Welcome to How To Money, I'm Joel. I'm Matt and today we're discussing how to save money on a new phone.

Joel, how's it going man? Fantastic buddy. I was reading a scene in Money article and they were talking about financial independence which is interesting.

I thought CNN was fake news.

They were addressing early financial independence and how it's achievable. They gave examples of if you make $50,000 this is what you're going to have to do.

What I found most interesting is that they linked to the financial independence calculator that we've recommended in the past.

I don't know, something about that. Seeing how this is something that we've talked about.

The thing is, it's saddening when a lot of these major publications cover financial independence. They completely seem to get it wrong. The way they covered it's like this novelty or the way they describe it. I feel like they miss the heart of it so much of the time.

I would rather if I were wanting to know more about financial independence or some great podcasts out there, there's some great blogs. There's just so many good resources that I feel like a New York Times or a CNN money article, they kind of let the casual reader know, hey this is something that exists.

It's not very compelling. That's the only thing the casual reader is going to know about financial independence and they're going to miss the boat because to know what it really is, truly, I feel like you have to listen to the people that are actually living it and just those quick interviews.

If you're listening to anything else, a quick interview, a couple quotes, you're just not going to understand what it's all about. That's why I think the comment section on articles that look just like in the New York Times, I'm sure it was the same on the CNN money article. The comment sections can just be terrible because folks rip into it because they're saying, oh, I can retire in five years. Sure, if I live off $7,000 for the year, which is the example that they gave. It was $7,000 or $9,000 for the year. They're like, granted this is pretty extreme, but it's doable.

Nothing most people even us would say, man, that is crazy. Yeah, and discouraging at the same time. No doubt. Yeah, but I think that the problem with those articles is, yeah, they either go to extreme or they have a couple of pifty quotes.

And it's just hard for the new reader to understand it. And so they usually ride it off wholesale without thinking about it. And the bummer is, there's so many great people in the space. And financial independence, we think it is a worthy goal.

We covered that on a recent episode of the show. That's right. And there's just a lot that you have to think through when it comes to that though, because it is this more than just being smart with your money.

It is kind of wholesale life changes that you have to make in order to think about financial independence well. And so we want people to start thinking differently about the way they live life, not just deciding that they need to say 50% of what they make starting tomorrow.

So yeah, it's interesting that it's coming into the mainstream, but also I don't expect a whole lot of new converts because usually those articles are poorly done.

But yeah, you mentioned the financial independence episode that we recently recorded. If you are interested in that and our thoughts on that, listen back. That was, gosh, maybe a few weeks ago, you'll be able to find that one.

Yeah, Matt, I wanted to let you know real quick that I am just about to sign a new lease on one of my rental properties on ice. And so I don't know how you feel tough time a year to get a new tenant in, right?

It is. Yeah, I hate I hate running out of house kind of in the late fall, kind of going into winter. But fortunately, I found a good tenant. I ended up letting my current tenants go month to month because they've been so good and they were shopping for a house. And I wanted to kind of kind of be kind of them in that way.

And it's it worked out. They found something right around the corner from from us. Actually, they're saying in the neighborhood found some good new new tenants and I'm doing my first ever two year lease, which I'm excited about. And I wanted to mention this one thing. And I feel like you and I've had the same experience in this one of the common mantras of real estate investors is that you kind of have to build in a certain amount of vacancy time for your properties, right?

I think typically they say five to 10% for the year. Yeah, lost in vacancy.

So you're talking about essentially building in a month where your house or apartment or whatever it is is not rented. I don't know about you, man. But I literally have never had a day of vacancy.

Yes. On any of my properties. And I'm kind of anal about it. Like if if my tenant current tenants moving out on the on the 30th, I want my next one in on the first. And I will work until 3 a.m.

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