Q&A: I Reached Financial Independence Three Years Early … Now What?

Paula Pant (0:00)

Joe, if you had to choose between retiring as soon as possible or paying off a mortgage, what would you go for?

Joe Salsi (0:10)

It depends on how much I like my job.

Paula Pant (0:11)

Oh, well, it's also, I predict, going to depend on a variety of other factors, which we are about to discuss. Are we? We are, because we are answering a detailed question from a caller. She is 53 years old. Her pseudonym is Carol, because she has called in before, and that was the name that we gave her. Carol, age 53, wants to talk about mortgage payoff versus early retirement. But before we get to her question, we're going to first address a question from Susanna, who wants to hire her first CPA.

And after we talk about all of this, we're going to discuss your feelings, Joe, about risk parity versus the efficient frontier.

Joe Salsi (0:52)

My feelings?

Paula Pant (0:54)

Your feelings, yeah.

Joe Salsi (0:55)

Oh, I have feelings.

Paula Pant (0:57)

And for people who are new to this and who don't know what risk parity or efficient frontier I mean, don't worry, Joe's going to rant. And you're going to find it, whether you like it or not, you're going to find out.

Joe Salsi (1:09)

Oh no.

Paula Pant (1:10)

Oh no.

Joe Salsi (1:11)

Big promises.

Paula Pant (1:12)

Oh, well, Joe, I mean, I know you have strong feelings about risk parity.

Joe Salsi (1:16)

I may.

Paula Pant (1:17)

Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you could afford anything, not everything. The show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, entrepreneurship, acronym, double eye fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia and every other episode-ish.

We answer questions that come from you and I do so with my buddy, the former financial planner, Joe Salsi. Hi. What's up, Joe?

Joe Salsi (1:42)

You've known me for a long time, Paula, and you know about my ADD.

Paula Pant (1:46)

ADHD, I thought.

Joe Salsi (1:48)

I was just wondering the other day, how many people with ADD does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Paula Pant (1:54)

How many?

Joe Salsi (1:56)

You want to go for a bike ride?

Paula Pant (1:57)

No. I should state for the record, both Joe and I have an ADHD diagnosis.

Joe Salsi (2:05)

It's only funny because it's so true in my life. That's a question I would ask.

Paula Pant (2:10)

A thousand percent. That is, if you could see the behind the scenes of how this show gets edited, it's like two diag... And I have not been on any medication for it for years. The medication interfered with my sleep, and so I didn't like taking it, and so I'm managing it naturally.

And that is, there are good days and bad days.

Joe Salsi (2:31)

Yeah. Me too. Mine, it just made me very efficient. I was such a taskmaster. I was so good when I was on the medication. But I love the creativity of creating what I do. And I was not creative. I just could not find one on the medication. My creativity, for whatever reason, just went dry. So same thing. I try not to think during the day. I have all my tasks lined up, and I just knock them down.

Just like we're going to knock down three questions today.

Paula Pant (3:00)

Look at that segue.

Wow. The creativity that went into that segue. All right. Well, we're going to kick off with the first question, which comes from Susanna.

Susanna (3:12)

Hi, Paula and Joe. I've been listening to your show for so many years, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you both for sharing your knowledge and experience with the world. Thank you. My main question today is, how do I find an accountant for my personal taxes? I've been a self-preparator. I was just a W2 worker with a couple of brokerage accounts with buy and hold investments, and I was living in Texas where there's no income tax, so I think there was nothing too complicated. Until now, I think my tax situation has become way too complicated. First, I recently got married and started filing jointly.

Since then, my husband quit his W2 and started his own business.

Third, we moved to Portland, Oregon this year, where we have state, county and city income taxes. And fourth, we were practically forced to become landlords with rent that covers only like 60% of our total mortgage payments.

It's probably a story for another day, but the gist is we bought the house in recent years when house prices started to drop, but they've kept dropping since, so we are underwater now.