How I Retired in My Mid-30s While Working Just 4 Hours a Week

Mindy:
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and today I have a very special surprise for you, my dear listeners. Today we’re going to share another episode from a YouTube series I host that features stories about life after financial independence. Today we’re featuring Economy conference founder Diana Merriam’s story. What if you could retire early working just four hours a week? Well, coast Fire achiever, Diania Merriam is doing just that. But how did Diana come up with enough money to leave her job? The answer is surprising. She didn’t have millions of dollars in the bank to live off forever. Thankfully, she didn’t need it and neither do you to retire early today. We will find out how she did it. This segment is sponsored by BAM Capital, your Path to Generational Wealth with Premier Real Estate Opportunities. See why over 1000 investors have invested with BAM capital at biggerpockets.com/bam. That’s biggerpockets.com/bm. Now, let’s get into the show. Diana, thank you for joining me today.

Diania:
Well, thanks so much for having me. Let’s

Mindy:
Start at the very beginning. How did you discover the concept of financial independence?

Diania:
So this would’ve been in about 2015, I believe. I was 28 and I had run a credit report on myself and saw that I was 30 grand in debt for no reason, just simply from not paying attention. And I knew I had some debt. I was paying credit card bills, I was paying the minimum on my credit card bills, but I never actually added it all up and looked at it collectively. So I was a little bit horrified to see that I had that much debt and I started researching online. I got to do something about this At the time, I really wanted to take two months off of work for my 30th birthday to go to Spain and walk the Camino, which is this 500 mile trek across northern Spain. I thought I was going to have to quit my job, and so I thought, okay, if I have to quit my job, see two months off, I got to get my money in order.
And I knew nothing about money at the time. The only thing I knew about money in my twenties is just to make more of it. That’s literally all that I knew about money. And so I run this credit report. I see him 30 grand in debt. I have a kind of wake up call, but everything that I read online was very much like that. Dave Ramsey, eat rice and beans. This is going to be hard. This is going to be miserable. And like you said, I was living it up in New York City. I mean, at one point I calculated that I was spending two to $3,000 a month going out partying. Okay? I was having my twenties. And so to go from that to being miserable to meet a financial goal wasn’t really all that appealing to me until I discovered the Mr Money Mustache blog.
So that would’ve been the fall of 2015. And that blog to me was like this refreshing punch in the face because it really helped me realize that I was wasting my privilege. I was single. I had no kids. I had a relatively okay income, New York City, and I was just wasting it. And so I kind of had this awakening of this is a huge opportunity. This is actually really exciting. This isn’t a burden, this is exciting. And so I ended up doing a hard left. I got out of that 30 grand of debt in 11 months, and then I started saving and investing 60% of my income from there.

Mindy:
So let’s talk about this decision to leave your job. Did you ever walk the Camino?

Diania:
I did. I did it in 2017, the year I turned 30.

Mindy:
And did you quit in order to do it or did you take a sabbatical? No,

Diania:
I ended up taking a sabbatical, which I didn’t have any examples of colleagues who had successfully negotiated a sabbatical. So I didn’t know that that was an option for me, but I just tried and it worked. So yes, I did end up taking it two months unpaid to go to Spain and walk the Camino, but when I got back, I had a job and they let me maintain my health insurance while I was away. So that was nice.

Mindy:
That is really generous of them. I’ve talked to you before several times. I know your story and I know a large part of your story is actually leaving this employer to go on to do different things. Let’s talk about the decision to leave your job because you weren’t financially independent in the true 4% rule sense. How did you decide to leave the security of the W2?

Diania:
Up until I tell this story about the Camino, at the time, I had this amazing boss and she was incredibly supportive. She was giving me great raises year to year at the time that I decided to leave. I had been with the company for nine years, and so there was a lot of changes in the organization over that time. We were acquired then we were spun off, we were joint ventured, a lot of changes in management, a lot of people kind of in and out of the organization. And so that amazing boss that I had that helped me negotiate this sabbatical, she was no longer my boss the last year that I was there. And so I got this new boss and it was like the party was over. I had felt like all the things that people complain about work environments, I had never really experienced it.
I had great flexibility. I had a great boss, and it was like all of a sudden the party was over with this new one. And so this all collided around the time of Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, there was a lot of talk about diversity and inclusion, and I’m getting pulled into all these meetings because at the time I ended up being the only woman on my team. It wasn’t always that way. We were originally a female founded and run organization with five offices around the world. But then when we were acquired, it very slowly turned into a boys club kind of right under my nose. I just woke up one day and I was like, oh, I’m the only woman on my team. How did that happen? And so I’m getting pulled into these meetings of like, Hey, Diana, what do you think about diversity and inclusion as the only woman on the team?
And it’s like, well, what I think is it’s about pay parity. If you actually really care about this issue, then why am I one of the highest performers on the team? And yet I’m one of the lowest paid. I was the lowest paid person on the team. And so I said, if you really care about this issue, just bring my pay in line with my male colleagues. And so I ended up doing my own market research. What they always say they’re going to do when you ask for a raise, well, we’re going to do research on what you should be paid at, what our competitors were doing supposedly. And so I did my own research. I went to our top six competitors. I gave them, I was a salesperson. I made my clients 50 million over the time that I was with the company. And so I had really good hard numbers to go and quantify my performance.
And so I go to my top competitors. They said I was at least 50 grand underpaid. And so I brought that information to my employer. I’m a salesperson. I made a pitch for raising my pay, and I was told no. And the response, which you’ve read, my exit letter, Mindy, the response was shocking to say, the least shocking. And so I decided, I looked at my money and I was not financially independent at the time, but I decided I have too much money to tolerate. And so I left. And I feel that way about a lot of people in the fire movement. If you are out of debt, if you have an emergency fund, if you have FU money or peace out money for the polite among us, if you have a good cash cushion and you’ve made an amazing, amazing progress on your retirement savings and you’re well invested, then you have enough money already to make a change.
You don’t have to wait until you have 25 times your annual expenses to live the life that you want to live. I think we need to stop looking at do I have enough money to never, ever work again and never make an income again? I’m 36 years old. That’s kind of ludicrous to think that I’m never ever going to make any money again. But do I have enough money to take a risk, I think is the better question. And I looked at my money and determined that I did. There were some calculators that I used to determine that I was at Coast Fi status. I have a lot of friends in the FI community that sat there and went through my spreadsheets with me and went through my numbers with me and were like, you got to do this. You got to take a bet on yourself and get out of this toxic environment.
And that was three years ago, and I have absolutely no regrets. I will say this though. There’s a lot of fear around that decision. I’m not immune to that kind of fear, and I didn’t tell myself that I was retiring when I quit my job three years ago. What I told myself I was doing is I was taking a year break to explore, and I said, if I couldn’t replace my income a year, I would go and find another job. I have never replaced my income and I still am living to tell the tale. So sometimes you need a little mental gymnastics to get yourself to push yourself to do something that you actually want to do. But I will say that my money is not what was holding me back. And I think for a lot of people that could be the case. You might already have enough money, you just need maybe a little bit more bravery and imagination.

Mindy:
Okay, so one of the biggest questions that we get that I get just being in the PHI community that I get from having the podcast that I get from just being here in general is how am I going to handle health insurance after I leave traditional employment? So how do you handle the biggest expense you’re going to have? This seems to be such a hurdle for Americans whose health insurance is essentially tied to their job. What do you do for health insurance and how much does it cost you?

Diania:
Yeah, so what’s wild now that I am in this community and I look at all these case studies of how much people are paying for health insurance, even when it’s employer sponsored, which is shocking to me. When I had employer sponsored health insurance, I was paying a hundred dollars a year, and now I look at case studies. Yeah. Now I look at case studies of people paying hundreds of dollars a month for employer sponsored health insurance. How is that a benefit that your employer is covering if you’re paying hundreds of dollars a month anyway? So I am now paying $360 a month for my health insurance that I buy off of the exchange. And because last year, for example, my income was so low that I paid my premiums because I didn’t know where my income was going to be. That’s kind of the fluctuation of when you’re just doing little side jobs and now working four hours a week making very little money. So my income was so low that I ended up getting all of those premiums back at tax time. So that $360 a month, I got it all back anyway because my income was so low. So I think a lot of people assume that I won’t be able to afford health insurance, but I would go and test that assumption, go onto healthcare.gov and actually see what it would

Mindy:
Cost to anybody listening who is interested in finding out what their cost would be on the exchange. Don’t even bother unless you wrote the exchange software yourself. Don’t even bother going on the exchange. Call up an insurance broker who specializes in the exchange of your state and go through with them, ask about subsidies, ask about income levels, ask about, just ask them to tell you all the things that you may not know about this because it can be surprisingly affordable, even for a family of four, even for a single person. Diana gets all of her premiums back. I get some subsidies because my income is at a state where I qualify for some subsidies. We’ve gotten over the hurdle of insurance, the big scary question that everybody has. Let’s look at another thing that you said. You said my income was low, that I got back all of my insurance premiums. If your income is so low, how are you staying off of food stamps and Medicaid and all of these horrible things I’m making in air quotes, all of these horrible things that will happen if you quit your job before you’re financially independent.

Diania:
So the good thing about being kind of, I guess you could call me, I say I’m retired because I think that’s a nicer way than saying that I’m unemployed. I mean, the reality is I’m unemployed, but I’m not worried about money. And I ended my corporate career. So retirement is an ending. I say I retired from my corporate career, but I don’t think retirement is about not working. I think it’s about separating your finances from your work. And the good thing about being unemployed, self-employed, however you want to phrase it, is that you have the ability to kind of control your income. And so I make $1,200 a month from podcasting. That’s my four hours a week that I work. And then last year, what was it, the last time I did my taxes was for 2022. So my economy conference, which is a business that I have the tax code favors business owners.
So I would recommend for anyone when you retire at any age, create a hobby business because all of a sudden all of your personal expenses become business expenses. And it’s a great way to control income so that health insurance would be covered by the business if I did owe anything that year that I got it all back. But it’s like my phone is a business expense, my computer is a business expense. A lot of the travel that I do, because I love this community so much when I go to a Camp phi, that’s something that I would want to do with my time in anyway. Now it’s a business expense. And so all of those expenses basically artificially lower your income to a point where for me, it got too low. It got too low. So then what I did is I did a Roth conversion to bring it up to about, I don’t know, I think my taxable income was like 22 grand the year that I got it all back.
So it was, you kind of control it through Roth conversion so that it’s high enough where you’re not thrown into Medicaid, but it’s low enough where you get all the subsidies for health insurance, but also that you’re paying the lowest amount of tax on that Roth conversion because you want to convert up to that threshold where you’re not bumped into the next tax bracket. So I work with A CPA to help me figure that out, and it’s just a fun little mathematical exercise on controlling income by leveraging my investment through a Roth conversion, but also my hobby business.

Mindy:
Okay. I was going to say, most of your expenses can be considered business expenses. Most of your personal expenses can’t be considered business expenses. However, this is not tax advice. And if you are looking to create a hobby business, you should absolutely hire A CPA who can help you, who specializes in small business, who can help you decipher what is and is not a legitimate expense because you don’t want to be claiming everything. And then all of a sudden the IRS comes back and slaps you across the face with big fines, which they will do because they definitely want their money. However, there are a lot of business expenses or personal expenses that happen to also be business expenses. Like your phone, yes, you’re taking business calls on it, but does that mean that your mom can’t call you on the phone? No. You mom could still call you on the phone and you can still call your mom.

Diania:
And I have a bookkeeper and a CPA that very much monitor that I am making legitimate deductions, so don’t think I’m cheating the system. But the reality is the tax code favors business owners.

Mindy:
What are some things that you have had to give up now that you don’t have a traditional job?

Diania:
Well, realizing how much I love working with other people. I think about some of my colleagues who were just so smart and talented and we did work together that we were really proud of. And so that’s why I like to say that retirement is not about not working. It’s about separating your finances from your work. That was a big learning curve for me, and now that I don’t feel a lot of financial pressure to work, work has become just an excuse to have relationships with other people. A lot of my decisions around what I’m going to do with my time or what I’m going to do for unquote work is like, do I want to work with that person? Do I want to create something with them? And it took me a while to make that shift from being so focused on productivity and getting things done and doing a good job to actually, the stakes are pretty low and none of that really matters anymore. The thing that matters most is my health and relationships and being able to create what I want to see in the world is actually a huge privilege. So that was a big mindset shift for me. And

Mindy:
What have you been able to keep in your life even though you don’t have a W2

Diania:
Anymore? Oh my gosh. I feel like I gained so much. Just the time and resources to do what I want to do to have ultimate flexibility and full autonomy over my time is an incredible gift and a privilege, and I don’t take it lightly. I think I’m an extremely fortunate position, and so I don’t want to waste this opportunity of, I feel like I’m so young. I’m 36, I’m turning 37 in a couple months, and it’s like I feel like I’ve got a world of opportunity in front of me that I don’t want to waste. And so yeah, what was I able to maintain? I think I figured out how to size the level of work in my life that isn’t going to burden me out. And so I still work. I just don’t make money really $1,200 a month. I’m very much underemployed if you’d consider me employed.
Yeah. I think I’ve been able to maintain a level of productivity and contribution to society that isn’t going to burn me out. I think this community, and I would categorize myself this way too, I was so overly focused and fixated on the financial goal, and it was almost like the point of all of it went right over my head, right? Money is a tool that you can use to create a life focused on what matters. Money itself does not matter at all. It’s this dispassionate, impersonal tool, and we put it up on a pedestal and think that, oh, if I reach this financial goal, all of a sudden I’m going to give myself permission to start living differently. And that’s just not how it works. More money is not going to alleviate your fears because the thing is that money is an external circumstance. Your peace of mind and contentment is an internal dynamic, and I think we exaggerate how much our external affects our internal, what we’re actually searching for.
It’s an inside job, and I think we’re asking our money to do way more emotional lifting than it’s capable of doing. And so that’s why I like to say that I think retirement is a really optimistic act. It’s rooted in abundance because you need to be able to get over your fears and recognize that more money is not going to alleviate those fears. But the interesting dynamic for me is that the pursuit of PHI is rooted in scarcity, right? Financial planning in general is rooted in scarcity. We’re saying how much money is enough? What if this happens? What if that happens? It’s like the whole exercise is rooted in fear, and then all of a sudden we’re going to hit a financial goal and feel abundant. No, that’s a state of mind. That is something that you need to cultivate in the way that you behave every day. That’s not a flip of a switch when you reach 25 times your annual expenses.

Mindy:
I could not agree more. I want to underline everything you just said. That is absolutely fantastic, Diana. So everything you just said is a huge takeaway. Everything that you’ve said, this whole video is a huge takeaway. What would be the biggest PHI takeaway? You want our audience to really internalize? If this is the first PHI video they’ve ever watched,

Diania:
I would entertain the idea that what if you already have enough money and what you’re actually lacking as imagination and bravery, what would that look like? How much money do you need to take a risk? Not how much money do you need to never work another day in your life? That is a question that no one frankly can even answer, especially when you’re young, right? That’s a loaded question. But I think the better question to actually get you to create a lifestyle that you don’t need to retire from is how much money do I need to take a risk? And it might be a lot lower than your FI number, right? It’s crazy to me to think about when I didn’t know anything about money in my mid twenties, I remember saying to myself, if I could just save 20 grand, I would quit my job and travel the world because in my mind, 20 grand was this unbelievable number. Now it’s not. But back then it was a mindset of if I just had a little bit of money, I could take a risk and I would encourage five people who are the most resourced wealthy people I know I’ve surrounded by millionaires who just look at their net worth and all they feel is fear. And I think it’s madness. So I would encourage anyone watching this look at your money and consider if maybe you already have enough.

Mindy:
I first of all feel seen. Thank you so very much, Diana. And also, yes, 100%. There is such a fear of not having enough money in this PHI space. And some of the studies that have been done by Bill Beed, by Michael Kitsis, by West Moss show that that is a very, very, very tiny possibility. We’ve got something like 96% chance of success and 4% chance of failure, and people focus on that 4% chance of failure instead of the 96% chance of success.

Diania:
And what if your sense of security wasn’t in your net worth? What if your sense of security was in your intellect, your skills, your network, right? I mean, your ability to earn money if you need to. I think the fire movement attracts the most intelligent, creative, and generous people on the planet. We are ambitious people. I say I made my clients $50 million. I don’t think that I am rare within the fire movement when I hear about the careers that people have had and the level of success that people have had, you don’t think that you could ever leverage that again to figure out money if you needed to. I mean, that’s kind of a ludicrous idea that you’re going to be so successful for a period of your life, and then all of a sudden you’re going to run out of money and not be able to figure it out. I think your sense of security should be in the fact that you’re financially literate and you’re extremely intelligent. And so whatever life throws at you, you are going to be able to figure it out. And I think that, again, that’s the inside job, right? That’s the sense of peace around not only your money, but your ability to figure it out.

Mindy:
Yeah. I think that that is the perfect inspirational place to end this story because that is absolutely true, 100%. And I wish I would’ve talked to you about six years ago when I was in that same exact position, or rather when my husband was, I was just starting a job that I absolutely loved and didn’t want to quit. And I think that’s a good litmus for where you are. I’m still at that job right now. If you would do that job for free, then maybe that’s something that you love so much that it’s something you want to continue, but if you dread your life every single day, why are you staying there for one more year? Right. Diana, thank you so much for your time today. It is always a joy to talk to you. This was so much fun. Can you please remind our audience where they can find you online and in person?

Diania:
Yes. So if you go to economy conference.com and economy is spelled with an ME at the end instead of an MY, but that is the annual party about money that I produced in Cincinnati. And so you can sign up for my mailing list there. And I talked about that exit letter that I wrote. If you wait for the popup on my website and you sign up through that popup, you can read that exit letter. I made it public. So if you’re curious about that, and then you can also listen to me every single day of the week on Optimal Finance Daily. This is a narration style podcast where I read you an article from a personal finance blogger, and I offer you about 300 words of commentary in 10 minutes or less every single day.

Mindy:
All right. Huge thanks to Diana for sharing her story with us. That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. Just a quick note, if you’re listening today, Friday economy conference tickets, go on sale. So go to economy conference.com. That’s E-C-O-N-O-M-E conference.com to get your tickets. Alright, thank you so much for listening. My name is Mindy Jensen and I will see you later. Alligator BiggerPockets money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench. This episode was produced by Eric Knutson, copywriting by Calico Content, post-production by Exodus Media and Chris Micen. Thanks for listening.