Catching Up to FI

Jennifer Mah is an FI enthusiast, and you can find her wit and wisdom all over many FI social media channels. She is an administrator of the Afford Anything Facebook Group and is active in the Choose FI Community locally and worldwide. Her home base is in the San Diego area where she is an entrepreneurial financial coach at Your Money, Your Life Financial Coaching. Jen's services are designed to r...

Cameron Huddleston is the author of "Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances." She is an award-winning journalist with 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. Her work has appeared in Forbes, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Yahoo and many more print and online publications.  Cameron is a mom of thre...

Diana Falck is a 52-year-old retired wife, stepmom to six, Glamma to six, and financial literacy advocate residing in Arizona. She is also on the staff of Catching Up to FI as our Facebook group administrator and social media maven.  Diana has an inspiring story of persistence, diligence, and compassion. Burdened with a six-figure MBA debt for over a decade, the Chicago-born Italian was determined...

Today's episode is a live recording from the FI Freedom Retreat that took place in Bali, Indonesia in October 2023. Amy Minkley organized this awesome event and there were around 45 people in attendance from all over the globe. Becky Heptig and Joe Saul-Sehy from Stacking Benjamins Podcast hosted a few of the attendees to get their unique and interesting stories. You'll meet Annie, who has tried o...

We welcome back Sean Mullaney to the show! Also known as The FI Tax Guy, Sean is a financial planner who offers fee-only and advice-only financial planning at Mullaney Financial & Tax, Inc. He was first on the show back in Episode 013 to discuss the basics of retirement accounts and the tax aspects of those accounts in the accumulation and drawdown years. Sean sits down with Bill and Becky for a s...

Frank Vasquez is a mostly retired lawyer with over 30 years' experience in investing for his own accounts. He holds degrees in Economics and Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and a law degree from Georgetown University. He is extremely active in the Financial Independence community, answering questions of all types in forums and Facebook groups. He has appeared as a guest on...

Jillian Johnsrud is the author of "Fire the Haters: Finding Courage to Create Online In a Critical World," a blogger at montanamoneyadventures.com, a podcaster at Everyday Courage and Retire Often, and a Life Coach. When Jillian and her husband married, they had $55,000 in debt. They also had big dreams: take mini-retirements, travel the world, and adopt children. In the last 21 years, they have p...

On this special addition of Catching Up to FI, we get to hear a live panel from CampFI Midwest 2023 hosted by Becky, Diania Merriam of Optimal Finance Daily, and Jordan Grumet of Earn & Invest. The hosts discuss the surprising and maybe not-so-fun sides of financial independence and how to work through them. We also hear personal stories from the panel's audience.  🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a...

David Stein is the host of the personal finance podcast Money for the Rest of Us. The show has over 20M downloads and reaches more than 40,000 listeners per episode. Prior to launching his podcast, David advised and managed assets for institutions and financial planners. He was a Chief Investment Strategist and Chief Portfolio Strategist at Fund Evaluation Group, LLC. David perfected his teaching...

Jonathan Clements is the founder and editor of the personal finance website  HumbleDollar and author of nine personal finance books. Earlier in his career, Jonathan spent almost 20 years at The Wall Street Journal, where he was the newspaper's personal finance columnist, and six years at Citigroup, where he was director of financial education for the bank's U.S. wealth management arm.  Jonathan ab...

We welcome back Mark Trautman of Mark's Money Mind.  Bill and Becky chatted with Mark on episode 12 about money in relationships. Mark also stood in for Bill as a co-host with Roger Whitney, the Q&A panel from CampFI, and On the Road with Catching Up to FI. In this conversation, we are going to dive into an alternative to the 4% Rule of Thumb. We see people in our community ask about a drawdown st...

For our last installment of On the Road with Catching Up to FI, Becky and co-host Mark chat with Stacey, a (p)retired fellow traveler and member of the Rock Retirement Club. Stacey graciously opens up about the challenges of moving, caring for an aging parent, and being a widow while on the path to FI.  🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a coffee Record a message for CUtFI Thank you to our sponsors: Pe...

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is one half of Costa Rica Fire.  She and her husband, Scott (the other half), both grew up in New York City and have been married for 29 years.  In their 20s and 30s, financial independence and early retirement were not at all on Scott and Caroline's radar. They were focused on their jobs and raising their kids in New York City, but also starting to invest in real estate. Af...

We take the show on the road again.  Becky and Mark Trautman, our guest co-host, chat with Rusty on their recent Alaskan cruise with Roger Whitney's Rock Retirement Club.  These episodes were recorded in front of a live audience.  They are simply chats with people in their peri-retirement years. 🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a coffee Record a message for CUtFI Thank you to our sponsors: Personal F...

Cody Garrett, CFP, is a professional musician turned money man. He is the founder of the platform and financial advisory firm Measure Twice Financial.  He is a prolific contributor to the financial independence movement.  Among other things, we talk to him about vetting a financial advisor in an often confusing financial services industry.  Enjoy the show! 🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a coffee Re...

In this episode of On the Road with Catching Up to FI, Becky and guest co-host, Mark Trautman, talk candidly with a fellow traveler and recent retiree, Mike.  They are all on an Alaskan Cruise with the Rock Retirement Club , founded by a previous guest on the show, Roger Whitney, The Retirement Answer Man . 🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a coffee Record a message for CUtFI Thank you to our sponsors...

Allan Roth is the founder of Wealth Logic, LLC, an hourly-based Investment Advisory and Financial Planning firm that uses behavioral finance, logic, and data to develop a financial approach that will produce significantly higher real returns than most investors for their desired level of risk.  He has been working in the investment world for 25 years in corporate finance and also has additional de...

Becky and guest co-host, Mark Trautman, talk to Tony about his journey to FI and retirement while on a cruise to Alaska.  This is part of a new series called On the Road with Catching Up to FI. 🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a coffee Record a message for CUtFI Thank you to our sponsors: Personal Finance Club (Use code CUTOFI to get $30 OFF any course or PFC investing course only !) Measure Twice Mo...

Bill & Becky chat with our first surprise mystery guest!  Check it out! 🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a coffee Record a message for CUtFI Thank you to our sponsors: Personal Finance Club (Use code CUTOFI to get $30 OFF any course or PFC investing course only !) Measure Twice Money  ( $100 OFF "Create Your Own Financial Plan" Comprehensive Video Course) Nectarine : Advice-Only Financial Advisors Re...

Bill & Becky chat about the conference Podcast Movement and our show live from the FinCon Booth. 🔗  Connect with us Buy CUtFI a coffee Record a message for CUtFI Thank you to our sponsors: Personal Finance Club (Use code CUTOFI to get $30 OFF any course or PFC investing course only !) Measure Twice Money  ( $100 OFF "Create Your Own Financial Plan" Comprehensive Video Course) Nectarine : Advice-O...

Diania Merriam is the founder of The EconoMe Conference, a party about money designed for the FI/FIRE Movement.  She is also the host of the popular podcast, Optimal Finance Daily, where she narrates articles from the best personal finance blogs on the planet (1M downloads per month). Discovering the FIRE movement in 2015 led her to get out of $30k of debt in 11 months, save 60% of her income, tak...

CampFI Rocky Mountain live recording Week 1 of a Panel Discussion answering questions from the attendees.  On the Panel are the Moderator, our own Becky Heptig, Mark Trautman, a guest on Episode 12 and a guest host on Episode 27, Doug Cunnington (The Doug Show), and Carl Jensen (Mr. 1500 Days).  Doug and Carl are the cohosts of the Mile Hi FI Podcast.  Sit back, relax with your favorite beverage a...

Becky and guest co-host, Mark Trautman, chat with The Retirement Answer Man, Roger Whitney.  They are all on vacation with a group from the Rock Retirement Club.  Bill is back at the ranch working his day job and editing podcasts dreaming of time freedom on the path to financial independence, but still living his best life. As a certified financial planner for over 25 years, Roger uses his credent...

Barbara Sloan founded the Tipped Finance Platform and is the author of "Tipped: The life-changing guide to financial freedom for waitresses, bartenders, strippers, and other service industry professionals".  Her life story is incredible and inspirational.  She once lived in her car, danced for dollars, and definitely did not graduate from college.  She now owns a multi-million dollar construction...

Rob Berger wears many hats, he is a deputy editor at Forbes, an investor, lawyer, personal finance blogger, and YouTuber.  He founded the popular website Doughroller.net.  We discuss his book "Retire Before Mom & Dad: The Simple Numbers Behind a Lifetime of Financial Freedom."  The difference here is that we are mom and dad!  He recently published a video on his YouTube channel called "50+ and Hav...