On board today is Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung from Canada, also
known from their popular blog, Millennial Revolution. Here's a quote from our guests, 'Money is the most important thing in the world'. Maybe a bit of a controversial take.
Whilst having money is certainly no guarantee of happiness, poverty is sure to make you miserable, and no one knows this better than Kristy, who has seen both ends of the wealth
spectrum. Despite growing up in poverty and, at one point, living with her family on 44 cents a day, Kristy Shen, along with her husband Bryce Leung, went on to become self made
millionaires at the ripe old age of 31 and 32, going on to retire only a few years later.
Now, 40 and 41 Kristy and Bryce have spent the past decade
traveling, exploring new cultures, spending time with family and friends, helping others succeed with their financial goals, and expressing their creativity as authors and publishers, both in personal finance, but also, interestingly, with children's books.
How did they do it? Well, as students, analyzing potential
career paths, they weighed up training costs, effort, and future salaries to work out their optimum return on investment, and the pair both very mindfully chose to work in the developing field of software engineering.
Kristy's heritage taught her to avoid debt at all costs, and the
importance of a high savings rate. Kristy and Bryce took it to the next level, saving and investing on average 80 percent of their large software engineer incomes over their nine-year working careers. In 2015, they pulled the plug.
They retired from their engineering jobs to FIRE and travel the
world together. They blog at Millennial Revolution, and have published the book, Quit like a Millionaire, which I found particularly helpful and inspiring on my journey to FIRE.
They believe that money is the most important tool we have to improve our quality of life.
Kristy and Bryce swear by the numbers which led them to financial freedom and enabled them to pursue
their passions for travel, writing, and helping others.
Jump on board, this one's a long one but Kristy and Bryce were just so inspiring to chat to!