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Today’s guest has an amazing story.
Graduated college with a positive net worth? Check. Traveled the world on $50/day? Has helped people pay off over $1M+ in student debt? Check and check.
Travis from Student Loan Planner (and Millennial Moola) started like many of us; in the corporate rat race throughout his early 20’s, but has since gone on to “retire” early (you’ll see why the quotes are there) and start a lucrative and inspiring student loan business.
We chat about…
- How Travis traveled the world for $16k/year
- The benefits of working corporate (at least for a while…)
- The ultimate motivation behind Travis’s success (hint: he didn’t want to go back to full-time work)
He drops an insane amount of knowledge bombs throughout the show. Enjoy!!
Show notes and links from today’s episode
- Travis’s blog(s) – Student Loan Planner and Millennial Moola
- Mr. Money Mustache – We might actually be referencing this blog every episode. 🙂
- Physician on Fire and White Coat Investor – Two great finance blogs for high-earning professionals, specifically in the healthcare arena.
Key takeaways from our chat with Travis
There were a metric-ton of takeaways from this interview, so bear with us!
1 – Early retirement doesn’t have to last forever.
When we asked Travis about how he retired at age 25, he made it a point to explain he had only saved up enough money to “not work” for 10 years.
Not forever, just 10 years.
For those of us considering a career change (or dropout), the question is this: Could we get back to where we are today, should our sabbatical/RE force us to?
Most likely, yes.
There’s a 93.5% chance most of us could jump back into the workforce if we *needed* to. If that’s the case, what are we waiting for?
(Please don’t go rage-quit your day-job tomorrow by the way. It’s still an important decision requiring thought, planning, and execution. We’re just suggesting a potential reframing of what “retirement” looks like.)
- Travis on “How to Retire in Your 20s”
2 – Maybe just quit your job for a year?
Directly related to the point above…what if you could execute a temporary retirement? This could bring several benefits:
- It might reveal whether or not true retirement is what you actually want
- It’d be fun (hopefully?)
- It’d be easier than ever to return to full-time work if you desired/needed to
- It’d actually look good on a resume (maybe)
You can likely get another job. It might take effort, but you probably could, yes?
A one-year mini retirement could be a lot more manageable than full FIRE as well.
3 – Travis’s unique budget mindset for full-time travel
Spend less than $50 a day. Simple.
While staying in areas that cost a bit more, Travis would make up for it by staying longer in cheaper areas (averaging it out). For whatever reason, this seems like a smart way to approach budgeting for long-term travel (relative to your income of course).
4 – Life has opportunity cost as well
Would you take this offer?
I’ll give you a million dollars, but on a 30-year vesting schedule. You’re required to work at XYZ company the entire time, and you get $0 if you ever quit.
Would you take that deal? Not likely.
It doesn’t sound appealing in that long-term context, but we opt-in for this every day. It’s roughly $33k a year at a “normal” job (simplified of course).
According to Travis, we should all think of *life* having an opportunity cost as well: “If you’re spending 8-10 hours a day at work unhappy, that’s time you never get back.”
That’s powerful, and hits home with a core FIRE concept. Time is an asset to be valued. Highly.
5 – “The guaranteed money is the most boring money.”
Travis spoke of a high-earning friend who was debating leaving a promising career to pursue passion projects full-time.
His friend was struggling over this decision, as he could easily stay in his current role and clear $300, $400k, $500k+ a year….that’s a very difficult amount of money to walk away from.
However, Travis framed it another way:
“If you stayed at your current job for 20 years, with linear progression up the income/career ladder…would that be an exciting life for you?”
“On the other hand, what if you spent the next 20 years on your real estate venture (the passion/side project)? Taking risks. Running a company, etc. Is that interesting?”
At that point, the money was no longer in question. Travis reframed the decision to take into account life’s opportunity cost (see above).
7 – There are people doing better than you, and there are people doing worse than you.
We as humans tend to selectively ignore those who are worse off than us (lower income, not-as-fancy-jobs, etc), and focus entirely too much on those doing better than us (more income, etc).
Here’s a wisdom bomb Travis dropped: we’re all struggling in some way.
Rich, poor. Stuck in a day-job, lifestyle entrepreneurs. Nobody is 100% happy and satisfied all the time, and remembering that can help overcome jealousy.
Focus on what you can control, which is your own life. Focusing on the random 23 year-old who is retired with $3M+ and being envious, jealous, or even frustrated…does you little good.
8 – Be thoughtful about your education decisions.
Warning: we are not suggesting you reject opportunities for graduate school, higher ed degrees, etc. by default. Not at all.
However, remaining thoughtful about your education decisions can only bring better decision making.
Maybe a Harvard MBA is the right path for you, and maybe it isn’t. Maybe grad school in general is a smart career move, and maybe not. Just remain thoughtful, k?
- Travis on why “I’m Thankful to be a Three Time Harvard Reject”
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We loooved this episode with Travis. Did anything in particular hit home for you? Please comment and let us know!
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