Journey to Freedom

Welcome to Season 2 of "The Journey to Freedom" podcast! After a short pause, I'm happy to begin the next season and I'm kicking it off with some exciting news: We are finally taking the first steps towards moving to the jungle! I fill you in on a recent trip to Costa Rica and some developments for the move date. 

Around 30 minutes in, I read the rough draft* of my upcoming book's intro and Chapter 1. I first give a quick synopsis of the history of traditional retirement and why it is failing us. Then, I explain what the F.I.R.E. Movement really is, give the history of the movement and begin breaking down some of the first strategies behind achieving "financial independence to retire early." 

*While this is a rough draft that is in need of editing, this material is still COPYRIGHTED. Do not repurpose in any way without written permission from me, the author, Meg Nordmann. Thank you.

Please let me know your thoughts! 

When we began looking into short term vacation rental investing, we thought of it as "passive income." But I laugh heartily at the thought of calling any of this “passive.”

IT IS WORK. HARD WORK.

I wanted to give you an honest description of what actively managing just two vacation rentals looks like in order to get the high return that you want. 

In the first half of today's episode, I give you a realistic idea of the time and expense involved in running one, but in the second half of the episode I talk numbers with you and go over why the "Return on Cash" is so fantastic with these types of rentals. 

If this is a type of investing you've considered before, you should know what you’re getting into so you can better decide if this is an investment path you want.

Today I'm speaking with Beth Inglish, who happens to be an old friend from my Nashville days early in my career, and is now a professional motivational speaker and artist with a mission to connect people and to teach them how to put their creativity to work. She's built her entire life on openness, creativity and connection, and now she's teaching large audiences to feel the same way.

She's blended her experiences with trauma recovery with 13 years of art-making and community leadership into a simple message--to change how people feel.

She’s been a creative with a capital C all her life--she’s a visual artist, a musician, a writer, dancer, a stand-up comedian and a fabulous storyteller. Her artwork has appeared on nationally syndicated television shows, public art installations, murals in the homes and offices of private collectors around the world, and even on the outside of a city bus. It’s hard to describe what her art looks like---it’s so expressionist and abstract and colorful and joyful. I’ll put some images in the Show Notes so you can take a look.One of Beth's most significant contribution to her community in Nashville was founding and directing the Nashville Creative Group, which is now an over 9,000-member group of both online and in-person meetups for creatives in Tennessee.

Since 2012, the group has had around 100 in-person meetups and inspired an artistic renaissance in Middle Tennessee while simultaneously providing a safe haven of community, expression and connection. It has also provided a model for other cities in bringing forth renewed artistic expression for their city and support its creative class. We talk about this further in our conversation today.

So now Beth has taken everything she's learned from these experiences and speaks to audiences across the U.S. Recently, she's spoken to audiences at University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, Bridgestone and Salesforce.

I’m so honored to have such an inspiring, intelligent and joyful friend such as Beth in my life and I’m delighted to share her with you all today. While I have plenty of interviews scheduled to chat about investing and financial freedom, I really want to continue mixing in conversations that help with mindset as well. Because that is step one on any journey to freedom--no matter what your end goal is. If you can master your own mind and emotions and harness that in a positive way, then you will be unstoppable and simply enjoy the ride as well. I think you’ll come away from this conversation feeling quite motivated and energized.

If you take anything from this conversation, I hope it’s that investing in yourself is the best investment you could make. You’ll hear a lot about the arts in this conversation, but I hope you see that no matter what industry you are in, I’d say all of this still applies.

And with that, let’s dive into today’s show.

Connect with Beth:

Today's episode is a Friday Bonus--something I'd love to begin doing so that I can add some more mindset tips and non-interview content to the "Journey to Freedom" podcast. 

So this week’s podcast episode bio will be a little different than usual. No Forbes articles and blogger awards to list out and such. But man, is he awesome in all the other ways! This week, I can’t wait for you to meet my husband, Jeremy Fowler. He’s amazing.

Today on the Journey to Freedom podcast, I have a conversation with Diane Boden, also known as The Minimalist Mom. Diane is the voice behind the top-rated podcast, the Minimalist Moms, which began in 2016, where she spreads her ideas on minimalism during the chaos of motherhood and interviews others in regards to living a life in the pursuit of less. Her goal is simply: think more and do with less. 

Diane has been featured on other popular podcasts: Find the Magic, With Intention, Pure Nurture, Sustainable Minimalists, The Simple Home Podcast and many others that I’ve also been tuning into for years. She’s been featured in 614Magazine and Columbus Parent magazine. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and three children. You can follow her at @dianeboden on Instagram or “Like” the Minimalist Moms page on Facebook. You can also follow the podcast at @minimalistmomspodcast on Instagram for weekly motivation and encouragement.

Diane has also just recently published her first book, titled “Minimalist Moms: Living and Parenting with Simplicity.” Her book gives the tools to  begin curating and editing their home and lifestyle so that they can gain their time, space and sanity back again. This is the Journey to Freedom podcast and it’s not just financial freedom that I want to explore here, it’s all types of freedom--especially time freedom.

Learn more about Diane at:

Today, I’m chatting with George Sisneros, a 55-year old who has been taking the personal finance "Money Twitter" scene by storm over the past few months.

George has swam with sharks in Belize & smoked a Cuban cigar in Havana. He’s explored ancient Mayan ruins & grabbed an alligator by the tail. He’s jumped out of an airplane and ran a marathon. He’s climbed and spent the night on Volcán Acatenango, the 3rd highest peak in Central America.He’s summited Capitol Peak, which is “arguably the most difficult of the 58 Colorado 14ers.” He’s played in the World Series of Poker in Vegas. And he’s a bilingual Latino from the States who is now a Christian Missionary living in a small Guatamalan village, where he is happily married with 8 kids, and has built a school and helped establish a safe house for severely malnourished babies under 1-year-old.

And to top it off, he also does high-level coaching for successful entrepreneurs and executives & gives them “one-on-one accountability.” This is a highly personalized, very involved level of coaching, so he only works with 5 clients max at any given time.

The top of his website sums up his mission quite neatly:

"My passion is helping you get your time back so you can summit more of life’s mountains.”

So you can see why I thought George sounded like JUST the kind of person I wanted to chat with on the top of The Journey to Freedom. 

In today's show we talk about everything from wrangling alligators, to launching a school and clinic in Guatamala. We discuss his No Spend Year and what the holidays look like with no presents. We discuss how to nurture a long lasting marriage, his new deep dive into the world of investing, and how to live a more intentional life. 

Adulting is not easy. It’s made up of tasks we typically dread. They are things that overwhelm us, baffle us or bore us. Often, adulting is hard because we don’t understand the task on a fundamental level--and most adulting tasks revolve around money in some way. Insurance, retirement, savings, taxes, estate planning, bills and pretty much anything personal finance can feel bewildering.

Lauren has made it her mission to take the fear, confusion and dread out of these adulting tasks and make it EASY….hence, her blog and podcast’s name, “Adulting Is Easy.” 

As of this podcast publish date, Lauren has 7.5 rental doors at the young age of 31. She and her husband plan to achieve Financial Independence (and Retire Early, if and whenever they feel like it) in around 5 years, even with a "FatFIRE" lifestyle spending of around $100k a year. She is proof that you can achieve a more luxurious level of FIRE at a younger age and she combines both real estate and stock investing in her strategy. 

Today's episode is a conversation with Steve Cummings of The Frugal Expat blog. Steve is an American and an adventurer who has traveled most of the U.S. and 19 other countries, and his wife Sarah is an Australian who has logged adventures in about 56 different countries. The couple have a travel blog called “Cummings and Goings” and another site, called "The Frugal Expat."

I discovered Steve via his brand The Frugal Expat and saw that he was currently living in Taipai, Taiwan, and was intrigued to hear about his journey to financial freedom and how he jumped into the the expat life--something I’m very much looking forward to doing myself.

Steve, The Frugal Expat has not always been frugal and he’s obviously not always been an expat. So we’ll hop into this conversation to find out about how his life of travel and wealth building began.

In today's episode, "Journey to Freedom" host Meg Nordmann reads an article of hers that was published for Simple Money Magazine in August 2020 titled "Stoic Minimalism Steered Us Toward Financial Independence." The article begins by describing her family's Big Dream that is driving their aggressive saving and investing and then breaks down two philosophies--minimalism and Stoicism--which have been a crucial part of their mindset and habit changes on their 'journey to freedom.' Keep in mind, the article was published in August 2020. Today, in May of 2021, they are officially financially independent. They estimate they have one to two years before embarking on the next chapter: geoarbitrage in Costa Rica. 

Today we are chatting with Jess of “The Fioneers” (who blogs alongside her husband Corey) --the couple have become one of the more popular and carefully watched Financial Independence bloggers as they document their journey to FI or FIRE--the acronym for “Financial Independence, Retire Early.”  

The couple has a little bit different approach to this goal which is more focused on designing their Dream Life throughout the process, rather than having their Dream Life be the End Goal. They’ve also created an intentional life of giving back. After getting married, they moved to a third-world country to teach English, and over the past decade, they’ve held various jobs of giving back to the community, often working for nonprofits. They may be out of the corporate rat-race in one sense, but working for nonprofits have come with their own set of challenges, including financially. But despite this, they still continue to maintain a high savings rate. Jess has recently stepped away from her nonprofit job and begun an entrepreneurial journey which includes coaching & writing for The Fioneers brand. 

The name “Fioneers” is derived from “FI” (the acronym for Financial Independence) and “Pioneers” because they are driven by a love for travel and adventure. They’ve now travelled to 8 countries and have a goal to travel to 100 countries together before they get too old to travel.  Because of this ambitious goal, they are working to not only be financially independent, but more importantly, location independent.

Welcome to the "Journey to Freedom" Podcast! 

The goal is not simply to have lots of stuff or lots of money--the goal is living life on your own terms. Whether it’s decluttering our homes, getting out of debt or striving to build financial independence, what we are all seeking is actually TIME. And time is ultimately our freedom. Owning your own time is true wealth. On this podcast, we’ll explore ways we can reclaim our life. Please join me, your host Meg Nordmann, on this journey to freedom.

In this introductory episode, you'll meet the host and understand the topics covered in this podcast, which aims to explore freedom of all types. Time freedom, financial freedom and freedom from material consumption are just a few of the topics that will be covered in upcoming episodes. Expect conversations on minimalism, the Financial Independence/Retire Early (FIRE) Movement, Stoicism, investment strategies, geo-arbitrage, expat life, alternative lifestyles, time hacking and so much more. Break away from the cultural norms that keep you stuck, trapped or chained in some way. It's time to get inspired and take action on your own journey to freedom. 

Please subscribe and you'll be notified of new episodes which will release each Wednesday.