[Interview #012] Being Nomadic Through Financial Investments | Experiencing Time Scarcity

This interview is part of our interview series, where we curate stories of regular people that decided to design a life they love. (click here to learn more).

FI Guy & FI Girl from FIHeroes.com

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I stumbled upon FI Guy & FI Girl over Twitter and quickly figured out that they were nomadic like us. They are like-minded people that decided to embrace nomadic living as part of their lifestyle and this is why we decided to reach out to them to write this interview.  

FI Guy and FI Girl are a husband and wife team sharing their journey to financial freedom and beyond through their blog ​FIHeroes.com​. They were both IT / Finance managers in fortune 500 companies with the shared goals of becoming financially independent and retiring early so they could travel the world. Last year, before their 38th birthdays, they reached both of these goals and not only did they leave their Corporate jobs but they also sold their home and just about everything in it, sold one of their two cars and traveled across the country to their new home base in Florida, USA. 

So without further ado, let’s hear from FI Guy & FI Girl!

IMPORTANT NOTE: this interview was done before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. We have worked with our guests to adjust the relevant sections of our interview to include any “post-pandemic updates” as well as providing a general update you can read below.

FI Guy & FI Girl (FG&FG): We were planning on taking a transatlantic cruise at the end of April and spending the Summer in Europe.  With COVID-19 this obviously is not happening. We were fortunate in the timing as we were not only able to unwind all of our plans and get reimbursed 100% but we were also able to extend our apartment lease on a monthly basis until it is deemed safe to travel again.  

Before the restrictions were implemented due to COVID-19, we would spend most of our time out at the local theme parks, nearby nature trails, or exercising at the gym. Since early March we have only been going out for our daily evening walk and a grocery run every 10 days. 

Even though our investments have taken a big hit due to the recession we are now in, we are confident that we were conservative enough in our planning to be able to continue on our FIRE / nomadic lifestyle.  

It will take some time for things to be “normal” enough to feel comfortable traveling again. We will be letting the data and government safety guidance determine that for us. Most likely we will stay in the US and visit friends and family in late Summer, if it is safe to do so, and are hopeful we will be able to kick start our international travel adventure in the fall with a journey to Australia.

Lifestyle change

What does a typical day in your life look like for you today? And how does it differ from your lifestyle before?

FI Guy & FI Girl (FG&FG): For the months prior to COVID-19, we tend to get up around 9 AM and check out the Disney and Universal apps to see how crowded the Orlando theme parks are. If it’s a light day, we’ll spend a few hours at the parks. With our Florida resident annual passes, our additional cost of a trip down the street is near zero. When we’re not at the parks you can find us at the local gym or taking a walk on the numerous nature trails near our current home. Most days we make our meals at home but we still do go out to restaurants a couple of times a week. We find ways to combine various promos and coupons to get the most value out of our experience. At night we work on our blog, keep in touch with friends and family, plan our next trip, and catch up on whatever Netflix show we are currently streaming.

While we were still working, our lives were quite different. Both of us were on call 24/7 and more or less tied to work. Getting up at 4:30 AM and sitting in traffic for 2 hours each way was “normal” and working once we got home, over the weekends and on holidays was often expected. Needless to say, sleep and personal time were rare commodities.

Check out the infographic below to contrast how FI Guy & FI Girl priorities shifted before and after getting on their FI journey:

What changes did you have to make since the pandemic started?

FG&FG: Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, we have had to spend a lot more time keeping ourselves entertained indoors. We have been staying busy taking walks, meditating, catching up on our backlogs of games, movies and books, taking classes online, writing blog posts and staying in touch with friends and family through the various remote channels; Not to mention, spending less money. 

We feel very fortunate to both have our health right now and not know anyone that has contracted the virus. We’re doing what we can to stay safe and to keep ourselves and those we come in contact with healthy. While we are looking forward to getting back out there and figuring out what the new normal is going to be like, right now, we are actually enjoying having the time to “just be” as it’s not something we’re used to. 

What inflection point led you to decide to change your lifestyle?

FG&FG: The timing and circumstances were different for each of us. We both always had shared goals before and after we got married. The first big one was to buy our first home in cash. When we finally accomplished this, we struggled with the next big goal. There were plenty of ideas and most of them revolved around starting our own business. The big obstacle was with our careers advancing, our time was becoming more limited. Nights, holidays, and weekends were no longer our own time, they were owned by our employers. We also weren’t sure if we wanted to trade one career for another. Early retirement was an aspiration but at the time it felt so out of reach due to our lack of knowledge.

The real catalyst for me (FI Guy) was after completing a major, very stressful, multi-year project, we both decided to take a long-overdue vacation to NYC. On the first day of this trip, I was called into a teleconference with all of the major players on the project where it was demanded that I return back to the office immediately to fix a variety of unforeseen issues. Never wanting to disappoint my leaders, we returned home the next day. Realizing how little control we had over our time caused me to research and stumble into the FIRE movement.

For FI Girl it was a series of experiences that really motivated her to want to change her lifestyle. Beyond a number of toxic work environment experiences and realizing her job title and a big house were not making her happy, she had also seen a number of friends, colleagues, and family either pass away or fall ill unexpectedly. FI Girl also had her own “life flashing before your eyes” moment which left her with chronic pain and an eventual diagnosis of Fibromyalgia. Rather than slowing her down, this only solidified her desire and further motivated her to hit fast forward on our plans for financial freedom and retiring from our corporate jobs early so we could see the world and really live life on our terms.

What did you have to do to prepare the transition to this new lifestyle

FG&FG: We needed to map out what our new life would look like and what it would cost to travel full time. To be safe we saw that number to be around $55K per year. Next, we needed to accumulate enough income producing assets to generate $55K per year. We recognized if we sold our home and invested that money into higher yielding ETFs, we could greatly accelerate our plan. Of course selling our home meant selling everything we had in the home and downsizing to one car-loan worth of “stuff”. This was no small challenge. Though an even bigger challenge was timing our graceful exit from the careers we built over the last 15 years. In the end we both got lucky and were able to negotiate severance packages to make our transition from working to retired much easier. Shortly after selling our home, we made the road trip down to Florida, our new home base, where we have taken a brief pause to recognize the major changes we have both taken and to take some time to reboot our brains and our bodies. This time has allowed us to be more thoughtful in our next steps toward full time travel and a nomad lifestyle. 

Once you started on this new lifestyle, what were some of the biggest challenges you have been facing? 

FG&FG: The biggest challenge has been being away from our friends and family. While technology is amazing, it doesn’t replace being with your loved ones in person and being able to get to them quickly if someone needs your help. The timing of when we left was particularly hard as FI Girl had family who was ill and had been in a very serious accident and needed help. She did as much as she could before we left but leaving and being away has been very hard as we worry about them constantly. Also, our niece was just over a year old when we left. We love our weekly Skype visits but it’s not the same as spending hours with her in person, watching her grow.

Everything else, in comparison, have been minor challenges so far such as having to change plans last minute because of a hurricane, realizing we didn’t book the nicest of hotels and they definitely have bed bugs, figuring out how we’re going to get our mail while we’re traveling and finding health insurance that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

There are loads of other challenges we fully anticipate we will experience on our travels, the most obvious is not being able to proficiently speak the language in a country we may be visiting. 

What life philosophy has been guiding you through this journey?

FG&FG: ​Time > Money. We have enough money but we will never have enough time. Unless we become vampires or robots. Or vampire robots. Traveling is what we value the most at the moment so that’s what we are going to do with our time. 

How long did it take you to become financially free? Why did you decide to reach FI? What were some of the challenges you had to face along the way?

FG&FG: Our “inflection points” are what drove us to seek another lifestyle. The only way we felt we could achieve this lifestyle was to become financially independent. We already were huge savers for the majority of our careers but we lacked purpose for that saving prior to discovering FI. We felt financially free when we hit the $2MM in early 2017. We decided to work for two more years to build ourselves a buffer in case there was a recession nearby. Also we did want to make sure that the multi-year projects we were working on were in a finished state before moving on. The last year of our careers, when we knew that we were financially free was the hardest for us. In one way it was good because we were able to more freely stand up for decisions we believed to be morally right without fearing repercussions.  But knowing that we could walk away at any time was very draining because we were always questioning whether or not we are needlessly trading our time for money we would never need.

With the fact that we are now in a new recession thanks to COVID-19, we are very thankful for the “extra” work (and money we earned) to limit the risk of our lifestyle experiment failing.

What did your friends and family think of your plan to become financially free? What did they think when you announced to them that you will be quitting your day to day job and leaving the US to travel/relocate?

​FG&FG: Most thought that we were having a midlife crisis and that this will just be a phase for us. I can see from the outside why some would think that. We did after all both leave high paying jobs at the top of our careers and sold all of our possessions. Not to mention, we spent the last couple of months visiting Disney and Universal….as adults without children. Maybe they’re right, maybe not. It’s up to us to decide for ourselves. For now we are happy doing what we are doing which is what matters. If that changes, we will pivot and do something different. 

Travel

How would you describe your travel style?

FG&FG: Too early to say at the moment. Our trip down the East Coast of the United States took place over the course of three weeks and that felt too rushed and the last six months in Central Florida was probably a little longer than we needed. Going forward, we would like to ideally spend about one month per city. We love cruising so staying close to a port will also be a priority for. Being nomad noobs, I’m sure we will be making plenty of mistakes which we will be sure to document as lessons learned for others. 

How much stuff do you travel with?

FG&FG: We currently have one small sized sedan worth of “stuff”. Over the next couple of months we will be selling, donating and gifting what doesn’t fit in just two backpacks and two carry-on suitcases. That stuff is not just what we will be traveling with but it will actually be everything that we own. Looks like we have some tough decisions coming up. 

What’s something you pack that’s not absolutely essential but you like having it?

FG&FG: We both have our own laptops (and mine is a gaming laptop). We refuse to share when it comes to this. 

With travel being part of your post FI life, that the USA is still in lock-down and that travel is basically on pause across the blog, how do you see travel for the rest of the year?

FG&FG: Travel is really only a recent addition to the topics we discuss on our blog. There are still a lot of personal finance, investment and personal development topics in our backlog.  Reality is dictating that we pause our travel plans, but this will only be a temporary problem.  When things open up and the daily death toll goes down to double digits, we will consider doing a reverse road trip back up the East Coast or an International trip.  A safe trip a year from now is preferable than a risky one next month. 

Spending

How much money do you spend on travel per year? How many days of travel does this represent? How much does this represent per day and per person?

FG&FG: $55K per year is what we have allocated for full-time travel for both of us. This works out to be $150 per day or $75 per person per day. This includes everything from food, lodging, entertainment to health insurance, transportation, and another essential spending. Prior to retirement, we had been spending $40K per year. So far we have continued to spend $40K but we have the option to raise it to $55K as we ramp up our traveling. 

The table below provides our monthly budget breakdown per spending category. We are sharing our budgeted spending as well as what we have been spending over the last 8 months in Florida (September ‘19 to April ‘20).

Spending Category	Budgeted Monthly Amount (in USD)	Actual Monthly Amount over a period of 8 months
Accommodation	$1521	$1261
Living expenses (Taxes, cell phone, mailbox, storage, Netflix, Audible)	$59	$58
Groceries	$350	$328
Dining out / Take-out	$342	$154
Activities (Adventures!)	$666	$366
Health Care / Health Insurance	$750	$421
Transportation	$500	$322
Other expenses	$396	$110
Monthly Total	$4,583	$3,020
Yearly Total	$55,000	$36,240
Per Person, Per Day Total	$75	$50

How do you fund your travel (savings/work whilst traveling/other)?

FG&FG: Currently all of our expenses are covered by passive income. Our investments are expected to return about $55K in dividend income each year. However, we also have an emergency fund which includes cash or cash equivalents that we can draw upon if our dividend income falls short. 

How is COVID-19 impacting your passive income? Will you be “staying the course” or are you planning on making any changes to your current strategy to weather this pandemic? 

FG&FG: We fully expect our dividends to decrease between 10 and 40% over this year.  That’s a big range.  As a result, we have temporarily lowered our spending by 40% while on lockdown.  Most of our discretionary spending happens when we go on adventures.  As there are no adventures possible, it’s pretty easy to live on less without feeling like it is an additional sacrifice.

Last but not least

What is one resource (blog, podcast, book beside your own) you recommend for those that want to pursue your lifestyle?

FG&FG: We would recommend others check out ​Millennial-Revolution​. There are a lot of similarities but they did things way more efficiently than we did by never buying the big expensive house and leaving their careers five years earlier. 

What advice do you have for others who are considering this type of lifestyle? 

FG&FG: We saved 75 to 80% of our after-tax income for several years and invested our money in low-cost ETFs in order to generate the amount of passive income we were comfortable with to leave our jobs and travel full time. Everyone’s starting point, end goal and path to get there will be different and that’s ok. Educate yourself. Read and listen to as many people as you can that are already doing what you want to do and take the pieces of their strategies that fit your own vision. There is no one size fits all strategy when it comes to this but you can certainly learn a lot from those who are already living a similar version of it. 

Is there anything I may not have asked that you would like to share with others who are considering this way of life?

FG&FG: Know that this way of life might not be the popular vote amongst your friends and family. Not everyone will understand or agree with you but remember this life is yours to live and it’s ok to do something different if it makes you happy and doesn’t hurt anyone else. Also remember if you don’t end up loving this way of life or it wasn’t what you imagined then you can always pivot and do something different. Nothing has to be forever. So take a chance on your happiness. It’s worth it. 

Rapid Fire Questions

What is your favorite travel destination & why?	​FG&FG: The Atlantic Ocean. We love cruises and some of our best travel memories are from the transatlantic cruises we have taken over the years. The sound and smell of the ocean waves breaking on the ship is something we always miss as soon as the journey ends.
What was the most creative thing you’ve ever done to save money during your travels?	FG&FG: Going on repositioning cruises (e.g. cruises that do not start and end in the same place). These trips are usually very reasonable in terms of per day cost and the price includes food, lodging, entertainment and transportation between ports. We have taken a few of these over the years and snagged some amazing deals. Now that we aren’t tied down to a job and have the freedom to come and go, we will be sure to take advantage of last minute deals so we can be at sea a good chunk of our days each year.
What was your biggest travel mistake?	FG&FG: When we were dumb college students living a semester abroad in Australia we booked a trip to Bali for a “Spring Break” like trip. We paid cash for the airfare. The airline went out of business and we lost all of our money. Now we use our rewards credit cards on everything in order to be better protected from something like this happening again

Thank you FI Guy & FI Girl for sharing your nomadic story!

The Bottom Line

Here are the main lessons we took away from this interview:

• Lesson 1 – “Time > Money” – As both FI Guy & FI Girl careers progressed they moved into a time scarcity mindset where they no longer have the freedom to even take an overdue vacation! After stumbling upon the FIRE movement they realized that they can regain control over their time and make it an abundant resource.
• Lesson 2 – “Take a chance on your happiness. It’s worth it” – FI Guy & FI Girl both realized that the career they built over the past decade and a half was starting to affect their own health. Their wake up call leads them to take a different path with their lives. A path that was not about possessions or even more money, but rather about their own happiness and so far they haven’t regretted the change. Actually we can argue that they are now more prepared than most people because they have been financially independent and have been saving enough money to ride this crisis for 2020 and beyond. 
• Lesson 3 – “We decided to work for two more years to build ourselves a buffer in case there was a recession nearby” – Fi GUY & FI Girl could have retired in 2017 once they hit their FI numbers. Instead, they decided to take a very conservative route and be able to live off of 2.5% (instead of 4%) of their invested income. They were well aware of the sequence of return risk and given that the economy did not experience a recession for the past 10 years of a pretty strong bull market, they knew it was at the corner and could hit during their first year of FIRE (which actually did happen). On top of that, they also have a healthy emergency fund that they can now use as a buffer if their experiences do exceed their dividend income. At this point, they are pretty well prepared to weather this storm. Because if they can’t, things would have to get really really bad for a lot of people. 

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