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🏛️ The Mount Rushmore of Financial Independence & Tipping Culture Gone Wild! 😬
511 Plays13 hours ago
🗽 Carla and I reveal our picks for the “Mount Rushmore of Financial Independence,” highlighting the icons, authors, and community leaders who inspire the FI movement.
Watch and Subscribe on YouTube
😬 Additionally, we acknowledge the current tipping culture and how it's gone wild in recent years—tipping pressure, guilt, and where we draw the line.
🥇 In this episode, we discuss:
1️⃣ David’s Mount Rushmore of Financial Independence: Pete Adeney (Mr. Money Mustache), Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa (ChooseFI), Stephen Baughier (CampFI), and JL Collins (The Simple Path to Wealth)
2️⃣ Carla’s Mount Rushmore of Financial Independence: Vicki Robin (Your Money or Your Life), Paula Pant (Afford Anything), Stephen Baughier (CampFI), and Carl & Mindy Jensen (1500 Days & BiggerPockets Money)
3️⃣ Honorable Mentions: Additional FI icons shaping the community
4️⃣ Tipping Culture Gone Wild: The growing pressure, frustration, and guilt associated with tipping
🔗 David’s Mount Rushmore of Financial Independence:
📘 Pete Adeney – Mr. Money Mustache
🎙️ Brad Barrett & Jonathan Mendonsa – ChooseFI
📚 JL Collins – The Simple Path to Wealth
🔗 Carla’s Mount Rushmore of Financial Independence:
📘 Vicki Robin – Your Money or Your Life
🌐 Paula Pant – Afford Anything
📓 Carl & Mindy Jensen – 1500 Days
🔗 Honorable Mentions:
🏕️ Diania Merriam – EconoMe Conference
📘 Jacob Lund Fisker – Early Retirement Extreme
🌲 Frugalwoods – Frugalwoods Blog
🎙️ Brandon Ganch – Mad Fientist
🔗 David’s Links:
🏛️ The Mount Rushmore of Financial Independence: Icons, Community, and Inspiration
😬 Tipping Culture in America: Has It Gotten Out of Control?
🍏 Forget About Money on Apple Podcast
🎧 Forget About Money on Spotify
#tipping #financialindependence #money
🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Don’t miss out on more episodes about intentional living and financial independence! Hit subscribe and the bell icon 🔔 to stay updated.
📜 Disclaimer:
This episode is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Please consult with a professional for guidance specific to your financial situation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast Format
00:00:00
Speaker
Lisa. c kristaa Welcome to the Forget About Money podcast, where we talk about a money related topic for about the first half. And then after that, we talk about whatever it is we want to talk about.
Host's Journey in Financial Independence
00:00:12
Speaker
I have been in the financial independence community since I'd say really roughly 2017. So it's a good number of years. And in that timeframe, I've grown to know and understand many of the people in the financial independence community. When I say people,
00:00:28
Speaker
I'm not talking about just everybody who's searching for financial independence who or we're on their financial independence journey, but many of the go-to personalities, many of the podcasters, many of the bloggers, ah many of the YouTubers, many of the book authors that impacted ah financial independence.
Concept of Financial Independence Mount Rushmore
00:00:48
Speaker
And so I thought it would be a fun thing to do with Carla because she also has a lot of experience and knows a lot of people in the financial independence community if we compared our Mount Rushmore of financial independence. How does that sound, Carla?
00:01:05
Speaker
I think it sounds super fun. I love this idea. So apparently this is like a thing where people do the Mount Rushmore of fill in the blank. And this is something I was totally oblivious to. But now that I know about it, I really like it a lot. And I'm excited to do it.
00:01:19
Speaker
And this might be because my own search habits, but I went to a Google search bar and typed in just the Mount Rushmore of, and then you know how you get those next level of like common searches that come out. The next one was Mount Rushmore of, and then you have the Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Keystone. The very next one is the Mount Rushmore of Huffing, which I clicked on the link and it was about, I just saw something that said like raid. So I think that's inhalants of sniffing, but it took me to a Reddit post that said 18 and then I did not go any farther to look at that anymore. So that's not what we're talking about. three weeks But it went on to say the Mount Rushmore of craft breweries, Mount Rushmore of superheroes, wrestling, basketball, sports, WWE and
Humorous Discussion on Unusual Mount Rushmore Themes
00:02:07
Speaker
anime. So
00:02:08
Speaker
Okay, those are all way more fun than huffing, which I have to say, like, depress is the hell out of me to think about the fact that there's that much huffing going on that someone has thought about the Mount Rushmore. And apparently a lot of people think about the Mount Rushmore of huffing. Yeah, I thought you were going to say you're depressed that you don't have anything to huff at the moment.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, well, obviously that too. yeah i ah What are people doing? What are people doing? Nothing, apparently. ra Raid. Holy cow. Yeah. The commercials where they like spray the cockroach and the little cartoon cockroach dies is not enough to deter people from wanting to be the little cockroach.
00:02:42
Speaker
Here it is a our first tangent. This is probably ridiculous as far as... Well, it's ridiculous, I'm gonna kill it. So I was walking around maybe, I don't know, a couple months ago, shortly after I moved here. And I saw a guy standing on the side of the sidewalk and he was holding what I thought was like an extremely oversized tube of caulk, C-A-U-L-K.
00:03:01
Speaker
Got it. All right. I guess he's doing some kind of construction somewhere, but nobody was near him. There was no trucks parked on the side of the road. Oh, I cannot imagine where this is going. And as I got closer, it wasn't even trying to hide it. It was a tube this large and like that. And I had a nozzle at the top and he was inhaling it. The whole thing was just gas, like a whippet. Oh no. Can you do that with caulk? Isn't it just like... It was not caulk. Oh, okay. It was just straight gas. It was like marketed for that. So apparently there's companies out there marketing this inhalants for people to just to kill their brain cells. Okay. Well... So he probably has searched the Mount Rushmore of huffing. Yeah. If he has enough brain power to get on a Google search by this point. The poor guy who makes me really sad. Okay, let's talk about the Mount Rushmore-ify because the Mount Rushmore-evolving has thoroughly bummed me out for the tank.
Criteria for Influential FI Figures
00:03:57
Speaker
That is very depressing little factoid. Okay, so do you want to kick us off and tell us who's on your Mount Rushmore-ify?
00:04:04
Speaker
Okay. Yes. Let me start with how I, and I did Google this and I did not see a single blog article, so I didn't get help or like I had to make up my own framework of how I yeah qualified people to be on this list. And it's tough because there's so many great people out there who have done so much for the financial independence community and even finance and personal finance at large. So there's many, many more people.
00:04:28
Speaker
who have impacted it, but this is the Mount Rushmore. So the top four, in my opinion, and this is how I came to the conclusion that I came to. I looked at my own financial independence journey and I've looked at types of media where interactions have i had the most impact on my own. And I made the assumption, I made the leap that it's reasonable to think that's also how other people have grown into and through this financial independence journey. So having said that,
00:04:56
Speaker
I was thinking about podcasters. i thought I was thinking about book authors. I was thinking about community builders. And I was thinking about, let's say bloggers. You didn't actually. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So those are the four things that, that's four categories that I had then. Then I took the people that I know in each of those categories that I think had the biggest impact on me. And that's how I ranked my four. Now people who are listening, please share your four and it's okay that they're different than mine. I don't know, Carla, maybe yours and I's, we have no idea what the other person picked for their list, which should make this a little bit more fun. Suspense was killing me.
00:05:33
Speaker
But if they, if it turns out that we are all exactly identical, you and I, the listener, please, it's okay to be different. Just tell us who you would add into this list as well.
Key Influencers in Financial Independence
00:05:43
Speaker
So for blogging, I always have to say Mr. Money Mustache, Pete Adney, he is behind the blog. Mr. Money Mustache is the name of the blog. And he launched that blog in 2011.
00:05:56
Speaker
in almost every time, almost every time I meet somebody new in the financial independence community. And this is probably standard throughout the last five or six years of me meeting people in the financial independence community. More times than not, the majority of those people have discovered the financial independence community because of his blog, period.
00:06:17
Speaker
It's the name by name, Mr. Money Mustache, his very matter of fact, speaking, writing. He did a lot more writing than speaking, but he's been on podcasts and he's given a number of talks that have become popular since. But very matter of fact, and as a analytical mind for me, like that really synced to me. he He wrote this article.
00:06:36
Speaker
the shockingly simple math behind early retirement or something to that effect very close to the exact title. yeah And that title or that article just like locked it in for me. I was never like too far gone with finances. Reading that article just made sense to me. It really aligned a lot of how I thought finances should go, but I had never seen it put that way before.
00:07:00
Speaker
And it just just solidified it as an, okay, this is a real thing. Here's the math and logic behind it. figures It tells you how to set your goalposts for your magic number. And that's the, I think that's the blueprint really of the beginning of your financial independence journey. And so I give him a ton of credit, not only just for me, but for but many, many, I'm sure millions of other people who have, who do know who he is. Yeah. It's a solid, solid choice. I respect it.
00:07:26
Speaker
The second category is podcasting. Aside from this podcast, which is going to be a 46th, 47th episode and very amazing hosts. Admittedly, we are not the biggest money podcast out there and definitely not for financial independence. Specifically in 2017, a podcast started and that podcast grew overnight.
00:07:51
Speaker
ridiculously but within a few months, I think. I don't know their exact numbers, but it shot up and everybody knows who they are now. And if you don't, you absolutely should go check them out. And that is Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mundonza, who are the hosts of the Choose Five podcast. It is now being recorded by Brad Barrett and no longer Jonathan Mundonza.
00:08:11
Speaker
But together they teamed up and it was an incredible show. Launched in 2017, became a central resource in the Fi community. And and ah they also started local Fi meetup groups too. So they had to a significant role in building the Fi community from a face-to-face standpoint.
00:08:32
Speaker
And that that was done through Facebook groups. So if you live in an area and you're not sure if there's any financial independence people around you right now, go check out ChooseFi. Click on a few links. I'm sure you can fight figure it out and see if there's a meetup group, a ChooseFi group near you. And then you can meet other people like you and really begin to build that community with others.
00:08:52
Speaker
They also have released a number of books. The five blueprint or your blueprint to financial independence was published in 2020. And they're great because they just, one of the focus is at least on the earlier half and maybe I'm sure they still continue to do it as is they put actionable steps at the end of the other episodes.
00:09:09
Speaker
And I think that is, that was some really good advice for a lot of people who maybe we've just stumbled on personal finance and as a beginner or as a seasoned expert, that was just made you feel more connected to people and made you feel more connected to the idea of financial independence and finances without it being intimidating. So that's my first two. Number one, Mr. Money Mustache, Pete Adney. Number two, Brad Baron, Jonathan Danso with the Choose Five podcast.
00:09:34
Speaker
I mean, I'm not, I don't want to be like a super harsh critic, but that is two people and there's only four faces on Mount Rushmore. So just, you know, there's an asterisk here. Just noting an asterisk. It's going to be, it's one of those halves. Like half of the things are going to be Jonathan. The other half is going to be Brad. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah.
00:09:51
Speaker
figured it out. I had it very good. The sculptor would be like, what was that? Can we talk about the idea for this project again? Number three, when I think of community building, there's a lot of awesome events out there. There's FinCon ah with PT money. There is Economy with Diana Miriam. There is campfire with Stephen Boyer. There was Chautauqua's with JL Collins and ah and a group of his peers that would put that on. And since some of those, there are many other events that have started to help build community. Because one of the things that we do miss is connectedness. And unless you're meeting people face to face and spending quality time with them, you just don't make those connections because your next door neighbor
00:10:35
Speaker
isn't not going to see chances are your next-door neighbor does not understand value and money the way you see it and and place it where you place it in your world. It's just different. So there's many of these great opportunities, but I have to pick one.
00:10:47
Speaker
do I do have to pick one and I know you might say that I'm biased and I am for sure. have a how where this is going That does not take away from the objective reality that this person has put on 50 events since 2017. It's multi-day and people really do connect at a leisurely relaxed face-to-face level. And that is camp five by Stephen Boyer, my brother. So I have personally witnessed people's lives change after these events. Relationships improve.
00:11:18
Speaker
based on these events. And it's not a, it's not a relationship, it's not like a spousal counseling session or anything like that. It's just a time, a space where people can get together and speak freely. And that's it. And unlike these others where there seem to be more like conference-based and more fast-paced, slightly more chaotic, I'm not saying you can't and don't make connections in those, but I am saying the connections you make at a campfire are deeper than those connections at these other events.
00:11:45
Speaker
And these other events are also only once a year. Steven puts these camps on throughout many cities throughout the United States. I think, I don't know, I'm not sure how many he puts on a year now, like between 9 and 11 maybe. I'm not sure exactly, but he's done 50 in the last handful of years. Yeah.
00:12:00
Speaker
and he's continuing to do so. All right, so that's my three. Number one, Mr. Money Mustache. Number two, Brad Barrett, Jonathan Danso with Half Face, Too Faced on the Sculpture, Choose Five podcast, Steven Boyer, Camp Fi, books, we all read books. And I had to like, and this was tough because it's a very, very first and close first and second. And from what I understand, I had to go with G.L. Collins on this one. Okay.
00:12:22
Speaker
And it's because if you have people who are in in the know in the financial and independence community and are well versed on many of the books, resources in general, I have found that most people recommend one book if they had recommend one book to someone to explain financial independence.
00:12:40
Speaker
to explain why you would want to pursue this journey and exactly how to do it as simply as possible while living the life that you just want to live without distracting the charts and spreadsheets and trying to find the ultimate return on your money, I think for the masses. And it's not just financial independence community. If if every single person read this book, we all we would all be much better off, I think. And that book is The Simple Path to Wealth, where he emphasizes broad market, low cost index fund investing. It's a strategy known as VTSAX and CHILL. VTSAX is a mutual fund from Vanguard. So it's just a saying, there are many, many other broad market, low cost index funds that would also qualify to get you same thing, Fidelity and others.
00:13:26
Speaker
a JL Collins book, I think is so well written, so easy to understand. And yes, I i do like this money stuff, but i I would venture to say that if somebody wasn't as into this as me, that they would find it extremely valuable and easy to understand, easy enough to understand, let me say that, and then put those into their own plan.
Parallel Approach to FI Influencers
00:13:49
Speaker
So that is my four.
00:13:51
Speaker
Okay. That is a solid, solid list. I think those are good reasons for every one of those people. Okay. I want to listen to your four. Five choices, your five choices there. That's okay. I'm going to do the same thing. So I should stop rapping you about it because I'm going to do it. And then, ah and then we'll do honorable mention if we don't, if we don't mention them. Oh yeah. yeah so I am curious. You said the book category, you felt like there was a close runner up. Who, who is that?
00:14:14
Speaker
That would be Vicki Robin. Good choice. Okay. Okay. All right. So what I liked about this is that you and I approach this differently. So I tried to think about the presidents who are actually on Mount Rushmore and try to like draw parallels to the people in the Fi community. So this is going to be a little bit of a reach, but I think it'll be fun. So the first one I feel like everyone knows is on the actual Mount Rushmore is George Washington.
00:14:41
Speaker
first president of the United States. So I feel like this spot to replace George Washington should go to somebody who's like really just a ground breaker in this area. So my choice for that was in fact, Vicki Robin. So Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez wrote your money or your life. God, I don't know. I swear it came out of like the seventies or the eighties at the latest, right? It was the nineties.
00:15:06
Speaker
Okay. Well, I'll look it up. you Anyway, that book, I feel like was really the launch point for a lot of people in the fire community, especially in the early days of the fire community. And yeah, I just love that book so much. I feel like that is the book that makes so many people think about their actual lifespan and their health span versus the dollars that they have in the bank. And like, Oh, those things are actually connected and it's kind of a seesaw and I can you know, spend less money to get more free time over here. So that book I think is such a game changer and so valuable to people that I think Vicki Robin should get the George Washington spot. Yeah. Yeah. I think Vicki Robin gets that spot for me. Yeah. She's continued to be a voice and not just for financial independence, but for sustainability and
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. she's I know she talked about like responsible investing. she's She just seems like such an incredible, solid human. So i I'm a fan of hers and would love to see her in that GW spot up on Mount Rushmore. Yeah, she really is.
00:16:12
Speaker
Many years ago, she out of the blue, i was I was honored. She called me. No way. um i think I'm name-dropping right now. Vicki Robin called me on the phone. I was at work. I was like, hello? I was like, i like okay. Are you sure this is Vicki Robin? But she was given a presentation and I guess she had heard that I also like like to help to teach people about finances. Maybe she heard of my education background as And she was giving a a conversation to a group of teachers a couple of years ago and she just wanted to run some ideas by me and I was very honored. That's so cool. Yeah. that I mean, that ups your street cred a little bit. I'm not going to lie to you. That's pretty cool. Okay. So next up we've got Abraham Lincoln. So Abraham Lincoln, president during the civil war, was very focused on like per preserving the union and very famously abolished slavery.
00:16:58
Speaker
So lots of wonderful accomplishments under this gentleman's belt. Abraham Lincoln gets a thumbs up from most people. So I think I want to give the Abraham Lincoln spot to Paula Pant because I feel like she is all about helping people achieve the mindset to kind of break free. And I just love her message of you can afford anything but not everything, right? That's the name of her podcast is afford anything. And I just think that message resonates or if it doesn't, it should. If it doesn't, you haven't thought about it enough and you should sit and like marinate in the message of
00:17:33
Speaker
No, I really could afford just about anything as long as I prioritize everything else to focus on this. So yeah, I just love that idea so much that if you are someone who wants to travel more, which is very much in Paula's wheelhouse, you know, cut to the bone in a lot of other places, drive a beater of a car, live in a less nice place in a less nice neighborhood and just don't be there as much, go travel more. So it's all about designing your life to really focus on your priorities, which I think is Pretty cool. So yeah, I would give that spot to Paula Pant. Theodore Roosevelt. So this is the guy who built the Panama Canal. So this made me think of community building, right? People who are just building things.
00:18:18
Speaker
Also, he was kind of like the trust buster guy, broke up a bunch of corporate monopolies, which is kind of cool. So my choice for this, there's a striking resemblance to you. I also picked your brother for this, Stephen Boyer, because yeah, I feel like there are, I mean, I i think he's probably the best person at building Phi community on a national scale. I think he's just done a phenomenal job of that. And yeah, it is so incredibly powerful to meet people in real life who you like and get along with and who are cheering you on, giving you solid advice. And I think most importantly of all, who are just giving you kind of the permission slip, be who you want to be and not go like, you know, chase the dreams that a lot of Americans chase of living in the quote, right house with the quote, right car and the quote, right clothes and like all of these things that
00:19:09
Speaker
ultimately don't end up making most people very happy. And yeah, just breaking out of that mindset and getting into a group of people who are all about what's really important to you. Let's go figure out how to make, make your life more about that. That's really powerful to me. And I think Steven's just done a fantastic job of building that on a national scale.
Honorable Mentions and Gratitude
00:19:28
Speaker
I don't really have a great parallel for this next one, but last is Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Yeah, i don't like I feel like his primary claim to fame is writing the Declaration of Independence. I think he was one of the primary authors of that, which, you know, I like the Declaration of Independence.
00:19:45
Speaker
But I also feel like Thomas Jefferson has a particularly shady past. like all larry I think all the early presidents had pretty shady pasts, but I think good old TJ might have a little worse than some of the others. So I don't want to draw direct parallels between Thomas Jefferson and these two wonderful humans that I'm about to name. But I do think you could make a parallel but between what they've done in writing the Declaration of Independence, which is just like inspiring people to you know, break free of the typical American mindset and do their own thing. So those two people would be Carl and Mindy Jensen because I just feel like on a local scale, they have done so much to help build the community around here in Longmont. And I think I'm a little biased about that because Mindy helped us buy this house that I am sitting in today and that we love so much. On the other side of this camera are like the view of these beautiful, beautiful mountains that were so lucky to live
00:20:41
Speaker
Right next to you but yeah they were just so incredibly welcoming when i i sent carlin email out of the blue one day and said hey we're thinking about moving to log mine we've been you know fans of your blog for a long time is there any chance we could like pick your brain a little bit and i got a response within like ten minutes or something is ridiculously fast.
00:21:02
Speaker
And they were just like, yeah, long ones amazing. We want more people to move here, come move here. And we now just live in like five central and are surrounded by people who are chasing all kinds of dreams and it's inspiring and everyone is healthier and you know more relaxed and just has this like really authentic approach to life that I very, very much admire. And people are sorry, Carla and Mindy, I feel like they're just a huge huge part of that.
00:21:31
Speaker
Pete is obviously also a big part of that too, so definitely an honorable mention. But yeah, I just feel like Carl and Mindy are two very special people who bring people into the fold, left and right.
00:21:43
Speaker
They really are. Like they're, if they're not on the top of the wave, like you might not see them. Like if people are listening, they don't know who they are. Carl Jensen is the man behind the blog 1500 days. And Mandy Jensen's is usually in the more of in the forefront. She's in bigger pockets personality. She's a host of a number of podcasts, including her own most recent podcast, which I think is actually might be getting picked up by Picker Pockets. I'm not sure exactly how that's working out, but that's a, that's something to look forward to. She's got a huge personality.
00:22:11
Speaker
yeah she And they're just so pleasant. i've done that They're good friends. My son and I have been there to their house. They've been so welcoming. The girls are amazing. And if I had to pick a place to move to that I don't live right now, for the next five years, I'll probably be in the vicinity of Carl and Mindy because they are just such good people and people that you would want your kids to be around.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah. A thousand percent. Yeah. Just quality, quality human beings. So yeah, it's pretty, that's a pretty good list. So I also like you. I have five people, but Vicki Robin, Paula Pant, Stephen Boyer, and Carl and Mindy Jensen. It's pretty. Carl and Mindy might be a little more. They would make face face two-faced. Two-faced. That's true. Yeah. All right. If somebody out there listened to this, who's got Photoshop skills,
00:22:59
Speaker
so Let's talk. I'll redo the thumbnail for this video, if you can give me a creative image for these people on the Mount Rushmore Financial Independence. Any other honorable mentions? I'll list a few. I'll list my honorable mentions. Yeah, go for it.
00:23:12
Speaker
Okay. Mine were two of them are identical to yours. Vicki Robin was an honorable mention. Paula Pant. Golly, I was so close too. like Paula Pant started her affordable thing blog in 2011. And then she started the podcast and her podcast of the same name in 2016. And sixteen she's been probably one of the most consistent podcasters through that whole time. And yeah, she's an impressive person. And she's like gotten a master's degree while she's been running her successful podcast. Very impressive human.
00:23:39
Speaker
She is. And I'm glad to know her. Let's see my other honorable mention kind of falling off the radar. I think a little bit over the last few years, but one of my, I remember before I even knew anything about financial independence community, in which I was, I was out and before I was formally introduced in 2016, maybe late 2015. But in 2010, a book came out called early retirement extreme. And that was by Jacob Lund Fisker. He was a pioneer of the lean fire movement.
00:24:07
Speaker
And I can understand, like over time, the fire movement kind of broadened a good bit over the last decade. So I can understand why he may not be in the forefront anymore, but context matters. So I really had to consider that because if there was no Jacob Lund Fisker, I'm not sure we would have had a Pete. I'm not sure we would have had a Carl. Like, I don't know if we would have had those people.
00:24:28
Speaker
right that came along kind of right after him that started to and solidify how to think about these kinds of topics and the practical application into our lives. and he he's very i just I remember reading the book many, many before, again, before I ever knew what financial independence was, I was reading this book and I was like, okay, well, maybe maybe that lifestyle might not be for me. It's kind of cool like that they're doing because he's he's ultra frugal.
00:24:53
Speaker
And I have no idea what he's doing now. I don't even know if he's on podcast. I don't know if he's still got the blog. I don't know if he's, I have no idea what's going on. Let's maybe we'll try to find out. Yeah. Jacob on here, please. I appreciate that. Put that on my to do list. Yeah, I do. I feel like he was really into some form of science. I kind of want to say physics, but I could be wrong. And yeah, I think he like went back to school and studied and then it was just kind of doing his own thing outside of the retirement community, which I'd say more power to him. I think that's fantastic.
00:25:23
Speaker
But yeah, we would like to hang out with you, Jacob, if you're out there. You sound amazing. He was on my honorable mentions list, too. Diana Merriam. She has started a conference a few years back, I don't know, say three or four, maybe in 2020. She had her first conference, the Economy Conference, and it gathers in, what's the city? ah Cincinnati. Cincinnati, yeah.
00:25:43
Speaker
So in Cincinnati every year, so far, at least since 2020, and it's this, it's like a, I have not been to it. I will admit I have not been to a conference. I have supported it through different means, but I have not physically attended one, but the feedback from everybody. that I've known who is gone has had nothing but positive things to say. And once you meet Diana, she's she's definitely a big personality, ah speaks her mind, and she's a very positive voice ah for many across many spectrums, not just like the hard-nosed, lean fire types. And I think having that kind of energy has just done
00:26:19
Speaker
great for the financial independence community. But these events, it's like I would say it's conference. Have you youve gone to one, Carla? I have not been to an economy, but I would really love to go. As I understand, it's a conference based. There are big speakers, there's networking opportunities, but it's still Fi focused. Whereas like a FinCon, they do have fi people that go, but it's kind of a broader, more commercialized business type conference than economy. That's why I would select Diana Miriam as a honorable mention, very, you know, very up there with Steven on ah the community building aspect.
00:26:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Good choices, good choices. Yeah, I think the only other folks that I was close on, what Pete obviously, but I figured you'd pick Pete, so I ah didn't. But yeah, Pete is fantastic. That's how we got into financial independence. I think that's just an incredibly common tale. And the Frugal Woods blog, I feel like also deserves a shout out. I really enjoyed their content a lot over the years, read her blog,
00:27:23
Speaker
constantly for a number of years. Yeah, they're just very inspiring. Again, people who are just like really about doing their own thing and they moved to Vermont and like have their own homestead and they're just, they seem like really cool people. Yeah, there's so many great people. I feel like I feel bad that we're not listing every person whose blog I've ever read. But yeah, there's a lot of great content creators out there. The mad scientist, I feel like he's put up some really, really solid, really helpful content.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, the list goes on and on. There's so many folks who've just done amazing things for this community. So this podcast is called Forget About Money because at some point we like to, you know, forget about money and talk about other fun stuff.
Exploring Tipping Culture
00:28:06
Speaker
So I guess this is still kind of money related, but we were talking last time about stuff that i had just gotten too expensive for us to buy anymore. And kind of related to that is tipping. And I know a lot of people have a lot of strong feelings about tipping.
00:28:22
Speaker
So I'm curious, what are your thoughts on this latest tipping craze that has become so common these days? And yeah, I guess what I really want to ask is what is the craziest place that you have been asked to tip? If it's appropriate, David, for you to share. Yeah. I like one day in the near, few and one day, like in 20 years, my son might be watching this. Got to be careful.
00:28:47
Speaker
I would say crazy, like I consider myself a very generous tipper, but then I wonder if I'm part of the problem because I don't think I'm help. Like fundamentally, I don't think someone who is getting paid an hourly wage to type something into a cashier, what is it called, cash register. They didn't call it that anymore. I don't know. Might be like, so 1990s, I don't know, point of sale technology. I don't think they should get a tip. They're getting paid, they're getting paid, but I still tip.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah. and And now it seems like things are just kind of programmed to take advantage of that, yeah whether it's guilt for not tipping or whatever, they spin that thing around and you've got the options. Did you notice you don't even have 15% anymore on a lot of them? It was like 18, 22, 75% tip. like yeah and And you're like, other, other, other, other, maybe. But where do you draw the line? ah Because we were talking about things that are too expensive in our last episode, and if we didn't even get into the tipping. But that's a whole additional expense on top of whatever experience you're having out in town. Yeah, yeah, I do think it has gotten really out of control and
00:29:51
Speaker
There is a big part of me that sympathizes with it because for all the reasons we talked about last time, we were talking about inflation and you know some of the causes behind that, and but it is a ah very real phenomenon. Things have just gotten more expensive, so especially housing. so yeah People are just trying to keep a roof over their heads and I want to support them.
00:30:12
Speaker
I am a big fan of cultures where they just pay them enough as a minimum wage to where tipping is just not a thing. I would prefer that to be the case here in the US, but it isn't. So yeah, I do tip, but I do get grouchy about it as I think the vast majority of people do.
00:30:29
Speaker
When there's no like personal service being provided to you, right like I have been to bakeries where they just like reach down and like grab a thing out of the kind little display case, put it in a paper bag, hand it to you, and expect like an 18% tip for that.
00:30:46
Speaker
yeah That just feels pretty nutty to me. I feel like the origin of tipping was someone who's providing a service that's very personal to you. Maybe you like get to know them a little bit, you at least have some sort of form of interaction. But yeah, if someone is just like pressing a button, grabbing a thing, handing it to you, that feels like a weird weird place for tipping.
00:31:07
Speaker
So I sympathize, I still do it, but I'm not thrilled about it. And I wish we could move to to a mode where we just paid people enough to where they could live, have a living wage without the tips being included. Yeah. I was talking to Steven and he, about this topic not too long ago, and he said somebody brought up to him like a standard of tipping. Like if you're standing, you're not tipping. Yeah. So if you're standing at a counter ordering something, you don't tip.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah. We had that exact same conversation here, like in Longmont recently, we were at a big gathering and talking about this too. And that was the rule of thumb that we came up with. I guess it probably doesn't apply everywhere. Cause like there are places where maybe you stand up to order, but then you go sit down and they like maybe come check on you and do stuff like that. But I do think it is a reasonable rule of thumb and like, yeah, places like Panera come to mind where, you know, that's just like not trying to poop all over Panera. It's fine. But like there are not chefs working there, right? Like this is just stuff that's getting shipped in that people are heating up and then handing to you. Yeah, that feels like a like an odd place to tip. And that is a place where you stand up when you order and they're really not doing much for you after you sit down like you bust your own table.
00:32:22
Speaker
So yeah, that's a place where I would be like, good grief, i don't I don't feel like it's appropriate to tip here. So yeah, I think that's a very good rule of thumb to keep in mind. I think it's tough too, because you don't know, but like the ultimate standard has been like 15% of your check, whatever that is, right? But then when you look at a check, now now there's additional fees, surcharges, and this or that, you don't even know where that money's going to. Again, I live in Southern California, and if they can get it from you, if they can get money from you, they will. but hopefully I hope it's different where you live, but you don't know. So that's like a like a broad, but then and again, you don't know if it's like, what, if you had a coupon, do you pay on the original amount or the final amount? What if, what if you buy it, you know, you pay and then you get a dessert. Do you tip again? Like, and I don't know. Do you pay per drink? So if you go to a bar, one thing I used to do is just a dollar per whatever the drink is. Yeah, that's not 15%, especially like if you, if you pay a, you know, we talked about how much it costs to drink. I'll say it's $10 for a cocktail out in town. Well, 15 is a dollar 50.
00:33:19
Speaker
But is it a dollar standard? Well, that's only 10%. So now is that less than am I going to hell now because I didn't tip 15% on something? I mean, that's the case. Yeah. So it's really, it's tough. And then there's, there's those gray areas. If you're in a hotel, do you leave 20 bucks on the table for the cleaning crew? You're not even sure if that person's going to, I don't know. I do leave, again, I'm a generous tipper, but I don't want to say it's out of guilt because I really do feel like I'm unfortunate and I'm likely financially more fortunate than the person that I'm tipping.
00:33:51
Speaker
Statistically speaking, probably, but then i also don't think that's the right way to establish a habit. You know, like I think there's systems in place. Why can't it be more clear? And I just think it's designed, especially the typical culture has gotten out of control in the United States. I go to Mexico every once in a while. And if I'm with somebody, they're like, don't just don't tip that much.
00:34:11
Speaker
Cause I don't know why, but like it's almost just not accepted. Even though I'm like, I feel like I'm helping and I don't know. yeah I'm sure there's a lot of influences in the kind of like that psyche of it all, but but and we are out of control. I don't, I think blatantly, I think we are out of control. Like do you tip a mechanic but for doing something? Like mechanics might say yes, but why?
00:34:33
Speaker
especially when you pay like $85 an hour for or whatever your state mandates for labor and they're getting paid. I don't know. It's a tough, it's a tough call. It is a very tough topic. And yeah, I think the tipping fatigue is just very, very real. Like you go to a, we had an event here in Longmont not too long ago where there were a bunch of food trucks, like yeah I guess we tip at food trucks. I mean, it just, it feels like it's,
00:34:58
Speaker
Just about everywhere you can imagine, no matter how limited the the service being provided to you may seem, or how much like the mechanic example, how much their services should already be baked into the price that you're already paying. Yeah, it does seem to be pretty pervasive.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah i don't know i mean i certainly have had lots of conversations about this not just in the fight me but with others as well and i know that fatigue is very very real so i don't know maybe will wake have a swing where it becomes less common and my hope would be that that comes about because people are getting a higher.
00:35:33
Speaker
minimum wage and their storefronts are just baking into the cost of things like oh no we have to pay this person more than two dollars an hour or otherwise they they can't continue to work here. So I don't know that would be a nice shift to see in the culture. I believe when I see it because tipping does seem to be very ingrained here.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah. And here's my, here's my little bit of a rant. I think maybe since, for some reason since COVID it seems like, I don't know if it's, it seems like all this happened since COVID and I don't really know why that I don't know. I can't make the logical connections of why. Well, I mean, I think I can stuff got more expensive. We were seeing rising inflation. I mean, look, the world stopped.
00:36:14
Speaker
for months, right? And then as it started to pick back up again, people were not prepared for the uptake that they saw in demand. And there were just all these pipeline problems. And yeah, I think the very short, high-level version of it is that things just got more expensive because of all the pipeline issues. And then once prices get a high, it's really hard to bring them back down. So they've just stayed there. And I think people were like, well, I'm going to stick my hand out every opportunity that I can And that has led to the iPad spin that we're all so used to. but I'm not sure that explains the the the increase of the actual tipping percentage. It seems like it's just gotten higher. I don't think there is a 15% base anymore. I think it's shot up. And in your argument, because the price goes high, even if it stays at 15%, the tip increases
00:37:06
Speaker
because of prices would increase. But now I'd say people get probably more than 15% being tipped. Yeah. I mean, i I think what I'm saying is people were just desperate for money wherever they could get it because like the person who's putting your donut in a bag and handing it to you, they also buy donuts and they also buy groceries and gas and have car payments and house payments. And so they were just sticking their hand out for more and more money every chance they got. but i That's That's my two cents, but I don't know, I'm not an economist. So don't quote on this. So I think what I am hearing from you, Carla, is that we should all just stop tipping altogether. And I think that would solve everything, or at least for a while, and then we'll just bring that number down. Oh, yes, please tip 7% is better than zero.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, your listening skills are super on point, as always, and that's exactly what I I'm frustrated with it too, just like everyone, but I'm also doing it and I understand that you'd sympathize with the you know people. are People have needs. People need stuff and it costs more these days, so I'm happy to give when I can.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah. I do want to give more thought to how I do it because I think I'm inconsistent across the board and maybe I should set some, some more solid rules of thumb. Yeah. And then just have my justifications of why that is and and not necessarily tie it to that makes me a bad person just because I have money doesn't necessarily make it right to just over tip across the board either. I mean, it should be, it should be an exchange for something. It should just be charity. I guess that's what it is.
00:38:38
Speaker
People are expecting it as charity almost. Since COVID, I've gone to a restaurant and across the board, service is worse than it's ever been. Ever. Ever. And yet they want more and more in tips. Huh.
00:38:49
Speaker
I have we really don't eat out a ton, but I'm trying to, I don't feel like that's been my experience since gotten worse. Yeah. Maybe it's regional. Yeah.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:38:58
Speaker
Okay. Thank you all for listening to that rant about tipping culture. We would like to continue the conversation. So if you have somebody else that should be on the Mount Rushmore financial independence, please let us know in the comments.
00:39:09
Speaker
And if you made it this far, this is the first time I've ever said this on any of these podcasts. Please go ahead, subscribe. You've been here for 40 plus minutes already. So yeah I think if I begin some value and you'd like to keep giving you that value. Smash that subscribe button. Click like, subscribe. Actually, I think Nate Barkazzi has something thought about that too, about his daughter. She has two YouTube fans. It's me and her mom.
00:39:32
Speaker
And if you're watching this on YouTube, there is a podcast podcast versions. Go, go check it out on wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have any money related topics that you want us to discuss, let us know either via email or in the comments section. We do a pretty good job of getting into the comments and responding. If you go back to the other videos.
00:39:50
Speaker
I don't think there's a single comment that's ever been submitted that I personally haven't responded to. Now, if this blows up and gets super, super famous, like all the people on the Mount Rushmore of financial independence, I won't be able to do that. But for now, still good. Go ahead and drop a comment. I'll try to respond the best I can. Carla, thank you very much for hanging out with me again. We'll do it again very soon. Sounds good. And thank you all for watching and listening. Yeah. Thanks everybody. See you next time.