Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
I help tech employees use their finances to create the life of their dreams by helping you take your financial confidence to the next level!Are you a tech employee who wants to learn how to better manage your finances?Working in tech you may experience extreme pay increases, which may allow you the ability to accomplish goals you've only dreamed of. However, if mismanaged, you can also find yourself stressed out and under pressure to increase your income in order to fit your lifestyle.The good news, is through education and a little bit of determination, you have the power to control your future and create your best life.Not only will we cover basic personal finance concepts, but we'll dive deep into tech specific benefits and issues that I regularly help my clients build strategies to maximize. (Examples: working for start ups, restricted stock units, stock options, and layoffs) Also, on a regular basis, I will have special guests that will highlight their stories with unique stories about their tech experiences.
Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
Early Retirement as a Working Parent w/Kathy Haselmaier
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Guest, Kathy Haselmaier shares so many great perspectives on her career and raising children. Here are a few of the topics covered:
- Tech Layoffs
- Empowerment of knowing your financial situation
- Responsibility is our own when it comes to retirement
- Importance of communication with significant other
- Balancing new parenthood and careers
- Knowing what you value and what you don't
- Learning from mistakes/financial scares
- Independent adult children
If you want to learn more about Kathy or Working Parent Stories, you can find more information at:
Kathy's LinkedIn Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathycalderhaselmaier/
Working Parents Site https://www.workingparentstories.com/
Purchase Book https://www.workingparentstories.com/store.html
You can also find additional details on how to retire early by checking out my strategy guide:
http://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/how-to-retire-early-strategy-guide/
Music: 80s Motivational Chiptune by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
I started to get worried about my job. When I looked around the organization, I was trying to read the TV leaves, and I came home and I said to my husband, I might lose my job soon. And if I do that, I was probably about 52 at the time. I said, Do I need to find another job?
SPEAKER_03This is Techy's personal finance bootcamp where I help tech professionals in their 20s and 30s balance a great life today without sacrificing their future possibilities. I'm your host, Lucas Casaris, certified financial planner and founder of Lobal Financial Planning, where I help educate, coach, and build strategies with my clients to help them take their financial confidence to the next level. Here's an important compliance disclosure. This podcast is for informational purposes only and are not to be considered recommendations. It is recommended you consult your trusted financial professional before implementing any information obtained from the Techie Personal Finance Boot Camp. Thanks for joining Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp. I have a special guest with me today. Her name is Kathy Hasselmeyer. I'm really excited to have her. I've known her for almost eight or nine years now. So it's been since I moved off to Colorado. And so I initially met her when I was back working at the first tech federal credit unit. And her and her husband worked on the HP campus that I was working out of. So Kathy Hasselmeyer and her husband worked in the high tech for over 30 years. During that time, they raised two kids too. They're retired now, which finds them both involved in a number of volunteer activities, including the support of working parents through a book and the working parentstories.com website. Hi, Kathy. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Lucas. So I just read off your kind of introduction. Is there anything that you wanted to add in addition to that, or do you just want to dive into uh kind of the interview?
SPEAKER_00I think the only thing I would add is that while my husband and I are both involved in working parent stories, I really take the lead on that. And he's got a bunch of other volunteer stuff that he's involved in. So I am the main contact for working parent stories.
SPEAKER_03Yep, perfect. Yeah, and uh hopefully we'll end up wrapping around into that as far as what what it is that you're doing now during retirement, because I think that's a crucial part. I know at my previous firm, I actually only worked with people that were about to retire and and had retired. And it was really interesting because some people face retirement and they were a little freaked out by it, but I know you and your husband are handling that awesomely. So we'll definitely get back into that once we get into your story a little bit more. So with that, we can dive into kind of the first question I had for you. And so you and your husband are now retired, and you guys actually retired significantly earlier than what's common, especially for people that uh have raised children and had a family. So was early retirement always top of mind as being a priority for you, or is that something that you weren't very intentional about throughout your career?
SPEAKER_00It actually was not an objective at all. In fact, we both loved our work and assumed we would work quite a bit longer. Um, the way we ended up retiring, I think, is kind of a funny story. And that is, you know, we worked in high-tech. My husband was laid off in 2001. He consulted and then um ended up working for a company again, so had kind of a regular nine to five job. But after that happened, we became very aware of the fact that in high-tech, your employment isn't always guaranteed. So at that point, we started saving more aggressively than we had been, just in case something happened. And then fast forward, gosh, almost 15, well, I don't know, maybe 10 years, um, 10 or 11, 12 years. And I started to get worried about my job. I was just when I looked around the organization, I was trying to read the tea leaves, and I came home and I said to my husband, I think I might lose my job soon. And if I do that, I was probably about 52 at the time. I said, Do I need to find another job? So we've always divvied up money management. I do the everyday managing the checkbook and the everyday expenses, and he manages the investments. And he said, I don't know, let me figure it out. And he dove into things for three months. I said it to him right before Christmas, and he started building this spreadsheet, and he decided he probably recreated Fidelity's tool that we could have just plugged the numbers into. But he came out of it and he said, You know what? I I think we don't really have to work. And we talked about how much money we needed and everything. Well, once you have that in your head, we didn't last a lot longer. So I think we lasted two years after that. And one day, just I the perfect opportunity presented it to myself, and I said to my boss, I think I'm done, you know? And so I retired and then he followed just a few months later.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So you mentioned that you were really worried for that time. Did anything end up coming to fruition? Or you guys just got really prepared and and felt comfortable that if it were to happen, then you guys would actually feel pretty, pretty confident.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, nothing happened at that. I mean, my job went on, everything was fine. Um, I didn't lose my job, I didn't even come close to losing my job, as far as I can tell. Um, but once I knew I didn't really need to work anymore and I could pretty much maintain my standard of living, it caused me to look at everything differently. And when the moment, when it got to the point where I just said, I do not want to live my life, the rest of my life, this way, I think I'm ready to step away. I just said to my boss, I think I'm ready to retire. And and I left about five weeks later.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. Well, and I I knew we'd get there. So I I do want to find out how how did you know that you were ready to retire it? And so you were 52 at that point?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I was actually 54. 54 at that point, because it was a couple of years after we counted our money, basically.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00So this is what happened for me. So I I spent my the vast majority of my career as an individual contributor, and I became a manager about five years before I retired. And for me, that felt like a really big jump. I mean, I I was working all the time. My kids were out of the house by then, and I was just really working really, really hard. And so I was looking for ways I have to find a way to let up. I I don't, this is not fun. And I had always wanted work to be at least somewhat enjoyable.
SPEAKER_03Yep. I think every everyone wishes that could be the case. And I know a lot of people feel trapped sometimes, whether it be financially or or some other reason. But yeah, I'm glad that it sounds like you were able to enjoy your work pretty much the whole time up until maybe that last five years.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll tell you what, for me, uh, so the years my husband was laid off and I was the only one that had benefits and we felt like we needed them, that was the only time in my career my job did not feel like fun. And so I encourage couples that if you both enjoy working, try to share the load because it's a lot more fun. We always had a deal that you couldn't quit your job without talking to the other person first because we didn't want to quit on the same day. So, so, and we never did quit, right? But you all we always had that in the back of our head, like they can't push me too far, I could quit because my spouse has a job.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I'll tell you what, when my spouse didn't have a job and I knew I had to keep my job, the fun sucked out of it immediately. And so I always say, you know, if you want to support your spouse, get a job because that really frees them up to enjoy their work so much more. So, but I'll get back now to how I knew the time had come. And so, so I was working really, really hard, and I just thought, this is not how I want to spend my 50s, um, fearful that I wasn't working enough and just work, work, work. And so I had a conversation with my boss, and he was in France. So he, you know, he was French and he worked from France. And I said to him, you know, uh the something has to let up in my workload. I'm working too many hours, I don't think it's reasonable. And at this point, I had been working for 32 years full time, and I had had many conversations with managers like this. And without exception, they would always say something to the effect of, What are you working on? Let's look at it, let's see what we can take off your plate, let's prioritize things. And he said, I don't think you're working any harder than anybody else. This is just what's expected of you. And and I said, Then I don't think I want to keep the job anymore. It was that simple. And then he actually got a little bit angry and said, You need to be careful about what you say. And it was like, actually, I've already counted my money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And in France, apparently, people can't just walk away from their jobs because most people rely on pensions. And and, you know, in the US, we're much more responsible for our own financial well-being. And so I don't think he understood that really I could just walk away from my job.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, that's a really interesting point. I know uh I've I haven't really had to deal with other people outside of other countries, but every now and then I would have helped kind of people that were from the UK and were living here, and they would have pensions from companies that they were at. So yeah, things are a lot different here in the United States, especially the last, I'd say 25, 30 years. You you may have had some form of that HP pension, because I know there was kind of some old legacy ones available out there, but those have been done for for a very long time, just like almost the rest of uh the country, unless you're working for like a government entity.
SPEAKER_00Right. And I and I had some pension money, but it wasn't enough, you know. Uh it wasn't enough to help me make that decision.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that's interesting that you kind of mentioned it a couple of times. Like you've counted your money, and so that gave you the the confidence. And did that kind of change your way of thinking kind of after that point? Did did you have like a mind shift once you guys counted your your money and kind of generated all those Excel spreadsheets and reports and just looked over it, felt you guys were good, but then obviously you were still able to work for uh a few more years after that point, and that was probably just probably ped in the situation. But did that change anything mentally?
SPEAKER_00Oh, it was a huge I it was life-changing. Once you knew you were only working for fun, and and so I mentioned I do the everyday money management and my husband does the investing, and so I said to him, What I what I want to understand is as I continue to work, I just want you to know or you to tell me how much my monthly income in retirement will go up as we continue to work.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And it was kind of like all we're doing is raising the standard of living for the rest of our lives, at least theoretically. And what we found was at that point, we really weren't raising our standard of living all that much when you, you know, spread it out over the course of 50 more years. And so it's like, well, we could quit now or we could work for two more years. And at this point, we didn't need to, we just didn't know what we would do. It's not like we had so much money, and I can talk more about how we manage our money. We don't want a ton. So we just didn't know what we would do if we had more money.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And there's kind of like diminishing returns at that point. Like you you could do it, but only if you enjoy it. And if you don't enjoy it, then really you're not getting you're not gonna recognize that benefit of probably some of that additional savings and additional standard of living just because you you've kind of built the life that you guys want. And from every indication I keep up on the work and parent stories that kind of come out, you guys had a really fun uh life and are still enjoying uh your fun life now. So it's not like you were anticipating retirement so you can go on some lavish uh spending spree year, and and that's when you're gonna enjoy your life. You've been enjoying life this whole time and keeping things reasonable and moderate, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to have that flexibility to retire early.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. It and I have to tell you, it feels like we're living lavishly, but I do recognize that compared to other people, we don't do um, we don't do everything other people do, but then again, we do some things they don't do. So, but I have always been very clear about what makes me happy and you know, so what do I what I want to do and what I don't want to do. And I don't need to do everything everybody else is doing.
SPEAKER_03Do you feel like that's played a significant impact in positioning you and your family to be able to have that flexibility that you did?
SPEAKER_00I I do. And and I'll tell you how I came to the realization very early in life, I think before we even had kids, we had lots of friends who we met through work, you know, dual-income couples. And you know, you get together, you talk about your trips, you talk about what you do, you see people's houses and all that stuff. And we, I mean, when we when you're newly married, you're really young, you're learning, you're still learning a ton about yourself. Heck, I'm still learning stuff about myself in my 50s. Well, we did a couple of vacation things that other people told us were really fun. And we just didn't have that much fun doing it. And so over time, and not a ton of time, but a couple of years, we finally realized that what we like doing on vacation doesn't always align with what what other people like doing on vacation. And so if you apply that to your whole life, you get really good at spending money on things you care about and not spending money on things you don't care about.
SPEAKER_03Did you end up establishing every now and then I'll run into people that kind of have that same mindset that you mentioned? And I think it's very critical to understand what it is that you value and and kind of let that be your driving force as to why you're gonna spend money or do things and how you you're gonna live your life because it's really easy, especially nowadays with the social media and and those types of things that could influence you even more than in the past. So there's always been the saying of trying to keep up with the Joneses, right? Things have been magnified even greater because now you're seeing people brag about stuff instantly, not just your next-ready neighbors, but people back from uh high school that you used to go to school with. And just because they're doing some of these interesting things with it with their money and spending money on different things, those tend to get the the most like loves and hearts and and comments and things like that. But then if you see someone graduate from school or start a business or or do anything like that, you it's really interesting how dramatic uh the differences as far as people aren't gonna celebrate some of the hard efforts or some of the more kind of intentional live-in. But those more kind of free-ish, lavish type uh things that you see, those are the things that get the the views and and the interaction with everyone else. And so it makes people kind of constantly search for those different emotional aspects that come with getting a like or getting a comment. And so that it's it's very dangerous, I think, now with social media on just trying to keep up with other people and having the influence of other people on your decision making.
SPEAKER_00Yep, yep. Yeah, luckily, I think we figured ourselves out and then we got on social media just because of our age.
SPEAKER_03Sure, yeah. Well, and I think I think the biggest thing is you mentioned that you were you're always learning, and it that was huge. I'm sure you guys were trying to figure stuff out from an early age. And I know we've talked plenty of times now at this point. You know, I help uh specialize with people in their 20s and 30s. And I think it's such a dramatic impact to be able to figure things out earlier on rather than uh waiting. Because if if you you and your husband weren't trying to figure these things out and you were just constantly copying what other people were doing, and it took you a long time to really question how how you were living and what you enjoyed and what you valued, you you might not be retired today if you kind of took that approach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, and I I think an interesting dynamic in our marriage is I'm an overthinker, and I really mean over. Like I I think too much about things. Anybody who knows me really well will tell you that. And my husband, he does not enjoy overthinking. So so we're and I don't want to imply he doesn't, he's not a deep thinker or he doesn't think. He he's a great thinker, but he doesn't overthink. I overthink. And so I think we were a good combination, or we have been a good combination because of that. We kind of balance each other out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think it's probably critical too, because it helps with both that short-term and long-term thinking and just being able to have those conversations. He doesn't have to be that overthinker because you may be the one bringing these ideas to him, and then he's able to digest it. And so you might be like that idea generator, and he's the one that's able to analyze something and uh be more definitive with how he thinks about stuff, and then give you that clarity too. Like, oh, then then that's a good idea, and we'll move forward. I think me and my wife are pretty similar, I'd imagine. Uh, she would call me the the overthinker, and but yeah, she's she's kind of the the shot caller and the the one that makes the final decisions for that same reason. It's kind of uh a good conversation and vetting to make sure that we're moving in the right direction and we have a good understanding of what it is that's important. I think it's I I haven't done a podcast on this yet because it's so early on, but I just recorded videos uh before I launched my podcast on how important money conversations are to have. And it sounds like you and your husband were very intentional, kind of all throughout your relationship of having conversations and talking about stuff, whether it be employment, um, retirement, being laid off, all these things are great conversations to have. And I imagine you didn't have those conversations in like three-minute spurts, right? You have to sit down and talked about these things and and thought about them over long time periods.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I'll tell you, we don't always enjoy the conversations, and so usually we reward ourselves at the end of the conversations. So a lot of times, like I remember when we had to review our wills, and we just we both just hate that. And so we said, okay, we'll do it Saturday night and we'll go out to a nice restaurant afterward. And we put it off so long that I read them in the car on the way to the restaurant. I mean, we went to a restaurant down in Boulder. So a lot of time or taxes, we we have to like reward ourselves after or we can't get it done. And so it's a way to sort of package up something we don't enjoy doing with something we really enjoy doing.
SPEAKER_03Yep. No, that's a good tip. I think uh one that I'll end up stealing, I'll try to give you credit as often as I can. But yeah, I think for these critical things, like you don't want to reward yourself for just talking like little minor things that really should happen all the time. But there are big, big ticket items that are worth pairing up with fun stuff to do. And and it could just be going out for like a nice hike or something like that, and hopefully it doesn't ruin the hike. But if you have these conversations early enough, you're not gonna be too shocked uh as far as the other take, the other perspective. Yeah, you're gonna get better at having these conversations. I imagine your conversations today are significantly more efficient and more manageable than they were when you were first a couple, and and probably still trying to figure out how to navigate those things Oh yeah, because we don't even have to fight anymore when we have them. Yep.
SPEAKER_00You know, the other thing that we've gotten good at, I think, and it's made it less painful, is we've learned to divvy up the work according to what's least painful for each of us. And and that's really how we started managing our finances. I distinctly remember the minute when I was tired of doing all the money management myself. And we had a baby and we had a college account. And I said, you know what, Jim? I said, I I don't have time to learn how to invest. I was I was never taught how to invest, I was taught how to save. And so I had, you know, little piles of money that were doing nothing for us. And Jim was really never taught to think about money. So he just he literally just never thought about it. He just would look at the statement, and if there was money in there, he kept spending. And balancing the checkbook to the penny every month and asking him where receipts are and all this stuff. And so he said, I think I can do that. And that was our daughter's about to be 29. So that was you know, 28 years ago. He started doing the investing, and now people Ask him for investing advice. I mean, he he loves to read about things he doesn't know about. So he bought books and and now, you know, he doesn't spend a ton of time on it, but I really still don't know much about investing. And he probably couldn't balance a checkbook to save his soul.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and so that's that's interesting. Did you know that he'd be as excited or into it before you asked him?
SPEAKER_00Or it was just no, I was just so mad. I mean, I I mean, just to be really frank, I was mad and resentful, and it was like, I don't care if you like it or not, you gotta do something to help out here.
SPEAKER_03That's interesting, yeah. And um, so you know, I have two little children, and so on's two, and the other one's five months, and so yeah, there's there's lots of times where it's you're used to doing stuff and it's fine before you had kids, but life's life gets busy. There's only so many tweaks you can do to your logistics. And I know my wife does a lot, and so I try to help out as often as possible, and then there's things I do that my wife doesn't enjoy doing. But if I'm I'm busy with media or I get busy, she'll she'll pitch in, and yeah, it's communications just so important. Um, not even just finances, but just making it through life. Yes, it's huge.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I the thing I really appreciate about my husband is before we were married, I said, I think I want to work full-time after I have these kids. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but are you can you get on board with that? And he was like, Yeah. I mean, he didn't act like it was a big deal at all. And it was really hard. I mean, I don't ever want to make people to misunderstand and think that it was easy because it wasn't. It was really hard. And he never wavered even once. I mean, I think I wavered more than he did. Like, I'd say, I don't know if I can do it. And he said, You said you want to do it, we're gonna do it. But just to show you how flexible he is, he has always done all the grocery shopping and cooking. So we were married, you know, 30 30, I don't know. Oh my gosh, I think we've we've been married a long time, over 30 years.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00And so, you know, he's not he's not afraid to take anything on. And and I hope he would say the same thing about me, that we do what it takes to make it work.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and just even with that description of kind of the the process of you you possibly wavering, he was exactly what you needed to kind of stay focused and and stay the course and gave you the that ability to kind of be vulnerable and and say that you wanted to waver, but then still support you and and by kind of using your goals for you.
SPEAKER_00And so that's a very nice, that's nicer than I've ever said it, Lucas. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Um, so yeah, it's it's so good, such a great story, and uh that's why I knew you were gonna be a good fit for this uh show because I know that uh you kind of just tell things like they are, and and you have accomplished a lot, you've done a lot, and you guys are still doing awesome things with the volunteer work. Tell me a little bit more about kind of when your children were starting to come. What were those conversations like? How quickly did you return back to work?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, so with my daughter, they're five years apart, and so it was really different how we handled each kid. So with my daughter, I got six weeks of um medical leave, I think they called it. And I think I got an I had a total of three and a half months off, as I recall, which was the most you could take. And you just didn't get paid for the it was called maternity leave back then. And so I really thought there was a high chance I wouldn't go back to work because I started loving my kids before they were even born. And people would say, Oh, I came back to work and I burst into tears. And and so I as the day neared, I was advised, tell work you're coming back. You can always say you're not, but if you tell if you waver, it doesn't look good. So I told them I was good for that. And then as the date neared, I was kind of getting excited to go back to work. And then I felt kind of guilty. I thought, I love this child so much. Why am I looking forward to going back to work? You know? And I said to my husband, you know what I think would work really well is if you would stay home with her when I go back to work, and then we can make the daycare transition after you go back to work. That way I can get some time at work and not have to worry about what's going on. And so we agreed that he would take a month off. And so he went in and told um his boss, I want to take a month off when my daughter goes back. Now, this was 1990. And his boss said, Well, if you do that, I'm gonna demote you. So he was a manager at the time.
SPEAKER_03Yikes, you could yeah, and my husband said, What? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so, so he came home and he said, Well, I'm willing to do this, but just so you know, they're gonna demote me. And so we talked about it, and very quickly we said, Well, what if you didn't take the time off? And then someday our daughter asks how it went, and we have to say, Well, we couldn't, dad couldn't stay home with you because they were gonna demote him, and she'd say, Well, wasn't I worth, you know. So he said, Okay, go ahead and demote me. And it was funny, like they they wouldn't just take his answer, they made both of us go talk to HR. And HR said, Well, I know Jim's dad unfortunately was very sick at the time. He had cancer. He said, I know your dad's sick. Why don't you just say that you're staying home to take care of your dad? And Jim was like, because I'm staying home to take care of my daughter, my mom's taking care of my dad. So he kind of wanted to make a point out of it, you know. Why does she get to take the time off and I don't? And so we'd like to think that in a small way we helped change things, but he ended up taking four weeks off. And so I went back and I was fine, and um he was fine, he loved the time off. It was a winter, he went cross-country skiing with a baby on his back and stuff. And then he went back and we got great daycare that we used through both kids.
SPEAKER_03So that's awesome. Did was it like a uh facility for daycare, or was it like um like a babysitter type situation?
SPEAKER_00It was a babysitter, a home, and we still keep in touch with the family. The woman had four kids of her own plus six daycare kids. So um, her kids were older. But um, yeah, it was a great setup. I mean, we feel very lucky we had her. There were lots of rules. You had to be there by five, or she got really mad. And we never we we always did it. She never had to get mad at us. Um, but you know, the kids, the kids loved it to the point where we went through one week where my daughter cried when we picked her up every day. So that was yeah, we keep reminding her of that. That was real nice, Andrea, when you cried when we'd pick you up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that's was it scary kind of making that transition? So once you were back to work, and then Jim ended up going back to work, was it hard for you at all?
SPEAKER_00Um It really, to be honest, it wasn't because I knew lots of, I mean, all the other women at work had their kids in daycare, right? So way back then it was sort of a gamble. You you there weren't very many women who worked full-time, and so there was a big question on how are these gonna kids gonna turn out, you know. 30 years from now, we'll find out whether or not you did the right thing. But I think we're discovering that the kids are okay. And I don't just mean my kids, I mean all kids in danger, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's been interesting, kind of the new kind of studies that have uh been coming out, um, a lot of support to work and parents, and again, that kind of leads to what you're working on. Now, what what's kind of the main driver for you to uh be running that program?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the entire time I worked, I always had this question in the back of my mind are my kids gonna be okay? And I read so many articles early on. This was you know back in the early 90s about the guilt these working mothers were gonna feel. And I distinctly remember after dropping my daughter off for college thinking, well, this is it. Now the guilt hits, and I'm gonna wish I hadn't missed out on so much. And I thought, I feel great. I feel great about the example I set, I feel great about her confidence as she's going off to college. I don't feel guilty. I feel great. And I thought, what a shame that all those years I worried, that for 18 years I worried, and I could have just been feeling great, you know? And so I started working parent stories as a way to share stories and let parents know it's hard. First off, don't don't give up the first time it's hard because at the end, you're probably gonna feel great and really be glad that you did what you did.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, really that that's can go for anything in life, right? If something feels hard, it probably means that you're on the right track of something, and you just have to hold your breath and like put your head down and smash through whatever it is. And I know financial matters is always a difficult situation to tackle, especially if you've put it off for a long time. You mentioned kind of putting off your will and things like that. Wills are pretty straightforward, so once you deal with them, it it's fairly straightforward to just knock them out. If you let your finances go too long without kind of addressing those things, those get messy. And yeah, stuff is scary for sure. And uh I I know that you're excited and happy that you were able to kind of power through, and it it took you a long time to know if it was the right thing. Obviously, you had to wait until she went to college. Right. And I'm sure there's other things you're worried about kind of throughout the whole time too. So I know I'm always freaked out about different things with our kids.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that yeah, there's plenty to worry about whether you work or don't, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_03Do you have any interesting insights as far as your financial lives earlier on in life compared to where your children are now? Is there any dramatic differences that you feel like make a huge difference?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh first off, I will tell you um, so we have a daughter that we don't know much about our kids' finances. So let me start by saying that they're pretty private about their finances and they're both grown and on their own and they have jobs. Um, but our daughter has never been real interested in money, and our son has always been fascinated by it, and he always wanted to know how much money do you make? And we would never tell him. Now we'll ask him the most basic, oh, nice TV, what'd that cost? I'm not telling you how much that costs, you know. It's like we can go to Costco and look, you know. Um, so it's interesting to me. It seems like some financial stuff may be kind of born into people. So you know, our daughter just doesn't seem that interested, and our son has always been very interested. And and they're both self-supporting. So when we went when they went to college, the deal we made with them was we will put you through college, but after college, you're on your own, pretty much no matter what. You know, obviously if there's an emergency, we would try to help.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But make your decisions about college with the understanding that when you graduate, you will need to support yourself. We do not plan to support you, we have not planned to support you. And we said, we don't care how you live. Um, just so you know, we've lived pretty comfortably. And if you decide that you want to live in a mobile home, that's fine with us. And if there's no room for us when we come to visit, we'll just stay in a hotel. We wouldn't resent that, that would be fine. But you know, when you pick a major, you might want to investigate what kind of job you'll be able to get when you graduate. So we just had an entertaining conversation with our son about this, where we asserted that we'd never put any pressure on him. And he said, What are you talking about? You said I had to support myself when I graduated from college. And I said, Do you think that's unreasonable? And he said, Well, probably not, but a lot of people don't have that pressure. And I thought, wow, if that's considered pressure anymore, that's really interesting. If if he's not hearing from his peers, being able to support yourself is important. I'm glad he heard it from us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, there's definitely huge, huge trouble with people. And it's not all based on kind of the individual decisions that they're making, but oftentimes it is. Uh that parent support, there's a lot of studies that show that that is a crutch for a lot of people going through college, graduating from college, where they are not able to handle life nearly as well as as those that had to carry part of the load, like you mentioned, that your children had to do. So I'm sure it feels um it's probably just something at this point. He I don't know if he would really believe that. I know I felt like a lot of stuff like that and and took my parents for granted for the longest time. And then once I got into my younger 20s and actually was on my own and doing everything myself, I was like, man, I I totally took them for granted and was a lot more grateful for things. And so uh if he's not there yet, he'll be there soon. But he's so much better off, I think, than a majority of his peers. And you probably can even look at a couple of your friends that you may have mentioned uh were going on these trips and things like that, and and maybe they had children that had a different upbringing, a different mindset about money or conversations about money, and they probably are not as self-sufficient as your children are now. So if if your children were not self-sufficient, you may not have been as confident on being able to retire, but uh there is a lot of that's definitely true.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I I do think that knowing they were self-sufficient made the decision easier.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, and I know just from experience from my previous firm that there is a lot of that supplemental help through the 20s and 30s, and it and if you're getting into about the 30s and you're still supporting your children, that's just gonna be the rest of your life. And that really puts people behind the eight-ball when it comes to having that financial confidence or the uh even the ability to be able to retire at any decent age, and so people don't realize that. And the longer you let it go on, the worse it's gonna be for both parties, both the the the younger children that are now young adults and the parents that are gonna be having a lot more stressful time during uh retirement uh and and just having that conversation. And you mentioned if anyone in the high-tech world should just expect that it's a volatile industry. You can't you can be the best person at your job, but if some unusual thing happens and there's no guarantee that your job is safe, and there's mergers, acquisitions, there's all these different events that you can't control. And so I'm always of the mindset of getting that financial confidence early, talking about money, understanding where you are, so that when these unique things come up, and and there's also awesome opportunities that come up to you. So just getting that prepared and basic understanding of what you're doing and and how you'd be able to navigate both negative events and and awesome opportunities that come up, I think is very crucial. So I think one last question I had from you is if you did have to, you actually unleashed a lot of financial tips, which I think is super valuable, and uh this is gonna be very informative from anyone that's trying to think about whether it's retiring early, uh having children, and and navigating their careers and things like that. But if you had to nail it down to one financial tip that you wanted to leave people with, especially young families, maybe in the the tech uh industry, what would that be?
SPEAKER_00Um so this is advice I got from my dad that I think has served us well, and that is always live a teeny weeny bit beneath your means. Meaning, you know, don't spend everything you make. Always live as though you make a little bit less than you really do. And that way you just always have a buffer. So we used to do like if we would get a raise, we would add like and it varied based on what year it was, but we'd add a portion of it to our monthly income and then save a portion of it. And so every time you got a raise, your your income continued to go up, but you were always used to living on a little less money than you actually had. And that meant you bought a little bit smaller house. I mean, I love our house. I'm thrilled with our house, but it's probably a little, we could have afforded a little more, but then you end up with a little smaller electric bill and a little smaller you know, you don't you have to buy not quite as much furniture and it just sort of mushrooms into benefits.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yep. And I I'm a big fan of calling that like lifestyle creep, and and I am supportive of having that balance when when things are going great and you're getting raises, definitely enjoy yourself, reward yourself. But I I think it's perfect to what your dad taught you is live beneath your means. I think a lot of people get confused and think that living within your means is the same thing as living beneath your means, and it's not because living within your means is you're doing what a majority of the US uh Americans do these days, which is spending every single cent by the time the next paycheck rolls around. And yeah, you may not be going into debt, but what happens if there's a huge layoff, if there's another recession, uh there's a significantly different situation than someone just living 5%, 10% beneath their means and doing a lot of the things right that uh you guys probably had to do in order to survive that first layoff. And uh luckily you guys were a dual income household too, and I'm sure that helped.
SPEAKER_00But and I should add that before the layoff, I actually left my job and joined a startup, and it was a start from the ground up, put money in kind of startup. I was co-owner. Yeah. And so we had learned enough from that experience that when the layoff came around, we knew how to live on one income. So it those two financial setbacks in the and my little foray into owning your own business was definitely a financial setback. Um, it I broke even at best on that. Um, we learned so much. I mean, I think I think we retired early because of those two experiences. So while at the time they didn't feel great, I mean, and they felt horrible, actually. I mean, to be honest. Getting late really is bad, bad, bad in terms of fun. It's just no fun. But um now it's made our, I'm sure we're, you know, we spent less because of it and and budgeted differently. And now we're just now we are just having fun, fun, fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so oh man, like I I think hopefully, hopefully I end up enjoying the podcast and doing this for a long time because I think it it would definitely be worth having you back in the future for a different season because you just dropped a new thing that I wasn't aware of that you you co-started a startup, and uh then yeah, there I just know there's a lot more information that you have that would be helpful. So we'll definitely plan to have you back in future seasons because I think that'll be really interesting to kind of dive into some of these things a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that I could do a whole segment on how to start a company and fail. I don't know if your listeners will be interested in that. Um it it wasn't it certainly wasn't a failure if you look at the experience gained and the fun had and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you survived it. You're still able to retire early. And like you said, you learned a lot from the experience, probably not only just professionally, but then from that financial matters of the conversation. What how how dramatic do you think that those changes were that you made after those events? Was it a sizable change or was it just very very small changes over time?
SPEAKER_00Well, after the layoff, it was a significant change. And we went from what I would consider to be monthly savings goals. So I heard on one of your other podcasts you talked about people who have a bunch of different accounts they put money into.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm sure you guys are one of them, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. And only I did it all within quicken, right? So I just did it with something called savings goal accounts. So you're it's really one account, but you just earmark the money. But after the layoff, then we started saying our our goal became staying in our house regardless of employment status in the future. And so instead of saying, okay, we're gonna put this much into the college college funds every month and this much into a fund for a new car, we started saving in chunks. It was uh put the college money away, pay off the house, save for the weddings, you know it we started just doing these you know all our extra money would go and and we'd have these chunks and then you get there was nothing else to save for except except retirement and so we did that and that's what allowed us to retire before we're getting our retirement you know like social security and all exactly all that stuff because we don't get any of that for quite a few more years. Yeah. Thanks. I don't even know it's called so Medicare. I think that's what I was thinking of because we're having to buy our own medical insurance which is really expensive.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Yeah it's as much as most people's mortgages uh these days so yeah definitely critical um and there's some unique things I'm sure you guys have probably explored where you can navigate your financial situation where uh you might be able to to fit into subsidy windows and things like that while they still exist.
SPEAKER_00And so that was always fun kind of planning strategically planning around the taxes and the the uh health insurance factors when when you don't have an employer picking up the bill because it is extremely expensive if you don't have a strategy to approach that and I think some of this saving in chunk stuff a after we did it I started listening to Dave Ramsey and he kind of suggests people do that. But I didn't get that from him. We just kind of made it up without a necessity.
SPEAKER_03Yeah yep and there's there's so many different ways you can split things up and and obviously I'm gonna be covering all different types of strategies and different ways to think about things. No matter what it is, it's not it's not up to a financial planner or anyone else for that matter. And I think my next one of my next podcasts is going to be on you're you're solely responsible for your financial life and so we'll dig into that but you're you get to make the decisions of how you want your life to be built and you can choose any strategy you want. You don't have to take uh financial planners you don't have to read a blog post and just because it says this is the way to do it. There's so many different routes and methods that you can get to the same goals and and do things. So you really want to do ones that are going to make you feel more confident and and help you make progress. If it's something that you're constantly having a fight against well maybe there's a different route and and there's no get easy or an easy button for any of this but it's just finding the the thing that's gonna resonate with you and if you have a significant other what's going to work best for you long-term strategies because that's that's more important than reading some guru or having hearing something I say that this is the way to do it. There's so many different alternatives for sure. Perfect so uh with that we'll close this up but can you please let everyone know how to find out more about working parent stories and get in contact with you.
SPEAKER_00Sure absolutely so there's a book uh called Working Parent Stories that you can buy on Amazon it's in Kindle format and paperback and it'll be out on Audible an audio book this summer or you can just go to the website um www dotworkingparentstories dot com and all the stories are out there.
SPEAKER_03You can just read them one at a time if you want to awesome I really appreciate you being on the show today Kathy.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. Thank you for joining this episode of Tech E Personal Finance Bootcamp. It was really great having Kathy on as you can tell since you stayed to the end all the amazing different intricacies of how they had approached their finances throughout their career and even now in retirement so lots of valuable information. Not going to be able to go into all the intricacies of some of those impacts financial decisions some of the the deep technical backgrounds of some of those situations that they ran into but I will make sure that we have future episodes kind of tie into some of that because I know it will be valuable for you. But I think one thing I do want you to take away with and focus on is she mentioned towards the end of the episode that they learned a lot from those two major mistakes those two major scenarios that they ran into and it was very impactful on helping them drive change start to make those changes so that they don't have to deal with those situations in the future and it put them in a better position they were still able to retire early which is really awesome that they were able to learn and quickly adjust so they could still reach their goals and retire early I think it's great to learn from your mistakes you obviously if you are gonna make mistakes it's better to learn from them to not learn from them but I think it's also valuable and not this isn't just nearly enough is learn from other people's mistakes there's podcasts like this there's lots of information out there where you can learn from other guests on my show or just doing a Google search learn from other people's mistakes if people are openly sharing some of the things that they would have done differently and don't wait for yourself to run into these same issues. If you are able to avoid some of the mistakes that you could be making just by learning from other people's perspective and previous experience you're gonna be that much further off you're gonna have a lot more possibilities options and flexibility in the future when it comes to achieving your own goals so I think it's important to learn from your own mistakes but it's even more valuable to learn from other people's mistakes because you'll just be that much further ahead by not having to go through that experience of making those huge pretty uh stressful mistakes that could occur throughout your financial life so thanks for joining us thank you for listening to techie personal finance boot camp. I invite you to reach out review let me know what you want to hear more of uh if there's things you don't like definitely reach out let me know I want to make this that the best resource it can be for you and just like you starting your kind of financial education and getting that foundation for you that's essentially what I'm doing with that the podcast. Obviously I'm very well versed on the the financial aspect so that's not that much of a concern but uh trying to build it in a way that connects with you and is really meaningful for you to the point actually where you'll start sharing it with other people that you think would find value. That's really where I want to get this show. So any way you think I can improve any specific questions uh feel free to reach out and I'd be happy to incorporate that into future episodes and everything I do whether it's in my business or any of the additional content I produce is really just to help people take their financial confidence on next level and just really improve and live a better quality of life. So catch you next time on technique personal finance boot panel