The Entrepreneur’s Guide to FI: A Day in the Life of a Finance Blogger

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast, where we interview J Money from Budgets are Sexy and talk about retiring, unretiring, picking up an autoimmune disease and his current portfolio. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my definitely not retired co-host, Scott Trench.

Scott:
Great to be here with my fired but not fired co-host, Mindy Jensen.

Mindy:
Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.

Scott:
That’s right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, start your own business, sell that business, buy that business back and live the life of a financially independent multimillionaire, we’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dreams.

Mindy:
Scott, before we bring in Jay, we have a new segment of our show called The Money Moment, where we share a money hack, tip or trick to help you on your financial journey. Today’s money moment is okay, let’s face it, birthday parties are expensive, especially kids’ birthday parties. Between the venue, the cake, the decorations, and those darn goody bags, things add up quick. Write this down, Scott, you’ll need this for later. What if you could slash your budget? Venue? How about the local park or lake? All kids want to do is play anyway. Cake? Hello, Costco. Decorations? The Dollar Store has you covered. And goody bags? Look, from one mom to another, I hate those things. They’re filled with cheap crap that I don’t want in my house. Skip it or give something that isn’t going to annoy the mom.

Scott:
Mindy, I actually went to a party recently and we brought all these fancy toys we’ve got for our nine-month-old. You know what her favorite thing to play with was?

Mindy:
The box or the wrapping paper?

Scott:
Yeah, the plastic plate.

Mindy:
Yes.

Scott:
There you go. Best gift. We took a couple extra plates from that party.

Mindy:
Yes, that is the most fun your baby will have. That or a box. Get a great big box and she will crawl around in that for hours, weeks, months. Do you have a money saving tip for us? Email [email protected]. Okay. Scott, I’m so excited to bring J Money back because he is such a fun person to talk to, and he is going to give us a little glimpse into what he’s been doing in the last few years.

Scott:
Yeah, it’s exciting to catch up with Jay and really fun to hear what’s going on. Obviously, there’s been some setbacks there, but he seems to be living his best life that he can right now.

Mindy:
Yep. Setbacks, but he’s taking them in stride. J Money is one of the OG personal finance bloggers from way back in the day, the Miley Cyrus of finance.

Scott:
Maybe the Hannah Montana.

Mindy:
No, he’s the Miley Cyrus of finance.

Scott:
Okay, okay.

Mindy:
It says so on his Twitter bio. He started blogging in 2008 and stopped sort of in 2019 when he sold Budgets are Sexy to the Motley Fool. He recently reacquired the blog and posts whatever he feels like it because he’s retired, right? Jay joined us on episode 103 where he shared his money story and we’re back today to catch up with all the things that he has been up to in the last three years. Sit back because he might be unemployed, but he is not bored. Jay, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. I am so excited to talk to you.

J Money:
Hi. I love talking to you all.

Mindy:
So for our new listeners, can you give us a little bit about yourself, your blog and how you got into the finance world, Miley Cyrus of finance?

J Money:
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I like the Hannah Montana because it’s like a double life, right? I have my online life, this J. Money guy, and then my real life, which I’m not J Money in real life, obviously.

Mindy:
Wait, that’s not your real name?

J Money:
Yeah. Isn’t that crazy? I know.

Scott:
Did you legally change it to J Money?

J Money:
No. That’d be so cool. No, no, no, no. I have a nice boring name, not very marketable. So we stick with the J Money, but yeah, I like just a regular dude and back in 2008, I was looking for a place to rent, actually, maybe closer to 2007. We came across this nice place for sale and within 48 hours, just randomly, we ended up buying. No money down, no budget. That was right before the big housing crash was about to happen. And then I was like, “Oh man, I should probably get a budget.” And so I started googling and I kept coming across all of these people. I didn’t even know what a blog was. There were just people talking about money, but they were showing real life numbers and networks, and I was just so addicted to it. I learned and it was fun and we had a community. And then after a couple of months I was like, “Well, I want to start a blog.” And we came up with Budgets are Sexy. And then, yeah, one thing led to another and here we are, gosh, 15 years later semi-retired and all from the blog. I mean, all my friends changed. I learned about entrepreneurship. And it’s crazy. It’s crazy what you can do now just having the internet. It’s awesome.

Scott:
Did producing your first budget improve your dating life per the name of your blog?

J Money:
It would’ve. I was already dating/engaged, so I’d like to think that it helps lots of single people out there. Yes. I have pretty pictures in there, in my budget. I have a spreadsheet that I give away for free online, and it has all colors in it. It has sexy all over the place, so we try to have fun and this stuff is usually kind of boring as many of us know.

Mindy:
Excuse me. Budgets are not boring. They are sexy.

J Money:
That’s right. Yeah. Go to budgetsareboring.com and see what happens. I think I still have that site up there.

Scott:
So I’d also like to dive into your personal relationship history with the budgetsaresexy.com company, the blog that you’ve produced here. Last time we chatted with you, I think you were the proud and prodigious owner of budgetsaresexy.com, and then you sold it and retired. I’ve heard there’s been some new developments in that front. Could you tell us what’s going on there?

J Money:
Yeah. So after about 10 or 12 years, I wanted a change. I was getting into minimalism. I was like, “Oh, what would happen if I didn’t have the blog in my life?” It’s such a big part of you. I had a million kids, and I was like, “Oh I just want to …” It is just time for a change. And The Motley Fool was working on some cool stuff at the time and one thing led to another and they ended up buying it. And then I worked with them for a few years. We built a curation site called allstarmoney.com for about a year. Their division changed and they were like, “Hey, we’re not buying sites anymore. We’re not getting in this industry. Do you want the blog back?” And I thought, “Oh my … What?” I was perfectly at peace. I did my run, it was fun. But the opportunity came and I thought, “Well, this is, I don’t know, I guess I could do it.” I literally had nothing else to do at the time, and actually, I’d gotten sick for a few months, so I was down in the dumps.
And then when I bought the blog back, I thought, “Oh, this is great. I have something to do.” I was all energized. I started feeling better health wise, because we figured out a diagnosis. And this was last year. And then ever since, it’s just been a fun hobby. When I started with, I blogged for the fun of it, because it was a community talking about money. I didn’t really know it could be a business. And then once you find out it’s a business, it changes and it’s not as fun. So now, we’re back to just the roots, which is kind of cool.

Mindy:
I think you can still be blogging for fun and make a little bit of money on the side. We’ve been in this space together for a while. Our paths have overlapped, and I’ve watched like you have watched people come in and blog for the love of it, and then blog simply for the money. And you can always tell when somebody’s blogging just for the money, it doesn’t feel as genuine.

J Money:
Yeah. And I mean blogs what they are. It’s your diary of your thoughts. I don’t think it was meant to be monetized and we accidentally learned that you could monetize it. But you’re right, there’s some good people out there still doing it for the love of it. And yeah, it definitely shows.

Mindy:
Yeah. Well, I think that your blog really … it shows your love of what you’re talking about, because it’s not just all money. I mean, I got your email today, you’re talking about paying your kids to pick up the dog poop and…

J Money:
Yeah. Trying to pay them. Yeah, I was giving them good money and they wouldn’t take it.

Mindy:
Spoiler alert. Kids don’t want to pick up dog poop. Who’d have thought? You mentioned your illness and that’s something that I think is very interesting to talk about, because you’re retired and you live in America, so you have crappy healthcare or maybe you do, maybe you have great healthcare. And then you decided that life wasn’t chaotic enough with three boys, you thought you’d pick up an autoimmune disease.

J Money:
Yeah.

Mindy:
How’s that going? How does that affect your finances? Because if I’m correct, this is just going to come and go throughout your life for the rest of your life, right? There’s no cure for this.

J Money:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s called pemphigus vulgaris and it’s this nasty autoimmune blistering disease. A lot of people have it outside on their skin where it just takes over your body and it looks miserable. I’ve heard it feels miserable. Mine weirdly is just inside my mouth and nose and in my throat when it happens. So in the beginning, after a couple months of this [inaudible] just randomly just started happening. I couldn’t swallow. I could breathe, but I couldn’t swallow and eat, and I said, “Oh, I should probably go to the hospital, get that figured out.” And no one at the hospital knew what it was. It took me another month and a half until we finally diagnosed it through a dermatologist out of all people. I didn’t know they worked in the mouth, but they do. So if you have anything funky on your skin, in your mouth, they’re the first people I would check out.
Yeah, and once we figure it out, it’s basically one of those things that comes and goes. There are treatments for it. It’s like a chemotherapy infusion type of stuff. And that costs, man, you do a round of two of them every couple years and its each one injection is like $22,000 at least through my insurance. And then your out of pocket is 1,000, $2,000. So it gets pretty pricey. And if you have no insurance, I can’t even imagine how you deal with that. My wife still works, so we use her insurance thankfully. So that’s been helpful. But it’s weird. It’s like I felt like I was dying, and then I felt all better. And then actually when you reached out to be on this podcast, I was sitting there actually getting the fluids inside of me as I was in the hospital and you asked to be on the show. So yeah, it’s crazy. It just comes out of nowhere.

Mindy:
And is there any rhyme or reason to what brings a flare-up? Or is it just like, “Hey, I’m feeling great, let’s have a knockdown.”

J Money:
Yeah, no, I mean there’s certain, what’s it called? Genes that people have. And if you have the gene, there’s a one in 10,000 chance that it’ll be activated. Once it’s activated … They say it’s dormant, I guess. And then a number of things can pile up and then activate it. Stress, I guess can activate it. Your health and how you eat and exercise and stuff, I think has a part to do with it. But more or less, he’s like, no, it just happens. And people like … I go to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and it’s renowned for this specific disease, this type of disease, and people flying from all over the world, third world countries especially that don’t have access. And they are just like … My case is still mild compared to some of these other people that have dealt years of it. And he said, “Look, if you don’t treat it, it’s not going to technically kill you, but you’ll want to die. And eventually it’ll just consume your whole body.” And I guess at some point it might kill you if you can’t swallow like happened to me. But yeah, it’s a nasty one. Probably not that fun to talk about on a finance show, but I’m happy to, but it is expensive. So there’s your tieback.

Scott:
Thank you for sharing this. This is really a gut punch for you with this diagnosis in this situation. But yeah, while we’re talking about the finances of this and the high health costs in this country, as an entrepreneur and business owner, how have you set things up to and how has that worked in this situation with the recent medical issues you’ve had?

J Money:
I used to budget a lot back in the beginning, and then once I figured out like hey, spend less than you earn, I just got really good into the habit of just saving and investing a lot over the last 10 years since I got consumed in this personal finance world. And so for me, I haven’t really done anything a little different. It kind of falls in the bucket like I have a few thousand dollars where I’m like, “Hey, something’s going to happen. I don’t know what it’s going to be.” Tires popping or something. Home ownership, as we all know, is crazy expensive at times. So it just kind of falls in the like, “I know I’m going to spend money this year on who knows what.” And I just have that set aside just generally over the last 10 years. So this just pulls from that.
But there are people … I’ve gotten four infusions in a year and it should last a few years in a perfect world. But every time I go in there, there’s people that have to go in two or three times a week. They have cancer, they have these other things that this medicine treats you for. I don’t know how they do it. I mean, it’s miserable to have the disease. It’s miserable to do the infusions and take all the time, hours a week, but then to have to go in debt and spend money on this stuff too, it’s wild. I don’t have any good answers for that. It’s just sad.

Scott:
More specifically, how do you handle insurance in a general sense as a business [inaudible] and financially independent person?

J Money:
Well, for me, my wife still works and she loves to work. I try and convince her every now and then not to, but she enjoys what she does and she has insurance. So I thankfully don’t have to worry about that. If she were to take me up on the offer to stop working, I think I would just consume all the fire blogs out there and see what everyone does. That’s how I deal with a lot of my stuff, my investments. I’m like, “Well, what is that all of my friends doing online that’s smart about this?” And then I do my research from there. And something like the health ministries that have popped up a lot of times over the fire movement, I’d probably start looking there just because I keep seeing that all the time. But yeah, fortunately, she still works and has that insurance, which is really helpful. And especially since we have three kids too, they’re always banging up and we’re always at the doctor’s every other week, so.

Mindy:
I’m sorry, I’m not laughing. I’m thinking of, we have a friend, Erin Chase. I follow her on Facebook and her boys are having a competition who can go to the ER more in a year. So I think of your three boys and her four boys, and I’m like, “Hoo hoo girls. Yay.”

J Money:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know what? Let’s say we have no insurance. I enjoy working. So my perfect lifestyle is to work a few hours in the morning on whatever projects and then just do whatever for the rest of the time. And so I would literally probably work at Starbucks or work somewhere that I enjoy that has a benefits package and just do part-time or trade away shifts and stuff to people who want more shifts, that kind of stuff. There’s all these little hacks I feel like you could do if you really wanted to have insurance in a different way. And in our world too is like, are you retired? Well, no, you’re not retired. This whole big thing. But I think it comes down to the freedom. If you enjoy working and you want to do stuff and be productive, that’s great. And you can get these benefits like health insurance and other stuff at times.

Mindy:
Yeah. Well, you brought it up so let’s address the elephant in the room. Your wife does work, so you’re not financially independent.

J Money:
I’m wife-fi.

Mindy:
Your wife-fi. My husband is also wife-fi. Does your wife have a timeline for retirement?

J Money:
No. No. Every time I mentioned it, like, “Oh, we should travel the world for a year or be nomads or whatever.” Because I love all that kind of stuff. She likes the stability and she enjoys what she does. And I think she’s always more conservative to me. I’m pretty out there at times. So we are a nice balance in that respect. And I think maybe because of the boys and me, the stability makes her happy. For me, it does not make me that happy. So it’s an interesting dichotomy there. But yeah, no, every time I hear people talk, if she says, “Oh yeah, my husband, well, he just putters around or he’s retired.” or whatever she says to people, they always ask her and she’s like, “I’m going to be doing it for a couple decades.” So we’ll see.

Mindy:
So you’ve mentioned the word stability a couple of times, and I know my specific situation and I have a fairly good handle in your specific situation, but not everybody listening does, how does she feel about you not working? Because there can be some really big feelings of resentment. “Oh, I’m still working, and he’s not.” Or feelings of maybe they would have this resentment.

J Money:
Yeah, she’s been pretty good. And because when we started, I think we were only dating for a couple years when I fell into this whole entrepreneur stuff. I’m kind of an accidental entrepreneur. So I think she’s used to that from the beginning. And even when I was blogging and I had a full-time job, I got let go from that job and my first thought was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m a full-time blogger.” Just automatically, right? And I remember she was super nervous and she was like, “Well, what’s the backup plan?” I said, “Well, I’ll just do it for a couple months and then if it doesn’t work out, I’ll go get a job.” And then I just never did. And so it’s kind of been this whole thing like a project. I sell the blog. “Okay, what are you going to do?” “Well, I’m going to work on projects.” I think since projects keep coming and going, she’s used to that and she knows I’m always going to be doing something. Even though, I guess technically I’m retired, I’m still working on stuff.
And even around the house like the other year, I thought, “Well, now, that I have more time, what can I do to take stuff off her plate?” So I started doing laundry every day. I started grocery shopping this year, which is a whole experience. So I’m doing … I’m actually, there’s a lot of stuff I do as, I don’t know, sometimes I just say I’m a stay-at-home daddy and I do everything with the kids. I’m taking them everywhere because she’s a typical nine to five, and she works for the government, so she’s not as flexible. So I think if I wasn’t doing any of that stuff and all I was doing is selfish stuff and having fun and drinking and bowling and doing whatever I do, then I think she would’ve brought it up. But I stay helpful. I stay helpful.

Mindy:
So something I’ve always wondered when I introduce my husband as unemployed, I’m joking, but I have to be careful about my audience. I can’t just introduce him to the neighbors as, “Oh, this is my husband, he’s unemployed.” Because it sounds like I resent it and I don’t. What do your friends think about her working and you not? Because being a stay-at-home dad is honorable and wonderful, and I was a stay-at-home mom, but being a stay-at-home mom is way more common than being a stay-at-home dad. And we live in America and there’s this whole macho, the man provides kind of garbage and I’m just … Do you know what I mean? I’m wondering, has anybody ever said anything to you about this?

J Money:
No, but two things. One, and my wife, it drives her crazy because I’m always taking the kids everywhere [inaudible] and it’s usually all moms. All the moms love me and they’re like, “Oh, you’re such a good dad. Oh, good for you.” Even though I’m literally doing the same thing as they’re doing, I do get a lot more credit than I probably deserve. And my wife’s like, “That drives me crazy. If it was me, they would never say anything.” So that’s one thing I’ve noticed a lot. But so far, my friends, and maybe because maybe they thought I’ve been unemployed for so long, like blogging because it’s not a real job. They don’t get it. The only thing I ever hear is, “Oh, I wish I can work in my pajamas and go to the coffee shop all day.” That’s what I hear a lot. So no one says anything at least to my face. And all my friends now, I mean, I have friends in real life, but it’s all the online community. But you guys are my friends. I’ve swapped. I only have online friends now that are cool. I curate everything.

Scott:
J, can you give us a life in the day? A recent day that was really good. What does it look like top to bottom, and how do we think about how you spend your time in that context?

J Money:
Yeah. Well, today is actually a perfect day. I took the kids to camp around 9:00 AM. First, I woke up at 6:00 AM.

Scott:
What camp are they going to?

J Money:
They’re just going to a summer fun camp through the city. Nothing crazy, just arts and playground stuff. But I woke up at 6:00, had coffee. I like to read finance articles so I did that. I do what I call a correspondence where I’m just responding to emails, seeing what I have to do for the day and just really just having two hours of peace to myself with everyone sleeping. It’s the best thing I’ve done for my lifestyle in the last 10 years. And then I took the kids to camp. I went to the coffee shop for an hour and a half, and I had a new blog post out today so I responded to comments, did social. And then I have the whole day until I pick them up which I’m doing after this call or after this podcast, and I thought, “Oh, I’m going to go volunteer.”
I started volunteering at a homeless shelter, so I was like, “This is great. I’m just going to pop over there.” I did that for about an hour, two hours, saw my old friends there, helped them out. Then I was like, “Oh, got to go grocery shopping. We haven’t been out for a few days.” So I went grocery shopping for about 45 minutes. A friend needed help with the Zoom call trying to do video stuff, so I hopped on with him. Had some lunch. Then I looked at the time and it was time for you guys. So yeah, this to me is ideal, where it’s all go with the flow.
I have stuff to do, but besides the podcast, it’s not an exact time. I had time for me in the morning and then when we’re done, I’ll have time with the kids and then that’s it. It’s nothing glamorous, but it’s to my own perfect lifestyle. And that’s what I’ve realized in the last handful of years. I want to work a few hours, I want to play and I want to be productive, but I want to go with the flow and not have timetables as much.

Scott:
Love it. I think that that’s just such a good model for a happy, productive day. Giving back, being productive, having plenty of you time, and that’s the goal. This is not like some … I’ll say it’s not some glamorous you’re on an island or on a mountaintop or whatever crazy thing. This is just a really nice, wonderful, wholesome day that you’re able to enjoy here.

J Money:
A boring day. Something that wouldn’t go viral on social media if I put that out there.

Scott:
That’s what this is. That’s what early retirement is like, right? There’s going to be normal days in a healthy, wholesome, productive, happy routine that you put in place there. We were debating today about a new YouTube series where Mindy follows people around while they’re doing their grocery shopping and hounds them and surprises them with small mistakes that they’re making in terms of expense and optimization on their grocery run. So we might have to call you up for the pilot episode of that one.

J Money:
Oh, you’ll have hours worth of content if you follow me around.

Mindy:
J, why did you buy that cereal? The other one’s on sale.

J Money:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I always come back with 20 things more than that was not on my list. But to my credit, I only buy when it’s on sale and you’re going to eat it at some point. I’m like, “Well, I’m going to buy six of these, right? I’ll be good for six months.” Peanut butter. That stuff is so expensive. I never knew how expensive peanut butter was until this year, and it is expensive. And so when I find a deal, I get six or seven of them, spend like 50 bucks.

Scott:
J may be wife-fi, but he’s still bringing home the bacon.

J Money:
Literally. Oh, that’s good. I’m going to have to steal that. That’s funny. And even with finance too, when I first started doing grocery shopping, it was like four months ago I think or five months ago. I thought, “Well, I’m going to make a spreadsheet. I’m going to go to all the grocery stores and document which ones are cheaper, and I’m going to have this whole strategy.” Because I have all the time, right? I’ll go to six stores in a day and get the best deal. But every time I then thought of shopping, I was like, “I don’t even want to leave. It’s so overwhelming.” And so I’ve eventually only gotten it down to two stores.
Like Walmart, I’ll go once a month and do a big run, and then my local grocery store, I’ll go often, and I do spend more money, I don’t know, maybe $50 more a month doing that, but it makes my lifestyle so better. I can only do that because saved for so long. So it is interesting that even though I thought I was going to be super frugal and come back and tell my wife, “Look how much money I’ve saved our family since I’ve taken over.” It is definitely not the case. Although I will say I love decluttering, as a minimalist, and I declutter our pantry, and she’ll put things on the list and I’m like, “We have five of these.” And so I’m better at that part of the process.

Mindy:
I like that. Working together. I was going to say, I have a pantry full of stuff that I bought when it was on sale, and I bought seven of them, and they get shoved to the back and you can’t find them, then you go buy more. I did just hire a professional organizer to come over and help me declutter my house.

J Money:
Wow.

Mindy:
Yeah. That’s one of the things that came out of the Ramit podcast was I’m going to hire a house cleaner and I’m going to hire a professional organizer.

J Money:
Oh my gosh. Good for you.

Mindy:
Yeah. We had our first session and it was … I see how she works. She’s worth the money.

Scott:
One corner of one room is now complete, right?

Mindy:
We spent four hours doing underneath the bathroom cabinets in two bathrooms.

J Money:
Oh my goodness.

Mindy:
Yeah. It was like there’s a lot of stuff in there. First, we take it all out and then we sort it, and then we sort it again. And I saw how she works. I like how she works. It’s going to be a good experience. And now I can take that and like, “I don’t need her to help me sort through my socks. I could do that myself.” But in the kitchen, I’m going to need some help.

J Money:
But you got the good process. Yeah. She’s instilled a good process for you. That’s important.

Mindy:
Yeah. It’s going to be a hybrid. She’s going to come over and then I’m going to do some work by myself and then just come back and do another room with me, and then I’ll do some work by myself.

J Money:
That’s interesting. Yeah. You don’t see many people in our space doing that because you get all the hate mail coming in.

Mindy:
Yeah. If anybody wants to give me guff about that, my email is [email protected].

J Money:
There you go.

Mindy:
Okay. But the show is not about me. The show is about J Money. So J Money, we’ve talked about the J part. Let’s talk about the money part. Last year, 2022, I don’t know if you noticed, but the stock market was kind of squidgy, and at the same time you are going through some expensive drugs. How did the market ups and downs affect your mentality about early retirement and financial independence?

J Money:
It didn’t. I don’t know if that’s weird to say. It does not bother me. Actually, I was talking to someone today that’s just starting to get into real estate at the coffee shop, and they’re like … And I told him last year to start investing, especially as it was going down. He’s like, “No, no, no, everyone’s pulling their money out. It’s crazy. It’s crazy.” And so now meeting him a year later, and I said, “Well, did you invest or no?” He said, “No, no, I should have. The market’s backup, blah, blah.” And I’m like, “I told you, I know. We all know this, but your emotions gets the best of us.” I mean, I’m pretty emotional in general, but for some reason, I think because we’re just consumed … we’re in this world, I just don’t pay attention. And if I think anything, it’s like I’ll just … because currently I’m always constantly investing recurringly, so I know that I’m going to get stuff on a deal, and then when it goes up, it’s like, “Okay, but then I’m buying it more expensive.” So it’s not rarely ever a win-win except for the long run.
I read something today. It was like just invest, don’t look at it for 20 years if you can, and you’re going to be the happiest person in 20 years. And granted, that’s index funds and not stock picking and stuff, but I think that’s true. So to answer your question, it does not bother me. And maybe if it was two or three years of it, I’d start questioning perhaps. But even during the market crash, when I got into personal finance, I was funneling money in and the whole market was going down, down, down. And I was like, “Okay, this is crazy.” But then it went up for, what, 10 years? It was crazy. So I know in the back of my mind, “This is good. You’re in it for the long haul. It’s not like you need to start pulling money today.” And it doesn’t count until you hit the sell button. It’s all fake money until you hit sell, so.

Scott:
Can you give us an overview of where you allocate money in your portfolio and how you invest?

J Money:
Yeah. So I used to be all over the place. I would literally see what Warren Buffett’s doing, and then I’m like, “Oh, I’m just going to copy him.” Thinking that was really smart. And of course, he’s Warren Buffett and has different specials than we get, and so they did okay. But then someone else would give me a hot tip and I’m like, “All right, I’ll invest in that.” And then I went on the Dough Roller podcast, I don’t know, six or seven years ago, and he asked me what my fun fees were, and I was like, “I don’t know.” He’s like, “You are a finance blogger and you don’t know what are you invested in.” I was like, “I honestly couldn’t tell you. There’s 80 things I have.” And he didn’t get mad at me, but I could tell he was shaking his head even though I couldn’t see him.
And he’s like, “Just read JL Collins and stuff.” So I was like, “Okay.” And then I realized everyone in the fire space does index funds. And I was like, “All right.” So I made up my mind and I cashed out of everything. I went a hundred percent into index funds. Up until two years ago, I was a hundred percent into VTSAX, Vanguard’s index, and that’s it. That’s literally all I had. And then we got a small inheritance on my wife’s side a couple years ago when her mother died, and we went into a little bit of bonds and a little bit international, but they’re all Vanguard index funds. So I think I have three or four funds total, all index funds. And every now and then I’ll like, “Oh, I’m going to be good at crypto.” And so I buy Bitcoin and then it crashes the next day. And I’m like, “We’ll just wait it out.” And then it crashes more. And so I think in the last couple years when I was bored, I put in, I don’t know, 20,000 over the couple years, and then I pulled out 10 a couple months ago. So I dibble dabble, but 99.9% is index funds.

Scott:
And do you own a house?

J Money:
Oh, yes, we do. Yes, we own our house and we paid that off. So yes, that is another … Well, yeah, but that doesn’t earn money. That sucks up all our money.

Mindy:
Wait, you paid off your house?

J Money:
Yeah, yeah, I paid off. Yeah. Oh, that’s right. I’m not supposed to, right?

Mindy:
No.

J Money:
It’s bad.

Mindy:
Give me back your FIRE card.

Scott:
There’s a couple of things I’ll point out of this though as well when you have a paid off house. So there’s the math, and then there’s the reality and the practical sense of freedom here. J is actually not working and enjoying this day and lifestyle. And I have found over the course of hundreds of these chats, Mindy, that the people who are actually doing those chill days, these wonderful, awesome lifestyle benefits that they have somehow, some way not optimized the math of their end state portfolio to some degree, because having a paid off house is just freeing and easy. It’s done. You don’t have to worry about it, right? One less thing to worry about with it. So J, I have two more questions on your portfolio here. One, how much cash do you have relative to your annual spending on hand?

J Money:
Well, we have in our savings accounts $30,000 in there. And since my wife works, a majority of her money goes to pay … all of her paychecks, go to paying a majority of our expenses because we don’t have the house payment, so that’s a big chunk obviously. Our cars are paid off and then really it’s kid stuff and Amazon is where a lot of our money is. And I definitely don’t dare break that down. She’s in charge of Amazon. But yeah, I don’t know if that answers your question. So we have savings and then everything that’s not in savings is in the market or in the house since we paid that off. And that’s it. I don’t own businesses or anything anymore.

Scott:
If your wife were to stop working, would you reposition some of your portfolio into a different allocation than paid off house, small savings balance and VTSAX essentially?

J Money:
I would not change the investments. I would keep that the same, because I’m pretty risk adverse so I’d probably keep that for decades. I would refinance the house and get that chunk of cash and start living off of that more and still probably invest as much as I could. Because the house, I mean, we know there’s pros and cons to it. Right now, it makes sense, but yeah, if I needed money and I want to keep this lifestyle going, then I’m fine with having debt. It’s not like I hate debt all the way, but the situation would change. And there’s times too where sometimes I do think about that. I’m like, “Oh, I want to …”
If there was a business opportunity that came by and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I need like …” I don’t know what our house is worth, let’s say 400,000. If I needed $400,000 cash, I would much rather refinance the house and go all in than take it for my investments. And a lot of my investments too is in IRA, SEP IRA and a Roth IRA as well as brokerage. So I can’t even tap all of that. So for now it works. But yeah, if no more income was coming in and I didn’t want to get a part-time job or anything, then I would refinance the house and go that way.

Scott:
Awesome. And I’ll also call out that we have one additional asset here that was not listed, which is the Budgets are Sexy business, right?

J Money:
Yes and no. When I sold it, yes, it was a business. Part of the reasons, without going in too much, that I was able to get it back was that the strategy and what Motley Fool thought was going to happen did not happen all the way. And so the business was a lot smaller when I took it back. And since I took it back, I got rid of ads, I redesigned it, and it makes a fraction of what it used to. So I guess technically yes, I could sell it again, which would be crazy for a little bit, but I don’t even count that.

Scott:
Well, it’s just awesome to get into the mind of someone who’s living the lifestyle, the FIRE lifestyle, and how you think about the allocation of these portfolios and how you think about setting those things up. So thanks for sharing all that with us.

J Money:
Yeah, sure. And I should give a shout out. Yeah, Dough Roller and JL Collins, especially his stock series is what I got sucked into and the whole community really. That’s what’s nice about it. Even me who living and breathing finance, there are certain areas we don’t like or care about or we’re just bad at. So to have other people that is their specialty and to lean on them, it’s great. It’s awesome.

Mindy:
Yeah. And I want to say … I was just teasing about the whole paid off house thing. Eventually I’ll have a paid off house. I think 29 years from now I’ll have a paid off house,

J Money:
Okay.

Mindy:
But that’s a choice. And I can sleep just fine knowing that I have a mortgage payment, because it’s not that much because it was back when the mortgage rates were super, super low. And I think it is fine that you have paid off your house, because you did it on purpose weighing the pros and cons, knowing what you are getting versus giving up. And I think so many people subscribe to, what’s the Dave Ramsey intro? The paid off house is the equivalent of the BMW or whatever he says. Not necessarily. If you’re just paying off your house to pay off your house because you don’t know what to do with your money, then maybe that’s a good thing. But if you’re paying off your house so then you can go spend what you would’ve been paying towards your house on other dumb stuff that you don’t need, then maybe that’s not the best choice for you. And with your money, you should do things intentionally.

J Money:
Yeah, yeah. And I would even say that I don’t even want to own a house. I like renting. I love renting. Going back to minimalism and freedom, I’d rent in a heartbeat. My wife does not like that idea, and my kids, going back to the stability stuff. So I said, “Okay, well, that’s best for the family. I’ll do it.” And paying off house now versus 15 years ago, I didn’t have a budget or any idea. It was a way different life. Your mind is a lot different. I was freaked out every time anything happened because I had no money, right? I bought house and I didn’t have any money going on. So now when something breaks, it’s still annoying as hell, but at least you don’t have to worry about the finances part. But yeah, I love renting and anytime someone debates owning a home when I could tell they’re not ready, it’s like, “No, just rent. You do not have to own if you do not want to.”

Mindy:
JL Collins finally convinced me that renting was okay, because until a conversation with him several years ago, I was like, “No, you should always buy. Why wouldn’t you buy?” And then made … I think he was the first person to make a good point that made sense to me why renting was okay. So now, yeah, if you don’t want to buy a house, if you don’t want to own or you’re not sure, that’s the best time to not own a house.

Scott:
I rented until April of 2023, so I completely agree.

J Money:
Oh really? You just bought?

Scott:
I moved into a rental property I bought in 2019 in April 2023.

J Money:
Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. That’s cool. That’s funny.

Mindy:
Yeah, the CEO of BiggerPockets was a renter.

J Money:
See that.

Mindy:
Okay, J, what is next for you?

J Money:
This is it. Again, my lifestyle is set up. I think that’s one thing I realized before it was like the future is my blog or the future is this awesome other project or with finances, right? Hitting FIRE. And I think I’m at the point where just give me something fun to work on every day, give me the freedom. And I don’t even care what it is. Again, working at the homeless shelter, I have just as much joy doing that as I do blogging or going for a walk or spending a hundred dollars on a nice dinner. It’s all equal happiness for me. So as long as I get some part of that every day, the variable swap out, but the time allotments are there.
And this year for me, I should say too, is I call it the year of the flow where I’m not planning anything. Again, you guys are the only thing on my week that I have to do at a certain time this week, which is fine, but that’s how I like it. The guy today at the coffee shop, I haven’t seen him in a year, and then I said, “Hey, why don’t you come have coffee with me and we’ll talk for an hour? I’m just hanging out here typing.” And that was nice. I wouldn’t have been able to do that before. So the future is just more of this kind of stuff, but I’ll definitely be working on something for sure.

Mindy:
Awesome. I love that idea. You don’t always have to be looking for the next thing to accomplish. It’s okay to enjoy your life.

J Money:
Yeah, I say no a lot. Yeah, the whole everyone says yes too much. I will say there are days where I’m like, I need something to do and I can’t do anything. I definitely have those days and I have to force myself to get creative, but for the most part, it works out.

Mindy:
Well, come visit. You can clean out my house.

J Money:
I would probably pay to declutter someone’s house. That’s how much I enjoy it. I’m always walking around and my wife’s like, “You’re looking for things to get rid of, aren’t you?” And I’m like, “Yes, I am.” It’s so fun and freeing.

Scott:
You can trade. You can clean out Mindy’s house and then Mindy can clean out your grocery shopping list.

J Money:
There you go. I would a hundred percent do that if we live nearby.

Mindy:
Yeah, open invitation. Anytime, J. You can stay in the basement.

J Money:
Okay.

Mindy:
Okay. Well, J, where can people find you online?

J Money:
You can go, I’m on Twitter at budgetsaresexy. You go to the blog, budgetsaresexy.com, and then I have an online, I don’t know, I guess resume that talks about stuff I’ve worked on, and that’s jmoney.biz. J like the letter J, money then .biz, that gives you a background on my stuff.

Scott:
And I believe that as of yesterday, it is now called X, so no more Twitter.

J Money:
Yeah, there you go. Find me on X.

Scott:
Well, on that thread, thank you so much for coming on the show, J. It’s great to chat with you, and we hope you have a wonderful rest of your FIRE week here.

J Money:
Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys.

Mindy:
Thank you, J. We’ll talk to you soon. Scott, that was J Money, and he is always so much fun to talk to. I really enjoyed our conversation with him today.

Scott:
Yeah, it was great to chat with J. He’s a finance rockstar, Mindy.

Mindy:
He is. He is a rockstar. I really miss Rockstar Finance.

Scott:
Yeah, pun intended. J also used to run a site called Rockstar Finance, which was great. He just would aggregate all of the best blog articles or things that were happening in the personal finance and investing world and send them out in a nice newsletter. So not sure what happened to Rockstar Finance, but what an awesome serial entrepreneur J Money has been.

Mindy:
And sold again, and yeah, I don’t know where it is now. I don’t think anybody’s publishing it anymore, which is too bad because it was a really awesome way to learn about new bloggers. Do you know JD Roth and Jim Wang started one called Apex Money, and that is also a good way to find new finance bloggers. I love when there’s new finance bloggers out there because it helps people find the voice that speaks best to them, and not everybody’s voice is going to be for everybody. And if you can find one that’s going to help you learn, that’s the best.

Scott:
Yeah, I think that’s right. It’s so interesting how all of these folks, J Money, JD, Jim Wang, Steve Chu, the folks that we’ve met and known for over the years who have been big finance bloggers, they’re brilliant, they’ve pioneered things, but we also need some new finance bloggers coming into the world here that are talking about things and talking about the current realities and struggles that folks are facing in 2023 as they’re trying to build wealth. So shout out to everybody who’s out there who’s contemplating or thinking about or has started a … is in progress of a personal finance blog and is on the journey because you’re helping a lot of people, and there’s a new wave coming here and great contributions to be made from the next gen, I guess, of these bloggers.

Mindy:
Yep. I love reading them. If you have a favorite new money blogger, email me [email protected] or him, [email protected]. And as always, if you have a complaint about the show, [email protected]. All right, that wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. He is Scott Trench, and I am Mindy Jensen. In honor of J Money. I’m saying later skater.

Scott:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney.

Mindy:
BiggerPockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kailyn Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the BiggerPockets team for making this show possible.