This Nurse is Aspiring to Pursue a RichJourney- Ep. 18
From 2011 to 2019 Amon and Christine were on the path to create enough passive income to cover their expenses, now known as FIRE after Amon was at an awards ceremony where he received the same congratulatory certificate after working ten years and the person working 40 years. He decided he wasn’t about that life and Christina was 100% on board. On August 7th of 2019, Amon and Christina announced that they are retired early at 39.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy (00:03:53): All right, you guys, I am super juiced to be having on Amon and Christina of Our Rich Journey. Hey guys.
Amon Browning (00:04:02): Hey, what's up?
Christina Browning (00:04:03): Hi.
Naseema McElroy (00:04:05): And this is another segment in our series about living abroad, living the dream that I want to live. And so I'm a mega fan of Amon and Christina, and I am thrilled to be able to include them in the Nurses on Fire podcast and be able to expose you guys to them. So thank you guys so much for coming on and we're just gonna dive right in. Is that okay?
Amon Browning (00:04:32): Yes. Thank you so much for having us on. When you reached out to us and said, we do want to be on set, like yeah, let's do it. We were so excited to come talk to you.
Naseema McElroy (00:04:42): Oh you guys are so sweet. [inaudible] Thank you. Alright, so let's talk about your journey to financial independence. Like how and where did it start? Like were you guys already married? Where are you guys kind of like doing this before you got married? Like, take me all the way back to the beginning of your journey to financial freedom.
Amon Browning (00:05:04): Oh wow. Well you know what, it starts at a barbecue. It really does. So, Christina and I met in college at a barbecue that the black alumni was putting on for new students and Christina was an upperclassman. I was at lowerclassmen but the barbecue was free. So we were both with this barbecue. And of course, we were on a line getting a plate. She was standing right next to me. She was loading up on her plate and you know, she was taking full advantage of this free food and that's the basis of our story. Take the advantage of free food.
Amon Browning (00:05:38): But I knew that, you know, we had a really good conversation and we joke about that particular moment, but it actually signifies a really important aspect about one another. We took full advantage of the opportunities that were available to us. In this case it was free food. We're both on the same page. We weren't too proud to go to a barbecue for free, but we were also networking and getting to know people. And that's kind of how our journey started. And then from there, we dated for a number of years. We were working hard towards our goals in college. When we got out of college, we just continued to kind of feed off of each other. And when we first graduated from college, we continued that momentum of just trying to get better every opportunity. And so we started looking into investments. We started looking into real estate and you know, we started to formulate this investment strategy or this investment plan and at the time we graduated from college, we weren't thinking about financial independence. We were just kind of thinking about bringing wealth into our lives. So we started investing in real estate and we started investing in stocks. We didn't really know where we're going with all of this, but we knew that we were making progress towards this wealth-building goal.
Naseema McElroy (00:06:46): But did you guys learn about this like from your parents, did you guys go through college? I mean, did you like take out loans in college or did your parents pay for college? Like can you just talk about those two things really quickly?
Christina Browning (00:06:57): Yeah. So we did not come from wealthy families, but we went to a state school, so we had two different backgrounds. So my mom paid for my undergrad. We went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. So luckily, we made the choice and went to an affordable school. So my mother was able to pay for my undergrad so I didn't have school loans with that respect. And Amon was so awesome. He didn't have his parents pay for his schooling. He got all of his school paid for through scholarships, tiny scholarships.
Naseema McElroy (00:07:28): Like a whole bunch of them?
Amon Browning (00:07:32): Yeah. It was like over 25 scholarships from just local organizations from Vallejo. So it's a relatively small town and I reached out to everyone that had a scholarship and I got almost all of them.
Naseema McElroy (00:07:44): Wow.
Christina Browning (00:07:45): Yeah. I mean it really goes to that sort of hustle mentality that Amon has always had. It's like everyone always goes for the big scholarships, right? You want to get the big single scholarship that's going to pay for your whole entire four years or four years plus in college. And Amon had this idea like, you know what, everyone's going for those, I'm going to go for the ones that are only $250, $500, the ones that no one even bothers to put any effort towards because it's not worth of that. And he just did a bunch of these and that ended up paying for his whole entire undergrad, which is just amazing to me.
Amon Browning (00:08:18): We left college with relatively no amount of debt.
Naseema McElroy (00:08:20): And that's a good start. You guys graduated ahead of most people, so that's awesome. And I like the fact that you guys kinda had different kinds of funding sources, but ultimately you ended up at the same place and then you guys had that hustle and drive like just from the beginning to just set off on this journey to build wealth. And so we're right there. So you guys are newly married and you're looking at real estate and you're looking at investing and all those kinds of things. So if it didn't come from your parents, where did you learn these things?
Christina Browning (00:08:53): Yeah, I think, you know, even though my mom was able to pay for my college, I was actually the first person in my family to go to college and my mom raised us as a single mother. And her whole mentality in terms of money was really focused on saving money. Just save money and make sure that you're not spending excessively. And so, I really got that drive in terms of not wanting to spend a lot of money, not throwing money away on certain things that were meaningless, just objects, you know? And so I really got that from my mother. But in terms of learning how to invest, we really had to learn that ourselves.
Amon Browning (00:09:34): Yeah. Yeah. We learned everything we do now. By experience, I mean it was really trial, trial by fire. We would read a lot of books. We listened to a lot of podcasts and we would take action. The first real estate that we bought was a lease option and it was something that we read in a book and we said, okay, let's try this. And it worked. And we've just continued to do that.
Naseema McElroy (00:09:54): That is so cool. So you guys got a lease option on your first house and you guys ended up buying that house?
Amon Browning (00:09:59): No, we ended up selling the lease option to another investor for a profit. And so, basically, we were just moving paper. You know, our first deal was just kind of being a broker, but we were able to make enough money from that one deal to be able to buy our own primary residence. And that's what really got us so excited about real estate.
Christina Browning (00:10:20): We were so young. Right after we graduated college and we were able to do this. And I think that just inspired us to think like, Hey, we can do these things that may not be typical for people our age. You know, we can think creatively and we can find ways to build wealth.
Naseema McElroy (00:10:39): That's why you guys are goals because you guys have done so many awesome things. But I think that what people think is that this path, like you guys have like done all these things that are so perfect and that you guys have it all figured out. But the difference between you and everybody else is that you guys just went for it. You guys just tried it and not everything always works out. I know, but it was because you guys actually took that initiative to just go for it. Like who would have ever thought that you can sell a lease option? Like I would never would've thought of that.
Christina Browning (00:11:12): Yeah. And I mean that the idea that we were thinking of it straight out of college too is just like, I think that because we were successful doing that, that really paved the way for how we thought moving forward to. When we came up against something where like we can make this happen, you know? And we also thought if something doesn't work out, like what's the worst case scenario? That's even us when we decided we were going to move abroad for the first time or the first time we moved abroad to live abroad was in Spain. And the idea was should we do this? Like are we really going to pick up and move to a foreign country? And then we sat down and we thought about it. I was like, what's the worst that could happen if we go there? I mean we can always come back. There's not an incredibly terrible story if it doesn't work out right? And moving abroad was for us, one of the best things we could have ever done.
Naseema McElroy (00:12:01): So when you guys moved to Spain, did you guys already have the kids?
Amon Browning (00:12:04): No. So this actually follows the timeline of our story. So when we first started investing, it was in San Diego. We were in our early 20s. In the middle of that we have this idea of living abroad. And this was before we had kids and so we moved abroad. I think you were 24 or 25 and that's when this whole other journey started for us.
Naseema McElroy (00:12:23): Can you talk about just like what inspired you to move abroad in the first place?
Christina Browning (00:12:27): Yeah, it was actually, I had been working at the job. We moved to San Diego and I've been working actually on two part time jobs for almost three years. And I sort of thought like, there's got to be more than this. I feel like I have juggling two jobs and I feel like I'm at the shelf life of these jobs. Like I've learned what I can learn from these jobs that I have to move on. And I talked to Amon that I was just sort of like, I feel like I've got to do something different. I can't just stay in these jobs. We should probably look for something else. And Among was already working for the federal government at the time and I was like, why don't we just like look anywhere. We could go to Washington DC if we wanted to? And he said, okay, yeah, let's think about that.
Christina Browning (00:13:10): And really seriously, probably less than three weeks later, he said, I have an interview for a job in Spain. I was like, what? How did that happen? And I had actually gone abroad when I was in grad school to Spain and I just loved Spain. And so the idea that he had an interview for a job in Spain was like thrilling. And then also, just we had so many questions about how can we make this work or not?
Amon Browning (00:13:38): Yeah, it was crazy.
Naseema McElroy (00:13:40): And that was pretty serendipitous.
Christina Browning (00:13:43): Yeah, it's just sort of like, you know, I just threw up this idea and Amon just started taking steps to make it happen. That is so cool. So you guys lived in Spain for how long?
Amon Browning (00:13:54): Well, we lived in Spain for one year and then we had gotten pregnant with our first daughter and another job that opened up in Japan and the job paid more. It had a little bit more stability and so we went to Japan. And in Japan, we had our first daughter and our second daughter and we stayed in Japan for seven years or six years.
Christina Browning (00:14:15): Were you working during this time Christina?
Christina Browning (00:14:17): I wasn't working originally and I'm always working for the federal government. And then I started working as a contractor. I was working at the same base, the same facility, but Amon was a federal government employee at the time and I was a contractor for the federal government.
Naseema McElroy (00:14:32): Gotcha 'cause I know you guys say like a lot of the time during this journey, you guys were living off of one income. So that's why I was asking.
Christina Browning (00:14:40): Yeah. So after I had Senoah, it was about a year where I wasn't working with Senoah and then that's our oldest one and then the youngest one, once we had her, then I was working as a contractor.
Naseema McElroy (00:14:55): All right, so you guys are in Japan now for how many years?
Christina Browning (00:14:59): I want to say seven years.
Naseema McElroy (00:15:00): Okay. Oh, so the majority of the time you guys were in Japan. I thought you guys didn't you come back to the States and you go to grad school at UCLA?
Christina Browning (00:15:08): Yeah, we are. We're like, what do we do next? Yeah, so we were in Japan and then we went back to Spain for a year and during that year I didn't work in Spain.So Amon was just working and it was me and the girls and I was studying for the LSAT. And I started studying for the LSAT because I wanted to go to law school. And so I actually applied for law school. I took the LSAT in Spain, in Madrid, and then I applied for law school while we were in Spain. And I applied early admissions to give us enough time to try and figure out where we'd be going. And so we only stayed a year in Spain and then went back to the States to go to law school.
Christina Browning (00:15:52): And so that was another three years where it was just Amon working and supporting us while I went through law school with the girls.
Naseema McElroy (00:16:01): So why did you decide to go to law school in the States versus abroad?
Christina Browning (00:16:04): Well, I think that for me, you know, the top law schools are located in the States. The schools that I wanted to go to were top law schools and so I wanted to go there. And I also felt like the opportunities at the time after I graduated, there were things while I was in school in terms of externships. I got to extern for a federal court judge there. And I just felt like there were a lot more opportunities, especially since I hadn't worked as a federal government employee overseas at that time. [Naseema says "Okay, makes sense."] Yeah. So we went back to law school for the three years and then after that, we moved up to the Bay Area, which was our home for the next couple of years. And yeah, we lived in Oakland for a while and then we just felt like we were missing that life abroad again. It's like it was out of our system for a little bit. Then we went back to the States, missed it, and then realized we've got to find a way to get back overseas again.
Amon Browning (00:17:07): You know what was interesting about this whole timeline is that while Christina was in law school is when we got this idea of financial independence. Well, it came from one day at work when I had received an award for 10 years of federal service and I got this award and at the same ceremony, someone else had gotten an award for 40 years of service and when I got my word right next to the same guy that got his award for 40 years of service, they kind of just really made my award seems so minuscule. And for me, it was a very eye opening experience because in the end, after 40 years all you get is this same piece of paper that you get for work in 10 years. You did the same piece for 40 years and I just said to myself, I can't see myself working all this time missing out on what the rest of the world has to offer.
Amon Browning (00:17:59): I need to do something different. And so after that ceremony, I came home and me and Christina started talking about all of this stuff. It was happening right in the middle of Christina in law school. You know, we had really small children and so we had to devise a plan that supported all of that, stuff that we could get through law school, we could raise these kids and at the same time start to make these investments that could eventually support financial independence.
Naseema McElroy (00:18:24): What resources were available during that time for you? For financial independence?
Christina Browning (00:18:28): You know what? Now it's called FIRE or financial independence. You know, back then I read this book called, it was like Getting Rich One House At A Time. But, the idea was that through real estate, you can develop a passive stream of income that can support you indefinitely. And so, it was kind of like all of these different resources were really all about like having your investments work for you so you don't have to work. So you know, now it's called FIRE, but before it was just having passive income doing all the work for you. So you know, those were the resources. We just wanted to develop these assets that could basically replace our steady income from our jobs.
Naseema McElroy (00:19:08): Yeah, I love it. That's why I asked you, because now FIRE is such like, you know, commonplace kind of word at least amongst us. Right? But I was like wondering like back in the day, like what was it? But yeah, the catch phrase then was, you know, passive income, generate passive income. So yeah. That's awesome. So you just like, we're looking at real estate as a tool to do that. But in the meantime though, you still had already for years set up your other investments, right?
Amon Browning (00:19:35): Not with as much intent after that ceremony. So yes, we were still investing. You know, we were still taking full advantage of our tax advantage accounts and we were saving a lot of money. We were hustling our butts off, but once we kind of had that switch go off, we turned it into FIRE.
Naseema McElroy (00:19:53): So that's when the FIRE really started.
Amon Browning (00:19:59): Yes. It's so interesting because for us when we made this switch, it was like everything was a money making opportunity. We would see something and just think, well we can do that. That can bring more income into our life. That's what happens when you start this journey. It's almost like the laws of attraction, like you are bringing all of this wealth into your life and we always talk about this on our YouTube channel, how we can create money out of thin air.
Naseema McElroy (00:20:21): Yeah. I think people don't understand that they always are waiting until they make more money to think that things are gonna change. Like if only I can make more money. But really it's the mindset like, okay, I can do this and I can start on this path. And then those opportunities present themselves. Okay. So you now have this fire lit under you and you're like, I am going to do this. So what year was that? [Amon says "This was 2011."] Oh right. 2011, you guys were in LA, Christina was in law school and you had two little babies. And then so after that you guys moved back to the Bay and then then what happened?
Amon Browning (00:21:00): Oh, if we go hard, it is like so in 2013, we buy a house in Oakland and that is really the seed that set up a whole chain of events. So we use an FHA loan to buy this house. And, and we say that, you know, we put a relatively low amount of money down on this house. We only put $17,000 down. And I think after closing, cost you know maybe it's $20,000 but this was made that we had saved up but this $20,000 to buy this, fixer upper home after we had fixed it up, we had gotten all this equity and then we used that equity to buy another property.
Naseema McElroy (00:21:37): But I want to pause just because you're saying like you guys fixed up this house and so you must have spent a whole lot of money to fix up this house. Talk about that.
Christina Browning (00:21:47): Oh my gosh, I love this. Yes. Because okay now we have the video on this because I wish I could just tell you what the house looked like and you could envision what it looks like when we bought it. But we bought this house and we had this vision of what we wanted to do with it and we decided that we were going to fix the house up ourselves. We weren't going to pay contractors, we actually got bids for contractors and it was really just outrageous. It was like what, I mean that's like the cost of the house. Like it just didn't make any sense. And so we started thinking about it's like we want to do this, we want to redo the kitchen, we'll take out all the cabinets, we want to put in new cabinets, new flooring. We added a bathroom, we did, you know, new baseboards. We pulled out all the shelving and the living room. It was terrible built in shelving and we did it all ourselves.
Naseema McElroy (00:22:38): And how much did it cost?
Amon Browning (00:22:40): Okay. So you know, we're always about figuring out ways to overcome our financial challenges. And when we saw those estimates for, you know, $60,000, $80,000 renovating the kitchen, I got a copy of all those estimates and I started really looking at the costs and a lot of the costs were in labor, right? And then so I looked at the material and I said, okay, the material costs, we can take care of the labor, but the material costs, how much are they paying for the material? And we figured out ways to get material for a lot cheaper. And then we figured out something at Ikea. They have complete kitchens that they sell in Ikea. They have a section called the "As a" section where people can return, you know, furniture that they don't like and then Ikea marks them down where they also allow people to return kitchens. Right? And so we went into Ikea one day and someone had returned the whole kitchen. This kitchen was marked down to like 80% so we were like, this is it. This is how we do it. And so we were able to renovate our kitchen, our whole house. I mean, how much did we do that whole thing for I think it was like we spent less than $10,000 renovating.
Naseema McElroy (00:23:50): What, that's crazy!
Christina Browning (00:23:53): I mean I'm talking about brand new kitchen. So all the bedrooms we refurnished the bedrooms, we added in a complete new bathroom. I mean the place just looked like we bought this property at the time where all of the properties in the Bay Area would be overbid. They were not on the market more than seven days. Agents were telling people that were interested to put your bids in by a certain day and we're not accepting anymore. That's how hot the market was.
Naseema McElroy (00:24:21): I know that's what I was looking to buy. I know. That's why I went to Brentwood. I was like I cannot. And then what I was going to do? It was totally ridiculous. Yes.
Christina Browning (00:24:31): And when we got our house, so the house that we bought, it had been sitting on the market forever. And it's so interesting because there was nothing structurally wrong with the house. It just looked sort of dumpy, you know, you walk in and you're like, this is not a staged house. No one put any effort into trying to sell this. So at the time in the Bay Area, if a house sat on the market for more than seven days, people thought there was something wrong with it. So our house was over 30 days for sure that's been on the market. No one wanted to even go look at it because they thought there's something wrong with it. No one's over bidding on it. No one even wants this house. And so we got the house, we completely flipped it, sold that later down the road. And then our house became that house that everyone was trying to bid on. Everyone overbid on the house, but it became that house that everyone wanted. But no one could envision what it could look like at the time that we bought it.
Naseema McElroy (00:25:23): I think that that speaks a lot to you guys is foresight too like back to that like you guys can see opportunity in everything just like the lease option. Now you guys saw this dumpy house. Like I don't have that foresight because like I said, I was looking at the same time and I was just like, these houses look like crap. I'm going to go to Brentwood where I can get in new construction for, you know, lower the amount of price. That's like a rundown house here. So I didn't have that foresight and so I'm just like, dang, I wish I could like look at something and see that. But it wasn't like you guys saw like this total like shack of a house. You guys just understood the market. You understood that if houses weren't staged well, even though you know there was nothing wrong with it, you could see the potential and then you guys were able to actually go in, take contracts that you got for bids and look at those contracts and do the work yourself. And you guys are not contractor. I'm just saying like a foresight is amazing, but it's not anything that anybody else couldn't do. And that's why I think your platform is genius because these are things that are totally replicable.
Christina Browning (00:26:34): It totally is, right? I mean even working with the city to get permits to do these things that we were doing in the house. I mean, I feel like the process is actually very, very simple. And then when you're doing it not as a contractor, it's almost like the city feels like pity for you. They were so nice. They would, they'd come and look at things. They would just be like...
Amon Browning (00:26:59): You need to kind of do it like this. And I said Oh. So it was really great. You know, when they see that you're an individual and you're working hard, they will really help you.
Naseema McElroy (00:27:07): Can I tell you something though? Like I could have totally done this because not only is my best friend like someone who worked in the contracts department during that time, but my daughter's godfather was actually the inspector and the ones that come out to a house over. It's for the simple fact that I couldn't even think like that tells you a lot. But at the same time, now I know and also I do want to show pictures of this house. I want people to actually visualize that. So, I am going to be putting in the show notes, like the links to my favorite YouTube videos that you guys have. I mean super hard to pick so there'll probably be a whole lot of them. But this one in particular, I'm going to have like how you guys lift this house and your other houses in Oakland. But continue please. Yes. So Amon, you were saying like, so you took this how the profits from this house like you know, and that $17,000 you put down on it, you know, has helped you.
Amon Browning (00:28:09): Oh yes. That's $17,000. It allowed us to get all this equity in this first house and use that equity to buy another house and another house. And so in all, we only bought three houses in Oakland, but they were good buys. And that's the thing, you don't have to buy 50 you know, 10 or 15 houses to achieve really high returns. If you buy right the first time, you can get amazing returns. So the three houses that we bought, we bought all of them over the holidays. So we didn't have any bidding wars. No one was out looking at the houses. You know, we did great deals on them. They were all fixer uppers and every fix that we did have so much equity to the table. So, you know, just by taking a chance on that 17, $20,000 down payment, we were able to really get a jump on our financial independence. That was, you know, half of our journey is real estate and the other half is stocks. And we were very fortunate to be able to have that kind of momentum with real estate.
Naseema McElroy (00:29:11): Oh, that is so awesome. I think what you said was golden, like it's really not about the amount of deals. It's really the quality of the deals that you do. And like I said, like a lot of people will say it's impossible, especially during that time like to buy real estate in the Bay Area and you guys looked at it a different way. You're like, okay, what kind of deals can we do to maximize our profitability? And so like I said, this you guys' foresight is for real goals for real. And then so you guys bought this house in the Bay Area and then what happened next?
Amon Browning (00:29:49): So while we're buying all these houses, we are at the same time investing into the stock market, right? But we are investing of course in our tax advantage accounts and then we're also side hustling at the same time. So when we, when we identified that Ikea hack where they were basically the hell these all these kitchens on sale at Ikea, we were reselling those kitchens as a side hustle and we would just have various side hustles. And every time we got money from a side hustle, we would plow that into low cost index funds. So we have both things going for us at the same time. And we were saving a whole lot of money. We changed our lifestyle. You know, we were driving a BMW x5 that's brand new. We thought we were flying it and everything like that, trying to keep up with the Joneses.
Amon Browning (00:30:36): But it was like, you know when you have a car like that, it is sucking you with maintenance. Every time we got an oil change on that thing, it was like $100 just with the oil change, the gas, you know, you have to keep a car like that clean and dirt free. And then, so there were all of these maintenance costs. So we got rid of that car and we got an $800 used car. So we made lifestyle changes to bring our costs of living down and then use that savings to invest into the stock market.
Naseema McElroy (00:31:06): And these were through brokerage accounts. So accounts outside of your company's retirement account?
Amon Browning (00:31:12): Yes. You know, one of the things that when people are on this journey, you really want to take advantage of the tax advantage accounts, those retirement accounts, but you can't get to those as easy in early retirement. So we also built a very large brokerage non retirement account so that when we achieved financial independence we could access those funds easily.
Naseema McElroy (00:31:32): I'm a link to the video of how you guys invest too and I liked the fact that, and we'll get to this later in the journey too, but I like the fact that you guys set up brokerage accounts for your kids too. Like that's really dope. How did you guys end up in Japan again?
Amon Browning (00:31:50): The second go round, the timing can have been perfect, couldn't have been any any better because we're kind of in the middle of this journey and then we have this opportunity to go overseas where we can save even more money because our housing is paid for, our utilities are paid for. We get extra allowances just for being overseas. And so at about year five of our eight-year journey, we go overseas and we're able to save even more money. And while we're in Japan, you know, we're actually starting to sell our properties there in the Bay Area. We felt like, okay, these properties had peaked. We had two condos and we didn't really like owning condos and we wanted to kind of slowly move out of real estate as we moved into early retirement. So we sold all the properties and while we're overseas, we just continued to use all of the savings from living rent free to invest into the stock market.
Amon Browning (00:32:43): And we really just piled all in and we were very, I don't want to say we were fortunate, but the market was also going up during this entire time. I mean there were ups and downs, but the thing about us is most people during this past 10 years, they would experience a drop and they would pull their money out, but we would just keep adding to it. Like we never were phased by any of the blips that happened. You know, there was one day along this journey where the stock market dropped a thousand points and people are like, Oh, it's over. You know, they're running for the hills. We just kept doing the same thing.
Naseema McElroy (00:33:17): Yup. It didn't hurt that you guys were investing as we have had like record highs, but there was no way that you could have known that. You just knew that you needed to invest consistently, keep on being in the market because it's about the time in the market, not the timing of the market. Right?
Christina Browning (00:33:34): That's exactly right. Yeah. It's all about making sure, like you said, that you're consistent, that you're putting your money in when the market's high and you're putting your money in when the market's low, it doesn't matter. It's just consistently putting in money each month, investing that money and allowing it to grow long term.
Naseema McElroy (00:33:52): You guys don't have any real estate now though, right? [Amon says "No."] Right. You sold off everything. Okay. And then that money went into your investment accounts to grow. And so can you guys talk to, and we're going to bring it back to the nurses for this little segment, can you guys talk about the benefits of living and working abroad?
Christina Browning (00:34:12): Oh yeah. Oh my gosh, it's amazing. I mean the first and biggest thing I think is in terms of money is that you have an opportunity if you get the right employer to live renting mortgage free. So a lot of employers, including who we worked for, which was the United States federal government, they have to incentivize people to come all the way to a foreign location and live there. And so one of the ways that they incentivize people to do this is by paying their rent info and all of their utilities also. So it's a huge benefit in terms of people that are looking to hit financial independence or financial independence and retire early. Either one 'cause you get to save your housing costs and throw that into whatever mechanism that you have for investment in order to grow your money. So that's a huge thing in terms of savings.
Amon Browning (00:35:09): The other benefit for us when we went over there, we had children and if we were working in the States, our kids would have to be in daycare. Well, they were in daycare when we were in Japan and daycare was, is probably a quarter of the price it would have been in the Bay Area because just the cost of daycare is less expensive there. So there was that expense that was lower and then when they got the school age they were able to go to great international schools, especially went to a school on a Navy base, but it was an amazing school with a ton of resources. So there's also that benefit.
Naseema McElroy (00:35:46): Your kids are going to like the top schools in the world, just like, because that's what the employer provides. Do they give you a stipend or do they just pay for the school directly?
Christina Browning (00:35:55): Well, it depends on the country that you're in. So we have friends that worked in Singapore and they would pay for the school, but the school is a $50,000 school. Yeah, they will pay for the schools directly. I mean these are like most amazing international schools in the, you know, in the world. So yes, in that case they were paying the school directly to the school that we went to. We didn't really see any exchange of money because the school was built for the military families.
Christina Browning (00:36:20): They were paying for the school. He means the employer pays for the employees' kids to go to school at that $50,000 range.
Naseema McElroy (00:36:27): Right. Wow. Whew. That's a lot of money.
Christina Browning (00:36:31): And one of the things also that Amon briefly mentioned too, was the medical facilities. You know, both of our girls were born in Japan at the Navy base there. And I know we're talking to nurses here. They hire civilian nurses at these Naval bases throughout the world also. So they hire them to work at these hospitals also. So it's like working with contractors and civilians and military members all at the hospital. So those are great opportunities for nurses looking to get a job with the federal government abroad, looking in those areas and finding jobs and working at the hospitals there and getting all these incredible benefits.
Naseema McElroy (00:37:11): Yeah, I think that's great, Christina, that you brought that up. 'Cause you know I'm a labor and delivery nurse so I'm always like where would I work? Always thinking about that. And I'm like, yeah, but I've gotten offers for places like in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and places like that where they want to have American personnel there for like their ex-pats. And so, you know, yeah, there's plenty of opportunities for a nurse. So to like sum it up, opportunities are free housing. Sometimes your transportation is covered too, right?
Christina Browning (00:37:43): Yes, transportation to and from whatever country. They also include sometimes vacation, we call them morale days where they will send you to a different country and take care of your vacation costs.
Christina Browning (00:37:54): Yeah. You're not paying at all to move from the States, for example, to the foreign country that you go to. They come to your home, they pack up every single thing. It's incredible. Yes, yes. So it's almost like when you have to pack yourself up once you're like, this is awful. They pack everything up for you and then when you get there, they unpack everything for you and put it wherever you want. It's like you don't have to touch anything.
Naseema McElroy (00:38:19): If I wasn't convinced before, I mean like I have been so much in the last couple of years, like the packing alone makes me nauseous. So when you said that, I was like, oh my God, like mind blown. Like that's amazing, that's a super incentive. Okay, I'm like leaving next month. But not only that, you happen to have your housing, you have your transportation back and forth in the States. Like a couple of times you have your kid's education paid for. I mean, so like what do you spend your money on?
Christina Browning (00:38:51): I know, right? I mean that's the thing. We're talking about the monetary benefits, right? But then there's also just the cultural social benefits of being in a foreign country, seeing a different culture, the diversity of people. And just experiencing something that you wouldn't necessarily get to experience if you stay in the States. So, I mean there are just, there's so many opportunities to save money by moving abroad and there's also so many opportunities to just get this incredible experience of having something different that you'd never have the opportunity to have when you stay in the States.
Naseema McElroy (00:39:35): Totally a life enhancement, I feel like. But for your kids, like it's always been my dream to kind of do world schooling to make sure that my kids understand different cultures. I'm talking about languages, food, and this just seems like the perfect opportunity to do that. Plus, it helps when you're on this journey of financial independence because like what was your savings rate at this time?
Amon Browning (00:39:58): It was at 60-70%.
Naseema McElroy (00:40:01): Geez! And then it's not like you didn't have to live in deprivation because all of your needs were being met and you guys are living really like nicely out there.
Amon Browning (00:40:11): Oh my goodness. Don't even get us started on our house because when we were in Spain, we had like a Villa. The Villa was a block from the beach and our Villa had a saltwater pool so it was like we'd go to the beach and be in the saltwater. We could be in our backyard and be in the salt water and our house in Japan. It was also by the beach, huge. And I mean this is the incentive that they give people, you know, to come overseas. I would've came overseas for a lot less. When we showed up and saw all of this, it was like, wow, this is an amazing opportunity. What's really sad is we tell people about this all the time. We say, you guys should take full advantage of this. There are plenty of opportunities and even if there isn't an opportunity, if there is nothing job there, you can create one. You know, if I was a nurse and I have a skill, a specialized skill, you can create an opportunity for yourself anywhere in the world. You don't have to wait for a job to open up. I'm sure that there is something that you can go and train people with. You can develop an online business, there is a way to get to any country if you put your mind to it.
Naseema McElroy (00:41:15): Yes. Thank you Amon for saying that because I think a lot of times like we are just so close-minded but there is limitless opportunities. Everybody is always looking for a way to get ahead financially but they're always thinking about ways that they can cut back. And that's why I like that you guys are focused on ways to generate income as opposed to looking at reduction methods. Like you know, there's only a finite amount of ways that you can cut your budget and all those kinds of things. But there are so many different ways that you can increase your income and create opportunity for yourself. So, thank you Amon because you know, especially like see it here. Like with nurses we have like these golden handcuffs, right? Especially in the Bay Area 'cause we do make so much money, we have great benefits and where you know, we have really good insurance so people are just like, why would I leave? It's because like quality of life. It's because of, you know, like opportunities to expose yourself and your kids to all these other opportunities like just cultures and all that stuff. And I was just like, you know, even though we make a lot of money in the Bay Area, we're still living in poverty. Like we're still like right above the poverty line because the cost of living here is like super ridiculous. So it's not impossible. But like you guys did in the Bay Area where you guys maximize your living situation, you did Airbnbs and all that kind of stuff, which we didn't really talk about that much, but that was what you guys may work here to ever reduce housing costs. But like most people who are in the Bay Area are living check to check, you know, which is really sad.
Christina Browning (00:42:57): Yeah, it's so interesting because it's like, yeah, you make a lot of money when you live in the Bay Area, but the Bay Area is also so incredibly expensive, right, to live there. And I think the idea is like people can get stuck in a rut where it's just like, you know, people sometimes... It's so interesting. Someone wrote a comment on our channel and it said, it was sort of funny the way he said it was sort of funny. It was like, it was that a recent video on how to make more money. And he said something to the effect of, well, do you have any tips for someone who's lazy but doesn't like their job? You know, what do you do for someone who's lazy but doesn't like their job and wants to reach financial independence and retire early? And I commented back and I said, well, basically I recommend that you have to make a choice. You have to make a choice if you want to remain lazy. And I said, those are your words, but you can either remain lazy and then also stay in a job that you don't like or you have to change your lifestyle. You can't be lazy and that will get you to the job that you like or that will get you to financial independence. So by being lazy, you're making the choice that you want to be lazy and you want to stay in the position that you're at and you're making that choice.
Christina Browning (00:44:12): And if you want to get out of a job that you don't like, then you have to change. You can't be lazy.
Naseema McElroy (00:44:17): I think that's the same as like people who comment on stuff that I make, they're just like, Oh, well you can only say that because you make so much money. Well, how can you be relatable to somebody who only makes $20,000 a year? And I'm just like, the real question is, why are you committed to making $20,000 a year? You know, why are you still there? Why start there? But I think that our platforms need to be here for people to see what's possible. And that's what I always say. Like if this is about just showing you what's possible, and not only do you guys show people what's possible, you guys do such an excellent job of breaking it down into terms that we can understand. Because let's face it, like the personal finance space is pretty vanilla and they make it unnecessarily suffocated sometimes and I feel like that's a barrier for people to improve on their finances. But I think you guys do a stellar job of making it digestible and something that, like I said, anybody can do. So thank you for what you guys are doing.
Amon Browning (00:45:21): I couldn't have said it better. I feel like we get so frustrated with what is out there as far as personal finance and financial literacy information, they just, sometimes it can be over complicated. This is not a complicated thing. You know, if we were able to do it, if we were able to take our incomes, because when we started we were in like making $26-$30,000 a year, you know, combined and we were able to increase our income significantly. That's because we didn't sit still. We read books and then we took actions. You know, how you learn how to do this stuff, how you learn to change and create wealth, it's just by educating yourself and then once you have that education, taking action because that's what's the most powerful and you can do all the reading in the world, but when you actually put it into action, it is amazing what happens after that.
Naseema McElroy (00:46:15): Yes, I think people get, even if people want to do better, get stuck in this rut of analysis paralysis, but just take that first step. Even if you mess up, guess what, you've gone forward and now is not like a real mistake. It's just something that you can learn from and you just keep on building from there. But you guys actually took those actions and let's get to like the fantastic thing it has allowed you to do. Now you guys taken the action as you've gone on this journey and you have now reached the pinnacle. You guys are now financially independent. Congratulations on that. Okay, but now like you guys got there. So like what does that mean and what does your life look like now?
Amon Browning (00:47:05): It was amazing. Honestly, we talk about this all the time. We can't imagine going back to where we were like you know, I know a lot of people that are listening to this are still in, you know, in that mode. They're in the rat race and you don't have to be there. You can get to this point by just implementing a lot of the stuff that we talk about that you share with people that we share people on our platforms. But as we were going through this, we visualize what financial independence and what this freedom would look like. And it is amazing to have all the time in the world to be able to focus on what we want to do and not be kind of slaves to someone else. We have the freedom to be able to make our day. We get to spend it with our children the way we want to, you know, we can go on all of their field trips, I don't have to get permission from our job or taking a leave or anything like that. We're not rushed in the morning, we're not feeding our kids breakfast in the car on the way to work. We sit down, we have breakfast, we spend time with our children, then me and Christina go off and spend the rest of our day the way we want to. It's an amazing feeling.
Naseema McElroy (00:48:09): That's awesome. And so like for those who don't know, who wouldn't know, but just to emphasize, so that means that now you guys have enough in your investments that you can live off of your investments without having to ever work again if you don't want to. Right?
Christina Browning (00:48:27): Exactly. Yes. So the idea is you look at your future expenses and what your annual expenses would be in retirement. If you're working with a stock portfolio, then you multiply that, those annual expenses by 25 and that's the number that you would need in order to retire. And then once you get that number in your portfolio, the idea is that you can retire and you can withdraw 4% from that portfolio and live off of that and never run out of money.
Naseema McElroy (00:48:54): Right. And I liked that you guys based your number off of kind of like the Bay Area.
Christina Browning (00:48:59): Yeah. Which I mean, like we did a recent video on the cost of living in Portugal, and if you see that video, we'd summarize the last month's living expenses was only $4,500 which to some people is quite a bit of money and it still is a lot of money. If you are living in the Bay Area off of $4,500 you're doing something amazing because the Bay Area is like we said, right? It's so, so expensive. And so the idea is if you project your expenses off of the place that is the most expensive to live, and you use that as your FIRE number, then that will not limit you in anywhere you go. So you could go from your higher cost of living to a lower cost of living, but if you base it off of a lower cost of living, you're basically stuck in that area. You can't move around after that.
Naseema McElroy (00:49:49): Yeah, I love that. And it's just because you guys did this and you guys have cushion and I feel like you'll never run out of money. So then you use that as your legacy building tool for your kids. Right?
Christina Browning (00:50:01): Exactly. We talk about, it's just like this generational wealth, right? It's like we've created our girl's own personal accounts, custodial accounts for the girls so that that money is already growing now for them so that when they're older, it's going to be a significant amount of money for each of them when they get older and it's just automatically being put into their accounts, but not only that, it's like the accounts that we have now, we're not even close to a 4% withdrawal because again, living in Portugal is nothing in terms of the cost of living compared to the Bay Area. So what we leave behind in our own accounts for that also goes to them. It's not just about handing the money either. It's about this idea that we have these custodial accounts for them. We're showing them how we invest these accounts for them. We're showing them how their money grows and they understand this idea, this concept of automatically investing into these accounts and basically watching it grow and how much it could potentially grow too as they get older.
Naseema McElroy (00:50:59): And I liked that you guys include them on their platform too, because I think that a lot of generational wealth and legacy building is about financial literacy and making sure that they understand that you're not just handing them a check, you know, when they turned 18 and then they're just like, well what do I do with this? No, like they're understanding, not only are they seeing you going through it, but you guys are educating them on how to make sure that they continue to be on the path of financial independence. And I think that's amazing. But can you guys talk to what you guys have? What do you feel like the benefits of you guys being abroad and also the benefits of your financial journey for your kids?
Christina Browning (00:51:41): Well, I think the benefits of being abroad and retiring in general, I think, is that we get to spend so much time with our girls. We get to spend so much more time with our girls. And then especially being abroad, I have to tell you this story, we woke up extra early this morning at around 5:45 this morning because we dropped off our oldest girl to school so she could go on a two-day field trip and she's going to Spain for her field trip. I mean like the idea of that is like our daughter is in eighth grade and she is going on a field trip to Spain. I mean those are the opportunities when you're living abroad that you get to do these things. And we were just talking about our oldest daughter is so interested in the history of World War II and she wants to visit Germany so badly and just understand and be able to travel throughout Germany and look at that culture. She's so interested in it. And we could just get tickets and fly over to Germany. We could go for a weekend if we wanted to. I mean the opportunities here are so endless in terms of spending time with them and teaching them about different cultures.
Amon Browning (00:52:54): Yeah. And something that was really special about being abroad for me and Christina is every day we wake up and we challenge ourselves. So we are learning something new with everything that we do here on a daily basis. We're both studying the language. We have a tutor. I'm in a class. so we're going through that process. We're also meeting people that we've never had the opportunity to meet and people that are from all over the world. I think being in a big city like Lisbon, we had those opportunities. If we would've done this in San Francisco, yes, there's still an international field, but it's not to this degree and when you're abroad, it's like everyday is an adventure. We just love that. Especially being so young. We can enjoy things. I mean, we see tour groups all the time and these tour groups are made up of folks that are in their sixties and seventies and they're moving very slow through these monuments and different things like that. But for us, we're like, you know, we're young, we're climbing mountains, we're doing all these different things. It's a very exciting life for us, being early retired.
Christina Browning (00:53:55): Yeah, and I think in terms of the impact for the kids, it's like they get to study, they're not only studying a second language, they're studying a third language. So in their school, they're studying Portuguese of course, but then they're also studying Spanish so it's like they can become trilingual just from living here. It's just so amazing to me. And I just feel like, you know, the oldest one plays basketball. Our youngest one swims. Our oldest one is, they've been scouting her to play for, to represent Lisbon in the national basketball team, which is like huge for her. Fourteen and under. And she's only, she just turned 13 years old. Our youngest daughter is also training and hopefully has been asking me how about, you know, what do I do to make nationals? So it's just all these incredible opportunities that we get to focus our energy on the girls and they get to live this worldly experience that, you know, at some point, if they decide they want to go back to the States to go to college, say they want, you know, my oldest one says she wants to go to Stanford and the youngest one wants to go to MIT. And just thinking do you know what their personal statements will look like when they apply for these schools? Like just the life that they've lived is just so incredible.
Naseema McElroy (00:55:09): It's amazing. Like I'm telling you, that's what I want to do like for my kids. It's one thing to be able to teach your kids something maybe at a museum exhibit, maybe just out of a textbook, but for your daughter to be in love with World War II and then be able to go to Germany. And it's just like a hot [inaudible] you're gonna jump is phenomenal. And then one thing that we'll just touch on like super briefly, cause I know we've gone long, but all this information is really, really good. But like how do you guys handle your traveling expenses when you travel to places internationally or just locally?
Amon Browning (00:55:44): We have been travel hacking for the past three years religiously. So we hadn't paid for many expenses other than maybe taxes and in certain fees. So we've always been able to cover the cost of travel. Here in Europe, travel is really inexpensive so you know, we can get on a Ryanair flight for $20 and go anywhere, but we're still able, in retirement to keep our expenses low by travel hacking. We don't travel hack to the same extent because we don't spend as much money. But just in general, we're still able to do most of the same types of travel.
Naseema McElroy (00:56:19): That's so cool. Yes, I love travel hacking and I think you guys have been on some incredible trips that you haven't had to spend much money at all on. And so that's why I just wanted to really touch on that. But like overall, I feel like this is like your platform is called such a Rich Journey, not only for you but for your kids and now for everybody that gets to follow along. So, I'm just so grateful for you guys for creating this platform and being so open and not being afraid to share your numbers, not being afraid to share your experiences. Actually just being like a resource for people who don't fit into this traditional mold of what financial services, personal finances is supposed to look like. Because yeah, it, it doesn't resonate with a lot of people who really, really need it. And I feel like your voices resonate so much and you guys have helped me so much and continue to help me. So please never stop you're doing and then just to sum things up, what are you guys working on next? What's new for you guys? How's life, you know, after retirement, like what's going on?
Amon Browning (00:57:31): We are enjoying retirement. We continue to produce videos and help people on YouTube and on Instagram. And we have a couple of things in the works where looking at real estate again here in Portugal, but for the time being, we are just enjoying our early retiremen.
Naseema McElroy (00:57:49): And that's what is all about, is living your best life. And I'm glad that you guys are living your best life now while you're young, while your kids are young, and that is goals, you guys. So thanks again to Amon and Christina, for coming on. I appreciate everything. I appreciate your platform, but most importantly, I appreciate you spending time with me today to share with the nurses on fire. You guys are amazing.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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