rent apartment chiang mai

intro: i’m blinding you with fience! mad fientist: hey, everyone. welcome to the mad fientist financial independencepodcast, the podcast where i interview people who have already achieved financial independenceto find out how they did it. on today’s episode, i have the pleasureof speaking with jeremy and winnie from gocurrycracker.com. jeremy and winnie are a married couple whoretired in their 30s and who had been traveling around central america ever since. they document their journey ongocurrycracker.comand not only do they write excellent travel articles about their journey, they also wrotesome really great financial stuff as well.

they’ve been kind enough to take some timeto join me today via skype from mexico. so jeremy and winnie, thank you very muchfor being here. jeremy: thank you. winnie: thank you for having us. mad fientist: for people that might not befamiliar with your site, could you tell a little bit about go curry cracker and aboutyourselves. jeremy: sure! we left work roughly – well, winnie leftwork three or four years ago. i left work about a year ago.

we had this plan that we were going to gotravel the world. and most of my peers at work were kind ofsurprised by this or thought it was crazy or that it couldn’t be done. so i started writing it partly thinking ofthem as an audience because we didn’t do anything magical except save a lot of money(it’s definitely something that they can do) and then also for friends and family tokeep in touch. it’s just grown from there as more peoplekind of getting interested in what we were doing and being able to see what our expenseswere. we received a ton of emails from people, “hey,thank you for sharing your cost.

this really helped me gain confidence thati could go to mexico too.” and so forth. mad fientist: now, when you quit your jobs,did you intend on going back eventually or was this you financially independent and thiswas when you quit, that was it and you’re hopefully going to sustain yourselves forthe rest of your life. jeremy: there was always the possibility thatwe could do things that are income in the future, but it will be optional. we don’t have to. mad fientist: do you mind me asking what yourcareers were before you both quit? winnie: i worked with dell as a project manager.

jeremy: i worked for microsoft with hardware,architecture and platform building. mad fientist: oh, wow! i have two computer-based people like myself,which is good. it’s amazing! did you guys read that article on mr. moneymustache, his survey of what people did, all his readers. i forgot the percentage, but it was somethingcrazy like 60% or 70% plus of all his readers were something computer engineering-relatedor something like that. winnie: i think geeks have this in habit.

mad fientist: yeah, exactly. yeah. it must be, i don’t know, our need to optimizeeverything and our ability with math as well. so how long were your careers, your workingcareers? jeremy: it took 20 years roughly. mad fientist: cool! i remember reading one of your articles. you mentioned that it was pretty much 10 yearsand a day from the date you decided that you wanted to become financially independent untilyou actually quit your job.

is that right, jeremy? winnie: that’s the day he met me ten yearsago. jeremy: yeah, there may be some correlationthere. yeah, we could’ve done it sooner. there were probably a few years extra thati worked that from a financial perspective, i didn’t have to. we were able to save a ton over the last threeyears. and it was totally coincidence. i just looked at the date, then i looked backat this business plan that i had written long

ago about how to retire early as i was justtrying to figure it out and it was literally ten years and a day from when i wrote thatfile. mad fientist: that’s really cool! speaking of the business plan, is this the50-page business plan to scuba dive around the world or something like that? is that…? jeremy: exactly! mad fientist: so tell me a little bit aboutthat because that sounds really interesting especially the fact that it’s 50 pages long.

jeremy: yeah, i had gone on my first vacationas an adult. this was just before i met winnie. and pretty much the whole first week, i couldn’teven think about vacation. my mind is just focused on all the stuff that’shappening at work. and on the second week, i started to relax. then this third week, i said, “this is fantastic! i want to do this forever.” but i had no idea how because mainstream thinkingis that retirement is something you do when you’re 65 or something.

i knew i didn’t want to wait that long,so i started thinking, “well, i have to have income and scuba diving is expensive,so maybe i could get a job as a scuba instructor or something.” so i just started working from there. “well, how much money could i make as adiving instructor? where are all the places i want to go andthe seasons for it?” and from there, it worked into, “well, maybei don’t have to work” as i started to understand more of the finances of it. i had all these fears around, “what abouthealth insurance?

if i leave my career, will i ever be ableto go back?” so i addressed some of those things as well. i haven’t looked at it for a long time. but if i were to go back and read it now,i’d probably think it was very naã¯ve and very simplified. but it got me on the path of thinking aboutit and learning about it. mad fientist: that’s really cool. so back then, did you have anyone to lookup to at all? did you find any books like some of the oldclassics like your money or your life or anything

like that or were you just purely doing iton your own number crunching? jeremy: it’s kind of half and half. i read your money or your life and i thinki read rich dad, poor dad. winnie: you read that crazy book, possum life? jeremy: oh, possum living? winnie: yeah. jeremy: yeah, there’s some old – i can’tremember. it’s like a free book online. somebody wrote in the seventies about herand her father living off of the land.

that was super extreme. winnie: and he showed me that book, i wasa little worried. mad fientist: yeah, that sounds like my experiencewith my wife. the first thing i showed her was early retirementextreme. and obviously, she wasn’t interested atall in any of that. winnie: he showed me that and i’m like,“hmmm…” jeremy: she’s like, “i’m not going tolive in an rv! what were you thinking?” mad fientist: exactly!

winnie: and like eat the bugs off the riceand beans. jeremy: yeah, yeah. jeremy: yeah. but also, around that time – let’s see,i found the kaderlis online. i read one of their books. and then i met them in chiang mai, thailandmaybe ten years ago. mad fientist: that’s crazy! that’s really cool. so how did you get in touch?

you just were in southeast asian and you knewthat billy and akaisha were over there somewhere and just asked to meet up or…? jeremy: yeah, exactly. i was in thailand. i saw that they were in thailand also froma recent blog post of theirs. i emailed them and said, “hey, i’m intown. would you be up for meeting?” they’re like, “oh, yeah. we host a happy hour every week.

come by and stay and we’ll have drinks.” they’re wonderful people! they’re just wonderful, friendly and helpful. i was able to pick their brain a little bitand their book was very helpful also. and also, around the same time, there’slike the early retirement forums. nords…he’s the military guide. winnie and i met up with him once when wewere in hawaii maybe six or seven years ago, five years ago. there were a couple of people who had doneit that we were able to look at as a reference

and then adapt what they had done with theirown means and needs. mad fientist: oh, that’s really cool, yeah. i can imagine, that would be pretty inspiringmeeting up with any of those place and seeing them actually doing it especially when everybodyis telling you it probably can’t be done. just to see somebody doing it is always greatand motivating i’m sure. so you meet with the kaderli’s, you meetup with nords, you realize it’s possible, so i’m assuming you’re sticking somewhatto your plan that you came up with at the beginning. did you share it with any of your colleaguesat the time or were you just doing your own

thing? jeremy: no, i was just doing my own thing. winnie: they know our lifestyle is differentfrom theirs. jeremy: and then actively, i didn’t hideanything, but i also didn’t really actively share the long-term plan. that we were definitely living a differentlifestyle was clear however. mad fientist: so just as far as biking insteadof having a bunch of cars and maybe not going out to eat as much. was there anything else?

was it anything extreme or was it fairly normal,just a bit of tweaking that helps you save a lot of money? winnie: we rent apartment in the student district. jeremy: compare it to my co-workers, it wasprobably extreme. the norm for the people i work with was theywere living in a 3000 sq. ft. house… winnie: …having two or three cars. they probably have all brand new leased suvs. so comparatively, we found a place to livethat was on the bus line to work and in a walkable neighborhood.

we were living in a neighborhood that wasmostly students doing their university. i’d show up at work in a bicycle. they’ll roll their eyes and laugh at me. winnie: but at least we’ll go out to eatand hang out with friends. it’s not like sacrifice everything. jeremy: maybe our main entertainment is food. we do eat out often, that’s our main socialactivity. but then we also balance that with preparingmeals at home and hosting dinner parties. winnie is an amazing cook and i’m probablyseveral pounds too many primarily because

of that. mad fientist: nice! so along the way, what are you investing in? are you just mainly stock guy index funds? did you get into any real estate? what was your strategy there? jeremy: our portfolio overall is probablyaround 70% stock, 15% reits and 15% bonds. winnie: and we did have a bit of real estate. we have some individual stocks, mostly index.

and then i had a small rental property thati sold a few years ago with owner financing. so we had one private bond that’s stillout there. but let’s see here, that will end two yearsfrom now because it’s got a 5-year pay-off period to it. mad fientist: alright! so that was pretty much the strategy fromwhen you began? you were working for microsoft, getting suckedinto the technology stocks or anything like that? jeremy: well, i still have some microsoftstock.

but for the most part, i have maybe about10 different individual dividend paying stocks in fairly small quantities, but they helpmanage the cashflow. and then the rest is all in vti, the all marketsindex fund from vanguard mad fientist: nice. okay. and recently, you just published a reallygood post about taxes (especially taxes) and early retirement. and as you know (and probably the readersknow too) that i really enjoy that stuff because it’s just a great way to increasing yoursavings without necessarily sacrificing anything.

so can you maybe just talk a little bit aboutyour recent experience going through your taxes and realizing what exactly you can donow that you have such a low income? i’ve always done our own taxes partly becauselike you, i kind enjoy the deep understanding of how to work the system in your favor. and so from there, i was always trying tominimize our taxes in the past, but there’s only so much you can do when you have earnedincome. so just recently, i was in preparation forfiling next year’s taxes. i went through and looked at all of the dividendincome and the interest income and wanted to figure out how much we’d have to pay.

it’s like zero! i thought that seemed kind of – no, i wasn’texactly surprised, but it was interesting to see that number and i went like, “really?” comparatively to u.s. mean, we’re fairlywealthy and yet we won’t have to pay any tax of any kind whatsoever. and then beyond that, it’s like, “well,we have a ton of margin here.” even if i were to sell some stocks and dosome tax gain harvesting and push the rollover from the traditional iras and the old 401k’sto roth ira’s, we can sell up to 70k of stock and get 70k in capital gains and payzero tax and we can roll over to almost $20,000

of ira and it still pay zero tax. you look at how it’s all paid out and youcan actually earn a tremendous amount of money coming from dividends or qualified dividends,long-term gains and pay zero tax. the tax system is definitely very favorableto people who retire early. mad fientist: that’s amazing. i know i still get quite a few emails andquestions with people concerned that if they are retiring early, they’re not going tobe able to access that money and should they just go into the taxable accounts instead? all the math that i’ve done points thatno, you can go ahead and max these things

out and then end up in a situation like you. do you regret not putting more towards thoseaccounts when you were working now that you know what you know now? jeremy: i wish i could’ve contributed more,but we also maxed out our contributions. we took advantage of them where we could. but if we could put double or triple, i wouldhave. well, that’s good to hear. jeremy: when you save the ten years and aday kind of thing, when you save enough money to fund 50, 60 for your retirement in tenyears and then you look at the irs limits

for contributions to 401k’s and such, mostof your money is going to end up in the taxable account. so we definitely have enough money outsideof the taxable accounts where that’s where all of our withdrawals are coming from. and then as the limits allow, we’ll rollover into roth ira’s. i don’t know however many years from nowwhen the taxable accounts are no longer technically there, but well have everything in a rothand still pay zero tax. mad fientist: that’s great. so what is your withdrawal strategy?

are you doing a fixed percentage or you’redoing an inflation adjusted like the 4%? what did you guys decide on? jeremy: well, let’s see. we really have no budget. we kind of just spend whatever we want. what we’ve been doing so far, we’ve beenable to fund 100% from dividends and interest. mad fientist: ah, nice. jeremy: so part of the withdrawal strategyhas nothing to do with the withdrawals itself. it’s more of the sizes of them.

we started in latin america rather than, say,paris or tokyo, so we would be withdrawing a low percentage of the total portfolio. just using the 4% number as a rough guide,we just knew we wanted to spend less than that. but we don’t really pay attention to whatthe withdrawal rate currently is and so forth. we just know that it’s less than 4%. and it’s great to hear you say, “startin latin america rather than paris or tokyo.” that’s exactly what my wife and i have talkedabout. there are obviously lots of places we’dlove to go that probably are more expensive,

but there’s also lots of places we reallywant to go that are much less expensive. so that’s exactly our plan. we’re just going to start with the lowestcost ones and then start working our way up. and yeah, if we find ourselves having a lotmore money than we expected at one point, then yeah, maybe we’ll spend six monthsin tokyo or something. but until then, we’re quite happily planningsoutheast asia trips and south america trips and things like that. like this last year, it’s probably beenthe most profitable year we’ve ever had just because of the stock market gains.

we could take a year like this and be like,“okay, we made a lot of money in the market. maybe next year, we’ll do western europe.” and then if there’s a year when the market’sdown, it’s like, “well, we love latin america. let’s go there.” winnie: and when you have a little fear maybethe first year of retirement, maybe you go to a cheaper country and you feel more securityabout your spending. mad fientist: yeah! no, it’s a great point.

can you guys talk about the transition actuallybecause it’s fairly recent? i’d like to hear how it was, finally quittingyour job, what that was like? did you worry about actually stopping yourcontributions to all these accounts after you’re spending so many years building themup? winnie: i think the first few months, we constantlycheck the number in our bank. every day, we check three times to make sureit’s still there. jeremy: i had some irrational fear aroundthe transition definitely. that’s, again, partly why we’re stayingin san miguel de allende in mexico instead of paris, france because a lot of the target,that low percentage just partly as a comfort

thing. but there was probably six months from theday that we kind of had our last pay check to the point where i stopped thinking aboutwork. when you go from working 60- to 70-hour weeksand lots of international travel, email during the off-hours and such, it’s kind of hardto transition from that to nothing. and so maybe part of that mental focus wasstill kind of we’re out on a beach, but i’m still thinking about work stuff a littlebit. and then, some of that mental energy getsapplied to what’s happening in the portfolio. is everything okay?

but kind of six months after, all those fearshad been washed away. i don’t even really think about work orthe finances anymore. mad fientist: oh, that’s great. so i’m going to switch gears a bit and starttalking a bit about travel because you guys are perpetually traveling early retirees,similar to what the kaderlis were doing in their retire early lifestyle interview. so you guys have primarily been in centralamerica so far, is that right? winnie: yeah, our plan was to use the yearto travel through central and south america. and so far, we’ve only been to three countriesin central america.

we’re really moving really slow. mad fientist: that’s nice. yeah, that’s the type of travel that appealsto me, the slow travel anyway. jeremy: we had started thinking to spend sixweeks in mexico and then continue south, but we were in mexico over five months. and then, we met people who were touring allof guatemala in a week. we were there two months. we did some experimenting with different pacesof travel. we’d spend two months in one place and twodays in another and we definitely enjoy the

slower pace travel. we don’t have to pack every day and moveto a different hotel every day. winnie: yeah, you kind of have the littleroutine. mad fientist: yeah, that appeals to me. that sounds like the best way to go. and you’re both learning spanish as youlive down there and everything? winnie: si. we can switch to spanish if you want. mad fientist: no, my highschool spanish isprobably really bad, so it would be a very

short interview. jeremy: our spanish isn’t great, but we’refunctional. and before we started, we didn’t reallyspeak any spanish at all. we took a month of group classes in mexicowhen we started. we did three weeks of private one-on-one lessonsin guatemala and we spent, i don’t know, nine months in spanish-speaking countries. so we’ve picked up enough of the languageto be functional. just before our conversation with you, wemade a phone call to schedule an appointment for later today.

that’s a 5-minute conversation all in spanish. i’m sure i don’t sound fluent to people. they know i’m obviously a… winnie: a gringo? jeremy: …a gringo butchering their language,but we can communicate. winnie: we can order food. we could do the daily activities. jeremy: the daily activities, mm-hmmm… mad fientist: so mexico and guatemala…whatwas the third country?

jeremy: belize. mad fientist: oh, nice. that’s right. yeah, i remember actually commenting on thatpost because we hit up the same place on our honeymoon, caye caulker. jeremy: caye caulker, yeah. mad fientist: such a beautiful island, isn’tit? it is beautiful. winnie: all i remember is the lobster.

mad fientist: yeah, we talked about this,jeremy and i. i think we must have gone in completely different seasons because i didn’tsee any lobster. there wasn’t any lobster on the menu. it was sunny and i think you guys got rainand lots of lobster? winnie: uh-huh. at the end of the week, i’m sick of lobster. i’m like, “don’t feed me anymore please. take it away.” jeremy: i think we arrived just a few weeksafter lobster season had started.

you could get full lobster dinner winnie: yeah, like a half pound lobster. jeremy: …for us$10. mad fientist: no way, that’s crazy. have you found that you’ve been surprisedhow little you have to spend to have a really good life since you’ve been on the road? winnie: every day, we are like, “wow! it is so cheap and the quality is really good.” what was the thing you just compared?

winnie: yeah, i was looking for some jewelryclass in asia and even in the united states because i wanted to continue doing that. the price is just like incredibly expensive,ten times more than what i pay here. mad fientist: wow! that’s crazy. so out of the three countries that you’vebeen in, which did you like the best? winnie: we loved guatemala. i think san miguel is more livable becauseit has more activity. not as a traveler.

that’s if you actually live here. jeremy: well, i’m not really sure how toanswer that question. it’s kind of like, “what’s your favoriteflavor of ice cream.” i like lots of them. winnie: they’re all different. jeremy: they all have their appeal. i think mexico actually feels like home forus right now. it’s very comfortable here. it’s a very nice life.

guatemala had a lot of just natural beauty. winnie: the people in guatemala are supernice. jeremy: they’re very friendly. winnie: yes, yeah. jeremy: belize had just the beauty of thewater and the lobster. mad fientist: when i interviewed billy andakaisha, they had mentioned that panajachel in guatemala was one of their favorite places. i know you guys were near there at least. we were at the same lake at a different village,san pedro, which was really beautiful.

we stayed there for two months, right? jeremy: around six weeks i think. winnie: six weeks. we enjoyed it. yeah, i think that place and san miguel, ilike the most i think. mad fientist: and that was where you had the$195 a month apartment, is that right? jeremy: yes. mad fientist: so $195, you had views of thelake and the mountains. winnie: yeah, probably the home is a – howdo you say it?

a shit hole? but the view is magnificent. jeremy: yeah, it definitely wasn’t fourstar living, but… winnie: it’s four star in the region, yeah. jeremy: comparatively to what else was available,it was definitely a nice place. winnie: and when you live there, you realizehow little you need. you appreciate the things you own more. but the one thing definitely that i like betterhere is the shower. most of the showers in guatemala are theseso-called suicide showers.

it’s like a local heater attached to theshower head. winnie: there’s this 10-kilo thing rightabove you. jeremy: yeah, with the exposed electricalwire sticking out and sometimes hanging down into the water stream. winnie: it’s kind of like massage therapy. it actually shocks. jeremy: you get a little shock. mad fientist: so it’s much better over inmexico? jeremy: well, there are places that are equivalentto guatemala.

the place we’re staying now is definitelyalmost like a five star hotel. and this is a three bedroom house that you’rerenting for like a thousand dollars a month? jeremy: yeah, exactly, including all the utilityand the cleaning and everything. mad fientist: oh, really? so four star service and quality for a granda month. jeremy: yeah, there’s a cleaning woman whocomes back twice a week for three hours. there’s a gardener who comes and takes careof all the plants. it’s definitely upscale. by comparison, there’s a friend in winnie’sjewelry class who rents a two bedroom place

for $200, was it? winnie: $350-ish. jeremy: $350, it’s definitely cheaper. winnie: cheaper, yeah. jeremy: we partially got this place just sothat we could have the extra rooms for people to come visit. mad fientist: oh, that’s cool. that sounds really nice. we’re getting to near the end of the interviewand i always like to just ask everyone i talk

to. if you had one piece of advice for anyonethinking about pursuing financial independence and early retirement, what would it be? winnie: find a frugal wife. mad fientist: that’s a good point. i’ve had to slowly convert mine, but luckily,i’m there. it took ten years, but i got there eventually. how about you, jeremy? jeremy: that’s a good answer.

i don’t think i can beat that answer. i think not getting sucked into the lifestyleinflation is a key. so basically, learning to live on an incomethat you start out with. that way, you can get to incredibly high savingsrate, which in a 10-year kind of timeframe for many people, you could be free to do whateveryou want for the rest of your life. thank you both so much for taking the timeout of what, i’m sure, is a beautiful day down at mexico to talk to me. if anyone wants to get in touch, do they justgo over to gocurrycracker.com and send you an email from there?

gocurrycracker.com, there’s a contact formon there or you could just email us at gocurrycracker@gmail.com. mad fientist: excellent! well, thank you both. it was great talking to you. and hopefully, i’ll see you down in centralor south america in the next couple of years. winnie: yeah! thanks, guys. winnie: thank you. jeremy: thanks very much.

mad fientist: bye. winnie: bye! mad fientist: alright, thanks again to winnieand jeremy for speaking with me. definitely go check out gocurrycracker.comif you haven’t already. also, if you’re a fan of the podcast andwouldn’t mind leaving me a review over on itunes, i’d really appreciate it. anyway, thanks for listening and i’ll seeyou next time. outro: turkey, mashed potatoes, fience!