Justin Taylor: Early Retired At 33, Life Well Worth It, Fitness Travel Adventures, Financial Independence & More | FRLP 112

Justin Taylor reached financial independence around age 30 and retired from his W-2 career at 33 after building wealth through a remarkably repeatable strategy: increasing his income, keeping his annual spending near $24,000, reaching an 80–90% savings rate, and consistently investing in index funds.

In this episode, Justin shares how he went from earning roughly $40,000 in the Air Force to $230,000 in corporate tech without inflating his lifestyle — and why his net worth has grown by more than $1 million since he stopped working.

We also explore the psychological challenges of early retirement, why spending can feel harder than saving, and how to shift from maximizing your net worth to maximizing your net life.

Justin also breaks down how he and his wife traveled through Southeast Asia and Europe for six months for approximately $9,000 per person while staying in beautiful places, having bucket-list experiences, and maintaining their fitness. He shares how slow travel, house swapping, travel rewards, geographic arbitrage, home cooking, and flexibility made it possible.

Finally, Justin explains how that experience inspired Life Well Worth It — fitness and wellness retreats built around travel, physical challenges, intentional living, and in-person community.

Fit Rich Life Podcast Episode 112 with Justin Taylor is available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and wherever you enjoy your podcast entertainment.

Connect with Justin Taylor:

Life Well Worth It: https://lifewellworthit.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saving_sherpa/ 

Substack: https://lifewellworthit.substack.com/

In This Episode

• How Justin reached financial independence around age 30

• Why he retired from his W-2 career at 33

• How he increased his income without inflating his lifestyle

• Why he kept his annual spending near $24,000

• How an 80–90% savings rate accelerated his path to freedom

• Why his net worth grew by more than $1 million after retirement

• The challenge of transitioning from saving to spending

• How Justin and his wife manage their money together

• How they traveled for six months for approximately $9,000 per person

• How house swapping, travel rewards, and slow travel reduce costs

• How Justin maintained his fitness and gained lean muscle while traveling

• Why tracking your food and finances creates freedom and intuition

• How running became a way to experience new places

• Why framing frugality as a fun challenge changes everything

• The origin of Life Well Worth It retreats

• Why physical quests create confidence, connection, and purpose

• How community accelerates your fitness and financial journey

• Why you should design your life instead of defaulting to what is normal

Chapters

00:00 — Justin’s journey into early retirement
01:09 — Leaving the 9-to-5 with a severance package
04:55 — Justin’s income journey from the Air Force to tech
07:39 — Reaching financial independence around age 30
08:21 — How Justin kept his expenses near $24,000
13:24 — Reaching an 80–90% savings rate
14:48 — Justin’s FI number and growing wealth after retirement
20:08 — Managing money within a marriage
22:47 — How Justin funds his early-retirement lifestyle
28:12 — Reframing frugality as a fun challenge
31:43 — Traveling for six months for approximately $9,000
37:05 — Maintaining fitness while traveling the world
38:39 — What is HYROX?
47:17 — Tracking food before transitioning to intuitive eating
55:52 — Why tracking reduces mental energy
59:49 — House swapping, travel rewards, and affordable accommodations
01:10:03 — The origin of Life Well Worth It
01:14:50 — Creating their first fitness retreat in Spain
01:24:52 — Why beginners belong in fitness communities
01:30:08 — How to join a Life Well Worth It retreat
01:41:27 — Fitness: Make it part of your lifestyle
01:46:18 — Money: Create your rules and stop negotiating
01:51:41 — Life: Design what works for you

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Full Transcript:

Justin Taylor: Early Retired At 33, Life Well Worth It, Fitness Travel Adventures, Financial Independence & More | FRLP 112

Justin: Justin Taylor back on the Fit Rich Life podcast. Good to have you here, brother.

Justin Taylor: Appreciate you having me. It's been a while.

From Episode 54 to Early Retirement: Leaving the Nine-to-Five

Justin: Yeah, so you first appeared in episode 54 back in June of 2023, and we dove into your journey to financial independence. And at the time you were still working a nine-to-five job, and we covered, you know, essentially your saving and investing strategy, your frugal mentality, and still living an amazingly fun life despite being pretty frugal. And in November of 2023, you left the nine-to-five rat race. So take us back to that month and share with us the journey of leaving the nine-to-five for early retirement.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, for sure. Back when we first recorded the plan was kind of around June of 2024 was what I'd kind of circled the calendar to retire. I was looking at my, you know, the stock options and things like that, the different grant dates, and thought that's a good day. There's always those golden handcuffs where you're there's something else you could keep waiting on, keep waiting on, but that's kind of the date I'd circled. But not too long after we recorded, it starts getting announced that our company is gonna get acquired and that starts to kinda go through the cycles and you know, come around November, I get an offer, a package — sorry, I'm having a brain fart, I'm forgetting the word. Severance, there we go. Thank you.

Justin: Severance package. He's been retired so long from the nine-to-five, ladies and gentlemen, that he forgot corporate speak.

Justin Taylor: There we go. So they offered me a severance package that would pay me the same, give me all the stock that I was due and everything through June, or I could keep working and like, hey, then you're just like risking that they're just gonna lay you off anyway. So I was like, Yeah, let's do it. I mean, it's the exact same financial decision that I was gonna make anyway. It was kind of funny because I was a manager of a team and my team was like really upset that they were going to lay me off. And I was like, guys, no, no, no. Like don't worry about me. Like I'm I was kind of like volunteering as tribute. Like please take me. So yeah, I was technically laid off, but it was all like exactly like part of the plan. Like financially it was the same decision. And so that was an easy one for me. And honestly like I couldn't have been happier to be laid off at that time.

Justin: Yeah, a similar thing happened to me. I knew either my company was gonna go under or we were gonna get acquired and high probability that my job would be eliminated. So it actually took way longer than I thought. Which was fine with me because I enjoyed my job and I made really good money. And when it came, I also got a severance package. It's funny that you forgot the corporate speak because I was no joke earlier this week in a meeting with a client of mine and I was trying to remember this sales term, and for the life of me, I still can't remember it. I'm like Jesus Christ, I've been so removed from the nine-to-five corporate world that I'm forgetting these, you know, what used to be common terms that we used in every single work week. So I think that's just a good sign that you've really transitioned well into a whole new area of life. But before we move on from there I want to get into the numbers. And you know before we hit record you mentioned that you only spent three years in tech and you didn't make like an insane amount of money. You made great money in that, but if you could walk us through, you know, you can estimate or give us round numbers, not exact numbers. I know six years you were being paid through the military and then three years in corporate tech. So kind of walk us through what some of those income numbers were. And before you answer, the reason I think this is so powerful is because Justin Taylor achieved financial independence really fucking early in life, earning a W-2. He didn't do entrepreneurship. He didn't do real estate. He literally just worked a W-2 job and saved his money and invested in index funds. So walk us through some of the income numbers over that nine year financial independence journey.

The Real Income Numbers: $40,000 to $230,000 on a W-2

Justin Taylor: No, yeah, I appreciate you asking me because like you said, I do I think this is one of the most like repeatable paths. 'cause on top of the earnings not being anything crazy and not doing any kind of crazy investing, you know, what we covered in the first episode is like I also, you know, I grew up poor. Like it wasn't like I was given some kind of big head start or whatever. But anyway, like, you know, I start working in the Air Force. 2014 is like my first full year of like employment, making like about $40,000.

That kind of slowly trickles up, maybe 10 or so thousand a year for the first few years, for the first like three years. Then I moved to Boston and it gets up to like in the nineties when I'm working for the Air Force. I leave the Air Force in late 2019 to go do the corporate stuff. Like you said, do three years there. Start off at like 165. After a little over a year gets up to about 200.

Then my last year I was sitting at about 230. And that's it all inclusive, like with the stock and everything. And so that's kind of the career trajectory. And the one interesting thing, because I've charted it out before, is my spending was almost a flat line, like the whole time. It was, you know, somewhere around like 24 grand a year the whole time. So it the more I earned, I kept my spending, my lifestyle kind of the same. And that sounds like a super low number, but anybody who knows me or kinda kept up with my journey knows that I still traveled an insane amount. I just kind of cut out all the stuff that didn't add anything to life.

Justin: Yeah. I feel like you also always did and still do music festivals and just all sorts of different fun activities. I've had the pleasure of knowing you for the last few years since we first connected over the podcast interview for episode 54 and then we got to hang out in person at Portland or at FinCon in Portland last year. And I feel like you are always up to something fun and we're gonna talk in a little bit about your six month travel trip that you did with your wife but I do want to just point out the fact that you basically achieved financial independence and retired early at what age

Justin Taylor: So like I would say that I hit financial independence probably at thirty, but I retired at thirty three.

Justin: Okay. Which is pretty amazing. I retired at forty two. But I got a super late start. But I think what's really key is the fact that you did this with a W-2 job and not making insane money. Some would argue that at the end you're making pretty amazing money. But how were you able to keep your living costs so low that entire time?

How Justin Taylor Lived on $24,000 a Year

Justin Taylor: Yeah, I mean, you know, honestly, sometimes like I almost think it the other way. I'm like, how do people what are they spending money on? Like I don't understand what it is that people are spending money on because like I travel so much and my trips are just I don't know. Like I've I'm able to do it without the cost being extravagant. My, you know, cars were paid off. I've never I realized the other day I've never lived alone, like whether it be roommates or Leslie, I've never lived completely solo by myself. So I always kept my housing really affordable.

Always had paid off cars. I'm not doing the little cuts either. Like I'm not you know, getting Uber Eats and the Starbucks and that sort of thing. But I will like without question, like the second somebody asks me to go on a trip, like you said, like I'm down. Now will I look for creative ways to make it even more affordable? Sure. But like when push comes to shove, like I'm going to do the thing. I mean, as we're recording this podcast, like I kind of had this small window because I just got back from being in New York for two weeks. I'm here in Austin for like 10 days. And then I'm going to California and then Australia for five weeks and Singapore, then like a 10-day hut-to-hut hike in Albania. And then I'm going to Madeira and then Tenerife and then to New York for a music festival. So I'm about to be gone for the next three months, you know, and that's all like, and I'm completely within budget, no problem, you know, and we just continue to be able to do this. And I sometimes like I don't know. I think I'm like, it seems crazy when sometimes when I say it to people like the reaction I get and I'm almost like, how can you not live for this amount? Like I don't like, what are you spending money on? Now granted, we don't have kids and that's always a big like, you know, some people they always really want to like triple highlight that. But I'm upfront about that. Like we don't have child care costs. And I'm fortunate that I don't have you know, like the big health care costs because I've got that covered through the military. But outside of that, like, yeah, I just I think I just don't spend money on the things that don't really add value to my life. Sometimes when I'm trying to help somebody with their finances, they always want you to tell them like, a really regimented spend this much on this, spend this much on that. And I'm not a big fan of these kind of like rules of thumb like that, like where it's spend X percent on housing or whatever.

I just start with a really simple question and I'll ask them, like, what'd you have to eat for lunch last Tuesday? And they look at me like, what is this guy talking about? And they're like, I don't know. And I'm like, that's the point. You have no idea. And it was a week ago. Like, so don't spend money on those kind of decisions. Now, tell me the last time like your favorite concert you ever went to, or like your, you know, a family trip or whatever it is. And their eyes light up and they're giving you all these details. I'm like, that, spend all the money you want to on that.

But the things that you can't remember for a week, like, you gotta let that go.

Justin: Yeah. I think you've done an incredible job of aligning your spending with your values and your goals. And a lot of times people get caught up kind of just spending in ways that their peers are spending or what they see on social media. And so they basically just fall into default living. And the default American life is living paycheck to paycheck, being in debts and building little to no real wealth and unfortunately having to work pretty much your entire life. And if you want to pursue financial independence, you have to choose to live in a way that's significantly more intentional. And I think it is completely a mindset because I would argue that you and I have had incredibly fun, adventurous, happy lives while pursuing financial independence. And what looks like maybe some sacrifices to some people, like for example, the fact that you said I've never lived alone. Some people might think that's insane, right? But for you, your goal was early financial independence.

And you just housing, the biggest expense for almost everybody, you made it a priority to always keep your housing low so that you could sock away a large chunk of your paycheck and living on $24,000 a year as you went from $40K to $50K, $60K, $70K, $90K, and then to $230K, like that's crazy. When you're making two hundred and thirty and you're only spending twenty five. Minus taxes, of course, you gotta factor that in. But that's pretty wild, how big your savings rate got. Do you remember what your savings rate was those last three years?

Justin Taylor: It did touch like 90 percent. It was kinda floating between eighty and 90 percent that the very end.

Why Your Savings Rate Matters More Than Your Income

Justin: Yeah. That's one of the things I love for people to understand is just how important your savings rate is. It doesn't matter how much money you make. What matters is how much you save and keep and then invest because you can make forty thousand dollars a year and only spend twenty and you have a 50 percent savings rate. You can make five hundred thousand dollars a year and spend four hundred and fifty thousand dollars and you're literally basically spending all your money.

And you're never going to be able to retire that way. And if you can get to a 50 to 60 percent savings rate, you basically have about 10 to 12 years to early retirement. And then if you get crazy like Justin and myself, and you get up into that 80 to 90 percent range, then you three to five years, maybe a little bit longer if the market goes against you. But that's how powerful the savings rate is.

And you can't control the stock market, but you can always control your expenses. And that's critically important. So let's talk FI numbers. What was your original FI target? And then what when you did leave the nine-to-five and take that severance package, where were you at?

The FI Number, and What Happened After He Walked Away

Justin Taylor: Yeah. So I mean, like based on all the numbers, if I was just looking at myself and the spending that I'd always had, I mean, technically speaking, around $700,000 was like all I really needed, you know, to technically be FI. And now that was never like the goal. That was never the number I was aiming for. I honestly didn't even know what I was aiming for at first. But then when I got to looking at it and kind of looking at, you know, as me and Leslie got closer and realizing like, you know, this is my life partner and thinking about our finances together and wanting her to be able to retire with me as well and kind of it as a package deal, I knew I probably needed to get my side of the coin closer to one and a half. And when I actually walked away, it was closer to one point seven, one point seven or one point eight, something like that. And that's been another wild thing is, you know, I haven't worked a bit since then.

And I honestly don't know exactly what my net worth is, but I know it has gone up over a million dollars since I retired. So that's just that crazy beautiful thing of compounded interest. And it's a wild thing. And it's also, I mean, we can like dig into this, but there's so many interesting like psychological aspects of this. I was just having a conversation with my friend last night where literally in the same like 10 minute span, I open up like my Robinhood account and I see this one account has gone up like say a hundred thousand dollars that week. And then at the same time I'm sitting there like sweating like, man, I don't know if I need another hundred and fifty dollar pair of running shoes. And but that hundred thousand dollar movement in Robinhood did not even flinch me. Didn't I didn't think about it. Didn't register. I just it's a number on a screen. But the hundred and fifty dollar pair of shoes, I was like, man, I don't know. Like I'm kind of beating myself up about it. And it is funny. I mean, I think you know we had conversations like this with Brandon from Mad Fientist about how like the what got you here isn't necessarily what's gonna serve you in retirement. And I mean, that is who we are. That is how we got here. We are savers. We are, you know, we're frugal. And it's hard to shed that even once you've built this big reserve and this big moat. So it's a learning process.

Maximizing Net Life Instead of Net Worth

Justin: Yeah. I've watched a lot of people in the financial independence community struggle with that once they hit their FI number and leave the job or even before they leave the job and they're way over their FI number and they have challenge spending. And I was like that for a little bit. I but I would say over the last three or four years I've really loosened up a lot. I don't even look at the price. I buy pickleball shoes, don't even look at the price, just whatever shoe I want. But it's the same thing though, because I look at what's happened to my net worth since I've left, and it's basically gone up, you know, almost a million dollars in two years of making little to no money, and it's like a hundred and fifty, two hundred dollar pair of shoes, like that's not gonna change anything. Right?

And you know, I think that's kind of a inside job that all of us who got to financial independence using the frugality muscle have to kind of shift into what I like to call maximizing net life instead of maximizing net worth because the you know, ultra frugality is really kind of this game of doing everything you can to spend as little as possible so that your net worth can continue to increase. But you know, I would argue in your case and in my case, we're gonna die with way too much fucking money. And like millions, if not tens of millions of dollars. Because it's just gonna you know, you're thirty — I don't know, thirty-six?.

Justin Taylor: Probably so.

Six.

How Justin and Leslie Split Their Money in Marriage

Justin: Like and you're very healthy now. You're gonna live at least till your seventies, if not nineties, hundreds or beyond. And that money's just gonna continue to compound. But we don't have to talk too much about that. One thing I was curious because you mentioned it, and I think a people always wonder this, they always ask me about it, is money and your marriage. So I my wife and I have our finances separate. I have my own investing accounts, checking accounts, and we share one credit card that we use to pay bills. And we split, you know, things like rent and food. It changes over time depending on net worth, earning, et cetera. But I'm just curious how you and Leslie do it because people are always asked me about this and since I have you on the show, I'm curious how you do it to give people perspective into different ways.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I would say most of our like careers and relationship, we split everything, like right down the middle, just fifty. Since like we've both stopped working, that has kind of become a little less like I just I stopped tracking things personally, like for my entire working career, I tracked every dollar that I spent. So I've kind of lightened up on that. The only thing like now we still split the like the mortgage for the house and everything else just kind of we just kind of buy it as it comes and we have one joint checking account that is what we use for things that we do together for groceries, for travel. And it's also where money goes into from things we do together, which is like we rent our primary house out on Airbnb while we're traveling because we travel so much. So the money from that goes directly into this joint account. And it actually that account has always had like more than enough in it to cover the things that we're doing together, whether it be like travel or concert tickets or groceries or whatever. And then she has like half the mortgage come from her personal checking and half comes from my personal checking. And that's just kind of the way we do it. It's not something we've ever put just a ton of thought into. Like I said, most of our working career and relationship, we just literally at the end of the month, because we had really detailed numbers, we just split everything fifty. But now, now it you know, we're not really doing it that way. We've just like you said, I mean, we've gotten to a point where we've kind of ran up the scoreboard, like we've got more than we need and all that kind of stuff was interesting and whatever for a while, but you know, at the end of the day, zoom out and be like, what difference does it make if we like split this up or if like more is coming from one person's account or vice versa. It just for us doesn't really matter. We're not like living paycheck to paycheck. Things aren't that tight.

So we're just a lot more we're a lot more loose with the tracking and the way we divvy things up now because it's just we got pretty loose margins, I guess.

Does Early Retirement Mean Drawing Down the Portfolio?

Justin: Yeah.

Question: the joint account, I know you guys are earning money from when you Airbnb your house out, but are you also at the phase where you're having to draw down from your portfolio or are you still moving through a cash reserve or do you make enough income in other areas? Because everyone always wants to know how does early retirement really work from a financial mathematical side?

Justin Taylor: Yeah, no, I always almost like kind of feel guilty like answering this question because I'm like, I haven't gotten there yet. Like I don't I've I have not had to sell anything. We like we together manage one property. Long story there, but anyway, like we make a couple hundred bucks a month off one rental that we manage. We have our Airbnb property. I've got some like money that comes in from a couple of syndication deals I did, like after I already retired.

And I got a little bit of money that comes from the Air Force and actually still saving money. And this is another interesting thing. Like we sat down one day and I ran the numbers just to give her a better kind of get her head wrapped around where we were financially, what things would look like over the next however many years. And I kind of did a side by side comparison of like, because I am technically still saving money in retirement. Like if I went from doing that to spending every dollar that came in.

How much difference would it really make in like 10 years? And it would make a few hundred thousand dollars difference, but it's like, okay, you would have five million dollars instead of four point three million dollars or whatever it is. Again, doesn't really matter. Like our next our net worth would still continue to grow, but that's just hard for me. Like, I mean, I'll be honest. Like it's hard for me to just be like, it would not matter if you spent another $30,000, $50,000, whatever the number is a year. But it's hard for me to just like kind of dream up and manufacture the spending, you know, and just like come up with ways to spend more money. Like I still find myself like if there is a way for me to save money and it's not really negatively impacting my life, like I actually get joy out of that. Like I, it's like the thrill of the hunt. Like I like finding the deals. I like figuring out ways to do things efficiently. So, you know, some people see that as a grind, almost like some people see working out as a grind. But like when you learn to love it and enjoy it, like you're not you know, you're not like wishing away that you're like you're looking forward to that workout, you're looking forward to that run or that pickleball game. Same thing with food, like some people might see how little we eat out at restaurants, especially when we're at home in Austin, and think like, my goodness, that's like you're depriving yourself. Like, why do you such a health nut? It's like, no, like I love the food I cook. Like I feel good, it tastes good, like I'm that's not restrictive to me. Like it literally is what makes me happy.

I think like maybe we've all led ourselves to believe that like, you know, it's this nice luxury to constantly be eating out. But like if you realize how much better you feel when you stop doing that, like you might change your mind. Like you might have just kind of been lying to yourself.

Frugality, Framing, and the Mindset Behind Spending

Justin: Yeah. It really comes down to mindset with pretty much everything, right? So it can be incredibly liberating and fun to eat most of your meals at home. It can be for another person who did decides that not eating out is suffering, then that's the reality. And so this is what I really, you know, coach clients with and tell people is like your entire life experience is made up of the mindset you choose to look at it through. So it's either and for you, saving money on all these things is what I would say is a labor of love. Just as you know working out is a labor of love. It takes work to work out. It takes work to spend less money than to just, you know, do the default American action of screw it, I'm gonna get take out or go to the restaurant or just buy the plane tickets or the hotel. Or instead it's like, well, there's this fun game of getting credit card points and then I can use those to travel for free. And everything takes energy. And so I think all of us, and this is one of the things I'm kind of working through in my own life right now is what do I want to spend my energy on, and what games do I want to be playing? And there's no right game to play, and there's no right thing to spend your energy on. It's just being aware of the games that you're playing and how you're spending your energy and if that's aligned with your current set of values, your current goals, and where you want to go in the next several years. Because all that stuff is going to lead you to the life that you have. Because you know, everyone's life, the life they have right now, is literally just the culmination of all their habits and decisions up until that point. It's like the net present value of all those decisions and habits. And so if you love the life you're living, then that means your habits and your actions are great. And if you're unhappy with your life, a portion of your habits and decisions are not what you want. And you have to look at that and get honest with yourself, take a hundred percent responsibility and then start making new decisions and building new habits that are going to give you the life that you want. Go ahead.

Justin Taylor: And framing is so important. Like I could, you know, like that feel like that's kind of part of what you're getting at is like the way we frame things. It could be the exact same actions that two people are taking, but framing it differently. And I have to give my mom a lot of credit for like we grew up poor, but it was always like, Hey, we've got ten dollars. What can we do with this? Not like, hey, we only have ten dollars. This is all we can do. It's like that kind of looking at it from a curiosity standpoint, like this problem to solve, like getting excited about cracking this code.

Like if you think about it that way, all of a sudden, especially for a kid, like that becomes fun. And even sometimes me and Leslie talk about when we're, you know, like traveling. Like sometimes, like, okay, yeah, we're in some random place, like we don't have a car, the grocery store is a mile away, whatever. Like we want to cook our own food. We want to exercise anyway. Like you could look at it as like, man, I'm schlepping across town and I'm carrying groceries, or you could look at it as like, hey, this is an easy way for me to get, you know, an extra five thousand steps in.

And I'm getting to cook my own meals and like that's an and the end of the day I'm gonna feel better and I'm excited about that. Like you could look at it as a negative thing or you could look at it as like I'm getting to walk instead of I have to walk. And that's a the I'm getting to versus I have to kind of mindset is so powerful.

Justin: A hundred percent. And that's exactly what I did in I about three years I was ultra frugal. I didn't eat out at restaurants for three years unless someone else was paying. And I had an incredible time. It was so much fun for me to figure out how to get food for as least cost as possible. And I still ate all organic and super freaking healthy and you know, whole foods and everything.

And you know, I'm not like that anymore. I probably eat out two to four times a week now more when I'm traveling. But that's because that was like a fun journey for me now. And at this phase of my life, I want to spend my creative energy doing other things. Because I do believe that we only have kind of so much like problem solving creative energy per day and we get to decide where we channel that. And so for me it's just been building an online audience, building an online business, but really only working ten to fifteen hours a week on that stuff while I play, you know, ten to twenty hours of pickleball and work out a lot and spend a lot of time with my wife and my friends. And that's what's fun for me right now is using my creative energy to do these online business endeavors, but only in a certain amount and then focusing on other areas of life that are really important to me, like my community and fitness and my relationships. But I want to talk about because you just mentioned earlier all the travel that you've done. And we've been kind of talking about your super power of money management. And you went on a six month trip after you left the nine-to-five rat race.

And you shared with me offline before we hit record how much it cost you per person for those six months. And I want you to walk us through the things that you did, the places that you went, and the money that you spent.

Six Months of World Travel for $9,000 Per Person

Justin Taylor: Yeah, and I'll do my best to not butcher the first couple parts. The money, the overall total, that's an easy one. And I actually do have a spreadsheet which I'm sure we could link to that has every expense that we spent the whole trip. So if like somebody wants to check the numbers, you're more than welcome. I can't tell you how many times I've got mentioned in a Reddit thread where somebody's saying that I'm just like spewing BS and that it's not true. And I'm like, I why would I lie about this? Like, here's all the numbers, but whatever. Anyway, so we went, we did spend six months out of the country. It was $9,000 per person. Another little fun fact is while we were gone, our house actually made just as much money as it as the trip cost us. So we literally could have sat in our house, stared at each other, never left the room.

Never eaten anything, never moved, or went on this like amazing six-month trip. And it financially was the exact same decision. So I think that's really cool. But we spent half the time in like Southeast Asia, which I know everyone, you know, that's obviously more affordable. And then we spent half the time though in Europe, across like we flew into Amsterdam and then we went all across Switzerland and then completely down the west coast of Italy and up into like Sardinia and some of the islands there.

As far as things we did, man, it's like we did so many different excursions. We did like this four-day like in the Philippines where you're bouncing from little remote island to r little remote island on a boat and camping on the beaches, which was incredible. We did all these different like one day in Indonesia we hired a private driver and just took us around to all these different waterfalls and we did this one day where they take you up to the top of a mountain at sunrise and like the back of a Jeep. We you know, volunteered at a elephant sanctuary when we were in Thailand, did so many different like boat excursions and snorkeling and whatever. We rode the trains nonstop all across Switzerland. We went hang gliding off a mountain in Switzerland, which was incredible. Gosh, I mean we just did so many things. I ran my first half marathon. We went to so many different little islands. So but we went from the Philippines to Indonesia to Vietnam to Thailand to the Netherlands to Switzerland and then to Italy. And then within those, like a lot of different stops, like in Indonesia, we were in Ubud and Uluwatu and Gili Air and Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan. We were in Amsterdam. We're like I said, we were all across Switzerland. Spent kind of our home base was out of Lucerne when we were in Switzerland.

In Italy, we were in Lake Como. I always say it wrong because I've heard it said six different ways, but Cinque Terre — everybody says it differently. We were there, we were in Naples, we were in La Pare, we were in Sicily, we were in Palermo, Sardinia, Elba, Ischia, all these different little islands.

Yeah, there's a lot there. I mean there's I and I like I said I there's what kills me is every time like somebody asks me and I tell them about five minutes later I remember this crazy like bucket list type moment that I completely skipped over just because there was so much in that six month trip.

Justin: Yeah. Couple questions.

Justin Taylor: I know that was a lot, sorry.

Staying Fit and Lean With No Gym for Six Months

Justin: Yeah, no, it's amazing 'cause I think it just lets people know just how many different places you visited. I mean, six months is a long time to travel. I don't think me or my wife would do that. But we're a little bit older than you. But I think everyone's also different. Some people love really long travel and other people you know, I lived in another country for six months in between high school and college.

And that was really fun for me. But I think one of the important things for each person on their journey to financial independence and post FI is to kind of figure out what type of travel you like. Like some people love six months trips, and other people that's way too fucking long. They'd rather spend more time at home and go on two or three trips for a few weeks at a time each year, and there's no wrong or right way to do it.

But because six months was so freaking long and you and I are both obsessed with fitness and nutrition and you spoke about this a little bit, but I'm just curious, how did you approach your fitness and your nutrition while traveling this long? Because you mentioned, you know, after that six months, like you had only added one percent of body fat and one pound of body weight, which is pretty incredible.

'Cause I'm assuming well actually I don't want to make any assumption. I don't know if you're kind of estimating your tracking or your tracking while you're traveling or I want you to walk me through both your training and your nutrition on the six months because I think a lot of people at least I would find that fascinating and I hope other people find that fascinating.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, I mean, and I'll take a little bit of a step back and kind of frame some of it too. So I mean, it was a problem that I was nervous about and I was also really interested in because I grew up the fat kid. And that's what's another thing that's cool is in life, like I now have different groups of people who've known like kind of different Venn diagram circles of me. Like some have known my entire journey, some have known me.

Like since I wasn't fat, but maybe they knew me when I was still drinking. And then some people have only known me since I quit drinking and got really into fitness. And it's always funny when like this person who has never seen the other versions of Justin, like hear about this and are like or they'll say something like, it must be nice to just be like naturally like lean or whatever. And I was like, Whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no. That's that is not me. Like I can look at something the wrong way and put ten pounds on. Like it's no problem.

But before we went on this big trip, just a few months before, Leslie had gotten invited to do a HYROX race. And because a friend of hers had a partner who got injured and needed somebody to sub in. So I decided, okay, it's in Dallas. My best friend lives in Dallas. I want to do one as well. I'm gonna invite him to do it. And I realized like I need to start running to be able to do this. It's also around the same time.

I was going on a trip to Hike Kilimanjaro with some friends and I was like, Okay, this cardio's gonna help me and I had historically like never ran. Well, fast forward a few months.

What Is HYROX?

Justin: Quick question. I know what a HYROX is, but But it blows me away. People still don't know it. They'll be like, What's HYROX? So just for anyone listening, Justin's gonna tell us what HYROX is before he goes on with the rest of the story.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, so HYROX is a it's a fitness competition. It is a mixture of running and functional movements. It is a total of eight kilometers of running and eight stations of work. I think the average time to finish is somewhere in that kind of hour and a half mark. So you can think similar to like a half marathon type of effort. You've got movements like sled push, sled pull, wall balls, weighted walking lunges, farmers carry, ski erg, things like that. And it's all continuous. The clock starts when you start the first run and it doesn't stop until you cross the finish line after doing wall balls. And you can compete as an individual or with a partner. It can be two men, two women, man and woman, etc. And they have them all over the world. Every race is exactly the same. So it's really cool that you can kinda do one and benchmark it against yourself or others. And so that is HYROX. It's a mixture of running and functional events.

But it does require a lot of running. And so even though I had never ran, I quickly realized like to do this, I'm gonna have to start and so that's like, you know, we had our first race in November of 2024. We go off on this big trip of January 2025. And that was one of the coolest things for me was to take this new skill of running with me on this journey because so many of the places we went, we just did not have access to a gym.

And but being on this trip, it taught me so much about how resilient the body was, how much like credit I had not given myself that I had learned like to intuitively understand like nutrition and things like that. Because I did grow up as the overweight friend and I had gotten myself into really good shape. And it was very scary, this proposition of losing it all. And it also made me scared, like, I think this is a lifestyle I'm gonna like. Like, going for months at a time on the road, but what if I can't do it? What if like in order to do that, I have to leave this part of me behind, this like physical shape that I've gotten into. But I also am like a nerd about the numbers and I love studying things. And so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go get one of what's called a DEXA scan, like where they it's almost like you're laying down for an MRI. They give you like really in-depth scan of your body fat percentage, lean mass, all that, get a data point right before we leave and right when we get back. And so on the trip, I promise you there were plenty of times where we ate embarrassing amounts of food. Like we're staying at a hotel that has like this incredible, like made-to-order breakfast, but you can order as much as you want. And we would start with like, okay, we'll take four omelets. And I mean, these things are just the size of the plate, stuffed full of burrata and bacon. And I mean, like, we just ate like kings, whenever we wanted to. Now we did average about 10 miles a day. If you combine running and walking over the course of the six months, I looked it up on my Garmin and we pretty much averaged exactly 10 miles a day of movement. So we were moving a lot. We did hit gyms whenever we got a chance. It's refreshing to see that it's actually pretty easy to maintain muscle mass and to hold on to the strength that you had. I mean, even like I don't know how long it had been since I had done a deadlift and I got back from the trip a few months later.

And there was just this little competition thing. And like I was able to, you know, like deadlift 435 pounds. I'm like, I don't even remember the last time I touched a deadlift bar. But if you just still like kind of can hit the weights when you get a chance. And then like we were in a lot of places where protein wasn't the easiest to come by, but just when you got the opportunity, you just took as much advantage of it as you could. And then adding in that running, I mean, there is, I know.

I've been there before where I hated running. I know so many people hate running, but if you ever get to the cross over that bridge and you get to a point where you start to enjoy it, it I mean, to me, there is like nothing better than waking up at sunrise in some new location. Like I will never forget running down the coastline in Elba, this little island in Italy, just right next to the cliffs and going for like a 10 mile run at sunrise. Like there's nobody around.

It's just you and nature. The lighting's beautiful. And I just couldn't recommend that more to somebody. But anyway, when we got back, like you said, I did another one of these DEXA scans and I'd went from like 10% to 11% body fat. And I'd actually put on a one pound of lean muscle mass. And I think it's probably because I was so I was so dialed in on the numbers, but also probably so restrictive that I wasn't letting myself probably eat enough before we went on this trip.

And I was actually like properly feeding myself on this trip. And even though I wasn't lifting quite as much, I actually put on a little bit of muscle.

Running as a Way to See the World

Justin: Yeah. I love it. So a couple things. One, one of my favorite ways to explore cities when I'm traveling is just run through it. Or explore any location. It doesn't have to be a city. It could be a town. It could be you know, a rural area. It doesn't matter, but running in new locations is so fucking inspiring. I swear to God. Like last summer I went to Leadville for the first time and we were staying in this nearby town, Twin Lakes, and it's stunningly gorgeous. And I hadn't run in years. But I was there and the gym was very far away. It was 45 minutes away. And fortunately I had brought a kettlebell. It was a road trip, so I had a kettlebell and a weight vest and stuff in the car, but I decided, I'm gonna start running on this trip and I just and I've gone through phases where I've run a lot and then stopped running and don't run at all. And it was just so incredible to run through Twin Lakes. It's a mountainous area. And I still remember one of my first trips when I discovered financial independence was to Port Puerto Vallarta.

And I still remember running through Puerto Vallarta and along the coastline and it's like burned into my memory both those trips from the running through those areas. And so while you're talking, I looked up how much is ten miles in steps. Ten miles is twenty thousand steps, approximately it could be a little bit — 22, 24,000 if you have short steps, or it could be le a little less than 20,000 if you have short steps. But that's a lot of steps per day, 20,000. And the other thing I want to mention, because I've looked into this, is you know, at your age, it's gonna take at least eight weeks before you start to lose muscle. And if you just stimulate your muscle a little bit, meaning like one or two workouts in those eight weeks, you're gonna maintain most of your muscle mass. And you even said you actually came back with an extra pound of muscle, probably because you finally started feeling yourself appropriately versus being underfed all the time. So in terms of the nutrition side of things, I know you and I have talked about this before. In the past I've been intuitively eating for about the last two years, but I did track my nutrition religiously on a food scale for ten years straight. So I'm just curious, during that six month traveling, were you weighing your food and tracking it or was it all intuitive or is it a combination of both? What were you doing?

Weighing Your Food: Why Tracking Is a Skill Worth Building

Justin Taylor: Yeah, I mean, before we left, we were doing the same thing. Like we were used to doing things on a food scale. And just a as a quick side note about weighing your food and food scale, I couldn't recommend it more for everyone to do for at least a small period of time. Like no one naturally can just intuitively eat. Like we can, me and you could probably both intuitively eat because we have so many reps. Like I have picked up 100 grams of chicken and seen what it looks like on a plate and felt it so many times that, yeah, like I can scary, like.

Accurately grab something and tell you that's a serving. But nobody's born with that. Same thing with like your finances. Like to me, the number one first thing everyone should do is start to just track every single penny that is going and coming for like three months. You don't have to do it forever, but just get a handle on it. So like that's a little PSA bumper sticker for like weighing your food isn't only for bodybuilders and crazy people. Like it is just a skill that I think we all could really benefit from.

And it's also it's not only about like deprivation. I think people look at it and say, you're weighing your food, like you're starving yourself, et cetera. Like you go down that way. But as I started to like run more and you know, where I'm burning 3,500 calories a day, like where I'm starting to run like 14 miles at one time, like I gotta make sure that I'm didn't get busy, you know, working in the yard and just skip lunch and not have enough carbs and whatever. Like I'm weighing my food also to keep me honest, to eat enough. So that's just a little PSA for weighing food. But no, we did historically weigh our food, but on this trip, we did not have a food scale. There's also so many times where you got to think about how many different regions we're in and different locations. Some of them are very remote, some of them are not. Some of them were like staying somewhere, like I said, with a hotel where they give you breakfast. And you know, we're not just like gonna not eat the breakfast just because it's not exactly what we normally eat. So or like we're on some these boat excursions where they're feeding you and you know, whatever. And so we didn't always get to choose what we were eating. We did not have a food scale, and we just kind of leaned into the things that we could when we could. Like, so if like in Asia, protein is not as easy to come by. So when we got the opportunity, like we really doubled down. And when we could find something like protein powder, like awesome, like that was a great little substitute.

And then once we got to Europe, like boom, dairy's back on the board. And so now we can get the yogurts and the stuff like that just did not exist in Asia. We also discovered some new stuff, like, you know, I'd had tofu before, but I'd never had tempeh. And when we went to Indonesia, discovered tempeh, and I loved it. And I was like, and it was a great protein source. So that was another thing. Like I love cooking. And I mean, I've got so many funny stories about cooking on this trip from cooking some bomb meals with nothing but an electric tea kettle to convincing the woman that we were staying at her like she ran like a an Airbnb, but she had like it's like different little like little houses. But there was a on the property is a restaurant normally, but it out of season they weren't operating the restaurant. And the kitchen is literally just a portion of a cave that they have run like propane lines and stuff into and have like big burners and stuff set up.

And I was kind of like nervous about asking her if I could cook in there. But then she was so excited that some random like American traveler wants to cook on vacation that she was just like pumped about it and was like, yeah, like showing me everything, like giving me full rain of it. So I've got all these pictures of me cooking in this random cave in northern Vietnam. So like I love cooking and that was a one of my favorite things about traveling was experiencing all the different types of foods. And so we definitely didn't cut ourselves short. We weren't gonna not eat the street carts or the whatever because we were so trying to be so locked in on our nutrition. But when we got the opportunity to, you know, have more vegetables or to have more lean protein, like sure, we took it, but we also didn't cause ourselves to miss out on anything because of it.

Justin: I love it. Yeah, I want to double click on the tracking your nutrition. One of the cool things for me when I first started doing it is it actually gave me the freedom to start eating dessert every day and not feel bad about it. So at one point in my life, I don't do this anymore, but I think it because I'd spent so long not eating dessert because I thought dessert was making me not have a six pack.

But once I realized I could eat whatever I want, and as long as I hit my macros and my calories, I was fine. I was at one point, no joke, eating three to six ice cream bars a day. Now, these were low calorie, they're only a hundred calories per ice cream bar. And so I would strategically save every day 300 to 600 calories so I could eat three to six ice cream bars for dessert after dinner. And the most people cannot intuitively eat and have a six pack. Now there are exceptions. I do know some people in my real life that intuitively eat and have a six pack, but they are like unicorns. They're so freaking rare.

Justin Taylor: And I would wonder if they ever tracked. Like if is it that they like they intuitively eat now or have they in their entire life intuitively eaten? I don't know. But

Justin: Yeah. Some of some people I do know just have always been lean. They you know, they have good genes, good eating patterns. They grew up like food they don't have like a weird relationship with their body or food. And I've openly talked about, you know, I've for much of my life struggled with my relationship with both food and my body. And it was through tracking that I actually

Justin Taylor: Yeah, yeah.

Healing Your Relationship With Food and Your Body

Justin: Began seriously began the healing journey of my relationship with food and my body. So not only did I track my nutrition religiously for 10 years, I also have been stepping on a body scale every single day for now, I think 13 years. I even though I don't track my nutrition anymore, I still step on a body scale every single day to track my body weight and my body fat and my muscle mass just to see is my intuitive eating keeping me where I wanna be from a physique standpoint. Unfortunately the last two years of intuitively eating, because I've built those amazing habits similar to what Justin said, like I can pick up six ounces of chicken or, you know, I know what one cup of rice is, and I know just at an intuitive level, because I've put in so many reps how to eat to support the physique that I want. But I got there by tracking for 10 years. Now, I don't think everyone needs to track for 10 years. Please. That's not what I'm saying. But I do think you will gain so much by just tracking your nutrition for three months. And it's the same thing with your money. Most people, their default is to spend most of their money, if not all of it. But if you start tracking your money, you'll realize, wait a minute, I'm not saving an as much as I could be or want to be. And then that tracking improves your actions. And then eventually, like now, I don't track my spending whatsoever. Do not even I don't pay any attention to it. I'll kind of look the year back and realize, okay, I spent X amount over the entire year, but I did spend several years religiously tracking income, expenses, and saving rate, and that built the intuitive ability to maintain my financial freedom and intuitively spend. Just like tracking my nutrition built the intuitive power for me to eat and maintain the physique I want. So I'm 100% aligned with you, Justin, on just the power of taking a period of time to track your fitness and your finances, and it can change the entire trajectory of your fitness and your finances.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, and I think another mental trap that people can fall into where maybe they're avoidant of tracking is they think that it's too much work and it's too much like mental energy. But for me, like especially with food, like if you're somebody who struggles a little bit with food noise or whatever, like if I know these are the things, these are the bounds I have set, these are the calories, the whatever, and I know that I have eaten that much and I've hit the number, then I'm not sitting there and saying, I don't know, like, am I hungry or am I just bored? Like in trying to like discuss it with myself and figure it out. There's just no questions. It's like I know if I have eaten enough or if I haven't, it's done. To me, it actually is a lot less mental energy. Like I would sit down in the morning, I had my little spreadsheet, I'd pop my stuff in and say, like, boop, boop, boop, like that, that's this will Lego together a day for me and hit my macros. I don't think about it again. I'm not sitting there and wondering, like, hmm, should I eat a little more? Shouldn't I? Is this too much? Is that not enough? Like, I make the one decision in five minutes at the start of the day, and then there's no more decisions about food. Like it's all done. And so I would just like say, if you think that tracking, whether it be finances or food, is going to be too mentally draining, like play fully through that story and realize like you actually might save yourself some mental cycles because maybe you're sitting there wondering, can I spend on this? Should I not spend on that? Could I?

But if you just had the information in front of you, it's no more like this debating back and forth in your brain. It's a clear black and white answer.

Tracking Apps, Spreadsheets, and Making It Easy

Justin: Yes, and it's so freaking easy to track these days. You said spreadsheet and I'm like, what the fuck? This guy's crazy. I tracked MyFitnessPal for ten years, but now there's the there's these new apps like Cal AI and MacroFactor. I think it's MacroFactor. You can literally just take a picture of your food and it uses AI to estimate the macros and total calories. And even though that's less accurate than say weighing your food, that's still infinitely more accurate than just, you know, having a mental back and forth with yourself of whether or not you have or have not and have or have not overeaten. So, and it and there's nothing wrong with using these tools. Like I'm guessing, Justin, you also tracked your expenses and all that stuff in a spreadsheet, correct?

Justin Taylor: I did, I did. I mean I just I it's the way I like to do it, yeah.

Justin: Yeah. And just so everyone knows, that's fine. That works for a lot of people on the FI journey. I never, ever, ever used a spreadsheet. I literally tracked everything with an app, and I manually calculated my savings rate at the end of each month by taking my income and expenses from the app and recording it in an Apple note. Like I'm the most like basic anti spreadsheet person ever and I achieved financial independence just fine, never using a spreadsheet. So you totally can use a spreadsheet to track your nutrition and your finances. But really I want to encourage people, there's so many ways to do these things and there's so many incredible technology tools. So I don't want people to use like an excuse like, it's too much of a hassle to do X, Y, or Z when it comes to your fitness or finances. Now with you know, the use of technology and apps and whatnot, it's never been easier and more accessible for people. And these tools are either free or dirt cheap as well.

Justin Taylor: Yeah. I mean, even with the AI stuff, like you can even just like open one of them up, hit the button where you can talk to it and just like tell it what you ate that day. If you even if it was like, crap, I didn't take pictures, I didn't whatever, you can you know, like there's like you said, it may not be as accurate, but it's so much more accurate than just nothing. So

How to Travel on Fifty Dollars a Day

Justin: Yep. Question about the money side of your that six month trip, because as I was thinking through it, I crunched numbers. It's approximately call it forty eight to fifty dollars a day over six months on average. I'm sure Europe was more expensive per day than say Asia. But in my mind, the first thing I thought people would wonder is like how the fuck do you pay for like room and board for less than fifty dollars or sixty dollars a day. So walk us through a little bit of like how you optimized you know that fifty dollars a day average from a housing standpoint.

Justin Taylor: Sure. And just as yeah. And again, that was $9,000 per person. There's two of us. So if you think a hundred to a hundred and you know, whatever dollars a day total. Because we're obviously splitting housing. So and like you said, part of it's in Asia, which is cheaper, that's where you're really gonna save money on the housing part. There it is, no problem to find housing for, you know, like again, for the two of us combined, if we've got a hundred dollars to spend a day.

It's no problem to find a place for, you know, fifty bucks a night or less or whatever in Asia. Also, like when you look at some of the excursions and the costs that came with that, like you look at this like four-day boat trip. Well, that included housing as well. We also did some interesting like ways to like make sure that we avoided the biggest housing costs. So like I mentioned before, our house we rented out on Airbnb, but there's also a house swapping network called Kindred.

And you can do like one for one swaps where me and you are swapping houses at the exact same time, or I could just be out of town, like I could be back in Mississippi visiting my family. My house is empty. I could let you stay there. And then I get credits and I can use that to stay in a completely different house. It has nothing to do with you at a different time. And so we're a member of that platform and we saved up our credits and we use that for our stay in Amsterdam, Lucerne, and Rome, like three of the most expensive cities that we would have been in. So that definitely helped us. I mean, we in total, that was probably about, I don't know, somewhere around 15 days of our trip was covered through Kendred, maybe a little less, but somewhere in that ballpark. And then also as far as like just the way the spending kind of fell out, like the housing was a lot cheaper in Asia, the food was cheaper, but like in Europe, groceries were much easier. Like the grocery store kind of network was much easier. There was less excursions that we were doing and more just enjoying the nature that was there. Whereas in Asia it was a lot more like, you know, we're booking a guide to take us somewhere, or we're going on this boat trip or we're doing something we're paying for. Europe, a lot of our days, a lot of our, you know, excursions and trips and stuff were just sightseeing and visiting, you know, a beach or some big hike or what have you that didn't actually cost money the activity itself, but the housing was more expensive. And so that's a big thing. I mean in Lake Como, the two nights that we stayed there, we did use like some Hilton credits for. And then obviously like anytime we were at somewhere like a hotel, we tried to maximize the food that they gave us to avoid some extra eating out. But yeah, I mean it just really, like I said, I have a spreadsheet with every single expense that you could possibly imagine, but we were not staying in like these terrible places and we weren't like starving ourselves and we whatever. Like we were doing a lot of activities. We were going to gyms every time every we were paying for gyms when we got a chance to go to a gym. We're doing lots of excursions. We were staying in nice places. We actually have a sub stack where we've only documented it all the way through like I think maybe we got to like Switzerland. So it we definitely haven't finished the trip, which is ridiculous. But you if you wanted to check it out, we have a substack where people can go in location by location and see exactly what we how much we spent, the what our like accommodations looked like, the type of activities we did. So if you want to dive deeper in on something like that, like we can definitely link to that.

Justin: Hundred percent. We'll put that in the show notes for everybody. And you know, it makes me think about the ability that you built tracking your food, the ability that you built tracking your money, but also the ability that you built over the years of pursuing financial independence to just really get the most bang out of your money, then easily translated when you went on the six month trip. 'Cause I'm like thinking about it and $9,000 per person, or $18,000 for six months. So we're talking thirty six thousand per year to travel twelve months three hundred and sixty five days. Thirty six thousand dollars per year is so much less than most people spend per year. And you were having the time of your life and I think all that's possible is I it is in large part because you've just built this incredible muscle of getting the most bang out of your buck. And, you know, we talked about you've chosen to approach it with a mindset where this is a fun adventure for you to figure out how to do all this. So it's not an onerous task to figure out how to travel for six months and only spend $18,000 between two people or $9,000 per person or around fifty dollars a day, it was a big fun puzzle for you to figure out.

Justin Taylor: Yeah. And I mean, there's like this trip was such a mix of like we had some upscale moments, like where we're on the rooftop pool at the nice Hilton in Lake Como, surrounded by wealth. We also had the moments where we spent $250 for five days. That's housing, food, transportation, everything. It's actually five days of the motorcycle ride, plus the they bust you there, bust you back. Anyway.

In northern Vietnam, it's called the Hajjong Loop. It's something that everyone should do. It's incredible. And it was $250. Like there's just things in the world, this geo arbitrage that you can take advantage of, these places where things are so cheap. And then like I said, like we stayed in some places that were super nice. And then we stayed in some places that were a little bit more scaled back. We also like purposefully, you know, maybe you travel during times when you were when you're retired, you don't have to go during the summer, when it's like peak pricing and everything's overcrowded and the weather sucks because it's too hot. Like when you're retired, you get to choose when and where you go. You get to book the Tuesday morning flight or whatever it is instead of having to fly on Friday or Sunday. Like you're so much more flexible too that I think people don't put enough weight on that. Also, when people think about travel, they're gonna spend just as much as maybe sometimes in like a week as we might spend in a month because like you have these fixed costs, like the flights. A round trip flight is the same for a week or for six months. Like, so that gets to be spread across this time that we're gone. Also, housing, like you book a place for three nights on Airbnb, you're paying that same cleaning fee. So your price per night is pretty high.

Now you book that place for two weeks, you got the one cleaning fee, then all of a sudden they start adding in all these discounts because you're extended stay and your price per night is now maybe half of what it would have been if you were there for three days. So when people are comparing like their normal vacation that's like five days to the six month trip, it's just really completely different math. There's so many more efficiencies that are to be had when you are somewhere for a long time. And also, like, there's not like if we are only going to a country for four days. Like, yeah, we're probably gonna eat out almost every meal because it's like, man, when am I going to be back in Italy? But if I'm in Italy for th you know, for a month, then like I'm okay like, you know, cooking my own lunch every day and knowing that I'm just gonna eat out at dinner three or four times a week. Like I don't have to eat out every meal because that one restaurant I really want to try, I don't I'm not on the clock and only have four days. I got four weeks. So I it's fine.

So I think it's just it's completely different math when you have these really long trips.

Justin: Yeah, it's such a good point. And I was trying to in my mind figure out how that is similar to how investing just l compounds over time. It's kind of like the I don't know. Anyways, I'll think on that and try to figure out how to put that into words because obviously I can't yet. But I wanna start to transition into in preparation for this, I listened to some of your interview on your podcast, the Financial Independence Show, about your trip, six month trip, plus some of your new endeavors that you've been doing. And you I don't want to tell the story, I want you to tell a story. So earlier year or maybe it was even the end of last year, I forget when. You texted me and invited me to Spain for something. Tell me about what that was and how all of that got started.

How the Life Well Worth It Retreats Started

Justin Taylor: Yeah, let's tie the six-month trip to the new endeavor. So we're on the six-month trip and no one's ever gonna feel sorry for you for getting to go on a six-month vacation with your spouse and have all these amazing experiences. Like nobody's gonna cry for you or whatever. But like there are these kind of like unwritten hardships, if you will. Like you're living out of a suitcase, you're packing up, like we weren't just in those — whatever it was, six or seven countries, like within those countries, we're in so many different locations. Like the number of times that we packed, the number of times we got on a boat, a plane, a train, a taxi, or whatever, like there's a lot there. Amazing experiences, but also kind of isolating. Like you're a lot of the time, you're 12 hours away, you know, time zone difference. And you know, you're in places where no one else maybe even speaks English. Like it's literally just you and the person you're with.

And you just don't have that sense of community. So that was a hole that we saw. But we also like, you know, like over the last couple of years had really started to build this love for fitness. And when we came back, when we got came back from our trip and back to Austin, we realized like that we loved, obviously we love the fitness. We were really craving the community. And Austin just has such a good fitness community. It's one of the most interesting cities in the country in that regard. Like I think it's so cool the way people just love to get together and work out. And, you know, we had started building this love for HYROX and kind of fallen in love with this competition and the community in that. And, you know, we're sitting there and we're like, we don't want to stop traveling. Like we love the traveling, but we also gotta figure out a way to build some community into this. Also, like, you know, our lives are different and like we think about things differently.

And we would love to share that with people. And so it just was kind of this like sitting around and I started looking at it. And I'm like, man, there's HYROX locations all over the world. And like we want to continue to do this and we wanna build community. Like we've always talked about like leading, like taking people on retreats and being able to share like our lifestyle with them. And maybe, you know, maybe they're even being a little bit of like coaching involved or like helping people think about things in a different way, whether it's finance or fitness or just lifestyle. It's like, well, what if we center this around one of these HYROX races? It gives us something for people to train to. It's it gives us something that's organized that we can kind of rally around and then all these beautiful locations. And when we started looking at the calendar, we saw one in Malaga in Spain. And we really didn't start to talk about it until right around Christmas, maybe even New Year's, and the race was going to be in April. So it's a very short timeline. And another funny thing about it was we came up with the idea, we start to launch it. About three days into it, we're not getting like any feedback. We're getting our like no one's interested, it seems like. And we almost immediately pull the plug just out of like that fear of failure. But then we kind of took a beat.

And we thought about it and we're like, we can plan this in a way where there's no risk to us. Like we book fully refundable Airbnb. We wait to book our flights, like we wait to get our tickets, like whatever. And we just see if we can get enough people on board to make this work. We got the house reserved, but we can always cancel it. Let's just try. And sure enough, we gave it a couple weeks and we sold out the first retreat.

And we took there was 11 of us that went to Malaga in Spain and raced the HYROX race there. Nine people raced the in the race. And it was so rewarding. And it was so cool to see people see a different way of traveling. Like we literally had someone stop us at the end of the trip. A couple of the feedback we got was like one person said, like, I never knew you could travel like this, where you could be at the end of a trip and not feel like you spent a crazy amount of money, not feel like you gained 10 pounds, be like, re-energize and feel accomplished at the end of a vacation. And one person, like, they knew the story of us almost canceling. And they stopped us at kind of our final like team dinner. We're all sitting around the house. We had a private chef come in and do paya. It was this beautiful dinner. And it was just this really heartfelt speech about how, like, for us to just think about all these amazing moments that we provided everyone on this trip that would have been lost, that would have never happened.

If we would have given up on this little idea that we had. And that was just really cool to hear. It was also really cool from a like on the fitness front to see people who had seen us compete or maybe saw their spouse compete in Dallas. And then, you know, we're talking about this trip. And back in Dallas, they're like, this is something I like, there's no way I could do this. Like, I'm not capable of doing this. And then they end up deciding to sign up for it. They train with us because we get everybody in like a group chat and we help people build training plans and all that and they start training they start gaining that confidence and then they crushed it at the race and they were so empowered at the end of the race and like I don't know like I it was just one of the most rewarding things ever. And so when we got finished with that one, we were immediately like we got to do another one. And so we're calling the kind of brand or the retreats or whatever. And it feels weird to call it a business because it's really not about that. And like we charge less than half of what any other thing like this you would find would charge because it's not about the money. I mean, it's really not about the money. But we're calling it Life Well Worth It. And we're taking people on these different fitness retreats and wellness retreats. And right it's HYROX, but, you know, we also want to mix some like half marathons and things like that in there. And yeah, we're gearing up to take a group of people to Nice, France at the end of October, if people want to join. So that's kind of what the that's what kind of got it going though, was we're on this trip, we're realizing we love to travel, we love taking fitness on the road, but we're also really craving community. And so we just decided to build it.

Justin: So amazing. Yeah. You texted me in December of last year. I as you were talking, I looked through our text exchange and I seriously considered. I almost said yes, but I'm just so obsessed with pickleball right now that I decided I wanted to keep my focus on going to tournaments and traveling for pickleball. So when you do the pickleball Life Well Worth It, I'm fucking in.

So that or somebody's gonna need to like in your group gonna need to do organize a pickleball one or maybe I'll even work with you and organize a pickleball one and then I'll for sure come. But I love that you're doing this because

Justin Taylor: Do it.

Justin: You and Leslie are sharing in person how you're traveling, where you're maintaining your fitness levels or even building them, you're also teaching people through the experience of being with you how to travel financially savvy like you. And I know without a doubt, even though I wasn't there, I know everyone who went there after that trip thought to themselves, fuck yeah, that was such an amazing way to travel. And they were able to learn that through the experience of being with you, someone who is designed intentionally a way to travel from both a financial aspect and a fitness aspect that doesn't feel like sacrifice or suffering, but instead feels like this incredible adventure. And I'm so stoked to hear that you were able to share that with other people. Because in my own life, as I was listening to you talk about all of this, this is how I travel. I'm always optimizing the ex.

The financial side of it. And I'm always either getting staying as fit as I was, or even getting more fit through the trip. And I love how you shared the story of the participant who said, I didn't know you could travel and not put on 10 pounds and not spend all this money. And I know he or she also had an incredible time on that trip with you. So it wasn't a miserable experience to not put on 10 pounds and not spend a ton of money. It was maybe one of the best trips they've ever been on, I'm guessing, because it was such a unique experience to have their perception of what is possible with travel when it comes to money and fitness, that they now see a whole new way of living and traveling that has completely opened up what is possible in their life.

Justin Taylor: And I also think that if people come on one of these trips or if they even just like whatever, they look at the trips that we've been on through our subsack, whatever it is, like I hope you'll start to see it shatter expectations of like maybe you're thinking like, okay, this is not that expensive, so it must not be nice to like realizing, no, it could be both. Like, I mean, we're staying in I mean, this house that we've got for France, like I'm so excited about it's this insane, like from the 1700s villa up in the mountains with like the pool overlooking the valley. It's got a sauna inside of it. We got, I mean, the, you know, when we were in Malaga and for France, like these awesome sunset catamaran boat rides, you know, lined up. We went and did, like we were in Spain, awesome house, walk right to the beach. We did the catamaran sunset night. Like I got to share my love of cooking as well. So like some of the meals I cooked for the house, even for like race day, right? Like it was cool for me to get to share with people not only my love of cooking, but also this love of like the fitness and nutrition that I've, you know, gotten more into and like cooked a dinner that was specifically like to fuel them for their race the next morning. And we also, you know, we had all the, you know, the electrolytes and the carb gels and all the supplements for everybody as well. We would take people through mobility classes. We'd go on hikes. We went through this insane hike through this gorge called I think it's called Caminito del Rey, outside of Malaga. But just like all these beautiful experiences. Like we went out to a really nice dinner and that was cool because like me and Leslie went out yeah, a couple days before everybody arrived and kind of canvassed the area and found this like local restaurant, checked it out. Sure enough, we had a great experience and we brought everybody there and it almost felt like you're eating, you know, with like a family member or something. Like it was such a cool experience, but anyway, like the trips, although they are so affordable and it is showing people the sliver of our life, like it's also not roughing it whatsoever. Like they're actually very luxurious, while also mixing in that fitness component.

Inside the Malaga HYROX Retreat

Justin: Yeah, I wanna add some color 'cause I know a lot of the background story.

Through knowing you as a friend and then also preparing for this is even prior to going on to that first trip to Malaga for the HYROX, there were people who signed up for the trip who maybe had done little to zero training for a HYROX. And you and Leslie provided training programming, nutrition programming, and you basically coached them through how to get ready to do this Hyrux.

Even if it was their first HYROX. And there is something so incredibly powerful about booking a trip or a physical adventure or a physical quest that then gives you so much energy, so much focus. And then when you have someone like Justin and his wife Leslie, who you know, your wife is actually she is, you know, a coach in the world of fitness.

Let's not forget to mention that. And you were a total fucking fitness fanatic, nerd yourself. So your ability to, you know, coach alongside her from a fitness and nutrition standpoint is there. And you guys did all that just as part of coming on the trip, all that pre-coaching, that pre-training, all that preparation work. And from my understanding, you were all in like a group chat and it was like fun for everybody to just learn from you and Leslie, get prepared, but also the anticipation of the trip. And I think one of the easiest ways to make your life really happy, and I share this with my coaching clients all the time, is like get the next trip or event or adventure or quest on your calendar. Because if it's in six months or three months, then you have three to six months of anticipation.

And it gives you energy to get through those three to six months. Your regular day-to-day, week-to-week life, you're so excited because at you know in three months or six months you have this big adventure coming. And then it's even cooler when you have something like a hierarchy because then you have motivation to train each and every week to prepare for this physical quest that you're gonna go on. And I think it's worth noting and you can correct me if I'm wrong, whether someone's at the beginning of their FI journey or their fitness journey, you and Leslie are happy to help them on both fronts if they choose to sign up for one of these trips with you guys, correct?

Justin Taylor: Absolutely. I mean, we had people on the trip who had never done one of these or ever trained for one from that end of the spectrum to someone who is currently at like the worlds right now competing. Like we've had someone who was like just getting started in their career to someone who was already retired. Like we really had the full gamut of people and we are happy to help all comers. And I and it's so rewarding for both. I mean, like it's cool to see somebody who is at a high level like take it to that next level. But it's also really cool to see somebody just getting started to get inspired and to get started. So absolutely. Happy to take anybody at all levels. And that what you were talking about with the group, like the like, you know, put everybody in the WhatsApp group, provide the training. That part was I think that's a part that you can't like oversell enough. Like that is so important to get everybody together. You start to know each other before you go on the trip. I think we were, I think we had people from four or five different states. So it's not like everybody like knew each other going beforehand, but you get to know each other in the group. You start posting the workouts that you're doing, which motivates the other people, gives them ideas, helps you get to know each other. And then we structure the trip so that we line it up so that the race is at the very kind of beginning of the trip. So that you have, like you said, you have that anticipation.

You have this big sense of accomplishment. And then you get to just go enjoy this new location. Because while it is like this a really exciting anticipation, also for anybody who's ever done many races, like there can be a little bit of anxiety. And so we don't want like somebody sitting there knowing that they've got this race in four days and being worried about like what they're eating or whatever, like messing their stomach up or like, man, I gotta like.

I can't go on a hike because it might mess my legs. Like we want to get the race knocked out early so that you can get that win, get that accomplishment, knock that out, and then get to enjoy the environment. But having that WhatsApp group leading up to it, I think is just invaluable to have a community to help keep you inspired and get you excited for it on top of everything else. And like you said, it's always great to have something on the calendar. I don't think there's probably any day of the year where we don't have a countdown on our phones of like X number of days until something, like we always have something on the count.

Why Community Accelerates Your Fitness and Financial Journey

Justin: Yeah. I want to also just share from my own personal experience through my journey to financial independence, my fitness journey, my life journey. Being on the journey with other people who are on the same quest is one of the most powerful things you can do. So on my financial independence journey, not only did I go to Camp FI, which is a financial independence meetup camp for a weekend with about 50 or 60 other people on the journey, I also organized a financial independence meetup group that met every single month and I ran it for five years. And then recently I went to FinCon and met all my other FI people that have been on my podcast.

And you know, that was the first time I'd met Justin in person and got to hang out with him. And then I went to EconoMe this past March or February, I forget when it was. And just people don't I think unless you've experienced getting into community with other people who are on the same quest, even if they're already done with the quest, they've achieved financial independence, or they have the six pack or they've done the HYROX. If you can just get with other people, it is so motivating, so inspiring, and it will just make your journey so much more enjoyable and so much more successful. I seriously think one of the reasons I achieved going from $80,000 in debt to a millionaire in a little over two years is because of the people I surrounded myself with, because I went to that Camp FI, because I had that financial and independence meetup group. It's also the reason I got so fit in life. I went out and I got in community with other people who were super fit. And so I just want to encourage anyone, even if you're at the beginning of your FI journey or the beginning of your fitness journey and this trip with Justin and Life Well Worth It sounds fun. It is going to pay you back in life experience in your money journey or fitness journey, a hundred X. And I know it's gonna be low cost comparatively to what it would cost to do the thing on your own or with another group because Justin is a master at keeping costs down. So if people are interested in going to this trip in Nice where is the best place they should go to learn more about it and sign up.

The Nice, France Trip: What's Included and How to Join

Justin Taylor: Yeah, lifewellworthit.com has got all the links and everything there. There's a spot for you to apply for it. Right now we have Nice, France listed. We also have where people who are interested in the possibility of Nashville, there's gonna be a HYROX in Nashville that we're probably gonna do a trip around. So you can just let us know if you have interest in that one. Nice is like fully up and ready for people to sign up for. It's there. It's seven days, six nights. It includes you know, the house, we rent cars to get everybody around. We you know, we handle the excursions like the catamaran ride, like we'll, you know, we'll do some hikes, some vineyards, some things like that. We will cover, you know, we'll have the house stocked with food and supplementation. We'll take everybody out to a group dinners. So all that's included. You just gotta book your own flight. And if you wanna do the race, we've got some tickets set aside that you can get from us because they do sell out pretty fast. Or you can find your own tickets if you want to do the race. But we reserved a bunch for the same day so that we could all kind of have it as a team aspect. But yeah, Life Well Worth It dot com or @lifewellworthit on Instagram is also an easy place. And yeah, we're we got seven spots left and would love to have love to have you.

Justin: Two more add-ons. Justin would also likely teach you how to get your flight for cheap if you sign up. So if you're if you want to learn how to credit card hack and travel hack, I'm sure Justin will probably teach you. If you want to go ahead and book your ticket for the event, then you know connect with him through WhatsApp and whatnot. I'm sure he'd probably teach you how to do that. And then secondly.

For those who've never done HYROX, I just recently coached one of my own coaching clients through his first HYROX last year. And I still remember talking to him afterwards about one of the things he loved the most about the HYROX is he saw people of all shapes and sizes, all ages.

Like he saw moms doing HYROX, you know, 40, 50 year old moms doing HYROX together. He saw young 20-year-old Jack Bros doing it. He saw old, you know, 60, 70 year old people doing it. And so it doesn't matter, you know, if you're jacked AF or if you got some body fat to lose. It's you're gonna be welcome at the HYROX, and it's such an incredibly fun event.

And I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about talking with him after he did his first HYROX because the sense of accomplishment that I was able to witness in him over Zoom because he's in Southern California, I'm in Northern California, he was just so fucking proud of himself. And his theme for the year is I'm fucking doing it.

And he felt like he totally embodied that theme and just had the sense of confidence earned. That's his words. He said, I feel like I earned the confidence that I have now, just going through it. And he told me the only person I felt like I was competing with was myself. Just to do get the best time I could get.

And he had a target of hitting a certain time. He hit that time. But I know even if he had missed that time, he still would have just been so fucking proud of himself for finishing the race, for doing the race. So I know to me and Justin HYROX, we know all about it. I've never done one, but I know all about it because I'm in the fitness world. But if you never heard of it, it is such an empowering experience. I've done all sorts of fitness quests. I've done Spartan races, I've done bike races, all sorts of things. And the sense of accomplishment that you get from doing these events, not only is it incredibly great for your confidence and your self-worth, but it's also a memory you'll carry with yourself for the rest of your life. Like for the everyone who went to Malaga with you, I guarantee that is a peak experience that they're gonna remember for the rest of their life.

And likely the people that they met through that experience, yourself and Leslie, plus all the other people, will probably be in their life, at least a portion of them for a very long time. And that is just priceless to have that experience and make those connections and build that type of community.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, I mean, and to echo a couple of things you said about the diversity that you'll see at one of these races, like it truly anyone can do this race. Like, yes, people are going to fall at different times of like when they're going to finish, but anyone can do this race. Also, like if it just sounds like a, hey, I want to go to this beautiful location in France with some cool people for seven days and you don't want to race, like that's fine too. Like, come see it. Come see what the race looks like, get a little exposure to it. But I promise you that you can finish the race, you will have a good time. And the other data point I would say is I have personally never met anyone who has done the race who did not want to do another one. Like I've never met anyone who did one and was like, one and done, never doing it again. I've met people, maybe they run a full marathon or something, they're like, okay, that was interesting, but I don't need more of that. But I've never met anyone who did a HYROX race and did not want to do a second.

Justin: One other thing I want to point out about your future trips for Life Well Worth It is you mentioned that potentially you would do some more formalized financial workshops at them. And at the one in Malaga, you did do some one on one financial coaching and nutrition and training coaching and so I want people to know that not only are you going to get to go on this amazing adventure, you're also going to get education, empowerment, strategy sessions, and more when it comes to both your fitness and your finances. And again, I can't underscore how important it is to have these real conversations with people who are further ahead on the journey than you.

The reason I'm as wealthy and free and fit as I am is because I've been able to be a student of those who are infinitely further ahead of me that were just so gracious, so humble, so happy to help me speed up my own journey. And I'm just so excited that you're gonna be offering that type of empowerment, coaching, and education on your trip. And I really wanna encourage anyone, whether it's a fitness journey they're on or a financial journey they're on or just a living a life they love journey they're on, that a trip with Justin Taylor and his wife Leslie will be worth every single penny.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, I mean, like you said with the like the one on one kind of coaching or group aspect coaching, like we just wanna be a resource. Like it's to see more people, I mean, because that's part of it, right? Almost like selfishly, like we want to convert more people in life who love to travel this way, who love to do the things we do, because it can kind of be lonely at times, right? Like there's not enough people out there who want to do these things, who wanna travel this way.

But it's so cool to see people when they flip that switch and they realize there's a different way. There's the way that ninety-nine percent of people do everything, but there's this other way. And it's pretty cool and it's pretty powerful. And we're happy to share that with people. I mean, if you want if you wanna learn about finances, you wanna learn about fitness, you want a cooking class, like whatever, if I know how to do it or Leslie knows how to do it, we'll share it with you.

Justin: Yeah, and there's also something really powerful about seeing people in real life do this in action.

I found it so valuable for me when I've spent time with friends who were more fit than me. Just they come stay with me and I'd watch how they prepare their food, how they would prioritize protein, how they'd think about training. And then the same thing, you know, when I did these financial independence meetups, just how people thought about money, how they talked about money, how they managed their money, and seeing it in action with real people versus just seeing stuff online, it's so much more powerful in person. And I think that's really kind of the undercurrent of what Justin and I are getting at in this podcast interview is just the power of community and in person shit. Like whether it's fitness or finances, is like just getting in community with real human beings. So much of our life is spent online.

And those who are listening to this podcast, you know, this is all virtual. Come do something in person. So in another episode, I'm gonna save this for another time. You and I are gonna talk about our sober life. But I don't wanna we've already gone almost an hour and forty minutes, so I wanna land this plane and I'll have you back on the show and we'll talk about because I've been and maybe we do it around my twelve year anniversaries. So this year will mark twelve years sober from alcohol and drugs. And I think you're around year four or five, if I got that right.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, just a little over four years, yeah.

A Sober Life, and a Future Episode

Justin: Yeah, and I live a life I absolutely love. I know you live a life you love. So we'll do a little teaser. We'll do a future episode on that because I'm really passionate about living an incredibly awesome, fucking radical, sober life, and I think you are too. And I don't think anyone a hundred percent it is a superpower never having a hangover, plus all the money and the fitness benefits of being sober. But we'll save that for a future episode.

Justin Taylor: The best kept secret in the world.

Justin Taylor's Tips for Fitness, Money, and Life

Justin: You know I prepped you for this. I don't think we did it in your first interview because I don't think it was part of my show. But at the end I like to ask the guest to share his or her tip tools and strategies for fitness slash health, money slash wealth, and life slash happiness. So what do you got for us, Justin?

Justin Taylor: Alrighty, let's get into it. And I know the episodes I listened to before, we kind of hit one, talk about it a little bit, and then hit the next one, right? So

Justin: However you want, let's do it. If you got the time, I love to go back and forth a little bit on each one before we go. But if you're in a rush, we can keep it short.

Justin Taylor: All right.

Yeah, let's hit it one at a time. So I'd start with fitness. For me, that one is kind of like you mentioned about like having a community is make it part of your lifestyle, not just this like decision that you're making every day, but really like changing who you are and like building a whole lifestyle around it. I mean, I think about it's what I do for recreation. Like when I want to hang out with a buddy, instead of just like trying to find a place for us to go to dinner together or a place for us to grab a drink or for us to go see a movie, like I can plan a run or a lift or whatever. Like I plan, like it's my social outlet. It is you know, also like if when I think about like on the nutrition side of that with fitness, like, you know, don't it's not things like I suffer through. It is, it's I'm I learn how to cook these really healthy meals and I look forward to it and I'm excited about it. Like it's my, it's part of my overall lifestyle. It is not just this little decision that I've made where I'm like, Okay, I want to get like healthier. No, like I'm turning my entire lifestyle into this like healthy lifestyle instead of just this like kind of like it's a side hobby. But I really try to integrate it into all forms of life and community.

Justin: Hundred percent. I firmly believe that if you want to be fit, it has to become your lifestyle. Because if it's your default way of living, you're always gonna be fit. And Justin and I are both perfect examples of this. When I go travel, I'm looking for the fitness experience of the trip just as much as the visiting a new location and sightseeing and doing new things. For me, visiting a gym in another city is like going to a playground that I've never been to. Running through a new area is obstacle course that I'm racing through that I've never raced through. And it's just so exciting. And if there are no gyms available, then it's a challenge of how do I do body weight workouts or bring a kettlebell with me if I'm on a road trip, or can I find a kids' park where there's monkey bars and do pull-ups and push-ups and air squats and jumps and sprints through the grass or whatever. And that way, whether you're traveling, it's with you, whether you're at home and you're organizing your social time with friends around fitness. I'm the 100% same way. During that three years where I wasn't eating out at restaurants, every time someone would invite me, a friend, to a meal, I would say, How about we go for a hike or a workout or a walk instead? And people loved it. And I loved it. And it helped me stay fit and helped them get more fit if they were less fit than me. So I 100% agree with you, Justin. I think one of the most powerful things you can do for your fitness is make it a part of your lifestyle. And it's so much more powerful if that fitness lifestyle is centered or anchored in community because you live in Austin and you have an incredible fitness community. I know that I've never been there, but I see it on social media how amazing it is. Here in Santa Cruz, we have an incredible pickleball community, incredible bodybuilding community, incredible surf community.

Commun I don't even surf, but there's tons of people surfing, biking, hiking, mountain biking, all sorts of things. And no matter where you are in the world, there is a fitness community in your geographic location. And you just have to choose to make that a part of your lifestyle. And then the byproduct is a fit and healthy body.

Justin Taylor: Yeah. And I mean you make it enjoyable, right? Like you that's what helps you make it a lifestyle. You don't do the crash diet that makes you cut out every food you love. You don't only do workouts that you hate and that you don't want to go to. Of course, you're not going to stick to that because you hate it. Like there's plenty of options out there. There's so many different workout modalities. There is so many different, like you said earlier, you can kind of eat whatever you want as long as you stay within the numbers. Like there's so many different ways you can build a diet, so many different modalities of working out. Find what you love to do that you can stick with and make it that lifestyle and not make it something that you're suffering through and that you're like crashing through and that you're that you know you can only sign up for like three months of because that's not, I mean, that is just inherently not sustainable. So that was my fitness one.

Justin: I love it. What do you got for money slash wealth?

Money: Stop Negotiating With Yourself

Justin Taylor: So for finance, I would say like no negotiating. Like build that plan, build your rules of operations, your style of investing, your rules for investing, that kind of like contract with yourself. Set it and forget it. Like build that plan, follow it, and stop negotiating with yourself. So whether that needs to be like auto drafts or like I only invest in these index funds and I'm not gonna get suckered into like putting all my money in this IPO or this individual stock or this crypto. Like make those rules for yourself. Or maybe you're like, okay, I will allow myself 10% into that kind of investment. Make that rule and leave it alone. It's not 11%. It's not 12%. It's 10. You it's 10, like stick to it. It's kind of like the we don't negotiate with terrorists and in this situation, we are the terrorists. Like, so it takes away so much mental energy. It also takes all that emotion out of it. Like investing should not be emotional. So like when markets are dropping, you don't have to worry about like should you or shouldn't you sell because you already made that decision three years ago that you weren't going to sell. And it's a contract and treat it that way. Like it is a legal binding document with yourself.

Justin: Yeah. I totally agree with you. I think the more time you spend negotiating with yourself on various aspects of your finances, the more energy you're wasting that could be used to earn more money, save more money, or just enjoy life more. Because you're wasting mental cycles, emotional cycles thinking about a decision that should be a one and done decision. 90 percent of my investments are in these three index funds. 10 percent I get to play with. And if there's an IPO coming up and I want to put some money in it, it has to come from that 10%, and that's it. Done. Don't have to wishy washy, you know. And I watched online this unfold over the last week or so with a SpaceX IPO.

Just watching so many people get so caught up in it, and I'm like, you're crazy. This isn't gonna make you reach financial independence. If you're having to think through whether or not you should or should not invest in SpaceX, I know you're not financially independent. Because this is the wrong way of thinking. It's you know, it can be a fun little side, five to 10 percent of your portfolio. You can play with IPOs and stock pick.

But every single person I know that has reached financial independence did it one of three ways. They worked a nine-to-five and invested in index funds. They worked in nine-to-five and did real estate, or they built a business, or they did a combination of all three. Right. Now, there's always side cases. Someone got super lucky, won the lottery, or made it in crypto. But still to this day, I don't know a single person in my real life who their wealth came from something like day trading or like they're a millionaire who's early retired like you and me and their money came from something like Bitcoin or day trading or sports betting or whatever. They may have made a lot of money, but then they end up losing it.

Justin Taylor: Yeah, and also like you know, we can always find an outlier. Like I remember there was a guy who was like a hundred and two who smoked a cigar every day. That doesn't mean you should smoke a cigar every day. Like it's still probably in your best interest to play the odds. And so the odds are that's not the best way to go.

Justin: Yeah, and the other thing is I've had this conversation with JL Collins, author The Simple Path to Wealth, and I think you would agree, and it's related to kind of what you said. If you want to achieve financial independence, you have to decide that is a top goal. And if it is a top goal, that means you're gonna do these things. You're gonna save and invest this much of your money. And of course you may have a month or two where you miss that target, but the you know, ninety, eighty, 90 percent of the time you should be hitting the target that you set yourself for yourself. And that's gonna get you to FI. And there's so many examples of people who made financial independence a top goal of theirs. And they did it in so many different ways. Justin Taylor, he worked a W-2 job, a low paying W-2 job for the first six years, higher paying the last three years, and this man retired in his early thirties. And he doesn't work as optional for the rest of his life. Right? And I discovered financial independence really late in my life, but I decided it was a top goal for me. And I said, Hey, this is what I'm gonna do with my money. And I didn't question myself every month. Once I decided I was gonna pursue financial independence, this is what I was gonna do, and I would just was about it every single month for several years and now I'm work optional for the rest of my life, even though I didn't discover this stuff until I was in my mid thirties. I basically was around Justin's current age when I discovered it. So absolutely love it. What do you got for life slash happiness?

Life: Put Every Option on the Table

Justin Taylor: Yeah, for this one to me, like I love this concept of like first principle way of thinking. So like in the engineering world, it's like when you think about a problem, throw away everything that is like typically the way something is solved, or other people have solved it. And basically, if it does not break one of the laws of physics, it's on the table. And so when you're like building your life, like really think about like every option is on the table. You don't have to live your life the way everybody else is living it. Like some people may think it's weird.

That we rent out our primary house on like Airbnb, or some people might think the way we travel is weird. Some people might think that not wanting to have kids is weird. Whatever it is. It doesn't matter. Like it's what we want to do. It's what makes us happy. And so like basically just kind of really opening up your aperture to what is possible and rethinking, like scrapping what is normal and just putting it all on the table and really designing the life that is best for you.

And not just what like you're supposed to do.

Justin: Yeah. A Life Well Worth It.

Justin Taylor: A Life Well Worth It?

Designing a Life Well Worth It

Justin: For you individually. And it's gonna look different for all of us. And that's exactly how it should be because life is so abundantly different. But as long as you are happy and you are living the life that you want, that's all that matters. And I think there are so many examples of people who've chosen to go against the grain of what is normal and they live extraordinary lives. And I think Justin Taylor is a perfect example of that. So Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show for the second time. I'm gonna have you come back on for a third time. We're gonna talk about sobriety.

We're gonna talk about being child free by choice, because I am also child free by choice. Currently, that could change in the future, but I think that would be another fun subject. And then the other thing I think I may wanna dig into a little bit more with you because you're about half a year ahead of me, is just like kind of just insight and wisdom about the first few years of early retirement. And it's always you know, I consider you a good friend, so it's always fun to have these long deep questions and I get to ask all the weird shit that I want to ask you and go back and forth and philosophize about fitness and money and life. So thank you so much for coming on the show, brother. We'll put links to Life Well Worth It, your Substack, the Kindred house-sharing network that you mentioned, as well as your spreadsheet for people who wanna know just how he was able to do all these various things in his life for so low cost. So thank you so much for coming on the show, brother.

Justin Taylor: Thank you for having me.