10 New Questions with Planting our Pennies

We met the people from Planting Our Pennies a few years ago at a conference for financial media, and again at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting last year in Omaha. They were one of the first PF blogs we discovered when we first started blogging, and they were the second people to answer our first set of 10 questions (read their first set of answers here). We are so happy to have them answer our second set now.

The PoP’s are truly the kind of people you want as friends and neighbors. They have their stuff together, and are genuinely nice. The live in Florida (it is 20 degrees outside right now, so I am super jealous of that right now) and really do practice what they preach. And they are happy all the time. That cartoon image below? Absolutely perfect replica of them.

Tell me about your blog and why it’s great.

Mrs PoP – Well, our blog is about growing our wealth (planting our pennies, as it were). But truth be told, talking about money can get boring, so we like talking about happiness and kittens too!

Mr PoP – It’s also a way for people to be financial voyeurs and watch us achieve financial independence.

Tell me how you’re going to change the world with your blog.

Mr – I’m not!

Mrs – I disagree. Blogging has definitely changed our world (see how the trajectory of our net worth growth changed when we started blogging). And if we can motivate others to take a similar course in their lives, their worlds will definitely be changed as well!

What post are you most proud of and why?

Mr – Our post on Mrs PoP being the victim of identity theft. It remains the post that gets the most search result hits and we know that with each hit we’re helping someone who was also an identity theft victim.

Mrs – Probably the post where I “proved” that our friends should move from DC to Florida… with spreadsheets.

Do you have early retirement dreams? At what age do you think you will retire?

Mr – Yes, we want to achieve FIRE in 2018.

Mrs – Our current model has the RE part of FIRE starting right around our 36th birthdays. Happy Birthday to us!

If blogging isn’t your full time gig, what is?

Mr – I train salespeople, after spending the last 4 years in B2B sales.

Mrs – I am a numbers gal and help people understand their data. Hence the love of spreadsheets and charts. =)

When you are 90 and look back on your life, what do you hope you have accomplished?

Mr – I hope I did cool stuff. I hope I wasn’t boring.

Mrs – I hope I’ll have trained the muscles on my face to have a perma-smile instead of a perma-frown when the wrinkles set in.

What is the best money management or investment tool you have come across?

Mrs – Mint. Hands down. We’ve been using it since 2008 and it has been instrumental in keeping us on the same page and keeping our money working productively for us!

Mr – My wife!

How do you handle people with different views on money, ie spendy people?

Mr – I give them the blessing for the tsar. “May God bless them and keep [them]… far away from us!” Bonus points if people know where this is from.

Mrs – I make the socially appropriate noises when needed. “Oh how nice!” “Oh, sorry to hear that.” But I don’t tend to store the interaction in my memory for long; I’m pretty good at tuning it out. NMP!

Did your parents teach you about money as a kid? How so?

Mr – Not personal finance like budgeting, but mom did teach me to invest in a Roth IRA in Vanguard as soon as I had a paycheck!

Mrs – My parents err on the side of cheap, rather than frugal, so some of the lessons they taught growing up (like buying the cheapest home appliances) needed to be unlearned later on. But I actually learned a great deal about money in school, too.

What is your favorite style of beer? And what is your favorite beer in that style?

Mr – Probably an IPA by Sierra Nevada. They were one of the first breweries to use hops aggressively and it’s a big enough operation now to be very consistent, so I always know what I’ll get.

Mrs – I’m not much of a drinker, but I do partake in a hard cider here and there, especially the ones that taste straight up like apple juice like Angry Orchard.

What is the best thing you’ve read lately?

Mrs – Most recently, I really enjoyed As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes, though when I got the movie from the library to watch it again I was shocked by how young all the actors are! In my head Inigo Montoya and Westly were both “SO OLD”, but in the movie they look like fresh-faced babies! Ahhh the joys of growing older, huh?

Mr – My year end bonus check!

What do you do for exercise?

Mr – I go to the gym and lift weights.

Mrs – I run (usually at least one marathon per year), I commute to work by bike, and do yoga too. Exercise is my stress reliever.

Our Turn: Similar to the infamous 100 Boxes Question, if you could, would you give up 10 IQ points for $1,000,000? (Assume tax free, yada yada.)

Mr – No.

Mrs – Yes. As long as Mr PoP would still love me with 10 fewer IQ points. If he thought he wouldn’t, then no.

Thanks for answering our new 10 questions, Mr. and Mrs. PoP. You can keep up with them at their website PlantingOurPennies, or on Twitter or facebook.