1500 Days to Freedom

Think different and escape the rat race.

10 Questions with Adam Chudy

by

Today is the 12th edition of our new periodic guest post series called 10 Questions. We have a list of 17 NEW questions we pose to fellow financial bloggers, and they are free to pick and choose 10 or answer all of them. Let us know if you would like to be featured in a future edition of 10 Questions. (If you have already answered the first set of 10 questions, please feel free to answer these new ones.)

This week’s 10 Questions comes from Adam Chudy, who blogs over at AdamChudy.com. He delves into personal finance, investing, gardening and anything else he feels like writing about.

AdamChudy

Tell us about your blog
I’m not strictly personal finance. I try to give you a glimpse in to our lives (with pictures), investing, business, travel, DIY, books and whatever is on my mind. I’m told our garden is pretty epic to follow. I hope it’s entertaining.

Here are a few of the more popular articles.
How I graduated from college debt free
How I traveled to Brazil on 1 credit card bonus
What I learned from the 50th Anniversary Berkshire Letter
Stealth Wealth and Badassity
It’s about living well, not being cheap

Tell us about you

1500 Days is about early retirement. Do you have early retirement dreams? At what age do you think you will retire?
I’m definitely working my way along the early retirement path. I watch people like Go Curry Cracker and Bumfuzzle and I think the traveling lifestyle they’ve been able to build really appeals to me. Once I’ve satiated the travel bug, I have some personal projects I would like to pursue, maybe a permaculture farm.

I’m not sure when I’ll retire. I’m currently 29 and somewhere around 1/3 of the way there, but it’s accelerated a lot as my income has increased.

If blogging isn’t your full time gig, what is?
I work in finance for an oil and gas company. I’m currently in “strategy and planning”, but have done a variety of roles. It’s basically a lot of time spent in spreadsheets.

When you are 90 and look back on your life, what do you hope you have accomplished?
I hope I’m remembered as a person who loved his family and friends, did his best to help others, and lived life to the fullest. I want to burn my engines out to the end, so I hope there’s a long trail of articles, books, (businesses maybe) and photos behind me as a legacy of how I lived.

Money, money, money

What is the best money management or investment tool you have come across?
I’m a Personal Capital fan, like most of the blogosphere. I enjoy Mint as well. I’m also a spreadsheet guy, so I tend to take whatever PC gives me and pull it out where I can play with the data myself.

How do you handle people with different views on money, ie spendy people?
Each to their own. I’m not rich, but my career definitely gives us a lot friends that are high income professional couples, who make a lot of money and spend in ways I wouldn’t recommend. I keep my views to myself unless asked.

We still go out for drinks or dinner, though less than many of them. I try not to bail on too many invitations. We also make an effort to have people to our home a lot, which I enjoy as much or more, and it’s a lot less spendy.

Did you grow up with money? How did your money situation growing up influence you?
I grew up pretty middle class, with an entrepreneurial father and physical therapist mother. We had a normal house and normal cars and took a decent vacation to Florida or Colorado most years.

When I was a senior in high school, my parents divorced and we ran in to money troubles. I was on my own in terms of college and luckily had worked really hard to get a full scholarship. Even with that, it was a struggle to get by there for a few years. At the time I was jealous of the support my friends had.

I’ve definitely absorbed some of my father’s entrepreneurial genes. Watching our financial situation deteriorate so quickly also made a real long-term impact on some things I knew I would do differently with my own money.

Did your parents teach you about money as a kid? How so?
Money wasn’t really discussed for the most part in my house. My dad did talk business with me quite a bit, though it wasn’t too specific on the numbers. I got to observe a lot of hustle, selling, rental property, and a variety of other things.

Random Silliness

What is your favorite style of beer – and what is your favorite beer in that style?
I’m a pale ale / IPA guy for the most part. I drink a lot of Hopadillo by a local Houston brewery, Karbach. If you haven’t tried Karbach or our other local brewery St. Arnolds, pick it up if you can. St. Arnolds makes a pretty unique Kolsch called Lawnmower that you should try.

We notice a lot of frugal people are into board games – what is your favorite?
I like board games, but we don’t play them as often as I’d like. More often we end up with something more verbal, like Cards Against Humanity, Taboo, or Scattergories. I also love to play Spades.

What is the best thing you’ve read lately?
Online, I’m always amazed by the intelligence and writing of Farnam Street and Brain Pickings. I recently finished up The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin and Stumbling Upon Happiness by Daniel Gilbert and I really enjoyed them.

What do you do for exercise?
I used to Crossfit, but it got to be too expensive for 2 people. I mainly lift weights at our local gym, swing a kettlebell around at home, and I love my twice a week pickup basketball session.

Dogs or Cats?
We’re dog people to the core. Caitlin has rescued a dozen strays. She can’t help but stop and chase them down every time she sees one on the street. We have 2 dogs, a toy poodle and a bull dog /shih tzu mix. They’re hilarious and awesome. Dogs make you better people.

Thanks Adam, for taking the time to answer our questions! Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Join the 10s who have signed up already!

Subscribing will improve your life in incredible ways*.

*Only if your life is pretty bad to begin with.

Powered by ConvertKit

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. We’re right around the same age, I wish I was a 1/3 of the way to retirement. Just did a quick calculation.. I’m at about 1/30th at the moment, But I graduated college a few years later than most and struggled my way from very low pay to average income. Have a feeling that 1/30 will get to a 1/3 pretty quickly though.

    How do you manage a full time 40+ hour week career while keeping up with all these hobbies like your blog, the garden, housework, travel, etc. I find I’m constantly struggling for time, I tried getting into gardening but that was the first thing to go. Cleaning the house and mowing the lawn always seems a week or two behind as well.
    Maybe I just have too many hobbies.
    Kyle recently posted…Elio MotorsMy Profile

    • Hey Kyle, it just takes time on the build. I’ve been out of college almost 8 years now. While I saved as much as I could out of school, the biggest gains have come in the past few years since my experience level kind of hit a critical mass and I received some real pay jumps. You just have to keep doing the right things and you’ll get there.

      Getting everything done can be a struggle and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming. I’m bad about feeling guilty over not getting to things, even when they’re self-imposed. A lot of it comes down to just being really consistent. Each weekday I hit the gym at lunch. I try to find 30 minutes here and there to do some writing/reading, and I’ve made a commitment to a consistent post twice a week. Travel we don’t do as much as I’d like, but we work it in when we can (and they make good blog posts).

      The trick with the garden is to spend a full couple of weekends setting everything up right once (raised beds, mulch, and a drip irrigation system on a timer). Once you’ve done that, maintenance time drops substantially.
      Adam @ AdamChudy.com recently posted…What I’m ReadingMy Profile

  2. Congrats on the 1/3 of the way there, at 29 that’s fantastic! I’m 34 and probably about the same, but I’ll likely need to work a bit longer being that most of mine is in deferred retirement accounts. I’m hoping to increase my income a bit more to speed that up and have more go into my investment versus tax sheltered accounts. Thanks for sharing!
    Duncan’s Dividend’s recently posted…2014 Personal Savings RateMy Profile

    • Thanks Duncan! I’ve got the same problem. The bulk of my money falls in to an IRA/401k and a single piece of real estate that’s done really well. There’s a lot of great personal finance articles that detail some great strategies on taking money out of those tax deferred out with no consequences.

      Check out Go Curry Cracker and Mad Fientist.
      Adam @ AdamChudy.com recently posted…What I’m ReadingMy Profile

    • I haven’t. I probably should. I’m pretty lax about things like that compared to a lot of people in the community, just because I keep so much on auto-pilot. I also think it can be a bit silly if your a long way from your goal (in terms of years) just because I know my income/expenses will continue to shift (hopefully in opposite directions) and those income jumps tend to be sporadic and hard to predict. I also have a lot tied to company stock grants which complicates things.

      I’ll try that though and post about the results.
      Adam @ AdamChudy.com recently posted…What I’m ReadingMy Profile

  4. Another pf cross-fitter 🙂 or ex-crossfitter. It got too expensive at my local gym, too, so I left. But it’s still raging.

    Congrats on being 1/3 to the finish line. Hope to say the same for myself when I’m close to 30.

    • Thanks Dylan,

      CF is definitely not cheap though I enjoyed the group competitive atmosphere. I try to incorporate a good bit of HIIT and cross training in to my light weight days.

      I’m sure if your reading 1500days your well on your way.
      Adam @ AdamChudy.com recently posted…What I’m ReadingMy Profile

  5. 1/3 of the way there is pretty good! I think I’m about 30-40% of the way there (would have to consult my spreadsheets for the exact figure). I don’t know when I’ll retire either, but it’ll sure be nice to have some freedom around that!
    Leigh recently posted…June 2015 net worth update (+0.3%)My Profile

    • We do the best we can. We’re up to about 22 fruit trees, though only about 8 put off fruit (and 2 put off huge quantities). We’ve got 4 raised beds at this point.

      I checked out a few of your posts and enjoyed the photos. We’re definitely operating in very different climates, but always happy to swap notes.
      Adam @ AdamChudy.com recently posted…What I’m ReadingMy Profile

  7. Very interesting, we have very similar upbringings and similar positions (finance aka spreadsheet world).

    We tried out gardening this year and planted some strawberries and green peppers. Without automated watering, it definitely is a pain! We are managing to get some production out of them and it was a fun experiment, but definitely need to plan and build a system next year if we want to continue.

    I look forward to hopping over to your blog and checking it out.
    Red to Riches recently posted…Mid-Year 2015 Finacial ReviewMy Profile

  8. Nice to learn more about you Adam! Mr. Budgets and I are similar to you guys in that we still go out for drinks and dinner, but much less than our peers. We are making good progress in reaching FI (1/4th of the way there) so I don’t see a need to cut out things completely that we enjoy doing.
    Mrs. Budgets @MrandMrsBudgets recently posted…Mystery Shopping AdventureMy Profile

Trackbacks