486 | The Wealthy Educator | Chris Travers
ChooseFI
Brad Barrett | Choose FI Media
4.8 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2024
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode: public service accounts, side hustles, making FI possible, frugality, giving yourself freedom, and side hustles.
This week we are joined by Chris Travers, a New York City public school teacher and FI community member, to discuss his journey from being a natural saver to becoming a savvy investor, talk advantages and disadvantages of some of the retirement accounts provided to teachers, as well as discuss some ways he has been able to grow his net worth in the last 10 years. Frugality is a term that often comes up while on the FI path, and finding a balance of saving and spending is crucial to reaching your financial goals. Remember that where you decide to save and spend and how you do so will evolve throughout your FI journey! While it can be hard to cut costs of the things you enjoy in the present, being willing to cut out what you don’t need can set you up for success in the future!
Chris Travers:
- Book: “TL;DR: Financial Literacy for New York City Public School Teachers: Optimizing Financial Decisions Based On Your TRSNYC Benefits” by Christopher Tavers and Karl Fisch
- Instagram: @thewealthyeducator
Timestamps:
- 0:54 – Introduction
- 6:47 – Public Service Accounts
- 11:38 – Diving Into FI
- 15:08 – Side Hustles/Making FI Possible
- 22:17 – Renting vs Buying
- 26:43 – Frugality and Loosening the Purse Strings
- 32:25 – Giving Yourself Freedom
- 37:53 – Conclusion
Resources Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
- Join ChooseFI’s Facebook Group!
- “The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
- “Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!” by Robert Kiyosaki
- “Smart Couples Finish Rich, Revised and Updated: 9 Steps to Creating a Rich Future for You and Your Partner” by David Bach
- The Unfair (FI) Advantage Of Teachers | 457b | ChooseFI Ep 13
- The Happy Body
- Millennial Revolution
- Karl Fisch
- Subscribe to The FI Weekly!
More Helpful Links and FI Resources:
- Top 10 Recommended Travel Rewards Credit Cards
- Empower: Free Dashboard to Track Your Finances
- CIT Bank Platinum Savings Account
- M1 Finance: Commission-Free Investing, 1-click rebalancing
- CashFreely: Maximize Your Cash Back Rewards
- Travel Freely: Track all your rewards cards and points
- Emergency Binder: For Your Family’s Essential Info (code ‘CHOOSEFI’ for 20% off)
- Student Loan Planner: Custom Consult (with $100 Discount)
- Get a cheaper phone plan with Mint Mobile
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Choose a Five. |
| 0:01.9 | Today on the show we have a really interesting story |
| 0:04.1 | from one of our community members, Chris Travers, |
| 0:06.3 | who is a New York City public school teacher |
| 0:09.1 | who actually posted on our Facebook group |
| 0:11.6 | a couple months ago with this really fascinating post and |
| 0:15.1 | it just struck a chord with people and it was essentially, hey I figured out money at the age of |
| 0:20.7 | 26 and now fast forward 10 years later at the age of 36 and I reached a |
| 0:26.4 | million dollars net worth and of course as you can imagine there were a ton of |
| 0:30.8 | questions how does a public school teacher do this? How do you do this? How do you do this? |
| 0:36.1 | Living in New York City? Chris's story has a little bit of everything and I knew that I had to have him on. |
| 0:41.5 | I think this is one you're really gonna enjoy. |
| 0:43.8 | And with that, welcome to Choose Ev-Fi. |
| 0:46.0 | Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm really looking forward to this |
| 0:56.4 | chat. Thank you for having me, big fan of the show, happy to be on. Nice, yeah, this |
| 1:00.6 | should be fun. So, okay, I guess let's start at the beginning, which sounds like it was somewhere in the vicinity of the age of 26. I'm not sure if it was somewhere prior to that but talk to me about the origin story of |
| 1:14.7 | Chris figuring out money. Yeah so I've always been a good savor I think I was blessed with that I |
| 1:20.4 | always had that saving mentality no one in my family really knew anything about investing. |
| 1:25.0 | And at that point in my life, I saved a good amount of money. |
| 1:28.0 | And I kind of realize I'm losing purchasing power due to inflation. |
| 1:31.0 | I can't just have this sitting in a savings account. I need to start |
| 1:33.7 | figuring something out. I had an uncle who was good with money so my mom at the time said |
... |
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