You hit financial independence at age 40 with $2.5 million.

Do you retire immediately or do you work one more year?

Our guest today, Stephen, chose to wait and it paid off big time.

In this episode, you'll learn how four more years added a million dollars to his net worth

and why one more year syndrome isn't always fear-based procrastination and the flexible

spending strategy that lets Stephen spend up to $180,000 per year in early retirement.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen,

and with me as always is my flexibly employed co-host, Scott Trench. Thanks, Mindy, great to be

hybrid-fi alongside you and Stephen. We were excited to welcome Stephen today to the Bigger Pockets

Money podcast. I think this is going to be one of our best shows ever. I'm very excited about this interview.

Stephen has a really, really wonderful story, a really wonderful life.

And I think a lot of what he did is achievable and repeatable by the portion of our audience,

who are in that engineer in category that can bump their income over a 20-year period

into that

100 to $200,000 a year range. And I think that this is a really powerful story, an example of

that Stephen is incredibly detailed with his net worth, income, and withdrawal strategy

details several years into his early retirement. And it's going to be a real privilege to hear

those numbers today. You're going to hear how Stephen and his wife designed their specific withdrawal strategy, why they had a

five-year cash buffer, and how they use Roth conversions as a central component of their plan.

You're also going to hear about how they manage variable spending between $120,000 and $180,000

per year with a pretty heavy emphasis on optimizing or making sure that they stay below that ACA subsidy cliff for the Affordable Care Act subsidies for their health insurance. So this is going to be a fun episode. We're going to ask a lot of really tough questions and get into the details. It's going to be a little bit of a longer one. And again, I think one of our best ones ever. With that, Stephen, welcome to Bigger Pockets Money. Mindy, Scott, how are you guys doing? We're doing great. Super excited to be here. Always a privilege to get to record a podcast and a particular privilege to get to record a podcast with you today and hear this fantastic story. Thank you so much for listening for many years,

I think, and thank you so much for coming on the show and reaching out.

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