Bob Lotich is a a fellow personal finance blogger (check him out at SeedTime.com), author and most importantly, a good friend.

Over the years I’ve been able to witness firsthand how good his heart is as he’s always been willing to help a friend in need without expecting anything in return.

I got a chance to sit down with him and learn more about his radical savings plan in his new book, Simple Money Rich Life.

You can listen to the podcast interview below or read the transcription in this post.

Bob Lotich Interview – Full Transcript

Jeff

Many people are familiar with the fire movement, fire stands for Financially Independent, Retire Early. If you are a fire advocate, you are saving exorbitant amounts, usually you’ll hear 30% 40%, sometimes greater than 50% of your income. And many people on the outside of the fire movement don’t understand how they can save so much.

But if you’re having trouble trying to understand how somebody can save half of their income, see if you can wrap your head around this, instead of saving half of your income. What about giving it away?

Well, I’m going to introduce you to someone that isn’t giving away half of their income, almost, they’re giving away currently 44% That’s correct 44% of their income this year, and next year, it goes up to 45%. This person has given away over a million dollars by the time he turned the age of 40. If that doesn’t interest you, I don’t know what will.

I’m excited to share the story of a good friend of mine, who has been on the podcast and on the YouTube channel. I’ve known this guy for a very long time. I continue to be amazed at how generous and how faithful he is. His name is Bob Lotich.

We talked about this a little bit on this interview, but I think the last time I had Bob on was when he took a sabbatical. You hear people taking a sabbatical. I mean, maybe not a lot, but for him it wasn’t just a week sabbatical, a few weeks, a month, which he actually does every single year. No, actually I’m taking about a year sabbatical. He talks a bit about that in this interview. But that’s not what this is about. This is about something even bigger than that. It is radical giving.

And the way that he goes about it, his approach and his continued faith and how he does it. It just amazes me. And I’m excited for him to come on the GFC podcast and share his story. Let’s find out what’s going on with Bob right now and how he is giving away 44% of his income and also why.

Bob lotic yes, you’re a friend. You’re a financial blogger. You’re now an author. I guess you actually have already wrote a few books. But this is like a bigger deal teaser, the first published book, first published, self published, let’s throw it out there. See what happens type of stuff.

So we’re here talking about this book, simple money rich life that you wrote, like, in a weekend, right?

Bob

Yes, one weekend, honestly. In like three hours I just kind of knocked it out.

The One Year Sabbatical

Jeff 

Dude, you have lived a very interesting life. I mean, I’ve never met anybody that was so diligent about taking a sabbatical, like once a year. Like you’re the first person I ever even heard that. And I’m sure I’ve heard the word sabbatical.

But the fact like, oh, wow, like you actually do this. And you do it every single year. And then you went to another level. And really quickly just shared that because I think people and we’ve talked about that, and so on over YouTube video, but it’s worth repeating.

Bob  

In 2017, I took a one year sabbatical, which the three you’re talking about, right? The one year, the big boy. So that was a crazy journey.

Jeff  

I just for people to understand. You have your own business, your business owner online business, you are working from home, predominantly. And God gave you a nudge that said, you need to take some time off. And if I recall, it wasn’t initially to take a year off correct?

Bob  

I was just taking a one month sabbatical like we do every year. And then kind of at the end of that, that previous year particularly burnt out just had a really difficult year and just burnt out. I think that’s what it was. And taking that one month off. And I know that anyone like listening that’s never taken a sabbatical, you think this is insane. But even after that one month, I felt like, I don’t really feel like this made any difference.

This didn’t help, which I know like, just sounds so insane for somebody who’s like, I can’t even take two days off, like, you know, but I was that burnt out that at the end of that, it’s just like, that wasn’t working. And somewhere in there, like you said, like I was praying, I just sensed God was kind of leading me to take an entire year off.

And I’m like I kind of got some other plans here. I got things that I want to do. And you know, I’m someone who likes work, I enjoy working. And so that was a big act of faith, not to mention, like, how are we going to pay our bills, provide for our family, all this stuff. But I’m thankful that we did, it ended up being one of the most life changing.

The most life changing year in my entire life.

And so much has come out of that I think I improved as a human being so much or so much recalibration for me personally, as well as our business. Our family, like lots of fantastic stuff came out of that. And so I’m really glad that I obeyed that little prompting or nudge.

Jeff  

I’m sure there are times where you thought what am I doing? Is this really what you want me to do? You mentioned that there were some, a few, or several Aha moments or discoveries, like, can you just share something that only happened? Because you obeyed? And you did take that one year.

Bob 

Well, I mean, one of the most important things to me was that, basically, six months prior to that, my wife and I had started the process of adoption. And we started kind of working to establish an agency. And they said, typically, the way that we work is we meet with birth mothers, when they’re about four months pregnant.

That means for you, you have probably about a five month heads up before any adoption opportunities available. And so we’re thinking, Alright, so we’re gonna have about five month heads up anyway, like two weeks after I basically made that decision to take the entire year off.

The adoption agency calls us and says, Hey, we have a really unique situation. We have a little girl who was born last night. So can you come down to Alabama like today? My wife and I like instantly put down the phone and then packed up for like, 10 days, because you need to when you’re crossing state lines, you need to be there for 10 days. So we just rushed out of the house and went down, we got our baby girl. And I got to spend the first year of her life with her.

And had I just been working like normal. Like I had so much stuff planned those next couple months, and I had no idea how that would work out. But you know, that was one like kind of practical thing where it’s like, wow, the timing of this is just perfect.

But like, just within my own personal ambitions and stuff. Like I just sensed God doing some purification stuff throughout that year in my heart where I was just, you know, just like drifting just a bit in the wrong direction. He’s just like, just nudge me right back kind of where I needed to be.

Jeff

Wow, like, you’ve told me that story. But it’s one of those stories. I mean, it’s one of those God stories that you have to continue to share, you know, just for people to hear. And maybe at times, like in those times where maybe things aren’t working out exactly how you want. And it’s just remember, like, don’t you remember that time?

Bob  

No, and we’re going through what now? Like, we’re going through our own struggle right now and a couple different things. But, but like, that’s exactly I was just talking to my wife, Linda today.

And she was just reading this verse. I forget which one it was, she was saying was encouraging her and just that exact point, like looking back at what God has done, like he’s faithful, and he’s going to be faithful now through going through.

Jeff 

And, you know, maybe kind of take a bow on the sabbatical just kind of share, because you took a year off. And I mean, your business thrived. Like it increased, didn’t it? Revenue wise over the course of the year drop.

But, like one of the things that we’re probably gonna talk about today, actually, I was I was trying to make a funny joke, because I remember I do remember, you sharing because you had an assistant that was, you know, keeping things going as best as she could. But it’s like, if you own a franchise, or any sort of business, and you step out for a year, I mean, for the most part, like, yes, it will continue to turn some revenue, but you’re probably going to see a decline.

And I just wanted to share that because it wasn’t like you took time off. And it just the business took off, or it just may stay flat. Like no, there was other things that were like, Oh my gosh, like, Am I really making the right decision? I’m like, me seeing revenue drop, and, oh, we have a new kid now. I mean, that just adds all this level of stress.

Bob 

Even beyond that because I thought as soon as this year was over, that I was gonna have all this awesome insight and revelation, whatever, that the next year was gonna take off like this. And it didn’t just kind of state like flat. So we came down and just kind of hovered down and it’s like, all right, was this really the right decision?

But now that we’re four years out from this, like this whole book came out of that, like, this wouldn’t have happened without it. And I never had a desire to write a book. But this was part of what came out of that year. Anyway, it’s just a whole new calibration of our book. is instant where we’re going redirecting and stuff. And I feel very confident that it was the best thing I could have done.

And I’ll be able to look back 10 years from now, and be able to say that with a whole lot of confidence.

How did you get started on your journey of giving?

Jeff  

So simple money rich life. I think, in addition to you taking sabbaticals and taking that time off, I think another part about you that I’ve always been, I’ll say impressed or just that you’ve been a radical giver, I mean, a faithful giver, you know, like, because typically crazy crazy.

Obviously, for those reading the headline of this video on this interview, you know, giving away a million dollars by age 40, like I was calling backtrack a little bit, you know, and like, let’s just talk about, when did you start giving? What did that look like for you?

How did that feel in times when you’re not making a lot of money, or in times that you’re making good money? Cuz sometimes, like, oh, it’s easy to give 10% of 10,000. But like, Man, when I’m making a lot of money, and now it’s like, God you want me to give you 40,000? Like, who? I don’t know about that one? 

Bob

And that’s something that I even I had to wrestle through, like, oh, my gosh, like, that’s a lot of zeros like I’m, I’m used to giving the small amount, you only give you the big amount now, like, I don’t know, are you sure about that? I never said like, I’ve thought through all of those things.

Let me tell you a story, just taking you back to my giving journey. Like I remember kind of when I first became a Christian, and I was going to church in this small town, in Florida, or in it’s 75 people in this church.

And we have a guest preacher that comes one day, he gets up, starts preaching,in the middle of the sermon he looks around and goes, who here is not tithing. And it’s like, this is a room of 75 people. And so it’s like, everyone knows each other. Like, this is a small little room. And everyone’s looking around like, does he want us to answer? And you know, a normal one year preacher, like not get a response. They’re like, Alright, let’s move on.

You know, this guy’s like the opposite. He’s like, Who here is not tithing? Tell me, you know. Wow. And I’m like, looking down. You know, I’m 20 years old at this point, new Christian. I’m thinking, is this what you do in church? Like, I don’t know if this is normal? Like, is this what giving is? Is this the way it’s supposed to be all this stuff? I’m like, having all these thoughts and I’m also secretly trying to think, can I sneak out of this room under the chairs, which this guy continues, like continues the interrogation.

Finally, there are two guys, they sheepishly raise their hand, and admit that they’re not consistently tithing. And then I thought like, that would be the end of it. But no, he calls them down to the front. And then publicly berates them in front of the whole church, for the error of their ways for not consistently tithing. They tithe sometimes they just weren’t consistently good.

And I remember leaving that day from the church and like, This is crazy. Is this what giving it it’s, it’s that thing that Jesus said, it’s more blessed to give than to receive, like, because I don’t want anything to do with this, like I want nothing to do with this at all. That was my first, these are some of the hurdles that I had to overcome, as a giver, would have grown to find out is that giving is now become like, just one of my favorite things in life.

It’s one of our most joyous things when we can take a moment when we can use a little that we have. And so one random example, we first moved here, we were staying at this Hyatt Hotel, just down the road. And we were there one night, and we were getting ready to pack up.

I remember I was gonna leave a tip for the cleaning lady. And so I go into my wallet, and I’m hoping to find a couple bucks and throw it under a pillow. All I had was a 20. And I’m like, Oh, that’s a lot to just give a cleaning lady for one night. And I’m like, I don’t know anything else. So I put it on the pillow, we walk out right as she was coming in, We went down to the elevator and as we’re pressing the button, she comes running down the hall jumping up and down, with tears in her eyes. She was excited and thanking us profusely about this $20 tip we just left her.

I remember going down that elevator talking to Linda, my wife, and saying ‘honey, that was $20’. We could have blown that on lunch. We could have blown that on anything that really didn’t mean that much to me. But look at what that meant in her life, look at how a small amount to us impacted her so much that might have made her week or her month.

I want to do more of that.

I want more of those moments where I get to enjoy this giving thing and someone else does as well.

That was one of those moments like Alright, how do we get to do more of this? You know what I mean?

Jeff

Yes and as you’re talking about, the commas and as the numbers get bigger, but it’s important to have that because when you gave this $20 I mean, it wasn’t like you handed it to her. It wasn’t like, here it is all right, tell me how awesome I am now. The intent was ‘I’m just gonna leave this here and let God do his thing’ and she was so moved by that.

I actually had to tell you: I know I hijacked the conversation but I have a similar story. We spent Fall break in the Florida area and a Hurricane had recently happened. So a lot of the area still had power out. People were in their homes, and there’s a lot of damage. We still went there for break and went to a restaurant. We had a young girl taking care of us.

She just casually mentioned that her apartment was destroyed. Wow. Like, all her belongings are ruined and she’s sleeping on the couch of a friend’s house. And she’s probably in her younger 20s. But, the way that she talked about it, I mean, she didn’t complain at all. She was grateful that she had a place to stay and that she was okay and none of her family were hurt.

For her to just focus on that just made me feel good. It’s so awesome because I’ve never been in that situation. Like, when my Wi Fi goes out I’m in a bad mood, right? I hear this young girl choosing Gratitude, and we were actually having dinner with our neighbors. They were there. I ended up leaving her the largest tip I’ve ever left in my life. And similar deal, right? I didn’t tell my wife, I didn’t tell the couple. I put it on the credit card, whatever. And we walked to the car.

I’m kind of weird like this, because I didn’t want to give her the chance to come say things. I tried to get out of there as fast as I could. But the parking lot was really far. We got 80% of the way there and the next thing I know I hear a female voice saying, ‘Excuse me, sir, sir, you know,  chasing after me. She was sobbing. She said, ‘thank you so much you don’t know how much this means to me.’ And it was cool.

My wife didn’t know, the couple did know, they just assumed I gave her a nice tip. But that was one of those moments that I felt like God said, yeah this is going to impact her life more than what it’s gonna do for you. But it’s impacting yours, too. So you have this memory now.

That’s what is so cool, it’s the moment that blesses both of you. And it can be multiplied. I love that. I’m always careful, because I want to make sure that I’m not doing it for myself. I mean, I want to feel good, but I don’t want it to be like, ‘Hey, look at me, you know, for sure. It’s a tricky balance.

But when you know, you can make an impact with $20 or $100? I mean, it could just be buying somebody a coffee, or a meal. I mean, that could have an impact. It doesn’t have to be a lot.

Bob  

That’s what I think that’s the thing that so many people miss is they think, well, I need to get rich first before I can start giving you. And that’s just not the case, like we can make such a big impact with situations like this. And adding to that point, like what I love about that, again, coming back to this is you would have forgotten about that meal, you wouldn’t have anything else to share about it.

We wouldn’t be talking about it now. But you remember that she remembers it. You know what I mean? So it’s just multiplied. And it’s it’s cool thing that because of a choice of what you made to do with some money that you had.

Jeff

Yeah, I love that. That’s one of those situations where my kids weren’t there. But there was a book that I read, and I can’t remember, gosh, now you probably read the book too. But it talks about this guy who he always kept $100 bills in his wallet to bless people with. I guess as kids they remember their dad, he would just like randomly give these $100 bills to people. And I read that and thought I want to do that. It’s been a little while, COVID kind of changed some things.

There are lots of different opportunities, if I saw somebody in need, I just thought OK here we go. I know my kids are like that Dad, to the point where I have to say Hey, buddy, I know we can help a lot of people, but I can’t help everybody.  Because he just wants to give tp everybody, gotta love him. But it’s just making that choice. Be willing to listen and be faithful. So that’s awesome. So alright, so you didn’t get caught up in front of church and get blasted? Did it?

Bob 

I held my head down. I did not.

When did you feel you were called to give more?

Jeff 

So the Bible says, 10% is what you tithe. At what point in time was 10%, I won’t say not enough, but when did you feel like you were called to give more?

Bob  

It was one of those crazy moments where I remember we had paid off all of our credit cards, all of our student loans andr car loans. At that point we were making a lot of progress financially, but I wanted to pay off our house. I had this three or four year plan to pay off our house. And I remember going up to this field to pray. And you know what, I’m specifically trained about this. So you know, it’s like I have a three or four year plan but God I want it faster. I want to get a house paid off even faster, which again, I’m an American, I just want as fast as you can get it. Being there that day I was praying about this, I sent the Lord a request to speak into my heart a little bit.

This communication basically said, you really want to see me move in your finances, I want you to begin giving your age as a percentage of your income. I remember thinking, that’s crazy, I was giving probably 10 or 11% at that point, I was 31 at the time.

That would be almost tripling it. Doing math in my head. I’m like, I don’t even know if we can do this, this seems impossible.

I went back home and I talked to Linda, it’s really great when your spouse can be on board. And she, I don’t know, had peace about this idea. I thought I was crazy, but wanted to go on the adventure and felt it was right. I honestly also felt a bit upset and challenged because I came to You praying to get our mortgage paid off faster and You want us to give our money away. So, it’s gonna take 10 years to pay off our mortgage. But, even still, I just felt this gentle invitation to step out into this thing with him. We decided to do it. Starting that month, we gave 31% of our income, and it was 10 months later, not 10 years, but 10 months later, our mortgage was paid off. We are 100% debt free. Looking back, and then I’m like, no idea how that happened.It makes absolutely no sense. The math doesn’t add up. But I’m really glad I made that decision.

Jeff

And just so we’re clear, like you’re not living in some starter $30,000 home to pay off the mortgage?

Bob  

That house was probably a $200,000 house or something. Still a starter home, but not a tiny tiny home. Right.

Jeff  

Okay, so 31% and you already answered the question. I feel like the way I would approach this is I got my age. Okay, so I’m gonna work up to that, you know, so if I can get there by the end of the year. Awesome. Right. But no, you started immediately just dove in?

Bob

Yeah, just when you know, you know. That’s what it was, it was one thing, it’s like, I just knew it was what we were supposed to do. And so we went for it.

Jeff  

So 31, 32, 33 continue to increase to 41. Which I actually love because this is before the fire movement was a thing, right? So financial independence, retire early, and it’s a really big, crazy savings amount, 30%, 40% to greater than 50%. I would love to hear a FIRE advocate’s opinion, you know. You just save half your income, what about giving away 30%, 40%? But I would argue that you have a sense of independence that is different from what somebody’s trying to achieve by retiring early.

Bob  

One of the ways I like to describe this is, we call it true financial freedom, which I just don’t think financial freedom is enough. You know, I mean, you can have well over 5 million in the bank, you can retire by 40. You can, whatever, be financially free, all of these things.

And for me I’ve had facets of that, and you know, had the four hour workweek for a while and like all these different things, but that isn’t true freedom to me, like because you can still have all that stuff and still be really worried about money, you can still be freaked out about money, you can still be afraid to spend money, you can be afraid people are going to take it from you.

That doesn’t feel like freedom to me, but freedom to not be attached to your money, to not have its claws on you and have control over you and affect your decision making affect your peace. That is the real freedom, the way I describe it, where it’s not contingent on your circumstances where you can have peace, whether you have a little bit or you have a lot. You know what I mean?

And so that’s what I’m advocating for. And that’s what we’re trying to help people do with the book. We want to help you have more money, but regardless of how much you have, we want you to have freedom and have peace in that journey.

Jeff  

Wow, that’s powerful. It’s powerful. Not to pick on fire, I love any initiative that’s having people really focus on how much they are spending? How much do you really need to live off of, you know. We were just talking about our joggers and certain things that we like, that’s just human nature, right? We like these things, but we over accumulate things, we just have so much attachment to, vacations, meals, eating out, conveniences.

It’s so easy just to kind of fall into that and we’ve got four kids. So I have four kids. So, there are certain conveniences that I enjoy paying for that allow me to be a better dad, and a better husband at times. But there’s oftentimes like, I’ve had to really ask myself, is this something that I really need? You know, half the money?

But if I didn’t have this, and what can I use that money for? Who could I give that money to? I want to go back to choosing this savings rate, having your age, increasing it every year. How hard was I mean, the fact that you’re willing to save 31%? I mean, that in itself is, I mean, it’s amazing, right? It’s amazing to be able to do that and pay off your home and raise a family and live a good life.

It’s not like you’re living in a shack with electricity. And like the mountains of North Carolina, it’s like, I know, you live in the Nashville, Franklin area. I mean, you lived in the St. Louis area, like you’ve had a nice home, you have a nice home, you have nice things. And yet, you’re still increasing every single year, how much you save.

Bob

Yeah, yeah. And so I think the question that I had, or I would have had when I was, because, yeah, if you’d said 15 years ago, that I’d be doing this, there’s no way that’s impossible. And especially where I come from, like I mean, you know, I came from a very middle class family, this wasn’t normal. This wasn’t how we did things. But the way that this is a thing I think people don’t realize is how powerful making something automatic is.

The question you were asking a little bit earlier that we diverted from was this idea of, well, it’s 10,000. Now, but as that increases, that’s 15. That’s 20, that’s 30, 40 $50,000 you’re giving away. And when you make it automatic, which has been our secret sauce, if you will, we made it automatic. So we’re not, there’s no decisions to be made. It’s a one time decision. And then therefore, it’s no longer a decision that has made it so much easier to handle those times. And then at the end of the year, when we get our bank statement, or whatever, and we see oh, wow, we get this much. Now we can just celebrate it, it’s already done. It’s not a decision that has to be made. And we just get to celebrate it. But God’s been able to do, through our giving, you know.

Jeff

So logistically, for those that are interested, I get caught up in the minutiae of the details. You said you made it automatic, how did you make it automatic?

Bob 

In our case, I would say this is pseudo automatic. But what we do is what we get our paycheck each month, and then we break out that percentage 41% At this point, and it gets funneled to different accounts.

So one is just going directly to our local church supporting that. Another one is going to account set up specifically for all this. That’s two stories we both talked about, about your tip and about our housekeeper thing, it’s situations like that, we have an account set up money goes in there, it’s no longer ours, once it’s in there, it’s it can only be given.

And that has made giving so much fun. Because once it crosses that line into an account now it’s someone else’s money. And it’s just that account having a name? Yeah, we call it a seed account. Okay. That account, once we get it in there now it’s yeah, it’s like giving someone else’s money away. And so we’re looking for opportunities, which is another big part of this, because he’s opportunities around us all the time.

But so often, we’re not looking for them. But if we have money sitting in there, and we’re looking for him, God connects the dots, and then we get to be doing that stuff. Oh, gosh, that’s fun. Yeah, it is. I know, this is what I mean. This is why I finally think Jesus is right, there’s more blessed to give than to receive, I thought he was wrong for so many years, but I didn’t know.

Jeff  

Yeah, I mean, just the way you’ve described this, it sounds like you’re constantly in the driver’s seat, looking at your surroundings, listening, who I would like to help out? Or no, I’m sorry, God would like to help out, you know, with this need, and just makes you more attentive to takes you I mean, I’m for kids stressful at times. And it’s easy to kind of get sucked into the Gosh, I’m tired.

Yeah, but having the seed fun, it takes you out of you and your own environment. Just constantly looking for ways. And once again, we’re talking about you. I mean, this is post COVID. Now, but you know, you have a work from home business. So it’s not like you have co-workers or going to an office. I mean, you’re in public a lot or a lot of public situations. So I guess has that been challenging trying to find these opportunities?

Bob  

Not really, for example, we just had one of our readers, somebody on Instagram just reached out to us a couple months ago, and she said that she was in her mid 30s, her husband unexpectedly died, and she has, I think two or three kids, and she was just reaching out, what do I do? I can help and so Linda, and I jumped on the phone with her and we started talking to her, you know, and it’s heartbreaking, but this is what this is for, we can help in this situation.

You know, I mean, those situations are arising even if we can’t leave the house, you know, GoFundMe like somebody shares a GoFundMe around. I want to be able to help in this situation. I think the opportunities are always there. I think it’s just a matter of looking for that love, the well being. Maybe just another example of a situation, a person that you’re able to plant a seed with them? You know, because of making this choice, just in terms of giving.

One of my favorite things, in that case, similar to you, I don’t like having face to face contact. One of my favorite things is to just kind of give anonymously, and to do the James Bond thing, or I get to sneak around.

So I figured out all these covert ways to kind of give and so, I figured out, you can go to a bank and have them, create a check with your number on the bottom, but it doesn’t have your name on it. So you can give someone a check and leave it in the mailbox, and they won’t know it’s you. Some of my favorite memories are just of stuff, where I get to sneak around, and I find out that this person has this need. I just get to go deposit the check, stand back and kind of watch their reaction, from the sidelines. I don’t know, I love it, I’d nerd out on stuff like that.

Jeff  

So much fun, man., I love it. You’ve actually inspired me, I think my kids are craving this too. I mean, when we did the $100 thing. I mean, they were looking for opportunities. I could be in the car, spaced out traffic, whatever. Then Bentley, my middle son, would see somebody asking for money. He’s like, Dad, dad, dad, dad, and just the fact that he would notice that. I thought there was another situation I can’t think of right now. But I love this.

Because of situations like this, we’ve had people at church, or even at their school, whose house burned down, or a similar situation like that, right? I mean, something happened to a grandparent, maybe a parent. And if we had a seed fund that they knew about, Hey, Dad, Mom, hey, this happened to so and so what do you think about taking some of that, I mean, anyway, that just really excites me about those types of conversations that I get to have.

And I’m sure that you’ll be able to have it with your kids when they get older, and it’d be appreciated. So that’s awesome.

Bob 

I think one of the takeaways here, that’s so important about channels like yours is what you’re sharing. This is part of the reason, part of the motivation is getting into the financial place, so that you can do stuff like this, you can do more of it. Because we can do this on a small scale. You know, like I said, with small tips and things like that.

But being able to up that and increase that to bigger numbers, add a zero at the end of it. That gets really, really fun. I want to be like Oprah, when I grew up, you know, just like given our cars and whatever, like all this stuff. And so that’s part of the motivation for getting your finances in order, and moving forward and building wealth.

It’s not just so you can accumulate all for yourself, I think we’re on the same page with this, right? Yeah, there’s more than just accumulation. And that’s kind of what we’re excited about.

Jeff 

I mean, we could talk about giving away a million by age 40, giving away 31%, and are now 41%. Obviously, many people listening to this, watching this or not at that stage yet. And just wanting to make it practical for them. Just kind of going back to your story at the beginning. But trying to give somebody some encouragement that is maybe in between jobs, or in a career that they’re just not excited about.

And maybe they’re in a living situation, housing situation that they’re just not satisfied with, you know, maybe they’re renting, they want to own it, just how can someone like that give?

Bob 

I think the biggest thing is just start where you are, like, you know, don’t jump to 31% in order to do that, you know, and to be honest, like, I’m not recommending anybody give their age like that was something that I felt like we’re supposed to do.

And I’ve since bumped into other people who have done that, which is really fun. But it’s not about the percentage, it’s just about giving what you feel like is on your heart to give and not being limited by fear. And so one kind of practical thing that I want to add here is we started to give him 31%, we’re now giving 41%. Okay, that increase of 10%. We haven’t ever felt it, because it’s been 1% per year over the last 10 years. And I think most people miss this. Yeah, and just, you know, being transparent about our financial income over those years. It’s not like it was just awesome, Mike, we’ve had some down years, we’ve had some challenging years over the last 10 years.

And yet, we never felt a difference from giving 31 to 41% because it was 1% every year. So I’m encouraging people 1% change. I’ve never met anyone who felt it so much that they’re like, oh, man, that was so much 1% Like, whether it’s saving or giving 1% like 99% of people will not feel a difference at all, and yet you can move forward.

So this idea of just taking 1% increase 1% every year. It’s like you do that for a decade or two. It’s like you’ve come really really far, you know?

Simple Money, Rich Life – The Book

Jeff

So Simple Money Rich Life, achieving true financial freedom and design a life of eternal impact. And then when somebody picks his book up, and they begin reading it And they finished reading it. What is your hope?

Bob  

Well, we designed the book. Yeah, so we talked about giving in this book. But really, there’s a lot of practical stuff in here. My goal with this book is it takes someone to be able to have more money like, but to also get excited to be able to give more.

So we’d go through the practical stuff of how to earn more, you know, without having to get a high side house, somebody else also talks about the practical stuff of how to spend smarter how to automate your finances, how to make everything simpler, hence the name Simple Money. And together, once we’ve done that, and added more cash flow to your pocket, then it’s like, let’s get excited about giving, you know, that was the goal.

How do we combine these things, ultimately, to leave people with more money in their pocket and a desire to give and have fun doing it.

Jeff

I remember when you told me that you were beginning to write this book. I was excited for you, just because I remember how hard it is when I wrote mine. I do remember how good it felt to finally get it into my hands. Not just because I got to hold it but because I knew, like the seed fund, I get to actually give this away, and hopefully impact as many people as I can. Yeah, so dude, congratulations, man.

Bob

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it.

Jeff

So if anybody wants to pick this book up where should they go?

Bob 

You go anywhere. Simplemoneybook.com, Amazon.

Jeff 

Okay, simplemoneybook.com This is out now. Right? It is out now. It is awesome. Be sure to pick this book up. I’m looking forward to diving in. I’ll be flat out. I’m 44 years old. I don’t know if I’m ready to do 44% right now. But I’m definitely interested in challenging myself to see and know because what I’ve learned, anytime I do something uncomfortable. That means growth. And I’m being challenged.