The Financial Independence Show

In this episode, Justin & Cody take a look back on what all has changed in their lives since the show started back in October 2018. It’s hard to believe that the show has been going for so long but there’s no sign of slowing down. In 2018: Justin was still in the Air Force Cody was working a corporate finance gig Justin planned to work until age 43 Cody thought he’d keep clim...

Today’s episode features Marcus Garrett, Author of D.E.B.T. Free or Die Trying . Marcus found himself under a mound of debt and living paycheck to paycheck for years. After hitting rock bottom, he embraced budgeting and rebuilt his credit score on the way to financial freedom. Now, Marcus is both building a personal brand and holding down a high-paying W-2 career. Curious about rebuilding yo...

Today’s episode features Eric Rosenberg from Personal Profitability . Eric is a prolific writer and speaker across all finance topics, but today our main focus is solely on cryptocurrency. What is the real potential of cryptocurrency? Is it just a risky investment with no utility? Which coins should you keep an eye out for? What are crypto wallets? We know listeners have tons of questions an...

Today’s episode features Chris Hutchins from the hit new podcast All The Hacks . Chris has always been obsessed with making life as optimal and enjoyable as possible without excessively spending money to do so. But how did he get here? Well, he’s had typical employment, been laid off, started a series of conferences for those that also found themselves unemployed during the Great Reces...

In this episode, The FI Show Guys take on questions submitted by the audience. Our audience is certainly an educated and savvy bunch, but we can all keep learning. So we opened up the hotlines and took on listener questions. Here are the topics we tackle in order: HELOCs vs. high-interest debt Credit card points Reducing taxes Side hustles Should you avoid PMI? What is a VPN? Got more questions? S...

Today’s episode features Joe-Saul-Sehy and Emily Guy Birken, authors of the new book Stacked: Your Super-Serious Guide to Modern Money Management . Joe is a former financial advisor the hilarious mastermind behind the iconic Stacking Benjamins podcast. Emily wasn’t classically trained in finance but had a passion for it and authored the very popular book The 5 Years Before You Retire (...

Today’s episode features Jabbar Adesada, a 20-year-old Marine who is targeting this year for financial independence! Jabbar was obsessed with basketball and poured all of his attention there, the only problem was he wasn’t even getting to play. That, combined with his disobedience to do some work his preacher ask him to do made for a dramatic change brought on by Jabbar’s father....

Today’s episode features Ali and Josh from The FI Couple . They found themselves in over $100k in debt and knew something had to change. Once they started tackling debt and real estate, they knew they had to share that with the world. So, from a middle-of-the-night idea, they built an Instagram in late 2020 and started putting in the work. In just a short time they built up almost 90k follow...

Today’s episode features Dan Sheeks author of First to a Million and founder of  Sheeks Freaks. Dan is a teacher in Colorado and is really changing the lives of young people and giving them a space where they can feel normal sharing their financial interests. He recently authored his first book (and workbook) First to a Million which was created in the hopes of spreading financial independen...

Today’s episode features Caleb Guilliams, creator of BetterWealth and author of The And Asset . Caleb Guilliams’ life would be forever changed by taking a simple job at a local bank. There, he would see what wealthy people did, but also see what people were doing that struggled to make ends meet. This would spark Caleb’s interest in finance and the rest was history. Caleb kept cl...

Today’s episode features Jannese Torres-Rodriguez who walked away from a successful career to focus on entrepreneurship full time. It wasn’t an overnight success though, and it wasn’t without some trial and error. After niching down and putting in a  ton of work, her food blog, Delish D’Lites , started to take off (we’re talking multi- six figures). Her story doesn&#8...

Today’s episode features Reetu Maz who invested in one of the oldest traditional physical businesses at just 21 years old. Reetu saw an opportunity that meant taking on 60k of debt and decided to take the leap. She would take over a struggling grocery store and breathe new life into it including renovations and adding in a small restaurant. The craziest part? Reetu was able to do this while...

In this episode, The FI Show Guys take an honest look at Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps. While we believe Dave Ramsey has been a great gateway for a lot of people, there’s a ton we just can’t agree with. “Save 15%, never use credit cards, pay off all debt before investing”….these are just too prescriptive and not very optimal mathematically. We know there’s a...

Today’s episode features Sarah King from Nerds Guide to FI . Sarah gives us an in-depth honest review of her journey. She started as a Dave Ramsey follower, but quickly realized there was more to personal finance than just getting out of debt. Sarah would go on to build up a nice portfolio of rental properties before a divorce would bring her back to square zero. Since then, Sarah has rebuil...

Today’s episode features Jeremy Schneider from Personal Finance Club . Jeremy started his journey as a young, scrappy entrepreneur. In 2004, in founded Rentlinx out of his bedroom with nothing but grit and determination. He slowly scaled the business while keeping his salary under $36k throughout most of the company’s growth. Then, in 2015, 11 years after its founding, Jeremy sold Rent...

Today’s episode features John and David from Debt Free Guys and the Queer Money Podcast . David and John were going on a vacation and thought to themselves, “Let’s buy a vacation home here”. Only to soon realize that they could barely afford to rent a home for a weekend getaway. They had let their financial habits get out of control and ran up $51k in credit card debt. Then...

Today’s episode features Kelly Anne Smith from Freedom in a Budget . Kelly finds herself struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. Then, as many do, she turns to Dave Ramsey. After learning about budgeting, Kelly found even more personal finance content through YouTube. Fast forward a few years and Kelly has created a Youtube channel of her own that has produced over $100k in revenue and i...

In this episode, Justin and Cody give their take on inflation. If you’ve been on social media or watched the news recently, you might have seen the 6.2% inflation rate over the past year. Everyone in this space loves formulas and hard math, but we’ll tell you why patience and flexibility might be even more powerful tools. Here are a few examples of the inflation we’re seeing if y...

Today’s episode features the amazing story of Todd Baldwin. Todd grew up poor and dropped out of college, but he had one huge goal. Simply to be rich. He dropped out of college and took a high-commission sales job selling commercial insurance. Before long, he was making multiple six figures while others were still in school racking up student loan debt. Today, he’s raking in over $1M a...

Today’s episode features the amazing world traveler, digital nomad, and real estate investor Sarah Weaver. Sarah took a one-way trip to Europe in college and caught the travel bug for life. Since then, she’s worked most of her adult life as a digital nomad — sometimes working insane hours overseas for the at-home 9 to 5. Nevertheless, Sarah built a career coaching realtors and in...

In this episode, Cody & Justin spill the beans on all the tips, tricks, and hacks they use to travel the world for a fraction of the cost. Of course, you’ll hear about credit card hacks, but it doesn’t stop there. Where to stay, how to decide, when to leave, how to pay… it’s all covered in this episode. Take a listen and let us know if you’ve discovered a travel h...

This week, we’re re-airing an episode from the Earn & Invest podcast where Cody & Justin were interviewed along with Rachel Richards. Doc G delves into how passive income has evolved in this post-COVID era in addition to examining the many different paths to financial independence. Tune in to hear our thoughts and experiences in the current economic environment and how it’s aff...

Today’s episode features Kelan Kline, one half of The Savvy Couple . Kelan and his wife Brittany have built a multi-six-figure online brand that now completely provides for their family, but it wasn’t always this way… Originally, Kellan had plans of building a career in law enforcement but after spending some time as a jail officer, he knew that wasn’t his destiny. Kelan an...

Today’s episode features Lauren Tang, a member of the Sunnyside Village Couhousing Group. Cohousing is when a group of people come together to intentionally create a physical neighborhood of people with common values and shared resources. Lauren came from living in a trailer to attending medical school and eventually leading a successful medical career. However, despite the fulfillment and h...

In this episode, The FI Show Guys reflect on FinCon 2021 along with some big personal updates. We’ve been going to FinCon for over 4 years now and we love it. It’s the one time of year we get to hang out with all of our favorite personal finance people in real life! It’s also super motivating seeing other peoples’ success and figuring out how to implement their strategies i...