It's ChooseFI's first live radio show! Recorded live on Tuesdays at 7:30 pm Eastern using an app called Stereo, the live shows will be replayed for the Friday Roundup episode. The topic of this interactive live show is: “What is stopping you from reaching financial independence?”. Lorraine has a question about allocation and investing in one of Vanguard’s funds like VTI or VTSAX but the answer is situation-dependent. It’s important o know the investing timeline Lorraine is looking at, but hopefully, it’s investing for the long-term. Investing for the long-term provides for the highest likelihood of success. However, it’s money needed for something critical like an emergency fund, maybe consider keeping what you need in a savings account and investing the rest. Other factors to consider are risk tolerance, net worth, job security, and whether you have an emergency fund. How sacred you were in March is a good indicator of your risk tolerance. The right allocation will allow you to sleep at night, be confident in your plan, and stay the course. The best thing to do is take action and get invested without getting hung up on the details. Keeping your expenses low with low-cost broad-based index funds, like total stock market or S&P 500 index funds, make a significant difference over your investing lifetime. Getting to the point where you can make work optional can often seem like luck. However, the FI community believes we have the power to impact change in our lives and in our communities. Taking small actions to optimize and seeing that you can still live a life without a feeling of deprivation becomes a motivating positive feedback loop. No matter how much you earn, the message of FI can be valuable. If you are living paycheck-to-paycheck, it doesn’t matter how much you earn. You need some amount of gap between what you earn and what you spend. Growing the gap by cutting expenses is usually the most effective place to start, but you can widen the gap by earning more as well. It doesn’t mean going back to school or taking on a second job delivering pizzas. One way to increase your income is by negotiating your salary. If you research the highest paying professions, the search leads to a list of six-figure careers, however, the return on investment in these career paths is not what it seems. They may require a significant number of years in school and the student loan debt that goes along with it. Today it’s possible to skip a degree program in favor of a certificate program and land a high-paying job in less time and at less expense. Matthew has been listening to the show for about six months. One question he’s had is how people are retiring early when you cannot withdraw from retirement accounts without a penalty until you reach the age of 59.5. There are strategies for investing in retirement accounts where it goes in tax-free, grows tax-free, and is withdrawn tax-free ahead of the traditional retirement age. Investing in something like a traditional 401K account lowers your taxable income and gives you a current tax deduction. Once you reach FI and decide to not work anymore and are living off savings, you are earning $0. You can at that time pull take money from your 401k and convert it into a Roth IRA, an after-tax account, in a process known as a Roth IRA Conversion Ladder. The conversion is a taxable event, however, your earned income is $0 so the only amount subject to tax is what you convert. Even then, the total amount won’t be taxed. You can still take the standard deduction and only be taxed on the remainder at the lowest possible marginal tax rate. The account will then grow tax-free. Another method to access 401K retirement funds a few years earlier is with Rule of 55. One listener wants to know what other podcasters or influencers Brad and Jonathan follow. Brad’s long-time favorite is The Tim Ferris Show, Dr. Peter Attia’s The Drive, and Naval. Jonathan’s podcast listening tends to be focused on what will help buil