The Current State of the FIRE Movement

In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool personal finance expert Robert Brokamp spoke with Brad Barrett, the co-founder of the ChooseFI website and the co-host of the ChooseFI podcast, about:

• The evolution of the financial independence, retirement early (FIRE) movement, and why many have dropped the RE and focus on the FI.
• The savings rates and spending mindsets that are the foundations of financial independence
• Identifying the "why" that motivates you to make sometimes hard choices.
• The flourishing FI community that crowdsources ideas and provides support when living a somewhat counter-cultural lifestyle.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Sept. 19, 2026.

Robert Brokamp: Catching up with the leading figure in the financial independence community this week on the Saturday Personal Finance Edition on the Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing podcast. I'm Robert Brokamp, though my nickname around here is Bros, so don't be surprised when you hear people call me that. We all want to eventually get to the point when work is optional. But some people may get a goal to get there much sooner, perhaps even by their 30s or 40s. One fellow who knows an awful lot about how to do it is Brad Barrett. Brad is a CPA and the co-founder of the ChooseFI website and the co-host of the ChooseFI podcast. Brad, welcome back to the show.

Brad Barrett: Wow, Bro it is so good to see you. It's been a number of years. This is great.

Robert Brokamp: It's great to see you. It'll be great to catch up. You have been on the show a couple of times. But it's been a while. As a refresher for newer listeners, give us the brief version of your financial independence story.

Brad Barrett: Brief version. I graduated from college in 2001, which makes me pretty old at this point. I went to work for one of the biggest accounting firms in the world. I was a CPA at Arthur Anderson. Enron scandal happened; Arthur Anderson didn't exist nine months later. Craziest thing that had ever happened. I realized how impermanent work could be, even when you go to work for what's the biggest and most acclaimed accounting firm in the world. At that young, tender age, even though that was a bad thing that happened, it actually turned into something really positive because it made me realize I need to take matters into my own hands, and the only way that I knew how to do that at the time was to save money and live below my means.

Without any knowledge that other people were doing this, without any knowledge that there was an end point to saving, that there was some financial independence number, I saved my money. Like I said, I lived below my means for about 12 to 15 years, but while still living a normal middle-class life, I had two daughters, lived in a nice four-bedroom house in a great part of Richmond, Virginia. But yet, I was saving probably somewhere, depending on the year. Again, life intervenes, but 30 to 50% of my income. When you do that for an intermediate amount of time, there's no get-rich-quick scheme, but when you do that for an intermediate amount of time, you wake up, and that money is compounded into something significant. That was my standard path to FI, but then my journey got inextricably linked with entrepreneurship, and I built some websites around travel rewards, which are using credit card rewards points to travel. That's a fun way to save money, also, not having to spend many, many thousands of dollars a year on travel. I started this podcast about a decade ago. It's been an interesting journey of chapters.

Robert Brokamp: If I remember correctly, you gave your letter of resignation in 2015. You were first on this show in 2018 and again in 2019. Back then, maybe a few years beforehand, my impression was there were a lot of stories about the FIRE movement. FIRE standing for financial independence, retire early. I think, to a certain degree, society was fascinated by it. But nowadays, you don't hear quite as much as you used to. Like your podcast and website, many people seem to have dropped the RE and are focusing on the FI. What would you say is the current state of the financial independence universe?

Brad Barrett: I think people were equal parts fascinated and equal parts appalled by the FIRE acronym. Jonathan and I, my co-founder of ChooseFI, we realized this pretty early on that the RE wasn't what we were aspiring towards. We were aspiring for something. We weren't running away from a life that we hated; we're trying to build a life that we loved. I think the financial independence aspect of that is what's so important. It's interesting because over the last decade, certainly, probably since Mr. Money Mustache came around in the early, I think, 2013, thereabouts. We're coming up on 13, 14 years. The community worldwide has grown dramatically. You don't hear as many stories about it, but honestly, I think it's because it's not as sensational anymore. It's much more mainstream, to a degree.

For most middle-class people, these are not people with silver spoons. These are not people making millions of dollars. For most middle-class people, there's precisely one way to get ahead financially, and it's to live below your means. Obviously, as The Motley Fool knows, it's to invest wisely. I think for a lot of us, that's low-cost, broad-based index funds, but of course, it can be individual stocks. It can be real estate; it can be whatever. But there's a pretty prescribed path, so it's not as sensational anymore. I think a lot of people have heard of financial independence; people have heard of our podcast. They've heard of Mr. Money Mustache. Even people like Ramit Sethi, who, on the face of it, seems to hate the FIRE community, but it's more clickbait than anything. He's of the same ilk. He really is, even though I don't know that he would say that if you asked him. But I think it's that it's ubiquitous; it's everywhere.

We have our own ChooseFI. We have 300 local groups in 300 cities across the world, with people getting together in real life, hundreds of people in many of these chapters. It's an unofficial thing. But they're getting together and living lives that we used to be these frugal weirdos- and we're not so weird anymore. That's the great thing. I think on a lot of levels, this is a fundamental truth of life is; you're going to live paycheck to paycheck and be stressed all the time if you don't live below your means. It's actually pretty simple.

Robert Brokamp: Obviously, to do this, you probably have to have an above-average savings rate, especially when you consider that, according to the Federal Reserve, the personal savings rate in the U.S. now is 3%. Most experts recommend that you should be saving 10% to 15%. I think a lot of people struggle to do that. You mentioned your savings rate. Is that about the range of the rates you see in the FI community? Acknowledging that there's probably a lot of variability there.

Brad Barrett: A lot of variability, for sure. We're a very big tent community here; if you come in and your net worth is in the red and your savings rate is zero, effectively or negative, you're not excommunicated. It's not like you're not welcome; we're all trying to live better lives. I think that's the biggest thing. You make changes one at a time, and it's amazing, like how your investments compound. It's amazing how these little changes compound. I think, realistically, to reach financial independence in that intermediate amount of time, which to me is 15, 20 years, that's a pretty abbreviated career for most people. Most people would be thrilled, obviously, to have a 20-year career. You're going to need to save 30 to 40% of your income. That 30 to 50, I think, is a sweet spot. Now, that might be unrealistic for a lot of people who have fancy, expensive mortgages, have the big cars, but you can make changes over a period of time. I think you're going to see people and the sensational headlines, Bro. Of course, is that person saving 87% of their income and they're living on rice and beans, that's the nonsense. But realistically, these are mostly normal middle-class people who have made a series of changes over many years to get to that point where they can save probably 30 to 50% roughly.

Robert Brokamp: They say to save more, you have to spend less, and I think a lot of people conceive of folks in the FIRE movement as living in cardboard boxes and eating rice. But it's not true from what I have seen, but it does require making choices. You've talked about this in terms of a term using as: being a valuist with your spending. Explain what you mean by that.

Brad Barrett: It's a funny term, but I've had it for about a decade now, a friend of mine who I met through our community, actually. That's the beautiful part- coined this. It's spending on what you value, critically, not on what society values. I hope people understand by now that pursuing financial independence is not about being a miser. It's not about living a bad life; who would sign up for that? Like I said, there's no get-rich-quick. It's 10, 15, 20, 25 years; this is not an overnight thing. I don't think anybody would sign away 20 years of their lives to live miserly so they can have maybe an extra decade or two of freedom. That seems like a bad bet to me. For me, you have to understand there's finite resources. Every decision is made with finite resources. I think a lot of us go about life saying, hey, I earn $8,000 a month. I'm going to spend $8,000 a month and YOLO it, whatever nonsense terminology they use. I think that's a bad bet.

For me, it's all right; there are things that I value. I really do try to scrutinize every purchase. I don't do things because that's what everybody else does. Cars, for me, are things that I value zero. Bro, I was driving a 2003 Honda Civic through 2019 until the doors stopped working, essentially. I'm driving a 2020 Hyundai Elantra now; this that I got from Hertz rental car. We're talking ridiculous things, but yet I value my health significantly, and I flew to Utah to get medical testing done, very specialized medical testing done. That was to get ahead, to get a baseline: there's nothing wrong.

But I think that illustrates: here's somebody who's not spending 500 to $700 a month on cars, who's not going out to eat all the time. I think my partner and I have lived in our place for about a year. I think we've gone out to eat three times, and all three were either like Chipotle or Cava, basically. It's because we really value cooking at home; we love cooking; we love healthy meals that we get to make. It's not about being miserly. It's about really scrutinizing what you want to spend your money on because, let's be honest with ourselves, you have to make decisions based on finite resources and understanding that the first thing for most people in the FIRE community, if financial independence is really important to you, the first line item is savings. You have to deal with finite resources.

ADVERTISEMENT: They say leadership isn't about where you're going. It's about the conviction it takes to get there. For those who demand the world and possess the drive to claim it, there's a vehicle of equal distinction. Dynamic by design and engineered for pure impact, the Range Rover Sport rises to meet you the moment you take the lead. This is the most advanced Range Rover Sport yet, a master class in uncompromised performance and unbridled agility. Inside, the innovation is seamless. You'll find an elegant 13.1-inch touchscreen that puts total control of the vehicle's systems right at your fingertips, but it's the refinement that sets it apart. Sculpted 22-way heated seating with built-in massage function ensures every journey is defined by peerless comfort. Whether it's through unique interior finishes or custom wheel options, the ways to personalize your Range Rover Sport are nearly unlimited. Command attention and experience ultimate luxury and motion. Exclusive offers are available now. Explore further at rangerover.com.

ADVERTISEMENT: You found out that your sales team is at risk of missing quota. Don't panic. Ask Rippling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people and business data, Rippling AI can pull metrics from Rippling and Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota attainment, headcount plan, and monthly revenue to quota by region. In seconds, you'll see exactly what's behind your quota risk and fix it before it's missed. Question answered, action taken, crisis averted. When you have critical business questions that need answers, don't file a ticket and wait weeks for an outdated report. Describe what you need and have Rippling AI build it instantly from your live people and business data, whether it's a dashboard with detailed charts or automated workflows with the right triggers, conditions, and approvals. Ready to rule your business, head to rippling.ai/fool to get the only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's rippling.ai/fool. Sign up for exclusive access today rippling.ai/fool.

Robert Brokamp: You've talked on the show how you took your daughter on essentially a roller coaster road trip. It sounded like a lot of fun. I thought recently about how my wife and I had a yard sale. Our kids are mostly adults now; our youngest is in her last year in college. We got rid of a lot of junk. Frankly, a lot of stuff that we looked at, and there were so many better ways we could have spent our money. Some of it was gifts for the kids, and we've already talked about how we're going to change this year's holidays based on less stuff, more experiences, because we think at this point, that'll be more valuable.

Brad Barrett: It's so true. We recently went to an estate sale; those things, they're sobering. This is someone who unexpectedly passed, and all of their stuff is basically worth nothing. You then extrapolate to, oh, if all of their stuff is worth basically nothing, all of my stuff is worth basically nothing. Why am I accumulating this garbage? I think if most people are honest with themselves, they don't value the random tchotchkes that they have lying around their house. That's not to say, don't spend if you're into it. A friend of mine is into barbecuing. He's from Kansas City. He has the fancy trigger and probably more; he'd probably kick me for saying it's a trigger now. Do that if you're going to lovingly enjoy things, do it. But don't waste money.

To your point, I'm so impressed with how deep you dove on what I've been up to lately. I've been doing these roller coaster trips with my older daughter. I think that's also an interesting part about life, and having kids is really dive into the things that they're interested in. I have this 18-year-old daughter who is an odd thing to be a massive roller coaster fan. They call themselves roller coaster enthusiasts. But I probably know more about roller coasters than anyone on Earth who is not a certified roller coaster enthusiast because I've listened to her talk about them for hundreds of hours, and she's ridden, I think, 222 different roller coasters in the last five years. Most of those have been with me. What a cool thing that we get to do. I love that you're doing that with your family as well.

Robert Brokamp: Since you brought up hotkeys, I'll remember another quote from one of your recent episodes. It was actually from one of your guests, who's trying to do this in Los Angeles, and he said, essentially, we're in the era of peak crap. But I think you know what? That's true. It probably applies too much to all the stuff in my garage and in my closet.

Brad Barrett: Got Peak crap and they had a cool quote. They said, "The Alley will provide," which is a little sensational for most of us. But the concept was everybody has so much stuff; they've reached peak crap. You can get stuff if you're willing to be a little bit smarter. I think that's another one of the hallmarks, maybe that valueless thing that you mentioned before, but also, it's like, how can you live the same middle-class lifestyle as everybody else around you, but get wealthy at the same time? It's really not that hard, and it's a fun game. I know I've been up to The Motley Fool headquarters back in the day and played board games with David Gardner. It's like living life like a board game. It's like, oh, what are the little strategies that I can use? Like, hey, you shouldn't be spending. We probably talked about this in 2018 and 2019 when I was on your show. You shouldn't be spending $100 a month on a phone anymore. You should go to Mint Mobile. I have no affiliation with them, to my knowledge. But go to Mint Mobile and spend 15 to $30 a month. That's simple. It's simple.

You can buy all these things used. I know my daughter found this on her own. She's a spender on clothes; she shops at Lululemon. She found a place called Depop or something like that, and she's like, this is the greatest thing ever. I'm able to buy these basically new things, slightly used. The shorts are $15 instead of 79 or whatever. It's like, oh, isn't that more fun? Isn't that a fun way to go through life? It's like, how can you get the same stuff but pay a fraction? It makes life more interesting to me, Bro.

Robert Brokamp: A common point that you make in that it doesn't necessarily require huge changes. It can be many small changes, and you frame it as a term: the aggregation of marginal gains. Explain what you mean by that. You've given some examples, but are there some other ones you think people should know about?

Brad Barrett: It's a framework that I think I heard reference to the British Tour de France team way back in the day. It was just, what are these tiny little things that we can do that when we add them all together, compounds into something extraordinary? I know James Clear talked about this in his book, Atomic Habits, as well. I can picture the visual. It's raised to the power of 365 or something. It's like, OK, what will this compound to? With the British cycling team, it was even, hey, when they travel, they bring their same pillows with them instead of being at the whim of what the hotel is. If you know if you're a side sleeper or a stomach sleeper, you need a real thin pillow. If you're a back sleeper, you need a thick pillow. These things sound silly, and this is not to have a negativity bias, but when you go through life, looking for little things that you can improve one time that all of a sudden get better, and that's fixed forever.

Then, again, you start compounding these, one, two, five of them a week. Over months and years and into decades, your life is radically transformed. It just simply is. That's not just personal finance, though, obviously, that's a real easy way, but health is a big thing that I've tried to change for the positive over the last really 15 years of my life, but it's accelerated more recently. It's just what are the little things you can do to make your health better? One thing that a recent guest on my podcast talked about, and it was interesting how he linked health and financial independence. It was basically each of them, good health and solid personal finance, they both give you more years of freedom. I just thought that was so beautiful and poignant. I look at my parents' generation and my dad specifically, and when I'm his age, I want to have more freedom than he has, healthwise. He's made a lot of choices, and I'm trying to make radically different choices. I think when you start adding those together, again, trying to optimize your sleep, even just getting out and walking, getting sunlight, like these tiny little things. Not eating as many processed foods, cutting down on carbs, increasing protein. I could go on and on, but we only have 20 minutes. But nevertheless, how can you look for these little things and just start layering them on? You'll be shocked at how it changes your life. Absolutely floored.

Robert Brokamp: There is a very close connection between personal wealth and physical health. There's some delayed gratification. You have to make some choices, giving up things that you may prefer to do, doing things you may not want to do. It's always important then to think of why are you doing this? When you talk about this on your show a lot, the importance of identifying your why, you also frame it as, what am I optimizing for? Given that you know a lot of people in the FI Community, what do you see as some of the common whys that get people to make these often, let's say, fun decisions for some payoff later in life?

Brad Barrett: It's interesting, and I do like your framing on that. Because, obviously, in a perfect world, you could take that to the nth degree. If you want to really play out the fun decisions, but then we start getting into some dicey territory legally and otherwise. But we all have to make decisions with the future in mind in some regard. A lot of people look at life and it really gets pretty deep pretty quickly, and it's like, do I want to sign up for the societal contract? Is this serving me? Is working from 22 or potentially 18, but 22 if you went to college to 67. If I get maybe eight decades on this planet, nine, if I'm really lucky, does signing up for 45 years of going to an office for eight plus hours, driving to and from, this is 9,10 hour day minimum, if you only have a 9:00-5:00. Is signing up for 45 years really my best bet? For a lot of us, we look at it and we're like, I would love to find a better way to do this. I would love to have more years of freedom on my side of the ledger. If that means, again, using my framing of living a little bit below your means, but trying to look at life as a game and not sacrificing, not living a bad life, just being a little bit smarter, and that's going to get me a couple decades more freedom. That to me is a no brainer. That was part of my why. If I can go back to one of your very first questions about the fire, was, I think it became such a caricature because I don't know anybody to one single person who's sitting on a beach and sipping umbrella drinks as their goal of financial independence.

The people who have the ingenuity and the hard work and the foresight to reach FI, it's almost impossible to believe that they're just going to sit around idle. These are people who, again, the aforementioned Fritz Gilbert, who I just talked to on the podcast, him and his wife started a foundation for actually helping dogs, building fences for dogs. I think they call Fences for Fido. What a cool thing. They get to spend more time with their grandchildren. I think he said he's 63 years old, and they were able to build out a gym, a six figure gym in their house, because they have financial freedom. That's wonderful. A lot of people want to spend more time with their young kids and be there when their kids get off the bus every day. That sure beats stuff, doesn't it? When you actually put this on paper, I'm talking about, it's like who in their right mind would pick frivolous stuff or a fancier car over having years of freedom to spend with their kids or themselves, or loved ones or doing important things in the community or just being able to explore all those hobbies and interests that they never had time to, because they had to go in an office? [MUSIC] That is the height of insanity. I can't even fathom somebody arguing otherwise. It's totally implausible. I mean, you can hear, I get a little agitated about this because it's ridiculous on its face, but yet, that's the normal culture. Our community is the counterculture. What bizarro upside down world are we living on?

ADVERTISEMENT: This episode is brought to you by Rakuten. The big secret all savvy shoppers know. Rakuten makes your money go further. It's easy. Shop as normal and stock cash back on top of sales and savings. Discover fashion, tech, beauty and more at hundreds of your favorite shops like Argos, Lego and Just Eat. Join for free at rakuten.co.uk or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N, rakuten.co.uk.

ADVERTISEMENT: We know what you're thinking. How good can a coffee from Mackeys be? Well, when it's made with a new lighter roast, at a price that means you can enjoy it every day, and maybe even a cheeky hash brown, or if you're in the mood, turns out, pretty good. Subject to availability, hash brown served until 11:00 A.M. Lighter roast available from 8 of September 2026.

Robert Brokamp: To me, one of the most compelling reasons for why everyone should be embracing the principles of the FI Movement is, there's this dichotomy, you're pursuing it or you're not. But the truth of the matter is, we may not work as long as we would like to. The evidence is clear. The majority of people retire sooner than they expected. Sometimes for good reasons, they bought in video earlier or something like that. But sometimes for health reasons or job loss reasons, and given the uncertainty for me, of how AI is going to change careers and career trajectories, I think it makes sense for all of us to arrange our finances, our spending, and our saving it away such that you'll be OK if you can't work until your 60s.

Brad Barrett: Why would you want to outsource that to somebody else to some other they? You always hear people talking about, like, they are impacting me. Why wouldn't you want more control over your life? As you framed it, it's beautiful. I think you'd rather have that power on your side of the ledger and not be beholden to, I mean, most people live on the edge, as you said earlier, like a couple percent savings rate. If you're lucky, there are obviously tens of millions of people with credit card debt, and it's like you're living on the edge constantly. For what? For just junk lying around your house? Most people don't have anything to show for it. What are you doing? I don't ever get judgmental. That's not how I roll at all, but really, when you're faced with that choice, it's pretty self evident, which is the better path, in my opinion.

Just, frankly, none of us get financial education, which is why people like us do what we do, and it's not to castigate people. I got no financial education. I knew nothing. I learned it all through hard knocks, and I've made countless mistakes. I mean, catastrophic mistakes. Let's be clear. We could spend hours talking about that. There's no holier than now here. Believe me, I've learned on the fly. I've spent a decade doing ChooseFI now after I don't really need to, and it's just because I'm really passionate about it, I think it can change a lot of people's lives. Thankfully, it has changed a lot of people's lives. I think it's worth some time. If you're listening to us and you've never heard of this before. I suspect most people have on some level, that are listening to your podcast, let's be clear. But yeah, I think it's something really valuable.

Robert Brokamp: Being intentional about not only about your spending, your saving, but what you're going to do once you reach financial independence and retirement. You've been exploring this yourself with what you call your Tuesday Project. Tell us about that.

Brad Barrett: This is one of the most interesting and fun things, thought exercises that I've had just this past year. It's really 2026 thing. I realize, my daughters are growing up and my youngest one just entered high school, and I basically have four years until I'm not geographically bound. I'm not bound by anything, essentially, at that point. How do you design a life that you really want to live every Tuesday? That's why I'm calling it the Tuesday Project. What creates a beautiful, great life that you want to live every Tuesday, every Thursday, every Sunday? It's clearly going to be different for everybody. This is not saying my way is the best or is even applicable to one other human being on Earth. My partner, Erin and I go through, and we're like, this is a fun thing that we constantly update, and it's OK, what would make a great Tuesday for us? We suspect we're going to travel, but we don't have to. It's, again, being able to walk for us, as an example. It's being able to walk places. We want to be able to walk to, and with the advent of AI, we're able to really drill down on like, what would this look like somewhere in the world? A 3-5 minute walk to a market, a sub-10-minute walk to a gym. Ideally, our areas not bound by any major roads or highways. We have water or mountains or hiking trail within 20 minutes. All of these little things.

We want to live in a country or a place that has high social trust, has great public transit, has interesting, I could go down the whole list. Of course, we don't have time for that. But again, it's not building a, I want to climb Kilimanjaro, and then go to the Great Barrier Reef and then go to Machu Picchu. Those are wonderful, and those can be highlights of a year. But what about the other 51 weeks then? I think most of us should be designing a life for those 52 Tuesdays. What do we want that to look like? That's an iterative process over years and decades. It's not to say, my Tuesday Project idea right now in 2026 is going to be the same even in 2030 when my daughter graduates high school. I have no idea, but that's part of the fun of it, is just updating that constantly. Then we get down into little things, like, hey, we both have allergies. We don't want to live in a place that has allergy season. You can follow the seasons. All of these fun things you can do. Again, that's my Tuesday Project. But, I would really advise everybody. Like, sit down and really brainstorm that. Bro, I'd love, maybe we can go over email sometime, but I really think you'd have fun with that as a thought exercise.

Robert Brokamp: I am at that point. In fact, I'm the type of person who thought I would never retire. But now that I have reached age 57, it's just really recently in the last year or so. I'm like, it could be sooner than I thought it would be. It's the type of thing I need to think about. My wife and I just, really, in the last year, begun to talk about what is retirement going to look like for us? I'm going to have to bring up the Tuesday Project to her and see what we come up with. Let's get to the last question here. You've touched on the fact that to a certain degree, this financial independence lifestyle is countercultural. I'm sure many people who pursue this lifestyle have come into situations where people are like, why are you doing this? You'll never be able to do it. They might be friends with other folks who are still spending a lot of money, still going out to eat a lot, which could feel isolating. Fortunately, though, there's a pretty extensive financial dependence community that does a couple of things. First of all, the crowdsourcing of practical ideas, but then also just a community in general. You've been a part of creating that. Tell us about the FI Community.

Brad Barrett: The FI Community is amazing. It's broad, and it's worldwide. It never ceases to astonish me that when I went to Singapore, we had a meet up of 10 people who are part of the FI Community, just on a random Saturday morning and almost everywhere I go, and it's not just me, of course. It has nothing to do with me. These people have, in real life, meet ups on a constant basis in really hundreds and hundreds of cities across the world. A lot of them happen to be under the banner of this ChooseFI podcast. But it's the FI Community, let's be clear. It's just, we happen to start these things a decade ago. But it extends way beyond that. I love seeing all of these events that are popping up now. They're international events. I'm going to Australia, and New Zealand next year. I actually met my partner at a FI event in Bali a couple of years ago, which was amazing.

Camp FIs exist all across America that there are these weekend gatherings. You don't have to be this little island unto yourself. I think a lot of us in the old days of FI, we were just like I said, and I say this, stripping the sarcasm. We were the frugal weirdos that just felt really different from everybody else. But it's been astonishing to see these communities grow and thrive. I mean, we have people leaving these groups, again, in hundreds of cities and I'm blown away, bro, by the presentations on FI 201 on taxes, and they had 70 plus people show up for this meeting in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. I think it was our Los Angeles group decided to sit down and have an investor policy statement writing meeting. That was what they got together to do. They wrote their investor policy statements because they all wanted to do it, but they needed the accountability and just the impetus to do it. What a cool thing.

Then I know here locally, a bunch of our people in the FI community are friends of mine have a Tuesday and Thursday walking group. It's not like hard-hitting personal finance. It's a group of people getting together and just spending time with each other. I've noticed just so many kindred spirits, so many. These are interesting people. These are people who are some of the, again, they're living counter-culturally, even though I think it's, as I said before, pretty obvious way to live once you're presented with it. But nevertheless, people who are doing things a little bit differently, and they're fairly interesting. If you're out there listening to this and want to join, you can find it certainly our events at choosefi.com/local. Again, there are all of these events all across the country and world. You've found your people, and I think a lot of Motley Fool listeners can find their people there as well.

Robert Brokamp: Brad, thanks again for joining us. As always, having you on the show is both educational and inspirational.

Brad Barrett: Bro, I really appreciate it. This is a blast as always.

Robert Brokamp: That, my Foolish friends, is the show. Thanks so much for listening, and thanks to Bart Shannon, the engineer for this and every Saturday episode. As always, people on the program may have interest in the investments they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell investments based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards. It is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. I'm Robert Brokamp. Fool on, everybody.

Robert Brokamp, CFP, EA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Cava Group and Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool recommends Lululemon Athletica Inc. and recommends the following options: short December 2026 $38 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.