Dive into the intriguing world of financial independence with a refreshing twist in this captivating episode of Money Talk With Tiff, featuring the brilliant Diana Miriam. Discover the nuances of Coast FI, a unique approach within the FIRE movement that emphasizes the power of compound interest to secure your future without the pressure of a full-time grind.

Diana demystifies the concept of Coast FI, explaining how it allows individuals to "take their foot off the gas" and enjoy the freedom of financial independence much earlier. She shares valuable insights on knowing your expenses and setting achievable milestones on your journey to financial freedom.

Tiffany and Diana also explore the human side of financial independence, discussing the importance of community and the excitement of the EconoMe Conference—a place where FIRE enthusiasts can reignite their passion, meet like-minded individuals and even find love.

Listeners will walk away with a renewed sense of possibility, practical tips for embarking on their Coast FI journey, and an exclusive offer for the Economy Conference. If you're ready to rethink retirement and embrace a life of financial autonomy, this episode is your gateway to a community where money meets meaning.

Join the conversation, learn about the spectrum of financial independence, and discover how you can start making significant changes today. Don't forget to grab your discount for the EconoMe Conference with the code TIFF, and mark your calendars for March 15th, 2024!

About Our Guest

Diania Merriam is the founder of The EconoMe Conference, a party about money designed specifically for the FIRE movement (financial independence, retire early). She's also the host of the popular podcast Optimal Finance Daily, where she narrates articles from the best personal finance blogs on the planet.

Discovering the FIRE movement in 2015 led her to get out of $30k of debt in 11 months, save and invest 60% of her income, take a 2-month sabbatical to walk 500 miles across northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago, and self-fund her own business. She retired from her corporate career at 33 years old and now helps others find community and inspiration on the path to financial freedom.

She's been featured on Good Morning America, Business Insider, CNBC, MarketWatch, Good Day Columbus, and WLWT5, as well as podcasts including Choose FI, Bigger Pockets Money, and Stacking Benjamins.

Connect with Diania

Visit the website: https://economeconference.com/ (Use code TIFF for 10% off)

Twitter: @economecon

Instagram: @economecon

Facebook: EconoMe Conference

Connect with Tiffany

Website: https://moneytalkwitht.com

Facebook: Money Talk With Tiff 

Twitter: @moneytalkwitht 

Instagram: @moneytalkwitht 

LinkedIn: Tiffany Grant

Additional Links & Resources

• 3 Most Common Types Of Healthcare Fraud With Angel Cellucci | Ep. 287

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Copyright 2024 Money Talk With Tiff

Intro/Outro: You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk

money with your money nerd and financial coach.

Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears.

It's the money talk with Tiff. podcast.

Hey, everyone. I, am so excited because I

have Diana Miriam on the line. Now,

Diana is an expert in phi, but

just not any fi. When I. Financial independence, y'all.

But coast phi. And so there's a

myriad of different fis out there, and

we've never talked about coast fi on the line, so. Hey,

Diana, how are you?

I'm, great. Thanks so much for having.

Perfect. Perfect. Well, let's just hop right in.

What is this coast fi? If you

can just give us, just the

brief overview of what it is and maybe an example of how that

would play out.

Absolutely. Well, I think

when I think about the fire movement and kind of

the terminology that we use, which I get

for people who aren't familiar with the fire movement, it may

be a little annoying, like this kind of

terminology that we use, where we're really just,

trying to create some shared meaning against

this kind of very niche movement.

And a lot of people are familiar with

traditional fire financial independence. Retire

early. What we're doing is striving

to, get to 25 times our

annual expenses in our nest egg. That

is at the point that we say we're financially independent,

we can quit our jobs if we want.

we can retire early. That's kind of

how people come up with their phi number, like that

goalpost that they're striving for. So I think

most people are kind of familiar with having

25 times your expenses. The 4%

rule, all that kind of stuff. Where coast

phi comes in is, I really kind of

look at phi as a

spectrum, right? Kind of. there's

milestones on the path to achieving

25 times your annual expenses. And

coast Phi, to me, is one of those milestones. So I would

say the first milestone is probably

becoming debt free, right? That's a big one for

a lot of people. That was actually my favorite part of my money

journey, becoming debt free. Then you save your

emergency fund, then you save your

fu. Money, or peace out money for

the polite among us. Right? And

then there's this other milestone called

coastfi. And so a more direct

answer to your question. It's at the point

when you have enough in your

investment portfolio where

it is going to grow, ah, through

the power of compound interest, to what you

need later in life for a more traditional retirement.

I like to think of it as front loading your

traditional retirement savings. And the

benefit to this is after you reach

coast Phi, in theory,

you're debt free. As far as, like, high interest

consumer debt. You have your emergency fund. You

have your fu. Money. so you've got your kind

of cash position, right, kind of

settled. And then your traditional

retirement savings are done. So, in

theory, you really just need

to cover your expenses each year

until later in life, when you start drawing down

on your portfolio. And what I like about Coast

Phi is it allows you to kind of, take

your foot off the gas much earlier in

life. And just let compound interest do the

rest of the work for you.

Interesting. Okay, so coast phi

is when you pretty much fund your

retirement account, but you have the option

of continuing to work or doing whatever

it is you're doing. And just keep doing that until

it's time to start taking out from your retirement. Is

that correct?

Right. So really, your only,

financial need at that point of reaching cost phi

is to cover your yearly expenses. And so, for

someone like me, my expenses are super

low. And so I'm able to cover them on

just 4 hours of work a week. I

tell people I retired from my corporate career because I'm not

gainfully employed. Right. Like, 4 hours a week is

basically a hobby at that point. And

so I think it's a milestone on the

path. And it allows you to kind of make some big

changes in your life a lot sooner than

waiting until you have 25 times your

expenses.

Diana, I love that. And I feel like

it gives really actionable

items for people to strive to. And it doesn't

feel as daunting as, like, for instance,

the 25 times and all of that stuff.

So if people were getting started with Coast Phi, what

are some tips or some things that they should keep in

mind? it sounds like one of them is to make sure

you know your numbers

100%.

I mean, when it comes to any

financial planning, forecasting,

even determining what is my fi number, you

have to have a really good sense of what your

expenses are now, because that's really the

main point of data you have to work with.

I think it's impossible at any stage

of life, especially when you're really young, to

know at any point, I have all the

money I'll ever need for the rest of my life.

I think early retirement and financial

independence, it's kind of an optimistic,

act, right? Because you're

basing your decisions on a

lot of assumptions. And that's another reason why I

like making moves. When you reach certain

milestones versus waiting until you get to

this goalpost of 25 times.

Because what we see a lot in the fire movement is that

that goalpost keeps moving as your

circumstances of your life change. And

so by kind of taking

on some changes earlier,

you kind of get to experience the freedom of

financial independence without completely

pulling the plug. I think it's very jarring

for people to go from working full

time to not working at all. And they

think that their bank account is going to give them

permission to take these big risks. But what we

see a lot of people talking about is like, I'm not

ready for that. I'm not ready to go from full steam ahead

to completely stopping everything. And

so I think by exercising

some freedoms along the way, you get to kind

of understand what it feels like to have more autonomy over

your time versus pulling the plug

later completely.

Yes. I love that.

Personally, what I'm doing now,

I'm like, I could totally see myself doing this

forever for life. I don't

see an end. And for people like me

that are doing what they love to do, they're like, well, I don't want

to retire. So that kind

of gives us some hope. With all of

the fluff out there about fire and

all that stuff. it gives us some, attainable

goalposts, that we can move, we can

strive for, and things like that. So I really

like this concept of Coastfi, and I feel like

this might be something that I want to strive for, in the

meantime, in between time. So

with that being said, since we're talking about

financial independence, I did want to bring up.

Because Phi is better with friends, right?

Absolutely. What's the point of retiring early if you have no one to

hang out with?

We got to have friends.

It just makes things so much better and

so much easier to do when you

have people around you that are going towards the

same goals as you. So, with

that being said, don't you have a conference for

everybody that's going towards financial independence?

Yes. So I run the economy

conference. We're going into our fourth

year, and. Yeah. So the next

event is in March of 2024.

And really, the conference

addresses two main problems that I

see people face on the path to financial

independence. The first is community.

Right. A lot of people feel like fire is a lonely

path. They can't talk to their friends and family about it, or

their friends and family think they're weird. And so

to surround yourself with people who

are thinking a bit differently about money and

lifestyle design and that kind of

stuff, I think is really helpful for people.

I know for me, especially

surrounding myself with people from the fire movement

has drastically improved my path.

the second issue that we solve is that

when you first discover fire, a lot of us

are super gung ho. We lower our

expenses, we increase our income, we come up with our investment

strategy, and then you kind of like

five to seven years in. I mean, it could take anywhere from

five to 20 years for someone to reach Phi. So

when you get in kind of like the boring middle

where you're socking

your money away or you're investing in real estate,

and you kind of just get into this

boring middle that isn't very inspiring. And

so I really look to bring

in speakers and topics and

programming that kind of fuel the fire

and get you as excited about it as you were in the

beginning. so, yeah, we've got a really

broad audience. About 70% of our audience

flies into Cincinnati for it. so it's definitely

a national conference, not just a local event,

and it's just a very

empowering weekend. And it's really

satisfying for me to see the friendships that are

made, the people

finding a spouse. For instance, I think of

couples that met at the event, and I'm just like, I so want

to crash their wedding because I'm so excited for them.

and people starting businesses together and traveling

together, it's just really an exciting thing.

And so, yeah, that is

happening next march.

That is amazing. So if you all are looking for

your significant, and I'm just kidding.

But to your point, though, in all

seriousness, I, remember when I first

became privy to the whole fiery movement,

and I read, your money or your life by Vicki

Robin, who was like, the godmother of fire.

And, when I did that, I was

all like, gung ho. I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do

that, I'm going to do this, make sure I'm debt free by this time. And

I was just all in it to win it, right? And

then I started fizzling out a little bit

as life started happening and life started

lifeing. I was like,

ooh, is this really attainable? So

I love that you have this conference, and you created this

conference for people to get that spark back

or to learn more about it. So if people are

listening and they're like, okay, I

understand economy is for people doing the fire movement

or what have you, what can they expect

to learn and take away other than a significant

other?

Sure. so I really

try to bring in content.

that's a little bit surprising, right? I want everyone,

even to feel like they're walking

away, learning something new. And so

I'll give you an example. One of the biggest topics

within the fire movement is, but what do you do about health

insurance? Right? Everyone wants to know, when you retire early, what do

you do about health insurance? I see it

posted on the different Facebook groups and

forums almost every day, and

that is something that is very

widely discussed. but a couple of years ago

for the conference, and this is just an example of the kind of

content, I found a medical billing

fraud investigator, and she brought

attention to this $80 billion problem

that nobody is talking about, which is medical billing

fraud, which happens whether you have insurance or

not. And so that is something that I haven't seen

anyone discuss in the fire movement. What do you do

when you get a big medical bill, even when you have health

insurance? and so

that's the kind of content that I'm

looking to bring to the

conference. It's stuff that's a little bit unexpected and that

you're not constantly hearing on the different fire

blogs.

I think that is perfect. and that's

why I asked that question, because the

audience members that are listening, like, okay, I already know what the fire

movement is. Why do I need to go?

that gives some insight into the types of

topics that may not be discussed on these fire

blogs or fire podcasts or fire social

media, because y'all are everywhere.

it may not be discussed. So I appreciate you

coming on the podcast, discussing Coastfi and then

also the economy conference, because, like I said,

just from my own experience, it's really important to

have like minded individuals around you,

and in your corner. So if people are interested in finding

out more about either coast fire or

economy or anything fi related,

how could they find you?

Sure, you can go to economyconference.com,

and economy is spelled with an me at the end instead

of an my little plan words there. But

economyconference.com is where you can learn all about the

conference. Check out our speakers and our programming.

and for listeners of this show, I'm going to

give you a 10% discount for

tickets, with the coupon,

code tiff, all caps tif

will get you 10% off tickets. And the next event is

March 15 through 17th of

2024.

March 15? That's my birthday.

But yes, and I will make sure I have all

of those links and information in the show notes

because we love a good discount. Don't y'all? So

thank you so much, Diana, for coming on the show

today, and I hope to see you all at

economy. Bye.

Intro/Outro: Thank you for listening, joining and being a part of the Money

Talk with TIFF podcast this week. You can check TIFf

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next time, spend wise by spending less than

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sufficient.