The School of Financial Freedom Podcast

This lesson is one of the most disagreed-with lessons in the course. The premise is, after a certain level of income, all spending goes to create a status identity. Another way to put it, after a certain level of income, all spending goes to getting approval from the people we want approval from and to feel a certain way about ourselves. SOFF grad Jessica talks about setting a goal to hit financia...

Is your financial security in your control or is it dependent on the economy, the stock market, or who’s controlling Congress? Is your financial destiny something you direct or a product of your family history and circumstances? Can you make choices that build a future you want, or does circumstance matter more? We get to the critical question of Locus of Control. We talk to Dawn Robertson, a rece...

Earlier this year, I had an idea of a new podcast called the Three Vows. In it, I translate the traditional three monastic vows, poverty, obedience, and chastity into modern vows of voluntary simplicity, integrity, and devotion.  In this interview, I talk with my friends Sarah Selecky and Ryan Henderson, who run the Sarah Selecky Writing School. Sarah and Ryan use their wedding vows as an anchor f...

We get to one of the key concept in the financial independence movement: that we exchange hours of our life for money (i.e. jobs), so when we spend money, we're actually spending our life energy. So the idea is when we stop mindless consumerism, we can buy our future time. Christen Kelly and Jorden Cummings, recent FF1 grads and current FF2 students, come in and talk about their realizations a...

What are the benefits of financial independence? Is it worth the effort involved? What's wrong with working until normal retirement age? We address these questions with FF1 alumni Elle, a young primary care doctor. We talk about the sacrifices we make with paid employment: our time, our sense of agency, our personal ethics. Elle would not doctor the way she doctors, but for the requirements of...

What if money wasn’t your real problem? What if your real problem was your relationship with money? Money is emotional. The unconscious beliefs and thoughts we have about money far outweigh the conscious ones. So much about how we deal with money is how we FEEL about money. Unconscious beliefs about money deeply influence how we live in the world.  FF alumni and executive coach Lulu Cheng comes in...

Almost everyone knows their annual salary, but 8 out of 10 people don’t know how much money they spend. Once you think about it, that’s incredible. This level of unconscious spending is the reason so many people live in financial fragility today. Andrea Kelly and Brett come in and talk about how they budget as a married couple with a newborn. They took FF1 separately and, after they moved in toget...

You may have read this on my  newsletter, but this episode is my story of how I reached financial freedom at age 42 in 2014.  The average American works 90,000 hours in their lifetime. I worked 30,000. In my 20 years of working, I only averaged $36k a year. But if you only spend $25k a year, the math works out:  How I retired at age 42 only making $36k a year. So I generally believe that financial...

Most people’s money problems are actually a lack of fundamental direction in their lives. I believe anyone in the middle class of America reach financial independence, if they know what they really want out of life. My dear friend Annie Bickerton joins me to talk about lesson 3.2, where students actually articulate what they want out of life. What's worth getting your finances in order for? St...

In this episode, FF1 grad and licensed therapist Lindsay Kandra talks about the how capitalism exploits the body's reaction to stress. We talk about economic insecurity, the stress cycle, and how they lead to hyper and hypo vigilance. Today's use of addictive substances and activities a widespread way of managing feelings of agitation and overwhelm. We discuss how consumerism may be the on...

This lesson is an important one: the one where we move from talking about all this personal finance stuff to figuring out how do we actually do it? FF1 alumni Rachel Whaley comes in and talks about setting up systems to do the work for us. She reminds us, "We don't rise to the level of our intentions, but fall to the level of our systems." Rachel talks about the systems she built: si...

As one FF student said, "any debt based financial transaction is a poor person giving a rich person money." It's also Present You asking Future You to pay for current consumption. If you are in debt, you literally owe life hours to someone else. It restricts choices, agency, and ties you to a system extracts more from you that it gives. In this episode, we talk with Cedric Justice, w...

“You must combine optimism with brutal honesty and a willingness to take action.”  - Admiral James Stockdale Many people don't pay attention to their personal finances because they don't want to participate in capitalism. But there is no not-participating. In this Rachel Shadoan talks about the idea that you don't have any excuse for being bad at money. Ignoring your finances doesn&#39...

Spending is not only about personal finance, but also environmental destruction. FF1 alumni Kurt talks about the connection between personal consumption and climate change. People who believe in climate change have higher carbon footprints than those who don't believe in believe change because, simply, they have higher incomes, and spend it. But the planet doesn't care what you believe, on...

“Knowing what you want is the ultimate life skill. It is worth more than talent or hard work. It is almost worth as much as luck. Have it, and disappointment is still probable, but on your own terms. Lack it, and you will be done to and acted upon.” Financial Times writer Janan Ganesh In this episode, artist and FF alumni Jon Marro talks about the importance of imagination and vision of the person...

“You’re never ready for what you have to do. You just do it. That makes you ready.” - Flora Rheta Schreiber Commitment is an act, not a word. Further, I would argue that commitment eventually becomes not even an act, but a state of being. It’s not a thing you do; it’s who you are. To be fully committed is to allow yourself to be shaped by what you are committed to and, eventually, to become one wi...

The “Millionaire Next Door” is a national study of the 3.5 million households in America with a net worth of over $1 million. 80% are first-generation wealthy, i.e. they did not inherit it. A significant percentage of them are “blue-collar wealthy,” people who own businesses that “could be classified as dull-normal…welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers, owners of mobile home parks, pest c...

The intersection of race, status, and consumption is sensitive and complex. Because I teach personal finance, I’ve wrestling with what I think of all this for years. In this episode, I bring in Jessie Dunley Jr., a Black alumni of SOFF, to talk about how growing up Black and poor in Texas affected his consumption and savings habits when he became an adult. In this episode, Jessie talks with wisdom...

Emma Dotta is the youngest person to have ever taken FF1, which means that she was able to pick up financial ideas and habits very early on in her life. In this episode she talks about how she reduced the major slices of a personal budget: housing, transportation, and groceries and in that creativity, lives in nature, surrounded by community, eating the best food in the world. Emma talks about spe...

"What is enough?" is the animating question of the entire Financial Freedom 1 course. I explore the idea of lagom, the Swedish word meaning "just the right amount with Danielle LaSusa, PhD in philosophy, coach, and writer of a book on the meaning of motherhood. We explore the perpetual state of dissatisfaction we have under capitalism. Or is the hedonic treadmill simply the First No...

Personal finance is common knowledge: spend less than you earn. Everyone knows this. But why don't people do this? FF alumni Hanna Dornhorfer took Financial Freedom when she was 25. Five years later, she and I explore the question why she was able to buy a house and save for the future when others her age don't. Aligning her spending to values and committing to caring for herself in the fu...

What budgeting tool do you use? Learning about personal finance is idle chatter unless you actually do the work. FF alumni Whitney talks about tracking expenses, the four principles of You Need A Budget (YNAB), and how it relates to consciousness, choice, and freedom.

Financial freedom is when passive income equals monthly spending. This episode is an intro to the math of personal finance. FF alumni Paul Spencer and Kim LaFever reached financial independence five years after taking FF1. In this episode, we learn the numbers behind how they did it and what they are doing now. They talk about how learning about FIRE disrupted their assumptions about their work, t...

A change in your finances requires a change in how you see yourself. Contamination vs. redemption stories. FF alumni Naomi Veak talks about how both sobriety and personal finance changed her life. She talks about how confronting her trauma and seeing how unconsciously she was spending both her time and money allowed her to live more freely and joyously.