Okay, so I think if you want to go off the video, that's fine.
Okay.
So guys, yeah, go ahead.
You do your speed.
You take care of how you want to run it, edit it and give me the cues.
I'll talk in between.
So hi everyone, we have ah our today's guest is A.V.
um He has achieved, we speaking with someone who has achieved like Barista Fire, which is a really interesting version of the financial independence that many people might not know
about.
So thanks A.V.
for joining me today.
To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and then your background?
Sure, Amir, thanks for having me.
So just a little bit about myself.
I'm 39 right now, about to turn 40.
And like you mentioned, I've achieved the burst of fire status with respect to my total network back in 2010.
when he to 2023.
So about three years back.
And uh I'm pretty sure with respect to how my spend goes I've achieved fire by now already.
So given the way out the network network over the last few years.
And uh
uh That's the general stats or where I'm with respect to fire with respect to say how I'm with my career etc.
So like many Indians they see folks so started off my career as an engineer in one of the which companies and You know for about three years figured out that in my time there that
You know, it's not
something that I would want to do long term and started looking at the ZipPads.
And one of the biggest stress ones that I figured was getting to do a master's degree outside of India as one of the possible fastest ZipPads I would say.
And when I say ZipPads, it's more of I did not want to work in an environment
uh which I was currently in.
So that was my exit path out of that.
So I took that, basically did a bunch of got a couple of admits and ended up in the US with an MBA degree.
And I purposefully chose a university that would cost me probably the cheapest in all of the ones that I've applied.
uh basically was looking for a very good ROI and uh definitely some learnings from there and why it did and did not work as expected as well.
I can touch upon that later.
So after MBA, I was extremely lucky.
I landed off in one of the FAANG companies as a contractor.
And I was able to convert the contract into a full-time role and worked there for about six years and then jumped ship to one of the older tech companies that was expanding into
something that was what Tang was doing.
And that gave me the next major boost in my career.
as well.
so overall, I've been working for about 14 years after my MBA.
so this year is about my 20th year of work.
And I'm pretty close to RE at this point.
It's more of a mental uh block or mental status.
rather than uh just finances like this one, need to figure out what I need to do or what I want to do if I retire early rather than where I go.
And in between, have a bunch of usual issues like immigration scares, got married, allocated, uh moved to multiple different places, I actually moved countries and again, I
moved out of the US into Canada.
And uh I'm here in Canada for about three and a half years.
So that's important.
Sure.
Pretty interesting life, I think a lot of viewers probably will be in the similar boat where oh coming to do masters in the US and then trying to get a job here and then going
from there and trying to figure out their journey.
So yeah, pretty interesting.
ah I think I want to start ah from you trying to explain what Barista Fire means because
Not many people might know what that means.
So if you can start from there.
Sure.
the term itself, barista fire, would say any.
uh Your regular annual expenses can be taken care of uh with a combination of a withdrawal from your portfolio and also not a full time but a part time job like a barista or any
other part time job within that range.
It's more about the combination of these two things rather than
uh living like a barista or a typical barista who's say a college student and spending as little as possible and working eight or ten hours a day and fitting their schedule.
It's more about your school maintaining your current lifestyle but the source of income is a combination of your portfolio withdrawals and a smaller income stream like a barista.
So that is what
But sapphire typically signifies.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for that.
You know, the piece of advice.
I think from so was there any like, when did you start thinking seriously about financial independence in this journey?
m
Yeah, so I would say from a financial independence perspective, I would say I got serious around 2015, 2016, around that time frame.
I always serious about finances.
So I spent my college or undergrad
out of home.
I lived in a hostel for a bit and uh lived independently with friends in an apartment while studying.
So I was always very conscious about budgeting what oh elements my parents would give me monthly versus what I'm spending, how I'm spending it and make sure I have.
things I spend for things that I really want rather than just spending for the sake of spending or showing it off to someone else.
So I was always in this kind of project.
And during my work in India, I actually ended up taking extra night shifts so that I would get the night shift elements.
oh saved up about six months of night shift plus salary and bought about 100 grams of back in the 2000s time frame.
like that was, this was typical Indian mentality, right?
Like what are we investing?
We things that are tangible, real estate and gold.
And real estate was probably too big of an investment.
When I was that young, was 22, probably.
So gold was the next best thing that I knew.
And I said, hey, let me go over to MMTC and buy gold bullion.
I did not even buy jewelry.
I bought like two 150 grams and two 20 grams and one 10 grams.
gold bars from the MOTC and gave the way to my mom to be put aside.
I was always in this kind of mentality and even after, obviously we were not rich growing up.
I would say we were solid middle class.
We owned our home.
We had one vehicle with my dad, not a car.
uh
a two wheeler and he bought a second hand kinetic honda for me when I got into plus one plus two so that I didn't go to college instead of taking a bus.
So we were slightly in the middle to upper middle class.
I would not say solid upper middle class because we did not have any of the luxuries that are usually associated with the upper middle class.
So it kind of grew up on that space.
So I did have to take an education loan.
I think it was about 11.25 % interest that I had to pay.
And the total was about 40 lakhs, if I'm not mistaken, because it was around the time when the dollar was 45 to 50 rupees.
And I spent about $80,000 on my masters.
because one, it was not funded.
It was an MBA degree.
because it was an MBA, it didn't have the associate or the full rider scholarship or anything associated with the typical MS degrees.
I had to pay for international tuition.
And that cost me almost 80,000.
And I had to make a full education loan for that.
And I had to pay it back.
So that, again,
brought me to how fast can I get a job and how much can I save once I have that job.
And that's where I would say I got really lucky.
And also, it was kind of a very risky maneuver because I graduated in 2012 with my MBA.
And that was the time when hiring still did not fully pick up.
It was uh after the 2008, 2009 recession in the US, the hiring has still not picked up.
So there was a lot of competition for jobs.
And we really had to.
uh It was not, I would say, not as bad as right now in 2016, but it was still bad.
uh And there was not such an open avenue of applications as well because LinkedIn was still small.
You still had to go to job fairs to actually get, oh you drop off your resume and...
then apply online and maybe wish that they would pick up their resume.
So in that kind of scenario, uh I actually ended up taking a slightly different route, which is a contracting rule, but with a fan company because m one of my classmates
actually got in with the full time and they were able to recommend to the hiring manager saying,
If you have typically the open up contract rules and that was one of the pipelines specifically into corporate rules.
And they got I got into that pipeline because of that.
Recommend I would say rather than
recommendation, it was more networking, right?
That's the term that we use.
it was a classmate.
We had very good terms.
when they were successful in getting a full-time role, they were able to get us into that pipeline.
Two of us guys, actually.
And we got in there.
It was very helpful.
I would say I did work extremely hard during that time.
It was...
oh
very common 12 to 14 hour days uh for about a year.
uh after a year, I was able to turn it down to a full-time role.
Got hired there.
And 2013 is when I started working full-time over there.
And during this whole contract period, my only goal was to get rid of my education.
And then that was a time also dollar started, know, the rupee started depreciating, the dollar started depreciating and I was able to take care of the loan in about 10 months uh
because of the far it's say, you know, the far it's advantage that I had and I saved aggressively and somehow that became a habit.
18,000 in 10 months is pretty impressive.
Yeah, I would say the total, because of the far it's appreciation, I think I got about got it about 10,000, 60,000.
So even I would say I was living like a student, extremely low, say expenses.
And it also helped that I was working long hours.
So I would work, and this is during one of the major expansions of this company.
You would probably guess by what I'm saying, during, uh this was before Thanksgiving and Christmas where things just ramp up and there was a lot of work and the company expanded
in those years extremely fast.
oh
So there was a lot of work and I spent a lot of time working in rents with doing anything else.
So my expenses outside were low other than some groceries and rent.
So I was not spending anything.
So most of my paycheck was going into, say, getting the loan down.
And even overtime, they just...
everything was going in there and I was able to close it out in 10 months.
And one of the habits that struck from there was I was brutal about what I was spending on.
uh I would only spend if it could give me any utility or happiness.
uh So I did not try to not waste money.
I'll say, I'll go to it in one of the next questions.
not a regret, but definitely a small mistake that I did around that time.
I was very brutal and very focused on where I was spending the money.
yeah, that is how I would say my initial foray into...
uh
how I would think about financial independence is get any crazy get out and make sure that I'm for the future.
And then like, did you have a fire number in mind at that point?
No, so it was all about getting out of the grip.
I didn't even know about FIRE until I would say 2019.
So 2018, 2019 is when I first came across the term.
And that's when I started doing the calculation of, what's my net worth like?
What's my expenses are going to look like?
or track what I'm spending.
I did track what I was spending annually, but I started categorizing things a bit more carefully into what are my needs versus wants, what is a must-have versus what is a
luxury, et cetera, et back in 2013 and 2014, when I was in the initial stages of my second career, I did not have any of these terms.
It was more about
Am I being uh very systematic about what is coming in and going out in terms of money?
So you were properly doing your budgeting at that time, know, every penny coming in, every penny going out is something that you were, you know, doing aggressively.
at a penny level.
I was probably tracking anything over $50.
That was my threshold, anything below $50.
And I would not really look deep into it.
But anything over $50, would check, hey, is this the right price?
Or do I have any deals?
Or is this really needed at this point?
Et cetera, et
Got it.
So what were some of the biggest decisions that helped you move towards this financial independence, you think in your journey?
If you look at your journey, you know, going maybe starting from 2020?
From a macro perspective, it is definitely being uh frugal in my case, and also being disciplined about saving a percentage uh of my paycheck.
So even with my first
uh job uh even in India, I used to contribute voluntary EPF.
uh I did the same thing in the US.
I started 401k from my first paycheck.
ah And so taking advantage of tax benefited accounts and employer match.
These are the things that I always did.
Yeah, and honestly, I don't know how, but probably during one of those conversations with your parents or with whoever your well-wishers are during the start of their career, they
would give some kind of financial wisdom of what can be done, what cannot be done, et cetera.
I probably picked up on those things, and that's how I came to know about that.
employer benefits that everyone should take advantage of.
So some of these follow things I did from the start of every job.
Some of the other things is, before even a paycheck hits my account, uh would uh set up a role within my payroll saying uh X percent would go to a different account and that gets
invested or saved.
I would only get a part.
smaller percentage of the paycheck into my account.
And to be honest, my base pay has been pretty low.
Over the years, the maths base pay that I got was about 140K UST.
There, I definitely like doubt was RSUs.
And because I worked in tech companies uh and RSUs was where the
uh most of the growth happened.
uh I would say apart from one or two years, I've saved most of my RSU.
I basically considered that as a complete bonus, never had plans to spend it and just soaked away all of that money.
I did diversify a bit of that.
uh
just because concentration risk, these terms, I came to know about it later.
I diversified a bit out of that employer stock, got into ETFs and all of that.
obviously having that ability to do that is also very lucky.
So the factors, like you said, having the discipline and also having a recently well-paying job and being able to live a lifestyle which is not, say, not about instant
gratification is the way that I put it, is probably the biggest things.
And one major thing that I would mention is also having the
uh alignment with your partner.
So I got married uh early in 2014.
And I was able to discuss in detail with my wife on what my say, financial outlook was in life and how I want to do things and uh she was very much in alignment with my values.
And that helped.
That helped immensely.
I'll expand on why.
But more than half of my network right now is probably because we were able to combine our savings and also our expenses together and keep the lifestyle.
I would not say keep the lifestyle creep to minimum, lifestyle creep definitely happens, keep it sustainable is what they would say at this level.
And that is the main reason we were able to get into the five status.
product.
And when did you realize that you had reached the point where know, Burris the fire was possible?
What did that moment feel like?
Sure.
So Barista Fire itself was probably around 2022.
Not even 2020.
Yeah, 2022 is when, just after all the COVID peaks and valleys and everything happened, I redid some of what they were spending over the last couple of years, looked at what our
then network was and figured out, hey, yeah.
It probably, between Coast Fire and Barista Fire is when we're at the bar.
Coast is basically, uh you're not add anything more to savings, you just start to withdraw.
You keep your uh portfolio, let it grow while your expenses are taken care of with your current job.
And Barista is basically when you go on slightliness, but start withdrawing slightly from the portfolio as well.
We were somewhere in between there and it was I would say it was not very different, you know, because I was still not at that point where I would put my day job, you know, or I
would do anything drastically different.
And this is also probably because I was in the U.S.
I was still on a visa that was tied to my job.
My wife was on a visa which was tied to her job.
So we were not even though we achieved say
uh, know, from a money perspective, we were still not in a position to just put our job and say, I'm going to do something else because I have enough.
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, uh, so to answer your question, did it feel any different?
Probably no.
Uh, when things changed was when we decided, you know, Hey, we were passed, by the stuff I, or
in another year in 2023 because of some major vests that came in with my job and my wife's job.
We added almost one fourth of our net worth in that one year.
And they were past the first day of our point.
And at that point, we were like, what are we even doing in the US at this time with this uncertainty?
We also had a who was growing up and we said,
hey, we might want to move out of the US if this makes sense.
So 2023 is when we moved to Canada.
The planning and the process started years back.
And because of various uncertainties like, know, in the years.
And 2023 is when we triggered that time and said, let's move.
And my wife was able to transfer her role.
from the US to Canada.
So we moved with a job.
I actually resigned my job in the US and moved here without a job.
oh And I took about uh two years off uh before I went back to work again.
So during this time is when probably I would say the real uh test of not exactly a retired early time frame, but more of a
What would I, what would my day look like?
What would I spend time on?
I picked up a bunch of different hobbies, spent time very well, but I still was a bit bored, you know, to be honest.
And that's the main reason I took back, went back to work with my same old company.
They were able to hire me in Canada and I uh went back to work.
uh And probably in...
uh
another maybe year or two.
Like I said earlier on, it's more about the mental block rather than financial block at this point that we want to get into a RE mode.
Got it.
That sounds wonderful that in 2023 you were actually able to get to a point where you were able to reach actual financial independence and uh whatever savings you have, whatever
investments you have, you're able to live uh off of that.
I think that's dream for a lot of people.
So yeah, what is the most surprising part about this phase of life?
I would say the biggest thing is clarity about what you want and what you don't want definitely improves.
And it's not just about work.
It's about how you want to lead your life as well.
Previously, there was a lot of emphasis
even within ourselves to tell the world that we are successful or show the world that we are successful, which is basically in terms of material things, um like having a very nice
car, having a very nice home, going on uh trips, posting about it on social media, etc.
And after the financial shift happened, it was more about, hey, I'm doing all of this, but at what cost?
It's like the cost of spending eight to 10 hours a day chained to a desk and working for someone else.
Not that it was wrong.
It was not just for me at that point.
And small things started, why the hell am I doing this for?
If it was not for the money, would I do it?
So these kind of thoughts or questions for myself changed the outlook in terms of, do I want to do this for another year or another two years or another 10 years?
The answer was definitely no, not for 10 years.
Maybe two years, maybe three years.
Maybe yeah, that's where it started.
And that led to, how do we plan our future, which with uh our expenses uh and lifestyle, what do we want to sustain or do we not want to sustain?
And what do we need for that?
And those calculations back and.
also expectations.
Do we want to live here?
Do we want to say move back to India?
Or do we want to move to a different country by living in another country?
What does that look like?
What does it cost?
So all of these questions start popping up as well.
So in a way, it was very liberating.
And the clarity of thought or even the ability to think this way
is only because we had the foundation of having achieved fight.
So that was the most important change that I see in myself and my spouse.
Nice, really interesting stuff.
So looking back, what's one financial mistake oh that taught you like an important lesson?
Oh, right.
Yeah.
So it ties exactly back to the signaling to the world that you're successful.
So I got myself a German SUV back in 2013.
And the way I funded it was selling off some of my stock that I got early on in my first job.
And just for the down payment, was, I put down probably $15,000 as a down payment, got the vehicle, started driving it, felt amazing.
I did enjoy it, enjoy the vehicle for about two, two and a half years.
After that, it was just a car.
Like I did not have the special feeling about, know, did I feel very nice about it?
It was a car.
It was taking me from point A to point B.
You know, like was I proud about it?
I was not, you know, just looking at it all day.
I would just look at it when I was walking in the parking lot and, you know, just hop in it.
I barely took it through car washes because again, I was not that car person.
But the reason I bought it was to show the world that I was successful.
I was able to spend so much on a car.
again, the reason I say this was probably the biggest mistake is if I had the stock without selling.
that would have been $300,000 right now.
15 grand that I spent in 2013 would have been 300 grand right now.
And it's an expensive.
Yeah, exactly.
It's an expensive.
So I keep telling myself, even though I bought a, say, German, it was an Audi.
And even though I bought an Audi, it probably costed me more than a Rolls Royce.
Yeah.
But again, I did not regret it at all.
So it's a mistake, but it's not something that I regret because like I said, I enjoyed the car, enjoyed it for, definitely enjoyed it for two years.
I used the vehicle for about uh seven or eight years and after which uh one of my friends while driving it got into a small accident and it was written off.
And, but thankfully it was well optioned.
So no one was injured.
everything was good.
So I enjoyed the vehicle.
was from a, say total cost of ownership, probably not as cheap, but total enjoyment, definitely enjoyed it.
So it was not a blunder, but it was probably say something that in hindsight I would have probably done differently.
oh would have helped me much more financially.
Got it.
think for a lot of people, think cars, at least for guys, think cars and know, bikes or maybe like a house, I think is one of the top things that are probably, you know, they are
aspiring to.
then once, like you said, once we have those things, it's really difficult to, know, sustain the joy for a long period of time.
Right.
It just keeps decreasing like the, like the price of the car.
Right.
It's appreciating asset.
It's a diminishing value.
for that, again, it's not wrong, Like, why do we all earn all of this money?
Like, we want to enjoy it, we want to spend it and be happy.
If it gives you happiness, definitely do it.
In my case, I felt happy for some time, but it decreased because primarily I was not a car guy.
What?
which was not what I released, you know, I should have realized earlier.
Say it would have been better spent off in something else, maybe, which would have given me more happiness.
So I think that is probably my biggest lesson from that is, if it was not cars, and if I say, spent that on a flight, know, business class for my parents.
probably would have given me more happiness.
I spent traveling uh Europe for a couple of months.
That would have probably given me more happiness.
So again, that is probably what we think is what gives us the most happiness by spending that money and be intentional about spending it on those things.
ah So for someone in their 20s or 30s who is hearing about fire because we have so many podcasts and things, YouTube videos going on, what advice would you give them?
What habits matter the most and what should people really focus on early on?
So my biggest take is there is no uh instant gratification with fire.
ah It's a long term mindset.
uh You would not see results in a month or two months or even a couple of years.
It definitely needs a very long term mindset on, let's say, how we would want to.
look at things, it takes the time.
So if someone is looking into, achieving financial independence very fast, it's probably not for them.
You need to set your expectations right in that case.
uh So for people who are looking at fire, say for the right reasons in the right mindset, definitely thinking about how they want to save.
Some of the redress are definitely there, right?
Like you need to get into a stable career or job, work as hard as you can in your initial years to get to that slightly stable position.
Yeah, you know, I might be still old school in some of these things is stick to a particular job or a career for least two or three years so that you can learn from there
and contribute to your group.
Yeah, it might be slightly different in the last four or five years after post-COVID.
I've seen people changing jobs very often.
could be the new reality for all I know.
But if your skills do not match up to, say, the expectations from employers, you're not going to be allowed to stay in the job for long.
So that will not give you enough platform to be able to jump off to the next level.
So that is where my advice is stick to something for a couple of years or three years at least.
before you start thinking of jumping in somewhere else.
So that gives you uh a stable earning platform.
Use or make use of budgeting tools to track your expenses and uh see what amount you can save and invest that aggressively from the start.
oh
my initial investing, even though it was in gold back in the day, uh did pay off very handsomely if you look at the gold prices now.
But for at least three or four years before now, at least until COVID, gold was a very safe industry.
That was a very low growing asset.
It was more of a hedge against infection.
I realized that
you know, about 2014.
So that's when I started investing into ETFs.
the stock market is where the significant returns are.
After taking a couple of finance courses during masters, that's when I started realizing, hey, what do I want to invest in?
How do I look at investment returns, etc.
Learning about having these resources and learning about these things makes sense.
putting it into practice is even more important.
So packing your expenses, making sure you are investing aggressively uh for a significant amount of time.
Obviously, if you have a high income, your savings will be higher.
So you will reach the goal faster.
But if you do not have a high income, making sure your proportion of savings uh
is relatively high actually, it is much more to build the discipline rather than just having a high income.
So you might earn 200k and blow everything out.
But if you say, 100k and save 50 % of that, you'll be in a much better off position than a high income owner.
So having that discipline definitely matters.
having a target
Obviously, it's important.
need to realize what you want to do in life.
Do you want to keep working?
Do you want to...
And for some people, is absolutely fine.
They want to be long-term career people.
And I absolutely respect that.
There are a lot of people who do that for years.
And they are still very happy.
You need to realize or understand what is for you and then act accordingly.
Got it.
One final question that I like to end with is, do you think pursuing financial independence was worth it?
For me, absolutely.
So not only professionally, or not only personally, even professionally, it actually makes sense.
Because now I only work if I want to and like the job.
And the reason I specifically say that is work is an option.
oh And my current job that I'm back at same company, but I went back to a different mission and different org, which again was much more aligned to what say the long-term
value that I would want to do.
It was more in a space that I liked and I built my career rather than.
say something that I was trusting to and something that I enjoyed doing.
And I'm extremely confident in doing it as well.
And over here, uh if I do not like what the job is turning into or uh has turned into, I'll just walk away from it.
Like no regrets.
And because the primary reason being I don't need to teach it anymore.
And that for me is...
probably worth more than just a high-paying carrier because I choose to do or I choose to do what I want to do in this case.
So that was probably the ultimate game changer for me in respect to getting to the fire status.
Yeah, sounds wonderful.
All right, A.V.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and insights with us today.
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about your journey.
Thank you so much.
See you in a few minutes.
Peace.