didn\u2019t forecast that, then you\u2019re probably not going to save as much or bill as much passive income. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Quick question here, the hours of investment banking at Goldman-Sachs are legendary in the 80-100 hour work week. What you\u2019re referencing there is along those lines, 5:30-10:30 and you\u2019re saying literally every day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Not every day. So Saturdays, maybe we\u2019d only work like six to seven hours. But I was in equities which is different from M&amp;A and corporate finance. So I was dealing with the markets but I was dealing with the Asian market, so their markets would open up during our night times and Sunday afternoon, evening would be Monday morning in Asia. So you\u2019d have to always be on. It could literally be a 24\/7 job. But it was much more fun than corporate finance or M&amp;A and working on pitchbooks and stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Gotcha. And how long into it did you kind of come to that realization? Was that a month in or five months in or a year?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Oh, I mean the first month, it was brutal to get in by 5:30AM. We\u2019d stay until 7:30 because one, we wanted to stay after our bosses left because it would be like bad if we left before them since we were costing and didn\u2019t know anything. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">But two, the cafeteria at 85 Broad Street, I remember clearly, it opened up\u2014I think it was 7:30. And it was free food. So then we\u2019d go and eat free food and we\u2019d gorge ourselves like we were hibernating and we\u2019d take some fruit and a little small box of cereal and put them in our bag and have some free breakfast in the morning. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Okay. So how long did you work at Goldman-Sachs?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I did it for two years and then I got a new job in San Francisco at a competitor. And it was interesting because this was 2001. The NASDAQ started rolling over in I think March 2000 and I was worried and a lot of people were worried about their job security, especially as second-year financial analysts. So a recruiter called my desk and they were talking to the VP and one of the VPs, she said I\u2019m not interested but you should talk to my colleague who covers the West Coast. Because I was covering the West Coast clients who were investing in Asia. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And she said, yeah, talk to my colleague. So I talked to the recruiter and then I took a couple of sick days and I flew out to San Francisco, met with a different firm, and they recruited me which was great because Goldman ended up not renewing many, I would say, most of our third-year options and they ended up letting go or just not renewing I would say 80% of my class over the next couple of years. Nobody could survive. So some of the very special few would go from analyst to associate whereas most people just got cut and they had to go to business school or do something else. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>What was your financial position kind of graduating college and how did that change in terms of your personal situation, net worth and all that kind of stuff coming out of the Goldman-Sachs two years?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So my financial situation was I remember I had $3000 after I graduated college, one because I decided to go to William and Mary really purposefully because it was only $2800 in tuition a year. My sister had gone to Smith College, which was $25,000 a year. And I knew what my parents were making, kind of. So I graduated with no debt. I had $3000 from savings and from summer jobs working minimum wage jobs. And I saw so much wealth around me and I figured wow, I\u2019m so far behind, I decided to save, save, save. But I had a lucky break. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So if you were around in 2000, you may have invested in some random internet stocks, so I was on the trading floor. I had a lucky break. I invested $3000 in a company called VCSY, which was a penny stock and all it was, it had a dial pad on the homepage\u2014this was 2000 so it was pretty normal\u2014and it was like, you pressed different numbers to try to get to different pages and it was supposed to be a Chinese internet stock. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So this was the beginning of the Chinese internet boom and I was on the trading floor of Goldman-Sachs so I was like boom, so I bought the stock. I talked to my other buddies at the trading desk and they bought the stock. And then suddenly, it spread like wildfire and the stock went from $3 a share to $160 a share. So it was crazy. Something like that. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>In what timeframe?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>It was within six months. Anyway, what I remember was that it was a $3000 investment that went to $160,000 in six months. And all I kept on thinking was man, I wish I had $5000 or something. Why did I only invest $3000? So obviously greed was speaking. And then it went to $160 and I was feeling amazing, and it started fading rapidly because everything was selling off. And then I sold it for like $150,000 or something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So it was really good and then everything collapsed, right? Dot.com bust and everything. But I didn\u2019t reinvest the money because I was transferring jobs to San Francisco so I wanted to keep cash. So that was kind of a lucky break. And then I realized, you know what? That was scary and that felt unreal so let me try to convert this \u201cfunny money\u201d into real assets. So that\u2019s when I really started looking into real estate and trying to get something that wouldn\u2019t go poof overnight. So that\u2019s when I bought my first place in 2003 in San Francisco.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>So you have $150,000 that you generate in a really high speculative investment and that kind of allows you to make that first investment in San Francisco. What was kind of your accumulation rate while working those first two years?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So I don\u2019t remember exactly but I know we didn\u2019t get paid well, believe it or not. My first year base salary was $40,000 and I remember when I got the offer letter, I was like, wait, that\u2019s it? $40,000? Which is not a lot in Manhattan so that\u2019s why we partially lived in a studio and it was $1800 or something like that. $1700-$1800 for the two of us. But what I would do was, again, I would max out my 401K. I would live like a pauper. I would save and invest 100% of every single bonus. Literally 100%. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So the first year we didn\u2019t make a lot. Maybe $40,000 base with $10,000 to $20,000 stub bonus. And then the next year, our base was only $55,000 and maybe we had like a $30,000 to $40,000 bonus. It wasn\u2019t massive but obviously when you\u2019re that young, it was pretty good. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Awesome. I mean that was just pure hustle for the first two years there. Plus $150,000 in a nice spin there. But like the majority, the fundamentals of what you were doing was going to work. It was just a big slog. And then you also had a lucky break through an advantage that you kind of spot with your job synergistically, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah, there were synergies. But all I had was $3000 to my name. I mean, obviously starting to make money but $40,000 after taxes in Manhattan was not that much, even back then. And so you have to take risk. $3000 wasn\u2019t a lot in absolute terms but in the percentage of my total net worth, which was $4000 then\u2014I mean, it wasn\u2019t a lot. I was going all in with what I had. And then you just kind of recognized\u2014you\u2019ve got to recognize luck. You\u2019ve got to recognize when to get out. And you\u2019ve got to recognize how to make money last for as long as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>I think it\u2019s great. So you go into San Francisco. You buy a place. I think it sounds like changes. What\u2019s your financial income and investment approach? What does it look like after you moved?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I think I got a raise to like $85,000 base. And I got a promotion to associate which was cool because I would skip the business school route, or skip the full-time business school route. But I continued being frugal because I went on Craigslist and I found a two-bedroom, one-bath, really dumpy place at the edge of Chinatown in San Francisco. It was a pretty rough neighborhood. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I remember it was just really loud, really noisy, and it wasn\u2019t that expensive. It was actually cheaper. It was $1600 for the two of us. So I got a raise and I lowered my rent by a couple of hundred dollars a month total. And then my girlfriend moved in and then she contributed a little bit as well. So I lowered it even further. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">But I was pretty focused on not renting for my entire life because I was at $1600 for the two-bedroom so I was paying $800 and we finally moved to a one-bedroom. It was like $1600. We were there for like a year. And we hated our neighbor. He was just like this drunk guy and he always played house music until 2:00AM. So like that methodical nonstop bass sound when I had to go to work at 5:30AM. So I was like you know what? Let\u2019s go buy a place. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I had some gains and some savings from that stock and the bonuses. Let\u2019s go buy a place. So like a day after my 26<\/span><span class=\"s2\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span><span class=\"s1\"> birthday in 2003, I bought a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo for about $580,000. That was good. I thought it was cheap back then actually. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>What\u2019d you do with that? Did you move in just you and your girlfriend or did you have a tenant or roommate that was renting out the other room or how did that work?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>It was just my girlfriend and I. It was not that expensive. It was $2300 gross plus property tax. But then after the deductions and everything, it was maybe like $2000 which was kind of almost on par with what we\u2019d want to rent for. $2000 a month was our cutoff. We wanted a nicer place but we didn\u2019t want to spend more than $2000 in rent. If we had to do that, then we were going to go buy a place. So I remember that was the line in the sand. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And San Francisco is so much cheaper back then than Manhattan and it\u2019s still so much cheaper than Manhattan right now, no matter what the media says. Because the media says San Francisco is more expensive than New York City. But I\u2019m comparing more apples to apples. San Francisco, seven miles by seven miles and Manhattan. Manhattan was ridiculous. It is still 30-50% more expensive. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Okay, so do you still own this property now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I do. I paid off the mortgage, I think in 2015. And it\u2019s good. I got some tenants there. They pay $4300 a month in rent. They haven\u2019t bothered me in four months, which is great. Yeah, it\u2019s there. Now, I look at it as a piece of diversification and kind of an insurance for when my son, if he grows up and decides he wants to live in San Francisco, I can\u2019t imagine what rental prices will be in 24 years, but it\u2019s kind of an insurance that, hey, here\u2019s a place and pay for the cost of maintaining the place and give me some rent as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Yeah, you said it\u2019s renting $4500 a month right now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>$4300.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Oh, $4300. And it\u2019s already paid off so is there an association fee?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah, it\u2019s like $600. So the net is probably about $3000 or $3100.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>It just goes into your pocket that can contribute to your living expenses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah, so we kind of earmark that. To make it fun or more purposeful, we earmark the income from the rental property of that condo to actually, paying off our mortgage today. We have a mortgage on our primary residence right now. But that\u2019s because we locked in 2.5%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>So that turns out to be a really good investment. $580,000. In 2003, I was looking at $580,000 thinking, wow, that\u2019s a lot of money. But I wasn\u2019t living in San Francisco. So you said that New York is more expensive than San Francisco. Is that why you didn\u2019t buy in New York? I mean, you were making $40,000 a year. Was there anything even affordable? I\u2019m not that familiar with New York. I know there\u2019s five burroughs and I don\u2019t understand what burrough is. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I mean, again, I was 22-24 years old in New York. I didn\u2019t have a big base income. I didn\u2019t have a lot of credit history. And my parents weren\u2019t rich. So yeah, I had the $150,000 gross windfall before taxes. I definitely would have tried to buy in New York. I was looking at this awesome place, a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1300 square feet, double balcony, facing the Chrysler Building. It\u2019s like on 22<\/span><span class=\"s2\"><sup>nd<\/sup><\/span><span class=\"s1\"> and Madison. Amazing. $799,000. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I remember. And I thought, man, that\u2019s a good deal. And if I had bought that, it would be $2.5 million today, for sure. For sure. But again, I wasn\u2019t going to last at Goldman because I was like the public school guy that just snuck in the backdoor and the market was falling apart. So I had to leave. I went to San Francisco. And then it took like a year and a half to figure out where I wanted to live. And then I bought the place in 2003. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Again, so what is that property worth now, the condo in San Francisco?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So here\u2019s the thing. So my neighbor last year, with the same layout, sold\u2014it\u2019s remodeled\u2014a little bit better than mine, for sure. It sold for $1.36 million. So maybe mine, let\u2019s say it\u2019s worth $1.3 million. So if you take $3100 net that I make from it times 12\u2014that\u2019s $37,200 and then you can divide it by $1.3 million dollars. That\u2019s only 2.8%. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So if you think about it that way, it\u2019s actually not great rental income. 2.8% net return and you\u2019ve got to maintain the property and deal with tenants is less than what you can get on the risk-free rate of return for the ten-year bond yield right now at 3.15%. So you can invest in a ten-year bond yield, do nothing, relax and earn 3.1% and it\u2019s state income tax free and you just have to pay federal income tax. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>But you get appreciation on it and if you ever wanted to, you could theoretically move back into the property for two years and sell for a huge chunk of that tax-free.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yes, you might get appreciation. Historically, San Francisco has increased by 6-7% a year, for sure. Yes, you could move back in and get a prorated exclusion. But I\u2019m never going to move back into a place for two years. But I\u2019m saying overall, compared to the heartland in America where I\u2019m definitely moving my money to\u2014heartland real estate, you can get 10% and you can do it maintenance-free now because you can invest in real estate crowdfunding. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I think there is an obvious arbitrage going on where you take your expensive coastal city money and you plow some of that into heartland real estate, get the higher net rental yields and live passively. And then go rent in places like San Francisco, New York, Honolulu. Because even though rent on an absolute level is high, it\u2019s great value compared to the cost of buying the place. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>So what happens after you buy this place? What\u2019s kind of the next period? It seems like this is where you start having the nice financial cushion. You\u2019ve got a real estate investment and you just start to go a little better. What happens next for you? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So 2003 was a great time. I bought this place. I was going to see business school part-time at Berkeley. Finally, that was like 20 hours a week on top of 60-70 hours of work a week. So that was brutal. But I finally graduated in 2006 or something. Things were going well. I got promoted. And I ended up buying another property two years later in 2005 because I felt, you know, this property is just not good enough for me. Something like that. And I was doing well in my career. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I ended up buying a single-family house in the north end of San Francisco for $1.52 million. I remember putting $300,000 down which was all my money at the time. Again, this was another theme, trying to go all in. Remember, it was $3000 for that stock. Now, it\u2019s $300,000 all in for the down payment for this house because I felt I needed a house. Even though I didn\u2019t have a family, I needed a house. And so I bought the place and I was immediately sweating bullets because I had a $1.2 million dollar mortgage. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And then of course, a couple of years later\u2014I bought in 2005 and then about 2007, you can really start to see the cracks in the housing market and then things got crushed in 2008-2009. But the story is not over yet. In 2007, I bought another place, a Lake Tahoe vacation property because I got promoted to VP and I was on top of the world. I was making more money than I ever thought possible so I was like, you know what? Not only do I need a single-family home that I don\u2019t need, I need a vacation property in Lake Tahoe for my family that I don\u2019t have. Because I like to snowboard. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And I bought that because I was like, this is good value. The original buyers bought it for $810,000 and they sold it to me for only $718,000. I was like, wow, that was a great deal. And then of course, the financial crisis happened and that property ended up losing I would say 40-50% further in value. Which was crazy because everybody started foreclosing on their loans and I was the only idiot who was like, I\u2019m not going to do that. That\u2019s like dishonorable. And so I kept that. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Thank you for saying that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I understand people, why they did. Because they were so under and they were like, there\u2019s no hope ever. But I didn\u2019t lose my job. And so I was like, well, let me just own up to my obligations. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Okay. I want to clarify my thank you. You had a job. I\u2019m assuming that you could still afford the payment on the house and it was still worth to you the payment. What bothers me is not the people that lost their job and then had to quit paying because there was no money to pay their mortgage\u2014that sucks. But the people who could still afford to pay their mortgage but now the house is so upside down, I\u2019m just going to walk away. That\u2019s not how it works.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Well, that is how it works. Do you know Carl Richards from the New York Times?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>I do know Carl Richards. I mean, not personally. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>He\u2019s a New York Times columnist. He\u2019s got a book on teaching people how to be financially independent and all that stuff. But he wrote a big op-ed piece saying how he foreclosed on his home strategically during the crisis. And yet, after that he was able to get book deals and the column and everything. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So it\u2019s interesting. In America, do we really not like people who welch on their debt or do we praise them for being strategic? So I made a mistake paying\u2014I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a mistake because that\u2019s part of my culture to just be responsible. But it\u2019s interesting to see his rise to the top after not paying his debt. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>I think it\u2019s good perspective. And I think regardless of your opinion on bankruptcy protection, the fact that there is bankruptcy protection and you can do that is a good thing for the country overall because the alternative is kind of like a perpetual servitude in some ways. You can never pay off the debt. You\u2019re just completely hopelessly out of this situation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I love the law itself and the protections it offers people to give them a chance to go around but I agree that there\u2019s something a little\u2014you go bankrupt or you foreclose and you lose your asset because of your irresponsible ability to handle your financial situation. Maybe that\u2019s not the right way to give advice to other people or suggest that as a practice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>And that was an example\u2014I have so many examples where I knew that I could make it in America if he could foreclose on his property and be able to write two bestsellers and be employed by the New York Times and get a huge following. I knew that that was a great example where anything happens to me\u2014I didn\u2019t do that, but I can succeed as well. So I always find these funny stories and these funny idiosyncrasies in society that motivate me to do better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Like the Yahoo president who crushed his company and lied on his resume, but got $100 million dollar exit package. Or the latest guy from CBS, Les Moonves, who got $150 million dollar exit package for being a serial predator over the past 30 years in his career. I was like wow. That\u2019s amazing. So I\u2019m trying to tell my readers and my listeners, hey, this guy got a $100-$150 million dollar severance package. Why can\u2019t you negotiate a severance package? And you\u2019re a normal person. Believe in yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Let\u2019s talk about that for a second. So over the course of 2003 to 2007, you see the property value\u2014what\u2019s your income trajectory look like? What\u2019s your career looking like during that period?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So I got promoted to VP in 2007 so that\u2019s why partly why I bought the vacation property. And then I made the huge error of extrapolating my career and my income for the next ten years. So my forecasting was wrong. I had failed to forecast my misery there. So when you\u2019re a VP, you probably make\u2014back then, it was $150,000 base, $200,000 base or something like that and then you had a bonus. But then everything went away with those terrible bonuses down 50-100% and everybody was getting fired. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And so I quickly realized I made a huge financial mistake with the vacation property. The single-family home was like, it went up and then it went down. Maybe it was down maybe 5-10% of when I bought it but it was not that big of a deal. But I remembered sitting in my living room and I was thinking, man, I had spent so many years doing the right thing. Saving and investing, taking calculated risks. Working 70-80 hours a week. And I lost 30-40% of my net worth in six months. That took ten years to build. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I was like, you know what? I\u2019m going to start Financial Samurai. I\u2019m going to start this site as a way to get over my fears and my grief of losing so much money so quickly. And I thought about starting Financial Samurai in 2006 but I had just graduated from business school and who has time for that? The economy was so good. But once the economy melted down, I thought, you know what? Now is the best time ever to not pick up smoking and not pick up drinking but use writing as a well to help myself out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>I like that. I\u2019m not going to drink or smoke. I\u2019m going to write instead. I like that those were your three choices. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>There you go.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>I will say, in 2007, the economy rebounds and Financial Samurai is getting going\u2014what\u2019s the buildup to you exiting your career?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So the buildup is Financial Samurai started in 2009 when basically, literally the bottom of the market, July 2009 if you look at the chart. I started, I hired some dude from Craigslist to help me set it up. I paid him like $1000 then or something. It was kind of painful but I didn\u2019t know what I was doing so I got some help. I said, you know what? The hardest is to get going so I\u2019m going to hire someone who knows what he\u2019s doing to get going. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Once I started it, I had so much fun. I was just writing and writing probably three to four times a week just about everything from investing to getting your finances right to the crazy San Francisco real estate market to the downturn to people losing their money. It was just so fun. And it was so easy to do and so easy to connect with people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So after about a year, I started making some sheckles and then after a couple of years, it started making a decent amount of money. Not a huge amount of money but like several thousand a month. And so I remember in October 2011, my wife and I were in Santorini, Greece. And so Financial Samurai had been running for two years and we were walking around for three hours hiking up the hill, riding the donkeys, and looking at the overpriced shops to buy some overpriced scarves. And I told her, I was going to go have a beer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I went to this amazing bar at the top of the crater, overlooking the water. It was 78 degrees. And there it was, Wi-Fi access. It was 2011. And I had my phone. So I whipped out my phone and I checked my e-mails and there was this guy who basically said, hey Sam, I would like to advertise on your site. And I said, okay, I\u2019m in Santorini. What do you want me to do? And he said hey, can you put up this link to some random product on your homepage and I\u2019ll pay you, I think it was like $1100 or $1200? And I said, $1200? Sounds good because this beer is like $10. It\u2019s killing me. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And so he sent over the code. I copied and pasted the code onto my website. And I said, hey, it\u2019s up. And then within 30 minutes, he transferred over $1200 over PayPal. And I was like, wow, this is awesome. And so I immediately ordered another beer. I was like, let\u2019s celebrate. And that was like my lightbulb moment, October 2008 where I was like hey, this is so fun. There is life after finance. I\u2019m bored out of my mind after doing this for 13 years and everybody who works in finance is a bad person, according to the mainstream. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I want to get out and do something else. But I still had one fear. And that was the fear of obviously losing a steady paycheck. So I came up with the idea of engineering my layoff. Engineering my layoff is simply a way to negotiate my severance in a win-win scenario for the employer and the employee to get out so you have money in your pocket so you have a nice, long, financial runway so you can do whatever you want.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>You\u2019re prompting the question here. We\u2019re waiting in anticipation. How does one engineer a layoff and what was yours? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Well, thank you for asking. I wrote a 150-page book on that but the essence is you have to understand that if you are employed you provide more value to your employer than your cost, otherwise you would be unemployed, right? So that\u2019s 101 basics. So a lot of people, they think the honorable way is to say, hey boss, I love this place. See you later, smell you later. I\u2019m going to give my two weeks\u2019 notice. And that is exactly the wrong thing you\u2019re going to do because you\u2019re going to drive your boss crazy and scrambling to find your replacement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I knew as a producer, I generated revenue for the firm, that I had value. And I knew that if I had left or if I had gone to a competitor, that would be a net negative for them. So I had talked to other people who actually got laid off during the financial crisis and I understood what they got from severance. And basically I had a conversation with my boss when I got the courage to say, hey, you know what? I\u2019d be okay without a job if I had a severance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I said hey, look, I\u2019m looking to exit and I\u2019d be willing to transition my accounts to the junior person I hired a couple of years ago so we can have a seamless transition. In return, I would love to get all my deferred compensation of stock and cash. I would like to get my investment the company made for me during the financial crisis, which had a seven-year vest, unbelievably. And I would like to get a severance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Initially, he was like wait, what are you talking about? But as he thought about it, as I sold him on the idea that look, I was no longer as hungry as the guy that I once was when I joined ten years ago and we\u2019ve got this great replacement who is younger, who is hungrier, he warmed up to the idea. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So the key is really to recognize what your company\u2019s needs are, what your boss\u2019s needs are. And have an honest conversation about how to negotiate a separation agreement that is a win-win for us all instead of just quitting and leaving your boss in the lurch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Nowadays, back then\u2014I guess social media wasn\u2019t as huge\u2014but nowadays, you can torch reputations over social media. So every single company out there is afraid that some ex-employee is going to bad mouth them about some product, some inside information or something. And so I think companies are well aware now that they need to treat their employees right if they want to continue their business operation lines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>So this is a different\u2014most people, I think, are not leaving their jobs unless they have something else lined up or other options. It sounds like you used the term \u2018financial runway\u2019 which I think is a great term for that. And you\u2019re saying, you had us all built up in advance prior to coming into this. You were ready to go. And that\u2019s from a position of power. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">You were ready to kind of have those negotiation rights. This is from someone that\u2019s like, most people go in and they\u2019re like, I need a job. I\u2019m going to switch jobs. And this job is going to pay me $5,000 more a year so I\u2019m going to give my two weeks\u2019 notice and take that one. You\u2019re saying that this is a different approach here, right? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Well, this is a different but similar approach. Every single job is just kind of stepping into something else. Whether it\u2019s early retirement, travelling around the world, spending more time with your kids, being a stay-at-home parent, or finding another job. Or going to business school. The bottom line is, never quit. Get laid. Never quit. Get laid off. Right? Another great tagline. Never quit, get laid. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So the idea again is if you want another job, don\u2019t be a fool and quit on Friday and start another job on Monday, if you have another job lined up, you also want to negotiate with the other employer, hey, let\u2019s start in a month or two months so I can have a wonderful vacation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And that gives you the buffer to negotiate with your existing employer, hey, let\u2019s work on a transition here where I do xy and z and you give me a severance and you know, xy and z like deferred stock options or whatever it is. There is always an ability to negotiate and what I\u2019m trying to teach people and tell people is, you have more power than you realize as an employee. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I think people feel, it\u2019s David versus Goliath, the big corporations have lawyers and HR people and they\u2019re afraid of their bosses. What I\u2019m trying to do is tell you guys, when you get out of the office, you guys are all equals, right? This is not like high school when you\u2019re afraid of the bully or the popular kid or whatever. You guys are all equals. You actually have more power than you realize in today\u2019s social media, internet world where doing the right thing is really, really important. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So it\u2019s about having a conversation and being a wise negotiator. Because the easiest way is to quit. That\u2019s the easy way, right? You break up with someone, you text them hey, I don\u2019t like you. But the hard way is to see them face to face, buy them a beer, and then say I don\u2019t like you and leave them a bill, right? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Okay, so I want to take this idea and kind of use it within the context of people who are in financial independence. Let\u2019s say I was going to quit my job. I don\u2019t want to quit my job but let\u2019s say that I was going to. What are some things that I can do and negotiate on with my company because there aren\u2019t layoffs happening right now. Right now, BiggerPockets is hiring. You can find our jobs available at BiggerPockets.com\/jobs. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So we\u2019re not in the layoffs. And when I think it would almost\u2014this sounds so mean. I don\u2019t want it to be mean. I think it would almost be easier when there are layoffs, to say hey, I\u2019ll go, too. But what\u2019s something that you can do when you can\u2019t, when layoffs aren\u2019t happening? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I love the idea that transitioning it to a younger guy, to be around a new person and yeah, being around to smooth it over whenever. What are some other things you can offer your employer when you\u2019re trying to engineer your own laid-off?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Let\u2019s say you\u2019re an outstanding employee or let\u2019s say your company is not letting anybody go at the moment because it\u2019s booming. Number one, no manager wants an employee who doesn\u2019t want to be there. You don\u2019t have to telegraph, hey look, you have to say your value proposition but in reverse. Everybody is trying to sell themselves on why they should get hired. You need to sell yourself on why you should get laid off. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Just think about it in reverse. And if you don\u2019t want to be there, this is what happens. You start taking sick days or you might take all your vacations. Oh my gosh, God forbid in America, you take all your vacations, but it\u2019s a faux-pas in America. You might take your Family Medical Leave Act, which is by law what is required\u2014every employer allows that. Or you might want to talk about taking a sabbatical. So you put these seeds in your employer\u2019s mind that hey, you know what? Actually, they really don\u2019t want to be here and there are hungry people wanting your job. Let\u2019s figure out a solution. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">My wife, I helped her engineer a layoff at 34 in 2015 as well. And they were really scared that she was just going to leave. And because she basically stayed on, one of the strategies was, look\u2014I want to leave. I\u2019ve been here for nine years. I want to do something else. Okay. Instead of five days a week, I\u2019ll work two or three days a week. In exchange, the business doesn\u2019t fall down. Everything runs smoothly. We\u2019re going to give you time to hire people from New Jersey to come to San Francisco. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">In exchange, you\u2019re going to give me full pay. So if you only work\u2014let\u2019s say you only work three days out of five days, you suddenly work 40% less but you get paid the same. It\u2019s kind of like getting a 30% raise. So I\u2019m using this as an example to show, hey, times are okay. If you\u2019re a great employee, you still have options because once they realize you don\u2019t 100% want to be there, they\u2019re not going to want to keep you there. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">At the same time, they don\u2019t want to insult you and make you angry. So it\u2019s a really delicate balance and also, no manager wants to lay anybody off. It\u2019s the worst conversation you can ever have to tell someone they\u2019re no longer needed. So you can help them help you reach that topic. A lot of good things happened. This is not money out of their pocket. It\u2019s a corporation\u2019s pocket. And they want some harmony there. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I think it\u2019s great and I think that maybe one of the things that is more difficult here\u2014it sounds like in your position, you were a power player at your company. You\u2019re producing revenue. You leaving was a hit to like very tangible value that your firm could kind of attribute to your career and what you kind of produced there. What if you\u2019re more of like a frontline customer support or early in marketing? How is that negotiation different or what does that kind of look?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>It\u2019s not really different because the fundamental reason why anybody has a job is because they produce more value than they cost. It doesn\u2019t matter what they do. Yeah, some might make more because they produce more revenue or more value. And some might make less. But there will always be the case that there is a margin where the employer gains more of a benefit than you cost. And that is why every single employee can ask for a raise. But most people don\u2019t because they\u2019re afraid. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And so it\u2019s about believing in what you\u2019re worth. And so for example, if you\u2019re employed by BiggerPockets and you\u2019re doing this podcast, maybe you guys can do some numbers on the growth of the podcast numbers, see what kind of revenue it generates, the traffic figures\u2014how much time you spend\u2014and then you say, hey guys, look at this trajectory. But hey, my salary has been flat for the past twelve months\u2014it\u2019s time to follow that line upward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Sam, I\u2019m going to call you when we\u2019re done here. Scott, can I schedule a meeting with you tomorrow?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Whatever the case, again, know your worth because if you have a job, you\u2019re worth more than what your salary is. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That\u2019s really true. That\u2019s really awesome. So I\u2019m going to ask you in a minute where you can discover your worth. Is there any place online that you can go? But I want to address this to specifically the ladies. I don\u2019t know about men because I\u2019m not a man but there is this common theme among a lot of women, who they don\u2019t push for themselves. They don\u2019t advocate for themselves. They don\u2019t want to put it out there. There\u2019s guys who do that, too, but I\u2019m not talking about them. I\u2019m talking about the ladies right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">This is really important. You are worth more. You\u2019re worth something. So if you\u2019re working for free, stop. Look at your salary. I look at a job and for four years, I never had one raise. Because we were having financial problems. But I was still bringing value and I could have used this podcast 12 years ago when I was working there. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Okay, so let\u2019s talk about where you can look up where your worth is. I know there\u2019s Glassdoor. Is there any place else you can look? And there\u2019s big discrepancies and different jobs in different areas of whatever, but to give a general idea, if you\u2019re making $30,000 a year but the going salary in your area is $80,000 a year, you should have a conversation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Well yeah, I mean obviously I think a rough rule of thumb is if you go on the open market to do your same job elsewhere, you can get a 25-30% raise immediately. I would think that\u2019s a standard. Whatever you do. More or less, it\u2019s about there. For my case, I was helping my wife engineer her layoff. She was always the one who is, I\u2019m happy, I don\u2019t want to look elsewhere. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I said, look, you are worth more than you think. Let\u2019s go. So talk to your competitors. Just have an open conversation. They want to know just as much as you do. Have open dialogues. Can you give me some guidance on how much you get paid when you\u2019re talking to some competitor?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Yes, you can look online but all those online figures all seem funny enough, really light. They are always lighter than reality. So talk to people. Talk to people and find out what your competitors are getting paid and if you are not getting paid that, then you are getting underpaid. It\u2019s the market. It\u2019s a fishing market. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">But people are inefficient because of fear and because of laziness. They just don\u2019t want to rock any boats. You\u2019re going to regret in 5, 10, 20 years if you didn\u2019t fight for yourself as hard as you should. That you weren\u2019t as direct as you should. Because nobody cares more about you than you. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>So let\u2019s go through years. So if I\u2019m thinking this right, 2012, you negotiated this for yourself. What happened after that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So 2012, in the spring, I negotiated a severance. I got, I think it was three months of WARN Act Pay, which is Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification Pay. It\u2019s a law. A lot of people confuse the mandatory WARN Act Pay of one of the three months as a severance, which it\u2019s not. It\u2019s the law. And then I got a severance check. And then I got over the next five years, my deferred cash and stock compensation. Every single year for the next five years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So my last severance associated payment was in the spring of 2017. So I knew that if all else failed, if I miscalculated my passive income figures, if the markets rolled over again, if Financial Samurai never went anywhere, I could live off my severance for the next five to six years. And from there, I was like, well my wife still didn\u2019t want to leave. So I told her, look, she\u2019s three years younger than me so I said if I\u2019m still alive and we\u2019re still okay after two years, you\u2019ll be 33, we\u2019ll consider negotiating a severance for you as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So for the first year, she was like no, I love my job. And the second year, she was like I hate this. And the third year, she got passed over and she was really pissed off and then we were like all right, let\u2019s go, let\u2019s negotiate. She was 34 and a half years old. We believe in equality. So I left at 34 and a half and I was like, let\u2019s do it. Let\u2019s do 34 and a half as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So during that time, we basically travelled around eight weeks a year. We checked off all our bucket lists, did all that, and I negotiated her severance in 2015. And then basically we tried to start having a family and just building Financial Samurai and living free. And our son finally came in 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Well, congrats on all of those things. Particularly the most recent one, is your son. That\u2019s awesome. So in transitioning here, you kind of follow the standard financial advice of live extraordinarily frugally at like $40-$50,000 a year and only spend 4% of your income each year. Is that correct? I\u2019m kidding, obviously.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>No, no. That\u2019s not really correct.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>No, it\u2019s not 4% of your income. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Oh, 4% of your net worth. I\u2019m sorry. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah, no. Basically, when I left, I had $80,000 a year in passive income and that was from real estate, dividend stocks, CDs, savings, and just some random private investments. So I knew $80,000 a year in passive income would allow me not to starve in San Francisco. Further, my housing by that time was not that expensive. And then my wife worked, right? So I\u2019m going to get on her healthcare. I\u2019ll go first. She\u2019s three years younger. I\u2019ll go on her healthcare so I knew that $80,000 plus healthcare plus my wife, we\u2019re fine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And then, of course, there was the severance. So what I did actually was I reinvested the entire severance check into the stock market in 2012. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Nice timing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Thank you. I thought it was just free money. I was like, wow, this is like winning the lottery. Let me just invest the money. It was a six-figure lump sum into the stock market and I said, okay, I\u2019ll live frugally. Passive income\u2014this is the thing. I tried so hard\u2014not so hard. I put my house that I bought for $1.52 million on the market in 2012 for $1.7-$1.75 million. And I said you know what? I\u2019m unemployed now. We\u2019re retired. I need to live more frugally so let\u2019s sell this house while the market recovered, right? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Because it was probably worth only like $1.4-$1.45 million during the depth of the crisis. But I thought maybe I could sell it for $1.7. Maybe a $200,000 gross gain. And I thought okay, we\u2019re going to sell this house. It was like a 2100 square foot house, three bedroom, 2.5 bath plus a one-bedroom, one bath bonus room. Too big for us. There was only two of us. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And we\u2019re going to go rent a two-bedroom, one bath place like the place that we rented back in 2003 at the edge of Chinatown for $2400 and live really, really frugally. $2400 a month might not sound like that little but it\u2019s little for San Francisco for two people as well. And so I put the house on the market. Facebook had just gone public. I was like you know what, we\u2019ve got all these multi-millionaires. They\u2019re going to snatch this house in a jiffy. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So my tennis buddy was my listing agent. So we showed it multiple times, like 15 times, private party. It was off-market. Still kind of on-market but off-market. And nobody put in an offer. And my agent friend said, I got some whispers for way under asking, maybe like $1.5 or $1.6 million. I was like, screw that. I\u2019m just going to hold onto the house. And thank goodness I did because 2012 was literally the beginning of the real estate market taking off in San Francisco. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So we lived in that house until 2014 and I still had a really frugal mindset, mind you. So I had like a CD that came due. It was like a large CD. It was like a $400,000 CD. It was a seven-year CD earning 4%. And I said, you know what? What should I do with this CD? And so I was looking at the properties on the west side of San Francisco, which was much cheaper. It\u2019s like 40% cheaper. And I found this fixer-upper for $1.25 million. But it had panoramic ocean views on both levels. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And I was thinking, wow, I had never seen the ocean before and I\u2019m in San Francisco. It didn\u2019t make sense. So we basically took that property down and rented out the old house that I tried to sell in 2012. And that was the house that gave me a lot of headache because it became like a party house. It was four to five dudes all the time. You know when you think about tech bros in San Francisco? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I swear to God 90% of the perspective tenants were all guys. And it was all dudes. Given I\u2019m an equal opportunity person, I rented out to all dudes, and you know they threw parties and they ran on the roof across to the neighbor and I got complaints and they tore up things. It was like ridiculous. But I was getting $8800 a month in rent. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>What was your mortgage?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>For a three-bedroom house.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So it was four-bedroom, 3.5 bath really.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Which is a lot, right? Because I would never\u2014see this is something people don\u2019t think about\u2014I would never pay $8800 a month in rent for my house. And when I realized that, I was like, I\u2019ve got to rent it out because I\u2019m not willing to pay that much for my house. Although this was like an economic waste, right? So I rented that out for several years until my son was born in 2017. I was like there is no way I can be a good dad and still have to deal with these crazy tenants who were not paying on time, wrecking the house, and everything. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I was like, you know what? My original plan was to own this property forever. It would be kind of like our insurance policy for all of us just in case because I believe in 20-30 years, San Francisco properties will be more expensive. But I just couldn\u2019t. It was like a war of attrition. I could not survive being a landlord and I could not survive paying $23,000 a year in property tax alone for this house. And so I said, okay, let\u2019s try again. Let\u2019s try again. I did a pocket listing again. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And I said if I can get $2.5 million. So remember, I tried to sell it for $1.7 million and I didn\u2019t get anything. And it was after 30 days so I took it off because I was embarrassed and I was mad. So I was like, if I can get $2.5 million, I will sell this house and I\u2019ll forget my dreams of owning a nice single-family home on the north side of San Francisco. So I said, okay, I think we might be able to get it. Let me ask around. And so in one week, we got an interested party who offered\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>And that\u2019s all the time we have for today\u2019s episode, everybody. Oh, sorry. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>And then I was like okay, $2.5 million, baby. Come on, baby&#8211;$2.5! Doesn\u2019t that sound good? To me, it sounded ridiculous. $2.5? Nobody wanted to buy it a few years ago for $1.7. And then she goes, Sam, I\u2019ve got an offer. Okay, what is it? You\u2019re going to be happy with this. I said, okay. Tell me. $2.6. I was like, what? $2.6? And here it is in writing. I was like wow, that\u2019s amazing! <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And then I talked to my wife and I was saying, man, I really feel bad selling this property. I mean, I want it for my family and all that. And so we rejected them. And we said, how about $2.8? Why not? Because we actually didn\u2019t want to sell the house. But we were also stressed out of our minds as new parents. And so, long story short, we went back and forth and then they finally agreed to $2.75. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Wow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>And they were terrible on hitting their contingency deadlines. They failed the financing contingency and then the construction contingency. Everything went late. But 45 or 50 days later, we closed and that was the end of my single-family home that I bought in 2005.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>You made $1.25 million off of that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Gross.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Yes, yes. Okay. So that\u2019s an interesting number. I wrote down $1.25 million for the fixer with the panoramic views of the ocean. Did I write that number down right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah. That\u2019s what I bought it for in 2014. And so in 2014, I bought a house for $250,000 for about 20% less than I purchased a house for in 2005 when I was 28 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>And what was this fixer-upper?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>So the fixer-upper was $1.25 million in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>And how many beds and baths and all that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Three bedroom, two bath. Just really standard 1900 square foot house. Nothing fancy. So everything is relative, right? So in 2014, I spent less than I spent in 2005. Yet my net worth is much higher. Because I realized the key again is don\u2019t let obviously your lifestyle and your expenses inflate with your net worth. There has to be some kind of break.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>I love it. What is your kind of situation right now, and what are kind of your plans for the future going forward from all this? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah so, I walked away with $1.8 million from the $2.75 million after fees and all that stuff because I was paying down the mortgage after all those years as well. So I reinvested $1.8 in 30%. It was like a 30-30-30. 30% bonds, 30% stocks, and then the rest in real estate crowdfunding. So that was my shift. So I did $550,000 of $1.8 million into real estate crowdfunding to take advantage of higher rental yields and lower evaluation markets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So far, it\u2019s been good although you are seeing cracks in the real estate market. But whatever happens, I feel fine because the house that I sold for $2.75, I had $815,000 mortgage. So by selling it, I at least leveraged at by $815,000. And then I diversified the proceeds from one single expensive home in San Francisco to bond, stocks, and real estate crowdfunding at a lower valuation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So I feel fine. I think things are going to be okay. I always feel a little bit nervous that there\u2019s going to be another downturn again, because again, I lost 30-40% of my net worth in six months in the last downturn. And I don\u2019t want that to happen again. That\u2019s like rule number one after you become unemployed is never lose money again. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>I think that\u2019s work stuff. It\u2019s rule number one, never lose money. Rule number two, see rule number one. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Exactly. Exactly. And there\u2019s more at stake here. My wife doesn\u2019t work. I have a child to take care of. I have no job and the net worth figure is much larger. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>But you\u2019re in bonds. I\u2019m surprised to see you say you\u2019re 30% in bonds from that reinvesting. From reinvesting $1.8 million in bonds because you are fairly young and you\u2019ve got a lot of growth potential. Although after the week the stock markets had, maybe that looks a lot smarter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I can\u2019t time the market or anything but I can properly asset allocate based on my risk tolerance. Even though I\u2019m 41 years old, I am investing like maybe a traditional 60-year-old. Again, because I am not willing to go back to work to make a full-time income because I don\u2019t want to miss out on the first five years of my son\u2019s life before he goes to kindergarten. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">So after he goes to kindergarten, I\u2019ve told my wife, we can go get full-time jobs if we want or need to, when he\u2019s in school most of the day. But before then, let\u2019s see if we can go all in and be parents. I\u2019ll write on Financial Samurai and keep that thing alive and we\u2019ll see what happens. Because I feel that I have a saying, and I\u2019ll teach my son this\u2014never fail due to a lack of effort because effort requires no skill.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I never had much skill or talent in much of anything but I really wanted to try really, really hard because my biggest regrets all the time were if I looked back and I didn\u2019t give everything I had. And so as a parent, I don\u2019t know exactly how to be a parent because there\u2019s no manual. There\u2019s all these books I\u2019ve read but I don\u2019t really know so I want to look back. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Just in case my son turns into a problem child or something, I can say hey, we did our best in this time period. There\u2019s nothing more we can do. Maybe we could have neglected him a little bit more and maybe he would have turned out better but I think we didn\u2019t want to regret not doing our best in that case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Okay, before we transition to the <i>Famous Four<\/i> questions, I would like to know one last thing. What is your passive income now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Passive income now is about $215,000-$225,000, something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>A year?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>A year. Something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Oh. That\u2019s not bad. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>It\u2019s good from $80,000 in 2012 and the passive income is obviously generated from active income from Financial Samurai. I continued to basically plow the large majority of revenue from Financial Samurai into passive income investments but also, we\u2019ve had a huge bull market since 2012. It\u2019s not skill. It\u2019s just hey, the markets are up huge. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And again, remember, San Francisco real estate market, it was up like 80% since 2012 and I sold in 2017 and then I converted that $1.8 million into more passive income. So I\u2019m really trying to continuously build passive income. If you check out my site, I have a post that says $300,000 in San Francisco is a Middle-Class Lifestyle. And people might scoff at that. But if you read the Department of Housing and Urban Development, they say $100,000 per kid is low-income. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And all the reports, after I published that post\u2014all the reports say hey, look, you need $300,000 a year to afford a home in San Francisco. And I go through the detail budget of where that $300,000 goes and it goes pretty quick, not just the taxes. But if you don\u2019t win the San Francisco public school lottery system, which we think we will win, then we\u2019re going to have to go to private school and private school is $20,000-$50,000 a year after tax. So it\u2019s always good to have goals. We\u2019re at like $220,000 now and our goal is to get to $300,000 by the time our son doesn\u2019t win the lottery and has to go to private school probably, in four years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>One of the things I think is interesting about your commentary in general here at a high level is you planned initially a fairly frugal lifestyle and your income and assets expanded and now you have the situation, you\u2019re retired and you have lots of assets. You have millions and millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in passive income. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And you\u2019re still worried because you\u2019re thinking hey, this is my kid. This is my lifestyle. I want exactly what I want and I want the absolute best situation here and I\u2019m going to continue going after things and creating a situation that\u2019s capable of sustaining exactly what I want. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And I think that\u2019s a particularly interesting commentary if I\u2019m picking up on that correctly because I think a lot of people go into this with I\u2019m going to live at this expected level of income and lifestyle forever and I made\u2014my needs and wants may change after, as life goes on and will probably increase in terms of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>It will definitely increase because of just inflation but what happens is once you have a kid, you will love your kid more than anything in the world and two things will happen. One, I think you\u2019ll wish you had your kid earlier so he or she can be a greater percentage of your life because you think about your life and your mortality more. But two, even if you can afford things, you have two options for your kid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The problem is this is why tuition is so inelastic. It\u2019s so expensive. Because they know that parents are going to be like, well, for $10,000 more, are we really willing to sacrifice our kids not getting the best? This is the thing that I think a lot of parents struggle with, at least here in San Francisco and maybe New York and a lot of the bigger cities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s such a grind. So the grind and the rat race go from work to how to best provide for your kid. And that\u2019s one of the reasons why I want to get out of San Francisco. It\u2019s one of the reasons why I left at the north end of San Francisco where it\u2019s a wealthier neighborhood and I moved to the west side because it\u2019s a very middle-class neighborhood. The price that I bought, $1.25 million was under the median home price in San Francisco. Again, everything is relative, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And it\u2019s just a much more middle-class neighborhood. I just want to get out of that grind. I don\u2019t want to go downtown. I don\u2019t want to hang out downtown with people who are going to talk about their next tech startup and their billions of dollars. It\u2019s just annoying. And so I hope if we can go to Honolulu, it\u2019s a really family atmosphere, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">We had to work Ohana. We had multi-generations living under one roof. And it\u2019s one of the highest child per capita populations in the country. Maybe it is the highest whereas in San Francisco, we\u2019re the lowest. So the different stage in my life, and I\u2019m going to have to try to figure out how much to give and how much not to give to allow my kid to be independent and not to be spoiled rotten. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s a real challenge and I hope that based on our frugality and our lifestyles, us growing up\u2014we\u2019re still really frugal, that he can learn to only believe that he deserves only what he has earned. And I think if he can believe in that and some other principles I talk about all the time\u2014like never failing due to lack of effort because effort requires no skill\u2014I think he\u2019ll be fine. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m a new parent so I\u2019m just going to do my best.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That\u2019s really all you can do. It doesn\u2019t get any easier as they get older. Sorry to spoil.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be quite a journey. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Okay. So this was super fun. I\u2019m very glad you were able to come on the show with us. We just have a few more questions for you before we let you go today. I know we\u2019ve gone really long because you\u2019ve just had a lot of really great information to share.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The next portion of our show is called the <i>Famous Four<\/i> questions. These are the same five questions that we ask all of our guests. The last one is the easiest for you to answer. The first one is what is your favorite finance book?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah, so besides <i>How to Engineer Your Layoff<\/i>: <i>Make a Small Fortune by Saying Goodbye, <\/i>written by me and should be read by everyone, I don\u2019t have a favorite finance book. My favorite book is <i>Healing Back Pain <\/i>by Dr. Sarno. And it\u2019s a wonderful book that talks about what the hell is going on with the explosion in lower back pain and chronic pain like sciatica and it\u2019s because society has just gotten crazy and we\u2019re all so stressed out. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">And that hey, this is how you heal this chronic pain. I remember I had chronic pain for a couple of years and it was terrible. I couldn\u2019t even sit down. I read this book and two months later, I was back pain free and it\u2019s been pretty much back pain free for at least ten years. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That\u2019s good. Back pain is\u2014that was not the answer that I was expecting. It has never been mentioned on our show before but you know what? I have had some pain in\u2014not chronic pain because it did go away. But when you\u2019re in pain, you can\u2019t really focus on anything else.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>No. Being pain-free is super important. Health, feeling good. You get that down, you can do a lot more with your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Very true.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>What was your biggest money mistake?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Biggest money mistake was what I mentioned in the podcast, buying a vacation property in Lake Tahoe in 2007 where I thought it was like a 10% discount and it went down another 40-50%. But I still own it and I didn\u2019t welch under my debt and I\u2019m excited, excited, excited to take my boy to touch the snow. This is something I\u2019ve been dreaming about for 11 years so I\u2019m excited to take him there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Awesome. So it doesn\u2019t sound like a big money mistake to me at the end of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Yeah, what is it worth now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>It might be worth $700,000. Probably not. It\u2019s still probably under what I bought it for. Thankfully, what happens is as you get older and you get wealthier, hopefully, it just becomes a smaller and smaller part of your net worth, so then your mistake gets smaller and smaller as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That\u2019s a good way to look at that. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Okay, the best piece of advice I can give is if the amount of money you\u2019re saving each month doesn\u2019t hurt, you\u2019re not saving enough. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Love that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>I like that a lot. I\u2019ve never heard that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Yeah, it\u2019s like if you\u2019ve ever had braces, if you\u2019re not feeling the pain in your teeth, then it\u2019s not doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Here\u2019s the most difficult <i>Famous Four<\/i>. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Oh, man. Gosh. I should have prepared for this because I think you guys gave me a heads up. I don\u2019t have a joke. Oh, my gosh. I have really bad jokes. So I can\u2019t online. No, I can\u2019t say online. I should have prepared for this. I don\u2019t have a joke.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That\u2019s okay, I have people who send me jokes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Yeah, someone just sent me a joke today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I want to hear ya\u2019ll\u2019s jokes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>This one comes from Vaughn who e-mails me a joke pretty regularly now and this joke was, I like taking photos of myself standing next to boiling water. My doctor says, I\u2019ve got selfie steam issues. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Oh, man. That\u2019s terrible. That\u2019s a terrible joke.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That\u2019s the kind of joke that gets told on this show. So if you don\u2019t have one, that\u2019s totally fine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>I have really bad just can\u2019t be talked about jokes. They\u2019re terrible jokes. So I\u2019m going to have to pass. I don\u2019t know\u2014I\u2019m going to work on that, though. I don\u2019t go out much anymore because I\u2019m a stay-at-home dad so I don\u2019t have to entertain anybody anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Well you\u2019re going to have to entertain your son. Pretty soon, he\u2019s going to be telling you these terrible jokes. So I don\u2019t remember who sent this in and I can\u2019t find it in my e-mail. I\u2019m sorry for you who sent it in. What do you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinoceros? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>A big animal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Elephino. So there you go, Scott. Terrible, terrible, horrible joke. My daughter just had one and it was really funny. I need to remember it. She actually has a lot of really good jokes. When they come out of her mouth, they\u2019re funny. When they come out of Scott\u2019s mouth\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>They\u2019re even funnier. All right. Where can people find out more about you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>You can just go to FinancialSamurai.com and I\u2019ll be there and you can see all my articles and go to the About page and that\u2019s the best way. Actually, I have a forum, I haven\u2019t told anybody really except for my newsletter guys because I\u2019m really too busy. But FinancialSamurai.com\/forums with an \u2018s\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Definitely go check out FinancialSamurai.com. You\u2019ve got incredible data-driven posts that have gone on for years. I\u2019ve used the resource for many years myself personally so it\u2019s been a huge privilege to chat with you today and get to know you. And I definitely recommend all the listeners go and check it out for some really good data and some really good perspective on your site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Thank you very much and I\u2019m going to work on my jokes. It was really a privilege to speak to you guys as well. Literally nobody asks me to do anything so whenever someone says hey, come on board, someone says okay. Sure. Because I feel like I\u2019m just out here in no-man\u2019s land in San Francisco. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>No-man\u2019s land in San Francisco. Yeah, there\u2019s just nothing as far as the eye can see out there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>They don\u2019t even have internet out there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>There\u2019s nothing here. I wish there was a bigger community of people in the finance space, but it\u2019s New York and it\u2019s the heartland. And maybe Portland or something. But nobody here for some reason.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Yeah, Portland has a big\u2014the heartland definitely. But I think it\u2019s easier because it\u2019s so much cheaper to live. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>But Portland, I guess it was not that expensive but now it\u2019s getting more and more expensive. Portland has a really good personal finance and also location independent lifestyle folks. So that\u2019s pretty cool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>Well, should we get out of here for this episode?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>We should. Thank you so much, Sam, for coming on and sharing your story and we\u2019ll talk to you soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Sam: <\/b>Thanks a lot. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>All right, that was Sam from FinancialSamurai.com. What\u2019d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>you think, Mindy?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>That is a whole life lived in half of the time. So now he\u2019s got the rest of his life to kind of do more stuff. It sounds like he\u2019s not going to stop. Which I think is very interesting. You know, a lot of talk in the media lately about financial independence and what are you going to do afterwards or why do you want to just quit your job?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I think this has been said several times by a lot of different people but the drive that gets you to the point of financial independence is the drive that isn\u2019t going to allow you to just sit around and watch TV and do nothing for the rest of your life. And Sam now has a little boy to keep him on his toes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>I mean, you can tell that Sam is a wealthy man. He\u2019s a guy that\u2019s made smart choices over a long career and for all of the retired, stay-at-home dads\u2014this is a man that is going to become wealthier and wealthier over time, is not going to end up 30 years from now less well off than he is today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I mean, he is a smart, high-level view of finances. He understands what he needs to do it hit that position. I think that frankly, more people need to think like him in order to get ahead. The theme, that I was picking up from him was a ferociousness about standing up for himself and his interests. We talked about the severance package, those kinds of things. Why aren\u2019t you stick up for your interests in a way that Sam does and putting yourself in those situations to get it the way he did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>I like what he said in the show\u2014nobody cares more about than you. So start caring more about you. Stand up for yourself. That\u2019s absolutely right. And there\u2019s nothing wrong with standing up for yourself. When you\u2019re being picked on by a bully, you stand up for yourself. You\u2019re taught to stand up for yourself. Stand up for yourself in all areas of finance as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>And put yourself in a position of power, right? I observed earlier that maybe you\u2019re Marketing Specialist I or something and you\u2019re just starting off in your career, the power that Sam had was built up over the course of him applying his mindset consistently. It\u2019s not like Sam is unrelatable or ahead of my career, or a different career or had my position. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">It\u2019s how do you put yourself in a position of power like Sam over the course of a career and make the smart investments? Look, it was a combination of living frugally and investing aggressively and going all out for his career. That kind of got him ahead. What\u2019s unrepeatable about that? Effort doesn\u2019t take skill, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Scott: <\/b>What was his quote there? He had a great one. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Mindy: <\/b>He had a great one. Never fail due to a lack of effort because the effort takes no skill. I really can\u2019t add to any of that, Scott. That\u2019s just like spot on. So I am going to say, from Episode 46 of the BiggerPockets Money podcast, this is Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench and Scott has to catch a plane so goodbye!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Watch the Podcast Here<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Engineering Passive Income Streams to Fund the Life You Want | BP Money Podcast 46\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3hJrP9OITqs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Help Us Out!<\/h2>\n<p>Help us reach new listeners on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/biggerpockets-money-podcast\/id1330225136\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iTunes<\/a>\u00a0by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds.\u00a0Thanks! We really appreciate it!<\/p>\n<h2>Podcast Sponsors<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-102474 size-medium no-display appear\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/LinkedIn-Logo-black-300x81.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/LinkedIn-Logo-black-300x81.png 300w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/LinkedIn-Logo-black-768x208.png 768w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/LinkedIn-Logo-black-1024x278.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/LinkedIn-Logo-black.png 1280w\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"81\" title=\"\">For the small business owner who is looking to expand their business in the pursuit of financial independence, hiring can be a daunting task. Thankfully\u00a0<strong>LinkedIn<\/strong>\u00a0is here to help and get you on the path to FI! That\u2019s why you should use LinkedIn to find your next hire, grow your business, and hit that FI number! Most LinkedIn members have not recently visited the top job boards, but 9 out of 10 members are open to new opportunities. That\u2019s why a new hire is made every 10 seconds using LinkedIn. BiggerPockets even uses LinkedIn as part of our hiring strategy!<\/p>\n<p>Hurry to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/linkedin.com\/bp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">linkedin.com\/bp<\/a>\u00a0and get $50 off your first job post.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-102654 no-display appear\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo-300x72.png\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo-300x72.png 300w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo-768x184.png 768w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Blinkist-Logo-1024x245.png 1024w\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"72\" title=\"\">Second Sponsor<\/h2>\n<p>Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the best-selling nonfiction books and distills them down to their most impactful elements, so you can read or listen to them in under 15 minutes, all on your phone.\u00a0The Blinkist library is massive and has timeless classics like Rich Dad Poor Dad to Amazon Best Sellers like the 4 hour work week.<\/p>\n<p>Go to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.blinkist.com\/biggerpockets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blinkist.com\/biggerpockets<\/a>\u00a0to start your free 7 day trial.<\/p>\n<h2>In This Episode We Cover:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Sam&#8217;s <strong>money journey<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>His <strong>first memories<\/strong> about money<\/li>\n<li>What his career at <strong>Goldman Sachs<\/strong> looked like<\/li>\n<li>His <strong>financial position<\/strong> after graduating from college<\/li>\n<li>A look at Sam&#8217;s <strong>first investment<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>How he realized it was time to start <strong>converting his money into assets<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>A discussion on <strong>bankruptcy protection<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>How he started <strong>Financial Samurai<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The story of how he <strong>engineering his layoff<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The importance of negotiating a <strong>severance package<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Where you can check <strong>what your worth is<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>What he did after his <strong>son was born<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>His <strong>plans<\/strong> for the future<\/li>\n<li>His <strong>passive income<\/strong> now<\/li>\n<li><strong>And SO much more!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Links from the Show<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/craigslist.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Craigslist<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PayPal<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/careers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Jobs<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financialsamurai.com\/living-a-middle-class-lifestyle-on-300000-year-expensive-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Why Households Need To Earn $300,000 A Year To Live A Middle Class Lifestyle Today<\/a>\u00a0(blog)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financialsamurai.com\/dont-get-fired-or-quit-get-laid-off-instead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Don&#8217;t Quite, Get Laid Off Instead<\/a>\u00a0(blog)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Books Mentioned in this Show<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2DBrvfN\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Behavior Gap<\/em><\/a> by Carl Richards<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2T1OHbk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The One-Page Financial Plan<\/em><\/a> by Carl Richards<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2DgvPjh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Healing Back Pain<\/em><\/a> by John Sarno<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Tweetable Topics:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;It is important to forecast your misery. That is the best way to forecast your happiness.&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22It%20is%20important%20to%20forecast%20your%20misery.%20That%20is%20the%20best%20way%20to%20forecast%20your%20happiness.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2046%20%40biggerpockets%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow46\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Never fail due to a lack of effort, because effort requires no skill.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Never%20fail%20due%20to%20a%20lack%20of%20effort,%20because%20effort%20requires%20no%20skill.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2046%20%40biggerpockets%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow46\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Don&#8217;t quit. Get laid off instead.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Don&#039;t%20quit.%20Get%20laid%20off%20instead.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2046%20%40biggerpockets%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow46\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Know your worth.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Know%20your%20worth.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2046%20%40biggerpockets%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow46\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Nobody cares more about you than you.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22Know%20your%20worth.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2046%20%40biggerpockets%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow46\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;If the amount of money you&#8217;re saving each month doesn&#8217;t hurt, you&#8217;re not saving enough.&#8221;\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=%22If%20the%20amount%20of%20money%20you&#039;re%20saving%20each%20month%20doesn&#039;t%20hurt,%20you&#039;re%20not%20saving%20enough.%22%20BP%20Money%20Podcast%2046%20%40biggerpockets%20biggerpockets.com\/moneyshow46\" target=\"_blank\">Tweet This!<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Connect with Sam<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financialsamurai.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sam&#8217;s Personal Website<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financialsamurai.com\/forums\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Financial Samurai Forums<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week\u2019s episode features Sam Dogen from Financial Samurai. After one month working for a top investment firm, Sam knew 70-hour workweeks were not the life he wanted. So Sam took action immediately. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":353007,"featured_media":103727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6473],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biggerpocketsmoney"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/353007"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}