The Friday Roundup

ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast

Jonathan Mendonsa & Brad Barrett | Choose FI Media, Inc

Careers, Business, Investing

4.8 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2017

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brad's wife Laura pulled off 16 nights of free lodging across a 17-day family vacation—no hostels, no camping, just strategic coordination and a stack of credit card points. This mashup episode covers how they made it work, why rushing to see everything kills the travel experience, and tackles listener questions on achieving FI in expensive cities, navigating lifestyle creep, and making the most of networking opportunities. Travel Rewards and Planning [00:03:40] Brad's trip cost zero for 16 nights of lodging by leveraging travel rewards and staying with friends and family. The key: planning trips around connections rather than cramming activities. Slow travel—lingering in one place instead of hopping cities—reduces stress and deepens the experience. Expectations Management During Vacation [00:09:02] Trying to see and do everything inevitably creates stress. Instead, focus on meaningful moments. Build travel into the vacation itself rather than treating it as dead time between destinations. Key Quote: "Chasing every sight can create stress; focus on the moments that matter." [00:09:02] Listener Feedback on High Cost of Living [00:23:11] Listener Paige shares insights on achieving FI on a low income in a high-cost area like LA, affirming that creativity and intentional decision-making matter more than income level or past financial mistakes. Key Quote: "The interest in FI is rapidly growing, reflecting a robust community emerging." [00:20:45] Chapters Introduction and Brad's Vacation [00:00:52] Travel Hacks and Planning [00:03:40] Expectations Management During Vacation [00:09:02] Listener Feedback on High Cost of Living [00:23:11] Related Resources JL Collins' The Simple Path to Wealth [01:00:08] Dominick Quartuccio's Design Your Future [01:00:08] Terminology FI: Financial Independence—having sufficient personal wealth to live without working actively for basic necessities. [00:09:02] Travel Rewards: Points or miles earned through travel-related activities that can be redeemed for free or discounted travel. [00:51:09]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the ultimate crowd sourced personal financial. This is your Friday Roundup.
0:06.0	You're listening to Choose Applied Radio.
0:10.0	The blueprint for financial independence lives here.
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0:26.0	you're in the right place.
0:28.0	Stay tuned and join a community of like-minded people who are getting off the answer.
0:33.0	And taking control of their lives in the pursuit of financial independence.
0:37.0	Choose FI, your home for financial independence online.
0:41.0	Okay guys, welcome back. This is your Friday Roundup. Welcome to the show. I have Brad here with me just back from his vacation. How you doing Brad?
0:59.0	I am doing wonderfully Jonathan. Yeah, I'm back in Richmond. And yeah, it was a really successful trip.
1:04.0	We went as I've said before, we went on a 17 day vacation, which was pretty wild to be able to take take that much time off.
1:10.0	It's funny, even though I've been out of my nine to five for two and a half years, it's still that mentality of wow 17 days.
1:17.0	That's a crazy amount of time to take off. So it was very cool.
1:20.0	Nice. And you made it back just in time for this mind blowing eclipse that we had, aka a cloud passed over the sun for 15 seconds.
1:28.0	Yeah, we were outside and it kind of got a little bit dark and yeah, you couldn't see anything.
1:35.0	But yeah, it was still kind of a cool experience. I watched it on CNN a little bit. But what about you?
1:40.0	We actually made the cereal boxes. So I wanted to go buy the glasses. Well, I didn't actually, that's not true.
1:45.0	My wife wanted to buy the glasses, but in the back of my mind, I saw Frank from our Facebook group calling me a limmin over purchasing them.
1:53.0	I refused to buy the glasses, but then I saw that you could make the boxes, the cereal boxes and you look in the back and you see the reflection of it.
2:00.0	So actually made that. No, it's pretty cool. We took a couple pictures and it basically just looks like us staring at the ground.
2:05.0	But we did it and my wife got a huge kick out of the fact that we put the time in to make those. And it was kind of neat.
2:10.0	You saw the little crescent, half eaten moon pie. So it was kind of cool. Nice. Yeah, that is very cool. Yeah, it's funny.
	...

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