Episode 482: How He Retired by 30 Through Side Hustles, Real Estate & Intentional Living w/ Cody Berman

Jamila Souffrant 0:02

Hey, hey, hey, journeyers. Welcome to the Journey to Launch podcast. Today we have Cody Berman, who is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, personal finance educator, and author of the brand new book Retire by 30. He reached financial independence at 25 years old through online businesses, strategic investing, and intentional living, and now he's helping others achieve freedom on their own terms. He's also been on a podcast many moons ago, back in 2018 So, Cody, you were 22 when you first came on the podcast and talked about your goals of reaching financial independence. So, I'm so happy to have you back on the show,

Cody Berman 0:41

yeah, it has been a long time. I listened to that episode yesterday, and it's so funny to hear some of the similarities, some of the differences. But I just got back from Australia, and I remember when I recorded this, I was like, "Oh man, did I just say that? You asked me, like, "Oh, hey, Cody, how's it going? I said, "How you going, which is like an Australian phrase. It's so funny. Can't delete that now, but now it's just a funny story we can share.

Jamila Souffrant 1:02

It's fine, and also, like, if so, if you're.. I think I'll put the video out for this. So, just seeing Cody, like, he looks so much more mature now than if you saw his picture in the first original episode. So, I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. But, Cody, I want to go back a bit. So, some people have not heard that episode, and I remember when I first, I think, heard of you, or we were introduced, I forgot how we exactly met, but I was like 22 years old and trying to achieve financial independence, like you were way ahead of the game, so I wanted to have you on the show, and I still think what you're doing is incredible, but I do want to go back into your story and how you first discovered financial independence and what made you know that you could start so young.

Cody Berman 1:43

Yeah, I was very, very fortunate to get introduced to this whole world when I was 19. Actually, read The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, and that's kind of where I got introduced to the whole notion of side hustles and building businesses and buying things that could make you money in perpetuity, versus like growing up, I always thought the richest people in the room, where the people who made a lot of dollars per hour, like the doctors, you know, they're making $250 an hour. A lawyer makes $100 an hour, or whatever they make. But Tim Ferriss kind of introduced this whole concept of you could actually create or buy things that will pay you, whether or not you're working on them. Like Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, or maybe the richest person in the world, can literally just sit on his hands for a year and make billions of dollars, like the wealthiest people in the world. They're not the people making $100 per hour, they're the people who can make money, regardless of whether or not they're working. So I got addicted to that idea. I built a whole bunch of side hustles in chase of this like elusive passive income. Finally, some of the side hustles started to work, scaled them up, and that's how I was able to achieve financial independence at such an early age. We can dive into whatever sounds interesting.

Jamila Souffrant 2:45

Yeah, I do want to go back. So, let's see, I did have kids back when we first did our interview, but I always love, especially talking to like younger people, because I'm like, now, how do I get my kids to have this kind of ambition, right? And to be so fiscally responsible. So, would you say that that's just something inherent in you, or was it something that your parents did, or taught you to be aware of, like opportunities like this as you were growing up.

Cody Berman 3:13

Opportunities like this definitely not what my parents did instill in me that I'm very grateful for was being a saver, so I would always save a percentage of whatever I was making, whether it was just random chore money or money from various hot hustles I had growing up. They would always encourage me, like, 'Hey, you know, put x percentage aside for a rainy day or for your future or whatever, and that always stuck with me. Now, this whole financial freedom, financial independence.. no, I mean, nobody talks about this stuff. My parents didn't know about this stuff. My mom did discover it later in life, and now we're kind of buddies on this phi journey together, which has been a lot of fun, but no, I mean, this is such a foreign concept to 99.9% of the population. I was not fortunate enough, or not fortunate to have, yeah, not fortunate enough to have parents who like knew about the stuff, and I was learning about phi when I was 10,

Jamila Souffrant 3:58

right, but it also just like goes to show you that some of just like the basic foundational things are enough. I mean, you know, you don't have to like show and teach and do everything, but like foundational saving, right? And being just aware of money, especially nowadays we live in an invisible money age, where a lot of kids don't see money, you know, it's you can just get things instantly, so I just think it's important to note that you can just do the basics of teaching your kid to save, and maybe you know they'll be inspired, like Cody, to be retake financial, learn some more, right, by younger, by the younger age. So remind me again, if you got went to school and what you got your degree in, and I know you were doing side hustles back then, and you still are, and you're your entrepreneur, but like, what, what were your goals, or what did you go to school for if you did go to school and graduate?

Cody Berman 4:49

Yeah, so when we recorded our episode, I was just about to start my first big W-2 job, I landed a corporate banking job straight out of college, I was making like $80,000 a year and. And this is kind of where my story takes a turn. Everyone told me I'd made it, like this is the dream job. You went to school for finance and economics, this is what you've been studying for all your internships. And I feel like discovering financial independence was kind of a blessing and a curse, because every day I'd show up for the train ride to Boston, it was like a two hour commute there, a two hour commute back, and my coworkers weren't that happy, I could see that my bosses weren't that happy. There's actually a recent poll that came out that said 70% of people are not happy with what they're doing on a day-to-day basis, which, which is insane. That's why you and I put out content like this. But yeah, I could just see my trajectory. I was like, I don't want to be in the positions my coworkers are in. I don't want to be in the position my boss is in. So I made the pretty tough decision because I had a lot of backlash from family, friends, even folks in the personal finance space, like, hey, Cody, stick it out a couple years, but I ended up quitting that job seven months in, went full bore into entrepreneurship, had a couple side hustles going at the time, and had tried like 30 plus side hustles, I've since scaled back a lot, but a couple of them really took off, like digital products did incredibly well for me. Real estate did incredibly well for me, but I tried everything, Jamila. I did like all the freelance you could imagine. I was like doing freelance writing, podcast editing, building websites, managing affiliate programs, writing emails for people. I was doing in-person stuff, I was like landscaping, I was cleaning boats, I was working my uncle's Christmas tree farm. I was just like hustling my butt off, like I was working 16 plus hours a day for a couple years,

Jamila Souffrant 6:24

so that's interesting. So you had a job that paid like a base salary, you know, guaranteed money, right? And then you started, or just didn't feel like that would be enough, or that would make you happy, and ended up doing all these other things. So when you think about it, right, because I now have been in that situation where I worked full time, had a stable income, but less freedom and autonomy, and then now having a business, you know, there's differences. So, for you, right, somebody might say, "Oh, well, like I rather have like the stable job and then build my financial freedom life from that, like invest as much as I can, and which is what I'm sure people advised you to do when you talk about, you know, when they probably told you not to quit. Looking back at it now, can you talk about, like, making that decision? Because part of me feels like you had, like, youth on your side, and from what I know, at that time, you, you didn't, you weren't married or had kids. So talk about kind of making that decision, and how maybe that would be different if you are had more something different going on in your life.

Cody Berman 7:24

Yeah, I mean it's hard to answer that question because I was at that point, I was in my early 20s, I didn't have kids, I didn't have many responsibilities. Honestly, we can talk about that a bit. That was probably a superpower, and so if you are someone who has kids, like if you could introduce them to these concepts earlier on, before they have a house with an expensive mortgage before they have the new car with the $750 a month payment before they have all this lifestyle creep, like if you can get them while they're more than happy spending like 1000 1500 bucks a month, which is what I was doing in college, I just like rode that for the next couple of years, so I don't know what my decisions or life would have looked like if I started this journey when I was say 40 and I had a family, and I had a house, and a car, and I had to, like, scale back on lifestyle. Although, what I will say is, I've seen plenty of people do it. Like, there are people in the five space. I know it is difficult. It's an uncomfortable decision, but if you're someone who's living paycheck to paycheck, like, it's never too late to downgrade your housing, it's never too late to try out house hacking, it's never too late to trade in that new leased car for a five to seven year old used car that you can buy in cash, like it's never too late to change things around, but if you introduce someone to these concepts when they're young, like a high schooler or someone in college, and they have not gotten any lifestyle inflation whatsoever, and they can just live bare bones expenses for a couple years, and as they start to increase their income, they can have a massive gap between what they're bringing in and what they're spending, like that person is going to be set up for very early success.

Jamila Souffrant 8:48

Right now, you talked about trying all these businesses, can you maybe talk about a few of them, and like why they worked, why they didn't, what you enjoyed the most, just to give people ideas of the side hustles and things they can do to earn as their main thing or earn extra money.

Cody Berman 9:06

Yeah, so like I mentioned before, I tried every type of side hustle. I think trying so many has given me a kind of framework to think about side hustle. So I'll lay out the side hustle framework and give you guys a few examples. So I like to think of side hustles in four buckets. So the first bucket is just trading your time for money, so this could be freelance writing, this could be dog walking, this could be babysitting, this could be just like working some odd job, you are just trading your, your time for some dollars per hour, that's like the first one, trading time for money, the second one, this is one I lean the hardest into, is a scalable side hustle, so this is where you are building something, you're buying something that is going to expand and grow and pay you in perpetuity, so that could be a digital product, that could be a piece of real estate, that could be even something like a YouTube video or a podcast. Like, I have podcast episodes where I quarterback in 2018 where you know I might talk about a product, or I might have promoted something, and like I might still get an affiliate commission or a sponsorship check from that thing. That I created, like, years ago. So, these scalable side hustles are things where, like, you're creating an asset that pays you in perpetuity. The third type, this is the sharing economy, so this is renting your house on an Airbnb, renting your car on Turo, renting.. I mean, there's.. you can rent anything now. You can, like, rent out your pool to people, you can rent out your power tools to people, you can rent out your photography equipment. And then the fourth one is what I like to call a hybrid hustle, where you're taking a trade time for money side hustle, and you're scaling it up. So, an example of this might be you're a freelance writer, but once you get the chops, once you kind of learn the ins and outs of freelance writing, then you build a freelance writing agency. Now, you're managing people, it becomes a business, you can kind of scale yourself out. Or, let's say you're a dog walker, and you learn the ins and outs of dog walking, then you start to hire people, you build a company out of it, and I like to call that hybrid hustle. So, I tried saw hustles in all four of those different buckets, but what I'll say is the ones that performed the best for me was that bucket number two, the scalable hustles, where I put in the time, the energy, the effort, the money once, and then that thing paid me in perpetuity,

Jamila Souffrant 10:58

right? So, you reach financial independence by what age?

Cody Berman 11:03

I'd like to say 25 and I can lay out all the numbers for people, if that's helpful. Yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 11:06

let's, let's do that. Let's go into the numbers and what that looks like, because it does look different, you know, for everyone, and how they define it, actually. So, for you, how did you define financial independence, and what does that look like?

Cody Berman 11:19

Okay, so yeah, let's get into the numbers here. So, for me, there's two basically main ways to hit financial independence. There's the kind of traditional method people have probably heard of, the 4% rule. If you've been listening to podcasts like this for a long time, where you save up 25 extra expenses, and then at that point, so let's say you're spending $60,000 a year, 25x that is 1.5 million. Once you have that invested, you can, in theory, live on that portfolio. 4% of it would be the 60,000 a year. That's how that math all works. For it's like the inverse, the 4% the 25x rule, however you want to math it out. Then there's a cash flow five, so this is you're bringing in enough passive cash flow every month to cover your expenses, and then with a little bit of a buffer. So this could be through rental real estate, this could be through owning small businesses, it's something where you can spend a very little amount of time on the thing, but it will bring you enough cash flow every month to live. So, what I did was, I did a hybrid approach, so from 22 to 25 So, when you interviewed me the first time back in 2018 I was 22 So, this is the very beginning of this journey. That first year in entrepreneurship, I made $96,000 and I was spending, like I mentioned before, I kept my spending super, super low. I was spending like just under $2,000 a month. Let's just call it $24,000 for simple math. So I'm saving like 75% of my income, and with that gap, I'm investing into things like the stock market and real estate. So I'm doing a combo approach of the cash flow fi and the traditional kind of nest egg method. Year two in entrepreneurship, I made 198,000 My income doubled, because I was focusing on those scalable side hustles I mentioned, but I kept my expenses the exact same. So that second year was like 198k income, 24k ish expenses. I kept my expenses the exact same. Year three is where things went kind of bonkers, and my income doubled again. I made $403,000 I spent 24 sort of $375,000 gap to then invest into things like the stock market and real estate, and by the end of that third year, I mean the stock market was on a tear. The real estate market was doing amazing, and again, I'm investing like 80 to 90% of my income. The end of that third year, I had 500k in the stock market, I had 11 rental properties that were bringing me about $3,700 a month in cash flow, like after all expenses, after PITI reserves, everything. And then I had a digital products business that was bringing me 10,000 plus per month in mostly passive income. So it was at that point, like, I took an honest look at my finances, took out the spreadsheet and sat down with my then girlfriend, now wife, Lauren, and I was like, "Hey, babe, I think we're financially independent, like we're spending 25 maybe $3,000 a month at that point, and we were bringing in way more than that. So that's kind of the point where I was like, "Okay, this is fine,

Jamila Souffrant 13:56

right? Okay. Thank you for breaking down those numbers, because I think I do think it's helpful, and just helps people realize, like, you know, these things. I mean, these.. this was a few years ago. The market has changed, and you know, there's different opportunities, but I just think it's inspiring to hear that, you know, can be done. So, when it comes to.. I want to talk about the real estate, and just even the businesses. So, I think that, obviously, you can like the passive income stuff, it's real, it's true, you can, but I do think it takes work, and even consistent work, like if you are owning a portfolio of properties, like unless you hire a management company, you have to manage that right, so can you talk about the idea, this like the how you define or what your limit was to passive and not passive, because for some people they're like, I don't want to have, like, the headache of having to manage properties, or to, you know, start a business from the ground up, or like, let's just talk about that.

Cody Berman 14:55

Yeah, this is a great question. I think people think about passive versus active wrong, so. I like to think of passive income as a spectrum. It's not like this is passive income and this is active income. It's like this thing might be 90% passive, this thing's 70% passive. So, for me, you're right. Like, you have to put in a ton of time, energy, effort, maybe money at the beginning. Like, with real estate, you're definitely putting in money for down payments. If you've never built a system before, never built a team before, that's going to take a lot of work at the beginning, finding the right property, getting the right tenants in there, or even a business like building a team, kind of building the infrastructure, building your email marketing system, getting a good website, getting your funnel set up, like it's a lot of work at the beginning, but if you do it right, like, and you create the right systems and the right SOPs, standard operating procedures, then you can hire out help, you can get vas to help you can hire employees under you at some point. Once you have a good enough system like that, business can be more passive. Is it gonna be 100% passive? Absolutely not. Like, I don't know any business that's 100% passive. You might have to make a couple kind of key person decisions, but you can get it from, I don't know, it's a lot better than 100% active income. Like, if you have passive income that's taking that's like 50% passive or 70% or 90% passive, like for me, I'm like this is so much better than just trading my time for money directly. So to answer your question, yeah, it's more of a spectrum, so I like to tell people to think of it that way, not just I don't have to do any work or I have to do a lot of work, like there's a lot of in between there,

Jamila Souffrant 16:18

right? Yes, it's good, it's not just black and white, it's gray, and to think about it that way gives just more, you know, flexibility to how you think about what things can be now. So, as you started to, so let's talk about maybe like the spending, because that's such a big like income and expenses, like they drive everything, right? Like, and so the gap between that is how you reach your goals and what you're doing. So the income part kind of, like, we, you know, I feel like we understand you tried a lot of things, and on the expenses side, I'd love to talk about you keeping it solo, because I think your mindset was one of which, where you were very focused on what you wanted to do, but maybe talk about, like, your partner. I think when you, when you're by yourself, it's easy to, like, you know, spend less, and maybe do what you want, right? But you have a partner, like, how were they, were they initially on board? And then I think society, right, like your friends and people around you, how did you keep the lifestyle creep from creeping up?

Cody Berman 17:21

Yeah, these are all great questions. Okay, I'll try to answer them in reverse order, just because they're top of mind. So, one, getting Lauren, my then girlfriend, now wife, on board, I approached this the totally wrong way at first. So, I'm like the personal finance guy in a relationship, so I come to her with spreadsheets, I'm like, hey, look at this, like, if we save 80% of our income for a couple years, and invest like we're gonna hit financial freedom. She wasn't interested at all, but when I came to it, like, hey, what if in five to 10 years we could do whatever we wanted every single day, like we could work or not, we could take vacations, we could go on walks the middle of the day. So that worked. So when I sold the destination, not the journey, like I was selling the Greek islands, I wasn't selling the packing and the plane trip, which is kind of what I was doing before, showing her spreadsheets. So, once I kind of told her, like, if we do x, y, and z, like, this is kind of the pot of gold at the end, that worked fantastically. Now, to get tactical about how we actually spent that little money, and this is what I try to tell people, like, a lot of people hear those numbers, be like, you must have lived the worst life ever. You must have been so deprived, didn't do anything. What I like to really hone in on is like there's three big expenses: it's housing, transportation, and food. Those are the three biggest expenses for the average American. It makes up 67% of the average person spending, housing being like 33 and then food and transportation are both like 16 or 17, depending on the person or family, so for us, so on the housing front, we house hacked, so while we had friends who were like Massachusetts, we had friends who were going out to the expensive parts of Boston, renting a studio, renting a one-bedroom, paying $2,500 a month. We bought a three family, I'm actually recording from the three family today, one of the free three families we bought early on. So we're in a one bed, one bath here. Next door is a four bed, two bath apartment attached to 600 square feet of office space. We rent both of those out, so like while other people are paying rent, we're bringing in $2,600 a month in rent minus all expenses. We're making like 800 bucks a month, which I mean is a multi $1,000 per month swing, just from that one decision. And again, we're living in a nice one bed, one bath, similar to friends in Boston. We're just taking in $800 a month versus paying $2,500 a month. On the transportation front, which is the second biggest expense, we're both still driving the same paid off cars we've been driving for a long time. Like, my net worth has increased tenfold since I started the journey, but I'm still driving the same 2015 paid-off car. I get guests, from point A to point B, I'm not a big car guy, so I don't spend there. And then on the kind of food travel experiences front, like this is where people think I might have skimped really hard, but we still went out all the time, we still traveled, like what. We go out, we would just maybe get an app and an entree and split it, or other people might get app entre dessert, not even finish it, and so their bills like double ours, or you know, we go out to the bars for drinks, and like we might pregame and buy less drinks out, and like we were just doing all these like small tiny tweaks that from the outside didn't look that crazy, didn't look that different, like for travel we would just kind of do the the travel rewards game, where we'd have credit cards and use points, and so we just like had all these very small intentional choices that we made that again didn't look crazy from the outside, but if you peeled back the curtain and saw what our finances looked like, we're spending 1000s less per month than our peers, which gave us that gap that you just talked about to then invest in things like real estate, the stock market.

Jamila Souffrant 20:45

How do you fight, or maybe it wasn't a fight for you, but how do you? So, because I agree, I think same with us in terms of being just, you know, frugal in certain areas, and like not spending as much as we probably could have, especially when we had higher income years, but I know for a lot of people too, it's maybe if they were not, if they already have this mindset, it's like you're attached to the identity of the nice car and the nice house and going out to eat, like it's hard to separate that, and I think also what may happen for people is this idea of, you know, you're working and you know you want to feel good about the things you have, or you know, like, enjoy it. So, how do you, or how, like, if you're giving advice to someone who kind of feels attached to those things, where from the outside, if anyone doesn't know Cody, and they're stealing your car, it's just like, oh, I want, he's maybe he's not doing that well, right? When it's like, but you know that you know that you're doing okay. Like, I think that's that perception of what other people think of you and how you're perceived in society really impacts like how we spend our money. What would you say to someone who's kind of maybe they don't know that's what they're dealing with, but that's part of what's holding them back in terms of being able to get to their goals?

Cody Berman 22:01

Yeah, this is an interesting question. I think you really have to get bought into this idea first. Like, the reason why I had to sell Lauren on the destination on what the end goal was, like, then all the other decisions kind of just make sense around it. If you just try to tell someone, 'Hey, downgrade your house, hey, get rid of that nice car, hey, you can't go out to eat anymore. It's like they're like, 'Screw you, like I'm not doing that. But if they're so bought into this idea of financial freedom, and they're living paycheck to paycheck, and like cutting those expenses is the easiest way for them to create that gap, I think it's just going to flow for them. So, I honestly think the answer to your question is awareness. Like, once people discover this, I know that's how it was for me. Like, I didn't know anything about financial freedom. I didn't know this was a thing, but the second that I saw the numbers, I met people in real life, this became real to me. I'm like, oh man, like I'm gonna do everything in my power to achieve this, because I want freedom more than anything. I want freedom more than I want someone to think I'm cool because I have the newest BMW. Like, I want freedom more than I want people to think, oh, Cody's apartment is the best apartment I've ever been in. Yeah,

Cody Berman 23:04

get the freedom first, then you can add those things later on.

Jamila Souffrant 23:07

Yeah, I think, I think just to, if you are someone who is a car person who maybe wants, I think that's things you can plan for and have, you know, like either or, so it's kind of like it's your kind of life and choices that you can make for yourself, but it can be done, so it's just making sure you have enough money to do that to support and know the trade-offs in, oh, if you want this thing, just know you need this much money to help support that expense.

Cody Berman 23:34

Exactly, yeah.

Jamila Souffrant 23:36

As now, so it's, you know, again, it's been like eight years since our first conversation, and now you're older, wiser. You wrote a book that will talk about more, and yeah, I mean, I know you're sharing some tips from it anyway. But how has your mindset shifted? I know you've gotten married since then. Like, how has your mindset shifted since then? And has anything changed or surprised you about the journey so far,

Cody Berman 24:02

so is a good question. How's my mindset shifted? It's honestly kind of crazy, because I listened back to our old episode. My mindset hasn't changed that much, which is probably a good thing, because, like, these concepts kind of withstand the test of time, right? Like, it's really just create that gap between your income and your expenses, and that gap is going to determine everything. I think a lot of people get really hung up in what they should invest in. Like, a lot of my friends won't start investing because they're like, "Oh, I don't know if I should open a Roth IRA or a traditional or put money in my 400k or a brokerage, or I don't know if I should pick individual stocks or this index fund or that, or do real estate. It's like you can invest in pretty much whatever, like any tried and true investment. I'll say, don't put all your money into like meme coins and stonks and all these like crazy volatile things, but like if you're putting your money into just something that has staying power and you have a massive gap, like you're just you're gonna crush the people who are like so hyper optimizing over. What they're investing in, so I don't know if that's something I think I've more internalized that over the years. Like when we last spoke, I probably didn't know how important that was, like how the gap literally determines everything, but I've come to realize that, like, unless you have billions of dollars, like you're Warren Buffett or something, then yes, making 8% versus 9% in the market matters a lot, but if you're someone who's early on in their journey and you're just getting started, what really, really matters is just that gap between your income and your expenses, and you don't have to worry about the minutia and exactly what investments are going to perform the best.

Jamila Souffrant 25:33

Right, I agree, because it's it's one of those things where it's just like analysis paralysis that you don't do anything, and it kind of, you know, things are arcs can be confusing unless you just do it, and again, we're not saying just do it like without doing proper research or putting it into responsible investments, but I feel like every episode I've mentioned index investing or traditional retirement accounts, like before you do the the extra stuff, right before you do like the more advanced things, like just the tried and true index funds, you know, retirement account investing, and like even if it's just a couple $100 a month, puts you way far ahead of the game, and in 810, years, which I know feels so far away, but it's really not like it's gonna be here, God willing, you know, whether we like it or not. You're gonna be in a better place.

Cody Berman 26:26

I mean, our conversation was eight years ago. I can't believe that it doesn't feel like it, but the amount that I progressed personally, financially, in my relationships, everything in eight years is insane. Like, so much can happen in that timeframe if you put in just consistent effort and energy into something, you don't have to win the lottery,

Jamila Souffrant 26:45

no, right? And I'm thinking now, like, where I was eight years ago, and that was around the time that I quit my job full time to do Journey to Launch, and

Cody Berman 26:54

yeah, I remember that story on our podcast, that was, yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 26:58

it's because I do, right, the way I know that is because my daughter, I didn't go back after maternity leave, and so she's eight now, so I'm just like, wow, that is like I could have never imagined like this freedom and life I created for myself just from starting to invest, you know, and even though I'm not financially independent completely yet, I'm in my work flexible stage and very comfortable with kind of the balance I have. It's just like this. I can't tell people enough to start, because you'd be surprised how much faster and further along you'll get once you start accumulating and compounding the time and money.

Cody Berman 27:38

I think this is such a good point. I'm glad you brought that up, because I think other people also think that financial freedom is this: you're financially free or you're not. But just like passive income, it's a spectrum. Like, if you get a couple years and you have your money just riding in index funds in your accounts, or you have some real estate, or whatever, like you can kind of coast. There's this idea called Coast Fi, and a lot of people in the financial independent space, they'll just save up like enough money where they can leave that, never add another dollar to it, and once they hit retirement age, like that money is going to last them the rest of their life, and in between they can just work whatever they can, work odd jobs, they can just basically, quote unquote, live paycheck to paycheck, because they put in the work early on, so like there's so many levels to this, and I think having any kind of increased financial stability just gives you so much more freedom, like if you're, if your boss sucks, if you don't like your job, and you have, you know, an emergency fund, or maybe you have a couple years of investments and savings saved up, like maybe you can go take that other job that seems more appealing, even if it's a slight pay cut, or like you can go and take that six month trip that you've always wanted to take to Europe, like having this, the financial foundation, having financial stability, just affords you so many options, which I think is so, so important. It's not an all or nothing, it's not like, oh, I can't do anything until I hit my 25x number, or until my cash flow exceeds my monthly expenses, like even a little bit of passive income every month, even a couple 10s of 1000s of dollars in investing accounts, like that's huge, like that's going to compound tenfold by the time you reach retirement age,

Jamila Souffrant 29:09

right? For you now looking forward, and maybe kind of just thinking about your life, and what does that look like? What do you want to do, because are you at the place where some people who reach the level at which you've reached and I don't know how passive on the spectrum your income is and how are you just using your money from your businesses to pay for your expenses are you pulling from your investment accounts to supplement is your enough you like to share is your wife also kind of the entrepreneur or working, what does it currently look like? And then, as you think forward, about, you know, because you have a lot of years left, God willing, like, what does that look like?

Cody Berman 29:48

Yeah, so right now I am just living on business dividends, so I'm not pulling from any of the money that I have, I'm not selling off properties, nothing like that, I'm just living on my cash flow, and actually, still, like, I'm investing pretty aggressively. Really, I still have a pretty good size gap between my income and my expenses. My wife is also 100% on board. She's an entrepreneur, as well. As of a couple years ago, she has her own travel planning business that she, she loves working on. She's doing great with that, but yeah, no, it's.. I'm trying to think if I have any other like insights or tips on that, but I think no, not really.

Jamila Souffrant 30:23

And so, so now looking forward at, you know, where things may head to be headed for you guys. Are you thinking that you're going to stay planted in one place? Is the plan to maybe travel, you know, what does that look like moving forward and being able to pay for those expenses that might come up?

Cody Berman 30:41

Okay, yeah. This is.. I was totally lost my train of thought, but now I remember. So, we're both friends with Grant Sabatier, great buddy of mine, actually managed his book tour back in 2019 He wrote the foreword for my book, but he has this phrase where he said there's like a beauty in not knowing, and I totally resonate with that. And I think I don't know what I'm going to be doing in five years.. in 10 years. I'm not exactly sure, you know what I'm going to be doing. I know that, like, actually, we should talk about alignment and values for a little bit, but I kind of know what I'm doing on, like, a day-to-day basis. Like, Lauren and I have kind of mind mapped out what our ideal day looks like, what our ideal year looks like, but in terms of, like, what business am I working on, working on, what trips am I going to take that year? Like, I don't know, and I think there is a beauty in not knowing, and that's like one of the best parts about financial freedom, is that you have the ability to not know exactly what your life is going to look like in five years from now, whereas when I was in that corporate job, I'm like, oh, I kind of know that if I keep performing how I'm performing, like, then I'll be a business analyst three, like, I kind of know exactly what my life's going to look like, but I love the not knowing piece,

Jamila Souffrant 31:43

and I like you said, the financial having a nest egg and financial freedom allows you, which, by the way, I still think you can have money anxiety or feel these things, even with money, like even people who are sure wealthy or rich or have enough don't sometimes feel that way, which for various reasons, but it does help a bit, like even when I get, you know, nervous, I'm just like, okay, Jamila, what's going on? I'm like, all right, just look at your accounts or look at how much you have saved in your FU fund and your, your high yields, you're okay, like, relax, like that affords you the ability to breathe and be okay with the not knowing.

Cody Berman 32:18

Yeah, I do that all the time. I honestly had someone ask me on a podcast the other day, like, oh, what did it feel like when you hit five, and I mentioned to you, he was like, I had 500k in the account, I had these real estate properties, I was like, it took me years to internalize what it meant to hit financial freedom, like I hit that number right before I turned 26 and it probably wasn't until I was 2829 where it actually set in. Like, I don't know, I was just operating from this point of, you know, all the spreadsheets in the world could tell me that was gonna be fine, and like things are gonna work out, the numbers are yada yada yada, but like there's just this deep seated scarcity mindset that I just couldn't shake, and I know it just, it doesn't seem right, because no one talks about this stuff, like it's so weird to think that you could ever get to a point in your 20s or 30s where you never have to work again, but like the math says otherwise. But I don't know, there's.. I struggle with this a lot, and I do have to do exactly what you're saying. I take a deep breath, look at my accounts, be like, Cody, it's going to be fine. You don't have to freak out, like you're going to be good.

Jamila Souffrant 33:17

Yeah. Well, you mentioned values, and I do want to get.. I'm sure you talk about this new book, so let's talk a bit about the book, and maybe how someone does define, like, what that looks like for them, reaching financial freedom, and like how they get there using a value system, and any other tips from your book, if we can discuss.

Cody Berman 33:36

Yeah, so this is probably the chapter I worked the hardest on, actually, when I first submitted the book to the editor, she's like, "Rewrite this whole chapter, it sucks. It was pretty demoralizing, but I rewrote a bunch of times, and it's the last chapter in the book. It's called Life in Retirement, and basically what it's about is just like defining your values and then learning how to live within those values. So, for me and my wife, Lauren, this is probably going back six or seven years ago, we wrote down a list of the 10 things that we value the most. We did this independently, and then we brought our list together, and we took a look at them, and you know, it was like travel, fitness, time with family and friends, all these different things. And then we took an honest look at our bank accounts, our credit card statements, and our calendars, and we're like, are these in alignment with the values that we just wrote down on the sheet of paper? If they're not, then we have to make some changes. We have to cut things, we have to add things. So we did that, and since then every single month we have a monthly meeting where we talk about our money, we talk about our real estate, we talk about our health and fitness, we talk about our relationship, we talk about our future goals. And so it's kind of a check in, or it's like, okay, have we fallen out of alignment from this original goal that we set out. We also have, like, a yearly review that we do. We record, like, a 30 minute video, kind of recapping the year, but it just kind of helps us stay in alignment, because I think a lot of people, they just kind of live life, they just let life pass them by without ever actually thinking, like, oh, what are the things that make me happy, and they might be spending money and spending time. Time on these things that don't light them up, that don't really give them any value, and it's like, if that's the case, cut that out, like if you're spending a large majority of each paycheck on a fancy car. I hate to be harping on cars, hopefully we don't have a ton of car people listening, but and that doesn't show up in your values, like having a nice car, having an awesome vehicle that, like, just looks good, and other people are complimenting you on it, and that's fine. If that isn't your top values, that's cool. Like, again, I don't want people to think this is some dogmatic thing, like, 'Oh, I can't spend money on a nice house or a nice car. If that's in your values, cool, go for it, spend money on that. But if it's not, then cut that thing ruthlessly. Like, just get a car that brings you from point A to point B. So, whatever that looks like to you. Like, I urge you, define your own values as you have a partner, have them define their 10 kind of core values, things that make them happy. Compare your lists, then look at your calendar, look at your bank account, look at your credit card statements, and see if those lists are in alignment, and if not, then you have some work to

Jamila Souffrant 35:56

do. And it's really important to understand, just because you like your value system, let's just say the car is a priority or something that really like brings you joy. If you're not in a position currently to have that, doesn't mean you can't have it in the future if you don't work towards it. So, I just think because of the seasons of life that we go through, and like that's going to change. I remember having, I talked about this a bit in previous episodes, my husband and I, before kids, and before intentionally getting on the journey, we had nicer cars, and then once we started to have kids, it was like, okay, we have to be more economical, so like, we let those go, and now we're in the position where my kids, they ask me all the time, why can't we get a new car, I'm like, we need to be appreciative of the car we have that gets us around, and if we bought a new car, there are things that we could not do. We don't have infinite, like there is a pot of money, and as much as it, I would love for it to be infinite, it's not. And so there's a value like system within our family, and you love that I can pick you up every day and take you to all your activity, like that is because I don't have to work extra to pay for a new car, right? So I just think, and it's not something that maybe we won't get into in the future, but we have to make sure that we are there, and it's not, you know, maybe taking away from the other things we value more. So I just think it's important to know, like, you can have some of those things, but maybe not all at once, and it depends on what, where you are in your life, in the stages you are.

Cody Berman 37:23

Yeah, I 100% agree. I love that framing too, for your kids. Like, if I, you know, if we get the new car, then mom isn't going to be able to go to your soccer games or pick you up. But I mean, whether it's kids or a spouse, I think that's just perfect framing, and that's that's the reality of it. That's how that's how money works,

Jamila Souffrant 37:37

right? Right. So, talk more about your book, and who should get it, where they can get it, and anything else you'd like to share about it.

Cody Berman 37:47

Yeah, so I had this book in my notes, Jamila, from September 2021 So it took me a long time to get this thing out, and so that was when I was September 2021 that was like a couple years after we recorded together, I think I was 22 or 23 when I wrote that down, but the clock was ticking. The book has always, in the note, been called Retired by 30, and it was just after my 29th birthday, and I, you know, I'd been working on it here and there. I'd kind of like jot some notes, and I just had basically had this wireframe outline, but I was like, I gotta get chugging if I want to publish this thing by the time I'm 30. So I'm 30 now. I got the thing published, which is awesome. And basically, what it is, is just it's kind of everything that I wish I had when I was starting out my journey. And what I really, really didn't want to do was a this is the Cody show. This is exactly how I did it. You have to do it too. Basically, I just laid out a menu of options, like here's it's laid out into sections, so the first section is like basically just the basics of financial freedom, finding a retirement number, learning about financial independence. The second is expenses, so learning how to cut your big three expenses that we talked about before: housing, transportation, food, and others as well. Then there's the income section, which is increasing your income. Then there's the investing section, and then there's the kind of life in retirement section, but in each of those sections, it's like in the income section, you can get side hustles, you can invest in real estate, you can level up in your day job, like there's not a one size fits all answer, there's so many different people who have reached financial independence in so many different ways, and so I did a ton of interviews and a bunch of case studies in the book of people who all reach financial freedom before 30 in like a super accelerated timeline, so that's kind of the parts that I'm most proud of in the book, is it's not all about me, and the only person who complained about that was my mom. She goes, Cody, I wish the book was more about you. I was like, well, that's not why I wrote this book. I wrote this book to give as many people as possible a role model that they can kind of emulate and be like, okay, this person's kind of just like me, they have a similar background, they're in a similar job, you know, they're interested in similar things, and then they can follow that person's path. So, yeah, that's five sections kind of laid out how I mentioned a bunch of case studies in there, and it's everything I wish I had when I first started. To answer your question about who it's for, I've seen people is. In my audience, obviously, the book's new, so I haven't seen the book's direct impact yet, but I'm very excited for that, and started getting great feedback. But I mean, I've seen people in their 50s completely change their life around in a couple of years. Like, you don't have to be 23 listening to this podcast to get value out of the book. Like, is it going to be harder for you if, like, we talked about before, if you already have a huge, nice house, if you already have a fancy car, if you already have been used to living a certain lifestyle for the past 30 years, of course, it's going to be more difficult. It's not impossible. So, ideally, getting this into the hands of young folks, if you have young people in your lives, whether that's kids or cousins, or just maybe you're a teacher and you have students, I mean, the people who have not been affected by lifestyle inflation are just like so ripe for this message, and it's, it's so easy for them to have that massive gap between their income and their expenses, but if you're older and you're still looking to turn your financial life around, like, it's, it's never too late,

Jamila Souffrant 40:50

right? And I think, too, I'm thinking about the term retire and how that impacts people when they read it or see it, so, like, a young person, I'm thinking about, like, a teenager, this is like a perfect, like, graduation gift, or young adult, like, just graduating high school or college, and, like, I just wonder, because when I think about when I was 22 like, you were way, you were ahead of me in terms of me thinking about retirement, I didn't really discover this until I was in my early 30s, but I know when I was in my teens or early 20s, I was like retire, it felt like such an like old, like retire, that's not something like, so I just think too, it's like framing it, if you're a parent listening, or someone you want to give it to, like you get, you get why it's important, because you're working and you understand, like you want to do whatever you want, I think, for young kids too, it is like framing it, and saying it's not that you don't do anything, you're not like not doing anything. I think people think retirement like you're like bored, you're old. No, this is so you can do what you want, right? You can, and you can work still, and you could choose what you want to do, right? Like framing it that way, it's the freedom, having freedom by 30, and options is exciting, I would think, for someone to hear.

Cody Berman 41:59

Yeah, I mean, I intentionally called it retire by 30, because it is kind of a jarring title. People like, what are you talking about? This guy's crazy, but I mean, retirement really just means getting to the point where work becomes optional, like when people retire and retirement age is just a thing that the government made up. Like, there's no such thing as retirement age, like 65 doesn't really mean anything, it's just whatever, it's just the age that the government happened to pick that people start getting some of these benefits, but like retirement is a number. Once you hit that number in your retirement accounts with your monthly monthly cash flow, work can become optional at any age. It can become optional at 2530 3540 45 Like this can happen at any stage in your life. So don't think that just because the government assigns 65 or 67 as the quote unquote retirement age that you can't kind of build a life you love beforehand,

Jamila Souffrant 42:45

right? Right. Okay. Where can they get the book, Cody? Where can they follow you and get more information?

Cody Berman 42:52

Book is at Retire by 30 book.com Also, anywhere books are sold, it's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all those places. Doing a fun little giveaway on Retired by 30 book.com so people go check that out. You can sign up for that. And then I'm everywhere at Cody D Berman. Let me know you heard about me, Journeyers from Jamila, and love to chat.

Jamila Souffrant 43:14

All right, Cody, thank you for coming back on the show. Congrats on everything, and I'm looking forward to seeing you are where you are in the next eight years?

Cody Berman 43:22

I know I'll be back on in whatever that is, 2035 It's crazy how time flies, but thank you again. This is awesome.

Unknown Speaker 43:28

Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai