David Marchese

How is someone supposed to know, like, at what point does spending on the thing they love, it's actually sort of counterproductive to their larger financial goals?

So if someone were listening to you today and thought, okay, I'm willing to cut back on some things that mean less to me and I'm willing to give myself permission to spend more on things that mean more to me, that's not sufficient.

What are the other things they need to be doing to put themselves on more stable – or not just more stable financial ground, but to actually –

Grow their wealth.

And just to be clear, what are the four key numbers?

Well, have you always had a healthy relationship with money?

What's your personal relationship with money?

And how old are you?

43.

But you're not one of these fire guys.

No.

The financial independents retire early.

And there are people who sort of relentlessly are working their financial numbers so they know at some point, as young as they can possibly do it, they can stop working and just live off their investments.

What do you think they're missing?

Like, you are sort of critical of the fire mindset.

What's the criticism there?

I want to go back to the beginning of your career for a little bit.

So you've been doing this or talking about money for 20 years.

And you started blogging, I think, in roughly 2004 when you were still at Stanford.

And the blog evolved into the bestselling book, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, which was published in 2009, which has sort of become one of these books that are perennial bestsellers.