Financial Independence Podcast

By The Mad Fientist

Business Investing

What's Financial Independence Podcast about?

Join the Mad Fientist as he interviews personal-finance icons like Mr. Money Mustache, Ramit Sethi, and JL Collins to discover the strategies they used to achieve financial independence and retire early! Learn about investing, tax avoidance, entrepreneurship, travel hacking, real estate, and all things related to financial independence and early retirement!

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LAST EPISODE

Ramit Sethi – How to Spend ...

02.17.2023

On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I welcome back Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You to Be Rich! I needed someone to come on the show to provide some tough love and Ramit was the only person ...

Financial Independence Podcast episodes:

02.17.2023 Ramit Sethi – How to Spend (and Actually Enjoy It) On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I welcome back Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You to Be Rich! I needed someone to come on the show to provide some tough love and Ramit was the only person ...
12.14.2022 My Family - Raising Money-Smart Kids Over the last few years, I interviewed members of my family to find out two things: How I became the Mad Fientist (i.e. where did I get my extreme ideas about money) What advice they'd give to parents hoping to ...
10.01.2022 Podcast Takeover: The FI Show - Employee vs. Entrepreneur Cody Berman and Justin Taylor, hosts of the FI Show, have both achieved financial independence but they've taken drastically different paths to get there. Listen to this Podcast Takeover episode to hear the similarities and differences between an employee's path ...
09.02.2022 Mad Fientist Jr. - Why I’m Appreciating FI More Than Ever Now Life has completely changed. And because of this major change, I'm even more grateful for the freedom, flexibility, and time that financial independence and early retirement provide. In this short episode, I fill you in on what's been happening and ...
06.27.2022 Podcast Takeover: Financial Independence Europe - Effective Altruism Welcome to another podcast-takeover episode of the Financial Independence podcast! This time, Mathias from the Financial Independence Europe podcast takes over the show to talk to Luke Freeman (from Giving What We Can) and Rebecca Herbst (from Yield and Spread) ...
05.31.2022 The Best Advice from Mr. Money Mustache Exactly 10 years ago, I released the first episode of the Financial Independence Podcast! To celebrate this big birthday, I’ve collected all the best advice from my interviews with my very first podcast guest – Mr. Money Mustache! Highlights Mr. ...
04.25.2022 Aime to Invest – From Bankruptcy to FI in 8 Years On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I speak to Patrick Aime from Aime to Invest! Patrick’s journey to FI is an incredible one. He… Moved from his home in Rwanda to attend high school in Europe and college ...
03.28.2022 Podcast Takeover: Mile High FI - Early Retirement Failures & Successes I'm excited to share with you the first Podcast Takeover episode of the Financial Independence Podcast! Carl and Doug from the Mile High FI podcast take over the Financial Independence Podcast to talk about their early retirement successes and failures. ...
12.15.2021 The Escape Artist - FIRE in the UK I have some big news… I am now a British citizen! In honor of finally getting my UK passport, and therefore completing this long journey to citizenship, I am releasing my UK FIRE episode. Barney, from The Escape Artist, joined ...
11.15.2021 Bogleheads - Life After FIRE Last year, I published an interview with one of my favorite financial writers, Morgan Housel. You may remember that the interview was recorded as part of a Bogleheads meeting and the interview was actually conducted by my buddy, Gouri. Well, ...
08.20.2021 Fifth (and Final) Annual Update If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know that I’ve released an annual update every year since I quit my job. It’s now been five years since I stopped working so this is my fifth (and final) annual update. ...
01.19.2021 Early Retirement Extreme - A Systems Approach to Lifestyle Design On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I finally got to interview the person who introduced me to the concept of financial independence and early retirement in the first place… Jacob Lund Fisker from Early Retirement Extreme! To my ...
10.02.2020 8 Key Lessons from the Ultralearning Experiment Last year, I conducted an experiment in Ultralearning that I hoped would help me achieve a lifelong dream of mine of writing and releasing an album. I’m happy to say it was far more successful than I ever imagined it ...
09.10.2020 Morgan Housel - The Psychology of Money One of my favorite financial writers, Morgan Housel, is on the Financial Independence Podcast today! I’m not the one conducting the interview this time though (all is explained in the episode). Morgan’s insight into how to handle uncertainty, market crashes, ...
08.07.2020 Valuable Lessons from My Fourth Year of Freedom It’s been four years since I left my full-time job and what a crazy year it’s been! To celebrate this anniversary and to recap the things I’ve learned during this last year of post-FI life (and the COVID market crash), ...
03.16.2020 Coronavirus Market Crash - Is This Time Different? Bear markets are a normal part of investing but is this time different? As the coronavirus COVID-19 spreads around the world, governments are struggling to limit the economic impact of the disease. In today’s unplanned episode of the Financial Independence ...
10.16.2019 Scott Young - Ultralearning On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I’m excited to introduce Scott Young! I first heard about Scott when he decided to complete MIT's entire computer science curriculum in a year. Scott has taken on a lot of these ...
08.01.2019 Third Year of Freedom I can’t believe it but it’s already been three years since I left my full-time job! To commemorate this special anniversary and to recap the things I’ve learned during this last year of post-FI life (which happened to be the ...
05.14.2019 Ramit Sethi - I Will Teach You to be Rich Personal-finance icon Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You to be Rich joins me for an episode of the Financial Independence Podcast! Ramit first published his New York Times best-selling book, I Will Teach You to be Rich, back in ...
03.05.2019 Cal Newport – Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and the Key to a Happy Retirement On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I’m very excited to introduce author Cal Newport! I’ve been a huge fan of Cal’s writing for many years so it was a treat to get to talk to him. We explore ...
02.06.2019 Millennial Money - From Broke to Millionaire in 5 Years On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, my buddy Grant from Millennial Money joins me to talk about how he went from having $2.26 in the bank to $1.25 million in just 5 years, 3 months, and 6 days! ...
01.23.2019 Tony - Going Back to Work After Early Retirement It’s easy to think that early retirement will be the answer to all your problems. After all, how could you not be happy when you don’t have to work anymore? I’ve written about why early retirement is not a magic ...
12.18.2018 Monumental Strength – How to Get Fit (and Actually Enjoy It) I made two big mistakes when I was pursuing financial independence… The first was I put off happiness until I hit FI. The second was I also put off my health. In today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I ...
10.16.2018 James Clear - Atomic Habits and Building a New Identity After Retirement A challenging aspect of early retirement is the loss of identity you may experience when leaving a career you’ve spent a big chunk of your life building. However, one of the most exciting parts of early retirement is that you ...
10.02.2018 Travis Shakespeare - Playing with FIRE If you’ve been reading about financial independence for a while, you’ve likely seen that the topic is getting more popular lately. Although FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early) is far bigger than it was when I created this site in ...
08.31.2018 Chad Carson - Retire Early with Real Estate Chad Carson from CoachCarson.com joins me again on the Financial Independence Podcast to talk about the various strategies you can use to retire early with real estate! Highlights: The best real-estate strategies to use to reach financial independence and retire ...
08.01.2018 Second Year of Freedom I can't believe it... It's already been two years since I left my full-time job! To celebrate this special anniversary, I decided to release a podcast episode containing my thoughts on my second year of freedom. Find out what a ...
07.30.2018 First Year of Freedom On August 1st, 2018, it will be exactly two years since I left my full-time job as a software developer. To celebrate, I've decided to release two podcast episodes that contain all the valuable lessons I learned during my first ...
06.20.2018 Scott Trench - Set for Life On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I’m joined by the president of biggerpockets.com and cohost of the BiggerPockets Money Show, Scott Trench! Scott breaks down the journey to financial independence into three stages and explains what you need ...
05.09.2018 Marla Taner – Striving for Happiness After Early Retirement My good friend Marla Taner joined me on the Financial Independence Podcast to go deep into some early-retirement topics that aren’t often discussed. Marla and I met in 2014 at Camp Mustache and we’ve had a lot of fun (and ...
03.28.2018 Money Talks – Live from the UK Chautauqua with Vicki Robin Last August, I was down in England with Vicki Robin (author of Your Money or Your Life) for the FI Chautauqua. We were chatting about the new version of the book she was working on (which is out now!) and ...
03.05.2018 Elizabeth Willard Thames – Meet the Frugalwoods Today on the Financial Independence Podcast, I welcome back Liz Thames (a.k.a. Mrs. Frugalwoods)! Liz was last on the show over two years ago and a lot has changed. Since then, she’s made her dream of retiring to a homestead ...
02.08.2018 My Brother – Using the Power of Money to Pursue Your Passion On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I interview my little brother while drinking wine next to a canal in Venice! Brian, who is three years younger than me, isn’t actively pursuing financial independence but he’s done some really ...
12.19.2017 Chris Hutchins – Why You Should “Retire” Before You Hit Your Number On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I interview a serial entrepreneur who has achieved financial independence three different ways! You’d think that selling a company to Google or buying San Francisco real estate before prices went crazy would ...
11.14.2017 Physician on FIRE – Geographic Arbitrage, Sunk Costs, and Gangsta Rap It’s been a while since I posted a new Financial Independence Podcast episode but I’m excited to share one with you today! Mr. and Mrs. 1500 from 1500Days.com joined me live at FinCon in Dallas to interview the Physician on ...
08.31.2017 Michael Kitces – The 4% Rule and Financial Planning for Early Retirement One of the internet’s most-respected retirement researchers and financial planners, Michael Kitces, joins me for an episode of the Financial Independence Podcast! You may remember that my Safe Withdrawal Rate post drew heavily from the incredible research Kitces has done ...
07.17.2017 The Happy Philosopher - Semiretirement and Finding Happiness On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, Jeff from The Happy Philosopher joins me to discuss the unique challenges that doctors and other professionals face on the journey to early retirement. When you invest so much time, money, and ...
06.12.2017 Mr. Money Mustache – Early Retirement Made Easy (Rebroadcast) To celebrate the 5-year anniversary of launching the Financial Independence Podcast, I've republished the very first interview I recorded back in 2012 with Mr. Money Mustache. In addition to the original interview, this episode also contains an updated introduction that ...
05.16.2017 Think Save Retire - Selling Everything and Retiring to an RV On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Steve from ThinkSaveRetire.com! Steve initially planned to retire at the age of 40 but after making some drastic lifestyle changes, he ended up walking away ...
04.05.2017 Your Money or Your Life – An Interview with Author Vicki Robin I can’t believe it… One of the founders of the financial independence movement, Vicki Robin, joined me for an episode of the Financial Independence Podcast! Vicki and her partner Joe Dominguez wrote the book, Your Money or Your Life – ...
02.27.2017 Our Next Life - Retiring to a Life in the Mountains Later this year, at the ages of 38 and 41, the couple behind OurNextLife.com will be quitting the stressful, time-consuming jobs that they’ve held for most of their adult lives and will be retiring to a life in the mountains. ...
01.20.2017 Coach Carson - The Simple Way to Retire Early with Real Estate After delivering an epic guest post on the tax advantages of investing in real estate, I asked Chad Carson from CoachCarson.com to join me on the podcast to hear more about his own experiences with real estate investing. Chad started ...
12.30.2016 Fiery Millennials and Millennial Boss – A Millennial’s Guide to FI On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, Gwen from Fiery Millennials and Julie from Millennial Boss join me to talk about millennial finances and what young people should do to reach financial independence as quickly as possible! Highlights: Thoughts ...
12.22.2016 Sane Fientist - My Wife's Thoughts on Financial Independence On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, I interview my wife, Jill! It took a lot of persuading to get her on the show but I’m glad she agreed because her perspective is very different from mine so it ...
12.01.2016 Millennial Revolution – Denouncing the Cult of Homeownership Joining me on today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast are FIRECracker (Kristy) and Wanderer (Bryce) from Millennial Revolution! Kristy and Bryce exploded onto the scene after a video clip of them attacking the religion of homeownership went viral (it ...
11.22.2016 PopUp Business School - The Right Way to Start a Business I just returned from a fantastic week at the annual Chautauqua event in Ecuador. This was my second Chautauqua and just like last year, it exceeded all expectations. It’s amazing what can happen when you put a bunch of interesting, ...
11.01.2016 Adventuring Along – From $0 to Retired in 5 Years Want to know how two teachers were able to go from $0 net worth to retired in just 5 years? On today’s episode of the Financial Independence Podcast, Ali and Joe (a.k.a. Arebelspy) from Adventuring Along join me to talk ...
10.11.2016 Mad Fientist – 1500 Days Podcast Takeover My podcast was hijacked! During this year’s financial blogger conference (a.k.a. FinCon) in San Diego, Mr. and Mrs. 1500 from 1500days.com took control of the Financial Independence Podcast and put me on the hot seat (a very hot seat, indeed)! ...
09.30.2016 The Military Guide – Angel Investing, Market Crashes, & 14 Years of Early Retirement Today on the Financial Independence Podcast, Doug Nordman (a.k.a. Nords) from The Military Guide joins me to talk about how he achieved financial independence at the age of 41 by serving in the military! Doug retired way back in 2002 ...
09.12.2016 Camp Mustache – Q&A with Mr. Money Mustache, Afford Anything, & The Military Guide Today on the Financial Independence Podcast, I’m excited to share a live Q&A; session with Mr. Money Mustache, Paula Pant from Afford Anything, and Doug Nordman from The Military Guide! This panel discussion took place back in May at Camp ...

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