Barista FIRE at 36 with ONLY $500K by Trading “Stuff” for Substance

Mindy:
Imagine swapping your morning commute for a sunrise hike in Mexico, or typing from a Beachside cafe in Bali effectively making retirement happen decades ahead of schedule. After strategically building her financial foundation, Julie did exactly that. She achieved barista fire in 2021, that sweet spot where she’d saved up enough money to work minimally while her investments grew. Now living a nomadic life most only dream about she’s sharing how she finances, her freedom, handles healthcare on the road and finds purpose beyond traditional careers all while her wealth continues to grow in the background. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Bigger Pies Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen. Scott’s out playing hooky today, but he’ll be back next week. I am so excited to welcome Julie B. Rose to the podcast. She has an incredible financial independent story and we will cover it all in today’s episode. Julie, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so excited to talk to you.

Julie:
I’m so excited to thank you for having me.

Mindy:
Before we dive into your nomadic lifestyle, what was your relationship with money growing up?

Julie:
Growing? I think I had a fairly normal relationship and education about money in terms of what they tell you in high school about don’t overdraw your checking account and this is how to do a basic accounting spreadsheet. My parents kind of taught me to track, save some of your money, pay off loans as quickly as you can, but we never learned anything about investing. We never learned anything about maximizing. We kind of followed that same track that the rest of Americans have been told to, Hey, you should buy a car as soon as you can because freedom, and I spent my money a bit foolishly growing up, but I thought, you know what? I’m pretty smart. I’ll just save a little bit. But as we all know, saving is not really the best way to make your money grow, so I really had to teach myself a lot about money in my later adulthood, I suppose my thirties and the rest of us, we’ve been pretty self-taught because the high schools don’t really do it justice.

Mindy:
They really don’t, and we are starting to see more and more bills that are coming into legislatures that are being passed saying, yes, we should give our high school students financial education, but I have a high school student myself right now, she has to take a half a credit to graduate. That’s not enough in my opinion. It’s a start. It’s a great start, but it’s not enough. We could do better.

Julie:
Yeah.

Mindy:
What was your financial position leaving college?

Julie:
My dad, my parents helped pay for my college and I paid for I think about half of it, so I didn’t come in with any college loans. I didn’t come into my first job with any loans, but I sure came in with a big car loan.

Mindy:
Oh

Julie:
Yes. Like everybody else. I’m like, Hey, I made it. I got my first job. I’m making $33,000 a year. I’m going to buy a new car that was $22,000. Right. I’m going to get my own apartment that costs $750 a month, and then of course I had insurance and all my essential bills, and I get to that job and then I get my first paycheck and I’m like, wait a second. What’s fica? The math doesn’t math.

Mindy:
The math doesn’t math.

Julie:
I had to get a second job, even though I theoretically had made it out of college into my first professional job, I had to get a second job working two jobs out of college just to pay for life,

Mindy:
And that unfortunately is not even a unique story. I hear that all the time. By the time I got done with my paycheck, there was no money left and I still had more bills, and that is really disappointing. So what was your career? What did you study in college?

Julie:
Yeah. My first career was journalism, so I started in the newsroom. I actually went to a school that was really well known for the journalism program and I was really active in it, and once I left college, I had the fortune of being hired right in a market 15 newsroom, which most new graduates have to start in a small to medium market. I started in a large market. I started as a producer, so I skipped the intern or the associate, and so theoretically I had a great job, but it was 33,000 a year at the time, and I couldn’t afford everything else because I had that in my head, Hey, I made it. I can now spend accordingly, and it just doesn’t work that way.

Mindy:
How long did you work the second job? How long did you have two jobs for?

Julie:
Oh, let’s see. So I actually, it’s a little bit unique. This was during the great recession, so I was laid off from my news job after about a year and a half, and luckily I had that second job working at a fitness club opening up the cafe at five in the morning. So I had something to do during this layoff, and yay, I had about two weeks of severance. But the realization that that could happen to me really shook things up for me, and it didn’t take me that long to find another job. Actually, that’s what moved me to Phoenix is I got a job offer out in Phoenix for luckily more money, but it really shook me that, Hey, your job is not guaranteed and it could be snatched away from you in an instant, and if you don’t have any buffer, if you don’t have any preparation, if you don’t have any financial landing pad, you are relatively screwed. And so I actually had to move back home with my parents for a little bit during this little period of underemployment until I got to Phoenix to start my new job.

Mindy:
I’m sad that this was your experience, but I’m also really glad this was your experience because a little foreshadowing, it sounded like this turned you in a different direction. What did you do with this realization that your job isn’t secure?

Julie:
Well, you’d think I would’ve got the message the first time around because I went to Phoenix and I got a pay increase, and I’m like, whoa, yay. Life’s back on track. I only had a little bit of a blip and I can keep spending, and so I was stuck in that consumerist mindset and buying things like new clothes every month and still paying for my nice car, and you just get, oh, there’s Pampered Chef and there’s Leah Sophia, and there’s all these stupid shopping trends, and there’s a little bit of the, as you’re in your twenties and your friends are moving ahead in their career and you want to give the impression that you’re moving ahead in your career, so look at the new stuff I bought and look at the parties. I’m throwing the dinner parties and look how I’m moving up in the world.
I felt that pressure a lot. And so I look back now with a whole different lens of like, oh my God, what was I thinking? Those were thousands of dollars that I had spent on stuff that sat in my cabinets and closets that could have contributed to my financial freedom much, much sooner. But that’s the trap that commercialism has set for us. So I was on that path for quite a while, changed a couple jobs, kept on earning more, but it wasn’t until my next layoff that I think it all really sunk in. And during that layoff, I was actually unemployed for five months. Luckily I had four months of severance. So with that buffer, I thought, Hey, I’m going to do something useful with this time because when else am I going to get a paid vacation of this length? I went backpacking in Europe for a month.
It changed my life. I lived out of a backpack, just a carry on backpack, and I walked everywhere and I took buses and I was super frugal, and I realized, whoa, I really have way more junk than I’ve ever needed. Why do I have all this stuff in my house weighing me down? Why am I working and living this life that I get so much more life and energy from traveling and discovering and being curious and learning? Maybe I should refocus that energy. And it was during that experience, during that layoff that I started cooking up a plan and I didn’t really know what I was cooking up yet, but what it started as, Hey, for one, I got to get my life together. I have to get my finances together. I never want to be in a position of financial insecurity again, and I want to work towards a life that truly makes me shine, allows me to shine and have my truest self come out and follow my heart. And four and a half years later, I hit the road.

Mindy:
When did you discover the concept of barista fire or the concept of financial independence in general?

Julie:
It was after I got back from that trip, during that layoff period, and as I was starting my new job, I had decided that, Hey, my financial education is not what it should be. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I had been like, oh yeah, I contributed the company match for a little while and I put it in this and that, and I just kind did what I was told when I was clicking through buttons, but I really didn’t know what I was doing, and I think I had heard maybe or seen little bits about fire or just about financial literacy, and I thought, Hey, I should really learn how hard can this be? I, I’ve conquered and accomplished so much. How hard can this be? And I just led myself down the path reading the books that people recommended, checking out the blogs and found the information fairly easy to digest and also just felt empowered by what was out there that, Hey, I could do this. At the time, I did decide to enlist a financial advisor who I eventually cut ties with, but it helped maybe me get off the ground just a little and started doing things on my own as well. And it became addictive because you see the compounding and accumulation effect, and I’m like, whoa, this is really working.
Truly, it becomes addictive. Then you’re like, how much more money can I pump in and how much more can come up and how fast can I grow? And so it was really a combination of I’m trying different things with investing and then I’m side hustling because I just want that to grow as soon as possible. As soon as I got back from Europe after that backpacking trip and got my next job, which jobs typically are when you change them so often is each one pays you more. I decided I’m going to cut my spending. I’ve increased my earnings, so I’m going to increase my investing, and then I’m going to see where I can fill in with different side hustles and things just exploded for me.

Mindy:
My dear listeners, we would love to hit 100,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel and we need your help. While we take a quick ad break, please hop on over to youtube.com/biggerpockets money and check to see if you are subscribed to our channel. Stay tuned for more after the break. Thanks for sticking with us. So what kind of side hustles were you finding to add to this nest egg that you were doing?

Julie:
My main side hustle, this one has got a whole dramatic story of its own. I’ve talked about it on my blog too. I talk about all my love and relationships and romances on my blog as well. I ended up meeting someone overseas on that European trip that I thought I was going to move to Europe for, and so I’ll try to make this short. It’s a long emotional story, but I ended up putting my house on the rental market, my entire house, which is three bedroom, two bath, two car, garage yard, the whole shebang because if I didn’t have a job, if I was moving to Europe, I had to have some income because who knows if I could even work over there without an appropriate visa, which takes time to get. So I put my house on the market talking to this guy, we’re like, are you sure?
Are we really doing this, dah, dah, dah? He’s like, yes, yes. No risk, no reward. I put my house on the market, I get on the rental market, I get a four month booking, and then he dumps me. So I am like, I’ve got nowhere to live and got another job, and that job was based in Phoenix, even if it was remote, most of the time I’m like, I need to find a place to live. So my side hustle, if you can call it that, was moving into a studio Casita, like somebody’s backyard house in Phoenix, spending $800 a month while I rented out my big house in Phoenix during the Phoenix tourism season from Christmas to Easter, that as you can imagine, paid good dividends. I also was bartending at the Phoenix Open, which is the big golf tournament, made tons of money at that. I went through my stuff and was consigning things. I mean, I had have to look back at every, it was like whatever little opportunity I had, I think I was walking dogs maybe for a little while, whatever went at the time. I was like, let’s do it.

Mindy:
And I love that story because so many people that I talk to, they discover financial independence and they’re like, I’m going to cut out everything. And then they’re like, Ooh, that isn’t so much fun. I’m going to add some stuff back in. But there’s also this hustle culture and the side hustles that you’re doing. I’m assuming you took that money and threw it at your investments and not into shopping some more. It seems like you were shedding, actively shedding as much as you could to in order to get to financial independence as soon as possible.

Julie:
And you know what else that taught me? Moving out of my house for four months, I was hearing from people when the house is the American dream, it’s why you work so long. You’re like, I bought a house. It’s the mark of success for any 30 something year old. Actually, I was in my twenties when I bought it, but it’s like, yeah, I did it. Look at me. I did good. I moved out of my house and my friends were like, oh my God, there’s people sleeping in your bed. I’m like, yeah, but I changed the sheets. There’s people using your brand new kitchen that you just remodeled. I’m not going to take it with me.
It fostered this sense of detachment, which I think is really the number one thing for minimalists, for nomads, for early retirees, for anybody who wants to live a more mobile life, they have to have this sense of detachment from their material things, from their former identity, from basically what life is supposed to be and come up with their own version of that. So having the detachment allowed me to come back into my house and really see it for the flat two dimensional thing that it is. Yeah, I have a great kitchen. I’m not going to take it with me. Oh, oops, it’s scratched. It’ll still sell. I’m not worried about that. I’m not going to live here forever. I’m not going to take this to my grave. And that in itself was probably more valuable than the money that I made, even though I did throw it at my investments and it did quite well for me.

Mindy:
So what year are we talking about here?

Julie:
Okay, so this would’ve been 2018 to 2020, the 2018 tourist season, the 2019 tourist season and the 2020 tourist season. So yes, you’re right. That brings us to Covid.

Mindy:
That brings us to Covid. Well, before we get into Covid, I want to talk about your investing. You’re ramping up your investing, where are you putting your money? What are you investing in?

Julie:
I was playing around a little bit. I think of course, I was reading all the advice like Total Stock Market, the VTI and fx, CACs and all the ones that are very broad, and I put a lot of money in those, and I think I was like, oh, let me try a little Vanguard and a little fidelity and a little, I was just sort of like, let’s just see. And then I thought, oh, maybe some Costco, maybe some Microsoft just for funsies, some Netflix and so on. And most of it did great and some of it not so great, but I kind of felt like it was good practice for me. I’ve since cleaned a lot of that up in the years following, but I had my retirement vehicles, my 401k and my Roth IRA, and then I also had my brokerage, so I made sure to max out my Roth to the level each year, my 401k to the federal level allowable, capturing the company match, which was I think up to 3% at the time. So I hit those limits each year for I think three or four years running during this time period. And then everything else I put into brokerage, and that was where I tried to divvy up where I wanted to put it.

Mindy:
That’s a nice mix. So on the BiggerPockets Money podcast, we talk, we’ve been talking about the middle class trap where you’ve done everything. You have put your money into your home equity or your 401k, but then you become a millionaire on paper and you’re like, oh, how do I access this? Rates have gone up so I can’t just pull equity out of my house and I can’t access my 401k without paying penalties. So you’ve got several hedges against that. First of all, I am assuming that you sold this house. It sounded like this is not currently a home that you own.

Julie:
I sold the house.

Mindy:
That’s one way to access the equity.

Julie:
Yeah, exactly. I sold the house in 2020, in the middle of 2020 after I decided, or while I decided to go nomadic, and I got my asking price. I know real estate has really grown and exploded since Covid, but I made the best decision at the time and I also didn’t want the burden of some kind of responsibility that I had to keep. I had enough issues when I was just renting it out to these vacationers who are like, how do I flush the toilet? So I didn’t really want to deal with that.

Mindy:
Yeah, yeah, and that’s valid. I bet I’ve had rentals too, and yes, you’re like, really it’s Have you never seen a toilet before? It’s the silver handle on the side, you just push down. Yeah, yes. No, I completely get it. And in 2020, so I’m a real estate agent, and I remember the beginning of Covid where you couldn’t go even and see a house unless it was under contract, so people were writing these really quick contracts just to be able to get inside to see it and then canceling it if they didn’t like it. It was a crazy market. So selling in the middle of 2020, covid this weird thing that hasn’t happened in a hundred years, totally valid choice. You didn’t want to own this property, so sell it. That’s what you do when you don’t want to own a property anymore. But you’ve also got your Roth IRA. You’ve got your after tax brokerage accounts, so you have many different buckets to pull from until you can access your 401k. Are you doing any of what I consider to be advanced maneuvers like Roth conversions now that your income is presumably lower?

Julie:
I did that my first year after quitting my job, so I kind of classify those years. The first almost year and a half, I was almost pretty much fully on sabbatical, not pulling any income from work, not really nothing substantial, and that was when I took the opportunity to do one of those conversions and made an investment income at the same time. I did that in my first year. I have not done that since, but it’s something that I think about and will look at when the time comes.

Mindy:
What does barista fire mean to you specifically?

Julie:
Yeah, I use the term sort of barista fire and semi-retirement interchangeably because I think they mean sort of the same thing because the concept of barista fire is that you are sort of financially set to a standard of living that you could live by. I just choose to expand my standard of a living just a little bit, and so I supplement that with income coming in. That is a push pull almost levers that I can tweak as I need to. If I want to work a little bit more, I can always take a more clients. If I want to have more free time, I can say no to clients, and at this point I am pulling a little bit from my brokerage just to sort of maybe pay off a monthly credit card when my income doesn’t match because my income is very flexible right now. But otherwise, I’m almost probably 80% just spending my earnings at this point.

Mindy:
Okay, and are you still working in social media?

Julie:
No. No. Well, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not working for anyone. Anyone else? Not really. I am an independent contractor with a travel agency. Back when I took that one month travel backpacking trip to Europe, I started a blog. I wanted to create the content that I couldn’t find when I went out there, and I was a very kind of juvenile elementary traveler at that point. So some of the information that I needed I couldn’t find and I wanted to produce it for other people. That blog has sort of just become my little creative baby, and now I have quite a substantial readership and views per year. So when I started getting messages, especially as I started talking about my sabbatical and my nomadic lifestyle, I was getting messages of people seeing my travels and they’re like, I want to travel with you, or I want to work with you, or I want to replicate your trip.
How did you do that? And so I basically thought, well wait a second. There’s an opportunity to monetize my experience and my expertise, so what does that look like? Who do I partner with? I had some contacts from back in Phoenix when I was there and different kind of travel events I had attended as more of a travel blogger. I looked up those contacts and found sort of a synergy in terms of, hey, I can hold group trips, I can design trips for clients, I can do travel coaching and that can supplement my lifestyle and also give me some credibility and backing beyond the travel blog and the numbers that I pull in. It gives me the backing of sort of a travel agency with a lot of revenue and a lot of travel sales. So it’s really been a win-win and allows me tons of flexibility in what I do and where I do it. So that probably was about two years ago when I partnered with a travel agency and I’ve been working with them on a part-time basis ever since.

Mindy:
What does part-time mean? How many hours per week or per month are you working?

Julie:
You’re asking me all the hard questions. It’s so hard. I can’t calculate it. I kind of look at the writing that I do on my blog. I look at my social media, the content creation that obviously helps bring in clients, helps showcase sort of my travel expertise. It’s not something that I really calculate because that’s just what I would be doing. I would be storytelling, I would be sharing, I would be expressing myself. These are things that I would do without probably the financial impact. And I did do that for a long time actually. I didn’t make any money on my blog or social media. I was just wanting to share and be helpful and inform people. So I don’t know. It’s really hard to calculate, but I don’t work full time. I can say that, but sure, there are some itineraries that take a little bit more effort and energy than others, and it’s also hard to say what’s work when you’re traveling and having the time of your life, and sure you’re looking after people at the same time, but I don’t know. I dunno how to, I know work obviously is the exchange of labor for money, but at the same time, I don’t know if I can really, I don’t know how to calculate, I’m sorry.

Mindy:
Well, okay. I think this is a really great way to answer this because yes, you’re blogging, but you would be blogging anyway. So is that work? Probably not, even though it does generate some income. How about this? Can you do anything you want or do you ever have to say, no, I can’t do that because I have to do work type stuff?

Julie:
Yeah, I mean both. I can choose. I’m not going to do this trip, but administering a trip requires work that I have to do. So if I choose, I’m going to do a trip, then yes, there’s the administration and the marketing that goes along with that. If a client comes to me and they’re like, I want to do this and I don’t want to do it, I can give it to another advisor so I can say, no, I’m not obligated or indebted to do anything. And definitely I’m not beholden to a lifestyle that I can’t say no, that I am never really like, I need to make money this month, so I’m going to do A, B and C. It more comes from a desire of, yeah, I’m passionate about this city. I am going to be in the same place. I really like this client. They seem really cool and it’s more born of me wanting to empower and help people really put together the trip that is going to change their life. And I think it comes from that, which is a different way to look at it.

Mindy:
What I’m hearing is no, I can essentially pick and choose what I want to spend my time doing. I don’t have to ever say, I have to do this trip, otherwise I won’t be able to put food on the table. I have to do this trip, otherwise I’ll have to pull out of my retirement accounts. I can just choose to do this trip because I want to do this trip with the caveat that if I’m doing this trip, then I can’t do another trip at the same time. Obviously you can’t be at do places at once, but it seems like you get to pick and choose how you spend your days and weeks.

Julie:
Yeah, I call it financial independence, recreational employment.

Mindy:
There you go. That’s great. That’s perfect. Okay, we’ve renamed fire or Acronymed Fire, financial Independence, recreational employment, and you like what you do, it’s clear that you like what you do.

Julie:
I do, I do. And at the same time I have a threshold that I’m going to get to or that I’m at is I’m going to do this much per year, but then I am going to preserve my free time, my leisure time, my learning time.

Mindy:
That’s not your choice. And you have done the things that other people might not do to ensure that you can have the life that you want, which is to travel to host events for other people if you choose to and to go out on your own. If you don’t, I think that’s perfectly valid. You spoke earlier about your current expenses are about 80% covered by your income. What are your current expenses? What are you spending every year?

Julie:
Yeah, so I’ve been tracking this in detail on my blog basically ever since I went nomadic, I think the first year after I quit my job, I spent about 27,000 traveling the world basically the following year, I think I spent maybe around 34, 30 5,000. And then last year I spent 40,000. So compare that to what you might spend in the US living a normal life. I know that back in the day, I say back in the day because who knows what it would cost in today’s dollars, but I think in 20 20 19 or 2020, and this was when I was fairly watching my spending, I was pretty careful in what I was spending and I think I was spending like 50, 55,000 or something like that. So anybody who says, oh, I can’t afford to travel. No, you can’t afford to live in the us especially now.
Especially now, it’s crazy. So I can get by in other countries on far less and what am I spending my money on? I mean, most of it’s travel. I mean flights and accommodations than it’s food. I spend a lot of money on food, and by the way, I’m still enjoying myself. I’m still drinking beer and wine, and I’m still having nice meals and I’m eating out. I’m having a coffee not from Starbucks, but from some local coffee shop wherever I am. So I’m not skimping by any means. I’m just being conscientious and thoughtful about how I spend my money because opportunity costs, if you spend your money on that, then you don’t get to spend it on this and vice versa. But by and large, I’m really not skimping in any way. It just works out that I can get by and much less. So the cost of living is less, but the standard of living is not.

Mindy:
That is such a great quote. We have to take one final ad break, but we’ll be back with more right after this. Alright, let’s jump back in. What was your net worth when you decided to quit your job in 2021 versus what is it today?

Julie:
When I decided to quit my job, and I’ve also, I’ve put this on my website too, I just don’t remember all the numbers, but I have kind of tracked this over the years and it’s like a bell curve. So when I hit that 100, then the 200, then it’s like this. It’s like this, the accumulation effect. So when I quit, I believe I had just cleared about half a million and that was the big milestone. So this was in 2020 and of course, let’s see, it’s March now. So there’ve been some recent market fluctuations. I think I’m at like five 15 now. So lost. Well, it’s not lost until you cash it out, but the value has decreased in the last couple months. But that’s not a thing I’m worried about. I’m kind of like a hit it and quit it kind of mindset. So I will look at it every couple months. I’m not really affected or fussed by it because what goes down will come up.

Mindy:
I agree. I just spoke with JL Collins from the author of The Simple Path to Wealth just a couple of hours ago, and he said that the stock market always goes up. Yeah, it’s a rocky up, but it continues to go up and I’m not concerned. And he said he wasn’t concerned. I’m also not concerned. The market fluctuates sometimes, and that’s just how it goes. So anybody who is listening to this show is probably hearing you say 500,000 and thinking, oh my goodness, how could she retire? Well, she still is able to generate some income that she likes to do. She’s nomadic. She’s out there living the life she wants to live while her investments continue to grow, and she’s not really pulling from her investments. And I think that you have done a phenomenal job of living what PHI is supposed to be all about. You are financially independent, you get money out of the way so you can live your best life. Well, you’ve gotten money out of the way and now you’re living your best life. Did you have a better life at $50,000 in America or $40,000 overseas?

Julie:
I mean, I’m in the Philippines right now and I just spent the last three weeks in New Zealand and before that I was in Australia and before that I was in Africa for seven weeks. So you tell me, it’s been pretty awesome. So no complaints. I mean, at the same time there’s challenges and different obstacles you run into, but you’re going to have obstacles in life no matter where you are. You rather enjoy encountering them in a place or places that give you just more life and just the zest, like we’re here on this planet to become our best selves, and we should be in the environments that do that.

Mindy:
I am sitting here in Longmont, Colorado. I live here. I work full time. And you just listed four places that you’ve been in the last, what, three or four months that I’ve never been in my whole life. So who’s living the better life here? Listeners

Julie:
Come on a trip.

Mindy:
I think Julie, come on a trip. I’ve got a good life. I’ve got, but yeah, but that sounds like a lot of

Julie:
Fun. Well, hey, not everybody is at the point that or even wants to necessarily throw it all away or give it all up. And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been hosting these mini sabbatical group trips is to give people a taste of what travel can do while they’re still working out the rest of the details. So what’s your appetite without being the full-time commitment that I took, which I mean to be honest is not necessarily for everybody. We can’t all leave the workforce at the same time because then who’s going to do the work?

Mindy:
Exactly. And to be honest, traveling on my bucket list, there are places I would like to go, but I also like my house, so I want to go and then I want to come back and then I want to go and then I want to come back. But I want to go to New Zealand. I want to go to Australia since they’re really close to each other and so far away from me, that’s going to be an all encompassing trip for that one,

Julie:
Of course,

Mindy:
Which would be a much longer trip. But yeah, there’s lots of places I want to see. I just also want to enjoy my downtime. So traveling Nomadically is probably not in my cards, but I will definitely be out and seeing more of the world than I have.

Julie:
Yeah. Well, who to talk to when you’re ready to plan that?

Mindy:
Yes, I do. What do you do for healthcare out in the other parts of the world?

Julie:
This has been a little bit of trial and error over the years, but where I’ve settled is a couple like a trifecta, I guess, coverage. So first I’m on an A plan, which costs me next to nothing. Since I am low income, by definition, what I’m bringing in is not very much, so I barely pay anything for it. And that will really just cover me for when I come back to the us, which is one month to six weeks per year so I can get some of my doctor’s appointments in and any prescriptions that I might need. Then I have travel medical insurance, which fills the gaps. If something happens to me while I’m somewhere else and I want to file a claim for reimbursement, or if it needs to, heaven forbid, get me back to the US emergency evacuation or something like that, then at least I have something happening in the US to take care of me.
And then finally I’ll pay it out of pocket because, and I know this is such a foreign concept to a lot of Americans because we have it in our heads that, oh my god, healthcare is so, so expensive. But you go almost to any other country in the world and it’s much more affordable. Anything is much more affordable. So I’ve got prescriptions. A lot of times you don’t even need prescription from medication, you can just go in and buy it. Or if you want to make an appointment, you can pay out of pocket, which I think some of the medical costs in Mexico, it’s such a fraction of what you would pay in the us then you can get in right away. You talk to an English speaking doctor who was probably educated in the us, you actually get to sit down with that person and talk to them for as long as you want instead of being ushered out in five seconds.
I know a ton of people who have had medical care in Mexico and have had great experiences, and they’re paying a 10th of what it would cost if they were to pay out of pocket and they can get in fast. So Mexico is just one example, but there’s great healthcare in many other places in the world. So think about what you’re paying in the US every month or what a lot of retirees are afraid of paying, and then just put that in your pocket and then the off chance something happens to you while you’re in some other foreign country, pay out of pocket and you’ll be surprised at how little it is.

Mindy:
Probably it’s definitely more affordable in other countries. I know some travel insurance requires you to be outside of the United States for more than six months out of the year in order for it to take effect. And the reason that they do this is because it’s so much less expensive.

Julie:
I mean, it is tricky. There’s a lot of different healthcare plans. This is what works for me because I’m still, I guess, relatively young and healthy. There are obviously people with other conditions and circumstances, so you’ll have to research what’s best for you. But I think the general feeling from a lot of Americans is I just can’t do it because of healthcare. And if you spend a little bit of time exploring what else is out there, people might be surprised. I just want to say that

Mindy:
Absolutely. I was very surprised when I heard from a nomadic friend about how she handles her healthcare. I was like, wow, that’s less than I pay. And probably for much better coverage,

Julie:
I pay like 40 bucks a month putting everything together.

Mindy:
Wow, okay. $40 a month. That’s definitely less than what I’m paying. Julie, do you have a fine number that you are working towards?

Julie:
I think I’m balancing a little bit of the live in the moment, and you can’t control what happens to you in the future. We can’t predict what happens to you in the future. Don’t waste your time worrying about it. I’ll deal with it when the time comes and this is working for me right now. In 10 years, I’ll revisit how my numbers look and maybe come to another decision. But we spend so much time just swirling up these worst case scenarios that that’s such a waste of mental energy. That’s such a waste of where we could spend our time and our brain power. I mean, it’s a balance, right? Because some people don’t think about anything and they’re just like, woo-hoo, do what I want. But I’ve been in that situation where I really just devolved on different scenarios in my mind, and now I’m much freer and happier if I’m like, I’m living in the moment. I’m letting things unfold. I’m being smart. Sure, I’m making good decisions. I am being thoughtful, but I’m not going to nitpick everything.

Mindy:
I think that you don’t need to be pursuing a fine number because you’re already living the life that you want and you enjoy the work that you do. I really, really appreciate your time today. This was so much fun. Where can people find you online?

Julie:
So everybody can find me on my website first and foremost, which is julie dere.com. That is the French way of spelling, and it’s a little play on words from the de, so it’s J-U-L-I-E-D-E-V-I-V-R e.com. And then on Instagram it’s at Julie B. Rose. And with those two put together, you’ll find any which way to contact me or look up my group trips or look up my ebook or whatever else you’re interested in. And would also love to hear people’s comments on this podcast. If you have any feedback from him, all ears,

Mindy:
I would love to hear that too. So you can email [email protected] and I will forward it on to Julie, or you can reach out to Julie at those places. I love your blog. Julie, I saw I first found you when you did an article. The things I would Tell my younger Self, I can’t remember the exact name of it. It was such a great article. Basically just don’t do dumb stuff.

Julie:
That’s my journalism background coming in.

Mindy:
It was a really, really great article and that sparked me down a rabbit hole to read all of your content, even though nomadic life isn’t my goal, it was still really fun to travel through you.

Julie:
Oh, well thank you. I really appreciate that and I love getting that feedback. I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into being vulnerable and sharing some of this stuff, and it goes against my nature a little bit. I’ve been a little bit of a privacy, but I always appreciate hearing like, oh, this inspired me, this changed me, this I related to this, so thank you for that.

Mindy:
Yeah, you have an authentic voice when you’re reading an article and you’re like, oh, they were paid to write this. All they’re doing is advertising and advertising, and I really like the voice that this is my real life self, and that is kind of hard to find online. So I really, really do love your blog, and thank you so much for joining me today. I really had a good time chatting with you.

Julie:
Thank you for having me. I did too. What a fun conversation. Can we do this again? I could just keep going.

Mindy:
Yes, of course. Alright. Okay. Thank you Julie, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Julie:
Thanks. Bye.

Mindy:
That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. She is Julie DeVera or Julie B. Rose. I am Mindy Jensen saying farewell C shall.